Complete Victory
1 John 5:1-6[1]
When I was growing up, the only games we had to play were
the ones where there were winners and losers. The whole reason why you played
the game was to win! Of course, what happens when you approach a game from that
point of view is that it’s easy to lose sight of the simple pleasure of playing
the game. In more recent times, we’ve seen the rise of “cooperative” games. In
those games, the “opponent” is a situation or adversary that is literally “in
the cards.” All the players cooperate, because they only win together or lose
together. Either they win or the game wins. Some might ask “what’s the point?”
The answer is the fun you have working together to “beat” the game!
When it comes to Christians talking about the “victory”
they experience through their faith in Jesus Christ, I’m afraid it can sound
like “winners” and “losers.” When we claim to be the “winners,” it follows then
that those who are not among “us” are the “losers.” And, in fact, there is a
whole strain of Christian history and theology that very much sounds like the
“good news” is that “we’re in” and “you’re out.” It’s called Christian
triumphalism. You can hear it in some hymns written around the turn of the 20th
century. That’s one reason why I never choose them for worship. There’s just
something about singing a hymn that sounds like singing “we’re number one”
that, at least in my opinion, just doesn’t fit in the worship of Jesus Christ.
I think anyone might be excused for adopting that way of
thinking based on our lesson from 1 John for today. It promises that “we win
the victory over the world by means of our faith” (1 Jn 5:4, NLT). And it
insists that “Only the person who believes that Jesus is the Son of God” can
“defeat the world” (1 Jn 5:5). Here, the “world” refers to those who reject
Jesus Christ as the Son of God. In that context, it was talking about some who
had been part of the Christian community, but who had broken away over disagreements
about how to understand Jesus as both fully human and fully divine. It wouldn’t
be the last time the church would divide over a point of theology, and
inevitably both sides paint the other one as in the wrong and even as enemies
to the cause of Christ. That’s what we see unfortunately in 1 John. The
animosity between the two groups was so intense that he could call the “others”
“antichrists”(1 Jn 2:22)! That’s pretty strong language!
We can’t fully step back into that setting and understand
what it was that motivated 1 John to use such harsh language. But I have a hard
time seeing it as an expression of the enduring Word of God. I would say that
it reflected much more a very specific situation in that day and time.
Elsewhere in the NT, that kind of animosity between groups of Christians is not
only discouraged, it’s positively rebuked! Even in other NT writings attributed
to John, the “world” isn’t always the “enemy.” Remember, John 3:16 tells us
that God sent his son precisely because he loved the “world”! This points us in
a different direction in our attitude toward those who are “other.”
As I mentioned, the problem I have with the mindset about the “victory” of Christian faith that leaves out the people who have not (yet) come to faith is that it can lead us to look down on them as “less than.” I don’t believe that God is in the business of some grand “Zero-sum game,” especially one in which there are only a “chosen few” who “win” and the vast majority of the “others” “lose.” It was God’s love for the whole world of humanity that led to Jesus’ victory over sin and death at the cross and in the resurrection. That’s the language the NT uses for Jesus’ death and resurrection, although it describes that “victory” with different words.[2] Our affirmation of faith for today says it this way: “Jesus’ resurrection won the victory over all powers that deform and destroy human life.”[3]
We experience that victory not in that we “win” and others
“lose,” but in that we already share in the victory of God’s grace over all
that diminishes or harms anyone in any way. Even when we make the definition of
who gets to participate in Jesus’ Easter victory over sin and death as broad as
possible, it still leaves some “winners” and some “losers.” But the NT
understanding of Christ’s victory is that it’s over “all things,” which is
shorthand for the whole of creation. That includes not only the whole world and
everything and everyone in it, but the cosmos and “all the heavens”! One of the
leading theologians of the ancient church claimed that even the “inventor of
evil” would eventually be restored by God’s grace![4] Talk about a complete
victory!
More than that, because it’s not our victory, but Jesus’ victory, we cannot truly experience it unless we do so in the humility that acknowledges that we “win” only as we experience God’s love for us and share that love with all those who are “other.” The victory is not over the “others” who may not share our faith now, or who may live very different lifestyles. The victory is over the powers that oppress all people. And our faith in the victory Jesus won for us all through his death and resurrection enables us to confidently relate to all who are “other” with God’s love.[5]
Even after this careful framing of our “victory” in Jesus,
there remains one more consideration. Talk about this kind of victory may seem
hollow in a world in which there is still so much suffering taking place.
Again, our affirmation of faith acknowledges that in the present day, “The world appears to be dominated by people
and systems that do not acknowledge his rule.” One analogy that could be used
is the invasion of Normandy on D-Day on June 6, 1944 and the final victory in
Europe in the Second World War. Many would say that the invasion of Normandy on
D-Day was the crucial victory that spelled the defeat of the Nazi war
machine. The war still raged on for almost another year, and many more lives
were lost. But after D-Day, the final victory in Europe was perhaps inevitable.
Jesus’ victory over the powers of evil, sin, and death in this world is like
that. It was the decisive event that made the final victory inevitable.
Most of us have experienced some kind of harm or loss in
this life. We may have experience harm at the hands of those who don’t yet
follow Jesus. Or perhaps even at the hands of those who follow Jesus, but don’t
yet do so perfectly. Many of us have experienced loss in that our lives just
didn’t turn out the way we had hoped. Those wounds can haunt us, sometimes for
a whole lifetime. But the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that in
his death and resurrection, he has decisively defeated all the powers in this
world that can harm us. We may still be vulnerable to them in this life, but
there will come a day when our victory will be complete, when we stand before
Jesus and all our wounds are made whole. That’s a wonderful hope. But perhaps
even more importantly, there will come a day when Christ’s victory over all of
creation will be made finally complete for all creation, when all the heavens
and and everything and everyone on earth are united under one Lord, and we all
share together in that victory as confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the
glory of God the Father (Phil 2:11)! That sounds like a complete victory to me!
[1] ©
2024 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 5/5/2024 for
Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
[2]
Cf. Colossians 2:15; Ephesians 2:21-22; 1 Peter 3:22; Revelation 5:12-13; 11:15.
[3]
“A Declaration of Faith” Presbyterian Church in the United States, 117th
General Assembly, 1977; reissued by Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 1991 §4(5).
[4]
Gregory of Nyssa, Catechetical Orations, 26; cf. J. Quasten, Patrology,
III:289-90.
[5]
Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 4.2:825. He says, “It is love alone that
counts, love alone that triumphs, and love alone that endures.” Cf. also ibid.,
832-35.
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