ngs in his lifetime, is comforted, while the rich glutton
is tormented, because he received his good things here. [Luke
16:25] So that it is always well with the Christian, whether he
die or live; so blessed a thing is it to be a Christian and to
believe in Christ. Wherefore Paul says, "To me to live is Christ,
and to die is gain," [Phil. 1:21] and, in Romans xiv, "Whether we
live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the
Lord; whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's."
[Rom. 14:8 f.] This security Christ hath won for us by His death
and rising again, that He might be Lord of both the living and
dead, able to keep us safe in life and in death; as Psalm xxii.
saith, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me." [Ps. 23:4] If this
gain of death move us but little, it is proof that our faith in
Christ is feeble, and does not prize highly enough the reward and
gain of a blessed death, or does not yet believe that death is a
blessing; because the old man is still too much alive in us, and
the wisdom of the flesh too strong. We should, therefore,
endeavor to attain to the knowledge and the love of this blessing
of death. It is a great thing that death, which is to others the
greatest of evils, is made to us the greatest gain. And unless
Christ had obtained this for us, what bad He done that was worthy
of the great price He paid, namely, His own self? It is indeed a
divine work that He wrought, and none need wonder, therefore,
that He made the evil of death to be something that is very good.
[Gen. 1:31]

Death, then, to believers is already dead, and hath nothing
terrible behind its grinning mask. Like unto a slain serpent, it
hath indeed its former terrifying appearance, but it is only the
appearance; in truth it is a dead evil, and harmless enough. Nay,
as God commanded Moses to lift up a serpent of brass, at sight of
which the living serpents perished, [Num. 21:8 f.] even so our
death dies in the believing contemplation of the death of Christ,
and now hath but the outward appearance of death. With such fine
similitudes the mercy of God prefigures to us, in our infirmity,
this truth, that though death would not be taken away, He yet has
reduced its power to a mere shadow. [Matt. 9:24] For this reason
it is called in the Scriptures a "sleep" rather than death. [1
Thess. 4:13 ff.]

The other blessing of death is this, that it not only con