Hebrews: Christ Defeats the Power of Death
Hebrews 2:14-16 - If you are faithful, He also defeats doubt, fear, and despair.
“Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. For assuredly He does not give help to angels, but He gives help to the descendant of Abraham.”
Hebrews 2:14-16 NASB1995
The last devotional had the end of Hebrews 2 verse 13 that I may have neglected. Verse 13 says:
“And again,
“I will put My trust in Him.”
And again,
“Behold, I and the children whom God has given Me.””
Hebrews 2:13 NASB1995
We who believe are His [Jesus] children that God has given Him! I emphasized the Isaiah 8:18 verse in my study rather than this simple re-statement. Verse 14 then follows on to say that His children share in flesh and blood, so He partook of the same. I make no apology for finding the commentary of Charles Spurgeon to be a great asset in this study of Hebrews (from Precept Austin):
Christ’s great mission was not to save angels, but to save men. Therefore he came not in the nature of angels, but in the nature of men. He so took upon his flesh and blood as to die in our nature, that thus he might slay death, and might set us free from all fear of death. Do you not see that, if the representative Man, Christ Jesus, died, he also rose again, and that so also will all who are in him rise, too? If you are in him, you shall rise again. Therefore, fear not to lie down in your last sleep, for the trumpet shall awaken you, and your bodies shall be molded afresh like unto his glorious body, and your soul and body together shall dwell in infinite bliss for ever.
“Wherefore comfort one another with these words.” We know what it is to be partakers of flesh and blood; we often wish that we did not. It is the flesh that drags us down; it is the flesh that brings us a thousand sorrows. I have a converted soul, but an unconverted body. Christ has healed my soul, but He has left my body still to a large extent in bondage, and therefore it has still to suffer; but the Lord will redeem even that. The redemption of the body is the adoption, and that is to come at the day of the resurrection. But think of Christ, Who was a partaker of the Eternal Godhead, condescending to make Himself a partaker of flesh and blood; — the Godhead linked with materialism; the Infinite, an infant; the Eternal prepared to die, and actually dying! Oh, wondrous mystery, this union of Deity with humanity in the person of Christ Jesus our Lord! (Spurgeon’s Expositional Commentary on Hebrews)
That is so good! I agree that I have a converted soul but an unconverted body that is still subject to the trials, tribulations and temptations in this life. But the Lord will even redeem that part of my being!
He partook in this act so He might render powerless the entity who had the power of death, namely the devil. He frees us from this fear that makes us slaves all of our lives. As usual, Charles Spurgeon has more great commentary, as quoted in Precept Austin:
The devil’s power over death lies in three places, and we must look at it in three aspects. Sometimes the devil has power in death over the Christian by tempting him to doubt his resurrection, and leading him to look into the black future with the dread of annihilation. Christ, by being a witness to the fact of the resurrection, has broken the power of the devil in death. In this respect He has prevented him from tempting us to fear annihilation; because, as Christians, we believe that because Christ rose again from the dead, even so they that sleep in Jesus will the Lord bring with Him.
A more common temptation—another phase of the devil’s power in death—is that the devil comes to us in our lifetime, and he tempts us by telling us that our guilt will certainly prevail against us, that the sins of our youth and our former transgressions are still in our bones, and that when we sleep in the grave our sins shall rise up against us. The death of Christ has destroyed the power that the devil has over us to tempt us on account of our guilt. “The sting of death is sin” (1 Cor 15:56). Our Jesus took the sting away, and now death is harmless to us, because it is not succeeded by damnation.
The evil one has another temptation: “It may be very true,” says he, “that you are to live forever and that your sins have been pardoned; but you have until now found it very hard work to persevere, and now you are about to die you will be sure to fail.” We turn to answer the devil, and we say to him, “Fiend, you tempt us to think that you will conquer us. Remember, Satan, that the strength that has preserved us against you has not been our own. The arm that has delivered us has not been this arm of flesh and blood, else we had long since been overcome. Look there, fiend, at Him that is omnipotent. His almightiness is the power that preserves us to the end. Therefore, be we never so weak, when we are weak then we are strong, and in our last hour of peril we shall yet overcome you.” Christ’s death has taken away from Satan the advantage that he has over the saint in the hour of death. We may joyfully descend the shelving banks of Jordan, or may even, if God calls us to a sudden death, glide from its abrupt cliffs, for Christ is with us, and to die is gain. (See full sermon The Destroyer Destroyed)
Although death is defeated, the enemy still roams like a hungry lion for souls to capture, searching for and creating those dreaded thoughts that come into people’s minds - Doubt fear, and despair! When we are weak, this brutal enemy insinuates himself into people’s thoughts. We doubt the Resurrection, we doubt our salvation, we doubt our worthiness of receiving this ultimate sacrifice that was made, we even doubt the existence of God! We despair that it is all a myth or that God would never save a person as bad as we are, in spite of our repentance. We fear that death is the end of all things, even for the believer. The devil places all sorts of obstacles in our way. And he will be working overtime on the day of death, dear believer!
I will occasionally get recommendations on Facebook, for example, for a group (or person) who devotes their time spreading their atheism (and hatred of Christian belief in particular) far and wide across the internet. Since I follow and like many, many Christian sites, this recommendation is always perplexing. Why would their algorithms move in that direction, unless there is some force behind the recommendation? Perhaps we can get her to read this and start to doubt again. And we can’t lay all of the blame on the enemy. Here’s a great answer to the question about doubt from Gotquestions.org:
Lest we think that we can lay all of the blame on Satan, the Bible clearly holds us accountable for our own doubts. When Zechariah was visited by the angel of the Lord and told that he would have a son (Luke 1:11-17), he doubted the word given to him. He logically assumed that he and his wife were too old to have children, and in response to his doubt, the angel said he would be mute until the day God’s promise was fulfilled (Luke 1:18-20). Zechariah doubted God’s ability to overcome natural obstacles – many people today share the same doubt. Any time we allow human reason to overshadow faith in God, sinful doubt is the result. No matter how logical our reasons may seem, God has made foolish the wisdom of the world (1 Corinthians 1:20), and His seemingly foolish plans are far wiser than man’s. Faith is trusting God even when His plan goes against human reason or experience.
Contrary to the humanistic view that doubt is essential to life, the Bible says that doubt is a destroyer of life. James 1:5-8 tells us that when we ask God for wisdom, we are to ask in faith, without doubt. If we doubt God’s ability to respond to our request, what would be the point of asking in the first place? God says that if we doubt while we ask, we will not receive anything from Him, because we are unstable. “He who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind” (James 1:6).
The remedy for doubt is faith, and faith comes by hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17). God gave us the Bible as a testimony of His works in the past, so we will have a reason to trust Him in the present. “I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago” (Psalm 77:11). In order for us to have faith in God, we must study to know what He has said. Once we have an understanding of what God has done in the past, what He has promised us for the present, and what we can expect from Him in the future, we are able to act in faith instead of doubt.
The most famous doubter in the Bible was Thomas, who declared that he would not believe that the Lord was resurrected unless he could see and touch Jesus himself (John 20:25-29). When he later saw Jesus and believed, he received the gentle rebuke, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Hebrews 11:1 says, “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” We can have confidence even in the things we cannot see, because God has proven Himself faithful, true, and able.
Humanity’s entire existence is centered around fear of death and ways to get around this finality. We are slaves to putting off the inevitable or even thinking about it. People try drugs and surgeries, they look for life extensions and therapies, they throw all caution to the wind and “live for the moment” and collect as many useless possessions as possible. Charles Spurgeon, a man who was tormented by the demons of depression during his life, has this to say about fear of death (from Precept Austin):
It is a very natural thing that man should fear to die, for man was not originally created to die. When Adam and Eve were first placed in the garden of Eden, they were in such a condition that they might have remained there for a myriad years if they had kept their integrity. There was no reason why unfallen man should die; but now that we have sinned, the seeds of corruption are in this flesh of ours, and it is appointed unto men once to die. Yet, as if the body knew that it was not according to the first decree of heaven that it should go to the earth and to the worm, it has a natural reluctance to return to its last bed. And this fear of death, so far as it is natural, is not wrong.
But it can very readily go beyond the point where it is right into the region wherein it becomes evil; and I do not doubt that many godly persons have a fear of death about them which is very evil, and which produces very evil effects. Let us never try to get rid of it, as some do, by forgetting all about death. That would be to live as the brutes that perish; they live their little day here without any thought beyond the present. The ox and the sheep go to the slaughterhouse without the power to look beyond the present life. I would not like to obtain peace of mind by descending to the level of those “dumb, driven cattle.” Yet there are many men whose only peace arises from thoughtlessness; yet that is a sorry peace which cannot endure contemplation and consideration.
He so took upon Himself flesh and blood as to die in our nature, that thus He might slay death, and might set us free from all fear of death. Do you not see that, if the representative Man, Christ Jesus, died, He also rose again, and that so also will all who are in Him rise, too? If you are in Him, you shall rise again. Therefore, fear not to lie down in your last sleep, for the trumpet shall awaken you, and your bodies shall be molded afresh like unto His glorious body, and your soul and body together shall dwell in infinite bliss forever. “Therefore comfort one another with these words” (1Th 4:18+). (From sermon Fear of Death).
By the way, Spurgeon was not a believer in the unbiblical notion that our souls sleep until the Second Coming of Christ and the New Earth. He believed that we close our eyes here and open them in the glory of the Lord. Here’s a link to a lengthy sermon about this subject by him as a tonic against fear and despair: Death, A Sleep.
So what about despair? Gotquestions.org has an answer:
To despair means we have turned our backs on hope. We have chosen to disbelieve God and His many promises to deliver and provide (Psalm 46:1; 50:15; 144:2; Proverbs 18:10; Philippians 4:19). Despair means we have fixed our gaze on this world and are looking to it for happiness. Jesus warned us not to “fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28). We may be exceedingly sorrowful, as Jesus was the night before His crucifixion (Matthew 26:38–39; Luke 22:42–43). But, as children of God, we cannot despair because we have hope in God. Our hope rests on eternity and not the few days we live on this earth (James 4:14). Like Abraham, we are “looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10).
Psalm 43:5 gives us a model of how to talk to ourselves when tempted to despair: “Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” This psalm reminds us that, regardless of how desperate or frightened we may be at any moment, there is the hope that we will once again praise God and rejoice in His goodness. Hope is a gift of God and one of the “three things [that] will last forever” (1 Corinthians 13:13, NLT).
I emphasized the one statement above in italics: Our hope rests on eternity and the not the few days we live on this earth (from James 4:14). Sorrows will happen, sadness will occur, frustration with problems will be part of life (and that is part of the frustration I feel with my current vision problems). But I will not despair - God has reasons for all things that we experience in this life that will be gone in an instant at the end of this life and our hope is realized in eternity.
I haven’t touched on verse 16 yet, but this is a repetition of the ideas that have been brought forward in Hebrews: For assuredly He does not give help to angels, but He gives help to the descendant of Abraham. Enduring Word believes that the descendants of Abraham are people of faith not necessarily ethnicity, including those who embraced Jesus as the Messiah if they were Jews and the believing Gentiles who inherit the New Covenant.
One more thing to look at before I’m done. Precept Austin has an excerpt from a book by Herbert Lockyer entitled “The Last Words of Sinners and Saints”. Here are three non-believers and three believers and what they had to say at the end:
VOLTAIRE, the noted French infidel and one of the most fertile and talented writers of his time, used his pen to retard and demolish Christianity. Of Christ, Voltaire said: “Curse the wretch!” He once boasted, “In twenty years Christianity will be no more. My single hand shall destroy the edifice it took twelve apostles to rear.”
Shortly, after his death the very house in which he printed his foul literature became the depot of the Geneva Bible Society. The nurse who attended Voltaire said: “For all the wealth in Europe I would not see another infidel die.” “
The physician, Trochim, waiting up with Voltaire at his death said that he cried out most desperately: “I am abandoned by God and man! I will give you half of what I am worth if you will give me six months’ life. Then I shall go to hell; and you will go with me. O Christ! O Jesus Christ!”THOMAS PAINE, the renowned American author and infidel, exerted considerable influence against belief in God and in the Scriptures. He came to his last hour in 1809, a most disillusioned and unhappy man. During his final moments on earth he said:
“I would give worlds, if I had them, that Age of Reason had not been published. 0 Lord, help me! Christ, help me! 0 God what have I done to suffer so much? But there is no God! But if there should be, what will become of me hereafter? Stay with me, for God’s sake! Send even a child to stay with me, for it is hell to be alone. If ever the devil had an agent, I have been that one.”
EDWARD GIBBON (1737-1794), the noted English historian whose Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire remains the greatest history of all times, was unfortunately another infidel who died without the consolations of the Gospel. What a bleak end was his as he said to those at his bedside:
“This day may be my last. I will agree that the immortality of the soul is at times a very comfortable doctrine. All this is now lost, finally, irrevocably lost. All is dark and doubtful.”
IGNATIUS, in the arena, before the lions had reached him, said:
“I am the wheat of Christ; I am going to be ground with the teeth of wild beasts, that I may be found pure bread.”
JEROME, who was burned, said while the fire was being kindled:
“Bring hither thy torch; bring thy torch before my face. Had I feared death, I might have avoided it.”
ANDRONICUS, thrown into prison because of his unwillingness to deny the Christian faith, was cruelly scourged and then had his bleeding wounds rubbed with salt. Brought out from prison he was tortured again, thrown to the wild beasts, then finally killed with a sword. This brave martyr, who perished in 303 A.D., was dauntless as he died:
“Do your worst. I am a Christian. Christ is my help and supporter, and thus armed I will never serve your gods, nor do I fear your authority or that of your master, the Emperor. Commence your torments as soon as you please, and make use of every means that your malignity can invent, and you shall find in the end that I am not to be shaken from my resolution.”
Be like Jerome and not become a Voltaire! Such peace that comes from our Savior and Brother Christ!
My next devotional examines the last two verses of Hebrews 2 - Hebrews 2:17-18 - He the High Priest; He knows temptation (and resisted it) and can come to the aid of those who are tempted.
Heaven on Wheels Daily Prayer:
Dear Lord - I am in deep gratitude that You are the one who overcomes death, doubt, fear and despair. I have joy in the eternal future that awaits and not despair in these days of physical ailments and aging. I love You! Amen.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Precept Austin was accessed on 10/22/2025 to review commentary for Hebrews 2:14-16.
Gotquestions.org was accessed on 10/22/2025 to answer the questions: What does the Bible say about doubt?, What does the Bible say about despair?© COPYRIGHT 2002-2025 GOT QUESTIONS MINISTRIES. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.