Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia!
 Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!
Once He died our souls to save, Alleluia!
 Where thy victory, O grave? Alleluia!

Christ the Lord is Risen Today
By: Charles Wesley, 1707-1778

Listen as you read.  This is a short but beautiful cello version.

Let’s think about this.  He is alive because He has the authority to take His life up again after He laid it down.  He had to lay it down because our sin had a consequence.  The consequence was death.

Borrowed Tomb

There is a powerful line in a song we sang on Easter Sunday called Resurrecting, from Elevation Worship.

The tomb where soldiers watched in vain,
  was borrowed for three days.
His body there would not remain.
  Our God has robbed the grave.

Who borrows a tomb?  Only someone who knows they will be able to return it, having only needed it for a short time.  Jesus had a grave, but the Father robbed it.

Though when we sing this powerful stanza we are asking the rhetorical question, “Where thy victory, O grave?”, it could just as well be Jesus making the inquiry.   In fact, He had already asked those questions through the prophet Hosea hundreds of years before.

I will set these people free from the power of the grave.
    I will save them from death.
Death, where are your plagues?
    Grave, where is your power to destroy?  Hosea 13:14 NIrV

The grave thought it had defeated Christ, but it was only a fleeting illusion.  He conquered the grave when He left it empty.  Alleluia!  Take a moment and thank Jesus for leaving that tomb empty, and in so doing, giving you hope you will one day do the same.

Dying Once

Some versions of this stanza say “Dying once” instead of “Once He died”.  That is the one I am more familiar with so I like how it rolls off the tongue, possibly more from familiarity, but I have to admit the one here is actually more clear.  He was not dying once, he died once.  And He did so, because He had to.

Consider these two Scriptures.

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,  Romans 3:23

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 6:23

We have all sinned.  The wages of sin, what you get for doing it, is death.  Ergo, we all have earned the right to die.  Jesus traded us what He deserved, life eternal, for what we deserved, death.  His death dealt with sin, once for all.

So Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.    Hebrews 9:28

When Jesus died once for all He was satisfying the wrath of God in a way the sacrificial system of the Old Testament could never do.  The Tabernacle/Temple sacrifices had to be repeated  over and over because they could not really deal with sin by perfecting the conscience of the worshipper.  Hebrews 9 explains this beautifully, but these two verses capture it well.

Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.  Hebrews 9:25-26

Only Jesus was able to offer the perfect sacrifice.  Thanks be to God, He did!  Take a moment and thank Jesus for dying once, and in so doing, saving you for the wages of sin and offering you the gift of God, eternal life.

Alleluia!

Grateful Thinking!

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