Celebrate Easter Big -- Lent: Day 20

Scripture:  John 12:20-36

We are now in the third week of the Lenten season.  Are you beginning to see it?  Are you beginning to sense what is coming?

In verse 31 we read that the coming death of JESUS will become the decisive dividing line between the condemned and the vindicated.  If you trust JESUS, you are united to Him and His death is your death (Galatians 2:20), and His condemnation is your condemnation (Romans 8:3).  If you never trust JESUS, you then stand condemned both by your sin, and by your rejection of the Messiah.

Also, in verse 31 we read that the ruler of this world will be cast out.  Satan was making a final move against JESUS in the hope that he could possibly make his final hours so bad as to destroy his faith and obedience, and thus undermine the whole work of salvation.

He failed!  And in failing, he himself was judged and decisively defeated.  Satan experienced his decisive defeat at the cross—not the final defeat, but the one that secures and guarantees the final defeat. 

JESUS bore our sin.  He stripped Satan of the one weapon that he had that could damn us:  namely, the valid accusation of our unforgiven sin.  In JESUS we have no unforgiven sin!   The blood of JESUS covers our sin—all of it.  Therefore the cross was the decisive defeat of Satan.  He cannot succeed.  The victory is ours through faith in Christ.  This is what John was saying in Revelation 12:11:  “They have conquered [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb.”  The blood of the Lamb strips Satan of his one condemning weapon, our unforgiven sin.

In verse 32 we read, “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.”   In other words, when JESUS died—when He was lifted up on the cross—He actually secured and guaranteed the home-coming of His sheep, the ingathering of his children.

And finally, in verse 36 we read, “While you have the Light, believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light.”  If you believe, you don’t just see the Light, you become children of the Light.  This means you share His bright and holy nature.  You shine forth that very Light because the resurrected living LORD is now “life-ing out” His life in you and through you.

JESUS is Risen . . . !

Richard Holloman