Reading: “But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” 2 Timothy 1:10
It is the abolition of this evil that is ascribed to “our Savior Jesus Christ.” Death is descriptive sometimes of the event of the dissolution of the connection between soul and body; sometimes of the state into which this event brings the material part of our frame.
It sometimes means dying. It sometimes means being dead. It sometimes means both. To “abolish death” is, in the first sense of the term, to put an end to men dying. To abolish it, in the second sense, is to restore those who are dead to embodied life and to secure that they shall never be deprived of this life. There can be little doubt that the great work referred to in the text includes both; for, in the state which is to follow its complete accomplishment, there is to be “no more DEATH.”
Believer, rejoice this morning that your Saviour Jesus Christ has put an end to dying, and will raise you to embodied life of which you can never be deprived again. That is the plain meaning of the words—glorious thought!
“The very happiest persons I have ever met with have been departing believers. The only people for whom I have felt any envy have been dying members of this very church, whose hands I have grasped in their passing away. Almost without exception I have seen in them holy delight and triumph. And in the exceptions to this exceeding joy I have seen deep peace, exhibited in a calm and deliberate readiness to enter into the presence of their God.”—C. H. Spurgeon
Adapted from John Brown
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