What treasures are to be found in Paul's letters to the early Christians! These pearls of great price are not always easily discernible to the cursory reader of the New Testament; in fact, some who read the Scriptures without pausing to ponder the deeper, hidden meanings may complain that many of the treasures are concealed in an avalanche of words. For example, in the first chapter of his second epistle to Timothy it takes four verses to complete one of his sentences, and unless one continues to read the whole message he may miss a statement in the third verse which contains one of the most precious promises in all Christian lore. Speaking of Christ Jesus, Paul refers to him as the one "who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."
If the question were put to every Christian, Do you believe that our Lord and Master actually abolished death? how many would be willing to state unequivocally that the Master actually did abolish the so-called last enemy? Some could honestly state that they were convinced that Jesus abolished death for himself; but how many believe that he abolished it for others? And yet, there is the record: that he not only hath abolished death but "hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."
What a glorious tenet of the Christian faith is this: that a Christian in accepting Christ Jesus as his Way-shower repudiates the belief in death. When Christ Jesus allowed men to go through all the motions of killing him; when apparently from every human standpoint his mortal sense of life had been destroyed and he was officially declared dead and entombed, behold his triumphant reappearance to his followers and to all who had eyes to see, proving his life unimpaired and his existence uninterrupted by the human mind's cruel dictum. Did he not prove not only for himself but for all mankind, and for all time to come, that what we call death is not the extermination of existence? Did he not literally abolish the universal fear that so-called death ends everything?
