Entering into Christ's victory

For Christians as for Christ, life spells conflict.  For Christians as for Christ it should also spell victory.  We are to be victorious like the victorious Christ.  Did not John write to the 'young men' of the churches he supervised because they had 'overcome te evil one'?  Did not Jesus deliberately draw a parallel between himself and us in this respect, promising to him who overcomes the right to share his throne, just as he had overcome and shared his Father's throne [1 Jn. 2:13; Rev. 3:21]?

Yet the parallel is only partial.  It would be utterly impossible for us by ourselves to fight and defeat the devil: we lack both the skill and the strength to do so.  It would also be unnecessary to make the attempt, because Christ has already done it.  The victory of Christians, therefore, consists of entering into the victory of Christ and of enjoying its benefits.  We can thank God that 'he gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ' [1 Cor. 15:57].  We know that Jesus, having been raised from the dead, is now seated at the Father's right hand in the heavenly realms [Eph. 1:20-23].  But God has 'made us alive with Christ…, and raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms' [Eph. 2:4-6].  In other words, by God's gracious power we who have shared in Christ's resurrection share also in his throne.  If God has placed all things under Christ's feet, they must be under ours too, if we are in him.  To borrow Jesus' own metaphor, now that the strong man has been disarmed and bound, the time is ripe for us to raid his palace and plunder his goods [Mk. 3:37].

It is not quite so simple as that, however.  For though the devil has been defeated, he has not yet conceded defeat.  Although he has been overthrown, he has not yet been eliminated.  In fact he continues to wield great power.  This is the reason for the tension we feel in both our theology and our experience.  On the one hand we are alive, seated and reigning with Christ, as we have just seen, with even the principalities and powers of evil placed by God under his (and therefore our) feet; on the other we are warned (also in Ephesians) that these same spiritual forces have set themselves in opposition to us, so that we have no hope of standing against them unless we are strong in the Lord's strength and clad in his armour [Eph. 6:10-17].  Or here is the same paradox in different language.  On the one hand, we are assured that, having been born of God, Christ keeps us safe 'and the evil one does not touch us [1 Jn. 5:18]; on the other we are warned to watch out because the same evil one 'prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour' [1 Pet. 5:8].

Many Christians choose one or other of these positions, or oscillate unsteadily between them.  Some are triumphalists, who see only the decisive victory of Jesus Christ and overlook the apostolic warnings against the powers of darkness.  Others are defeatists, who see only the fearsome malice of the devil and overlook the victory over him which Christ has already won.  The tension is part of the Christian dilemma between the 'already' and the 'not yet'.  Already the kingdom of God has been inaugurated and is advancing; not yet has it been consummated.  Already the new age (the age to come) has come, so that we have 'tasted…the powers of the coming age' [Heb. 6:5]; not yet has the old age completely passed away.  Already we are God's sons and daughters, and no longer slaves [1 Jn. 2:8]; not yet have we entered 'the glorious freedom of the children of God' [Rom.8:21].  An overemphasis on the 'already' leads to triumphalism, the claim to perfection — either moral (sinlessness) or physical (complete health) — which belongs only to the consummated Kingdom, the 'not yet'.  An overemphasis on the 'not yet' leads to defeatism, an acquiescence in continuing evil which is incompatible with the 'already' of Christ's victory.

— John R. Stott, The Cross of Christ, pp. 239-240