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: Romans 5:6-21; I Corinthians 15:51-57

Singing: (Psalms and Hymns are from the "Book of Praise" Anglo Genevan Psalter)
Psalm 30:2,3
Psalm 6:1,3
Psalm 90:5,6
Psalm 116:1,2,3,4,8,9
Hymn 51:7,8

Beloved Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ!

The topic of the Lord’s Day 16 is death. Christ had to die, was even buried to prove that He was dead; we have to die, even our old nature has to die.

Death. It’s not the most pleasant of subjects. Most of us scarcely think of death; we’re too young for that. It’s not until we hear of the death of a young acquaintance, or that a congregation member has terminal cancer, that we really think of death.

Yet, beloved, the fact of the matter is that we all shall one day die, unless Christ comes back first. In the midst of all the unknowns of life - whether we’ll go through life healthy or sick, happy or not, married or single, in Australia or elsewhere- this fact is very much a fixed certainty: all of us shall die. So wrote the apostle: "It is appointed for men to die" (Heb 9:27). How we shall die we do not know, and when we shall die we do not know either. But the fact stands firm. In the words of the Preacher: there’s "a time to be born, and a time to die" (Eccl 3:2).

So, brothers and sisters, we do well to think about death. What has the Lord God told us about death? What is it? Where does death come from? Need we fear death? How is death to affect life?

The Bible gives us the answers. The Scriptures would have us look at death through the labors of our Lord Jesus Christ. For Christ has overcome death, so that death itself was put to death. That is why, in the words of Lord’s Day 16, death is for God’s people "an entrance (a door) into eternal life. "

That being so, we may use this afternoon this theme:

The death of Christ means the death of death 

1. The nature of death.
2. The conquest of death.
3. The preparation for death

The Nature of Death←⤒🔗

Everyone, says the Bible, dies. Tragically, our experience confirms it. Does that mean that death is a natural, normal development in the lives of people?

The answer, congregation, is distinctly No. On the sixth day of creation, the Lord God fashioned the creature man. He gathered together soil, molded it into a body, and breathed into the nostrils of this corpse the breath of life. Then "man became a living being" (Gen 2:7); Adam lived. "And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good" (Gen 1:31). God had made life, and the life God had made could not be snuffed out in a moment, could not fizzle out over the span of years either. Adam might be gone to the far end of the Garden of Eden, and be somewhat late in returning to Eve, but Eve did not have to fear that Adam may have drowned in one of the four rivers that flowed through the Garden. For Adam death was unnatural, was something unknown, strange. Death was not there in the beginning, death is not a normal thing in life.

But death was a known thing, at least in theory. For when God put Adam in the Garden, He told him that he was not to eat from the tree in the middle on threat of death. Said God: "in the day that you eat of it you shall die" (Gen 2:17).

You see, beloved, death would be the consequence of eating, of sin. Why death would be the consequence of disobedience? To answer that question, we are to have straight in our minds what death is. And to understand what death is, we need first to know what life is.

From a scientific, biological point of view, life is that the heart is beating, that there are electric vibrations in the brain. That’s also how we speak of life; life is that one is breathing. And it’s when one quits breathing, when the heart stops, when there is no brain activity left, that we speak of a person being dead; there’s no life any more.

But as it is, congregation, that’s not a Scripturally complete understanding of what life is. The life God gave to Adam was more than breathing, more than the heart ticking. For God established a relation with Adam, and that relationship, that communion between God and man, that is what life really is. Adam had life in the deep sense of the word, and that’s pointed up by the fact that in the garden God came to him, spoke to him. Life: that’s enjoying a bond of friendship with the God of life!

But if life is essentially living in communion with God, we understand too what death is. Death is the absence of that friendship with God, and hence the absence of communion with God. Death is not simply that there is no brain activity of any kind anymore. Death is that one is separated from the God of life.

But if that’s what life is and that’s what death is, then we can also understand why God said that Adam would surely die on the day that he ate of the forbidden fruit. That eating was disobedience, and disobedience means that one consciously breaks the bond of life with God, separates oneself from communion with God in favor of communion with Satan. That is death; it is separation from God.

So Adam would die, would die physically and spiritually. He would die in the sense that His body would be separated from his soul, would die also in the sense that he would be separated from his God. And what makes physical death so terrible is that physical death is a symbol of spiritual death; the separation of soul from body is the symbol of separation of the sinner from God.

So: is death natural? Be not fooled, beloved; death happens only to sinners. And it happens to sinners only because they are sinners. Rom 6: "the wages of sin is death" (vs 23). No, death is abnormal, is as abnormal as sin is abnormal. God no more created life for death than He created Adam for sin.

People fear death. Tell the average person that he is incurably ill, and panic seizes him. He may put on a brave face, but inwardly he feels isolated, paralyzed, drained of strength. But now we also know why people fear death. And that’s because people know that death is not simply the end. Physical death, the separation of body and soul symbolizes separation of man from God. And that’s what people cannot stomach. Physical death symbolizes spiritual death! How true people find the words of Bildad the Shuhite (one of those friends of Job); he said that death is "the king of terrors" (Job 18:14). How true the characterization is to the experience of millions!

But what, then, is so wrong with separation from God? What is wrong with separation from God, beloved, is that God does not appreciate that separation! God created man for life, for communion with Him. To separate oneself from God is to bring divine wrath upon oneself. And it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God! Adam sinned, and so died, separated himself from God, broke the communion of friendship with God and aligned himself to Satan. God’s response was to exile Adam from the Garden into a wilderness of thorns and thistles, was, in other words, to exile him from out of His comforting presence into a life without comfort on cursed ground. And that exile from Paradise in turn symbolizes eternal exile from God in hell. Adam sinned, Adam died, and therefore had to face the judgment of God. People still sin, and sinners still die, and therefore have to face the judgment of God.

And the God who judges sinners today has not become more sympathetic to sinners in the course of the years since the fall in the beginning! For God, Scriptures declare, does not change. If His response to Adam’s sin was exile in a cursed wilderness of thorns and thistles as a foretaste of death eternal, His response to sinners since the days of Adam is just as radical. In fact, Scripture leaves no room for doubt: those who die must appear before the judgment seat of holy God. And before that judgment seat these sinners who have passed through the door of death must give account of every word they have spoken, every action they have done in this life. And because no sinner is able to give adequate account of every thoughtless word he uttered, every foolish thing he did, shall that sinner invariably be cast out of God’s presence for all eternity. He shall die that second death, that eternal separation from God in the unquenchable flames of hell everlasting…. It is not a pleasant truth, but since God spoke it we are bound to accept it. One can deny it in this life, but even that does not change the facts, as all shall discover upon death.

Death: it is the door to the awful judgment seat of God, it is for sinners the entrance to hell. Well does Bildad put it; death is the "king of terrors". Given half the opportunity, the whole human race would join Adam and Eve in hiding from the presence of God, and so join those who call for mountains to fall on them and hills to cover them if that would spare us from having to appear before the judgment seat of holy God, and so avert the terrible sentence of death eternal….

But, beloved of the Lord, we need not run from God as Adam did, nor cry out for hills to cover us. For the Son God sent into the world has conquered death! That’s our second point:

The Conquest of Death←⤒🔗

Bildad said that death was "the king of terrors." Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the apostle Paul did not agree with him. To the Philippians he writes that "to die is gain" (Phil 1:21). In fact, Paul even sings about death, and says, "where, O death, where is your sting?"(I Cor 15:55). And the answer of Paul is that the sting of death is gone. Dying, says Paul is not the king of terrors!

What then, is Bildad all wrong? Yes, says Paul, Bildad is all wrong! Death is not something one ought to look up against. For, says Paul, God has given us the victory in Jesus Christ our Lord! And what that comes down to is this: because of Jesus Christ death is changed from being something fearful to being gain.

Jesus Christ, the Scriptures tell us, died. But the Scriptures tell us too that only sinners die. Ezekiel 18: "the soul that sins shall die" (vs 4). And Romans 6: "the wages of sin is death" (vs 23). But of Jesus Scriptures say that He sinned not. And therefore it is surprising that Jesus should die! His life ought to have continued without end.

But Jesus died. That is because sins were transferred from the chosen of God onto Jesus Christ, so that God saw Jesus Christ as one bundle of sin. So Jesus, by God’s decree, had to die. The wages of sin is death, and so through Pontius Pilate God had Jesus sentenced to death.

Jesus went to the cross, and there He died. More, on that cross He died in both senses of the word death. He died in the sense that He gave up the ghost, stopped breathing, His soul was separated from His body. More: He died in the sense that He was separated from God. In fact, He was separated from God, descended into hell before He died in the physical sense.

For a period of three hours darkness enveloped the cross on Calvary. In the course of those three hours of darkness Jesus was deserted by His Father in heaven, rejected because God saw His Son as one bundle of sin. God cannot tolerate sin, and therefore drove Jesus out of His presence. This rejection by God is presented in the Apostle’s Creed as His descent into hell; it was during this period of rejection, during these hours of darkness that all of hell broke loose against Jesus, Satan with his demons ganged up on the rejected Son of God on the cross. This was death for Jesus, rejection by His Father, left alone with the devil and his angels. This was death, death in that spiritual sense, death in the sense of separation from God, death in the deepest and most agonizing sense of the word.

But the wrath God poured out on Jesus in the three hours of darkness did not crush Jesus Christ! Though He’d become all sin, Christ endured the rejection of the Father, endured this spiritual death. And because He could endure the weight of God’s wrath on sin could He make payment for sins, could He satisfy the justice of God. So it was that after the end of those three hours of darkness, Christ could cry out that all was finished (Jn 19:30). All was finished, He said, for satisfaction had been made for the sin that caused death. All was finished, the sins once piled onto Jesus Christ were atoned for, and therefore could Jesus be again accepted by God. That is why, congregation, that is why there came an end to Jesus’ separation from God, an end to hell, an end to being left alone with the devil and his angels. "It is finished," He said, and the three hours of darkness ceased and Jesus spoke His final words; "Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit." And He breathed His last….

Was that physical death now an enemy for Jesus? Not at all, beloved. He died, but death did not take Jesus; Jesus rather let Himself die. And this physical death was for Him not the door to God’s judgment hall; God had already judged Jesus Christ, judged Him first to be a sinner and therefore condemned to death, and after three hours judged that He paid for sin and so received Him again. No, beloved, Christ’s dying was for the Son of God not the door to God’s judgment hall; His dying was instead the door into God’s eternal dwelling. That was why Jesus could speak those final words: "Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit. " That’s why Jesus’ physical death was not the terror death is for so many; Jesus’ death was gain for Him. For now He returned to the Father with whom He had lived since all eternity. He breathed His last – and entered into the joy of His Father!

Yes, and that death is all gain for us too. The very fact that Jesus could die without fear, could calmly commit His spirit into the hands of His Father, is because sin had been paid for. Physical death, we said, symbolizes spiritual death; the separation of body and soul symbolizes separation from God. But for Jesus, physical death did not symbolize separation from God. By enduring God’s rejection on the cross, Jesus had satisfied for sin and now nothing could separate Him from the love of His God anymore. That’s why Jesus could commit His spirit into the hands of His Father; Jesus’ death was made a symbol of the fact that He was now accepted by God. Jesus’ death had no sting in it because there was no wrath left from God on Him; Jesus’ death was not bitter because it was the door to being with God, was the entrance into eternal 1ife. His death was proof that He was accepted by God.

What now of us? We have to die, said God, because of our sins; "the wages of sin is death," and so the years of man is three score and ten, or by reason of strength four score, and we die. But what if there are no sins left? Must we then still die? Why?!

For that, brothers and sisters, is the case with the child of God; our sins have been taken from us and laid onto Jesus Christ with as result that "Christ died for us" (Rom 5:8). In the words of Question & Answer 42: "Christ died for us," and therefore: "why do we still have to die?"

We need to understand, beloved, that for the child of God death is no longer directly connected with sin, and therefore is that death also not the door to God’s judgment anymore, to condemnation. Instead, the Lord is pleased to use death now as the door through which His children must go to enter into life eternal in God’s presence. This life is a vale of tears; we face so many challenges, frustrations, disappointments, and the least of these is certainly not that we find ourselves repeatedly grieving our God with sin. But, since Christ has died for us on Calvary is our death no longer the wages of sin; death is instead gain, death means the end of tears, death means the beginning of life in the presence of God. It is the door into the chambers of God’s grace through which we must pass to hear those words of salvation: enter into the joy of your Master. In truth, death is gain.

Shall we then look up against death? Do we do wrong to struggle to hold on to life on this earth? Let’s not forget that God created us for life on this earth, did not create us for life in heaven as such. Besides, God has given us a task to carry out on this earth. Let no one, then, seek to escape this life before the time God ordains, on the grounds that death is gain for the Christian. On the other hand, there is no need for the child of God to resist death till the bitter end. Especially for those who have received the allotted three score and ten, there is no gain in holding off the day of glory. To go through that door of death may give butterflies in as much as it’s new (for we’ve never been through those doors before), but the Lord would have us know that it’s gain, only gain for His children. And He even assures us that "even in the valley of the shadow of death" we need fear no evil, for He stays with us as we approach those doors and pass through, and He ensures that His children receive that crown of glory.

Bildad told us that death was the king of terrors. Paul disagreed. The different perceptions between the two come down to reckoning with the death of Jesus Christ on Calvary. Bildad did not reckon with that death, and therefore he saw reason to fear death. And he was so right; without Christ death is fearsome indeed, for then death is the door to God’s judgment hall, the door to the verdict of hell eternal. But Paul knew of Jesus Christ, believed in the promises God had given Paul in Christ. Paul knew that Christ died, with as happy consequence that death itself was put to death. So the child of God need not fear death; thanks to Christ death is the door to life eternal!

That brings us to our last point:

The Preparation for Death←⤒🔗

You and I, old or young, shall all one day die. What, then, my brothers and sisters, do you see death to be? Would you agree with Bildad that it’s the "king of terrors"? Or would you agree with Paul that death is "gain"? The question is important, for it determines whether you will resist death to the lost gasp, or whether you will acquiesce to God’s decision to deliver you from life’s tears and pains. More: the question is important because inherent in your answer is whether you are afraid of God’s judgment seat or whether you know your sins forgiven in Jesus’ suffering and death.

We shall all one day die, but none of us knows when, nor how long the dying process will take. Once that moment of death arrives, it is too late to come to grips with the consequences of Jesus’ death on the cross. That is why it is so important that we make the necessary preparations today for the death we shall all die tomorrow.

How does one make the necessary preparations? Older and younger of us need again and again to accept the promises of God in Jesus Christ as true for ourselves – even as God gave them to us in our baptism. One of those promises we confess Sunday by Sunday in the Apostles’ Creed with those brief words: He "died, and was buried." We utter those words easily, but what do they mean to you? God’s promise in those words is that the death of Christ means the death of death – and so we need not fear death anymore! That’s the good news God has given to you, brothers and sisters, and so it’s the good news God wants you and me to embrace day by day again – both in health and in sickness, both in old age and in youth.

So, beloved, with whom do you agree? With Bildad or with Paul? Amen.