1 Corinthians 15:57

A SONG OF TRIUMPH

‘Thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.’

1 Corinthians 15:57

It is in this high strain of triumph that the Apostle concludes his magnificent Hymn of the Resurrection. He had spoken of the Resurrection of Christ; first as a fact in history, and next as a moral and spiritual power; first, as a fact for which the evidence was clear, certain, abundant; next, as a power ruling man’s life and giving him a victory over death, giving him a victory over his two greatest enemies, sin and death.

Let us glance for a moment at the victory which the Apostle says we have.

I. Victory over sin.—‘Now is Christ risen from the dead’; and in the power of this resurrection we have the victory over sin. God, in raising Him from the dead, has not only proclaimed to angels and men that He has accepted the propitiation wrought out on the Cross, but has exalted Him to be a Prince and a Saviour to give us all we need, to lift off from us the burden of guilt, and to pour into our diseased spirits the life of His Resurrection, the life of His Spirit, that we may gain the victory over sin.

II. God gives us, through Christ’s Resurrection, the victory over death.—When the Apostle exclaimed, ‘Thanks be to God Who giveth us the victory,’ it is this victory which he has chiefly before his eyes. ‘O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?’ Death is a very real enemy. The fear of death; is not this the most terrible fear that assaults men, that gives its edge of bitterness to all our fears? What is the fear of sickness, of poverty, of sorrow, of old age—are not these natural infirmities?—compared with the fear of death? It is an awful thing to die, above all if we do not know where we are going.

III. Are we partakers of this victory?—We may repeat the Creed, ‘I believe in the Resurrection of the body,’ and yet, alas! we may have no victory over death. How many baptized Christians have no doubt of another life, and yet live and die as if this world were all? Their eyes are pointed to the earth, and their hearts shrink and wither in the narrow cell in which they have locked themselves. They have won no victory over death. And yet there is such a victory. Christ’s risen life may be ours. It is by a close actual union with Christ that we share in His victory. Christ, the risen Lord, gives us, if we believe in Him and follow Him, the very life which in Him met and overthrew and abolished death. It is His life, and therefore we know that He has vanquished death, and therefore, for ourselves and those we love, we may rest assured that because He liveth we shall live also.

Bishop J. J. S. Perowne.