This is what
Christ's death has done for the bodies of his people; and is it not an
entire breaking of the power of the devil over death? As to their souls,
death delivers them from the burden of the flesh, that they may be in joy
and felicity with God. "Absent from the body," they are for ever
"present with the Lord." Death is no longer a dark and dreadful phantom,
rising from the abyss, to drag down his victims and gorge himself upon
them. He is an angel, pure and bright, sent to summon God's beloved to
their Father's house above. That which men naturally dread as the crown
and climax of all evils, becomes an object of wistful longing, for God's
servants have "a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far
better." This stripping away of Satan's power, this destruction of "him
that had the power of death," is due to the death of Jesus. He thus
redeemed us from the debt of death, "acknowledging the debt in the manner
in which he removed it." "Christ, by giving himself up to death, has
acknowledged the guilt, and truly atoned for it; He has, in one act,
atoned for the sinner and judged the sin." By dying for sins, He
expiated that which gives to death its "sting," its power to injure and
to terrify. He

"Entered the grave in mortal flesh,
And dwelt among the dead,"

that He might put an end to Satan's power in and over death. Some sound
and excellent divines are of opinion that, in the interval between his
death and resurrection He literally "descended into hell," and there, in
personal conflict, grappled with and overthrew the devil. However this
may be, it is certain that the bruising of his heel by Satan was the
chosen means for his bruising of Satan's head. Our enemy, who brought
death into the world, is entirely baffled and defeated, as to the purpose
and effect of that calamity, in the case of all who believe in the death
of Christ. Their last act of faith gives them "the victory through our
Lord Jesus Christ." Then the God of peace "finally beats down Satan
under their feet." Death is "swallowed up of life." What power over
death has the devil in such a case? Is it not wholly counteracted? Is
not death a wholly different, nay, opposite thing to what he intended,
when by tempting and conquering our first parents he brought it into the
world? The body of the good man "is buried in peace, and his soul is
blessed for evermore." He shall never more, through the long eternity of
bli