The Cross and Resurrection: What Did He Do?
30 min read
The cross defeated more than guilt. It defeated the powers and principalities — the spiritual forces that hold human beings in bondage. This is the Christus Victor model in daily life.
"He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him." — Colossians 2:15
1. The New Testament describes a world with dark spiritual powers.
Paul's letter to the Ephesians describes the Christian life as "wrestling not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" Ephesians 6:12. This is not mythology. It is the New Testament's consistent framework for understanding why human evil is so persistent, so organized, and so resistant to human solutions.
2. The cross is where those powers were decisively defeated.
Colossians 2:14-15 — God "canceled the record of debt that stood against us... setting it aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him." The legal record — the debt of sin that gave the powers their claim over human beings — was nailed to the cross and cancelled. When the legal basis for their authority was removed, the powers were disarmed. The cross is not only where guilt was addressed. It is where the power structure of darkness was dismantled.
3. The resurrection is the victory declaration.
The cross is the battle. The resurrection is the announcement of the result. 1 Corinthians 15:55-57 — "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?... Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." The resurrection declares that death itself — the ultimate weapon of the powers — has been defeated. It has been defanged. Its sting has been drawn.
4. This has practical implications for spiritual warfare.
Because the powers were disarmed at the cross, the believer does not fight for victory — they fight from victory. Ephesians 6:13 — "Take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day." The armor is defensive — "to withstand," not to conquer ground the enemy still holds. The enemy has been defeated; the Christian's task is to hold and occupy the ground that victory secured.
5. The cross transforms how we engage suffering, accusation, and darkness.
When Revelation 12:11 describes how believers overcome the accuser, it says: "They have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death." The blood of the Lamb — the cross — is the weapon against accusation. Not by denying sin but by pointing to the blood that already addressed it. The cross silences the accuser not by suppressing his claims but by satisfying them.
Treating spiritual warfare as primarily about personal willpower and moral discipline, without reference to the cross as the ground of victory. Victory in spiritual warfare begins with knowing what the cross already accomplished — not with trying harder.
Read Revelation 12:7-11. Write a paragraph: what is the basis of the believer's victory over the accuser? How does this apply to a specific accusation you face?
Submit your paragraph on Revelation 12 and your journal answer about persistent darkness.
A: It disarmed them by cancelling the legal record of sin that gave them their claim over human beings Colossians 2:14-15.
A: The resurrection declares that death — the ultimate weapon of the powers — has been defeated. The believer fights from victory, not toward it.
A: It silences the accuser not by denying his claims but by satisfying them — the penalty he pointed to has already been paid.
Lord, the cross accomplished more than I have known how to receive. Teach me to live from the victory you won rather than fighting for a victory still in doubt. Amen.