Total Victory?

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Permalink Reply by Tammy on January 6, 2015 at 8:28am

Nicely said sister.

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Permalink Reply by ScribeD on January 17, 2015 at 12:23am

define victory

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Permalink Reply by Seek on January 19, 2015 at 1:39pm

vic·to·ry

ˈvikt(ə)rē/

noun

noun: victory; plural noun: victories

an act of defeating an enemy or opponent in a battle, game, or other competition.

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Permalink Reply by Tammy on January 26, 2015 at 5:44pm

Scribe you got me looking it up now. 

VICTORY. The primary biblical assertion is that victory belongs to God (Jon. 2:9; 1 Cor. 15:54–57; Rev. 7:10). This is succinctly expressed in the phrase ‘the battle is the Lord’s’ (1 Sa. 17:47), i.e. victory belongs exclusively to the Lord: it is His to bestow at will.

There are three special features of the Lord’s victory which enable us to glimpse its inner character. In the first place, sometimes the Lord’s victory is the defeat of His people (e.g. Jdg. 2:14; Is. 42:24–25; Je. 25:8–9). The Lord’s victory is the exercise of holy sovereignty in the course of history. ‘Victory’ is another way of saying that the government of the world rests in the hands of a holy God, who orders all things according to inflexible principles of morality, so that sometimes His holiness must be asserted against his people, and becomes ‘His strange deed’ (Is. 28:21).

Secondly, this holy government of the world will issue in the great victory of the eschatological *‘Day of the Lord’. The power of victory is annexed to the holy rule of the only God. Therefore the issue of that conflict is not in doubt. Just as, at creation, there was no possibility of opposing the Creator’s will, so, at the new creation, he will speak and it shall be done (Ezk. 38–39; Rev. 19).

Thirdly, the people of God enter upon victory by the obedience of faith: i.e. they experience victory in God’s victory (Ex. 14:13–14; Dt. 28:1–14; Ps. 20; Eph. 6:16; 1 Jn. 5:4–5). As the Lord Jesus said, only the Son can set men free (Jn. 8:36); those who abide in his word know the truth, and the truth sets them free (Jn. 8:31–32).

The OT associates *‘peace’, *‘righteousness’ and *‘salvation’ with victory. The peace of the victor (e.g. 1 Ki. 22:28; Is. 41:3, Heb. text) is not simply cessation of hostilities—even the defeated have that! It is the enjoyment of total well-being which victory brings. Salvation is, positively, the personal enlargement, and negatively, the deliverance, which victory effects (1 Sa. 14:45; Jdg. 6:14). Righteousness is the personal quality which guarantees victory (Is. 59:16–17). All these cluster in a unique way round the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, the supreme victory of God: peace (Eph. 2:14ff.), salvation (Tit. 3:4–7) and righteousness (Rom. 1:17; 3:21–27).

Bibliography. J. Pedersen, Israel, 1–4, 1926–40, Index s.v. ‘Victory’; J.-J. von Allmen, Vocabulary of the Bible, 1958, s.v. ‘Victory’.

J. A. Motyer

 

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