Bach: Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4

This morning I listened to Bach's Christ lag in Todes Banden, BWV 4.  I noticed that at the word "nichts" ("nothing") in the fourth movement, the instruments drop out, but - after this feature seemed familiar - I did some research and discovered that I actually made a note of that when I listened to this cantata last summer.  I still intended to write about it (on a different blog) this afternoon, so I lookt up the notation, but then I found something else.

Leading up to that "nichts," there are double, triple, and quadruple stops in the violin part:

(notation found here)

Purely as a musical feature, those multiple stops set up a contrast with the rests after "nichts," but I think there's also an extra-musical intent.  The text for this movement includes:

Jesus Christus, Gottes Sohn, an unser Statt ist kommen,
Und hat die Sünde weggethan, damit dem Tod genommen
All' sein Recht und sein' Gewalt,
Da bleibet nichts denn Tod'sgestalt,
Den Stach’l hat er verloren.

Which I've translated as:

Jesus Christ, God's Son, has come in our stead
And has put away sin and with it taken death
All its [death's] authority and its power
There remains nothing because death
Has lost its sting.

The Biblical text is from 1 Corinthians 15:

When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:  "Death is swallowed up in victory."  "O death, where is your victory?  O death, where is your sting?"  The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  (1 Corinthians 15:54-57)

After "sein' Gewalt" ("its power") the triple and quadruple stops occur, as if to demonstrate that power, and then they're absent once "da bleibet nichts" ("there remains nothing").

"Gewalt" can also be translated as "violence," which those triple and quadruple stops could also represent.