THE NEXT PASSAGE is: “Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished” (1 Cor. 15:18). A new thing had come into being with the conception of being in Christ—the very idea of dying dropped out and the conception of death as falling asleep took its place. They simply could not believe in death any longer, so the vocabulary had to be changed. Death dropped out of the Christian vocabulary because it dropped out of Christian experience. Christians did not die; they fell asleep. Jesus did not die; He “bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30). Stephen did not die; he prayed: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. . . . And when he had said this, he fell asleep” (Acts 7:59–60). Paul speaks of death as a desire “to depart and be with Christ” (Phil. 1:23). And he says when his execution was actually at his doors: “the time of my departure is at hand” (2 Tim. 4:6). Jesus said of the death of Lazarus: “Our friend Laz´arus has fallen asleep, but I go to awake him out of sleep” (John 11:11).
In the pages of the New Testament after the death and resurrection of Jesus, no one in Christ was ever said to have died—except in the book of Revelation written later, when the resurrection of Jesus had lost its freshness and death came to life again. Even there it says: “Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire” (20:14). There was the final death of death. In Jesus Christ there was no death. Everything in Him was alive with eternal life; even death was a sleep, a departure, a giving up to God of the spirit. The vocabulary was changed to fit the facts—there was no death, there was nothing but Life. When we are in Christ death is simply unthinkable—this glorious fact of being in Him is incapable of dying, and that includes the body. The body is changed, but does not die! Nothing in Him dies—absolutely nothing.
O Jesus, Lord and Master—Lord and Master of life and death—as long as I remain in Thee nothing about me can die, for the moment it comes into Thee it lives and lives forever. I thank Thee, thank Thee. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: In Jesus I cannot die, for life cannot do aught but live.
