By Rev. Dr. Brent Russett – Asbury Free Methodist
February 18th,2024 -Matthew 15:17-20
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Let me give you a brief theological history lesson. We understand the spiritual life through metaphors because things of the Spirit are hard to grasp by their very nature.
Throughout history, there has been a number of metaphors describing what Christ did on the cross. The one that has been used primarily over the last couple of hundred years is a legal metaphor.
It goes like this. We broke God’s laws; the judge sentenced us to spiritual death. But Jesus came and took our death sentence. Jesus took our place. He paid our debt. He took our death, and he gave us his life. That is a biblical metaphor. It describes the idea of justification through faith.
If you want to impress people at coffee, you can use the theological name for that metaphor. It’s the penal substitutionary doctrine of the atonement. It is by far the most common metaphor used now. It is a helpful understanding of the gospel.
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But for the first thousand years of church history, there was another metaphor that was much more common. It was Christus Victor. Christ is the Victor. This metaphor states that humanity was trapped by evil, held in the grip of death, captured by sin, and enslaved by Satan, who was the prince of this earth. But Christ came, and he battled evil, sin, Satan, and death and was victorious over them all through his life, death, and resurrection. —Christus Victor.
Christus Victor is helpful in understanding our role and the role of the church in this world. Theology professor Robert Weber says that the mission of the church is “Partnering with Christus Victor to overthrow evil and reconcile and redeem all of Creation.” This is how we participate in the Kingdom of God right now.
That is what Paul was saying about Jesus in
Colossians 1:19–20 (NIV)
19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
All things.
The mission of the church is far greater than evangelism, winning the lost to Christ. It is far greater than church growth and expansion. The mission of the church is to participate in the kingdom of God right now by “Partnering with Christus Victor to overthrow evil and reconcile and redeem all of Creation.”
Your role in the workplace is more than just a forum by which you can share Christ. Your workplace is a place where you battle evil and redeem and reconcile all of creation. Where we live in Perth is not just a place to reside, but it is a place where Jesus is looking to reconcile all creation.
I believe that our vision as the people of God has to be expanded far beyond what it is now. To do that, we need to understand and have faith in Christus Victor – Christ the Victor.
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There are so many challenges to “Partnering with Christus Victor to overthrow evil and reconcile and redeem all of Creation.”
I am going to look at six of these challenges over this season of Lent.
You may have noticed that our world is in a lot of turmoil right now. The question is, why? I have heard a lot of people try to figure that out. But the explanations usually fall short. Here is the issue, it is difficult to deal with the evil in our world – if you don’t believe in evil and for the most part, I don’t think we believe in evil.
Now, the idea of evil is in our culture. I remember when George Bush called Iraq and Afghanistan “the axis of evil.” The radical Islamists would call the United States “the great Satan. In other words, the U.S. is evil incarnate.
What both of them are saying is that evil is on the other side of the ocean. That’s really convenient, isn’t it? But think about what you think is evil. My guess is the closer you get to home, the more sanitized your thinking becomes.
It is really easy to declare that Russia and Putin is evil for what is happening in Ukraine. People are quick to declare Israel as evil or Hamas as evil. We look at the conflict areas around the world, and it is easy to say that is evil.
But now let’s move to our side of the Ocean. There is a crisis of Fentanyl overdoses in our country. When someone dies of an overdose, we call it sad or even disturbing. But evil?
Why is it that the closer we get to home, the harder it is to label anything evil?
We have, in our civilized manner, tried to hide evil. So, in our society, the truly poor, the truly oppressed, and the truly marginalized people are hidden. (I am not saying the poor are evil; I am saying that in one of the richest nations in the world, we try to pretend that kids are not going to bed hungry.)
The way evil is portrayed trivializes it. Movies about vampires and demons trivialize evil, and in trivializing it, we become desensitized to it.
So, we no longer think in terms of good and evil. We would sooner use terms like whole and broken, healthy and dysfunctional. We believe that nothing is really evil; bad things are a product of our childhood, our environment, and our DNA. And because we can’t label anything as evil except the most heinous crimes, we languish.
Charles Dickens, in his book
“A Tale of Two Cities” describes us. He said, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.”
We live in this paradox. Things seem good and bad. But we can’t get a handle on either. Because we don’t want to call what is good good, and we don’t want to call what is evil, evil. —- And one of the most insidious tricks of the enemy right now is to call what is good, evil and what is evil good.
This is what the Bible says
Isaiah 5:20 (NIV)
20 Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter.
When God says woe, you don’t want to go there. Our culture is calling some things good that are evil and evil that are good. But I don’t think that is our trouble in the church so much. I think our trouble is that we are unwilling to call anything evil.
Let’s move a little closer to home. Statistically speaking, there is child abuse, both sexual and physical, going on in Perth. Is that evil? Well, of course it is.
Does evil happen in families? The way we hurt one another, dismiss one another and build walls between one another – the damage we cause one another – that is evil, although we tend to think about it as being just “not good.
What has surprised me over the years is how deep evil goes in my own heart. Those of you who know me tend to think of me as a good guy. And yet, I don’t always love well. I sometimes find myself quick to speak and slow to listen. I have built walls of self-protection that keep me from God’s best. I fight urges to be self-promoting and self-indulgent, and I don’t always win.
It would be great to say that evil was out there somewhere. But it is amazing how deep evil has seeped into our hearts.
Come with me to Matthew 15. The definition of good and evil had been warped in Jesus’s day, too. The people of his day made up rules that had nothing to do with God’s rules. The big rules were what you could and couldn’t eat and how you ate. It was evil to eat without washing your hands.
Matthew 15:17–20 (NIV)
17 “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”
Now if you cut through the cultural baggage he was dealing with in his day, to what he is saying to us, he is saying evil comes from the heart.
The “Axis of evil” does not run through Iraq and Afghanistan, it runs through the human heart. It runs through our hearts.
Matthew 15:19 (NIV)
19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.
Jesus, in his sermon on the mount, equated hatred with murder and lust with adultery. He spoke out against the manipulation of others for our own gain. He spoke out any action or word that would dehumanize someone else. He is very clear here – all these evil things come from the heart. Where does evil reside – it resides in our hearts.
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I am not sure about you, but I have met very few totally evil people. Most people come in shades of grey. They have some good and some bad. Some people seem that the evil just clips the corner of their heart, and others seem to run right through the centre of their hearts.
I meet more and more people these days who don’t know the difference between good and evil, and their lives get messy because of it. It is the evil in us that defiles us and messes us up.
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But evil resides in the world in different ways. Evil doesn’t just reside in the heart. Evil can be systemic.
Is it evil that 20% of the world consumes 80% of the goods, and many people in the other 80% of the world are actually starving to death? Of course, that’s evil.
Whose fault is it? Some would like to put the guilt on those of us who live in the Western world. There is some truth in that, but I don’t buy that because I shop at Independent, that I am contributing to world hunger. There are some who would like to put the guilt on major corporations and conglomerations. Some are guiltier than others. But it’s not all their fault. They exist in a system that demands care for the bottom line.
In these kinds of things, you can see the evil, but it is difficult to lay the blame for the evil at any one person’s doorstep. It’s systemic evil. The Bible calls this systemic evil “the world.” It is a place that operates without any thought about God. It is part of what has to be reconciled to God.
Many of you live in this kind of system every day. It’s not that the people in the system are particularly evil, but taken as a whole, our world seems to be moving in the wrong direction.
Evil springs from the human heart, and it also springs from systems that take no thought of God. But there is one who is truly evil. Satan roams to and fro, seeking who he may devour. When I see the havoc he wreaks in people’s lives, it is just brutal. He is evil. There is an evil spiritual force in operation around us.
Demonic activity is very real. There are a number of you who have experienced this side of life. You don’t need to be convinced. But wherever the demonic is, there is confusion, hatred, and devastation.
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I have spent a lot of time on this, but it is important that you understand that there is evil and where it resides. The axis of evil runs through our hearts. It runs through our systems that take no thought of God. Evil also springs from Satan himself.
If we can’t see evil, we can’t fix it. Evil in our own heart. Evil in our systems. Evil in the spiritual realm.
We live in a world that tells us something different. The world would tell us that there is no such thing as the problem of evil. We are told that our problems spring from our DNA. In this scenario, the problem isn’t evil. It’s bad genetics. If we are just a product of our DNA, then let’s put our hope in genetic engineering so that we can fix the problem.
We are told that our problems spring from bad families. And the reason we have bad families is a lack of education. If we could just have parents more educated, then we would solve our problems. If that is the root of the problem, then let’s spend more money on education.
We are told that our problem is our politicians and bad government. So, let’s get some new ones or let’s fix our government.
Or our problem is not enough money. Or our problem is too much money. The problem is capitalism. The problem is too much government interference. The problem is that the government is not doing enough. The list could go on and on.
And you know what. All these things are factors because we are human. Genetics, family, education, and government make a difference in our lives. But these are not the core issues. You don’t change the depravity of the human heart through genetics, or education, or government. You must recognize the problem. The problem is evil, and the problem is close to home.
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But you can see why people outside of Christ don’t usually want to talk about evil. After all, what do you do with evil? Well, you try to contain it if you can. So, people who are seen to be evil are incarcerated to try to minimize their damage.
You can try to legislate against it. Is tobacco evil? If you have ever seen someone die of lung cancer, you wouldn’t say it’s good. What do you call a product that you naturally hate, have to learn to like, and then when you learn to hate it, you can’t seem to stop? Evil. (Please hear me – I am not saying that those who smoke are evil.) But we can’t contain that one, so what do you do with the problem of evil. Well, our government’s solution is to tax it. But we can’t tax it too much, or we will promote smuggling, which is a whole other form of evil.
What do you do with evil? There is no solution, really. We can try to minimize it or contain it, but we can’t really do anything about it. But as humans, we are hardwired that we must be doing something.
So, call the problem of evil a lack of education. – We can do something about that. Call it bad government. We can work on that. But if you call it evil – then we are impotent.
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And we are – but I want you to hear these words. Christus Victor. Christ is victor. The whole point of the cross was to triumph over evil. We do not have the power to effectively deal with evil. The best we can do is try to contain it. But Jesus went further. He defeated evil.
On the cross, he defeated Satan.
Revelation 12:9–11 (NLT)
9 This great dragon—the ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world—was thrown down to the earth with all his angels.
10 Then I heard a loud voice shouting across the heavens,
“It has come at last—
salvation and power
and the Kingdom of our God,
and the authority of his Christ.
For the accuser of our brothers and sisters
has been thrown down to earth—
the one who accuses them
before our God day and night.
11 And they have defeated him by the blood of the Lamb
and by their testimony.
And they did not love their lives so much
that they were afraid to die.
Christus Victor. He was victorious over Satan.
And what of that systemic evil we call the world.
John 16:33 (NIV)
33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
And take heart
1 John 4:4 (NIV)
4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
And
1 John 5:4 (NIV)
4 For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.
Christus Victor. In hearts that have been infested with sin
Christus Victor . In systems that take no thought of him.
Christus Victor – Against a devil that is trying to destroy us.
And our hearts. Where the axis of evil runs straight through.
Christus victor – Christ is victor even in the dark parts of our hearts.
If the problem is evil and the cross of Christ provided the way to solve the problem, then you can see how important Easter is. But if we fail to recognize evil for what it is, it is hard to apply the cross to it.
The problem of evil in our society right now is that we don’t believe in it. I am calling you away from that false belief. It is important that you believe in the existence of evil close by. For then and only then can the work of Christ be applied to it.
The other problem is that when we do come to see evil, we wonder about how it can be overcome, and a faith in Christus Victor has to be fostered.
Next week we are going to be looking at the next challenge. Once you believe that the problem is evil – We must believe that Jesus defeated evil on the cross and that power continues into our world. So that we can Partner with Christus Victor to overthrow evil and reconcile and redeem all of creation.
Christ has won the battle against evil; we have the tools by which to fight. But evil has not given up its hold yet. And we are partnering with Christ and must see that happen.
Evil must let go of our hearts. It must let go of our systems; it must let go of our friends and loved ones. But it will only do so as the work of Christ is applied to each area of life.
Over the next number of weeks, we will see how this victory works out.