In Bondage to the Fear of Death.
I. There is no real ambiguity in the passage before us, though it may appear so at the first glance, in the use of the word death.Our Lord is said, by means of death, to have destroyed him who has the power of death. On the first occasion of its use, death means of course the death of the body; the completion of the life of suffering which is in itself inchoate death. In the second instance, the death, of which the devil is the source and power, includes more, for it includes the death of the soul. But the Christian writers look upon death, whether that of the body or soul, as the victory of a power opposed to God. As God is the God, not of the dead, but of the living, so He is the God of life, not of death. Every one who has died since Adam has yielded to a conqueror, and confessed his power. It is the curse of sin, that only through defeat can we conquer. We watch a Christian deathbed, and see it calm and triumphant; but it is the triumph of a confidence that is in obedience to power; in submission is victory.
II. The fear of death is not connected with any special religion. It belongs to the constitution of our being. We are made to love life, and to shrink from annihilation. Christ died, not to remove the necessity of death, but to deprive it of its sting; to rob the grave of its victory. Death remains; the last enemy, whose defeat is not yet, but seen in the light of Christ's revelation, and encountered in His Spirit, its triumph is annulled. For the Christian's triumph over sin is the pledge and foretaste of his triumph over death. The resurrection of the soul is earnest of the resurrection of the body. Death is a curse still; but we are no longer slaves to it when once we feel the stronger arm on which we may lean, the rod and staff which are at hand to comfort. And we may feel that He who has power to kill the body is welcome to the victory, since Christ has obtained for us the salvation of the soul.
A. Ainger, Sermons in the Temple Church,p. 87.
References: Hebrews 2:14. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. iv., No. 166; Ibid., Morning by Morning,p. 111; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. ii., p. 273; Bishop Westcott, The Historic Faith,p. 59. Hebrews 2:14; Hebrews 2:15. Church of England Pulpit,vol. xviii., p. 3; F. Lawrence, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxvi., p. 267; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., p. 454.Hebrews 2:14-16. Homilist,2nd series, vol. iii., p. 109. Hebrews 2:14-18. H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xiii., p. 249. Hebrews 2:15. Ibid.,vol. xiv., p. 43.