Gospel
A DEBTOR TO THE GRAVE
Sin has dug a grave for every soul living from the time of the fall of man in the Garden of Eden. Every man by default becomes a debtor to the grave; destined to fill his own grave as death comes and drags him down the grave. The promise of eternal life man had by promise seems shattered! (Titus 1:2) Corruption awaits every soul in the grave. No help in sight on the side of man, for every grave must be occupied.
One man named Joseph of Arimathea, along the road to his own grave, which he has made in anticipation of the time death will come and seize him and drag him down to the grave, saw Jesus Christ hung on a tree. He approached Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Having received the permission, he took the body of Jesus down form the cross and laid it in his own grave. This man may not fully comprehend what he did on that day, but the same is what Jesus had preached among them for over three years! (Mathew 27:57-60; Mark 15:43-46; Luke 23:50-53; John 19:38-42).
The grave is for Joseph, but Jesus Christ’s body occupied it in Joseph’s place. The debt Joseph owed the grave was thereby paid by the Jesus Christ. No debt to be paid again. Joseph is freed from the power of the grave! (Isaiah 53:2; Heb 2:9; 2Cor 5:14; Heb 2:15).
Jesus Christ knows the power of the grave, before which no man under heaven can stand. He came to deliver man from the power of the grave. This accounts for His unequalled compassion in the days of His flesh. He could not suffer the dead that comes His way to remain in the grave or the living to go there ahead of Him. With a tear laden eyes and agonized cry He called Lazarus out of the grave. Do not you wonder why He had to call Lazarus out of the grave, when He knew that eternal life awaited His believing friend! (John 11:1-45).
It is not His will that man should be held in corruption by the power of the grave. He had not gone ahead of them to tame the grave. He did not raise the dead to show His supernatural ability to do so, but out of compassion to revert the victory of the grave over man. He came to ransom man from the power of the grave to fulfill His promise:“I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be your plaques; O grave, I will be your destruction; pity shall be hidden from my eye.” (Hosea 13:14)
Now that He had gone down the grave ahead of man, death is no more a threat to those who believe in Him. The opened grave means the grave has forever lost its grip of terror on man. Having rendered the sting of death impotent, He vanguished the grave and what was once a monster becomes a chariot on which man rides into eternal life, in Christ Jesus! (1 Cor 15:54-57).
This is the good news for every man under heaven. Instead of you to drink and eat and die tomorrow, here in Christ Jesus is present today the promise of life the power of the grave cannot terminate; the resurrection power! Jesus truly died for all men, according to the gospel. You can appropriate His death for mankind by letting His body lie in your grave. For every sinner, His body still hangs on the tree. You can ask that His body be laid in your grave today, by accepting Him as the perfect substitute for your sin (John 1:29)
Any one that Jesus Christ will meet in the belly of the grave at His coming to judge the world will have their part in the place of torment and eternal separation from God, where the grave itself will end its journey (Rev 20:13-14). To be absent from the body for them who are in Christ Jesus is to be present with the Lord. Jesus has taken the victory over the power of the grave.
Check your heart whether the fear of death is lurking in a rampart within. Or have you believed the deception that there is nothing beyond the grave? What, if you get there and discover there is? Jesus went there and came back to tell us there is. Friend, Jesus Christ has come and has destroyed him who has the power of death to deliever them who through fear of death are subject to bondage[ Hebrews 2: 14-15]. Those who are in Christ Jesus have passed from death into life. Don't pass on into eternity with pebles of fear in your heart. Why don’t you take side with the Victor, by letting Christ's body lie in your grave? You don’t have to die!.
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The message may also be for a sinner friend or neighbor, for whom Christ died. Why don’t you share the message? The whole heaven rejoices over a sinner who repents. Don’t stop the joy!
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