The Great Exorcism: Christ’s Victory Over Satan, Sin, and Death

The Triumph of Christianity over Paganism, Gustave Doré, 1868. Oil on canvas, 300 x 200 cm. The Joey and Toby Tanenbaum Collection. Art Gallery of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

“Hallelujah for the Cross” from the album Vital Worship: Songs for the Living King by Todd Edgar Wright, Ross Sullivan King, and Brandon Todd Wright.

Poetry:

“Ikon: The Harrowing of Hell”
by Denise Levertov

Down through the tomb's inward arch
He has shouldered out into Limbo
to gather them, dazed, from dreamless slumber:
the merciful dead, the prophets,
the innocents just His own age and those
unnumbered others waiting here
unaware, in an endless void He is ending
now, stooping to tug at their hands,
to pull them from their sarcophagi,
dazzled, almost unwilling. Didmas,
neighbor in death, Golgotha dust
still streaked on the dried sweat of his body
no one had washed and anointed, is here,
for sequence is not known in Limbo;
the promise, given from cross to cross
at noon, arches beyond sunset and dawn.
All these He will swiftly lead
to the Paradise road: they are safe.
That done, there must take place that struggle
no human presumes to picture:
living, dying, descending to rescue the just
from shadow, were lesser travails
than this: to break
through earth and stone of the faithless world
back to the cold sepulchre, tearstained
stifling shroud; to break from them
back into breath and heartbeat, and walk
the world again, closed into days and weeks again,
wounds of His anguish open, and Spirit
streaming through every cell of flesh
so that if mortal sight could bear
to perceive it, it would be seen
His mortal flesh was lit from within, now,
and aching for home. He must return,
first, in Divine patience, and know
hunger again, and give
to humble friends the joy
of giving Him food—fish and a honeycomb.

THE GREAT EXORCISM: CHRIST’S VICTORY OVER SATAN, SIN, AND DEATH

“Hallelujah for the cross!” is today’s anthem.

To our ears, this proclamation doesn’t confuse or disturb us because we’re familiar with this kind of expression. It’s in a dialect we Christians know well. To an unbeliever it may sound a little strange, but it’s still the kind of thing people would expect a true believer to say. To someone in the first century, though, such a statement would have been met with profound confusion, even derision. Only a fool would ever sing praise to the gods or God for the cross!

Years ago in Rome, I saw the earliest known depiction of Jesus on the cross, the Alexamenos Graffito. On a small piece of plaster, crudely etched, there is on a cross a man’s body with the head of a donkey. Beside this figure, another man pays homage to the crucified one. A scrawled text reads, “Alexamenos worships his god.” It’s an insult, a joke, a cheap shot at a follower of Jesus meant to laugh away the very basis of the Christian faith—a crucified man.

The Apostle Paul anticipates just this kind of mockery in 1 Corinthians: “we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.” How can a man who undergoes the most shameful and degrading form of execution be anyone’s God?

Thankfully, the Apostle John and the author of Hebrews give us answers. The ruler of this world, Satan, with his weapon, the fear of death, “has no claim” on Jesus. When Jesus willingly submitted himself to death, he demonstrated his own great power over death and thereby undermined the one who wielded death’s power against us. He destroyed death and disarmed the enemy from the inside out! And that, which on the surface looked like grim defeat, was actually the great inversion on full display. Jesus, lifted up in condemnation, was drawing all people to himself in reconciliation. And what of our ancient enemy? He was “cast out.”

In Gustave Doré’s painting, we see Jesus’ victory powerfully portrayed. Christ Jesus, after his crucifixion, descends upon every false god, every pagan delusion, and every tyrannical regime set against the just reign of God. Bathed in light divine and surrounded by the host of heaven, Jesus comes to overthrow all the powers of darkness and dethrone Satan. Notice the crown tumbling down at the bottom of the image. What does Jesus hold out boldly as the standard and symbol of his victory? The cross! The cross, as if to say, “by this I have conquered.”

He overturned the ruler of this dark world, with all his lies and fearmongering. He rescued us from the condemnation of death, the just wages of our sin. He opened what poet Denise Levertov calls the “Paradise Road” to all who trust him. And he did all this through the cross.

Hallelujah for the Cross? Absolutely.

Prayer:
Father in heaven, may we never lose sight of what Jesus accomplished through the cross. May we never shy away from what you love simply because the world deems it foolish. May our words and actions reflect the same self-sacrificial love of Jesus. Help us see the vain promises of this world as nothing more than the debunked lies of our defeated enemy and lead us on to life eternal; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God for ever and ever.
Amen.

Dominic Vincent
Director of Extensions and Online Education
Talbot School of Theology
Biola University