Seeing DEATH As God Sees It “… free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives” (Hebrews 2:15)

Death was not the Creator’s original plan for you and me. God created and breathed life into man (Genesis 1:27; 2:7, 9)

Death is a consequence of man’s sins. God warned about disobedience (Genesis 2:17). “… insubordinations is as iniquity and idolatry” (1 Samuel 15:23). “… just as through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12) Hebrews 9:27

Death is simply a separation of body and spirit. When the body cannot be a dwelling for the spirit, the spirit departs (Genesis 3:19; James 2:26) Scriptures depict death as being asleep (John 11:11; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-15). Image-bearers of God do not cease to exist. Hebrews 9:27; Ecclesiastes 12:6-7; Luke 23:46

The devil has power of death (Hebrews 2:14). Satan: father of lies (John 8:44), ruler of this world (John 12:31), and prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:1). When he deceives us to transgress, he becomes a slave-master of alienation, separation and death. Sin is death’s sting (1 Corinthians 15:56).

Man no longer has to remain in bondage to the fear of death. “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.” (Hebrews 2:14-15) Matthew 16:18; 1 Corinthians 15:24-26

Man no longer has to remain in bondage to the fear of death. “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?... Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:55, 57). Death cannot separate a disciple from God’s love in Christ (Romans 8:37-39).

Man no longer has to remain in bondage to the fear of death. Paul did not fear the state of death because his hope in the Lord was a living hope. Philippians 1:21, 23; 2 Timothy 4:6, 8 Before feasting on the prepared table in the Lord’s house, we must walk “through the valley of the shadow of death” (Psalm 23:4). With the Good Shepherd, “fear no evil.”