It is not death to die

When Christ died He suffered the penalty of death on the behalf of all His people and, therefore, no believer now dies by way of punishment for sin, since we cannot dream that a righteous God would twice exact the penalty for one offense! Death, since Jesus died, is not a penal infliction upon the children of God! As such He has abolished it and it can never be enforced. Why do the saints die, then? Why, because their bodies must be changed before they can enter heaven. “Flesh and blood,” as they are, “cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” A divine change must take place upon the body before it will be fit for incorruption and glory! And death and the grave are, as it were, the refining pot and the furnace by means of which the body is made ready for its future bliss. Death, it is true you are not yet destroyed, but our living Redeemer has so changed you that you are no longer death, but something other them your name! Saints do not die now, but they are dissolved and depart. Death is the loosing of the cable that the boat may freely sail to the fair havens! Death is the fiery chariot in which we ascend to God! It is the gentle voice of the Great King who comes into His banqueting hall, and says, “Friend, come up higher.” Behold, on eagle’s wings we mount! We fly, far from this land of mist and clouds, into the eternal serenity and brilliance of God’s own house above! Yes, our Lord has abolished death! The sting of death is sin and our great Substitute has taken that sting away by His great sacrifice! Death without a sting abides among the people of God, and it so little harms them, that to them, “it is not death to die.”

Christ, the Destroyer of Death, Sermon 1329, Charles Haddon Spurgeon