Sermon on Lord’s Day 16⤒🔗

40. Q. Why was it necessary for Christ to humble Himself even unto death?
A. Because of the justice and truth of God[1] satisfaction for our sins could be made in no other way than by the death of the Son of God.[2]
[1] Gen. 2:17. [2] Rom. 8:3; Phil. 2:8; Heb. 2:9, 14, 15.

41. Q. Why was he buried?
A. His burial testified that He had really died.[1]
[1] Is. 53:9; John 19:38-42; Acts 13:29; I Cor. 15:3,4.

42. Q. Since Christ has died for us, why do we still have to die?
A. Our death is not a payment for our sins, but it puts an end to sin and is an entrance into eternal life.[1]
[1] John 5:24; Phil. 1:21-23; I Thess. 5:9, 10.

43. Q. What further benefit do we receive from Christ's sacrifice and death on the cross?
A. Through Christ's death our old nature is crucified, put to death, and buried with Him,[1] so that the evil desires of the flesh may no longer reign in us,[2] but that we may offer ourselves to Him as a sacrifice of thankfulness.[3]
[1] Rom. 6:5-11; Col. 2:11, 12. [2] Rom. 6:12-14. [3] Rom. 12:1; Eph. 5:1, 2.

44. Q. Why is there added: He descended into hell?
A. In my greatest sorrows and temptations I may be assured and comforted that my Lord Jesus Christ, by His unspeakable anguish, pain, terror, and agony, which He endured throughout all His sufferings[1] but especially on the cross, has delivered me from the anguish and torment of hell.[2]
[1] Ps. 18:5, 6; 116:3; Matt. 26:36-46; 27:45, 46; Heb. 5:7-10. [2] Is. 53.

Scripture Reading: Luke 23:39-46; Romans 6:1-14

Singing: (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Psalm 18:2,15
Psalm 30:2,7
Psalm 16:5
Psalm 116:1,2,5,8,9
Hymn 51:1,2,7,8

Beloved Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ!

We are a rather young congregation, with but few senior members. That in itself could make us wary of concentrating in this service on death. Yet we shall spend time today considering death, and there are two reasons for doing so. The first is that the Lord in His Word has revealed much about death, and so we’re to know it and believe. The second reason is that death is very much a reality in this life, for loved ones have died whether they were older or younger, yes, we shall all one day die and we haven’t a clue when that will be.

In the Bible, the Lord speaks of death in two ways. He speaks of "the second death", and implicit in that designation is that there is also a "first death". The "first death" is understood to refer to that which we see happening at the end of life; the heart stops, the person has departed, is here no more. The "second death" is described for us in Rev 20 as "the lake of fire" (vs 14) and in Rev 21 as "the lake that burns with fire and brimstone" (vs 8). This is hell, the place where God’s wrath is poured out on sinners, where sinners are rejected by the God they have offended.

First death, second death. The Scriptures speak of both, and so I wish today to consider both concepts with our treatment of LD 16. To do so, we need to pay attention to the place of the first and second deaths in the life of Jesus Christ, as well as the place of the first and second deaths in our own lives. I summarise the sermon with this theme:

Christ’s death is our life

In developing this theme, I ask attention for

1. the two aspects of Christ’s death
2. the two results of Christ’s death

The Two Aspects of Christ’s Death←⤒🔗

Scripture, then, speaks of two deaths. Where, brothers and sisters, do these two deaths come from? As it turns out, both have their origin in our fall into sin. When the Lord God placed Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, He told them straightaway what would happen if they should disobey His command. Said God: "in the day that you eat of it you shall die" (Gen 2:17). That promise from God directs our thoughts immediately to the first death, that parting of body and soul when one breathes his last. As it turns out, though, Adam and Eve did not die this "first death" as soon as they sinned; they rather died the "second death". They were guilty of sin, and as such deserved the awful wrath of God on their sin. God caused them to taste what this second death was all about, for He –holy that He is- sent these sinners out of His presence, out of the Garden, exiled them into a world of thorns and thistles, into a cursed world. No, Adam and Eve were not cast into a "lake of fire and sulphur" as Rev 21 describes the second death. But the cursed world outside the Garden of Eden was symbolic of the horrors of hell they deserved on their sin. Indeed, the only reason why the Lord God did not straightaway cast them into the fires of hell prepared for the ungodly was because He in mercy planned to work salvation, and so redeem these sinners from the misery into which they had plunged themselves. That is: God delayed casting sinners into the hell they deserved until He had finished gathering to Himself all those chosen to life. Meanwhile, though, Adam and Eve in their exile from Paradise did taste what the second death was all about. For they were barred from God’s gracious presence, were given over to His wrath. So in essence they experienced that second death as soon as they fell into sin. As to the first death, Adam tasted it some 930 years after the fall into sin when "he died" (Gen 5:5).

I said already: it pleased the Lord God to spare Adam and Eve the full weight of His wrath in the second death outside Paradise because He intended to work salvation for these sinners. This was God’s promise on the day of the fall:

I will put enmity between [Satan] and the woman,
and between [his] seed and her seed...3:15

and the result would be that the seed of the woman – Jesus Christ- would crush the head of the seed of the serpent, of Satan.

So it was that years later the Lord God sent His Son to earth as a man. In the course of His life, Jesus Christ suffered the consequences of sin, suffered on account of sin. But it wasn’t until He was fixed to the cross that He tasted the full load of God’s terrible wrath against sin. While on the cross, He experienced what the "second death" was all about. For on the cross He "descended into hell".

Here we need to correct the common thought we have about Christ’s descent into hell. The Apostles’ Creed mentions that Christ "suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried," and then adds that "He descended into hell." That leads us to conclude that Jesus went to hell after He died. In other words: first He died the first death, and afterwards He went to hell, died the second death. Yet we’ve got the order wrong here; the Apostles’ Creed is not meant to be strictly chronological. Consider what Jesus said while on the cross. To the robber who asked Jesus to remember him when He came into His kingdom, Jesus said:

Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise Luke 23:43

"Today", Jesus said. Jesus would not go to the Father three days from now, after He had been in hell; no, "today" you will be with Me in Paradise. So too just before He died. "Father," said He, "into Your hands I commit My Spirit!" (Lu 23:46). What else does that mean than that immediately upon His death He returned to the Father in heaven?

When it was, then, that Christ went to hell? That, congregation, was in those three hours of darkness that enveloped the cross before Jesus died. Light is in the Bible a symbol of God’s presence; darkness is a symbol of God’s absence. During those three hours when the Lord God turned the sun off on Calvary, God distanced Himself from His Son, rejected His Son, poured on Him His terrible wrath. That rejection of the Son meant that Christ was handed over to hell; God wished to have nothing to do with Him, He gave His Son into the hands of Satan. All the groaning and the weeping and the gnashing of teeth that Scripture associates with hell were experienced by Jesus Christ in those hours of rejection by God; on the cross Christ tasted what Scripture calls the "second death". That text from Rev 21 says that the second death is the "lake that burns with fire and brimstone", and according to the symbolism of the book of Revelation this burning with fire and brimstone describes the immense wrath of God against sin. Well, that’s what Jesus experienced in those three hours of darkness. The anger of holy God was poured out on Jesus Christ, and that’s why He was handed over to hell, to Satan and his demons, was handed over to the "second death". It’s as the Catechism summarises Scripture in Q & A 44. Concerning the Saviour’s descent into hell, the Catechism says:

my Lord Jesus Christ... [endured] His unspeakable anguish, pain, terror, and agony... [not only] throughout all His sufferings but especially on the cross....

That’s when Christ went to hell. Or better said: in those three hours of darkness before He gave up His spirit, hell broke loose around Jesus and Satan and his evil demons did all in their wicked power to cause the Son of God to curse His God and die.

But – and this is the gospel- Christ’s descent into hell does not mean the end of our salvation. For Christ, even while He was subjected to the "lake that burns with fire and sulphur," did not succumb to this horror. Yes, on Calvary He experienced the second death. But He did not stay in the grip of the second death; He arose from it, escaped the clutches of the devil. In those three hours in hell He paid for sin, satisfied God’s holy wrath against sin, reconciled sinners to God. God was pleased with His sacrifice, and so accepted His Son again, looked upon His Son with favour, let the lights come on again. So it was that Jesus could cry out with a loud voice that "it is finished" (Jn 19:30). This second death had no hold of Him any more; He had satisfied God’s wrath and therefore could Satan have no claim to Jesus any longer. More, Jesus had shown Himself to be stronger than Satan, and so He could leave the "lake that burns with fire and brimstone", could escape hell to re-enter the presence of His holy Father. That’s why Jesus, after He had died the second death and conquered it, could pray to the Father to receive His spirit, and then could sovereignly die. He had triumphed over the second death, and that’s why the first death was not at all a fearsome thing for Jesus Christ. Notice the way Luke records what Jesus did after He prayed that prayer to the Father about receiving His spirit. Says Luke:

And having said this He breathed His last vs 46

John says it even more pointedly:

…and He bowed His head and gave up His Spirit 19:30

Here it’s not so that Death came to pluck this exhausted and weakened man out of this life. Jesus rather gave Himself sovereignly to death. After the torment of the cross and those three hours of darkness, Jesus was not tired and defeated; rather, as triumphant Lord, He made a point of bowing His head and giving up His spirit. Death did not take Him; sovereignly He went to death, at His time. For He was master over that first death, master because He had triumphed over the second death.

And still there’s more here, beloved. We know – for the Bible tells us so- that death places us before the judgment seat of God. That was true for Jesus too. Yet He had no reason to fear this Judge. In those three hours of darkness, while Jesus experienced that second death, then He did have reason to fear God’s judgment. And that judgment from God was for Jesus a terrible thing; He was cast by God into "the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." But He satisfied God’s anger, and therefore could escape the second death, and so there was no more reason to fear God. He could now die, and with death appear confidently before God’s judgment seat. For He could be assured –because of His victory over the second death- that He would be royally received in the kingdom of His Father. And so it was. Death for Jesus was no enemy; it was rather the door to being with the Father again. It was through the door of death that Jesus could move from the shame of the cross to the glory of His Father’s presence. Jesus could calmly give Himself to the first death –why? because He had earlier defeated the second death.

The Two Results of Christ’s Death←⤒🔗

What, now, are the results of Christ’s triumph on Calvary? What benefit may we receive from His victory over the second death and from His giving Himself sovereignly to the first death? LD 16 mentions two of these results. The first result is mentioned in Q & A 43, where reference is made to "our old nature" having died with Christ; the second is mentioned in Q & A 42, where reference is made to "our death" being "an entrance into eternal life." First, then, the thought of Q & A 43, about "our old nature" having died with Christ.

Our old Nature←↰⤒🔗

I mentioned earlier that with the fall into sin in Paradise, Adam and Eve (and we with them) straightaway died the second death. The separation from God implicit in this dying was symbolised by the exile from Paradise, by being sent into a cursed world. We need to carry that thought farther now. For the fact of the matter is that with the fall into sin we not only deserted God; we also joined Satan, made hell our abode. As such, we were slaves to sin, able only to do what was both evil in God’s sight and harmful to ourselves. Slaves to sin we were, it was a cruel slavery, and all of it together was God’s judgment on our sins.

God in mercy sent Christ to pay for sin, to make the payment by Himself experiencing the depths of the second death into which we had plunged ourselves, experiencing it in a far worse degree than we had so far. Christ triumphed, satisfied the wrath of God, and so could escape the second death again and be received by God. The thing is now that Christ was not the only one who escaped the second death, was not the only received by God again. With His victory over the second death and His resulting escape from its clutches, God’s chosen escaped also. These chosen have been taken from Satan’s side and transferred to God’s side, have been set free from the snare of the devil and adopted to be God’s children. After all, Christ came to the cross, experienced the "unspeakable anguish, pain, terror, and agony" of the second death not for His own sake, but rather so that many might be redeemed.

It’s of this that Paul writes to the Romans. There he says that the believers of Rome – yes, the saints of all ages- have shared in the death of Christ. Rom 6:6: "...our old self was crucified with Him" – result? - "that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin." Paul says it in different terms to the Galatians:

"I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me..." (2:20).

Paul considers himself and all Christians to have benefited from Christ’s victory over Satan during those three hours of darkness –how?- by being brought by Christ into God’s favour, into God’s presence again.

This reality in turn, congregation, has consequences. The apostle brought up the whole matter of believers dying with Christ in order to make an ethical point. The apostle had written in Rom 5 about how Christ had come to pay for sin. That gospel prompted the reaction recorded in Rom 6:1: Given that Christ has died to pay for sin, should we not "continue in sin that grace may abound?" If there’s forgiveness, why should we not sin?!

It’s this question that prompted Paul to write about believers being included in Christ’s death. Christ had been rejected by God, given over to Satan, but He paid for sin, escaped that second death and so was accepted by God again. Now Paul says: with Christ the child of God also has escaped bondage to Satan and been accepted by God. The child of God has died to sin, died to Satan, and has been raised to a new life with God. So: the child of God can no longer act like a child of Satan; exactly because the child of God has died to sin with Christ and been raised to a new life must that child of God live like a child of God in all he does.

This is the point that Paul makes when he comes to the end of this section about death. Vs 12, he ties it all up, he says:

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts.

"Therefore," he says. This, in other words, is the conclusion of God’s instruction about the death of Christ. His death means our death, our death to sin. So:

Do not present your members (ie, the parts of your body) as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead... vs 13

It comes down to this: what we do with the various parts of our body –be it our hands or our eyes or our feet or our sexual organs- is not to be conduct characteristic of Satan’s children; what we do with the various members of our bodies is instead to be conduct characteristic of God’s children, of those who have died to sin. Others may use their mouths to curse or to speak foul language; the Christian is to use his tongue only to glorify His Lord and Maker. Others may feast their eyes on pornographic literature and movies that stimulate one’s senses; the Christian is to let his eyes see only that which glorifies His Redeemer. Others may use their hands to labour for the sake of getting wealthy; the Christian is to use his hands to labour for the coming of God’s kingdom. In a word: the first result of Christ’s victory over death is that His people have a lifestyle distinctly different from that of the world. As LD 16 says it:

Through Christ’s death our old nature is crucified, put to death, and buried with Him, so that the evil desires of the flesh may no longer reign in us, but that we may offer ourselves to Him as a sacrifice of thankfulness.

For our part, brothers and sisters, we content ourselves in being Christians, persons who benefit from Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Well now, the Lord God tells us the concrete consequences of the Saviour’s victory. Where that concrete consequence is not visible in your lives, beloved, in a lifestyle distinctly different from your neighbours and workmates, you cannot –for the Scriptures say so- you cannot continue to assume that you share in the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice. If you can enjoy the average television program as your neighbour next door, if you labour to amass capital for yourself, if you can utter foul talk like anybody else at work, I tell you that you have no part in the death of Christ. You have, in other words, not escaped the second death yourself, are still dead to God. And that means wrath! But those, on the contrary, who struggle against the evil desires of the flesh, who strive –be it with many failures- who strive nevertheless to speak no evil, see no evil, do no evil, may therein see the assurance that Yes, they have escaped the second death, been reconciled to the God they offended in Paradise.

Our death←↰⤒🔗

That brings me to the second benefit we receive from Christ’s victory on Calvary, the one mentioned in Q & A 42. Christ triumphed over the second death, and so was received again into God’s favour. The result was that He was Master over the first death, could give Himself to death in the conviction that He would be welcomed into heaven by His Father.

So too the sinner who has been taken with Christ from Satan’s side to God’s. The redeemed sinner has been freed from the wrath of God, freed from the curse of being in bondage to Satan, has instead been accepted by God. The result is that the believer need never be afraid of appearing before the Judge of heaven and earth, need not be afraid because he knows he’s already been accepted by God. So the Judge will not condemn that sinner to hell; the Judge will instead receive that sinner into His eternal kingdom. In other words: the person who has been freed from the wrath of God through the sacrifice of Christ need not be afraid to die; for such a person death is the door to life with God in heaven. That’s so because through Christ he has already escaped the second death, escaped bondage to the devil. So Paul says to the Philippians:

…to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.... [I have] a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better 1:21ff

The Catechism sums it up:

Our death is not a payment for our sins, but it puts an end to sin and is an entrance into eternal life.

It’s life that we’ve received from God through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, life as we had it in Paradise too. That life never ends for the child of God. Because of Christ’s victory is death now nothing else than the door leading from life in this sinful world to life in a world without sin. That is why the child of God need not fear death; "to die is gain", for it means "to be with Christ."

Two deaths there are, the first and the second death. Christ on the cross endured the second death so that we might be ransomed from the hell we deserve, the lake that burns with fire and sulphur. He died that second death for us, and the blessed result for us is life forever. So we need fear no death at all any more, neither the first death nor the second. It’s as the prophets of old could say:

"Death is swallowed up in victory."
"O death, where is Your sting?" Amen.