What does it mean that "the sting of death is sin" in 1 Corinthians 15:56?

Verse 56. "The sting of death is sin," etc. If death is sin's wages, sin is also death's sting; for without it death would be no other than a healthful sleep, if we could associate it at all in our thoughts with God's blameless image; but in deed it has no name nor existence, save as the effect of sin. It is called, moreover, a sting, because of that lasting poison in it, which works not only temporal death, but prepares the impenitent sinner also for that judgment which is after death. The relation, moreover, of the law to sin, a point so fully handled by the apostle in his other writings, is now for the first time noticed in this epistle. This is interesting, and instructive also. The Corinthian saints were, as a body, Gentiles, and not Jews. They had, therefore, not been personally under law. But it behoved them, equally with others, to know the true nature of the law and its effects, both to enlarge their knowledge of the God with whom they had to do, and to preserve them from the snare which Satan ever seeks to lay for the feet of the unwary, by undermining grace through a pretended zeal for holiness. In the second epistle, we shall find him dealing with this subject more at large; at present, it is concisely stated as an accessory only to the greater matter which he has in hand.

The sting of death is sin. But that bitter smart

Verse 55 is a question cited from Hosea 13:14. Death has been a righteous sentence of God against sin, and spoken of as an "enemy." But is not God greater than the sentence He has imposed: Is the sting of death final? Does death (or it may be "hades") gain the final victory? Whether "death" or "hades," it is the same question, for death is the state of the body as separate from spirit and soul; while hades is the state of the spirit and soul in separation from the body. But sin is "the sting of death," the very poison that brought death; and sin has been perfectly atoned for by the death of Christ, the effectual basis therefore of complete victory over death. Now also the law is said to be "the strength of sin." For the law, applied in its pure justice, brings sin out clearly in its strong, bold, evil character, and condemns it. But it can of course do nothing as regards taking sin away. So great a work as this could be done by none other than the eternal Son of God Himself, and then by means of the sacrifice of Himself, Himself bearing our sins in His own body on the tree. We have seen this basis laid down in verses 3 and 4 of our chapter, the basis upon which sin and death will be completely triumphed over, so far as present day believers are concerned, at "the resurrection of the just."

It is here that at last the triumphant appeal can rise: "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" The apostle answers: "The sting of death is sin." It is that which makes it what it is for man. For the animal it has no such sting as it has for him; but "the strength, too, of sin is the law" — a vigorous statement quite in keeping with the fearlessness of the apostle. Romans has shown us fully in what way we are to interpret this. The law gave sin its strength in two ways; first of all, by there being in it no power of deliverance, but power of condemnation only. Thus sin, according to it, reigned and must reign in death. But again, law gave sin its strength by the very tact that in prohibiting it, it aroused all the evil nature of man to resistance. The doer of his own will refused the curb of that which restrained it, and the result was that the evil under this treatment became not only the more manifest but the more intensely evil, — open rebellion against God his Maker. Law for us is past, with the reign of sin also. At the time that is contemplated here sin will have passed entirely. What a deliverance! "Thanks be" indeed "to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!" The result of our contemplation is to be the turning, in the meantime, with energy, to the work of the Lord that is in our hands. Every shadow has been removed from our path. Only the sure recompense of everything done for Him remains for us. What trial can daunt one who is in the full energy of this? "Be steadfast therefore," says the apostle, "immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."

No wonder that the apostle refers to the challenge of another prophet, "Death, where [is] thy victory? Death, where [is] thy sting?" (Hosea 13:14) with the comment, "Now the sting of death [is] sin, and the strength of sin the law; but thanks to God that gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (Vers. 55-57.) What a triumphant answer is the resurrection and the change of the saints at the coming of the Lord! It is sin which gives not only occasion, but its sting, to death; and the law, however righteous, could work no deliverance for the guilty, but proves in effect the strength of sin, by provoking its rebellious will so much the more against the commands of God. His grace; not the law, is the strength of holiness, as we learn from Romans 6:14; and therefore does the apostle here break forth into thanksgiving as he sees God giving us the victory so completely and for ever, through our Lord Jesus Christ. "Wherefore, my brethren beloved, be ye stedfast, immovable, abounding in the work of the Lord always, knowing that your toil is not vain in [the] Lord." (Ver. 58.) Christ's resurrection is the pledge of ours, the witness of salvation, the pattern of deliverance, and the spring of hope in the midst of labour as well as suffering for Christ,

But to the unhappy mortal who begins to feel the presence of the ghastly destroyer drawing near, by far the greater part of his dread comes from the apprehension of something which, crouching in the shadows of the impenetrable future, makes its grim reality felt by every conscience not yet rendered insensible by neglect, ill-usage, or the narcotics of hell, and that something is the dread of having to render account to God. The sting of death is sin; and however terrible death may appear in itself, this makes it ten times more terrible.

I take Goliath here to be a sort of representative of Satan wielding "the power of death." A massive sword is in his hands, with which he terrifies the Israelites. Though terrified, they were Jehovah's people as a nation, and they stood in outward nearness and relationship to Him. Now, in Heb. 2:14-15, we are told that Satan, before the cross, had "the power of death," and that God's saints, "through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." That passage throws a flood of light upon this chapter. Unconverted men and even unestablished Christians fear to die. Now, why is this? One verse from the New Testament supplies the answer. "The sting of death is sin" (1 Cor. 15:56). Conscience accuses. Men fear to die because they know that they are sinners, and that God must punish sin. Their conscience tells them this, however indistinctly, and the Bible tells them plainly when they read it, because of which, therefore, they seldom do read it. Newspapers and novels are crowding out the word of God. But Scripture says, "The wages of sin is death," and "after death the judgment."

The believer, then, is delivered from what every unbeliever is exposed to — death and judgment. How is it that he is delivered from death? for do not we see that saints die just the same as sinners? They may appear to as to their bodies; but the wages of sin is not simply the separation of soul and body, but there is a "sting" and "terror" connected with death that knows no rest or solace. The believer is so completely delivered from these things that he can say, "O death, where is thy sting?" for the sting of death being "sin," it is removed by the precious blood of Christ, which cleanseth from all sin. The "terror," too, is gone, because he knows that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. The believer's death, therefore, is not called death in the New Testament, but falling asleep in Jesus. Hence, too, the blessed Lord said, "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death" — "he shall never taste of death." Blessed, glorious fact, that the soul that has accepted Christ for its Saviour is so completely delivered from death, that, when Jesus comes, those who are alive will at once, in a moment, be changed, and caught up into the air to meet Him!

All of this, however, was not made manifest until "the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ," for it is by and in Him that these blessed purposes are fulfilled. Only in Him, the supreme Object of faith, could we possibly comprehend the truth of these things, and find them vitally real: only in Him personally could such a manifestation be possible. He is seen as Savior here, acting in both grace and power on our behalf. In His own death and resurrection He "has annulled death." Mere natural wisdom will not understand this, of course, for man knows in experience that death is in painful evidence everywhere around him. But faith can see that all the power of death is broken for the believer. Christ has triumphed over it in His voluntary humiliation even unto death, and in His being raised from the dead the third day. Therefore death holds no terrors for the child of God: it has no power to hold him a helpless prisoner: if he should die, this is only a step in the fulfillment of God's superior purpose concerning him: his resurrection is as certain a matter as that of the Lord Jesus. For "the sting of death is sin," which has been fully atoned for at Calvary, so that for the believer the sting is gone (cf. 1 Cor. 15:55-57).

Sin and Christ meet, as I may express it, on the plains of death. Sin is death's sting, or inflicter; Christ is death's Conqueror, or Destroyer. They meet; and for certainty the result is the putting away of sin, and the redemption of its captive.

Resurrection of the dead simply, or the grave giving up the dead that are in it, would not be victory. The dead might be summoned from their graves, just to abide judgment; as those not written in the Lamb's book of life will be. It is resurrection from the dead that is victorious; and it insures redemption, and this great result, that "whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved"; for "the Lord" is Jesus in resurrection, the Purger of sins, and the Abolisher of death. See Romans 10:13.

(Vv. 56, 57). The Apostle reminds us that “the sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law”. But God gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ, the One Who bore the sting when made sin on the Cross, and “redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us” (2 Cor. 5:21; Galatians 3:13). With the blessedness of the truth filling his soul the Apostle breaks forth into praise to God.