Where, Then, Is The Sting?

Oh death! Where is thy sting? 
Dread venom of lowest hell,
Brewed in the bitterness of hatred,
Where is thy sting,
Distilled from violence of rebellion,
Compounded of saddest separation?
This is death’s sting, and yet
Where, oh where, death, is thy sting?
 
Where does the sting incise,
Where pour out its poison,
Ghastly, grisly, doom-dealing, deadly?
In it the shame and pain of
Fruitless remorse, dull anguish,
Dry tongue cleaving, tears destroyed
In lethal cynicism, passion against God,
Rustlings of memories bringing horror,
And the incoming, ravaging darkness—
This is death’s sting.
Yet where, oh death, is thy sting?
 
How then the irrevocable loss
Of the holy, heavenly being—
Man brilliantly lit by God,
Pulsing in glory? How, where, is this loss?
Down in the mocking strata of death,
The leering, gaping grin of the grave,
The stench of corruption, glory-failure
And no-being in God. This is the sting.  
Yet, oh death, where, where is thy sting?
 
The sting is in him. Look up
(All ye that pass by). Look and see.
Do not let the divine drama pass over you,
Be over you, be gone. Look up!
 There, writhing with the sting. Oh yes,
Human enough to suffer and divine
Enough to bear. Look up and see,
All ye who pass by. See where death’s sting 
Was and is no more.
 
If a man stay and look, he will see.
If he pass by, then in a moment
He will pass by love, and will never see.
He will miss the miracle
Hid in the grim gallows. He will bypass
Love reaching out with cool arms
To embrace the sin-fevered.
He will pass by, not knowing
Where the sting has gone.  
  
Where is death’s sting? In him:
Annulled and made void: nothing.
Its poison absorbed, destroyed.
Death tried to conquer. This it could not.
This sting in man is death, fiery,
Anguish and flame of hell,
But in him—after the suffering—
Exploded myth of destruction.
In him the fire of death
Blazed to expending, and expended.
Then death, where is your sting?
 
Ask not, ‘Where is the deathly sting?’
For it is destroyed, absorbed into nothingness
By love’s holy power. Now
It is only life, life flowing,
Life in quality replete, surging up
Out of the empty tomb. Christ’s grave,
Empty through grace, is the wide room
Of man’s new spirit. Man is in life.
Man is enthroned in the heavens,
Having entered into his glory
Through man’s suffering. Man is high.
Gone then is death’s sting. 
Void in the victory—the ancient 
Annulled victory of the grave. 
Oh, death, where is thy sting?

From The Spirit of All Things, by Geoffrey Bingham, pp.90-92

Christ's Victory Over Death In The Resurrection

Because [Jesus'] resurrection is unique, it is not easy for us to follow the battle it represented in the moral–spiritual realm where evil still seeks to destroy the good, and so triumph over it. We do, however, have some indications of what happened.

 
The first is that Jesus died in triumph and serenity. He said, ‘Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit!’ Luke adds, ‘Having said this, he breathed his last’ (23:46). Mark says, ‘And Jesus uttered a loud cry, and breathed his last’ (15:37). Matthew records, ‘And Jesus cried again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit’ (27:50). The ‘loud cry’ may have been that of ‘It is finished!’ or ‘Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit!’, or both cries may have been made loudly, but whatever it was he appears to have had great strength before voluntarily laying down his life.

 
The cry of commendation in Luke 23:46 is a quote from Psalm 31. It directs us to the dependence of the psalmist upon God:
  

 In thee, O Lord, do I seek refuge; let me never be put to shame; in thy righteousness deliver me!
Incline thy ear to me, rescue me speedily! Be thou a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me!
Yea, thou art my rock and my fortress; for thy name’s sake lead me and guide me,
take me out of the net which is hidden for me, for thou art my refuge.
Into thy hand I commit my spirit; thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.

 
Christ—in the face of death—is dependent upon God, and sure He will deliver him.

The apostles frequently used Psalm 16. In Acts 2:24 Peter says, ‘But God raised him up, having loosed the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.’ The statement ‘it was not possible for him to be held by it [death]’ is a most significant one. Peter explains this by applying Psalm 16:8– 11:

 
For David says concerning him, ‘For I saw the Lord always before me. for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken; therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; moreover my flesh will dwell in hope. For thou wilt not abandon my soul to Hades, nor let thy Holy One see corruption. Thou has made known to me the ways of life; thou wilt make me full of gladness with thy presence.’ 

  

Paul also quotes part of this Psalm in his first recorded sermon (Acts 13:35). He adds to the quote:

 
For David, after he had served the counsel of God in his own generation, fell asleep, and was laid with his fathers, and saw corruption; but he whom God raised up saw no corruption.  

  

Are we to gather that Christ’s body did not corrupt? The term ‘see corruption’ is a synonym for human death, involving the destruction of the body. Romans 5:12–21 makes it clear that human death as we know it resulted from the Fall. I Corinthians 15:55–56 shows that death’s sting is sin, and sin’s power is (by) the law, ie. the guilt of sin in the face of law that has been transgressed.

 
We are sure that death had no ‘sting’ for Christ. He defeated death before he died. As regards the body he died, but in the Spirit he rose, certifying his defeat of death. It is not absurd to say that his body did not even begin to corrupt. He had died to kill death, and this he did.

 
That does not mean that what to man is ‘the avalanche of death’ did not come upon him: it did, but then it was no ‘avalanche’. It was not possible for death to hold him, and its pangs were no pang. Christ trusted the Father as he went into death. Psalm 16:8 says, ‘I keep the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.’ He adds, ‘Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices ‘ This is a beautiful state of mind. He adds yet again, ‘My body also dwells secure.’ Why is this? Because, ‘For thou dost not give me up to Sheol, nor let thy godly one [Holy One] see the Pit.’
  
Although we cannot enter into his experience of the Tomb and of death, yet we can gather it was a joyful one. He later showed to his followers the Scriptures which pertained to his death and resurrection (Luke 24:27 and 44: ‘ . . . everything written about me in . . . the psalms must be fulfilled’), and doubtless that is why the apostles quote Psalm 16—amongst other Psalms (eg. Psalms 2 and 110).

 
Death, then, through his death and resurrection, lost its sting. ‘He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification.’ The penalty of sin—death—is no more. He who dies in Christ does not die the ‘second death’. He does not come into judgement. ‘Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.’

 
When the disciples saw Christ risen, they were at first afraid. They trembled, but then ‘they believed not for joy’. The implications of his standing before them must have been immediate. The man who had hung on the cross some days before was now alive! He was so obviously stronger than death, and never had any man been stronger than death ! Thus he must be stronger than sin and all evil. Doubtless his words concerning resurrection then rushed into consciousness. They now knew the utter defeat of sin and death. No wonder ‘they believed not for joy’!

  

  

From Geoffrey Bingham's Christ, The Conquering King, pp. 37-39

The Message Of The Gospel Measured By What It Effects, Not Simpy How It Affects

  
...Christ had to make the soul which should respond to Him and understand Him. He had to create the very capacity for response. And that is where we are compelled to recognise the doctrine of the Holy Spirit as well as the doctrine of the Saviour. We are always told that faith is the gift of God and the work of the Holy Spirit. The reason why we are told that, and must be told it, lies in the direction I have indicated. The death of Christ had not simply to touch like heroism, but it had to redeem us into power of feeling its own worth. Christ had to save us from what we were too far gone to feel. Just as the man choked with damp in a mine, or a man going to sleep in arctic cold, does not realise his danger, and the sense of danger has to be created within him, so the violent action of the Spirit takes men by force. 

  

The death of Christ must call up more than a responsive feeling. It is not satisfied with affecting our heart. That is mere impressionism. It is very easy to impress an audience. Every preacher knows that there is nothing more simple than to produce tears. You have only to tell a certain number of stories about dying children, lifeboats, fire escapes, and so on, and you can make people thrill. But the thrill is neither here nor there. What is the thrill going to end in? What is the meaning of the thrill for life? If it is not ending as it should, and not ending for life, it is doing harm, not good, because it is sealing the springs of feeling and searing the power of the spiritual life.

 
What the work of Christ requires is the tribute not of our admiration or even gratitude, not of our impressions or our thrills, but of ourselves and our shame. Now we are coming to the crux of the matter—the tribute of our shame. That death had to make new men of us. It had to turn us not from potential friends to actual, but from enemies into friends. It had not merely to touch a spring of slumbering friendship. There was a new creation. The love of God—I quote Paul, who did understand something of these things—the love of God is not merely evoked within us, it is “shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given to us.” That is a very different thing from simply having the reservoir of natural feeling tapped. The death of Christ had to do with our sin and not with our sluggishness. It had to deal with our active hostility, and not simply with the passive dullness of our hearts. 

  

Our hostility—that is what the easy-going people cannot be brought to recognise. That is what the shallow optimists, who think we can now dispense with emphasis on the death of Christ, feel themselves able to do—to ignore the fact; that the human heart is enmity against God, against a God who makes demands upon it; who goes so far as to make demands for the whole, the absolute obedience of self. Human nature puts its back up against that. That is what Paul means when he speaks about human nature, the natural man—the carnal man is a bad translation—being enmity against God. Man will cling to the last rag of his self-respect. He does not part with that when he thrills, admires, sympathises; but he does when he has to give up his whole self in the obedience of faith. How much self-respect do you think Paul had left in him when he went into Damascus? Christ, with the demand for saving obedience, arouses antagonism in the human heart. And so will the Church that is faithful to Him. 

  

You hear people of the type I have been speaking about saying, If only the Church had been true to Christ’s message it would have done wonders for the world. If only Christ were preached and practised in all His simplicity to the world, how fast Christianity would spread. Would it? Do you really find that the deeper you get into Christ and the meaning of His demands Christianity spreads faster in your heart? Is it not very much the other way? When it comes to close quarters you have actually to be got down and broken, that the old man may be pulverised and the new man created from the dust. Therefore when we hear people abusing the Church and its history the first thing we have to say is, Yes, there is a great deal too much truth in what you say, but there is also a greater truth which you are not allowing for, and it is this. One reason why the Church has been so slow in its progress in mankind and its effect on human history is because it has been so faithful to Christ, so faithful to His Cross. You have to subdue the most intractable, difficult, and slow thing in the world—man’s self-will. You cannot expect rapid successes if you truly preach the Cross whereon Christ died, and which He surmounted not simply by leaving it behind but by rising again, and converting the very Cross into a power and glory.

From The Work of Christ, by P. T. Forsyth, pp. 18-21

Propitiation

Who knows how deep the Cross
Save he who hung and died?
Who knows how deep the deep
Save he who into deep’s great depths
Descended?
Who knows how deep the Cross
Save he who let his life-blood flow,
Save he whose mystery is veiled?

Deep, deep; deep in the depths
The darkest wrath of God; its tide
Flowed on, flowed under, through,
Flowed over him, the deepest depth
That none can depth, save Christ,
Who went the deepest depth full down
To reach the other side
Of depthless holiness.
 
So deep the wrath: so deep, so deep,
Full down as God’s deep holiness.

Tide after tide; tide over tide;
Tide upon tide flowed over him;
The burning of the holiness, the wrath
That grips the sin upon him laid,
And holds and shears a burning swathe
Across the alien lonely waste
Of dark pollution;
Bears on it from the endless holy love,
Giving no breath for foulness dark to live
But bears it down to death,
To changeless death, the endless death,
The full annihilation.

Deep down to deep, to depths of death,
And reconciliation.

From The Spirit of All Things, by Geoffrey Bingham, pp. 64-65

JESUS—’A GLUTTON AND A DRUNKARD’

Another aspect of Jesus’ ministry by which men were granted the renewal of heart which Jesus demanded was Jesus’ fellowship with sinners and His forgiveness of their sins. We have already noted that this action may properly be included in the miraculous or sign work of Jesus. 

 

Jesus shared table fellowship with sinners, at home and abroad. Admittedly this led to resentment and scandal within the religious (Mark 2: 16, Matthew 11: 19) but met with the sheer delight of the irreligious (Luke 19: 9, Mark 2: 19). Common dining set up a special bond: it symbolised unity of mind, and demonstrated brotherhood. To be invited to a meal was indeed an honour, to participate in life together. Exclusion signified the repudiation of social ties with the excepted person. Shared meals had had a long tradition in sacral ceremonies (Exodus 18:12, 24:11 and I Kings 3: 15), and this sacred character was expressed in everyday life, with the opening blessing uniting the participants in intimate communion, and the concluding responsive ‘amen’.
 

Concern for cleanliness is noted in John 4: 9b, where Jews do not associate with Samaritans. Religious elitism grew up, as the ‘right sort of associates’ were invited to share meals. Obviously the unclean, or sinners were excluded from joining with the ‘righteous’. We see that the ritualistic and moral basis of community were closely linked. Hence publicans, prostitutes, the greedy, dishonest, and adulterers were ‘without the group’.

This social order or structure, Jesus deliberately challenged. This was no mere breach of religious etiquette. Jesus attacked both questions – of the unclean (Mark 7: 17–20) and sinners (Luke 19: 5). He flaunted the most elementary considerations of morality (the Law) as well as purity: contempt(?) for the Law as He breached the directive of Psalm 1: 1, and ritual purity as taught in Proverbs 28: 7, ‘He who keeps the law is a wise son, but a companion of gluttons shames his father’. Surely the God of the Old Testament would not tolerate such action, since ‘he who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the LORD’ (Prov. 17: 15). But Paul saw that God ‘justifies the ungodly’ (Romans 4: 5), and Jesus’ ministry is the concrete expression of this.

 

John the Baptist had already prepared for this novel activity by declaring the bankruptcy of Mosaic religion, as he called the nation to repentance. He used the classic formula of repentance – conversion, then communion (Luke 3: 10–14). Jesus’ novelty consisted in the reversal of this: communion then conversion. The reign of God had not reduced any of its demands, but now it appeared that contact triggered off deep, dynamic repentance, that conversion blossomed from fresh communion. Whereas the Pharisees chided ‘the sinners’ with the Law, Jesus appeared to place no conditions on these same people.
 

When pressed, Jesus explained that this activity was an essential and integral part of His ministry. He was convinced that since these needy folk were ‘sick’, they needed the ‘physician’, so He went to assist them. Jesus had no hesitation: perhaps some of His disciples were, and were relieved when Jesus defended them (Mark 2:15ff). In this simple activity Jesus saw that the forgiveness and conversion of sinners was at stake (Matthew 21:28–32 and Luke 7:41–43), and that men were reconciled to God, and restored to the family of Israel (so Luke 19: 9). And all this was effected without any real undermining of the moral order.
 

The problem Jesus faced was how to win over the good, the pious Jews. What He gave was no embattled defence, nor superior ‘put down’, but a genuine appeal, seeking to win these folk over. It was a persistent effort to win ‘the righteous’, not humiliate them. This was prophesied in Isaiah 49:6 and Malachi 4:6.
 

Jesus knew that forgiveness effected responsive love. When reproached for such ease of forgiveness and acceptance, He responded that forgiveness produced love, not a renewed hardening and guilt. The sinner found acceptance guaranteed, without any conditions, only by returning home. This is clearly seen in the Parable of the Prodigal in Luke 15:12ff (an opportunity for Pharisees to repent and so rejoin the festive family) where Jesus appeals in response to His condemned activities (Luke 15:1–2). Although Jesus had obvious success – Zacchaeus evidenced a character change in his spontaneous giving, the ‘justified sinful woman’ demonstrated her love with service, and Matthew followed as a disciple – His presence with these people did not guarantee automatic renewal. Jesus ate with Pharisees (Luke 7:30ff and 11:37ff), but since forgiveness is an act of grace, not all desired to accept it. In Luke 15:25ff it means giving up any boasting in self–achievement, any slavish attitude of wage earner before God. Neither of the sons in this parable had lived as sons; they had denied their sonship in Israel, and the elder son rejected (finally?!) the fellowship of the father, together with the forgiveness of his brother.
 

Jesus then, by eating at table with any men, welcomed all to fellowship with the Father, and His brothers.

From Miracles of A Domestic Kind, by Dean Carter, pp. 18-21.

The Cross of Christ Has Moral Reality Not Simply Impressive Effect

It is sometimes said, “There are several theories of the Atonement, but we have to do with the fact, and not with our understanding of it.” This frame of mind is the root of all that is most feeble and ominous in our Churches today. The one thing we need is to understand the Atonement, with a life’s understanding, with a vital conscience. There it is that Christ comes to Himself for good. There, as it were, He finally finds His tongue, and takes command of the deep eloquence of moral things. Christ, I repeat, is to us just what His cross is. You do not understand Christ till you understand His cross. Nor have you measured the moral world. Such a fact as Christ or His Atonement only exists as it is intelligible, as it comes home to us with a moral meaning and a moral nature. It is only by understanding it that it becomes anything else than a martyrdom, that it becomes the saving act of God. It is only by understanding it that we escape from religion with no mind, and from religion which is all mind, from pietism with its lack of critical judgment, and from rationalism with its lack of everything else.... 

...The feeble gospel preaches “God is ready to forgive”; the mighty gospel preaches “God has redeemed.” It works not with forgiveness alone, which would be mere futile amnesty, but with forgiveness in a moral way, with holy forgiveness, a forgiveness which not only restores the soul, but restores it in the only final and eternal way, by restoring in the same act the infinite moral order, and reconstructing mankind from the foundation of a moral revolution. God reconciles by making Christ to be sin, and not imputing it (2 Cor. 5:21). The Christian act of forgiveness at once regards the whole wide moral order of things, and goes deep to the springs of the human will for entire repentance and a new order of obedience. This it does by the consummation of God’s judgment in the central act of mercy. 

Do not think of God’s judgment as an arbitrary infliction, but as the necessary reaction to sin in a holy God. There alone do you have the divine necessity of the cross in a sinful world—the moral necessity of judgment. A judgment upon man alone would have destroyed him. And a judgment borne by God alone would be manqué, it would be wide of the mark, as being irrelevant to man’s experience and regeneration. But borne by God in man, in such a racial, nay cosmic, experience as the cross of Christ, it is the creation of a new conscience, and of the new ethic of the race. When Christ died, all died. Dying with Christ is not a mere ethical idea, complete only as we succeed in doing it. It is a religious or mystic idea, which is ethical as taking effect in a holy act, where, however, it is already complete in principle. It is not applying the principle of salvation to life; the foregone salvation becomes our life; and practical Christianity is freely living it out, and not merely squaring life to it laboriously. The judgment involved is one that fell on Christ once for all. It is not a judgment in individual men, but in man in Christ. It is not the sum total of our self-judgments under Christ’s light; rather say, all our self-judgment is but inspired by the complete judgment on Christ once for all. It is on us according as we are in Him, yet not as a judgment, but as a grace; not as a punishment, but as salvation; not as a scourge, but as a cross.

From The Cruciality of the Cross, by Peter Taylor Forsyth, pp. 45-46; 52-54.

Where Lay His Head?

Safe in their nests the snuggling birds, 

Deep in its lair, protected in its hole, 

The fox cub often hunts, or hunted is; 

But on the broad face of his own created earth 

Christ roams without a place to lay his head.

 
To lay his head?! But Martha’s house was his, 

And Peter’s, too, and others loved him fair. 

How say we then he has no lair, no nest, 

No place secure, no love from friends?
He walked on earth as love embodied!
 

They loved with passionate love who lived so close, 

Who heard the rich voice cry out the truth 

And saw the dear body break and bleed 

On the cross of cruel strain; they loved
Until their hearts of pain wept tears.

And yet it’s true—the cruelty of men 

Bound in Adamic hate and fear, they cannot cry 

‘Come gracious Lord and dwell in me!’ 

They turn upon their lusts of life 

And spurn the Holy One who loves.
 

I, too, know somewhat of the fear. 

I know the rejection of the words I speak, 

And in my nightly dreams I feel 

The sadness of the hostile hearts 

That scorn the love I long to give.
  

This is the fellowship of ours, 

The walking in the lonely place with him, 

But yet secure in compassionate pain, 

Knowing rejection does not condemn

But helps to make me one with him.


From All Things of the Spirit, by Geoffrey C. Bingham, p.79-80.