One of the best words to capture the essential message of Easter is “Victory!” By His death and resurrection, Jesus has been victorious over sin. He has conquered Satan, He has conquered the fall, and that will lead to His return when He will have conquered the world! That’s when these biblical promises will be fulfilled: when the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14), and as every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus is Lord (Philippians 2:10-11). The Puritan pastor/theological John Owen articulated this in his classic book on the atonement, with the eye-catching title, “The Death of Death in the Death of Christ.” J. I. Packer has expanded on that in his eloquent introduction to the reprint of Owen’s book.
When this victory has been applied to our hearts by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, that glorious victory becomes ours, as we are raised from spiritual death to spiritual life, and assured of eternal life. At Easter, we sing of Jesus’ victory over the grave, and at the same time we sing about the victory that is ours by being united to Him by faith. As Jesus said to Lazarus’s sisters in John 11:25-26, “Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die.”