The Reformation theologian John Trapp sums up Paul’s words here:
This is the sharpest and shrillest note, the boldest and bravest challenge that a human being ever rang in the ears of death. . . . Death is here out-braved, called craven to its face and bidden, “Do your worst!”
from: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevin-wax/will-sneer-death/
“On the one hand Death is the triumph of Satan, the punishment of the Fall, and the last enemy. Christ shed tears at the grave of Lazarus and sweated blood in Gethsemane: the Life of Lives that was in Him detested this penal obscenity not less than we do, but more.” -C.S. Lewis, Miracles
“As a pastor, I’ve stood by many deathbeds. I’ve listened as people have looked back over their lives and whispered their final regrets. Never once have I heard someone say, “I only wish I had worked more overtime” or “If only I had become the CEO.” But I have heard many people lament, “I wish I had spent more time with my children” or “I wish I had invested more into the work of the Lord.” It is entirely possible to diligently spend your time on fleeting goals. Some things just don’t matter when you approach the bridge between time and eternity. If you don’t clearly identify what true success is, you will come to the end of your life and realize that you lived for the wrong goals. At that point, you will wish you had invested more into eternity.” -Paul Chappell, Stewarding Life
“The Gospel is the Good News that there is a Kingdom far above and beyond the borders of this world, where death is dead and sin and sorrow cease. The gospel is about how God brings this Kingdom to us by reconciling us to Himself through Christ.” -Russell Moore, preface to The Gospel for Life series
“Death used to be an executioner, but the gospel has made him just a gardener.”
George Herbert, English poet, 1593-1633
“I once heard it said that life is a series of divestitures. And, as much as I militate against loss, separation, and pain, I know that it’s true. That divestiture is part of the fabric of our lives is evident by the fact that even babies know how to say “bye-bye.”” -Elyse Fitzpatrick, Comforts from the Cross
“Death came in by the ear at the first. Adam hearing the serpent, that he should not have heard, death came in by the ear. So life comes in by the ear. We hear, and then we see: ‘As we have heard, so have we seen,’ say they in the psalm, Ps. xlviii. 8. It is true in religion, most of our sight comes by hearing, which is the sense of learning. God will have it so.” -Richard Sibbes, Glorious Freedom
“There is no doubt that a shadow is a dark place to be. But when the Lord is our shepherd, we no longer have to fear the dark places that death takes us. In the shadows we reach out to find him beside us, and the fear of the unknown fades. When he gently uses his rod of correction to prod us in the right direction and his staff of compassion to draw us close, we find comfort.” -Nancy Guthrie
Your very dust is the Lord’s, and the grave rots not the bond of the covenant. -John Flavel, paraphrase from sermon 37 in Fountain of Life.
A Pilgrim's Theology 