THE DEATH OF DEATH

’But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept. 21.  For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.... 50.  Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. 51.  Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52.  In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, (for the trumpet shall sound;) and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53.  For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54.  So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. 55.  O death, where is thy sting?  O grave, where is thy victory? 56.  The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. 57.  But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58.  Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.’—­1 COR. xv. 20, 21; 50-58.

This passage begins with the triumphant ringing out of the great fact which changes all the darkness of an earthly life without a heavenly hope into a blaze of light.  All the dreariness for humanity, and all the vanity for Christian faith and preaching, vanish, like ghosts at cock-crow, when the Resurrection of Jesus rises sun-like on the world’s night.  It is a historical fact, established by the evidence proper for such,—­namely, the credible testimony of eye-witnesses.  They could attest His rising, but the knowledge of the worldwide significance of it comes, not from testimony, but from revelation.  Those who saw Him risen join to declare:  ’Now is Christ risen from the dead,’ but it is a higher Voice that goes on to say, ’and become the first-fruits of them that slept.’

That one Man risen from the grave was like the solitary sheaf of paschal first-fruits, prophesying of many more, a gathered harvest that will fill the great Husbandman’s barns.  The Resurrection of Jesus is not only a prophecy, showing, as it and it alone does, that death is not the end of man, but that life persists through death and emerges from it, like a buried river coming again flashing into the light of day, but it is the source or cause of the Christian’s resurrection.  The oneness of the race necessitated the diffusion through all its members of sin and of its consequence—­physical death.  If the fountain is poisoned, all the stream will be tainted.  If men are to be redeemed from the power of the grave, there must be a new personal centre of life; and union with Him, which can only be effected by faith, is the condition of receiving