Austin's Blog

Valerie and I were driving past the cemetery where Gabriel is buried and a worship song playing said, “Now the sting of death is gone.” She said, “I certainly still feel the sting of Gabe’s death” as she looked toward the grave. I do too. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:56-57, “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” How can we affirm that the sting of death is gone and we have the victory through our Lord Jesus when it still hurts to pass where our little boy is?

One thing that needs to be said over and over again is that death is not a friend. It is a foe, an enemy, and a thief. Mitch Chase writes, “Death is not something good in itself. While Paul says, ‘To live is Christ, and to die is gain’ (Phil. 1:21), it is the greater communion with Christ that is gain. Death for the believer means to be absent from the body yet present with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:6–8). But the presence of death is a sign of sin’s effects and abiding curse in the world (Rom. 5:12–13).” Sometimes the way we speak about death betrays the seriousness and ugliness of it. To be with Christ is greater and far better but the means it takes to get there is ugly as sin.

Michael Horton agrees saying, “The reason that believers do not mourn as those who have no hope (1 Thess. 4:13) is not that they know that death is good, but that they know that God’s love and life are far more powerful than the jaws of death. Although believers, too, feel its bite, Christ has removed the sting of death (John 14:2-4; Phil. 1:21; 1 Cor. 15:54-57)…Downplaying the seriousness of the foe only trivializes the debt that was paid and the conquest that was achieved at the cross and empty tomb.” Downplaying death ignores its momentousness, cheapens the cost of Christ tasting it, and even denies the dignity of man. Paul Ramsay notes, “To deny the indignity of death requires that the dignity of man be refused also. The more acceptable in itself death is, the less the worth or uniqueness ascribed to the dying life.”

So how can we sing that the sting of death is gone while it very much still hurts? First, we must understand what Paul means. Sin brought judgment and death into the world. Through the law-keeping, obedience-gaining life of Christ, the sin-atoning, debt-fulfilling sacrifice of Christ, and the death-defeating, grave-emptying resurrection of Christ, people can be made right with God and enjoy Him forever. Christ’s resurrection is a divine promise that God does not hold our sins against us (Rom. 4:25) and the grave does not have the last laugh. Even death will one day die. For the believer, sin has been dealt with, the Law has been upheld, and the grave will be emptied into resurrection life. In that sense, the sting of death is gone.

Second, though we have come to Christ and have a divine promise that God will do to us and to the whole world what He did to Jesus on the third day, death still emotionally, psychologically, and deeply hurts on this side of Heaven. Losing a child will never not hurt in this life. It gets easier but it will never become easy. The resurrection of Christ as the firstfruits of the dead is a divine seal and promise that the sting is neither fatal nor final. But, our resurrection is still future. To feel that ache, that hole in our chest, that lump in our throats, and that pooling up of water within the eyes does not deny the work of Christ. It is appropriate given what has been removed—who has been removed. A grieving person can and should hold two realities together in tension: 1) the work of Christ changed reality and 2) the reality of the death of our loved ones still hurts.