May 3 Daily Devotional

Bible Reading

1 Corinthians 15:20–26

Devotional

The last enemy will be destroyed, but not because it is the final enemy of God’s children. In truth, man must admit that he has invoked this enemy by his sins. But this last enemy will be destroyed because it is God’s enemy. This should bring rich comfort for God’s people. Their enemy is God’s enemy. That will be reality for us, when God has become our God. The enemies of the church are also the enemies of God. For their cause has become God’s cause and that is also applicable to this last enemy.

Death is God’s enemy. It is the enemy of God the Father, who did not create this world to have graves dug upon it. It is for God’s honor that the final enemy will be destroyed. God did not create man to die, but to live for Him. Death will be cast into the lake of fire. And the lost will certainly perish along with death forever. But the elect of God, even the smallest among them, will forever be delivered from this enemy. Only temporary death will be experienced. In Christ, the children of God will rise to new life and live with Him forever.

Temporary death was Christ’s last enemy. In His humiliation He breathed His final breath of life. But in His death He conquered spiritual and eternal death. It is true that to die means to meet God, but Christ greatly desired to be reunited with His Father. His work of redemption was complete. For Him, temporary death was only an entrance into His rest. He did not perish by this last enemy. And because of His temporary death, He takes His people along with Him into that rest. His death allows their entrance into life everlasting. That is why they also will not perish by this last enemy. This terrible enemy of death can do them no harm anymore. It will only be an entrance into life everlasting. It is an entrance to God. The last enemy, for which God’s people can now have so much terror, ensures that His people receive their utmost desire. Their earthly desires to be with God forever are fulfilled in Christ. “My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.”

 

From The Everlasting Word by Frans Bakker, compiled and translated by Gerald R. Procee. Reformation Heritage Books and Free Reformed Publications, 2007. Used by permission. For further information, click here.