That sting has been drawn for the Christian, and death hath no terrors for him.  But, had the power of the devil in death been unassailed and uncounteracted, the dissolution of the body and the eternal ruin of the soul would have been alike complete and irrecoverable.  By the consciousness of guilt, Satan has infused an element of insupportable terror into death.  For it is that consciousness which makes death dreadful.  It is quite probable that, if man had not sinned, his body would have undergone some great change, that it might be fitted for that “kingdom of God,” which “flesh and blood cannot inherit;” but such change would have inflicted no pain, and involved no humiliation; it would only have been a change “from glory to glory;” and would have been anticipated with no sentiments contrary to desire and hope.  But death, besides its own inherent ghastliness, is rendered dreadful through the malice of the devil, and the guilty fear of the penal hereafter which haunts all those who are in his power.

3.  Jesus died to destroy “him that had the power of death.”  He has indeed provisionally destroyed death itself for all “the sons of God.”  “Death, the last enemy, shall be destroyed.”  But it is not absolutely and immediately abolished.  The

death of the body remains, even for God’s people, as a sad and humiliating monument of the evil of sin; but to them it is not now a punishment, but the mode of their birth into a new and more glorious life.

“Mortals cry, ‘A man is dead!’
Angels sing, ‘A child is born!’”

It may be truly said of the hour when a good man dies, that it is the hour when he enters into life.  And this is because Jesus destroyed “him that had the power of death.”  He did not annihilate him, the word does not mean that, but He neutralized, counteracted, stripped him of his power.  The whole design and effect of death, when in the power of the devil, has been defeated and reversed by the death of Christ.  Though the bodies of his people be consigned to the grave, it is in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to everlasting life.  That melancholy seed-time in which we cast the dust of our beloved into the earth, is the prelude to a glorious harvest; that when “He giveth his beloved sleep,” is preparatory to their awaking to glory and immortality.  “It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a

spiritual body.”  This is what Christ’s death has done for the bodies of his people; and is it not an entire breaking of the power of the devil over death?  As to their souls, death delivers them from the burden of the flesh, that they may be in joy and felicity with God.  “Absent from the body,” they are for ever “present with the Lord.”  Death is no longer a dark and dreadful phantom, rising from the abyss, to drag down his victims and gorge himself upon them.  He is an angel, pure and bright, sent to summon God’s beloved to their Father’s house above.  That which men naturally dread as the crown and climax of all evils, becomes an object of wistful longing, for God’s servants have “a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.”  This stripping away of Satan’s power, this destruction of “him that had the power of death,” is due to the death of Jesus.  He thus redeemed us from the debt of death, “acknowledging the debt in the manner in which he removed it.”  “Christ, by giving himself up to death, has acknowledged the guilt, and truly atoned for it; He has, in one act, atoned for the sinner and judged the sin.”  By dying for sins, He expiated that which gives to death its “sting,” its power to injure and to terrify.  He

“Entered the grave in mortal flesh,
And dwelt among the dead,”

that He might put an end to Satan’s power in and over death.  Some sound and excellent divines are of opinion that, in the interval between his death and resurrection He literally “descended into hell,” and there, in personal conflict, grappled with and overthrew the devil.  However this may be, it is certain that the bruising of his heel by Satan was the chosen means for his bruising of Satan’s head.  Our enemy, who brought death into the world, is entirely baffled and defeated, as to the purpose and effect of that calamity, in the case of all who believe in the death of Christ.  Their last act of faith gives them “the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Then the God of peace “finally beats down Satan under their feet.”  Death is “swallowed up of life.”  What power over death has the devil in such a case?  Is it not wholly counteracted?  Is not death a wholly different, nay, opposite thing to what he intended, when by tempting and conquering our first parents he brought it into the world?  The body of the good man “is buried in peace, and his soul is blessed for evermore.”  He shall never more, through the long eternity of bliss, be assailed or injured by “him that had the power of death:” nor shall he see his enemy again, unless it be to triumph openly over him, in that day when

“death, and hell shall be cast into the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone.”  Many good people are unduly afraid of the devil, and especially they are in dread of his possible power in their last moments.  But we may dismiss this fear as altogether needless and unworthy.  Christ has not only rendered our great enemy utterly powerless for evil, but has, by his own most precious death, compelled even Satan into the service of the sons of God.  He has turned the supreme calamity brought into the world by the arch-fiend into the supreme glory and joy of all who believe in himself.  To all those who are by Jesus’ death “to life restored,” the day of death is infinitely preferable to the day of birth, for then beginneth that new life which shall never die.  “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him until that day.”

II.  Let us now contemplate the work of Jesus, in his death, as a work of deliverance.  “And deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”  If we ascertain the import of this description of those whom Christ died to deliver, we shall easily understand the nature and mode of the deliverance wrought out for them.

1.  They were in bondage.  They were in fact

enslaved by “him who had the power of death.”  This is a very fearful view of our natural state, and one which contradicts all the conclusions of our own vanity and self-complacency.  Unconverted men believe that Christians are slaves, fettered by doubts, scruples, self-accusations; bound in the bands of moral routine, and able only to move in certain prescribed grooves; afraid to do as they list.  According to their notion, true liberty consists in throwing off religious restraints, and following as much as may be “the devices and desires of our own hearts.”  But this is a terrible delusion, which only serves to show the depth and subtlety of him who, besides having “the power of death,” is also “the father of lies,” the great deceiver and ensnarer of mankind.  History is full of analogous examples among men.  In how many instances have the most cruel and