Page 12 - Easter Grace Mail 2021

Picture the strongest, toughest padlock you have ever come across, or a solid steel safe with 6” thick walls and doors. Imagine yourself trying to open it with only your hands. Essentially (unless it’s been carelessly left unlocked!) you are powerless to open it. However, something that was once impossible suddenly becomes incredibly easy when you have the key.
This brief study reminds us that Jesus is the key holder to death and Hades*! What was once impossible to escape has now become no threat to those who know the keyholder.
[*Hades (Greek word translated as Hell); a bit like a prison, where the dead are kept; it’s inescapable. A place where departed souls stay, while waiting for judgement - like a holding cell. The body is in the grave and the soul is kept in Hades.]
Isaiah 22:22
I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David; what he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open.
.
Death and Hades are always paired together in Revelation, and usually personified. But in Rev 1:18 they are described more as a place.
I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.
We are powerless to break the hold of death over us ourselves. So, when we die, there’s no way out of the grave. Jesus died and went into the grave, broke through the barrier no one else could break through and leads us into life eternal
Jesus has the key! Christ delivers you. The keys are symbols of Christ’s supreme power and authority. The gates He opens no one can shut. He leads us through death into the abundance of God’s grace found in a risen and eternal life.
11. Grace Mail