“And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.” Revelation 12:11
The Bible is a book of overcoming, of rising up, standing, facing the difficult task or the enemy, and then overcoming the resistance to faith and obedience in order to glorify God. The reason for this is first and foremost that the Lord Jesus overcame every conceivable obstacle, and defiant resistance of the enemy, in order to do His Father’s will. All the seducing and tempting power of the enemy was thrown at Him, to turn Him aside from His objective, to honor the Father by the offering of Himself to die on the cross for the sins of men. There was no other way to redeem the souls of men but by the shedding of His precious blood on Calvary. The shedding of that blood was the perfect expression of God’s supreme power and testament of God’s absolute answer and response to sin. It was also the conclusive, absolute and unchanging declaration of Christ, of God, that all the power of the enemy, every principality and power, had been vanquished, or conquered and overcome. Christ’s words on the cross, “It is finished,” sealed Satan’s destiny, along with every demonic power and authority that belonged to him. It would be to the church of Christ, His living body, born on the day of Pentecost by the outpouring of the Spirit, that the great victory would be revealed. But with the grasping of this victory would come the very Life of the Victor, to dwell in the heart of the believer by faith. Because of the manifest victory of Christ on Calvary, then proven and sealed for time and eternity by the Resurrection of Christ, the church, and every believer since its beginning, is called to participate in that victory, i.e. to live it by the power of the same Holy Spirit that strengthened Christ to overcome. The Spirit of the Overcomer is thus, from the moment of the new birth, in the heart of the believer. With Christ before him, seated at the right hand of the Father, and all the means and magnitude of grace declared to him, the believer is called to submit to the authority of Christ, to His Lordship, resist every and all attempts by the enemy to dissuade or deter him from doing the will of God. All the power of God in Christ is put at his disposition to overcome in the sphere of the believer’s calling. How does the believer recognize this battle, and understand the spiritual nature of it, so that he can and will overcome?
In seeking the answer we always begin with Christ. No one has ever been so pure and good as Christ. This is proven by the fact that no one could accuse him of sin and prove him of it. He was exactly what He said, living and ministering in the absolute truth of what He declared. No one spoke like Him, nor walked like Him on this earth. He was above reproach according to the Scriptures, perfect in every aspect of His existence. And yet, he would become the target of a ruthless enemy, who sought His demise and destruction. From Christ’s birth we see the pursuit of Satan to destroy Him as a baby, and this, by the hands of Herod. As soon as He begins His ministry, being led by the Spirit of God into the wilderness in the will of God, He is confronted by Satan seeking to cause him to sin, thus thwarting His perfect work of redemption. Christ would overcome every temptation, even when weary and tried in ministry, forsaken by His disciples, and finally dying in unimaginable suffering on the cross, not just because of the physical pain, but by enduring the wrath of God upon Him. By His overcoming, He reveals to the church, and every believer, the way. He GIVES the Spirit to enable the believer to know His overcoming power.
Dear Father, Make us true overcomers. In Jesus’ name, Amen.