I give them eternal life, and they will never perish… (John 10:28, NRSVue)
There is a bit of a buzz going around in the movie world right now about Ridley Scott’s new epic “Napoleon”, which will be released later this year in November 2023. Now the buzz about the film isn’t just because it took years to make or that the casting looks phenomenal or that the film score already sounds beautiful, but because Mr Scott is attempting to tell a historically accurate story of one of the world’s most powerful men in cinematic form in just 3 hours. The motto of the project gives us a clue as to the direction of his vision; “He came from nothing, He conquered everything”. Sound exhilarating right? Yet the question might be asked, is that false advertising? Did Napoleon Bonaparte conquer everything? Well to that we can say absolutely not, in fact not only did he not conquer everything but he was also a slave to a power and that very power ended up conquering him and throwing him into the grave, which is also a power that is naturally over every human being as well; namely death!
You see humanity has always dealt with death because it is the wages of sin (Rom 6:23). This pay cheque was first earned by humanity’s original parents (Gen 3, Rom 5:12-14), but it is also paid out on us because we commit real and personal sin in our lives as well. In fact God tells us (through the Apostle Paul) that sin is like a ghastly slave owner that has chained us up, and even though the law highlights all our wickedness, we keep working hard for our master, earning our wages because we can’t free ourselves from it’s tyranny (Rom 6:16, 7:7-25). In other words sin’s mastery and it’s pay-packet have been and always will be humanity’s biggest enemy, to which we in and of ourselves have never been able to conquer. No, not even Europe’s most powerful frenchman could conquer everything. You can even go and see what sin did to “Le Petit Caporal” by visiting his monumental tomb in Paris today.
All through human history there have been attempts in which humans have tried to free themselves from this master and it’s well earned wages. The Egyptians had their book of the dead, the Greeks had their “pay the ferryman mythology” and the Aztecs their human sacrifices to name a few. Nothing that the creature has done has ever conquered everything. Not one mortal has beaten death and obtained eternal life (Gen 6:3, 6-7a). But there is someone who stands out in all of human history and He stands out because not only did He really come from nothing (being in His humanity from a little back water town called Nazareth c.f. Jn 1:46), but He really conquered everything. Yes that’s right, Jesus conquered death itself and that was historically proven by the resurrection of His physical body some 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem (Lk 24:1-12, Jn 20:3-10, Acts 2:31).
Now you might be wondering, why is any of that relevant to me? Well it’s relevant to you not in the same way that if Napoleon had won then you might speak French today, no it’s actually far more relevant to you because it effects your very eternity. You see by Jesus conquering death it meant that He didn’t earn the wages of sin, and yes though He was crucified and really died, death couldn’t hold Him in the grave because He never once sinned Himself (Rom 6:10-11, 2 Cor 5:21, 1 Pet 2:22). And this is the amazing news; if He never once sinned then when He said, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish”, then He wasn’t lying in any sense otherwise that sin of deception would have been paid out and you could go and visit his tomb alongside all the so-called revelationists today. You simply can’t because Jesus never stayed in the grave. So today as we turn our attention to Christ together here in Armadale, let’s remember what He came to do for His people all over the world and throughout history; He came to conquer absolutely everything so that we, His beloved people, can spend eternity in celebration of His victory (1 Cor 15:55-58).