Dennis Tuuri

We’ll be reading from 1 John 3:4-9. But this will be a topical sermon on Christus Victor and not an exposition specifically of this text. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. 1 John 3:4-9.

Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness and sin is lawlessness. And you know that he was manifested to take away our sins. And in him there is no sin. Whoever abides in him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen him nor known him.

Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous just as he is righteous. He who sins is of the devil. For the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever has been born of God does not sin for his seed remains in him and he cannot sin because he has been born of God.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for this day of triumphant victory in Jesus Christ. We thank you, Father, that he came to accomplish a task and that he has accomplished it. Help us to rejoice in that victory today, to be built up in the context of it, that we may go forth from this place as more than conquerors in Jesus. In Jesus’s name we ask it. Amen. Please be seated.

We have prepared copies of the Canons of Dort for you. We’ll have them perhaps in the pews next Lord’s Day. We’re working our way through the five points, so to speak, of Calvinism, although we’re doing it in the order of the Canons of Dort. And we’ve been talking about atonement—the “L” in TULIP, limited atonement. And I thought it very important that what we have kind of hinted at and addressed from a sideways perspective, not just in this series on the atonement, but really in the life of this church, our eschatology is certainly reflective of this—that we talk explicitly today about three theories of the atonement, three views or perspectives on it, and talk about a very important recovery going on in our day and age on a view of the atonement known as Christus Victor—Christ the victor.

Now there’s a talk by Sinclair Ferguson on the internet that I am indebted to for Googling. Reverend Ferguson is a Scottish theologian and a pastor here in the states and he is also a visiting professor at Westminster Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas. And he gave this excellent talk that, as I said, was at some theological conference. And at the beginning of his talk, he started with what I’m going to start here.

He asked three questions from the Bible, a little Bible quiz for us. Why did the Son of God appear? Why did the Son of God appear? Secondly, he asked, what did Christ do at the cross? What happens at the cross? And then third, why did Christ partake of flesh and blood? What is the purpose of the incarnation? In other words, and on your handouts, your outlines, we have the three biblical answers to those questions.

And the text we just read from 1 John 3:8 gives us the definitive answer as to why the Son of God appeared. We read there, “For this purpose,” and now we’ll come back to 1 John in this verse in a little while after we talk about gospel texts. And we’ll see that there are several purposes given for the manifestation of the Son of Man, but this one is climactic. This says, “For this purpose—for this aim, this is the reason—the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil.”

Not the answer that times we would hear in the context of evangelicalism. We just sang a song, for instance, that says, “Even then this shall be all my plea: Jesus hath lived, hath died for me. All my plea, all my praise to God in heaven is that Jesus died for my sins.” But the reason that Jesus Christ was manifested according to this text is not to die for your sins. That’s part of it, but the purpose is far broader—to destroy the works of the devil.

What did Christ do at the cross? Colossians 2:15 is talking about the cross. That’s the context for the verse I’m going to read from verse 15. What did he do at the cross? “Having disarmed principalities and powers, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.” In what is the “it”? The “it” goes back to verse 14, which is the cross. So on the cross, or in the cross, Jesus Christ—why did he do, what did he do at that cross?

You know, young people, you’ll notice that there are hundreds of crosses in the sanctuary. Lutherans are big on crosses. We’ll talk about Lutherans in a couple of minutes, but you know, what do we think of when we see the cross? And if all we see is this unfortunate line we just sang—that the only thing we see is Jesus dying for my sins—we see far too little of what that cross is about. Because Colossians says that at the cross, Jesus disarmed principalities and powers. He made a public spectacle of them and he triumphed over them in the cross.

Why did Jesus partake of flesh and blood? And again, from one perspective we can say truthfully it was to die for our sins, to release us from our sins, to satisfy God’s wrath. When we think of atonement, that’s what we think of—the satisfaction of God’s wrath. Christ’s propitiation is a substitutionary atonement for us. But Hebrews 2:14 and 15 says something else as well.

“Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared in the same. And now we’re going to have the reason why he became incarnate: that through death, through the cross, through his death, he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is the devil.”

Now that is the comprehensive statement: that Jesus Christ became incarnate, took on flesh and blood for the purpose of destroying the devil. This is to destroy the works of the devil. Here he’s destroying the devil. Verse 15 goes on to say that one of the implications of that destruction is to release those who through fear of death were all their lifetimes subject to bondage. So that’s certainly included in it—the release of the saints of God from the fear of death, forgiveness of sins.

But the primary purpose, it says, of his incarnation is to destroy the one who had the power of death, that is the devil.

So we’re given, in these three answers to this Bible quiz, a much broader view of the atonement than what we will find primarily articulated in the Canons of Dort. A broader view, although I think it’s implicit in it. We’ll come back to that in another sermon.

Now, why is this? What’s happening? Well, there’s three basic theories of the atonement, and I’ve listed them for you on your outline. And we’re familiar with Anselm of Canterbury. Anselm is who we celebrated last year at the Reformation Party. Anselm is the name of our presbytery. We are part of the Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches. And there are two presbyteries—groups of churches where presbyters, elders, you know, two presbyteries.

And our presbytery is named Anselm. Why? Because Anselm was a very important figure in the 12th century. He wrote a book called Cur Deus Homo—”Why does Jesus become man? For what reason?” And Anselm articulated what has become known as the objective view: substitution and satisfaction. So Jesus Christ came to make a full and objective atonement for us on the cross 2,000 years ago. And we’ve talked about that quite a bit the last few weeks.

And it certainly is true. In Romans 3:24 and 25, we read that we’re justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by his blood through faith to demonstrate his righteousness. Because in his forbearance, God had passed over the sins that were previously committed. So Jesus Christ certainly came as a propitiation by his blood, as our substitute on the cross.

So we, like Anselm, named our presbytery after Anselm. He was our Christian forebearer that we celebrated last Reformation celebration, and it is a good thing.

Now in Anselm’s view of the atonement, the atonement terminates—it has its basic termination point or it’s focused upon God, and specifically his wrath. It looks back at what happened on the cross 2,000 years ago and emphasizes the full removal of God’s wrath for the elect through the propitiation made through the Lord Jesus Christ. It has a theocentric slant to it. The focus is on wrath and the focus is also on the individual. And so, for instance, the hymn that we just sang would fit nicely with this view. And many of our hymns, and many of the hymns we’ll sing today, atonement hymns, have to do with this aspect. It’s individualistic. Jesus paid the price for your sins. He satisfied the Father’s wrath. It terminates on the Father. And it particularly focuses on the doctrine of God’s wrath against sin being propitiated by the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the objective view.

Well, 50 years later or so, a guy named Peter Abelard comes along and he produces a theory of the atonement that’s really reflected in the Armenians who are the subjects of the Canons of Dort. And we’ve talked about this a little bit, but these are nice categories to flesh this out. Abelard came up with what has become known as the subjective theory or the moral influence theory.

And so there’s no actual satisfaction on the cross of full, actual objective atonement. Abelard said rather what we see on the cross is the demonstration of love. It’s an example to us and maybe tied on to that is that he does away with the law. And so now the condition for right standing with God is whether we’re going to walk in the example of Christ’s love or not, and whether we’re going to exercise faith by love.

And so the whole thing becomes an example to us.

Now this has some places in scripture to commend it as well. In 1 Peter 2:21 we read, “To this you were called because Christ also suffered for us. So atone for us, leaving us an example that you should follow in his steps.” And there are several other verses like this. Jesus is an example to us. Abelard, however, was positing this against the objective theory and he wanted pure example.

And this is what we talked about Easter Sunday with Finney. And you know, people may not know who Finney is. You may not know who Abelard is, but believe me, if you start to look for it, you’ll see the subjective theory of the atonement in many places, even in evangelicalism. Jesus didn’t come to make a full actual atonement. We can’t have that because that means it’s just limited to the elect. But Jesus’s atonement is universal.

And so what it is—it’s a universal example of love. And wherever we exercise faith, now we’ll walk in that love and so be saved.

This view terminates on man. So the idea is the atonement is a [termination]; its purpose is not to satisfy God’s wrath. It’s to give us a moral example of love. And so the termination point for this view is on man. It’s anthropocentric, right? Anthropos—man. It’s man-centered in terms of its objective, and the focus is on love, and again, the individual in the context of that love.

Now, I’ve got on your handout a quote, or not a quote, but a reference to Cornelius Van der Waal in his book The Covenantal Gospel says that if that’s all we have is this moral influence theory, if Jesus didn’t really objectively pay the price for anybody’s sins, this is another gospel. It’s another gospel. It doesn’t terminate on the elimination of God’s wrath, but rather an example that we’re supposed to walk in his footsteps.

And this, of course, is where much of the world is today.

So that’s the objective view. And you know, we have this song—we’ve sung it several times. I like the song, but you have to understand, or hopefully from here you’ll make this connection. The song “Amazing Love,” you know, “and can it be that thou, my God, hast died for me.” So it’s an example to us of the love of God, and the whole purpose of the cross is to be an example to us, and we’re supposed to be loving as well and suffering for others.

But if that’s all you have, that’s heresy. If you do that in opposition to the objective view, I mean, if you do it as—yes, Jesus is an example to us, but God made a full atonement—that’s fine. But if Abelard’s view is really a view that doesn’t produce holy offspring because it doesn’t really in and of itself provide for any real atonement. If you know the story of Abelard and Heloise, you can fill in the blanks in terms of the inability of Abelard’s theory to produce generations of Bible-believing Christians. I won’t—you can guess at the story, I suppose, and what happened to Abelard. But in any event, Abelard’s theory—the objective view—well, there’s another view.

A book was published in 1932 by a Lutheran, a Swedish Lutheran man named Gustaf Aulén. And his book was called Christus Victor—actually, there’s a fuller title: Christus Victor: A Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of the Atonement. And so he talks about the objective view of Anselm and the subjective view of Abelard.

But he says he wants to examine from just a historical perspective what the early church thought. And he says that for a thousand years, the early church held this position. He says the ruling idea of the atonement for the first thousand years of Christian history was Christus Victor.

Now this view is sometimes called the ransom view. By the way, Aulén’s book—he had given a series of lectures prior to that, and I’m going to commend his basic thesis. I think he’s right about the first millennia of the church, and I think what he says is very important for us. But you know, as with Abelard’s views, there are some things about it that are accurate, but Abelard was not a good guy, and this person wasn’t good either. Aulén, in later works, made it clear that what he was trying to do, like Abelard, was attack the objective view of Anselm. And he wanted to get rid of the idea of substitutionary atonement. He tried to prove that the early church didn’t believe in it. He tried to prove that Luther didn’t believe it. And if he could affect that proof, then the Lutheran church would dump substitutionary atonement in favor of Christus Victor in some broad general sense. And the idea he said was that it’s kind of a motif, it’s kind of imagery. Jesus defeats the powers of evil. So we don’t go with Aulén in terms of what he’s attempting to do, but we are saying that his analysis of the first thousand years of the church is pretty good.

Now some people call this third view of the atonement the early church’s view, the classical period of Christian history, or the ransom view. For instance, in 1 Timothy 2:6, “Jesus gave himself a ransom for all to be testified to in due time.” So Jesus gives a ransom, and through the giving of this ransom affects victory. He changes the world. He creates a new world. He does away with the old world. The whole model is Christus Victor.

When you think of these great saints giving their lives in the Roman arena and what they did for a thousand years transforming the face of the world, what drove these incredible saints who, given you know what, a tenth of 1% of the resources that we have, accomplished a hundred times or a thousand times more than the church of Jesus Christ has accomplished today. These were supermen. They were supermen because they followed a reigning victorious Christ.

That cover art in your order of worship today is a good picture of that. The messenger of God, perhaps Christ, the church, whatever you want to think of it as, crushing the head of the dragon—victorious in combat. You see, this was all in his correct view of the atonement for the first thousand years.

Now, it was good that Anselm came along and articulated the objective view in terms of release from sin. That’s part of what the Bible teaches. But the problem is that for a couple hundred years, the church has been so absorbed in the objective view and the subjective view that it’s sort of forgotten the classical or ransom theory.

Now, one of the reasons they do that is the church fathers were kind of messed up. They didn’t know a whole lot. What does he who does he pay the ransom to? Well, they said he paid it to the devil.

And see, this automatically is kind of a problem for us—that you know Jesus owed something to the devil. But the theory was as posited by Origen and other early church fathers was that you know the devil owned mankind. Jesus owed humanity his humanity to the devil. And so Jesus had to give the ransom to the devil. And so he dies on the cross so the devil will devour him and his humanity, but the devil doesn’t realize that he’s divine. And so he’s kind of like a poison pill.

Well put in a poison pill—for instance, you put in a poison pill, something you know will be objectionable. People will finally defeat the bill. So Jesus injects divinity into Satan and boom—Satan’s dead. So their view of how it happened, of course, is a little fanciful and not biblical. But their basic view was that the atonement was about what these texts we just read said they were about: destroying the works of the devil comprehensively, not simply individualistically, not simply limited to your forgiveness of sins, but rather something far broader than that, far more magnificent than that.

And far more empowering of the individual based upon that.

You know, I know that I don’t want to be critical. I say that and then I become critical, don’t I? Well, I understand what is behind some of these things. But you know, I thought this week about the bumper stickers that used to be pretty popular amongst Christians: “Please be patient with me. God is not finished with me yet.” And that’s kind of what’s what modern Christianity has produced with a rejection of Christus Victor.

We have become people that are just sort of forgiven, and we’re sort of messed up still, and oh please be patient, and we’re apologetic to the world about who we are. We, as we’ve said before, try to be nicer than Jesus. When we look at what Paul said about homosexuals last week, it should be a ringing indictment against the Christian church, against each of us individually, in our desire to be so placating of homosexuality—a great evil, an abomination, the Bible says.

We don’t think in biblical categories because we’ve sort of reduced the faith to this individualistic little kind of weak view that we’re just sort of dog paddling our way, you know, in the next 50 years of our life until we get to heaven. And then the only plea, the only praise to him, will be that God forgave us our sins. And God’s going to say, “Not so. Well done, thou not so faithful servant.” Because we’re supposed to be like that early church.

We’re supposed to have a conception of Christ as victor. And as a result of that, our union with Christ produces a different view of who we are as Christians and of the Christian church as well.

All right, let’s talk about the biblical evidence for Christ the Victor. Looking to the text of scripture for Christ the Victor, and of course, in other talks I think Ferguson does a comprehensive survey of the whole Bible. I don’t have time to do that, but we will start with the proto evangelium. Proto evangel—how do you use those big words? I don’t know. These are just the words that I had to learn, so you have to learn them too. How’s that? These are words that people use. Proto—first. Evangelium—good news.

So the first publishing of the gospel we could say is in Genesis 3:15. Now we think about the fall of man and we think about the fact that immediately after the fall of man, God comes and God, in verses 20 and 21, gives animal skins to Adam and Eve. He kills an animal. So we have certainly in the Genesis account the picture of Anselm’s objective view. There will be a substitute. There will be propitiation of God’s wrath that’ll be made. Sins paid will be forgiven, and God’s wrath will be satisfied. And so we could look at that and say, well, there’s evidence of that in verses 20 and 21. But that’s not where the protoevangelium starts. Where it starts is verse 15.

Genesis 3, God says, “I will put enmity, hatred, between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

So the promise here is not that sins will be forgiven. That’s not the gospel promise. The first publishing of the gospel is that Satan will be killed. He will be destroyed. So from Genesis 3:15 on through to 1 John 3:8 and Colossians 2:15 and Hebrews 2:14, the good news is not that your sins are forgiven. That is wonderful news. But the good news is far broader than that. Satan, who had held this world captive through the fall of Adam and Eve, is gone. He’s going to be killed, crushed, defeated.

And that’s what Jesus Christ says he’s going to come to do. So the first publishing of the gospel is Christus Victor. That when Jesus comes, he will come as the victorious one—not Christus propitiator, Christ the propitiator, although he’ll be that—but his title is Christus Victor, destroying all the works of Satan.

In the gospels themselves, let’s fast forward then to Matthew 4, for instance. What do we see?

Immediately upon the baptism of Christ and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, what is the purpose of the coming of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus, upon his humanity? Well, the Spirit in verse one drives Jesus out into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Now, if we understand the whole of the Bible, Jesus immediately—well, just understand this verse—he immediately goes to warfare, right? He goes to resist Satan’s temptations, and he goes to a wilderness.

What’s the theme? Well, he’s coming as the second Adam. Adam’s the Son of God. You know, Luke tells us that. So the Son of God is to exercise dominion over the world, to have this world a beautiful, productive, praising place to God, and to develop the garden over the whole face of the earth. This is the first Adam, the first Son of God. Jesus comes as the second Son of God. He comes to a wilderness because that’s what’s happened as a result of the sin of Adam and the destructive work of Satan.

The world, no matter what good it looks like, has become wilderness—blackberries, brambles, thistles. And so Jesus there resists the temptations that Adam failed to resist. He’s second Adam. He defeats Satan by becoming second Adam and resisting a three-fold temptation in the context of the wilderness.

Now, he’s out there. He’s hungry. Well, Adam is in the garden, well-fed. Jesus is hungry. Adam is in the garden. Jesus is in the wilderness, right? Adam names the beasts. Jesus is out there with wild animals. It says they don’t hurt him, but they’re wild animals. So Jesus goes into the place of curse to do battle with the one who has brought curse, Satan. And he defeats him. He defeats him. He binds Satan.

In the context of that, we read later, for instance, in Matthew 12, eight chapters later, “Oh, how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house.”

Jesus is saying, “I’m casting out demons. I’m plundering the house of Satan. I’m curing people of diseases. I’m releasing them from bondage to Satan because I bound him.” And we think, well, that—where did he bind him at? Well, I think he bound him in the wilderness temptations. His destructive work on Satan began with his Spirit anointment to do battle against Satan. And in that battle, he conquered. He was Christus Victor.

Not fully destroying the works of the devil—that’ll wait for the cross—but he is bounding, binds Satan at that particular point in time. And then after he binds Satan, Satan, you know, in responding, in battling back, sends Legion, right? In Luke 8:30, there’s a demon and the demon’s name is Legion because many demons had entered him. Do you know how many demons were in him? How many demons were in Legion?

6,826.

Well, maybe not. But that’s how many soldiers were in a Roman legion. This word “legion”—it’s a military term. And it means it was comprised of 6,826 military warriors. Jesus, what the text is telling us is that a demonic activity that filled the world for three years and three years only. All right? We read in the gospels what is not normal. It’s abnormal to have demons everywhere. 6,826 in one guy. This is not normal.

We don’t run across this stuff normally. What happened was that in the warfare with Satan, Satan sends out his whole legions, his armies of demons. And Jesus Christ, having bound the strong man, begins then to knock off all of his followers, his army. He starts to destroy the army of Satan. And when we see people, you know, who are as the woman who is 18 years in affliction, you know, forced to be not upright but bent over for 18 years, oppressed by Satan.

Jesus heals her. She stands upright at last. Well, that’s kind of the idea. Jesus is taking the world from the wilderness back to the garden, from men being bowed down in oppression by Satan to men who will stand free and tall once more to serve Christ the Victor. And Jesus’s miracles and Jesus’s casting out of demons have to be understood in this light.

You know, in the Bible, signs are not just an empty picture of something. A sign—the Greek word that’s used in our gospel accounts—it means something happens, the sign accomplished. When we take communion, it’s a sign and seal of union with Christ. And it’s not empty. Grace is imparted to us through it. A sign affects something. Jesus was changing the world when he cast out demons, when he healed people and brought them upright again. You see, Jesus was accomplishing the defeat of Satan’s host.

And this is what’s going on. So the Lord is Christus Victor in the wilderness. He’s Christus Victor then against the host by binding Satan in the wilderness. I think he’s Christus Victor against the legions, the hordes of demons that are Satan’s armies. And this Christus Victor is given over to his army as well.

In Luke 10:17-19, the seventy were sent out. They returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name.” Satan’s army—not just people, but Satan’s army—are subject to us in the name of Christ Victor, the triumphing Christ, the victorious Christ.

He said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.”

That picture on the front is Jesus, but it’s also the church. We’re to trample on all kinds of things. Satan had sent out his army. Jesus had sent out his army, and his army was giving Satan’s army a whooping. He was giving them a beating. That’s what we’re supposed to do. We’re not supposed to be, you know, putting up with failure in this world. We’re to be Christ’s conquering army just like his disciples were. How much more so this side of the cross, and them having not just bound but destroyed Satan.

John 12:28-33. Now we’re moving. So we’ve moved through the life of Christ, his preparation, how it starts with warfare and victorious warfare, and it proceeds with warfare, and then he goes to the cross.

And in John 12:28-33 you read, “Father, glorify your name. A voice comes forth saying, I have both glorified it and glorified it again. Therefore, the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said an angel had spoken to him. Jesus answered and said, ‘This voice did not come because of me, but for your sake. Now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be cast out.’”

He doesn’t say, “Now I’m going to forgive your sins individually, and now my propitiation will be made, and certain people be saved and certain others won’t be saved.” He doesn’t say there’s something individualistic going on. It is that. Don’t get me wrong. That’s the part of the context. But he gives us the purpose of the cross here. What’s going to happen now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And “I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to myself.”

And we say, “Well, you know, wheat has to fall into the earth, and he dies, and his resurrection then will be his victory.” No, because the text says next, “This he says signifying by what death he would die.”

Now I think that a plain understanding of this text, the simple understanding, is that Jesus said that in his death on the cross, in his crucifixion, would be the point of his glory from God the Father, and it would be the point at which the ruler of this world would be cast out and judgment of this world would happen.

Jesus set his face like flint to go to the cross because at the cross—at the cross, not simply the resurrection—at the cross he is Christus Victor. He is defeating, destroying the works of the devil.

Now the next text—I’m sorry, I have the wrong reference on your handouts. I’ve got Matthew 4:10. It should be Matthew 16:21-23.

“From this time forth Jesus began to show to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised the third day. Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘Far be it from you, Lord. This shall not happen to you. Don’t go to that cross. Don’t die on the cross.’ What does Jesus say to him? You know what he says. He turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan. You are an offense to me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.’”

Satan working, if I were to believe our Savior, Satan working through one of the disciples, Peter, attempts to put Jesus away from his going to the cross. Because Satan was aware—he’s got better theology than we do. He knew at the cross Jesus was going to destroy him and destroy the old world. We don’t even know that much, but he knew it. And as a result, he attempted to keep Christ from going to the cross. And I think when that fails, Satan then tries to make the cross a thing of shame and humiliation, turning all the world against him. And he thinks that somehow this will change what Jesus does at the cross. But of course, Satan is wrong.

In both strategies, Satan fails. So the cross is the place of Christus Victor.

Now the eve of the battle. John 12:31. “Now is the judgment of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be cast out.” In John 13, chapter 13, “After supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Scariot, Simon, to betray him.” So now the devil knows he cannot keep Jesus from the cross, but he will take charge of the events, or so he thanks.

And then verse 27, “Now, after the piece of bread, Satan entered him. Jesus said, ‘What you do quickly.’” And then in that context, in verse 31, we read, “But that the world may know that I love the Father, and I and the Father, God, and as the Father gave me commandments, so I do, arise, let us go forth from here.”

A text that’s kind of perplexing to commentators because they don’t arise and go forth. Chapter 15, you know, he continues the Upper Room discourse. He talks about the vine. Chapter 17 is the High Priestly Prayer, still in the Upper Room. What’s going on? Why does it say “arise”? “Let us go from here.”

Well, these same words could be translated, “Let us advance. Let us engage. Let us join the battle.” And Jesus is telling him here that as his Father has given commandment, that he will do—as the Father has given him commandment to do, he will go to the cross, and at the cross he will conquer Satan. And in that mindset, and I believe he’s telling the disciples, we shall engage.

We’re moving forward to the great engagement, the one who just came into the heart of the betrayer, Judas, and we will now engage him and we will have triumph over him.

John 14:28, leading up to this statement, says in verse 28, “You have heard me say to you, I am going away and coming back to you.” So again, the context is his death.

Verse 30, “I will no longer talk much with you for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in me. And then he says, ‘But that the world may know that I love the Father, even, and the Father gave me commandment, so do I, arise, let us go forth.’”

So he says the ruler of this world is coming, and in that context, I will obey my Father. We will engage the battle. We will become Christ the Victor on the cross. So from the earthly ministry of Christ up to his moving toward the cross, we see here Jesus Christ as Victor in the context of the cross.

And again here he says the same thing in verse 42. “Arise and let us go.” And here this is in the garden. “He came into the third time and he says to the sleeping disciples, ‘Are you still sleeping and resting? It’s enough. The hour has come. Behold, the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise. Let us be going.’”

Odd thing to say, but if we look at it as “let us advance,” “let us engage the enemy”—see, my betrayer is at hand. Let’s go meet him. Let’s win the victory. Let’s destroy the works of Satan. That’s why I’ve come to earth. Let us engage. I think that’s the proper way to think of it.

And then finally, on the cross itself, and we could use many portions of scripture, but simply put, in John 19:30, when Jesus is on the cross, he receives sour wine. He says, “It is finished.” And bowing his head, he gave up his spirit.

And you remember when I preached on this, if you remember it, that this “It is finished,” in a parallel gospel account, it says that he cried out, he shouted it out. It is not so much a gentle giving up of the spirit. It’s finished. I paid the price for their sins. It is the victory cry of Christ Victor. It is finished. And even the head bowing—it could mean he threw his head back and shouts up to the sky. The victory is finished. The ruler of this world has been cast out. This world has been judged. I have come to destroy the works of the devil. I have come to destroy the devil himself. And it is finished.

And when he finishes the devil, and when he finishes the wilderness, and when he finishes with the old world, he immediately then gives forth the spirit. The definite article is in this verse. He doesn’t just breathe out his last. He’s delivering over the first fruits of his spirit. He’ll do it again when he meets with his disciples. He’ll say, “Receive the spirit.” He’ll breathe upon them. And then the spirit will come in earnest on the day of Pentecost.

And what’s happening? The spirit of God is bringing life to what had been a dead world. The whole world has changed and been transformed on the cross of Christ Victor. This is what the scriptures say happens at the crucifixion.

Yes, individual sins have been forgiven. Yes, he leaves us an example. But primarily, the scriptures say what happens on the cross is Jesus Christ is victorious over the devil. He judges the world and he establishes the new world with the giving of his spirit.

Now we can jump back a little bit and say that this is what worship should be about. Robert Webber has a series of books on worship, and in one of these books he’s got a series of articles on various aspects of worship. And I’ll just read you the header to this particular article.

The article is called “The Restoration of Christus Victor.” And Webber writes, “The event which worship celebrates is the triumph of Jesus Christ over the powers of evil. This dethronement of evil lies at the heart of the gospel. Worship enacts and reenacts the great saving deeds of God in Jesus Christ. It brings the benefit of the victory of Christ over evil to the worshiping community and makes salvation and healing available to those who receive Jesus Christ by faith.”

Webber says that it’s the most important development in the last 50 years or 100 years in terms of worship: the reestablishment of worship as the celebration of Christ the Victor, the victorious Christ. Yes, the application to forgiveness of sins, but not simply that.

And we know that our worship is modeled after the sacrificial system of Leviticus. It’s interesting, by the way, you know, some people say that well, and what we have in 1 Corinthians, where it says “one of you comes and has a song and a psalm and a teaching”—that this is supposed to be the model for Christian worship.

Well, he says, “What? When you come together,” and he describes this worship service. Every other time—six previous occasions—he has described the coming together of the Corinthians. And he says, “When you come together, you’re not eating the Lord’s Supper. I don’t know what you’re doing. When you come together, it’s for judgment.” Six times he uses “coming together, coming together,” and says, “You’re messed up. I need to correct you.” He’s not giving us a model for Christian worship. He’s telling us what unchristian worship looks like.

And then he says that what you should be doing is doing all things decently and in order. You know, it’s interesting—the Christian church—this came to me this last week. I was at several Christian events, and it’s really interesting what we think the spirit of God is like. We think the spirit of God is abnormal. He’s strange. He does things oddly. It’s—I, you know, in pagan religions, the shaman is the man that makes connection with God. And the shaman dresses weird. Sometimes if he’s a man, he’ll put on women’s clothes. Or if he’s a woman, he’ll put on man’s clothes. He’ll paint himself up all odd. He’ll take drugs and go into ecstatic dancing. And then at a certain moment, boom, the spirit of God comes upon him and he speaks in some kind of strange utterance.

The Sibyl. I haven’t seen the movie 300. I want to after preparation for this sermon, Christus Victor. But there’s a Sibyl, I guess, right? And so the Sibyls are the ones that speak God’s word, are always strange exotic people. That is not biblical. We used to continue to think that we have a world in which evangelicalism thinks that if you come to me and say the spirit of God told me that I should do this, I’m supposed to say, “Great. Amen. I’ll be doing it with you.” And we’re supposed to be thinking, on the other hand, that if a group of churches say, “Well, what should the spirit of—what would the spirit of God have us do this week or this next year?” Somehow that’s binding the spirit. That’s putting him in a form.

You see, we think the spirit of God works extraordinarily in weird ways. And so the Corinthians were like that too. Worship has to be spontaneous. It can’t be form-driven. And we say no. We say with Paul, the spirit works in an orderly fashion. The spirit works through a community of believers. And you see, in a sense, it’s related to these themes of atonement.

You know, the objective theory is totally individualistic, as is the subjective theory. So the church has been dominated for, you know, several hundred years with theories of the atonement that are related to the individual strictly, and not to the collective or to the group. And we kind of then develop this kind of anti-form, pro-ecstatic wildness as being what we think is how the spirit works. And it’s just contrary to what the scriptures teach.

We know that the rituals of Leviticus were Spirit-filled worship, right? That’s the spirit of God. Leviticus is dictated from heaven. You can’t get anything wrong about this one. And he told him, you want Spirit-filled worship? This is how it works. And how does it work? Well, we think that it’s a bunch of sacrifices and they killed a bunch of animals and that’s what worship was in Leviticus. Well, it was. I mean, it was. But we know that the first offering given is the purification offering. It’s the one that cleanses from sin. But we know the central offering is the ascension or whole burnt offering.

We continue to call it a burnt offering. Now, when I tell you, let’s think about the burnt offering. What attribute of God are you thinking about? Well, probably you’re thinking about the wrath of God that burns things up, that he’s angry with, right? And there is a wrath of God against sin. And the animal does die. He is burnt. But when I tell you that the Hebrew word means “ascension,” now what attribute of God do you think of? Well, it isn’t God’s wrath. It could be love, could be mercy, could be fellowship, communion—you know, we get to go up and be with God. But it’s a whole different view of what worship does and is.

And you know, what the Bible lays out in Leviticus is not simply forgiveness of sins—the objective theory of the atonement. What Leviticus moves toward is the great day of atonement. What is atonement? Well, in the word, it’s “yom kipper”—the day of atonement—”kipper” or “kaphar.” And it’s plural. It’s the atonements. And the word literally means “coverings.” And the mercy seat—so-called—the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies. There was an ark, and it had a gold plate on it, and that plate was a covering. It covered the representation of the earth, which was this chest, this box. And over that was a gold plate. And God was above the gold plate. And so we have kind of, you know, this view that you’ve got earth, you’ve got God, and you’ve got the firmament between the two that covers the earth. The way the firmament used to cover the world, and now clouds sort of do. And on that covering, the covering is gold. And once a year, what Leviticus leads toward is that covering would be covered—it’d have blood applied to it. And after the blood is applied to the covering, the high priest, who had stripped down to just a simple linen tunic, would come out. And then he’d put on glorious garments.

In the objective view of the atonement, it stops with the application of blood. And we think of atonement just as the forgiveness of our sins. But atonement isn’t—atonement in the Hebrew is “coverings.” And do you remember that we said there was an image of coverings of Adam? Of course, Adam needs to be covered. He needs to be covered with skins. The high priest, like Adam, has to be covered. And when he’s done with the sacrificial application of blood, he then comes out and he puts on beautiful golden glorious garments.

And after God had killed the substitute animal for Adam, Adam then is clothed in those skins. And the word in the Hebrew for his robe is not a light thing. It is a heavy garment. It’s an investiture for office and rule and authority.

The point is Levitical worship starts with forgiveness of sins, but it moves ahead to ascension, coming into the throne room of God, being equipped with his heavenly gifts, given a vision of what we’re supposed to do, sent back to the earth in fellowship with God to change the world. And it culminated in the high priest, yes, taking off his garments, yes, applying blood to the coverings, but it culminates in him getting his glorious garb of investiture on again and going into the world.

And Adam, yes, his sins had to be covered. The animals had to die for him. That’s part of the story, but it’s not the end of the story. The end of the story is he receives a glorious garment, a heavy robe that enables him to go forth and transform the world.

When we come to worship, yeah, we forgive—we confess our sins. Yes, forgiveness happens at the beginning, and we think of it throughout the whole thing. The sacrificial system had dead animals involved, but the focus was not death and forgiveness. The focus was on robing for service and purpose in life. The emphasis was not, is not, in the Levitical system, or on the Day of Atonement, Christus propitiator, Christ the propitiator.

It is that, but the emphasis is on Christus Victor. The emphasis is upon the new clothing that God gives us so that we can exercise power and authority in the world.

So Levitical worship reflects, you know, it was a picture of what Jesus Christ would accomplish on the cross. And what it tells us is that what Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross, what we celebrate in Lord’s Day worship, is Jesus Christ the Victor.

Jesus the head of the army. Jesus preparing an army to go forth into this world and to change the horrific evil that a passive church allows to exist in the context of this world. Lot, at least, was troubled by what he lived in the midst of—vexed and sorely chastened by what he saw. Are we? Well, I hope so. I hope the church is being woken up through the goodness of God and his judgments upon us.

And then we go back to the epistles, then, to answer these questions. We’ve talked about this already. We can do this quickly.

First John 3. “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil.”

Now I read then verse 5 as well at the beginning of the sermon. “You know that he was manifested to take away our sins and in him is no sin.” And later, in 1 John 4:9, “In this the love of God was manifested toward us that God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him.”

So there’s three manifestations. It says Jesus is manifest to take away our sins. Jesus was manifested as our example. But in 1 John 3:8, the purpose—see, those don’t—see his purpose. This was part of what he was manifested for: forgiveness of sins, serve as an example. But in 1 John 3:8, “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil.”

You see, we have right in 1 John 3 and 4, we have Christus propitiator, Christ the propitiator, Christus exemplar, Christ the example to us. But we have primarily the purpose of the manifestation is Christus Victor, Christ the Victor, to destroy the works of the devil.

Colossians 2:15. “Having disarmed principalities and powers.” Now, this word “disarmed” is troubling. They’re not sure what it means. The latest research seems to think that what it means is that rather than him taking away the power of those he had disarmed, it means to throw them off himself.

And we can sort of see that Satan’s last great attempt to keep Jesus from victory is to keep him from the cross and to hold him down in the context of the cross. But it says that he throws them off himself. “He makes a public spectacle of them.” What does this mean? He makes a public spectacle. This word “public spectacle” means to publicly and boldly disgrace the powers of evil, bearing away the sin which was their claim and hold on men.

So he publicly—the cross was a manifestation, a public manifestation of Jesus Christ, declaring them to have lost, shaming principalities and powers, the demonic forces of the world. He makes a public spectacle of them. And then it says he “triumphs over them.” And remember, all this is in “it”—in the cross. “Triumph.” Well, the word “triumph” was a technical term here. The word that’s used for triumph, and it referred to the Roman generals who would lead in triumph those that they had conquered.

There were four requirements of this Roman imperator who would lead such things. One, he had to be the actual commander-in-chief that defeated the enemy forces. Two, he had to completely and successfully conclude the battle. He had to have won the battle definitively. It was over. Three, a number of the enemy had to have been fallen in battle. He had to kill a bunch of them. And four, he had to make a positive extension of territory.

If he met those four conditions, he could lead these forth in triumph as the conqueror. And this is what Jesus Christ does at the cross. He says, “I’ve defeated the enemy definitively. I have destroyed the works of the devil. I have taken territory for the kingdom. I have destroyed this world. It has been judged. I have established the new world that I am now the king over.”

Hebrews 2:14 and 15 again. That “he might destroy him who had the power of devil.” Yes, “to release those who were held in bondage by the fear of death.” Mark that. Well, Jesus is Christ the Victor. And one of the practical applications in your life is an appropriation of the removal of the fear of death. The worst thing that each of us has in our hearts is death. The worst fear we have. Oh, we can put it off. We can walk past the graveyard. We’re good at that. But to consider the day of our death, impending fear grabs a hold of us.

Jesus says he is the Victor. He has destroyed the one who has the power of death. Death has lost its sting. And so, Christian, know at the depth of your being that you need not fear death. An army that fears death is useless in the battle. If you fear death, you will not engage in the battle. We have to be rid of the fear of death. As Christians, the gospel must be proclaimed that Jesus Christ has destroyed the one who has the power of death.

And we must get it down deep into our bones and into our hearts that there is no man that we must fear anymore. We do not have to fear death. We are people who are to be brave, courageous, mighty, conquering heroes for the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Bible says from beginning to end that he is Christus Victor. He didn’t come just to forgive your sins and let you dog paddle till you reach heaven. He didn’t come so that you could apologize to the world around you. “Please be patient with me. God is not finished with me yet.” He didn’t come for you to be namby-pamby about the evil in the world presently being fomented by radical homosexual activists. He doesn’t like us to be kind about those things. He wants us to be aggressive about our pursuit of the enemy and the proclamation of the crown rights of King Jesus.

He has bound the strong man, that deceiver of old. He takes us with him into the victory of the church.

Romans 16:20. The beatdown continues. “And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly.”

God says from beginning to end of the Bible that Jesus gave Satan a beatdown and his forces a beatdown. He gave them a true beating, whooping. He defeated and crushed them. And that we are in a mopping-up operation, as Gary North calls it, now. But that’s it. The enemy has been defeated and we best learn that this is what God says our life is about.

I’ve got four implications from Ferguson on your outline. You can look at those yourself and think about them. But I want to move to our conclusion.

Jesus Christ is Christus Victor. He is certainly Christus propitiator. He is Christus exemplar for us. But first and foremost, Jesus Christ at the cross defeated all the forces of enemies to the church and to the world. He destroyed the old world so that our new world might be begun.

Now this means that our identity must be wrapped up in that kind of perspective. If we’re Christians, what does it mean? It means we wear the victory of Jesus Christ upon us. It means that no matter what we face in the context of the world before us, we need not fear anything.

George MacDonald—I don’t agree with all his theology—but he has a quote I wanted to read here.

He says, “I’ll end my story, this is a work of fiction, with the relation of an incident which befell me a few days ago. I had been with my reapers. And when they ceased their work at noon, I had lain down under the shadow of a great ancient beech tree. Ah, great ancient beech tree. He’s laying there that stood on the edge of the field. And as I lay with my eyes closed, I began to listen to the sound of the leaves overhead.

At first, they made sweet, inarticulate music alone, but by and by, the sound seemed to begin to take shape and to be gradually molding itself into words till at last I seemed able to distinguish these, half dissolved in a little ocean of circumfluent tones: ‘A great good is coming, is coming, is coming to thee, Antidotes.’

And so over and over again, I fancied that the sound reminded me of the voice of the ancient woman in the cottage that was four square. I opened my eyes and for a moment almost believed that I saw her face with its many wrinkles and its young eyes looking at me from between the high branches of the beech overhead. But when I looked more keenly, I saw only twigs and leaves gazing at the infinite sky in tiny spots gazing through between.

Yet I know that good is coming to me, that good is always coming, though few at all times the simplicity and the courage to believe it. Few have the simplicity and courage to believe it.”

What we call evil, MacDonald says, is the only and best shape which for the person and his condition at the time could be assumed by the best good. Good is coming. Good is coming. Good is coming to thee.

That’s the message of this cross. That’s the message of all the crosses in this room to us. Jesus Christ is victorious and all the powers of evil have been definitively defeated by him. God says to you, Christian, today that good is coming. He whispers from the crucifix. He whispers from the cross, from his place of triumph, where he mediates heaven and earth to the world, where he is at the center of the new world, where the four branches of the tree go out, the way the four waters from the Garden of Eden, the four rivers flowed out into the world.

Jesus Christ says that his victory, his destruction of Satan accomplished on that cross, is now flowing out into all the world. It flows into your life. Good is coming. Good is coming. Good is coming to the Christian. Believe it. Be triumphant in it. Look for God’s victory in it. And look for opportunities to go forth and engage the opposition, the demonic forces that have been definitively dealt with by Christ, that are simply there now for you to experience the victory of Jesus Christ as it flows into the new world.

Satan was the ruler of this world. He thought by killing Christ, he would have the whole thing. And he did. But the old world was nothing anymore. Jesus had destroyed the old world. Satan was defeated. He had no dominion left to rule over. And the only thing that comes about now, the work now, is the Spirit of God enlivening what was once an old world and bringing new world to it.

Good is coming. Good is coming. It’s coming to thee.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for the clarity of the message of Jesus Christ the Victor. Give us faith to believe it. Give us, Lord God, a commitment to a conquering Savior that will result in us being strong, dominion men and women moving forth as your host. Father, we call you Lord of Hosts every Lord’s Day. Help us to remember that means Lord of Hosts, a conquering army. Empower us, Father.

We wish to come forward now and present ourselves to you, consecrating ourselves to the purposes of Christ the Victor, that we might be more than conquerors through him in everything that we do and say. Transform our lives by a consideration of our Savior and a renewed view of who we are as well.

In Jesus’s name we ask it and for the sake of his expanding kingdom. Amen.