Suppose (for the last time in this chapter) that you are one of the early Christians. Not for a moment do you look upon the cross as "the defeat of God" or any such thing. For you, the cross seen in the light of the resurrection is the stunning victory of God -- the "unexpected news" that changes everything. You nod your head in agreement as you hear read in the Sunday service Paul's summary of the things of central importance to your faith ( Col. 2: 8-15), ending with the words, "He [God] disarmed the principalities and powers and made a public example of them, triumphing over them in him [Jesus]" (v. 15, italics added). You realize in a very poignant way that this is just what happened on the cross. There, you reflect, the "principalities and powers" (by which Paul means the forces of evil) were in mortal combat with God's power, and God "triumphed over them."
In other words, you see that something of lasting significance was taking place on that hill outside Jerusalem. And while it is hard to describe, you somehow have the feeling that here is the most important thing of all. You see the cross as a battlefield. On one side are the forces of evil, sin, and death, sure that now they've "got God cornered" since he has been foolish enough to play into their hands by becoming man. (In Jesus, Paul says, was "the whole fulness of deity," Col. 2: 9.) And on the other side is God. If he can withstand this assault upon his power, nothing else can defeat him.
And you are a little breathless as you think about the staggering importance of this conflict, until you remember that, as Paul put it, God "triumphed over them." You see that the crown of thorns is a real crown -- the only crown such a "king" as Jesus could wear -- and that he triumphs through and not in spite of the "weakness" that crown represents. And you, looking at the cross through the resurrection, share in the victory which has been so dearly won. You live in a world that is God's world, now and forever. His victory is sure.
Suppose (also for the last time in this chapter) that you are now a twentieth century Christian. Can this strange kind of talk and stranger kind of notion make any sense to you? The more you think about it, the more it does. For you remember that you live in a world where evil is an awful reality, and where it does seem to challenge God. And you become very Sure that it matters a great deal whether God conquers or whether evil conquers. As you think about it, it occurs to you that there comes a point in a war, before all the fighting is over, when it is clear which side will win. In World War II, so you have been told, it was clear after the Allies got a secure beachhead on the European continent, that they would defeat the Nazis. The decisive battle had been won, even though months of fighting were still ahead.
And this helps you to see how the Cross is still a victory, after nineteen hundred years, in a world where the contest between God and evil is not yet over, in which the fighting is still going on. For the cross is the decisive victory, the established beachhead, the one that makes plain who has already won the final victory. For here, so you continue to believe, evil had its supreme chance to defeat God-and could not. This is the faith that sustains you in dark times, that summons you to action when the odds seem overwhelmingly against you, that keeps you confident and hopeful. For you believe in the ultimate triumph of God.
No wonder, then, if this is true, that Christians in all ages have seen in the cross, not a symbol of degradation and despair, but a symbol of exaltation and victory. There has been a triumph. It is God's triumph. Christ is victor. He rules as the Lord of life.
The place of the skull has become a throne.
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