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Death Swallowed Up
Death is an enemy, the ultimate one. When God created the human family, He designed that its members should live forever. With few exceptions humans do not want to die; and those who do, do so only after the greatest personal anguish and suffering. Death goes against our most basic nature. And that’s because, from inception, we were created to live forever. Death was to be unknown to us.
Read Romans 5:12. What is Paul describing here? What does this explain?
Commentators have argued more over this passage of Scripture than over most others. Perhaps the reason is, as noted in The SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 6, p. 529, that these commentators “attempt to use the passage for purposes other than Paul intended.”
One point they argue over is: in what way was Adam’s sin passed on to his posterity? Did Adam’s descendants share the guilt of Adam’s sin, or are they guilty before God because of their own sin? Though folk have tried to get the answer to that question from this text, that’s not the issue Paul was dealing with. He had a whole other object in mind. He is reemphasizing what he already stated, “for all have sinned” (Rom. 3:23). We need to recognize that we are sinners, because only that way will we realize our need of a Savior. Paul here was trying to get readers to realize just how bad sin is and what it brought into this world through Adam. Then he shows what God offers us in Jesus as the only remedy to the tragedy brought upon our world through Adam’s sin.
Yet, this text tells only of the problem, death in Adam—not the solution, life in Christ. One of the most glorious aspects of the gospel is that death has been swallowed up in life. Jesus passed through the portals of the tomb and burst its bonds. He says, “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death” (Rev. 1:18). Because Jesus has the keys, the enemy can no longer hold his victims in the grave.
What has been your own experience with the reality and the tragedy of death? Why, in the face of such a relentless enemy, must we have a hope in something greater than ourselves or greater than anything this world offers?
| TUESDAY | August 3 |
Death is an enemy, the ultimate one. When God created the human family, He designed that its members should live forever. With few exceptions humans do not want to die; and those who do, do so only after the greatest personal anguish and suffering. Death goes against our most basic nature. And that’s because, from inception, we were created to live forever. Death was to be unknown to us.
Read Romans 5:12. What is Paul describing here? What does this explain?
Commentators have argued more over this passage of Scripture than over most others. Perhaps the reason is, as noted in The SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 6, p. 529, that these commentators “attempt to use the passage for purposes other than Paul intended.”
One point they argue over is: in what way was Adam’s sin passed on to his posterity? Did Adam’s descendants share the guilt of Adam’s sin, or are they guilty before God because of their own sin? Though folk have tried to get the answer to that question from this text, that’s not the issue Paul was dealing with. He had a whole other object in mind. He is reemphasizing what he already stated, “for all have sinned” (Rom. 3:23). We need to recognize that we are sinners, because only that way will we realize our need of a Savior. Paul here was trying to get readers to realize just how bad sin is and what it brought into this world through Adam. Then he shows what God offers us in Jesus as the only remedy to the tragedy brought upon our world through Adam’s sin.
Yet, this text tells only of the problem, death in Adam—not the solution, life in Christ. One of the most glorious aspects of the gospel is that death has been swallowed up in life. Jesus passed through the portals of the tomb and burst its bonds. He says, “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death” (Rev. 1:18). Because Jesus has the keys, the enemy can no longer hold his victims in the grave.
What has been your own experience with the reality and the tragedy of death? Why, in the face of such a relentless enemy, must we have a hope in something greater than ourselves or greater than anything this world offers?
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