PARAKLETOS 3 (d) the convictor iii: judgement

But this, in itself, is not enough to achieve conviction. To convince the world that it falls short of God’s perfect standard may just replace a complacent chuckle with a helpless shrug: “so what ?” is all too often the response of the unconvicted. “So judgement” must be the answer. Verse 11 I find even more difficult than verse 10: “ --- of judgement, because the ruler of this world has been judged”, or “condemned”. This is the third of the three times in John’s gospel that Jesus refers to the Devil as "the ruler of this world". In 12. 31 he says: “Now is the judgement of this world, now the ruler of this world will be thrown out” – and then he goes on to talk about the crucifixion. Throughout his ministry, he has “thrown out” devils from those in their grip, but now the cross will mark his final triumph over Satan. In 14. 30 he says “the ruler of this world is coming; he has no hold over me”. Perhaps this refers specifically to Judas: Luke (22.3) tells us that “Satan entered into Judas, called Iscariot”. It is a sobering thought that, just as the ‘parakletos’ wants to transform us into ‘Jesus-substitutes’ to witness to the world, so the Devil tries to turn us into ‘Satan-substitutes’ to fulfil his dark purposes. The treachery of Judas, and the travesty of a trial by which both Jews and gentiles (‘the world’) condemned Jesus to death, must have seemed to Satan to be his greatest triumph. But in the sovereign purpose of God, when the world condemned Jesus it was in fact condemning itself and its ‘ruler’. Just as Jesus’ sinless life showed that man can do his best and still not be good enough for God, so Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection showed that Satan could do his worst, yet be the one who was ‘condemned’. The crucifixion was not Satan’s greatest triumph, but God’s, planned “before the foundation of the world” (Rev 13. 8), and prophesied in the third chapter of the bible, when God, in his judgement on the serpent, promised: “the woman’s offspring, Jesus, will crush your head, and you will strike his heel”. The East window of the church of my youth depicts the crucifixion, with the serpent prostrate at the foot of the cross, his head crushed beneath the bleeding heel of Jesus. The writer to the Hebrews puts this picture into words: Jesus took on our humanity, he says (2. 14), “so that by his death he might reduce to impotence the one who holds the power of death, the Devil”. The death of Judas, among other things, symbolized the dethronement of Satan. Paul quotes from Isaiah and Hosea to make the same point: “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory ? Where, O death, is your sting ?” (1 Cor 15. 54-5). This victory was achieved on the cross for Christians, but it was declared to the world by the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. In order, therefore, to “convict the world of judgement”, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, bears witness to the truth of the resurrection. We have seen this already in scripture, in Acts 5. 32, where the apostles bear witness to the Sanhedrin: “we are witnesses of these words (that Jesus has been raised from the dead), as is also the Holy Spirit”. And the same Spirit is at work in the same way today whenever Christians bear faithful witness to the risen Jesus in the testimony of their lips and their lives. The fact that Jesus triumphed over death and is alive proves that his teaching is true, and that judgement is certain, because that is what Jesus taught, both in parables and in plain speech, time and time again. What is more, God the Father has entrusted judgement entirely to the Son (John 5. 22), so that the same Jesus who today is the advocate for the defence for Christians when they fall into sin will, on that last day, be seated on the throne of judgement himself.