Hosea 13:14 I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be your plagues; O grave… There is no form of death more terrible than what is termed plague or pestilence, which are the names commonly given to any distemper that is peculiarly malignant and deadly in its character, and wide-spreading, or as the phrase is, epidemic in its progress. In the Hebrew language, destruction was another name for the grave, and is sometimes found joined with hell, when that word signifies the separate state of departed souls. I. DEATH IS THE PLAGUE OF THE SINNER. A plague denotes anything that is troublesome and vexatious. The idea of death is to the sinner a perpetual source of uneasiness and pain. The sting of death is sin; and therefore the sting, the torment, the curse of a sinful life is death. 1. Contemplate death in connection with its forerunners. By which is meant everything of suffering and sorrow. These all tell us of death's approach. 2. View death in its attendants. What is death but just the grand unfathomed mystery of wonder and depth and fear which lies under life from its beginning to its close? The anticipated terror of death is dot its only attendant. It is accompanied with pain, the pain of separation and the pain of disease. 3. View death in its consequences. Its future and final consequences. (About which we say much, and know little.) II. CHRIST IS THE PLAGUE OF DEATH. Where philosophy does nothing, and infidelity worse than nothing, Christianity steps in and does everything. The Lord Jesus has well earned to Himself this most expressive designation, "the pestilences of death." 1. Christ showed Himself the plague of death, by the full discoveries He made and the clear instructions He delivered regarding it. Until He appeared a thick cloud rested on the state of the dead. As the Sun of Righteousness, He dissipated the clouds which hung over the tomb, He poured a flood of light on the regions beyond it, He disclosed futurity in all its bliss and in all its woes. 2. Christ showed Himself the plague of death in many of the miracles He performed. Are disease and wretched ness "the concomitants of death"? It was His daily work of mercy to make distress vanish, and to chase away misery. But not satisfied with giving repeated checks to death's ministers, He trampled on the grim monster himself. See cases of raising the little maid, the widow's son, and Lazarus. 3. Christ showed Himself the plague of death by His own death and resurrection. These were the chief means and instruments of His illustrious triumph. 4. Christ has proved Himself, and will yet prove Himself, the plague of death, by extending to His people all the benefits of His own death and resurrection. Neither in dying nor in living does He stand alone; He appears as the representative of others, and the fruits of His every toil and suffering and sacrifice He imparts to His believing and beloved people. (N. Morrew, A. M.) Parallel Verses KJV: I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes. |
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