Overcome Evil
Introduction
Reading an overseas Christian magazine recently I was appalled by an article titled, “5 Reasons Why Satan Hates the Rapture”. Since all Christians believe the scriptures teach the Church will be “caught up” to meet Christ in the air (1 Thess 4:17), what is at stake here is whether the Church is “raptured” out of the world before or after a time of most intense trials. Rather than simply my differences over key biblical texts (http://cross-connect.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Eschatology.pdf pages 46-47), my opposition to pre-tribulation rapture teaching comes from a radically different understanding of the nature of evil. If “The cross tests all things.” (Luther) and “The cross is the touchstone of faith.” (Ridley College), all Christian teaching must submit to the lesson of the crucifixion. The cross was the vehicle by which the Son of God was made perfect (Heb 2:10; 5:7-9). But deceived about the character of evil many of us don’t want to be perfected through suffering in the way Jesus was.
Evil: Nature and Origin
It’s easy to say what evil is not but impossible to say what it is. Evil involves the loss of the knowledge and glory of God (Rom 1:28; 3:23) and turns the heart into an incomprehensible reality (Jer 17:9) full of the negatives of darkness, ignorance, folly and death. Evil corrupts the image of God and so on. To ask, “Why is there evil in the world? Why is this happening?” is to misunderstand the nature of evil. If we could find some order or reason in evil it would be a part of God’s good creation (Gen 1:31), but it isn’t. To find a cause of evil within the order of original creation would be to find fault with the Creator. It would also set evil on a par with God as a part ultimate reality, such thinking is the essence of idolatry! But since evil only exists as a corruption of good it cannot be analysed or explained in terms of the normal realm of cause and effect. Those who would blame the origin of evil on Satan, only take the sequence back a step. Did God create an evil angel?? These puzzles don’t mean we should “explain away” evil as an illusion, like Eastern religions do. Rather we need to take a radically different approach that centres on Christ rather than us. The reality of evil is only revealed in the pain it causes God (Mark 15:34). Only through Christ crucified can evil be properly responded to, only through Jesus can evil be overcome by good (Rom 10:21).
Lamb
The plan of God for creation cannot be limited to some response to the entry of evil into the world, as if evil had some power over the Lord of all. Nor is there a symmetry between the beginning and end of all things. The perfection of a fallen world through Christ is vastly more glorious than the glories described in the first two chapters of Genesis (Rom 5:15-21). God’s first and last design for creation has always been his Son. Jesus said, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”” (Rev 22:13). He is “the Lamb who was slain from before the foundation of the world” (Rev 13:8; 1 Pet 1:20). This is the Lamb “standing (raised) as slaughtered (crucified)” (Rev 5:6). The “eternal gospel” (Rev 14:6) teaches us that in the inexpressible wisdom of God’s plan evil exists for the sole purpose to be defeated through the way of the sufferings of the cross. Which is engaging in personal pain for the sake of blessing and forgiving enemies (Luke 6:27-28). If you are not seeing the “evil” people in this world, terrorists, gay activists, animal rights fanatics, feminists, abortionists, paedophiles….in this way, you can go to seminary or read endlessly on the end-times but you cannot “see in the Spirit” (Rev 1:10, 12) with the mind of Christ (1 Cor 2:16) God’s plan for everything is only transparent to those who in Christ are committed to sacrificially loving their enemies in Christ. This applies to both future and present (Eph 1:10).
Overthrown
The principles of spiritual warfare can follow those of natural conflict (1 Cor 15:46). This explains this seemingly bizarre truth about the triumph of the beast, “it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them….Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.” (Rev 13:7, 10). The beast triumphs over the Church in the same manner as he “triumphed” over Christ crucified; only in the temporal realm. That God should repeatedly ordain repeated suffering and apparent for his people is incomprehensible to a sensible, rational, Western way of thinking. Try teaching the necessity of suffering (Luke 24:26; 1 Pet 1:6) to comfortable churchgoers. Of course various end-times teachings with their calendar predictions of the Church being taken out of the world before things get too hard are popular with affluent white people. The usual symbols of the nation’s exude power, such as bears, eagles, lions, but our totem is a weak lamb. Let the forces of darkness and chaos rage and stamp across the earth (Dan 7:7-8; Rev 13:5-6), the more powerful they become the more opportunity is given to the Church in Christ, to submit to their material force but in all-forgiving love. God’s kingdom overthrows the dominion of darkness by using its own strength against them; as in judo. Through such lamblike submission God brings his kingdom in by unfathomable power, this is the true mystery of the cosmos (Rev 10:7).
Domestic Violence
The internet has parodied the teaching of well-known end-times teacher Chuck Missler, “Jesus beat up the Bride early in the engagement (Roman Empire), but he won’t do it right before the wedding (prior to Second Coming).” In an age of severe aversion to domestic violence when a beaten-up bride is a grotesque image, we must understand that as the sacrificial disfigurement of the Son of God (Isa 52:4) is the glory and beauty of his Bride, so the Church brings beauty for Jesus into the world as she submits to those trials her all-wise Husband has appointed. There is a bridal beauty (Eph 5:27) that can be realised only through the purifying fires of persecution (1 Pet 4:12-14). Do we desire it?
Conclusion
A teaching that suggests that the Church cannot cope with any measure of evil that might break loose in the world is a denial of the all sufficiency of the victory of the cross. It is a defeatist spirituality, but one certainly understandable when we look at the wasted state of Western spirituality. But I see a plan working in the world that will progressively open up victory for the gospel. With a near “civil war” raging in America between those who adore and hate “the Donald”, and the same sort of polarisation emerging in Australia, a space is opening for real Jesus-like living. Like Christ crucified we are being presented with a tremendous opportunity to love and forgive our enemies (Luke 23:34; 2 Cor 2:10-11) to the glory of God. How good is God!