Powerful Realities that Jesus Life and Work Accomplished
One of the many things I like to think about when I think about the incarnation of Jesus is just how much His arrival and atonement achieved. In his book The Mosaic Of Atonement, Joshua McNall outlines four powerful realities that Jesus’ life and work accomplished:
1. He recapitulated the human story. Jesus shows us what the human life should have been without sin. He does what Adam could not do.
2. He provided penal substitution. On the cross Jesus stands in our place for us by taking our sin upon Himself that we might be redeemed. He who knew no sin became sin for us.
3. He is the Christus Victor. Jesus’ death and resurrection claimed victory over Satan and the evil powers of this world.
4. He beckons us to Him. Jesus gives us righteousness and that changes our desires so that we want to run to Him and run away from sin.
It brings joy to my soul to take time every now and then to focus in on each one of these points individually. When I consider Jesus coming to defeat the evil powers of Satan and the world, I am reminded that the Christian story is the basis for all tales of good triumphing over evil.
Forgive me for being a nerd, but there is a moment in The Two Towers, the second novel in The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, where our two hobbit friends Merry and Pippin come across the great Ent Treebeard in the forest of Fangorn. He and the other Ents are peaceful tree creatures, but they are angered by the injustice of the traitorous wizard Saruman who cut down other trees for his evil purposes at his stronghold in Isengard. These normally kind protectors marshal together to put a stop to the injustice that is plaguing Middle Earth. As Treebeard marches with Merry and Pippin he says something that gives me goosebumps every time I read it. “Night lies over Isengard,” he says. The indication is that evil will not triumph over the powers of good.
On a real and cosmic scale, that is what Jesus accomplished with His life, death, and resurrection. Satan, his minions, and the evil powers have tried to conquer this world but they never had a chance. With the first cries of that baby Messiah, light filled up our whole world, and whatever schemes Satan may try to employ, he cannot escape what he already knows to be true. Jesus has disarmed death and hell itself! Night has fallen over Isengard indeed.
Pastor Richie