«　WEEK 16　DAY 5　»

　　John 11:25 Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes into Me, even if he should die, shall live.

　　1 Cor. 15:22 For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.

　　Satan is God's rival. He attacks everything that God wants to do. Since God's goal today is the church, Satan's attacks are directed specifically against the church. Satan does not necessarily stumble Christians or the church with the enticement of sin or the world, because these things are too obvious. While we may be free from sin and not love the world, we can still be under Satan's attacks....Dealing with sin and the world alone is not enough to stop the attacks of Satan. The ultimate weapon Satan uses to attack the church is death. Death is not easily identifiable; it can creep secretly into the church. This does not mean that Satan will not use the world and sin to attack the church. It means that Satan can use refined and moral things, not just filthy and treacherous sins to attack Christians. Many refined and moral things are filled with death, and Satan can easily utilize these deadly things to attack the church. (CWWN, vol. 44, p. 882)

　　The church does not need good doctrines, good theology, or wonderful expositions. The church needs life, the resurrection life of Christ. No doctrine, idea, theology, or exposition can replace the life of Christ. Only the life of Christ and that which issues from it will prevail against the gates of Hades. Everything else is just disguised forms of death and cannot withstand the attacks of Satan. May the Lord be merciful to us, and may He keep us from touching death or bringing death into the church. May God fill the church with life, and may Satan find no opening to attack the church.

　　Christ is the resurrection and the life. Since the church is the vessel of Christ on earth, it should express this life and resurrection. God intends for the church to manifest the life of Christ. Hence, the church must be full of life. In the church everything that issues from God is life, and everything that issues from Satan is death.

　　The main goal of the Lord coming to earth is for man to have life (John 10:10), that is, for man to receive God's life. The Gospel of John is a book on life; it is not on sin or other things. Almost every chapter concerns life and resurrection. God's Christ is life, and God's Christ is resurrection, and the church is the vessel of this life and resurrection. We know that a vessel is used to contain things. You cannot give water to others with your hands; you have to have a vessel to contain the water before others can receive it. Through the church—the vessel of Christ—God dispenses His life and riches to men.

　　How can we overcome death? We can never overcome death in ourselves, because Satan has injected death into us. The only One who has overcome death is the Lord Jesus Christ. The goal of the Lord's work on the cross was to put Satan to death. Satan ruled the world through death, but Christ destroyed Satan through death (Heb. 2:14). The Lord's death is a terminating death, while Satan's death is a non-terminating death. Christ's death is complete and thorough. All other deaths are merely deaths, but Christ's death is a termination. Neither the death of Hades, the death of the body, nor the death of the lake of fire can terminate anything. Only Christ's death terminates. His death has terminated Satan and has terminated even "death" itself. (CWWN, vol. 44, pp. 884-885, 881-882, 876)

　　Christ was made a little inferior to the angels because of the suffering of death so that by the grace of God He might taste death on behalf of everything. This means that He died for everything. Christ tasted death not only for human beings but for everything, every creature. The Lord Jesus' redemption was accomplished not only for people but for everything created by God. Thus, God can reconcile all things to Himself through Christ (Col. 1:20). (The Conclusion of the New Testament, p. 3721)

　　Further Reading: CWWN, vol. 44, pp. 841, 875-878, 881-885