- 36. Death is Swallowed Up
Isaiah 25:7, 8 And he will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the vail that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away the tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it.
Death is swallowed up in victory. Death is no longer a death, but now it is victory. Death has become the victory over death by the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Death is defeated; death is smashed; death is destroyed; death is swallowed up; death is no more; death is gone forever. This promise is fulfilled in Christ. Paul confirms this promise in the great resurrection chapter of I Corinthians 15. This promise is for us who have a part in the first resurrection, the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The promise will be fully realized in our own death and resurrection. And then the Lord God will personally wipe the tears from off all faces. This is certain, for the Lord has spoken it; and what God speaks is truth.
Death is a covering and a veil clouding the life of all people, since all people have been born in sin and the wages of sin is death. Just to have someone come and destroy death forever is great enough, but that He will replace death with victory is even greater. Life becomes what the Lord always intended it to be: eternal. We live in the ecstasy of victory every day because of this promise. Death and all of its little deaths (physical and emotional sufferings) has been overcome and driven out for all those who have received by faith the forgiveness of sins.
“In this mountain” means the Church on earth, which is heaven on earth, the place where the Lord makes Himself known through the Gospel. God has established a place into which we may enter to find sanctuary from the pervading influence of Death with its ever-present fears and worries. In this place we hear the Gospel that gives life. “Deliver us from evil” = “remove the veil of death and take us from this vale of tears to yourself in heaven.”