“Our Savior Jesus Christ … has abolished death and brought life and immortality

to light through the gospel.” (2 Tim. 1:10)

This article came pouring through my fingers in 2016. It came spontaneously – unplanned – and I can honestly say it was not my idea!   Gently and in humility, I share it with you here – together with its original title:

Jesus Christ abolished death. Let us take Him at His Word!

How is it that we take death so unquestioningly in our stride? How is it that death is considered unavoidable, even for the believer? 

The thing is, death is utterly vile. It is most certainly not of God, and God Himself made a way for us to overcome it. Therefore, we should fight against it with all our might! Why? Because the Word of God makes it supremely clear that Jesus Christ came to set us free from death! He came to give us life and life in abundance! It is time that we, as believers, rose up to stand firmly upon what we believe and to trust the Word of our God. We live by faith, not by sight. Augustine of Hippo wrote almost 2,000 years ago: “Faith is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe.”

The Word of God is activated by our prayerful attention and by our faith. Without these, the Word of God simply languishes on the pages of the Bible, ineffective and inactive. This has been demonstrated again and again by believers over the centuries. Martin Luther, for example, ignited the spiritual life of millions of Christians when he declared that the Bible offered us justification by faith; faith instead of good works or the purchase of indulgences.

God our Father does not force His Word upon us; rather, He invites us – He urges us – to receive it and to believe it.

Let us, then, give our prayerful attention to the clear and unambiguous references to the fact that Jesus Christ came to abolish sin and death by becoming sin for us, and by dying our death for us – in order that we may receive His very Life – His eternal Life – in exchange. 

First, it is vital to reflect on the mighty significance of SALVATION. In order to rescue the human race from our desperate, hellish state, God chose to limit Himself to one modest, human form. This is our Holy, Holy God, the maker and sustainer of the tiny little sparrow as well as of two trillion galaxies. The observable Universe measures 13.8 billion light-years in all directions. What this means is that at the very edge of what we can see, is the light that left that region 13.8 billion years ago.

This wondrous God took flesh on Earth as the Lord Jesus Christ. Such was His immeasurable love for us that His entire life on earth was devoted to living, teaching, suffering and dying for the sole purpose of setting us free from the hellish cycle of sin, disease, depression, hate, paranoia, decay, disease and death within which we were inexorably trapped.

The mission of Jesus Christ is perhaps most succinctly and simply expressed in this verse in John 10:10: “A thief comes only to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.”

Without going any further, we can logically ask ourselves, “Does life in abundance include death?” No! A thousand times no!! We are blaspheming God to even entertain the thought that death played any part in His purpose for us! 

During His 33 years on Earth, Jesus took upon Himself every single sin, disease, sickness, heaviness, lack and limitation that is known to humankind. By the time He had reached Calvary, Jesus was so utterly scourged and wounded by all that He had absorbed in order to set us free (millennia of sin, war, hate, killing, disease .. the list is endless) that the Word of God says that “His appearance was so disfigured that He did not look like a man, and His form did not resemble a human being” (Isa. 52:14). This is our God! Neither was He wearing a discrete loin cloth as you see the pictures. No, He was utterly stripped of everything … EVERYTHING – including His own humanity … for our sakes.

His final acts on the Cross were to utter words of love and forgiveness … and to “taste death for everyone” (Heb. 2:9). In addition to everything else, as the final declaration of freedom for God’s children, Jesus took our death(s) upon Himself. The Word, furthermore, declares that Jesus destroyed the one “who holds the power of death--that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14).

Aargh! I am seeing that to entertain death – and even suggest that God causes it or condones it – is to throw Jesus’ act of Salvation back into His holy face?!! Oh! Forgive me, Lord! Let us fall to our knees and worship our Almighty Saviour for what He has done – for the COMPLETE freedom and glorious new Life He has lavished upon us!

Note that I have not even begun to refer to what the Word reveals about our identity in Christ!  What Jesus has done on Calvary is more than enough to convict and convince us that death has no part in the plan of a holy, perfect and loving God. 

Notwithstanding, let us look briefly at the astounding truth of our identity in Christ, as seen in these verses:

Galatians 2:20 and Romans both 6:8-9 declare that we have already died with Christ. So we are saved from the need to die again. 

Colossians 3:3 says, “You died and your life is hid with Christ in God”. So, again, how can we die a second time?! 

Ephesians 2:6 states that God “made us alive together with Christ … and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus”.

Colossians 1:13 gives us the glorious truth that God has delivered us from the power of darkness [where death reigns] and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love [where there is no death].

Finally, the following verse in 2 Timothy makes it so very clear that Jesus abolished death, and I believe it is significant that the verse uses the two words – both “life” and “immortality”. Here it is in the Amplified Classic version: “our Savior Christ Jesus, Who annulled death and made it of no effect and brought life and immortality (immunity from eternal death) to light through the Gospel” (2 Tim. 1:10). Wow!

Praise be to our wondrous God and Saviour!

By Ann Shakespeare   13 October 2021