JESUS TRIUMPHANT
Revelation 1:17 (from “Fear not”),18;
John 11:11(from “Lazarus”),14,23
Our brother has said that it is a very sober matter to be in the presence of death, but how blessed that, in these circumstances, we can draw attention to these words of the Lord Jesus. While we are in the presence of death, and while we do sorrow, we know, and I trust that each one of us here knows, the One who has been into death. It is a precious matter that the Lord Jesus has been into death; He did so long before our brother died. Our brother has died, but the Lord Jesus “became dead”. What a distinction. Jesus became dead and in that sense He became what He could not otherwise have become because death had no claim on Him. Think of that, beloved; a blessed Man who went into death, yet death had no claim on Him whatsoever. Death has a claim on every man, woman, boy and girl, because “the wages of sin is death” (Rom.6:23), but not on the Lord Jesus, the One who could say “I became dead”. The Lord Jesus, the sinless One, yet made sin for us, went into death. That Man, the Sustainer of life, went into death. It was a miracle that the Lord Jesus died, because death had no claim on Him, yet He went into it and He broke its power.
So He says, “I became dead, and behold, I am living to the ages of ages”. Think of how Jesus went into death, but He came out of death triumphant:
‘Burst the portals of the grave’ (Hymn 414).
As out of death and living, He says that He has “the keys of death and of hades”. No one can take these keys from the Lord Jesus. They belong to Him. He took them, you might say, out of the hands of the enemy, and now death has no claim on the Lord Jesus. He is risen, He is ascended, He is glorified, and He is “living to the ages of ages”. How blessed! I trust that we all here have an eternal link with that blessed Man where He now is, risen and glorified. Our brother had that link.
It affected me to think too of the Lord’s words and how His feelings come out in John 11. He said, “Lazarus, our friend, is fallen asleep”. That is what our brother was; he was a friend, but not only that, he was a brother, a brother who did not seek a place, a brother who went on quietly. The brethren in this locality will know more than I do that he was a brother who, if something needed doing, would do it. He was a friend of the Lord, a blessed matter. He knew the Lord, and in his own way went on quietly with his own personal link with the Lord Jesus. It shone out brightly in these recent times of illness. He bore his illness quietly; you might say that he just went on with the Lord. He proved that the Lord is “a friend that sticketh closer than a brother” (Prov.18:24), and it came out in our brother’s spirit.
But then the Lord says, “Lazarus has died”. Our brother has spoken about the finality of death, but it is not the end. The Lord however did not leave it there; He says, “Thy brother shall rise again”. This is the Lord’s answer to the question that our brother read about in Job 14. How wonderful; what a triumph that death is not the end. We will lay our brother’s body in the grave and we will commit it to the Lord, for the grave is just a temporary place. Here are the Lord’s own words; “Thy brother shall rise again”. Our brother will rise again, for the Lord is coming for all those who belong to Him. I trust that we are all among those who are looking for that day when the Lord will come and claim those who belong to Him. Our brother belongs to the Lord; he is His own, and it was the Lord Himself who put him to sleep. “Precious in the sight of Jehovah is the death of his saints”, Ps.116:15. Our brother is now asleep through Jesus, awaiting that call, that triumphant call when the Lord Jesus will come and when these words that He said will become a reality; “Thy brother will rise again”. The Lord Jesus is out of death, and when He comes, He will take those who belong to Him. Our brother will be among those who have priority. “The dead in Christ shall rise first; then we, the living who remain, shall be caught up together with them” (1 Thess.4:17), a blessed matter. What a hope we have in this glorious risen Saviour, the One who became dead and is now living to the ages of ages.
May our sister and the family be comforted by the knowledge that the Lord Jesus is taking account of everything. He has taken account of our brother in his life, and been with him through his illness, through these times of trial, but that time is over because he is now with the Lord. What the Lord Jesus has secured in breaking the power of death is a triumph. May we be encouraged and comforted, beloved brethren, for the Lord’s name’s sake.
Trevor R Campbell