- Overcomer Literature Trust
- Swindon
- Wiltshire
‘Christ’s Victory - Our Victory.’
By Keith Weston.
“Thine be the glory, risen conquering Son!
Endless is the victory thou o`er death hast won!"
The incarnation of our Lord was the long-awaited, majestic invasion of this world by the King of Kings, a rescue mission to throw back Satan who had usurped sovereignty over a world not his, for “The earth is the Lord`s and everything in it” (Psalm 24 v1). It was a mighty mission “when the time had fully come” (Galatians 4 v4) to redeem the world, an all-out attack on the satanic forces of evil, with its one object "to destroy him who holds the power of death - that is the devil - and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death” (Hebrews 2 v14). The uncompromising starkness of the language is heart-warming. Satan’s destructive reign under the tyranny of which all the world groans and travails is to be destroyed! The thief who “comes to destroy" (John 10 v10) will himself be destroyed. "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 3 v8). Significantly, the first to recognise this were the very demon serfs of Satan, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? We know who you are, the Holy One of God” (Mark 1 v24). In Matthew 8 v29 they add significantly, “Have you come here to torment us before the time?” They knew their time was up, they had known it all along.
The Gospel of the Kingdom.
This theme rings through the Gospel like a trumpet call which demands attention. The first words of Jesus proclaiming it were, “The time has come. The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the Good News!” (Mark 1 v15). The Good News is that the long-awaited King has come, mankind is summoned to repent of its rebellion and to believe the truth! The same message is proclaimed by the Risen Lord (Acts 1 v3), and lies behind the thrust of the apostles preaching in Acts 2, where Peter preaches the resurrection and quotes Psalm 110 v1. His appeal is striking, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation!”
Paul tellingly explains to us that the Cross (rather than the Resurrection) was the moment of Victory. In Colossians 2 v15 he states that on that first Good Friday Jesus “disarmed the powers and authorities and made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross”. The cross was no failure, it was victory. What the world could not see, the eye of faith sees clearly, directed by Scripture. Our majestic Saviour climbed Calvary’s hill to do battle with Satan and all his demon hordes. Singlehanded he took them on, as, in the darkness of that day Satan summoned all his strength to destroy the Son of God. But he, Jesus, “disarmed them...and made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross!” It is a magnificent statement and it is for this reason we call that day ‘Good Friday’ and not ‘Bad Friday’. The glorious resurrection was the demonstration of the victory already won on Calvary. And that victory is the Gospel. The King has come! The war is won! Alleluia!
The Context of Victory.
Scripture teaches that Satan`s hosts are heading for doom, “kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day” (Jude 6). The Victory has been won and the end result could not be more secure. We live in the ‘between days’ waiting for that final judgment. But Satan and his hordes are still dangerous, even while they are led off to judgment. Get near them and you will likely be hurt. The discipline of victory is to have nothing to do with Satan, and to put to death the very thought of falling in line with him (Colossians 3 v5). The world, so cruelly torn and twisted by Satan`s destructive meanness, has still to be remade. The day is still future when there will be “new heavens and a new earth” (Isaiah 65 v17). Creation groans and travails right up to this present time, writes Paul, waiting for it to be “liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Romans 8 v21).
“Not only so, but we ourselves who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we are saved”. We are called to live out our days in the ‘between times’, looking eagerly for the day when the victory won at Calvary is applied and consummated throughout all of God’s Kingdom - “the glory that shall be revealed” (Romans 8 v18). But future glory is seen in the context of present suffering, the suffering maybe of persecution from those who refuse to bow to the King of the Kingdom, but also for all God`s people, the suffering involved in living in a world yet to be remade where Satan even in chains can still scream and shout. Commentators have often pointed out that there are past, present and future aspects of our salvation. ‘We have been saved’ looks back and sees the Christian ‘ransomed, healed, restored and forgiven’ through the finished work of Christ. ‘We are being saved’ looks around at the challenge facing the Christian in the ‘between times’, a challenge he can face through Christ’s victory applied in every situation. The well-loved illustration is a good one - three sailors in a lifeboat see their ship sinking beneath the waves and one of them cries ‘Thank God we have been saved!’ Another contemplates the mountainous waves being ridden by their lifeboat and cries ‘Thank God we are being saved!’ But the third catches a glimpse of land and cries, ‘Thank God we shall be saved’. So also is the Christian’s security in Christ.
The Discipline of Victory.
Riding out the storm, to use the illustration above, requires discipline and fortitude. Nobody, least of all Christ, ever said that the Christian life was easy. It’s like taking up and carrying a cross, said Jesus. The hostile wind of the world still blows and the stinging salt-spray still whips the face and threatens the boat. Only a fool would be careless in such a situation. The Christian may often wish he were home and dry. ‘How long, O Lord, how long?’ has been the repeated cry of countless Christians down the records of history. But the Christian is safe in Christ and because he is safe God leaves him where he is to stretch out a helping hand to others in the sea of life. “My prayer” said Jesus to his heavenly Father, “is not that you should take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one" (John 17 v15).
The Christian is therefore “in the world, yet not of the world”. Such a situation will naturally demand discipline. The world and its attitudes, still strongly influenced by Satan, the Prince of this world, will constantly seek to pull the Christian back into its clutches. The Christian has to learn to "resist the devil and he will flee” and also to “come near to God and He will come near” (James 4 v7). The discipline is therefore two-fold, on the one hand to resist Satan and on the other hand to resort to God. The first is done by doing the second. You cannot separate the two. It is a matter of orientation. Paul says we are to “set our minds on things above, not on earthly things" (Colossians 3 v2). To have one’s thinking determined by the world, the flesh and the devil is the recipe for disaster. But to have one’s thinking determined by the Spirit of God is victory. We are to “live by the Spirit, and we will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature” (Galatians 5 v16). Which agenda do we work to?
The tensions which we encounter in this fight of faith, to shut the demands of the world out and to keep open the windows to heaven, are part and parcel of the discipline of the Christian life. They are a mark of true spirituality, not of spiritual decline. But the Christian is not just prone to the world’s temptations, he is powerfully aided and defended, prompted and empowered by the Lord who is the Spirit. To be orientated wholly to Him so as to live a life “led by the Spirit” (Galatians 5 v18) is to know Christ’s victory in our own experience.
Resurrection - The Final Victory.
The best is yet to come! In his magnificent chapter in 1 Corinthians on the resurrection of believers at the coming again of the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul makes clear that this is the truest expression of Christ’s victory. Speaking of the believer’s resurrection he writes, “Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord!” When that promised resurrection takes place “the saying that is written will come true, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory! Where, O death, is your victory’?” (1 Corinthians 15 v54). However hard the struggle may prove, however long the fight, the end is secure and in sight, God gives us the victory! The coming again of Jesus and the resurrection of all God’s people will signal an end of Satan and all his hosts and the whole of creation will know the liberty of the children of God.
* * * * * * * * *