Here’s a powerful little verse found in Revelation that I totally wasn’t thinking about because my birthday is this Thursday and I’m turning thirty-seven which is almost forty and I’m not quite ready to handle the existential crisis that will come with turning forty so every year that passes and which brings me closer to that milestone birthday is like plunging deeper into the Mariana Trench as the darkness of the abyss closes in. I’m sure that wasn’t it.
Anyway, here’s Jesus…
I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.
Revelation 1:18
What a wondrous walking-dichotomy is our Master. As He describes Himself, He is the one “who lives, and was dead.” Notice that Jesus doesn’t say “I am living but was dead.” He’s not drawing attention to the change but to the seemingly-impossible nature of the change. “I am living and I was dead and I am alive forevermore.” How can that be?! It can’t be by any natural occurrences: Once a man dies he’s dead and on his own is powerless to do anything about it. A man can’t un-die himself. But with God all things are possible; He is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25).
Who better than He, the first-fruits of the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:20), to be, not only the Master of life and death, but also the custodian of it? He describes Himself here as the one who has the keys of hell (the grave) and of death. All those who live, live by God’s creative power. All those who die, die because of sin, but thanks to Christ’s sacrifice, He has become the gatekeeper to the grave, allowing those who die the opportunity to escape from the pit and be freed from death. Without Jesus, the dead are dead forever. Satan had the keys of the grave and he kept it locked.
Through Jesus, the gate is open; we can live again.
~ Matthew