Death Has No Power
Death has no power over him any more.
Romans 6:9 JB
Christ died for our sins, and by his death He destroyed death. In Christ, we no longer regard death as the king of terrors. Paul wrote, “I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far” (Philippians 1:23NIV). Why? Was it because he worked so hard for Christ and had suffered so much? No! He was ready because half a lifetime earlier he had met Christ on the Damascus road. In 1 John 3:14 we read that we have already “passed from death to life.” You can have eternal life now. The conquest of death is the ultimate goal of Christianity. Physical death is a mere transition from life on earth with Christ to eternal life in heaven with Christ. For Christians there is such a thing as the shadow of death. Death casts a shadow over those who are left behind.
Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse was a prince among American Presbyterian clergymen. I knew him well. His first wife had died from cancer while still in her thirties. At the time, all three of his children were under twelve. He had such victory that he decided to preach the funeral sermon himself.
En route to the funeral they were overtaken by a large truck, which, as it passed them, cast a large shadow over their car. He asked one of his children, “Would you rather be run over by that truck or its shadow?”
“By the shadow, of course!” replied the twelve-year-old daughter. “A shadow can’t hurt you.”
With that answer, Dr. Barnhouse said to his three motherless little children, “You mother has been overrun not by death, but by the shadow of death.” At the funeral he spoke on Psalm 23: “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me” (v. 4 NKJV).
Nothing can harm us, including death, when we have trusted Christ as Savior because Christ has conquered death—so shall we.
Our Father and our God, help me not to fear the shadow of death that ushers me into Your presence. Help me, rather, to fear the real spiritual death that will separate me from You eternally. Let me not wander away from You, Lord, but to cling to Your majesty and grace through Jesus Christ, my Lord. Amen.
Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).