- Overcomer Literature Trust
- Swindon
- Wiltshire
Victory in Christ.
By D. N. Carr.
There are so many things that seem to get us down. Our times of personal devotion, which so often were such a joy have gone stale on us and somehow we just seem unable to get through. Our work gets on top of us and we become impatient and irritable; some sin, which we thought we had conquered once again rears its ugly head and down we go. Jealousy creeps in and we even find ourselves bickering with our fellow Christian workers, and things in the home become strained and tense. Then we meet some other Christian who seems to be so poised and calm and that makes us feel more miserable still. Or perhaps we see something more of the Holiness of God and the perfection of the life of our Lord Jesus Christ and this casts us into complete despair. Our position can be summed up in the words of Paul, “For I have a desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing. . . . What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7 v19, 20 and 24). Is there no way out? Are we to expect to continue in this up and down experience for the rest of our lives? A thousand times NO! There is a way of victory, “Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 7 v25).
When He lived upon earth He was completely victorious.
He and He alone never fell into sin. He was able to face all his enemies and ask “Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?” (John 8 v46). His Father said, “This is my Son, whom I love” (Matt. 3 v17). Pilate could find no fault in Him (Luke 23 v14). Judas realized that he had betrayed “innocent blood” (Matt. 27 v4). The centurion in charge of the execution party recognized that He was “a righteous man” (Luke 23 v47), and the penitent thief saw that “this man has done nothing wrong” (Luke 23 v41).
But perhaps one of the most wonderful things about the Lord Jesus Christ was, that as perfect man, “who has been tempted in every way, just as we are - yet was without sin” (Heb. 4 v15). “Just as we are”. He was tired and yet He had time for the woman of Samaria (John 4 v6). He was harassed by the hurly-burly of life and by the crowds and yet always had time to meet their needs (Matt. 14 v13-21). He was surrounded by children and yet He stopped to pick them up in His arms and bless them (Mark 10 v13-16). He was misunderstood and yet he never lost His patience. He was disappointed, all His disciples forsook Him and fled and yet He went quietly on His way (Matt 26 v56). He was falsely charged and suffered terribly and yet He was silent before His accusers (Matt. 27 v26). He was cruelly and unjustly crucified and yet He asked His Father’s forgiveness for His persecutors (Luke 23 v34). He was tempted in all points like we are, yet without sin. When He lived upon earth He was completely victorious.
When He died on the Cross He was completely victorious.
He died to sin “once for all” (Rom. 6 v10). During His life on earth we find that He was the special target for the devil. Over and over again Satan did his utmost to bring about His fall and yet never once did he succeed. Our Lord conquered in the wilderness (Matt. 4 v1-11), and incidentally notice the way in which He used the Word to win this victory, and the way that the devil only departed from Him for a season (Luke 4 v13).
In Matthew 16 v23 we find Satan returning to the attack and through Peter tempting our Lord to avoid the cross. In Gethsemane surely He was tempted in the same way to avoid all the horror of separation from God, His Father, the result of bearing the sins of the whole world; and again even while He is on the cross the words are hurled at Him, “He’s the King of Israel! Let him come down from the cross” (Matt. 27 v41) “He died to sin once for all”. The devil fired everything he could at Jesus but could never hit Him and now He has gone beyond the devil’s power to hurt Him. He has died to sin once for all.
If we look at Romans 6 we find that over and over again Paul points out that the Christian has been united with Christ in this death, “Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death” (v3); “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death” (v4); “We have been united with Him in his death” (v5); “For we know that our old self was crucified with Him” (v6); “now if we died with Christ . . .“ (v8). Do you see what Paul is getting at? He is saying, ‘Look, when Christ died you died in Him. You are one with Him in His death. Now as Christ died to sin once for all, so in Him you died to sin once for all. Now you go and count on this’. “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin” (v11). The important thing to realize is that we are to count on an historical fact that took place in time. We are not saying, ‘I am still alive and now by counting and counting and counting I shall become dead’. We are counting on the fact that Christ HAS died to sin and when He died we died with Him. ‘Counting’ is not a work and a struggle, it is a quiet resting and trusting in what He has done.
In His resurrection He was completely victorious.
The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is crucial to a victorious Christian life, in fact apart from it there can be no victory. The devil had done his worst. All the fury of devil-inspired men had been heaped on the Lord Jesus Christ. He had been nailed to the cross and had died. Surely this was the end, but the third day He rose again from the dead. I believe this to be a historical fact. For nearly 2,000 years people have tried to disprove it and have failed.
At the time of Christ’s resurrection His enemies, who were on the spot, failed to prove the disciples wrong. The number of His appearances and the way in which different people were convinced give overwhelming evidence to the fact of the resurrection. Mary of Magdala recognized Him by His voice (John 20 vl6); Thomas recognized Him by the nail prints in His hands and the spear wound in His side (John 20 27); the disciples in their home in Emmaus recognized Him by the way in which He broke bread. In 1 Corinthians 15 we have a list of the people to whom He appeared, culminating in an appearance to over 500 at once (v8).
The greatest piece of evidence is the transformation that came over the disciples. Before Christ’s death and resurrection we see them a weak, scattered and defeated band of men, “then everyone deserted Him and fled” (Mark 14 v50). But afterwards they are found testifying to the fact of the resurrection in the very teeth of opposition from those who were directly responsible for His crucifixion. The first few chapters of Acts ring out the message. “This man was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead” (Acts 2 v24); “whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead” (Acts 4 v10); “With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 4 v33). It is fair to say that the Christian Church grew out of the absolute certainty that Jesus Christ was truly alive from the dead.
We saw in Romans 6 the way in which Paul constantly reiterated that we have been joined together, united, or identified with Christ, in His death. Running parallel to this we find an equal emphasis that we have also been identified with Him in His resurrection life. Let us have another look at Romans 6. “Just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (in His resurrection life) (v4); “We will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection” (v5); “We believe that we shall also live with Him” (v8); “But alive to God in Christ Jesus” (v11). In Colossians 3 v1 Paul says, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ”; “For you died (in Christ), and your life is now hidden with (in) Christ in God” (v3). Again in Ephesians 2 v5&6, God has “made us alive with Christ” . . . and “raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus”. In Philippians 1 v21 Paul says, “For to me, to live is Christ” and finally in Galatians 2 v20, “but Christ lives in me”.
These passages make it quite clear that in the same way in which we are united to Him in His death we are also joined to Him in His resurrection. The risen Christ is the same Christ who was completely victorious when He lived upon the earth, who was completely victorious when He died upon the cross, and is now completely victorious having risen from the dead. We are in Him, united to Him in His death and resurrection so that His victory becomes our victory! But it is only as day by day we abide in Him, and reckon ourselves in Him to be dead to sin and alive to God that we enter into the reality of this victory. Only Christ has been truly triumphant and victorious and it is only as we begin to let Him live out His victorious life in us that we too will become victorious.
From: ‘Victory in Christ’.
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