9 The Conquest of Evil
9
The Conquest of Evil
It is impossible to read the New Testament without being impressed by the atmosphere of joyful confidence which pervades it, and which stands out in relief against the rather jejune religion that often passes for Christianity today. There was no defeatism about the early Christians; they spoke rather of victory. For example, ‘thanks be to God! He gives us the victory...’. Again, ‘in all these things (sc. adversities and dangers) we are more than conquerors...’. Once more, ‘God...always leads us in triumphal procession...’. And each of Christ’s letters to the seven churches of Asia ends with a special promise ‘to him who overcomes’.1 Victory, conquest, triumph, overcoming – this was the vocabulary of those first followers of the risen Lord. For if they spoke of victory, they knew they owed it to the victorious Jesus. They said so in the texts which I have so far quoted only in truncated form. What Paul actually wrote was: ‘he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ’, ‘we are more than conquerors through him who loved us’, and ‘God...leads us in triumphal procession in Christ’. It is he who ‘overcame’, ‘has triumphed’, and moreover did it ‘by the cross’.2
Of course any contemporary observer, who saw Christ die, would have listened with astonished incredulity to the claim that the Crucified was a Conqueror. Had he not been rejected by his own nation, betrayed, denied and deserted by his own disciples, and executed by authority from the Roman procurator? Look at him there, spread-eagled and skewered on his cross, robbed of all freedom of movement, strung up with nails or ropes or both, pinned there and powerless. It appears to be total defeat. If there is victory, it is the victory of pride, prejudice, jealousy, hatred, cowardice and brutality. Yet the Christian claim is that the reality is the opposite of the appearance. What looks like (and indeed was) the defeat of goodness by evil is also, and more certainly, the defeat of evil by goodness. Overcome there, he was himself overcoming. Crushed by the ruthless power of Rome, he was himself crushing the serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15). The victim was the victor, and the cross is still the throne from which he rules the world.
Fulfilled is now what David told
In true prophetic song of old,
How God the heathen’s king should be,
For God is reigning from the tree.
Here then is a further motif in the achievement of Christ’s cross. In addition to the salvation of sinners (as indicated by the four images we considered in chapter 7) and the revelation of God (especially of his holy love, as considered in the last chapter), the cross secured the conquest of evil.