Death and the Grave
H. Bonar, D. D. Revelation 20:11-15 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away… It is of His two chief enemies that God here speaks — "death and the grave," or "place of the dead." This is not the first time, nor the only place, in which they are thus classed together. There is a striking series of passages, running through all Scripture, in which they are named as allies — fellow-workers in the perpetration of one great deed of darkness from the beginning. Often are death and the grave in the lips of Job. David speaks of them (Psalm 6:5). Solomon uses them in figure (Song of Solomon 8:6). Hezekiah refers to them (Isaiah 38:18). Isaiah mentions them in their connection with Messiah (Isaiah 53:9). Hosea proclaims their awful fellowship in evil (Hosea 13:14). Paul takes up the language of the old prophets (1 Corinthians 15:55). And then, as the summing up of the whole, we have these strange words of the text. This is the end of that death.power which was let loose in paradise, and which has continued exercise dominion upon earth through these two channels. The reign has been long and sad; it has been one of dissolution, and blight, and terror; but it ends at last. Death has been the sword of law for ages; but when it has done its work on earth, God takes this sword, red with the blood of millions, snaps it in pieces before the universe, and casts its fragments into the flame, in the day of the great winding-up, in token that never again shall it be needed, either on earth or throughout the universe. The grave has been the chain and the prison-house of justice; but when its purpose is served, and justice has got all its own in the heaven of the saved and the hell of the lost, God gathers up each link of the chain and flings them into the lake of fire upon the head of the great potentate of evil; He razes the dungeon to its foundation, and buries its ruins in a grave like that of Sodom, the lake of the everlasting burnings. Death and the grave were east into the lake of fire. I. GOD ABHORS DEATH. It is to Him even more unlovable than it is to us. He has set limits to its power; He has made it to His saints the very gate of heaven — for blessed are the dead that die in the Lord; He has proclaimed resurrection and interruption. But still, with all these abatements, He loves it not, nor is reconciled to it in one act or aspect. It is, in His eyes, even more than in ours, an enemy, a destroyer, a demon, a criminal, a robber. So thoroughly does He loathe it, that in order to make His displeasure known, He reserves it to the last for doom; He sets it apart for a great outstanding condemnation, and then casts it into the lake of fire. II. GOD'S REASONS FOR ABHORRING DEATH. 1. It is the ally of sin (Romans 5:12). Partners in evil, sin and death have held dark fellowship together from the beginning, the one reflecting and augmenting the odiousness of the other; like night and storm, each in itself terrible, but more terrible as companions in havoc. 2. It is Satan's tool. To inflict disease, but not to heal; to wound, but not to bind up; to kill, but not to make alive — these are the works of the devil which God abhors, and which the Son of God came to destroy. 3. It is the undoing of His work. God did not mean creation to crumble down or evaporate. But death has seized it. Man's body and man's earth are falling to pieces, undermined by some universal solvent; the beauty, and the order, and the power giving way before the invader. The sculptor does not love the hand that spoils his statue, nor the mother the fever that preys upon her darling; so God has no pleasure in that enemy that has been ruining the work of His hands. 4. It has been the source of earth's pain and sorrow. Pain is the messenger of disease, and disease is the touch of death's finger; and with disease and death what an amount of sorrow has poured in upon our world! 5. It has laid hands on His saints. Though He permitted Herod, and Pilate, and Nero, and the kings of the earth, to persecute His Church, He did not thereby indicate indifference to the wrong, far less sympathy with the wrong-doer. He treasures up wrath against the persecutor; He will judge and avenge the blood of His own. So will He take vengeance on the last enemy, 6. It laid hands upon His Son. Death smote the Prince of life, and the grave imprisoned Him. This was treason of the darkest kind, the wrong of wrongs, perpetrated against the highest in the universe, God's incarnate Son. And shall not God visit for this? Shall not His soul be avenged on such a destroyer for such a crime? (H. Bonar, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. WEB: I saw a great white throne, and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. There was found no place for them.