Death Trampling Down Death
Death typically has airs of sadness and finality, regardless of our belief system. Even those who believe in an eternal afterlife experience the sadness of a lost loved one. There is, of course, deep theology surrounding the concept of death. I recently picked up a book of devotions by the Russian theologian Sergius Bulgakov. In it, I came across an oration discussing this very topic of death. I was greatly impresses with his take on death and want to share it.
We know that death was not originally intended for us, as humans. Death came about as a result of sin.
Genesis 3:19 — By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust and to dust you shall return.
This means that God created humans to be immortal but this was conditional on the absence of sin. Once sin happened, immortality disappeared and humanity became mortal. In fact, the whole world became fallen. We cannot know the extent of the pre-Fall situation. It is possible that animals were mortal before; they certainly are now.
Bulgakov makes an interesting point. He states that God did not create death. He says that death is part of the realm of non-being. He sees death as a sort of creature willfully falling away from God; a creature shutting itself off from the fullness of the gifts fo the Giver of Life. Death, the most cruel lot of the entire human race, is a necessity for humans. Because we are in a fallen world — because of sin — we are destined for death. There is no escape from that. Bulgakov’s main point centers on the concept of the death of Christ. He says that the death of Christ was a result of a voluntary, loving choice intended to save the human race; it was not a necessary end for Him. (I mean here, of course, that Christ, as a God-Man, was not necessarily faced with the same end as we humans are. In terms of atonement, though, Christ’s death was absolutely necessary. There is no other way for death to be destroyed — see below.)
If we imagine the world, the galaxy, the universe — these are created subsystems that together form a self-contained arena. These and everything in them were pulled by God out of nothing. Everything that sits outside this realm of the created is in the realm of non-being which necessarily contains virtually nothing. Nothing, that is, except for death and, of course, the Creator. This is starting to sound like the classic science fiction genre of the 1960s. Imagine that death is a tiny virus that somehow penetrates the universe and the galaxies, and makes it’s way to our planet. It infects the planet instantly and there is no apparent cure.
Jesus sits outside the realm of the created and lovingly, willingly makes a choice to enter the arena of the created in order to be the cure. The only way for the cure to be established is for the death to trample down death. In other words, the only way for this to work is if there were a resurrection; not just any resurrection but one where the One raised from the dead is also the One raising from the dead. Because Christ was abandoned by God the Father and God the Spirit during His death we can see that the reinstatement of the Spirit after that abandonment was a new creative act of God, as Bulgakov points out.
We also know that the world is fallen — and will remain so until the establishment of a new heaven and new earth: again, a new creative act of God. So we can see that only when we are completely immersed in the creativity of God are we living as we were intended to. This ultimate creation is coming. We see signals of it; we see traces of it. But it will not be ultimately realized until after Jesus returns. Why will this cycle not happen again? Is it not possible for the new heaven and new earth to be infected once again? No! Death has been defeated by death — the death of Christ.
So death is a very gruesome and final end. But because of Christ’s loving death, which trampled down death, we have ultimate hope.
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