How does death lose its authority?

The apostle Paul says, “So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’” (1 Cor. 15:54). The sword of death will no longer reign over humanity but will shatter before immortal eternity. Here, death is personified and presented as a predatory entity that swallows up humanity throughout the generations; but with the resurrection of the body and the downfall of the kingdom of death, death itself is swallowed up and is destroyed by eternity. God reigns and death no longer exists. Indeed, our body in the world remains under the sway of the sword of death until the resurrection is accomplished, when the thorn of death will no longer exist and death will no longer have any authority.

St. John Chrysostom says, “Not so much as a fragment of it remains nor a hope of returning, incorruption having consumed corruption.”¹³³⁵

The apostle Paul says, “O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” (1 Cor. 15:55). Here he personifies death and Hades, making death a thorn like the prod used to drive an ox with repeated jabs; and making Hades a kingdom that has utterly conquered humanity, and from whose empire no one escapes.

Ancient inscriptions depict death as a skeleton with a crown on its skull and a spear in its hand with which to kill everyone. The Jews depict the angel of death carrying a sword from which deadly drops fall into the mouths of all people.

The word “tomb” is often used in place of Hades, as it is the place where souls are separated from human bodies.

St. Gregory of Nyssa says, “You saw the thing proclaimed working in others — those who were about to die, the child which had just ceased to live, the young man at the edge of the grave, the putrefying corpse, all alike restored by one command to life. Do you seek for

1334 St. Jerome, Letters 14.11 (NPNF II/6:18).

1335 St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the First Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians 42.4 (NPNF I/12:256).

those who have come to death by wounds and bloodshed? Does any feebleness of life-giving power hinder the grace in them? Behold Him Whose hands were pierced with nails: behold Him Whose side was transfixed with a spear; pass your fingers through the print of the nails; thrust your hand into the spear-wound … If He then has been raised, well may we utter the Apostle's exclamation, ‘How say some that there is no resurrection of the dead?’ (1 Cor. 15:12).”¹³³⁶

St. Augustine says, “But when the flesh shall be in harmony with the mind, and ‘death shall be swallowed up in victory’ (1 Cor. 15:54), so that no carnal desires shall remain for the mind to be in conflict with, when strife in the earth shall have passed away, the war of the heart be over, and that be gone by which is spoken, ‘the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary the one to the other; so that you cannot do the things that you would’ (Gal. 5:17).”¹³³⁷

St. Athanasius says, “For by nature human beings are afraid of death and of the dissolution of the body. But this is most amazing, that one who has put on the faith of the cross scorns even things according to nature, and is not afraid of death because of Christ.”¹³³⁸

St. John Chrysostom says, “But when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory … Do you see his noble soul? How even as one who is offering sacrifices for victory, having become inspired and seeing already things future as things past, he leaps and tramples upon death fallen at his feet, and shouts a cry of triumph over its head where it lies, exclaiming mightily and saying, ‘O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory?’ It is clean gone, it is perished, it is utterly vanished away, and in vain have you done all those former things. For He not only disarmed death and vanquished it, but even destroyed it, and made it quite cease from being.”¹³³⁹

St. Augustine says, “Where is death now? Look for it in Christ, it’s no longer there; it was there, however, and it died there. Oh, what life, the death of death! Be of good heart, it will also die in us. What has first occurred in the head will also be given to the members; death will also die in us. But when? At the end of the world, in the resurrection of the dead, which we believe, about which we have no doubts.”¹³⁴⁰

1336 St. Gregory of Nyssa, On Making of Man 25.12 (NPNF II/5:416) amended.

1337 St. Augustine of Hippo, Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 6.8 (NPNF I/6:276) amended.

1338 St. Athanasius of Alexandria, On the Incarnation 28 (PP44A:109–111). 1339

St. John Chrysostom, Homilies on the First Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians 42.4 (NPNF I/12:256–257) amended.

1340 St. Augustine of Hippo, The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century: Part III— Sermons; Volume VII: Sermons 230–272B , trans., Edmund Hill, ed., John E. Rotelle (New City Press, 1993) 233.5: p. 34.

“For then not only shall we not obey any enticement of sin, but there will be no such enticements of the kind we are commanded not to obey.”¹³⁴¹

“Because of the necessary activities of this life, health is not to be despised until ‘this mortal shall put on immortality’ (1 Cor. 15:54), and that is the true and perfect and unending health which is not refreshed by corruptible pleasure when it fails through earthly weakness, but is maintained by heavenly strength and made young by eternal incorruptibility.”¹³⁴²

“Because human nature was subjected to an enemy, man must first be rescued from his power, that he may fight him; then, if his life in this flesh is prolonged, he is assisted in the conflict that he may overcome the enemy; and finally the victor will be beatified, that he may reign, and at the very end he will ask: ‘Death, where is your devouring?’ (Hos. 13:14).”¹³⁴³