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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadWilliam Burkitt Notes and Observations - 1 Corinthians 15:56 - 15:56
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Observe here, 1. Death has its sting. A sting has a threefold property, to pierce, to pain, and to poison: all which were applicable unto death.
Observe, 2. Death's sting is sin, or death has its sting upon the account of sin. Sin, like a sting, pierces; it pierces us in its guilt, it pierced Christ in its punishment. The soul which no weapon can reach, sin can wound. As a sting, it paineth as well as pierceth. Judas was so pained with it, that in the height of horror he hanged himself in hopes of ease. And as a sting it poisoneth; sin is a deadly poison, pleasant in the mouth, bitter in the belly, baneful in the end. So strong a poison is sin, that nothing could expel it but the blood of Christ.
Observe, 3. Death comes to a believer without a sting; behold, Christ became obedient unto death, that he might unsting death. Death shot its sting into our Saviour's side, there left it, and there lost it: it is not now unto any of his members a hurting, but a healing serpent; there is now no venom, no malignity in it.
Observe, 4. That as sin is the sting of death, so the strength of sin is the law. Not as if the law did encourage a man to sin, or strengthen him in sinning: for it prohibits sin under the severest penalties, and condemns the sinner to the pit of hell: but the law gives life, or adds strength, to sin.
1. By the curse and obligation of it, binding the sinner under the guilt of sin to the judgment of the great day. Thus the law strengthens sin, by putting into it a condemning power.
2. By the irritation of the law: sin takes occasion by the law, and by the commandment becomes exceeding sinful; when lust finds itself restrained, then like a river that is stopt, it rises and foams and rebels against the law of the mind, and fetches in all its force to rescue itself from that sword which heweth it in pieces.
3. By the conviction and manifestation of the law, laying open sin to the conscience of the sinner, and showing him that God is all eye to see, and all fire to consume, every unclean thing. Thus the law gives sin its strength, and death its warrant, to arrest and execute us. Ah, wretched and miserable sinner! upon whom, together with death, the weight of sin, and the curse of the law fall together! which woundeth deep, and presseth low, even to the lowest hell, unless thou canst say truly, what the apostle doth triumphantly, in the next verse.