Introduction
This is the word of the Lord,
1 Corinthians 15:50–58 ESV
50 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” 55 “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
Grace is such a small word for such a great work. Words to us are like small vessels that carry truths deeper than it can contain in its syllables. Fragile cups trying to carry the ocean, that often breaks under the weight of the truth they were meant to hold. There is a difference between the words of God and the words of man. Our words point to realities outside themselves. His words are reality.
When God speaks, things happen. His breath made light, land, stars, time. His voice didn’t describe the world that existed; it commanded it into being. His words carried the actual weight of glory that created the world and everything we see in it.
But to really understand grace, we must understand that Death is such a small word for such a great enemy. Just five letters. One syllable. But unlike grace, death is a word we feel more than we understand. Grace is often whispered. Death, we hear like a shout in the soul.
We know death not by study but by experience. We have stood by the hospital bed, by the grave, by the empty room. We’ve felt its ache, its theft, its finality. If grace gives, death takes. If grace restores, death robs. It consumes time, love, youth, health, memory, legacy. It doesn’t build. It breaks. And unlike grace—which many ignore—death never goes unnoticed.
This enemy is not abstract. It is painfully personal. It has touched every face in this room. It has knocked on every door, sat at every table, stolen from every family. So yes—death is a small word. But it casts a long shadow. It is, as Paul calls it, “the last enemy.” And the last of the enemies is always the greatest of the enemies because it claims to have the final word.
In my sermon today, I hope to capture in greater detail the reality of death, and the reality of grace, as it relates to us as Christians.
The Origin of Death and Grace
The passage before us is the grand crescendo (the culmination) of Paul’s teaching on the resurrection. Throughout 1 Corinthians 15, Paul has been laboring to show the absolute centrality of Christ’s resurrection—not just as a past event, but as the anchor of our future hope. The Corinthians were confused. Some questioned whether the dead would rise at all. And Paul answers not only with doctrine, but with a certain defiance – against death. Paul almost plays a funeral song of death itself, standing at the empty tomb, shouting into the grave: “O death, where is your sting?”
In these verses, we’re not just told that Christ is risen. We’re told that because He lives, death itself is dying. Listen to Paul’s appeal,
1 Corinthians 15:50 ESV
50 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
- This is the summary of your condition, brothers. You may not enter God’s kingdom as you are. Humanity is flesh and blood, and is ‘perishable’. Now that word is important. It is important because we were not created as perishable beings. Rather, we have become perishable by the inheritance of sin. In other words, all of humanity are slaves of death. Every second is a countdown to the end.
- In order to understand the greatness of death as an enemy, and the greatness of grace as an ally, we must look to the beginning.
The first we hear of death is in Genesis 2:16-17
Genesis 2:16–17 ESV
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
What does death mean? Most men understand death as the finality of earthly existence, but they do not understand what follows physical death. Most Christians call death (in hell) as eternal separation from God. Yet, what does separation of God mean.
Psalm 139:7–12 ESV
7 Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! 9 If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” 12 even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.
There is no total separation from God who is omnipresent and omniscient – who sees all, and is everywhere. Therefore, Reformed theology understands “death” in Genesis 2:17 to include multiple aspects:
Spiritual Death
There is a separation, but it is the soul’s separation from God’s favourable presence. For Adam, this occurred immediately. He was alienated from God and became spiritually dead – him and all his descendants.
Physical Death
The corruption of the body began (the countdown began) leading to biological death. This death for Adam was not instantaneous, it was slow and arduous. This process of life that leads to the grave was inevitably activated.
Eternal Death
The full expression of God’s judgment, unless redemption intervenes. This is what Adam—and all his descendants—deserve.
The Westminster Larger Catechism (Q. 27) states:
“The fall brought mankind into an estate of sin and misery. This includes the guilt of Adam’s first sin, the want of original righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature…”
When God told Adam he shall surely die, it was a covenantal sentencing to death. Death is an enemy that cannot be fought. No matter how hard we wrestle against him, he who devoured all your ancestors, will devour you too. But death has a rival, an old and ancient enemy of death that long existed before he did – Grace. What is grace? It is the unmerited favour of God. It is God’s favourable disposition to the man who has done nothing to deserve it. Theologians have long noted that even in the moment of divine judgment—when Adam and Eve are trembling, ashamed, and guilty—God does not leave them with despair. Instead, He gives them a promise:
Genesis 3:15 ESV
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
This verse, often called the protoevangelium—the first gospel—is the whisper of redemption in the midst of ruin. God curses the serpent, but in doing so, He preaches grace. He announces a war between the serpent and the woman, and a final blow that will one day come through her offspring.
From that moment on, every generation would either hope in that promise or forget it. But grace remained. Quiet at times. Loud at others. But never absent. It clothed Adam and Eve. It protected Cain. It spared Noah. It called Abraham. It led Israel. And in the fullness of time, that ancient promise took on flesh and stepped into death’s domain.
But, we must remember that grace predates the fall. Grace was already there in Genesis 1, breathing life into dust, building gardens, and calling it all “very good.” Death may have interrupted the song—but grace wrote the first note. And therefore, it will be grace that will write the last.
Romans 9:11–13 ESV
11 though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad—in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of him who calls— 12 she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” 13 As it is written, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”
Much like the unborn Jacob, God’s grace abounded before the the unborn Adam.
Ephesians 1:4 ESV
4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love
This is grace, and this is death – rivals for the souls of men. Therefore, you see, the sin of Adam entered us to the slavery of death. Death has us, as a human race. Therefore, the inheritance of flesh and blood is death. We have become the perishable – the fading away, the dying. From the moment of Adam’s sin, we are dying men.
Romans 5:12 ESV
12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—
1 Corinthians 15:21–22 ESV
21 For as by a man came death,….22 For as in Adam all die, …. [Seeing death everywhere]
Grace made war
1 Corinthians 15:51–52 ESV
51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.
If death is the last enemy, then Christ is the final warrior. If sin entered through one man, then grace must enter through another. For centuries, grace and death have fought over the souls of men, till at last their war culminated in a final battle. Death spread to all men because all have sinned, and so grace did the unthinkable.
2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV
21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
If death spread to all men because all sinned, then grace would be a person who knew no sin, yet became sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21). The Grace of Almighty God that is full in the heart of his Son, descended to fight. And that’s what Paul begins to reveal next. He says: “Behold! I tell you a mystery…” (1 Cor. 15:51) This is a mystery in the biblical sense—a hidden reality now revealed in the gospel. And here is the mystery: Grace became a Man—and walked into death’s domain to declare war. And the conclusion of that battle resulted in this least of the Apostles to teach us that “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed…”
Hebrews 2:14 ESV
14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,
What Adam ruined in a garden, Christ redeemed in a grave. What Adam lost in weakness, Christ regained in power. What Adam forfeited in sin, Christ secured in righteousness. This is why we are changed. In a moment—in the twinkling of an eye—the perishable will put on the imperishable. Why? Because someone went first. Because someone took on flesh and blood so He could bleed. Because Jesus Christ—the grace of God made flesh—did not come to negotiate with death, but to destroy it. In the death of Adam, we became a perishable and dying species, but in the death and resurrection of Christ, death became a perishable and dying species.
John 3:16 ESV
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Death is spiritual, physical and eternal – so is Grace. In Christ, we are spiritually resurrected into a new life – we are born again. We are given the promise of eternal life in the final resurrection.
So in 1 Corinthians 15:26 NASB95
The last enemy that will be abolished is death.
Here is most specifically talking about the final death of death – the end of physical death.
The Death of death
1 Corinthians 15:53–57 NASB95
For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
The Grace of Christ has ended the reign of death over those who believe in Christ. First we put on the imperishable, the mortal put on immortality. In other words, we as Christians, live as imperishable Christians in perishable bodies. But one day, we will be given imperishable bodies.
Death is swallowed up in victory!
Do you hear that? Death who swallowed Kingdoms is now swallowed up in Christ’s victory. And more that victory is yours in Christ Jesus.
So, this is the human cry, “ O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? ”
Sting of death is sin, and power of sin is the law – and Christ overcame it all.
1 Corinthians 15:58 NASB95
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.
- This is the Christian life now – steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of God
- None of our toil is in vain
J.I. Packer’s essay is titled: “Introductory Essay to John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ”. It serves as the foreword to the Banner of Truth edition of Owen’s book and has become one of the most important and influential essays on the doctrine of particular redemption (limited atonement) in modern Reformed theology.
Overview of the Essay
Packer wrote the essay to help modern readers engage with John Owen’s heavy theological work by laying out:
1. The Doctrinal Context
- He explains why Owen wrote The Death of Death—to defend definite atonement against the rising tide of Arminianism and general redemption views in his day.
- Packer frames the doctrine as Christ dying to actually save, not merely to make salvation possible.
“The Gospel is not a mere invitation, but a powerful call. Christ does not offer salvation — He accomplishes it.”
2. What Is the Gospel?
Packer famously argues that most evangelicals today preach a reduced gospel — one that says Jesus died for everyone but doesn’t actually save anyone unless they respond. “The modern gospel is too exclusively concerned to be helpful to man — to bring peace, comfort, happiness, satisfaction — and too little concerned to glorify God.” He insists the true gospel starts with God, not man, and declares what God has done, not what He’s made possible.
3. The Nature of Christ’s Death
Packer explains that:
- Christ’s death actually accomplished redemption for the elect.
- To say Christ died for all, but some are still lost, is to weaken the atonement — it either fails to save, or it only makes people savable.
- Owen’s thesis is: Christ died for His sheep, and His death actually secured their salvation.
“Christ’s death saved; it did not merely create the possibility of salvation.”
4. Why Modern Evangelicalism Needs Owen
In Packer’s view, recovering Owen is a remedy for:
- Flimsy views of salvation
- Easy-believism
- Decisionism
- A man-centered gospel
Packer’s essay is a clarion call to robust Reformed soteriology, showing how Owen’s arguments protect the heart of the gospel.
