“The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. God saw that the earth had become corrupt and was filled with violence… It broke his heart.” (Gen. 6:11,12).
This is an ancient verse, describing how humans have fought other humans for ages. And just as always, the current war and violence in our world breaks God’s heart. God is not the author of violence or war, and his actions and words throughout the Bible (and especially in the coming of Jesus) show that God works to end violence and war. Those who seek for peace and reconciliation reflect God’s heart and, as Jesus said, are the “sons and daughters of God” (Matt. 5:9). Our prayers are with those suffering and involved in the current war in Iran and surrounding areas, and we pray earnestly for peace.
This Easter, it is good to remind ourselves that there has been an assured and certain victory over war, evil, and death. We need to celebrate that certainty and hope and join with God in partnering with Him to bring about his Kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.”
EVIL HAS BEEN JUDGED, THE POWERS HAVE BEEN DISARMED
The New Testament proclaims that evil has in fact been overcome through the coming of Jesus. As the risen Jesus proclaimed, “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me” (Matt. 28:18), and as Paul asserted, “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him in the cross” (Col. 2:15). Jesus said that in his dying, judgment has come, and by this judgment, the “prince of this world” has been driven out and Jesus will draw all people to himself (John 12:31, 32). How has the cross disarmed the powers of evil in the world? And how can this be true when there are still so much violence and evil all around us?
At the root of the world’s problems is evil, and yet none of us can say we are guiltless. Although we demand justice when we are the victims, we cry for mercy when we are the offender because none of us has “clean hands.” What we need is for the truth to be told in such a way as there is a real release from guilt and accusation. We need someone powerful enough who can say, “I will take the blame.” And that is exactly what God has done in the cross of Jesus.
How does God defeat evil and become the rightful Ruler of the world? By “turning the other cheek, by accepting wounds inflicted upon him and making them the means of redemption. On the cross God absorbs all the hurt our sins have caused. Even as sinners drive nails into his hands, Jesus says, ‘Father, forgive them.’ Not lashing out, not retaliating, not holding out for satisfaction, God simply loves. The pain of the cross is the cost of God restoring the broken relationship.”[1] This is what the suffering servant of God predicted by the prophet Isaiah does: he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. As Isaiah says, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and God has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6)
In the cross, God himself has taken upon himself all the evil in the world, taking away all its power of accusation and shame. Jesus has proven that evil is never overcome by more evil; fighting is never overcome by more fighting; hate is never overcome by more hatred. Surprisingly, the only way to overcome evil is love. Love takes all the power out of evil. In his book, People of the Lie, Scott Peck quotes Gale Webbe, “The only ultimate way to conquer evil is to let it be smothered by a willing, living human being. When it is absorbed like a spear into one’s own heart, it loses its power and goes no further.”[2] And then Peck adds, “The healing of evil can only be accomplished by love. The healer must allow his or her own soul to become the battlefield. Whenever this happens there is a slight shift in the balance of power in the world.”[3]
Evil has spent its power on God himself, and a new power, the power of God’s love, has been unleashed into the world, and evil can no longer accuse those who come under the protection of God’s love. As N.T. Wright describes:
We have, alas, belittled the cross, imaging it merely as a mechanism for getting us off the hook of our own petty naughtiness or as an example of some general benevolent truth. It is much, much more. It is the moment when the story of Israel reaches its climax; the moment when, at last, the watchmen on Jerusalem’s walls see their God coming in his kingdom; the moment when the people of God are renewed so as to be, at last, the royal priesthood who will take over the world not with the love of power but with the power of love; the moment when the kingdom of God overcomes the kingdoms of the world.[4]
THE NEW CREATION HAS BEGUN AND IS CERTAIN
But the story doesn’t end, and can’t end, at the cross. As Jesus predicted and as Isaiah prophesied, after the suffering of the servant, “he will see the light of life,” he will “prolong his days” so that he may see all those rescued by his suffering (Isa. 53:10, 11). We would have never heard of Jesus had it not been for the resurrection. But the resurrection confirms all that Jesus taught about God and all that Jesus did on this earth and accomplished on the cross.
The explosive power of the early church began when God cracked open the tomb and Jesus’ mutilated, dead body was transformed into a new sort of body, one that was no longer susceptible to infection, disease, or death. None of the disciples were expecting this. Everyone thought the resurrection from the dead would occur at the “end of the age,” not in the “middle of the age.” What in the world does this mean for God to transform Jesus’ dead body? What does it mean especially in the light of Jesus having been humiliated and suffered on a cross like he did?
Jesus’ transformation means, as theologian Wolfhart Pannenburg writes, “the end of the world has begun.”[5] The beginning of the end has truly begun. Death is not the final word for this creation nor for any one of us. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, Jesus is the “first fruit” of what is to come. Humans are guaranteed the same kind of body Jesus had, a transformed one not susceptible to infection, disease, or death.
The resurrection especially means that Jesus is now the reigning King who has suffered in the worst battle to disarm all the powers of the evil one. The resurrection proves that God is for us, and that if God is for us, no one can condemn us (Rom. 8:31, 34). The resurrection proves that nothing can separate us from the love of God displayed so powerfully in Jesus: neither death nor life, angels nor demons, the present nor the future, nor any powers, nothing in all of creation will ever separate us from the love of God in Jesus (Rom. 8:38,39).
The resurrection also means that there has been a regime change; this creation really is under a new world order. Because Jesus rose from the dead, death doesn’t have the power we once thought it did. We also know that evil will not have the last say and that perpetrators of evil will not get away with it. God isn’t weak to deal with the world’s death and evil; he deals with evil just like he always has, through his patient, faithful love, but also with putting an end to evil and death. The resurrection of Jesus is the preview of the future, of all that God had originally intended in creation. The resurrection is our ground for hope in the faithful love of God.
As Walter Brueggemann writes:
Hope in gospel faith is not just a vague feeling that things will work out, for it is evident that things will not just work out. Rather, hope is the conviction, against a great deal of data, that God is tenacious and persistent in overcoming the deathliness of the world, that God intends joy and peace. Hope is the deep religious conviction that God has not quit. Resurrection of the dead is God’s capacity to take a circumstance of complete shutdown and hopelessness and make something new from it. The good news is surely an urgent word of assurance in our time, because our society and world are close to shut down and no one can see ahead. But women and men of faith know otherwise. We know because we are part of a story of an alternative of new possibilities, grounded in unconditional love, right in the middle of our lives. And we can see it welling up in specific ways when people give themselves over to the goodness of God.[6]
LIVING IN THE RISEN JESUS
The resurrection is God’s intended future for all humanity occurring in the middle of history, as a preview and assurance of what is to come. That means that those of us now living have what Letty Russell calls an “advent shock” when we recognize the huge difference in the way the world is and what God intends it to be.[7] But because of the cross and resurrection, we know for certaint that God’s intended future is not only possible, it is inevitable. As Russell writes, “Because of advent shock we seek to anticipate the future in what we do, opening ourselves to the working of God’s Spirit and expecting the impossible.”[8]
Living in the risen Jesus, we experience the future, and we are beginning now to live in anticipation the life of the future. The reason Christians live differently is not because we are trying to gain some “prize” in heaven someday. The reason Christians live differently is because this is the way life is supposed to be lived. The “prize” is beginning now as we learn that we don’t have to live the way the world lives. King Jesus has come to us and has rescued us now from the death-dealing ways of this world. We are thankful that God has awakened us and is teaching and training us “in advance the language of God’s new world.”[9]
[1] Clark H. Pinnock and Robert C. Brow, Unbounded Love: A Good News Theology for the 21st Century (Intervarsity Press, 1994), 103.
[2] Gale D. Webbe, The Night and Nothing (Seabury Press, 1964), 109, quoted in Scott Peck, People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (Simon and Schuster, 1983), 269.
[3] Peck, People of the Lie, 269.
[4] N.T. Wright, How God Became King: The Forgotten Story of the Gospels (HarperOne, 2012), 239.
[5] Wolfhart Pannenburg, Jesus—God and Man (Westminster Press, 1968), 67.
[6] Walter Brueggemann, A Gospel of Hope (Westminster John Knox Press, 2018), 104, 108.
[7] Letty Russell, The Future of Partnership (Westminster, 1979), 102.
[8] Russell, The Future of Partnership, 102.
[9] N.T. Wright, “Why Christian Character Matters,” in All Things Hold Together in Christ: A Conversation on Faith, Science, and Virtue, eds. James K.A. Smith and Michael L. Gulker (Baker Academic, 2018), 186.