Friday, November 15, 2013
1 Corinthians 15:26 The last enemy that will be destroyed is death.
THE LAST ENEMY
When you hear the word "enemy" what's the first thing that pops into your head? This time of year when I hear the word enemy the words of "A Mighty Fortress" come to mind, namely (TLH 262:1), "... the Old Evil Foe, now means deadly woe ..." If you don't first think of the leader of the fallen angels, perhaps you think of a human enemy past or present.
When we hear the expression "the last enemy" we should think of death, here personified, pictured as if it were a person. When the Last Judgment arrives, our enemy Satan will certainly be judged, as will all those who have rejected the Savior and His completed work. They will depart to eternal death.
Then the last enemy will be destroyed, death. Death is not a "natural part of life" as some suggest. This world did not come about as a result of death, despite what the evolutionist claims.
Death is one of our oldest enemies. God did not create humankind to die. Death entered the world along with sin when the first humans disobeyed God (cf. Romans 5:12). Death now affects every human being. As a result of sin we are born spiritually dead in sins and will one day pass into temporal death. Worse yet, those who die in their sins will enter eternal death.
This Scripture declares that death is on borrowed time. The Day is coming when death will trouble God's people no more. In fact, the death of death was decided when Christ our Life died on Calvary. We think on the demise of our last enemy when we sing:
"Christ, the Life of all the living, Christ, the Death of death our foe,
Who, Thyself for me once giving To the darkest depths of woe,
Thro' Thy sufferings, death and merit I eternal life inherit:
Thousand, thousand thanks shall be, Dearest Jesus, unto Thee."
(The Lutheran Hymnal, 151:1)
