Faith

Beat at His Own Game

by Terry Barlow
04/21/14
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At last comes the time to write this best that's been saved till now. Death is so ambiguous, and it began to show itself as such long ago in the clash between David and Goliath. It wasn't, after all, the stone from David's sling that killed the giant. The stone only knocked him senseless. And while Goliath was knocked senseless on the ground, David took the giant's own sword and killed him. And while the giant lay dead before him, David finished the work, doing still more and decapitating Goliath with the giant's own sword, beating him at his own game, so to speak. This is just what Jesus did against the devil more than a thousand years later. The devil loomed like a giant over the Christ's suffering on the cross, he loomed there licking his chops in glee, venting all his hatred, and wielding his great weapon which was death. Even so the devil and those he controlled didn't kill Jesus but Jesus gave up his life, allowed himself to experience death and turned it into an atonement for us resulting in our redemption from sin. Jesus thus outsmarted the devil and outfought him, disarming him of his greatest weapon and destroying and decapitating HIM with it instead, beating him at his own game, as He rose again on the third day. Why then, you may ask, is the devil so active today if he was destroyed and decapitated like Goliath? Because as any beast would do after being decapitated, he is only twitching and jerking about until his life blood runs completely out all over the ground. His days and moments are numbered spasms until his beast body will be tossed into the lake of fire! But, in the meantime, death is so ambiguous. On the one hand, it's the feared consequence of sin and seems like a victory for the devil; but on the other hand (and this is the right hand of death for death is right-handed) it was the vehicle by which Christ won the victory over our sin and secured our redemption. Then he rose again never to die again, defeating death once and for all. But we still experience it even as believers, someone says. Yes, but only as a gateway into God's immediate presence, until comes the company of people who won't even need that gateway any more!