The Showdown

I grew up in Arizona where I developed a childhood fascination with the lore of the old West. I used to ransack the public library for books about lost gold mines, Indian wars, cowboy songs and frontier justice. One of my heroes, of course, was the legendary lawman Wyatt Earp, who had a gunfight at the O.K. Corral with the bad guys who used to terrorize the town of Tombstone. The outlaws intimidated folks with their guns. But Wyatt stood his ground and won the day.

Satan was the first terrorist. Satan knew that Adam was totally dependent upon God for his existence, and that he would perish if he could be turned from his Creator. So he caused Adam to rebel against God and then exploited his natural weakness and mortality to imprison him and his descendants in the chains of sin. Death is part of God’s law, the inescapable consequence of rejecting the Source of life, but Satan co-opted this divine judgment and used it for his own purposes. Satan hijacked the law of God and used it as a weapon against humanity. He leveraged the universal reality of death to stir up compulsive guilt, unbelief, lust and fear, thus bringing mankind under demonic bondage. Satan pointed a gun at man’s head and said, “The only way to save your life is by submitting to me.”

Satan uses human mortality and the threat of death like a whip to drive us into sin. The self preservation instinct is so strong that ordinarily people will steal, kill, lie, horde wealth, oppress the innocent, fight wars of aggression and sell their bodies and souls to evil—all in a vain attempt to save themselves from oblivion.

But Jesus came to “proclaim freedom for the prisoners and . . . to release the oppressed” (Luke 4:18). When the disciples returned from a successful mission of raising the dead, healing the sick and casting out demons, they said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.” And Jesus exulted, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority . . . to overcome all the power of the enemy” (Luke 10:17-20). The ministry of Jesus demonstrated that the enemy’s realm was crumbling. The kingdom of life was invading the kingdom of death.

On Calvary, Jesus faced Satan in a battle to the death and was victorious. When the powers of evil tried to conquer and rule Jesus, he would not give in to them. Instead of persecution, Jesus could have received accolades from the scribes and Pharisees by submitting to their religious interpretations. He could have appeased the statist system of Pontius Pilate and gained worldly power by agreeing that the world belongs to Caesar. Jesus could have saved himself from dying on the cross--but only by bowing to Satan’s authority. Instead, he took our struggle upon himself. He asserted God’s claim over the earth. He stood up to the powers of this age, rejecting their tyranny, going on the offensive against them until (ironically) he defeated them by letting them killed him.

When Jesus was crucified, it appeared at first that the old realm had triumphed, that God’s attempt to re-establish his reign on earth through his Son had been frustrated, that evil had overcome good. Even the disciples gave way to despair (Luke 24:20,21). But in dying to the powers, Jesus condemned them. His death became a noose around their necks, the decisive maneuver in negating and disarming them. The secret victory of God was openly revealed on Sunday morning. For when Jesus rose from the dead, he was forever carried beyond the reach of those powers, raised to live with God in triumph over them. The risen Son of God defeated death. God had the last word after all. It was in view of this life-long battle, culminating in death and resurrection, that Jesus proclaimed, “All authority [over death and the devil] has been given to me” (Matt. 28:18).

If the world was like a frontier town tyrannized by outlaws, Jesus was the gun-slinging marshal who suddenly appears for a showdown and defeats the bad guys at high noon. He proclaimed, “Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out” (John 12:31). He gave people courage to revolt against the death-dominated status quo: “Take heart! I have overcome the world!” (John 16:33). And he called his disciples to follow him in the liberation movement he had created. After explaining the necessity of his death and resurrection, he urged, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:22). We are called to participate in Christ's victory over death. We belong to the risen Lord who already stands on the other side of the cross. Because we share in his risen life, our victory is certain, our future is absolutely secure.

He is Risen Indeed!

As a twelfth-generation American, I am descended from a puritan immigrant who made the perilous voyage from the old world in search of religious freedom. The laws of England stifled his soul liberty, so he struck out for the colony of Rhode Island. Nearly four centuries later, I enjoy the benefits of the new world, not through any efforts of my own, but through the courageous sacrifices of that farmer-preacher, John Crandall. The restrictions of the old world no longer determine what I can or cannot do. I am dead to the old world and alive to the new. Likewise, when Jesus died and was resurrected, he was the pioneer of a momentous immigration from death to life for everyone who believes in him. His proclamation that “the kingdom of God is at hand” marked a revolutionary regime change from the old realm of darkness to the new realm of light. Now we are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, alive to God and dead to the powers that once held our race in captivity.

In the book of Romans, Paul names the powers of the old order that dominate humanity: law, sin and death. Through the disobedience of Adam, the divine verdict of death came inexorably upon all (Rom. 5:12). Through sin, death gained a legal “dominion” over us (vv. 7,14). But Jesus, the second Adam, created a new legal order by his death and resurrection. Paul writes, “If, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ” (v.17). The reign of life in Jesus has supplanted the reign of death!

Paul’s further explanation of salvation is profound (Rom. 6:1-14). Christ died to sin on the cross and was raised to God. We were all united to Christ in his death and resurrection. Since he died as our representative, we died to sin in him. Since he was raised as our representative, we were also raised up to eternal life. Our old self was crucified with him on the cross so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. This objective change in our status was accomplished 2,000 years ago. Just as David's victory over Goliath was a victory for all of Israel, purchasing their freedom from foreign domination, Christ's victory was for all who were enslaved by sin and death. “So you must also consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (6:11).

In Romans 7, Paul tells us that sin gets its power from the law: “Apart from the law sin lies dead” (see vv. 8-11).  He says that the law arouses sinful desires. He admits that the divine law is holy, just and good, but on the other hand, he asserts that it is this very commandment of God that attacks and “kills” us. By seizing his independence from God, Adam cut himself off from the only source of existence. God's decree that “the wages of sin is death” is not an arbitrary penalty, but the inherent consequence of humanity turning its back on the fountain of life. This terrifying judgment now floods relentlessly over our heads, threatening to annihilate us. Like drowning sailors, we flail desperately, gasping for air, fighting for life. God's decree of death makes us curve in upon ourselves in a desperate effort for self-vindication and self-preservation. Under the dominion of death, we have no choice but to adopt a "survivalist" mentality.  (Just think of how many sins are motivated by the fear of death: We lash out at others in revenge, we kill to avoid being killed, we take what belongs to others to sustain ourselves, we hoard possessions to keep away the wolf at the door, we follow the instincts of our “selfish genes” and do it unto others before they can do it unto us!)

Only through Christ is the threat removed. In him we have made the passage from death to life. We died to the law through the crucified body of Christ. The old world no longer controls us. Now we belong to the Risen One, and this new situation of abundant, unquenchable life, is what Paul calls “life in the Spirit.” He writes, “If Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness” (8:10, ESV).

Sin, death, and the law have been done away with as a dominating system. Although these forces still exist we are no longer forced to obey them. Because our mortal bodies are still tied to the old world, we are constantly in danger of forgetting the freedom we really possess as children of the King. Only the gift of faith can open our eyes to the new spiritual reality. Elisha’s servant was freed from fear of the overwhelming enemy forces attacking his city when he “saw” that they were protected by an even greater angelic army, that their security was in heaven, not on earth (2 Kings 6:15-17). So it is for us when the eyes of our faith are opened.

Such faith comes by “hearing the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17). The freedom of the gospel is easily lost if Christ's kingdom is not constantly proclaimed and believed. The message of salvation by grace alone is present to one degree or another in most congregations. But it is often obscured by moralistic teaching--”Try harder!” “Give more!” “Obey Christ’s commandments!” “Surrender to God more fully!” Even the exhortation to “Let go and let God,” which has the appearance of dependence on a higher power, really depends on an impossible personal achievement (to “let go”), and thus is also a subtle form of moral self-effort. Unless we continually celebrate the finished, objective work of Christ’s liberation, and accept our birthright of freedom as God's gift, we will fall back into the old pattern of domination by sin, law and death.

“The law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death” (Rom 8:2). In Christ our Victor we are freed from sin as a dominating power, because for all who live in the Spirit the threat of death no longer exists. Now we walk in newness of life by sharing the resurrection of Jesus. Sin has no more dominion over us, because we are no longer under the law of sin and death, but under grace. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!