I don't wanna get paid to lose.
I wanna win!
...Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 15.7 NASB
The Quote
The Scripture
1 Corinthians 15 is the obligatory Sunrise Service portion of scripture. It rings out on every Easter morning. Death is swallowed up in victory. Yes. We follow the winner. Call us Christians bandwagon fans, but we know that in the ultimate game of life and death, we choose to side with the One who has kicked Death in the butt.Death is swallowed up in victory.
The picture is amazing here. Death—Mighty Death—is swallowed up. Consider: how big does one thing need to be in order to swallow up another thing? Twice as big? Three times? I, as a 5-foot, 10-inch individual, need to cut a little 6 oz. steak into pieces in order to chew it before swallowing.
Sometimes we picture a grand struggle, where Jesus labored and fought and scratched and clawed before finally wrenching the keys of Hades from Death. But 1 Corinthians 15 tells us that His greatness was big enough to swallow death, much like a human swallowing a bug. Almost, as if, by accident. With little to no effort comparatively. And that victory has been secured and passed on to us. It is in this vein that John Donne penned the following:
72. "Death be not proud, though some have called thee"
DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee, 5
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell, 10
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
To the victor goes the spoils. Christ, The Victor, has defeated Death and now lords it over him by granting the victory to us. You may ask, why do you capitalize this term: Death? Isn't that something that just happens to us at the end of this life? The answer is no. This is not the death that was defeated. What was defeated is the active force that infects all of humanity. It is the Death that springs up from within and corrupts the activity of mankind, causing all of us to fall short of the glory of God. (Romans 3.23) Without Christ's victory we would have no hope—neither in the next life nor in this one.