Death after Jesus is different from death before Him. Moderns struggle to grasp this point. They assume that I am a Christian minister telling Christians how they might now feel about death. But I am actually telling you about death itself. It has been transformed root and branch.

The devil had the power of death before Christ took on our nature in order to enter the grave. The devil was always leashed, of course; he could act only under God’s permission. But act he did. Death was the devil’s servant from the first Adam to the Second Adam. In this arrangement, man was “subject to bondage” through the “fear of death” (Hebrews 2:15).

So death was the devil’s servant, and it was through that servant that our Lord vanquished its master: “[Christ] also himself likewise took part of [flesh and blood] that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death” (Hebrews 2:14-15).

Through Christ’s death, the devil has been dethroned. Death has been delivered a death sentence, the last enemy to be destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:26). In the meantime, death has been defanged. It is a toothless cobra (1 Corinthians 15:55). I’ve seen children dance on its den (Isaiah 11:8).