"Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery." (Hebrews 2:14-15 ESV)
The fear of death has plagued humanity since the dawn of time. Depending on which study you read, the fear of public speaking ranks near the top of modern human fears, with the fear of death not far behind. One observer noted that people would rather be the deceased at a funeral than the one delivering the eulogy! The writer of Hebrews captures this primal anxiety, describing those "who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery."
But what kind of bondage comes from fearing death? And how did Christ conquer this oppressive fear through His work on the cross? To grasp the fullness of our deliverance, we must first understand the depth of our captivity.
The Universality of Death
From a Biblical perspective, the root of death's sting lies in its origin - the rebellious sin of Adam and Eve. God's clear command was, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die" (Genesis 2:16-17). When tempted by the serpent, Eve rationalized that the forbidden fruit was "desirable for gaining wisdom" (Genesis 3:6) and ate. Adam followed suit, setting the dominoes of mortality into motion for all their descendants.
Death was not part of God's original created order. It entered the world as the severe yet gracious consequence of sin. Life was a gift meant to be eternally enjoyed in fellowship with the Giver. But by rejecting the life source, Adam and Eve triggered the tragic sequence Paul describes - "sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin" (Romans 5:12). The most harrowing implication is that both the physical death of the body and spiritual death (separation from God) were now inevitably woven into the fabric of human existence.
This fearful paradigm shift ushered in a new era where death cast its grim shadow over every life. Its certitude left an indelible mark on the human psyche. The finality, pain, and loss of death inspire primordial fear in even the most courageous souls. As Moses somberly stated, "The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble" (Psalm 90:10). The grave became the universal terminus whether through "violence" that "take(s) them away" or "terrors of death" that "fall upon them" (Psalm 55:4, 15).
But death's impact extends far beyond the mortality of the body. The fear of death spiritually and psychologically enslaves those under its power to a "lifelong slavery" (Hebrews 2:15). This oppressive bondage fuels attitudes and behaviors that impair human flourishing and fracture relationships with God and others.
The Futile Cycle of Death-Denial
Some respond stoically to death while denying its inevitability or permanence. The materialist worldview rejects any supernatural reality beyond the physical world and its cycle of life and death. In this view, death renders human existence ultimately futile—a cosmic blink that returns to the unconscious void before birth.
Epicurus, the ancient Greek philosopher, argued that fearing death is "the most formidable of all evils," yet it should not trouble the wise because "when we exist, death is not present, and when death is present, we do not exist." From this perspective, death is a complete cessation of existence and experience, neither to be feared nor desired. But such denial of life after death cannot satisfy the deepest longings of the human soul for beauty, truth, goodness, love, and eternal significance. As Pascal insightfully remarked, "There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person which cannot be satisfied by any created thing but only by the Creator."
This vacuum fuels the impulse of modern secular societies to pursue wealth, fame, pleasure, and power feverishly as desperate salves for death's futility. The fear of life's brevity and the finality of death prompts some to anesthetize themselves through mindless consumption, achievements, addictions, and hedonistic excess. However, the resulting emptiness only serves to deepen the despair of meaninglessness, failing to liberate from the slavery of death. As the Teacher poignantly observes in Ecclesiastes: "All is vanity and a striving after wind" (1:14, 2:11).
The Endless Spiritual Quest
Others embrace various religious or philosophical traditions that posit the afterlife as some form of spiritual reincarnation, absorption into a universal consciousness, or eternal bliss in celestial realms. The major world religions offer starkly different conceptions of the afterlife compared to the biblical worldview.
In Hinduism and Buddhism, the illusion of individual selfhood and attachment to the temporal world are the root causes of all suffering and the cycle of death and rebirth. Enlightenment through rigorous spiritual disciplines and eliminating all cravings and aversions enables the soul to escape the perpetual cycle of reincarnation (samsara) and be absorbed into divine consciousness or attain nirvana—freedom from all desires, sufferings, and individual self.
This path unapologetically bypasses the fear of death not by assuring eternal life but by extinguishing the reality of the individual soul and self through its reunification with the ground of all beings – the ultimate impersonal reality of Brahman or the eternal Buddha nature.
In contrast, the Muslim conception of the afterlife involves the disembodied individual souls of the righteous dwelling eternally in the celestial gardens of Jannah (the Islamic conception of paradise) to experience everlasting sensual and spiritual pleasures. However, the souls of unrepentant unbelievers face the conscious, eternal torment of Jahannam (Islamic hell).
While the Quran acknowledges human fear of death numerous times, Surah 3:185 emphatically states: "Every soul will taste death, and you will only be given your [full] compensation on the Day of Resurrection. So he who is drawn away from the Fire and admitted to Paradise has attained [his desire]. And what is the life of this world except the enjoyment of delusion." Islam appears to address the fear of death by vividly portraying paradise and encouraging faith, righteous deeds, and fearless martyrdom.
However, the Quranic guarantee of the afterlife is tenuous at best - no objective mechanism is provided to assure salvation for any individual beyond a perpetual call to faith and total submission (the meaning of the word 'Islam'). The constant divine threat of punishment in the grave and the ambiguity of admission criteria for paradise leave the faithful plagued with nagging doubts about whether their eventual fate is the celestial bliss of Jannah or the fiery torments of eternal hell. The fear of death and judgment is ever-present.
While these religious perspectives may appease existential angst and offer hope of transcending the material realm for a yearned-for spiritual utopia, they require adherents to metaphysically jettison their identities or rely on inconsistent ritual acts and behavioral checklists to qualify for the afterlife. But the biblical Gospel presents a starkly different solution to the dilemma of death and deliverance from its slavery.
The Wages of Sin
Humanity universally perceives death as an unnatural violation of how things are meant to be. Our souls intuitively recognize death as an egregious trespass on how life should unfold - uninterrupted, joyful, purposeful, filled with beauty, meaning, and satisfaction. The Bible concurs with this innate longing, identifying death not as the natural order but as an outrage - the tragic wages of sin inflicted upon all mankind.
"For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23). The Scripture pinpoints the real culprit behind death - not blind material processes, not karmic cycles of rebirth, nor capricious divine judgment. Instead, sin - the willful rebellion against the Creator - brought death into the human experience as its deserved recompense. Death was not part of God's original creational intent but the stark consequence of humanity's "sin(ning) and fall(ing) short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23).
Whereas some religions view humanity's attachment to individual existence as the problem, the Bible presents indivisible human identity - with a soul longing for eternal life - as we were designed. Death violated our nature rather than fulfilling it. Instead of eliminating the soul's essence, the Gospel calls it to its highest restoration and authentic realization in Christ.
But how could God, who is "not willing that any should perish" (2 Peter 3:9) and "wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4), redeem humanity from its self-inflicted mortality? How could He satisfy His perfect justice while fulfilling His boundless grace? The good news is that His righteousness and love were perfectly reconciled through Jesus' substitutionary sacrifice on the cross, paving the way for humanity's liberation from death's oppression.
Slaying the Slavemaster
The Book of Hebrews highlights how Christ took on human flesh and experienced the agonies of death Himself so "that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery" (2:14-15). Here, the word "destroy" translates to the Greek katargeo, which means abolishing something and stripping away or nullifying its power and influence.
Through His perfect life, sacrifice on the cross, and resurrection, Jesus not only paid the penalty for sin but severed sin's intractable link to death, decisively defeating the devil - the one who had wielded death like a slavemaster over humanity for millennia. The Greek word translated as "destroy" in Hebrews 2:14 is the same verb used when Scripture declares: "The last enemy to be destroyed [katargeo] is death" (1 Corinthians 15:26). Jesus triumphed over death and Satan at Calvary, stripping them of their mastery over those who belong to Christ.
Satan's original deception of Eve plunged humanity into sin's slavery, separation from God, and subjugation under the reign of death (Genesis 2:17, Romans 5:12). As the author of sin, Satan is deemed "a murderer from the beginning" (John 8:44). He delights in wielding death as a cosmic bludgeon to produce fear, torment, and spiritual paralysis. But through the cross, Jesus utterly disarmed Satan, triumphing over every principality, power, and cosmic force of evil that could accuse or enslave believers (Colossians 2:15).
The defeated devil lost his authority and stranglehold, now rendered toothless and impotent over all those delivered from sin's dominion by Christ. By His death, Jesus "abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel" (2 Timothy 1:10). He plundered Satan's former captives, removing their fear of death and leading them from sin's domain of darkness into the glorious freedom and confidence of eternal life (Colossians 1:13-14, Hebrews 2:15).
Victory in Death
The apostle Paul encapsulates this climactic conquest of death in the oft-quoted pronouncement: "Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Corinthians 15:54-57).
Here, Paul rejoices that death has not only been defeated; it has been completely overpowered, rendered impotent - its "sting" of sin abolished by the only One who perfectly fulfilled the law's righteous demands. Christ's victory over sin rendered death a nullity for believers swallowed up entirely in the supremacy of His resurrection power and eternal life.
Earlier in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul reminds believers that Christ's resurrection is the "firstfruits" (v. 20, 23) of our coming resurrection. Just as buds from branches foreshadow the full harvest, so Christ's resurrection - witnessed by over 500 eyewitnesses (1 Cor. 15:6) - is the initial manifestation guaranteeing the future bodily resurrection of all believers into glory, incorruption and immortality (v. 42-49). The grave is not the believer's terminal destination but a temporary vessel awaiting its own redemption (Romans 8:23).
This assurance impelled Paul to exuberantly declare: "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21) because death now meant being "at home with the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:8) until his resurrection body was granted (1 Cor. 15:51-52). What was there to fear in death's dissolution, when its power is nullified, and ultimate victory is assured through Christ's triumph? Does the caterpillar tremble at the thought of transmuting into a butterfly?
Delivered from Lifelong Slavery
For those in Christ, the fear of death has lost its mastery. He has ransomed us from sin and abolished the grave's stronghold, deposed the devil's authority as the grim reaper, and vaulted us into the incalculable privilege of being "heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ" (Romans 8:17). Eternity in His radiant presence awaits, bodies made immortal, every tear wiped away (Revelation 21:4), and the sufferings of this age paling in insignificance compared to the splendor prepared for us (Romans 8:18).
This is the unfathomable grace and liberation believers experience through the gospel. We are free from death's lifelong bondage because we are now children of God, "born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you" (1 Peter 1:3-4). The fear of death has been extinguished because our eternal inheritance in the age to come is irrevocably guaranteed.
This eternal perspective revolutionizes how we live in the present world. The haunting anxiety over what happens after we die has been answered - eternal fellowship with our Creator in unbroken joy, free from sin, corruption, and death forever. Dismay over the fleeting futility of this life yields to exuberant purpose, for Christ has rendered all our present labor, suffering, and stewardship eternally significant - an investment into our treasures that await in heaven (Matthew 6:20).
The slavery of living under death's morbid reign and in abject fear of annihilation has been shattered. We are unshackled to pursue God's kingdom purposes with dauntless faith, knowing our future is irrevocably secure in Him. Living in bondage to the fear of death is a cruel mirage that has been extinguished by the blazing truth of Christ's resurrection life in us: "For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it" (Mark 8:35).
Rejoice in the Resurrection!
Unbelievers can only contemplate death in the abstract, for they have not yet grasped the revelation of resurrected life in Christ. Death remains an enigma, a bewildering mystery masking ultimate oblivion. Even the professed atheist must reckon with the visceral human intuition that physical death cannot possibly be the terminal point for personal existence.
We were created for much more than a cosmic blink of accidental, reductionist purposelessness. Our depth of self-awareness, rational consciousness, moral convictions, and transcendent longings defy a materialist explanation. The indelible human quest for meaning, beauty, and intrinsic value points to imago Dei - our creation in the image of an infinitely purposeful, intelligent, and personal Divine Creator.
For the non-believer contending with death, every ephemeral pleasure, accomplishment, and relationship is overshadowed by the relentless specter of death - an unwelcome intruder and cosmic futility stamp upon every human endeavor. Even if one amasses wealth, fame, and global power, the grave awaits as the "king of terrors" (Job 18:14) - life's final, inescapable punch line.
But believers in Christ no longer perceive death as the period terminating existence but as a transition from this decaying mortal sphere into the boundless resplendence of eternal resurrection life. This hope liberates us from the terror of spiritual obliteration or an endless, soul-rending divine judgment in rebellion against our Creator. The God who "so loved the world" (John 3:16) did not condemn us but sent His Son to bear the judgment we deserve. On the cross, "He himself bore our sins in his body" so that "by His wounds you were healed" (1 Peter 2:24).
This fact is the resounding message of Easter we celebrate: "He was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.
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