In answer to the people’s ‘God forbid’, Christ adds these words from Psalm 118. ‘And have ye not read this scripture?’ Of course they had, but they didn't take any notice of this; they didn't see it as prophecy.
It is a great surprise when we first really understand the gospel, that to know God is not a matter of deserving him – we cannot. It is not a matter of earning his favour – we cannot. To know God is to have a substitute, a sin-bearer, God himself, who so loved our souls that he was ready to come and die in our place and take our punishment and secure our forgiveness. This is a marvel. It is beyond human expectation or devising. It is so great in scope: that Christ should come and do something that would benefit billions of people down the centuries. Whoever looks to God and trusts in him for salvation and repents of sin and yields his or her life is saved by what Christ has done. It is the greatest act, the most beneficial act and yet the most available act, beyond human expectation – that the worst sinner in the world can have sin forgiven and be reconciled with God through what Christ has done. He is so available as a Saviour. It is beyond all human achievement. It is the opposite of all worldly notions.
As Christian people we know our sorrows, we have our share of hardships and grief; we have difficulties, and trials, but we look back across life and say, ‘Since the time I came to Jesus Christ I have known a happiness, peace, and proofs beyond number, that I would never have dreamed of before. This is a life of much joy, much happiness, glorious expectation and wonderful experiences with the Lord.
How do you get rid of death? Every human being must die. The human race is under judgment. Right at the outset of time God warned: ‘If you do this you will die’, and we did it, and we are a fallen human race; and we have got to die. How do you get rid of death? By death! Isn't it a marvellous scheme? By the death of Christ on our behalf, death is vanquished for all who believe in him. That wonderful title of one of John Owen’s works, ‘The death of deaths in the death of Christ.’ By death – the death of the son of God – death is vanquished. That the judge of all the earth, to whom we must give an account at the end of life, Jesus Christ, resurrected Saviour; that the judge of all allowed himself to be judged and convicted by sinful man and go to Calvary to die for us.
[See also additional material in Matthew and Luke.]