Tuesday, December 23

The contested and conquering reign of Christ

Christ’s rule is contested in the sense that while evil is even now under his sovereign rule, and even though its doom has been declared, and even though its back has already been broken at the cross, it has not yet been taken to the scaffold. The church, therefore, has to be wary as long as it is in this world. It cannot become triumphalistic. It must seek the protection of God’s armor (Eph. 6:10–18), grace, and power. We have not yet come to the final moment of conquest when Christ ‘delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power” (1 Cor. 15:24). Only then will all of created reality that has been fractured and broken by the intrusions of satanic disorder be eternally cleansed.

— David F. Wells
The Courage to Be Protestant
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), 204-205