Latest / Reformed Thinking / From Defilement to Life: Christ’s Holiness and the Call of Faith (Matthew 9:18–26)

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From Defilement to Life: Christ’s Holiness and the Call of Faith (Matthew 9:18–26) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reformed Thinking. This is our deep dive where we
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  take a specific critical moment from Scripture and really try to
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  extract the truth about who Christ is and what that reality
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  means for us today. Today we're getting into Matthew
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  Chapter 9, verses 18 to 26. We've gone through the source
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  material you sent over articles looking at the structure, the
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  theology, the application, and we've sympathized what it says
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  about Christ's sovereign authority.
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  OK, let's just jump right in and unpack this.
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  Our mission here is really focused.
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  We're looking at these two stories that are woven together,
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  and we're seeing how Christ confronts, well, the two
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  biggest, most visible results of humanity's rebellion.
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  You have ritual defilement and you have final death.
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  And Matthew, with just surgical precision, he places these two
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  seemingly desperate crises right next to each other.
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  He's doing it to make a single, irrefutable claim about Jesus.
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  That juxtaposition is the whole key, isn't it?
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  It is. You have the external public
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  catastrophe. That's the synagogue ruler.
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  Here's a man of status, of official standing, and he's
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  facing the ultimate, irreversible disaster.
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  His daughter has died. The grave is spoken.
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  It's final. And the house is full of noise.
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  It's loud, it's public, it's it's hopeless by any human
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  standard. Absolutely.
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  Then that catastrophe gets interrupted by its complete
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  opposite, and that's the woman with the 12 year flow of blood.
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  Right. Her crisis isn't sudden.
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  It's not public, it's chronic, it's hidden, and it's just
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  marked by this intense personal isolation and shame.
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  It's an ailment that forces her into a kind of ceremonial exile
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  under the Mauvaic regulations. You know, especially the laws in
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  Leviticus 15. Her condition made it
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  perpetually unclean. And we need to sit with what
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  that meant. That was a sentence of religious
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  and social exile. She was, in effect, a walking
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  symbol of defilement. She couldn't participate in
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  normal life, couldn't touch anyone without making them
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  ritually impure. So the brilliance of Matthew's
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  structure, and this is what we're really honing in on, is
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  that contrast. You have the loud, sudden tragic
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  of death, and then the quiet, chronic ritual defilement.
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  And think about the ordinary religious logic of their world.
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  Impurity spreads by contact. If a mean person touches
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  something defiled, they become defiled.
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  Purity is it's fragile. It has to be defended.
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  And this is the great reversal Matthew is showing us.
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  Christ flips that contagion completely on its head.
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  He doesn't become defiled by entering the realm of impurity
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  or death. Instead, life and cleansing and
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  purity flow outward from him. So the world says maintain your
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  boundaries, keep your distance, protect what's clean.
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  But Christ moves right into the pollution and says, come to me,
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  His Holiness isn't fragile. So what's polluted gets purified
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  and what's dead gets restored. Matthew is building this single
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  cohesive argument for you, the listener, if Jesus has the
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  intrinsic holiness and sovereign authority to conquer the
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  defilers of life and the finality of the grave.
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  Then he is the Messiah. He is worthy of our absolute
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  faith. To set the stage properly, we
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  have to situate the story within Matthew's larger book structure,
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  chapters 8:00 and 9:00. They function as this
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  meticulously organized gallery of messianic credentials.
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  Right. Jesus has just finished
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  delivering the Sermon on the Mountain chapters 5 through 7.
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  Stunning ethical demands, incredible teaching.
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  The natural question anyone would ask is who is this man who
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  speaks with such internal authority?
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  Exactly. And Matthew answers that by
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  showing that Jesus's authority isn't just rhetorical.
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  It's enacted in history through his actions, through miracles.
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  These aren't just random wonder stories.
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  They're public, tangible demonstrations that the reign of
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  God, the Kingdom of heaven, has arrived in the person of Jesus
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  Christ. OK, let's turn to the King's
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  credentials here. Our sources all agree that the
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  contextual argument is vital. These miracles aren't random,
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  they are structurally designed to prove a theological point.
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  Matthew is showing that the King's authority is being
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  enacted with a clear escalating purpose.
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  And if you look at the material right before our passage in
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  chapters 8:00 and 9:00, you can see a deliberate rise in the
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  level of crisis Jesus addresses. You really can.
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  He cleanses A leper, which is about overcoming social and
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  ceremonial exclusion. He calms a storm that shows his
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  mastery over creation itself. He casts out demons, showing
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  mastery over spiritual forces of darkness.
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  Each sign testifies that the curse placed on creation is
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  finally meeting its conqueror. But the narrative reaches this
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  crucial intensity in Matthew 9, verses 1 to 8, just before our
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  two stories. Jesus heals the paralytic, but
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  he doesn't start with the physical problem.
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  No, he doesn't. He starts with the spiritual
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  root. He looks at the man and says
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  your sins are forgiven. And that is arguably the most
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  scandalous claim Jesus has made-up to this point.
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  The scribes who are there, they understand immediately.
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  They get it. Only God can forgive sins.
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  By linking the physical ailment, the paralysis, to the spiritual
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  root, which is sin, Jesus was asserting a divine prerogative.
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  This went way beyond the office of a prophet or a healer.
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  He was claiming to have the very authority of God.
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  And this context is absolutely crucial for understanding why
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  Matthew immediately follows that up with the stories of the
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  hemorrhaging woman and the dead girl.
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  It is. Matthew is tracing the entire
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  chain of human ruin. If Christ has sovereign
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  authority over sin, the root problem, the cosmic source of
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  the curse, then it just follows that He must also have authority
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  over sins, bitter fruits. So that's uncleanness,
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  exclusion, chronic suffering, and then finally death itself.
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  Exactly. Matthew is asserting that Jesus
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  is Lord over the whole trajectory from guilt all the
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  way to the grave. And that insight connects these
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  miracles beautifully. They aren't just disconnected
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  acts of kindness, they're theological propositions being
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  acted out in history. We should probably also talk
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  about the placement of this episode.
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  It comes right after Jesus's teaching on fasting and the new
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  wine in Chapter 9. Yes, the disciples of John the
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  Baptist had come and questioned why Jesus's followers weren't
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  observing all the traditional rites of mourning and fasting.
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  And Jesus Dancer signals this huge shift.
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  He says you don't fast while the bridegroom is present.
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  His physical arrival means messianic joy, not ritualistic
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  mourning. The time for the old rigid forms
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  of piety is changing because the reality they pointed to is here.
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  And then he gives that parable of the wineskins.
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  Which drives the point home, you can't put new volatile wine, the
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  life altering newness of the Kingdom, into old brittle
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  wineskins, meaning the old unbelieving order of Judaism.
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  So the Old Covenant forms, even though they were given by God,
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  they couldn't ultimately grant life or contain the explosive
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  vitality of the gospel. And the presence of the
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  synagogue ruler and the laws of uncleanness, they show us this
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  transition point when the ruler bows and the unclean woman
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  reaches out. Matthew is demonstrating that
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  the old religious economy has to give way to the one who fills
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  it. The bridegroom has come, and his
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  very person begins the systematic reversal of the
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  devastation brought by the fall. This brings us to the specific
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  covenantal shock that Matthew delivers in this passage.
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  For a 1st century Jewish audience, the ideas of bodily
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  discharges and corpse contact weren't abstract at all.
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  They were defining realities of defilement detailed all through
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  the Torah. And we really can't just gloss
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  over what that meant for people. A bodily discharge, especially a
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  chronic one, or touching a dead body.
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  These were clear restrictions in Leviticus and Numbers.
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  And these conditions didn't just bring bad luck, they resulted in
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  a ritual impurity that restricted your access to the
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  temple, to worship, to fellowship within the covenant
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  community. Purity was mandatory for
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  closeness to a holy God. The entire system was built to
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  teach the Israelites that sin pollutes and isolates.
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  The law basically said you must separate from the defile to
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  protect the clean space. And yet Matthew presents a scene
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  that delivers this seismic covenantal shock.
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  The Holy One, Jesus Christ, doesn't just enter the House of
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  grief. He physically touches the most
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  defiled things in that culture, the chronically unclean woman
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  and later the dead body of the girl.
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  And the result is just astonishing.
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  He doesn't contract defilement. He remains pure.
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  In fact, His Holiness isn't fragile or defensive.
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  It doesn't need separation or quarantine.
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  It's robustly restorative. It flows outward as a purifying
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  agent that consumes the corruption it touches.
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  So this radically overturns the standard covenantal pattern.
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  It proclaims the arrival of a new, cleansing, active holiness,
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  the holiness of God's reign realized in human flesh.
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  Let's pivot to the structural genius Matthew uses here.
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  It's called intercalation, or the sandwich structure.
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  This technique is brilliant. OK, break that down.
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  So one story begins. That's the ruler's plea.
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  Then it's intentionally interrupted by a second,
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  seemingly unrelated story, The Hemorrhaging woman, and then the
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  first story is resumed and completed.
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  This is more than just a stylistic choice.
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  Then the structure itself is an interpretive device.
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  It is. It compels a single conclusion.
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  The same Jesus has singular authority over 2 radically
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  different problems, chronic hidden shame, and the ultimate
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  finality of death. And by delaying the resolution
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  of the ruler's story, Matthew creates this situation of a
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  dangerous delay. It's a direct test of the
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  ruler's initial faith under extreme pressure.
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  We begin with the ruler's plea in verses 18 and 19.
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  He's a synagogue ruler, a man with social and religious
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  stature, and his action is highly significant.
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  He comes kneeling. Matthew is highlighting the
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  irony there, right? Human institutional authority is
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  bowing down before true divine authority.
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  And his plea is devastatingly clear.
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  The daughter has just died. This is not a request for
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  miraculous recovery from an illness.
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  It's an appeal for resurrection. The finality of death is already
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  settled and the rulers faith is just.
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  It's audacious. He believes Christ's presence
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  and a simple touch are enough to overcome death itself.
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  Think about that confession. He bypasses any need for
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  elaborate ritual, for medical intervention, for theological
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  debate. He just trusts in the efficacy
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  of Christ's presence. And Jesus's response is majestic
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  in its simplicity. He just rose and followed him.
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  No hesitation, no dramatic pronouncement.
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  The king simply accepts the petition and moves into the
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  realm of the curse. But before he can get to the
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  house, we have the interruption, the woman's desperate reach in
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  verses 20 to 22, and this moment becomes the theological pivot,
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  the center of the sandwich. And we have to fully grasp her
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  condition. 12 years of continuous bleeding.
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  That meant 12 years of a perpetual sentence.
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  It wasn't just physical discomfort, it was total social,
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  economic and religious annihilation.
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  She would have spent all her money on cures that only made
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  her worse, but more devastatingly, she was
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  perpetually unclean. So for 12 years she couldn't
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  share a meal, couldn't hug her family without making them
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  unclean, couldn't sit on the same furniture, couldn't sleep
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  in the same bed. Couldn't enter the courtyard of
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  the temple to worship. Her entire existence was defined
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  by quarantine. She was totally isolated.
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  A picture of humanity under the full draining weight of the.
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  Curse. So when she approaches, she
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  comes from behind. This is driven by acute shame
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  and the fear of public exposure. Of course, if she were seen,
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  she'd likely be forcefully removed, maybe even punished for
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  contaminating the crowd. She's seeking mercy without
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  attention, hoping to get Christ's benefit while staying
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  invisible to the religious structure that it condemned.
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  Her and this leads to her simple but desperate statement of
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  faith. If I only touch his garment, I
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  will be made well. Now this is where the source
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  material gets very interesting. The Greek word for the garment
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  fringe is crespinon, right? And that refers specifically to
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  the tassels or fringes that God mandated in Numbers 15.
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  They were worn on the four corners of a Jewish man's outer
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  garment. And these tassels were a
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  physical symbol. They were designed to remind the
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  wearer to obey God's law and remain faithful to the covenant.
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  So by reaching for the fringe, she's not just reaching for
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  cloth. She's reaching, maybe with some
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  superstition mixed in, but certainly desperately, for the
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  very symbol of God's covenant holiness and the promise of his
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  restoration. She is reaching for the covenant
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  keeper. And the moment of contact is the
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  ultimate theological reversal. According to the Law, she should
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  contaminate Jesus and his garment.
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  He should become unclean. Instead, the narrative confirms
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  the opposite. Life and cleansing flow from him
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  and consume her impurity. And the interruption itself
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  teaches a lesson, doesn't it? It teaches the ruler who's
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  waiting nervously, and it teaches us.
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  It does. It teaches us that Jesus halts
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  his urgent, death defying mission to notice the hidden,
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  shamed sufferer. Crises are not measured by our
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  visible emotional scale or public urgency, but by Christ's
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  sufficient attentive mercy. But Jesus refuses to let the
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  miracle just be anonymous. He turns and speaks.
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  He provides the interpretive sentence that moves this from a
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  magical cure to a theological teaching.
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  He refuses to let the ACT be reduced to some mechanical
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  transaction between a sick person and a holy object.
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  And he calls her. Take heart, daughter.
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  And that's an act of covenantal inclusion.
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  It's tender. He's restoring her to identity
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  and belonging. He calls her daughter,
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  effectively readmitting her into the covenant community.
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  This is so much more than physical health.
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  It's adoption. It's restoration of her
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  personhood. And then comes the definitive
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  statement. Your faith has made you well.
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  Right. And the Greek verb Matthew uses
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  here is sudo. That word signifies not just
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  physical restoration or healing, but spiritual rescue, salvation.
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  So Matthew is deliberately using this layered term to show that
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  the physical healing is a sign, a demonstration of the spiritual
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  reality Christ brings. And it is essential here that we
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  offer a corrective, as the sources suggest, against the
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  temptation to interpret this as magical or superstitious.
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  If she was focused only on the crespodon, Jesus immediately
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  redirects her focus to the Savior.
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  He does. He identifies faith as the
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  instrument, the channel of reception.
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  But he is the absolute source of the cure.
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  The healing didn't happen because of the precision of her
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  method touching a specific thread, but because her trust,
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  however weak and trembling, was directed toward the only object
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  capable of saving her. The ability to heal resides in
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  Christ. Faith is simply the dependent
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  clinging to Him. And this point is central to the
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  Reformed understanding of salvation, the concept we often
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  call solified by faith alone. Yes.
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  The core idea is that faith is the means, the alone own
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  instrument of our justification. It's not the strength of the
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  quality of the faith itself that saves a person.
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  If salvation depended on the strength of our faith, well, who
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  could be saved? The comfort here is immense for
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  any weary St. Her faith was clearly imperfect.
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  It was mingled with shame, maybe some superstition, physical
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  fear. Yet it was gloriously effective
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  because it rested wholly on the perfect sufficiency of the
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  object, Christ Himself. Weak hands grasping a strong
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  Christ are saved just as fully as strong hands.
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  Her trembling approach was welcomed.
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  OK, so the interruption has concluded.
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  Christ's authority over chronic defilement has been proven.
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  Now we return to the outer frame, to the end of the ruler
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  story. And the delay which tested the
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  ruler has now prepared us to witness life triumph over final
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  death. Jesus arrives at the house in
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  verses 23 and 24, and Matthew gives us these vivid details of
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  the scene. It's filled with flute players
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  and the crowd making A and. That noise is very significant.
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  In the 1st century, hiring professional flute players and
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  mourners was the standard culturally prescribed ritual for
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  confirming a death. So it represented a kind of
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  managed despair. This was the world settled
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  verdict and ritualistic resignation in the face of
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  death's finality. And Jesus immediately confronts
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  and challenges that settled, noisy verdict.
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  His command is direct. It's abrupt go away, for the
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  girl is not dead, but sleeping. We have to analyze his use of
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  sleeping there. The Greek is.
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  This is crucial. It is.
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  Jesus isn't denying the physical, biological reality of
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  the child's death. The paid mourners are there
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  confirming she is dead. Rather, he's asserting his
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  absolute divine sovereignty over death.
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  To the mourners, death is an ultimate, irreversible barrier.
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  But to the Lord of Life, death is downgraded to something
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  temporary and irreversible, something as fleeting as sleep.
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  It's a theological declaration of Lordship.
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  It's him saying your finality is not my finality.
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  This pronouncement immediately provokes the responsive unbelief
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  from the crowd. They laughed at him.
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  That derision is one of the most instructive moments in the whole
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  text. It highlights the eternal
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  conflict between human pragmatism, rationalistic
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  unbelief and divine authority. The world which is grounded in
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  naturalism and the sensory evidence of irreversible decay.
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  It laughs at the promise of resurrection and reversal.
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  They know what dead looks like. They know the rituals that
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  confirm it. And Matthew wants you to see
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  that unbelief is often loud, it's communal, and it's utterly
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  confident in its cynicism. But he shows us clearly that it
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  is wrong. Christ is rebuking a religion
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  and a culture that prefers the noise and the performance and
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  the settled rituals of despair to humble trust in his
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  authoritative word. And Jesus's next action is so
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  telling. He puts the mockers outside.
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  This is a symbolic exclusion of cynicism, of spectacle, of
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  unbelief. The miracle of life over death
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  will not happen in the presence of those who are already mocking
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  the authoritative Word of God. He removes the noise so the work
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  can be done. Once the spectacle is removed
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  and the space is cleared of unbelief, the true miracle
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  occurs in verse 25, and it's with this breathtaking,
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  understated simplicity. He went in and took her by the
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  hand. And this is the life giving
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  contact. It's a complete, decisive
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  overturning of the law. We have to remember under Torah,
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  specifically numbers 19, anyone touching a corpse incurred
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  ritual defilement. It required extensive cleansing
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  rituals. 7 days of unclaimedness.
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  The girl's house was the epitome of defilement.
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  But in Christ's presence, the law of contagion is inverted.
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  He doesn't become defiled by the dead.
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  Instead, life flows outward from the Holy One to the place of
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  deepest corruption. It's an act of sheer
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  unrestrained authority. The result is immediate, and the
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  girl arose. Matthew uses the verbat agaro,
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  which is the standard term for raising someone from sleep, or
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  more significantly, raising someone from the dead.
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  It's resurrection language. So this event points directly
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  toward Christo's own ultimate resurrection, and it acts as a
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  tangible, undeniable pledge of the final eschaton the future
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  resurrection of all believers. Every time Jesus raises someone
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  from the dead, he's giving us a preview of first fruits of the
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  final victory secured for everyone who is united to Him.
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  And Matthew concludes this section by confirming the public
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  witness in verse 26. The report of the miracle went
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  through all that district. Right.
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  These are not private mercies hidden away.
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  They are public declarations of the Messiah's identity and the
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  nature of his Kingdom. The King has arrived, and his
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  reign is demonstrated not through political force or
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  violence, but through authoritative sovereign mercy
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  that reverses the curse of sin and death.
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  We've spent a good amount of time breaking down the structure
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  and the narrative details, so let's synthesize the central
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  theological claims now and extract the practical knowledge.
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  What does this deep dive really reveal about Christ's person and
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  about the human condition? Well, the primary claim is
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  Christological. This passage argues for a holy
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  Savior whose holiness isn't fragile but is triumphant.
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  He reverses the direction of contagion because he's the
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  source of all purity. He isn't just pure, He is purity
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  itself. And this is where the doctrine
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  of the Person of Christ is fully on display.
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  He is the Incarnate Son. When we consider the union of
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  His two natures, we see divine prerogative exercising itself
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  through true, touchable humanity.
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  He moves, speaks and touches as a real man entering real human
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  suffering. Yet his touch conveys cleansing,
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  and his word commands death to release its grip.
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  That union of divine authority with human nearness, what
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  theologians call the hypostatic union, is the central glory of
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  the mediator. And his authority over life and
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  death. It isn't accompanied by noise or
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  effort. It's quiet, it's immediate, and
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  it's utterly effortless. It just requires a touch and a
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  word. And turning to human sinfulness,
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  these dual crises, uncleanness and death, they function as
• 20:17
  embodied sermons on the human condition.
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  They portray humanity under sin, alienated from the God of life.
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  Uncleanness is the misery, and death is the final curse that
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  sin brings. And the human responses we saw,
• 20:29
  the noisy performative resignation of the mourners or
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  the woman's shame driven withdrawal and fruit of
• 20:35
  approach, both of them testify to our need for redemption.
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  We are utterly helpless before the physical and spiritual
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  pollution of sin and the finality of death.
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  This problem requires a redemption that comes from
• 20:45
  outside of ourselves. We can't achieve self repair.
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  We can't just use psychological coping mechanisms to overcome
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  the curse. This discussion leads us right
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  to the law gospel trajectory. The law symbolized by Leviticus
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  15. It serves an essential function.
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  It diagnosis and regulates uncleanness.
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  It says unclean keep away. It establishes boundaries that
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  teach us about the separation between a holy God and sinful
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  humanity. But the law cannot cure the root
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  condition. It can only mark the pollution
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  and enforce the exclusion, right?
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  But the gospel arrives in a person.
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  Christ fulfills the law and overcomes the curse.
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  He says come to me and he cleanses the polluted.
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  He doesn't avoid sinners to preserve His Holiness.
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  He comes to sinners to impart His Holiness.
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  The knowledge we gain from this text isn't just historical, it's
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  highly practical. The sources identify 4 necessary
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  correctives using the specifics of this narrative to guard
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  against false religious instincts that are alive and
• 21:42
  well today. OK.
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  Let's start with the corrective against superstition and
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  sacredotalism. As we discussed, the woman was
• 21:49
  focused on touching the fringe, the craspodon, as though the
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  ability to heal resided in the cloth itself.
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  She thought she could steal a healing without actually meeting
• 21:57
  the healer. And Jesus immediately corrects
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  her potential focus on the means over the source.
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  He turns the secret act into a personal encounter.
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  And he attributes the healing to her faith in Him, the Savior,
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  not to the relic or the ritual. This is a direct challenge to
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  any idea of power items or sacred relics, or trying to
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  manipulate grace through physical means or rigid
• 22:19
  techniques. The king must be trusted as a
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  person, not tapped as a power battery, the means of grace.
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  Like the sacraments or even the Bible itself, they are given to
• 22:29
  help us meet Christ, not to control or coerce him into
• 22:32
  action. When we focus on the ritual or
• 22:34
  the object instead of the object of our faith, we just fall back
• 22:37
  into superstition. OK, the second corrective
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  targets prosperity theology, the idea that the kingdom's arrival
• 22:43
  guarantees present physical ease.
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  And the narrative itself immediately undermines that
• 22:48
  notion. The woman suffered chronically
• 22:50
  for 12 years. The ruler's daughter died.
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  These miracles are specifically called Samir.
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  They are signs, they are foretaste of the Kingdom, they
• 22:58
  test, testify to Christ's identity, and they guarantee
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  ultimate resurrection and perfection in the age to come.
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  They do not, however, promise immunity from chronic suffering
• 23:07
  or illness or death in this present, still fallen age.
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  And if we interpret these physical healings as guarantees
• 23:14
  of present perfection, we set people up for massive
• 23:17
  theological despair when the illness comes back or the
• 23:20
  tragedy hits. When Jesus calls her daughter,
• 23:23
  he's focusing on her adoption and her covenant belonging.
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  That's the permanent, eternal security.
• 23:29
  It's not the temporary improvement of her immediate
• 23:32
  circumstance. The greatest comfort is not the
• 23:34
  end of pain, but the security of being called a daughter of the
• 23:37
  King. The third corrective is aimed
• 23:39
  squarely at spectacle and religious hype.
• 23:42
  Jesus puts the mockers, the loud crowd and the professional flute
• 23:45
  players outside before the great act of resurrection occurs.
• 23:48
  He removes the performance element entirely.
• 23:50
  And this serves as a potent rebuttal to the contemporary
• 23:53
  desire for noise and hype and staged emotionalism in ministry.
• 23:58
  God's authority isn't bound to an atmosphere or staged
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  theatrics or market driven metrics.
• 24:03
  It's tied to Christ's authoritative word and His
• 24:06
  quiet, deliberate presence. Ministry should be built on the
• 24:09
  authority and clarity of the word and genuine compassion, not
• 24:13
  on the pragmatism that says we have to create an emotional
• 24:16
  atmosphere or whatever draws a large crowd must be blessed.
• 24:21
  Jesus acted with simple, restrained authority and
• 24:24
  rejected the communal spectacle of unbelief.
• 24:27
  He prefers quiet, authoritative action over loud, performed
• 24:30
  despair. And finally, the passage is a
• 24:33
  clear corrective against moralism and salvation by effort
• 24:36
  or works righteousness. Right.
• 24:37
  What's rewarded in this story is not moral achievement or perfect
• 24:41
  piety. It's the woman's desperate
• 24:43
  dependence, her trembling reach, and the rulers utter
• 24:46
  helplessness in the face of death.
• 24:48
  The Gospel just dismantle salvation by effort.
• 24:51
  Faith is presented not as a heroic moral achievement, as if
• 24:54
  she worked up enough emotional energy to be healed, but as the
• 24:57
  receiving empty hand of the beggar who comes to Christ with
• 25:00
  nothing but uncleanness and need.
• 25:02
  Jesus doesn't congratulate her strength.
• 25:04
  He comforts her dependence. He says take heart daughter,
• 25:08
  Salvation is received by faith alone because Christ alone is
• 25:11
  sufficient to meet us in our shame and our hopelessness.
• 25:13
  So to summarize what Matthew 9.1826 reveals in one concise
• 25:18
  thought, Christ is a holy Savior who cannot be contaminated by
• 25:22
  our worst aspects are hidden shame and defilement, and who
• 25:25
  cannot be defeated by our final, greatest enemy, death.
• 25:29
  The report of Christ's world reversing actions went through
• 25:31
  all that district. That spreading report is a
• 25:33
  public declaration of his identity.
• 25:35
  And you the listener, you must respond to this king.
• 25:38
  This narrative calls you to repent of self-sufficiency, to
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  step out of shame driven hiding, and to reject cynical unbelief
• 25:44
  that temptation to laugh with the crowd.
• 25:46
  So we'll leave you with this provocative thought to consider
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  this week. For those who are united to
• 25:50
  Christ by faith, death has been downgraded.
• 25:53
  The Lord of life has asserted his sovereignty, turning death
• 25:56
  into a temporary sleep. This means that the biggest,
• 26:00
  most irreversible crises in your life, whether it's a chronic
• 26:03
  shame that isolates you or an overwhelming grief that
• 26:05
  paralyzes you, are temporary before the Redeemer.
• 26:09
  If Christ can raise a child in Galilee with a simple touch and
• 26:12
  a quiet word, what does that reality mean for your quietest,
• 26:15
  most desperate need today, knowing that He has secured the
• 26:18
  final, certain victory over the grave?