Narrow Way with Steve Phillips Stinging Power
A scorpion’s barb is affixed to the tail of death. None rest in peace. We delude ourselves with full-page banners of transitions to glory accompanying the demise of souls who have departed. We imagine that our confident proclamations will ensure that a better state awaits them. But we have ignored the Sting.
“The Sting of death is sin” -1 Corinthians 15:56. There yet remains a wage to be paid for our lifelong labors. We toiled night and day to earn it, and now payment will be meted out in full. “The wages of sin is death” –Romans 6:23. Some will receive but little; others will cash in bountifully: but all will be paid.
It is what is due, and is only fully handed out once we cross from this life to the next. It is stored up for all there. “Because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God: to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation” –Romans 2:5,8. Stinging.
We say R.I.P. because death terrifies all “who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives” –Hebrews 2:15. And why are we terrified of death? because in the deep recesses of our hearts we instinctively know that there is a scorpion’s barb of sin attached to death: and we know we are condemned.
And because we love sin, God abandoned us “to a depraved mind, to do what should not be done: unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, greed, evil, envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, gossip, slander, haters of God, violent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving: we encourage others to do them also” –Romans 1:28-31. Hence the Sting of death is sin; thus we tremble before the grim face of death.
“He was a good man.” And so we attempt to salve our troubled unspoken uncertainties. Truly we don’t know what his fate will be and where he abides now. But, we hastily scramble to silence troubling doubts by assurances that: “He was a good man: Was he not a good citizen, a church goer, and respected?”
“All must be well” is our tentative groundless conclusion spoken with bold face through guilty lips. We feel better when we say so. But it is not better; for we have also ignored the Power behind the Sting.
“The Power of sin is the law” -1 Corinthians 15:56. Failing flesh cannot overcome sin’s Power. Law is impotent to deliver because flesh is impotent. Jesus’ verdict is: “The flesh profits nothing” –John 6:63. Paul’s verdict is: “In my flesh dwells no good thing” –Romans 7:18. What is your own verdict?
The law demands of us what we do not possess. It sets standards but supplies nothing. Law requires but makes no remedy. It commands but can only condemn because we are corrupt. All attempts fail. “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, has become guilty of all” –James 2:10.
Hence the Power of sin is the law. Law is the stern constable enforcing its penalty upon all transgressors. “Cursed is everyone who does not keep on doing everything written in the book of the Law” –Galatians 3:10. No law has “been given which was able to impart life” –Galatians 3:21.
Baptized as an infant? Condemned. Confirmed and a communicant? Condemned. Attend church meetings regularly? Condemned. Pay tithes faithfully? Condemned. Pray in the night vigils? Condemned.
No codes, regulations, creeds, and religious duties can save you from the Sting and Power of sin.
Enter Christ. “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having been made a curse for us” –Galatians 3:13. “You were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your empty way of life handed down by tradition from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ” -1 Peter 1:18,19. “The blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all unrighteousness” -1 John 1:7. There is a remedy.
And where we do greatly go astray is in attempts to appendage law to the grace of Christ. “Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but as debt. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace” –Romans 4:4; 11:6.
Which will it be then? Christ or Law? You cannot have both. Law earns you a wage you cannot afford to receive. Christ offers forgiveness at a price He alone could pay. There can be no mixture.
“The Sting of death is sin and the Power of sin is the law” -1 Corinthians 15:56. Law has no Power to amend the deathly Sting of Sin. Only Christ Jesus the Lord can eradicate that Stinging Power.