The Christian life is a
continual fight, a war, a thousand—no a billion—battles. More battles seem to
be lost than won, I’m afraid. But for whom exactly are we fighting? Who are our
enemies in this lifelong defeat? They have been called the unholy trinity: the
world, the flesh, and the devil are their names. And they rear their ugly heads
time and time again throughout the Christian life.
Sanctification is
a lifelong struggle—it’s the long defeat of sin: putting it to death. This
might seem like a strange way to think of the Christian life, but it’s a more
realistic way of looking at Christian living than the self-help stuff we see on
bookshelves. Think of the cross that our Lord was crucified on. That was
defeat—at least in the eyes of the world.
Jesus took the long view.
He allowed himself to be swallowed up by death for three days. Every molecule
in his body was breaking down. His brain was dead. And then he rose from the
dead and swallowed up death through resurrection. It was an amazing feat but first came defeat.
The World
Our first enemy is the
world. This, of course, does not mean literally every aspect of the world we
inhabit. There is beauty in this world; there is some good that comes of it and
within it. By “the world,” I mean the world as we know it that has been marred
by corrupt hearts, treacherous hands, and wicked minds—the sin-stained world or
this fallen, “present evil age,” as the apostle Paul calls it in Galatians 1:4.
God made the world and it
was good—and then we made a mess of it and made it evil. That’s the world I’m
talking about. The world that rebels against God and has set its rule against
the Lord and his anointed (Ps. 2). This theater of God’s glory has turned into a
theater of human sin, folly, war, hatred, perversion, and disgust.
And yet, it was for this
world that God sent his Christ to die. “For God so loved the world, that he
gave his only Son…” (John 3:16). It wasn’t for the perfect, happy world that
Jesus was slaughtered like a lamb, but it was for that ungodly, rebellious,
imperfect and depressed world that the lamb was slain on a cross.
The Flesh
Our second enemy is the
flesh. This sounds like a really strange term, doesn’t it? I haven’t heard the
term “flesh” since watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail. (“It
was but a flesh wound!”) This somewhat archaic word still has a place, a home
in the Christian life.
If the world is at
war without (that is, a war outside of us), “the flesh” refers
to the war within. We often are at war with ourselves. Our thoughts
accuse us. Our words accuse others. We doubt our salvation. We doubt ourselves.
The apostle Paul describes this internal warfare experience in this way:
For I do not do what I
want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree
with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that
dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my
flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry
it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I
keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but
sin that dwells within me. (Rom.
7:15–20)
Earlier in chapter six of
Romans, Paul spoke in such strong terms as one who is not simply preparing for
battle but entrenched in a battle. He was once a soldier fighting on the front
lines, but now he suddenly finds himself captured as a prisoner of war.
Christian theologians have characterized this internal struggle (“I do not do
what I want”) by saying that Christians are “at the same time righteous and
sinful.” We are declared
forgiven and righteous as far as God is concerned, and yet, we still
wrestle with sin day by day—we know it and our
neighbors definitely know it. Such is the experience of Christians every
day.
The Devil
Our third and final enemy
is the devil himself. We moderns don’t like to talk about angels and demons
much—they make for epic movies (sometimes), but they don’t typically have a
place in our minds or imaginations—much less do they have a place in our daily
Tweets and chatter. But the devil is for real. Satan is this accuser’s name,
and he is the ancient serpent who deceived our first parents at the beginning
of the Bible.
As the apostle Peter says,
he “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Pet. 5:8).
He’s smart too: he tricks us time and time again into thinking that we can
actually have our best life now. He makes us think that evil is good, and good
is evil.
We distrust God because of
him. We mistrust others because of him. We believe false promises; and because
of him, we want to embrace a false gospel, namely, that we are somehow
responsible for our salvation rather than God alone. But don’t believe this
trickster! His time is running out.
The Lifelong Defeat Is Over
Far too many Christians
live as if we are going to lose the war. We see the long defeat of sin as a
long, drawn-out defeat of ourselves, our churches, and even of God. This is so
far from the truth. Usually, we feel like we’re losing all of the time because
we’re busy following another self-improvement plan.
We try weight loss
programs for Christians when we should be focusing on the objective,
once-and-for-all sacrifice for sins that God has given us to conquer the world,
the flesh, and the devil. When we return to the good news of the gospel, as
when we first believed, we begin to have confidence again that nobody—not the
whole world, not our flesh, and not even the devil—can “bring any charge
against God’s elect” (Rom. 8:33).
Nobody can condemn us,
because “Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised…who
indeed is interceding for us” (Rom. 8:34).
With such a mighty warrior, a trusted soldier, a true victor—we have our
Katniss Everdeen who has stood in our place as a tribute. No one can separate
us from the love of God because Christ has conquered all of our enemies for us.
For I am sure that neither
death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come,
nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be
able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom.
8:38–39)
In other words, victory
has already been achieved. The outcome of the war is final, and we know the
ending. The long defeat is almost over. Hang in there.
