but thanks to God, who gives us the victory by our Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul has just described the moment when God raises and changes the bodies of believers, and death is swallowed up. His answer to that scene is not analysis but thanksgiving — and one word carries it: God gives this victory.
What gives death its power
Verse 56 explains why death is dreadful, and why the law offered no escape. One writer follows both, then names what does produce holiness:
It is sin which gives death not only its occasion but its sting; and the law, however righteous, could work no deliverance for the guilty. In effect the law proves to be the strength of sin, because it stirs up rebellious will even more against God's commands. His grace, not the law, is the strength of holiness, as we learn from Romans 6:14. That is why the apostle breaks out into thanksgiving here. He sees God giving us the victory fully and for ever, through our Lord Jesus Christ.
The One who took the sting
Verse 56 names two things: sin and the law. Christ Himself dealt with both, which is why the thanks runs "through our Lord Jesus Christ":
The apostle reminds us that "the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law." But God gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. He bore the sting when He was made sin on the cross, and He "redeemed us from the curse of the law, becoming a curse for us" (2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 3:13). With the blessedness of this truth filling his soul, the apostle breaks out into praise to God.
Won on the ground where man fell
God took no shortcut. He won this victory in the same arena where the human race lost:
The victory has been achieved by Man in the person of Jesus, just as the ruin came in by man in the person of Adam. God did not shift the contest onto entirely fresh ground, and He did not settle everything by one stroke of pure Deity. Instead — if one may put it that way — He met the foe on the old battleground the enemy first chose in the garden of Eden, and there reversed everything. Man comes out of the contest in resurrection, covered with glory and not the shame of defeat.
A victory handed over, not earned
The victory is God's own, yet the verse calls it ours. The same writer notes the handover:
One thing more. Though the victory is God's victory, He gives it to us who believe, as it is written: "Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
Christ rose first, and that changes how we should now describe death:
The great king of terrors has had to yield to One greater than himself. Death has met its Master. It is now a crownless king, without a sceptre and without a throne. Now Christ is risen, and death is defeated. The power of the devil is annulled, the grave has been robbed of its victory, and Christ has become the Firstborn from the dead. His being the Firstborn means that others are to follow and share in His triumph.
Enjoyed now, displayed later
The full public proof of this victory is still future, yet the verb in verse 57 is present tense. One writer holds both together:
Resurrection is the public declaration of victory over death and the grave. When the saints stand in their risen condition, the saying "Death is swallowed up in victory" will be fulfilled in triumph. For this we wait; but while we wait we are already rejoicing in it, for God "gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (v. 57).
Another writer describes what that early rejoicing sounds like — praise that honours Christ before the day when His triumph is seen to be theirs as well:
Such is the present and eternal strain that they are taught to raise who sing with the spirit and with the understanding also. Knowing the truth as it is revealed to them in Jesus, they already celebrate the great triumph He has personally won, and whose honours He now wears in heaven, while waiting for the moment when His victory will openly become their own. They declare their own glory by praising Him.
What thanksgiving produces
Verse 57 does not end the chapter; verse 58 turns it into daily work:
What a deliverance! "Thanks be" indeed "to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!" Meanwhile, the result of thinking on this is to turn with energy to the work of the Lord that lies in our hands. Every shadow has been removed from our path. Only the sure reward for everything done for Him remains for us.
Summary
- Cause. Death stings because of sin. The law was righteous, but it rescued no one; it stirred up rebellion and made sin stronger.
- Cost. Christ bore the sting when He was made sin. He took the curse of the law. He answered both powers behind death.
- Gift. The victory is God's. A Man won it on the ground where man fell, and God hands it to those who believe.
- Now. The verb is present tense. The full display waits for resurrection, but believers rejoice now, and death is already a crownless king without a throne.
- Result. Thanks does not stop at feeling. The chapter sends the thankful back to the Lord's work, with every shadow gone from the path.