The Hope of the Believer … No. 16

“ONE LITTLE WORD SHALL FELL HIM”

By grace you have been saved through faith. and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.—Eph. 2:8

One value in reading Martin Luther is that he does not let us forget who our enemy is. As a boy growing up in the Churches of Christ I was led to believe that “the denominations” were the enemy. It was awhile before I realized that it is not my sisters and brothers in Christ, those who hold views different from my own, that were the enemy but one far more sinister and dangerous. Back in those days we presumed that when we debated our brethren we were taking on the enemy. It is just as well that we are outgrowing those days, though some of that spirit is still around. To say the least, it is important, if we are going to “fight the good fight of faith,” that we know who the enemy is. We have spent too much time flaying away at each other. Martin Luther knew who the enemy was, and he would tell you at the drop of a hat, and he would drop the hat!

Luther seemed to know Satan as one would know a person. To him the devil was a personal enemy, indeed the enemy. He talked to him, argued with him, badgered him, and defied him. Armed with spiritual resources, the reformer took on the old deceiver with abandon. It was a warfare in which, “with the right man on our side,” he always won even if he lost a few battles along the way.

Luther’s crucible with Satan is reflected in his great hymns, especially in “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” in which he describes Satan as “our ancient foe who seeks to do us woe.”

The third verse of that hymn is particularly to the point, and since it is the basis for this essay, we present it here in its entirety:

And though this world, with devils filled,

Should threaten to undo us,

We will not fear, for God hath willed

His truth to triumph through us.

The Prince of Darkness grim,

We tremble not for him;

His rage we can endure,

For lo, his doom is sure;

One little word shall fell him.

It is evident that Luther found Satan awesome. He was an enemy to be feared and respected for all his mighty power. Satan was not only the Prince of Darkness, but as he said in the first verse of that hymn:

His craft and power are great,

And, armed with cruel hate,

On earth is not his equal.

Since we have such an enemy as that, it is well that we be acquainted with his devices —“the wiles of the devil” as Eph. 6:11 puts it. Luther realized as few Christians do, that we are in a war that rages furiously. You can count on it that he often referred to 1 Pet. 5:8: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” That passage always reminds me of one of C. S. Lewis’ illustrations about how apathetic Christians are toward the ever-present enemy who would devour them. It is like a woman at a garden party, Lewis noted, who, being told that there was a lion loose in the area, responded, “Really?,” as she took another bite of her cucumber salad.

But Luther was confident of victory over Satan, one of the great themes of the book of Revelation. In that apocalyptic vision it is Satan who persecuted Christians and cast them into prison (2:10), and he is full of great wrath because he knows his time is short (12:9). He will at last be bound and cast into a pit (20:2) and into a lake that bums with fire and brimstone (20:10).

Luther sounds that victory in the last line of his hymn in a surprising way: One little word shall fell him. One little word! Even though Satan is the prince of demons (Mt. 12:24) and the ruler of the darkness of this age (Eph. 6:12), one little word will fell him. Luther does not tell us in the hymn what that word is, but from his life and teaching we may conclude that one word that will fell Satan is grace.

Here lies an important part of the Christian’s living hope, that she is not only saved by grace but that she may live by grace. And in God’s grace she is sustained and protected. We can defy the devil like Luther did, “Begone, Satan, for I am shielded by the grace of God.” Or like our Lord did, “Get thee behind me, Satan” (Mt. 16:23). It is a remarkable fact that in our Lord’s sojourn on this earth he frequently conversed with Satan. But he knew that he held the trump card in his struggle against the evil one. He had God’s grace on his side. He was in fact God’s grace in the flesh.

That is the way Paul puts it in Tit. 2:11: “The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.” In coming to this world of sin and suffering Jesus was indeed the grace of God in human flesh. Paul says it similarly in 2 Cor. 8:9: “You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.”

We are rich! All because of God’s grace. That grace is not of ourselves but God’s free gift to us. Paul is telling Timothy that every person is saved by that free grace. He only needs to accept it, but accept it he must. That is why Eph. 2:8 says that we are saved by grace through faith. Everyone will therefore be saved except those who persistently and finally reject the grace of God. Faith and baptism are the God-ordained way of our responding to that free grace.

Since I began writing this piece I had occasion to talk with a man who has had a serious drinking problem for many years. He wanted to know if an old sot like him could be saved. I told him of the good news in Tit. 2:11, that God’s grace in the person of Jesus Christ has saved all mankind. “You are already saved,” I assured him, “if you will but accept it.” But overcoming his drinking problem seemed impossible, he pitifully told me. “Can I go to heaven a drunkard?,” he asked.

I explained that no one will go to heaven because he is sober, but because he has cast himself upon God’s mercy. Pray the sinner’s prayer, I urged, “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” It is in God’s grace that you will find help with your drinking problem, I said. Start with the good news that God loves you as you are (period!), drunk or sober, I told him, and that his grace has already made you rich. Only accept it! Those in poverty are those who persistently refuse to draw upon the account that God has opened for them in heaven.

Wow, what good news that is! Grace! That is the one word, the one great truth, that fells Satan and gives us the victory. God’s wonderful grace —grace that is greater than all our sins— has one glaring limitation. It cannot do anything for the person who presumes he has no need of it. Grace cannot reach the person who is trapped in the prison of pride and self-sufficiency. Grace is there for those who recognize their need.

The good news for the Christian is that she is not only saved by grace but she may live by grace. This is not some vague influence, but the living presence of Jesus Christ. When we invite Jesus to make his home in our heart, we are setting up housekeeping to live by grace. This is far more than living by religious rules (even though we need rules), for it is God himself coming near us —comforting us, inspiring us, empowering us. Only in Christ can we see what it means to live by grace. He takes us beyond a life of weary obligations. He went to the cross so that we might have grace, and that grace means abundant joy.

There is no way for us to deserve his loving grace. We can’t buy it. We can’t earn it. We can’t be good enough to attain it. Grace means that he accepts us as we are, warts and all. It is God’s free gift. He doesn’t check any record to see what our score has been. Living by grace means that “God has made us accepted in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:6). Rom. 5:2 says it triumphantly, “Through Christ we have access into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” We stand (or live) by grace because Christ has given us access to the Father. Access to the Father and his grace! What a glorious hope we have!

While we ask, like my drunk friend, if we are good enough for heaven, grace says that no one is good enough for heaven. But that is all right in that Jesus Christ has made the difference.

Living by grace saves us from judging our neighbors by some moral scale on which we presume to rank near the top. Grace frees us to see our own faults more than those of our neighbors, and to lay them at the foot of the cross.

Living by grace is more than praying, reading the Bible, and going to church, for it is seeing and living the whole of life —our work, our family, our nation, even our enemies— in the presence of God. It is practicing the presence of God in everyday life. It is putting on the armor of God and withstanding the fiery darts of the evil one.

Luther was right. One word will do it. —the Editor