The Christian's Triumph

Sermon delivered by Rev. R.H. Glover, M.D. at The Moody Church, August 1, 1926.

“Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.” —2 Corinthians 2:14

We are indebted for this beautiful text, as we are for many another in God’s Word, to the circumstances of severe trial out of which it came. These circumstances were, briefly stated, as follows: From Ephesus, Paul had written and sent his first epistle to the Corinthians and later had dispatched Titus in order to learn the effect of the epistle upon the members of that church. Shortly afterwards, Paul was forced to leave Ephesus because of the uproar that was instigated by the silversmiths of the goddess Diana. He proceeded to Troas and there faced an opportunity of preaching the Gospel. But his mind was burdened over the conditions in the church at Corinth and over the non-return of Titus with word about them. So he crossed the Aegean and came to Macedonia. He describes his condition there in these words:

“Our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side; without were fightings, within were fears” (2 Corinthians 7:5). But out of all these troubles and perplexities he lifts his heart to God and rings out this glorious pean of victory and praise which I have chosen for our text this morning.

The theme which it suggests is “The Christian’s triumph,” and I want you to think with me for a little upon three aspects of that triumph: first, its nature; second, its conditions, and third, its effect.

The Nature Of This Triumph

The word here rendered “triumph” is only one of several used in the New Testament to denote victory, but it is much the strongest word of them all. It occurs only twice, here in the text before us, and in Colossians 2:15, with reference to Christ’s own glorious victory on the cross of Calvary, where we read, “And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it (that is, in His cross).”

This word “triumph” is one of those picture words that Paul was so wont to use, and its imagery is drawn from old Rome. The picture is that of a Roman triumph, or in other words, the triumphal entry of a Roman military general into the capital city. It was the zenith of every Roman general’s ambition and glory to be accorded such a triumph, although only very few among the many ever enjoyed the experience. But if some general in his foreign campaign brought special luster to the Roman arms or was the means of appreciably increasing the domains of the empire, the senate at Rome might accord him this high honor of a triumphal entry.

A holiday was proclaimed in the capital and the city was decorated for the occasion. The air was redolent with the sweet fragrance of incense burning upon the altars. Through the crowded streets rode the conquering hero, arrayed in purple and gold, seated in a splendid car drawn by four white horses. Preceding him came a trumpeter loudly heralding his noble deeds, wagons laden with the spoils of war, and long lines of dejected prisoners in chains, while following him marched his victorious army. Onward swept this proud procession of triumph amid the acclaim of the admiring multitude, until it reached the capital hill, where sacrificial victims were offered and the day ended in the sumptuous feast.

Now all this is but a feeble illustration of the triumph of our glorious Redeemer, the Captain of our salvation. He, too, engaged in a foreign campaign. Down from the realms of glory down to this sin-cursed earth He came to wage a terrific conflict with the powers of darkness. His whole life was a fierce battle against every form of temptation and opposition. Then at the cross, He came to death grips with the devil, and through death, He destroyed him who had the power of death and wrought a mighty deliverance for death-doomed humanity. He heralded His victory to the lowest depths of hell, then burst the bands of death and rose a victor from the tomb. But His triumph did not reach its culmination in His resurrection. His triumphal procession led on in glorious ascension from Earth to heaven. No one passage of Scripture gives us a complete description of the resurrection of our blessed Lord, but we have to piece together several passages to get a perfect picture.

First, the Gospels tell us how He led His disciples out as far as Bethany, and there with His hands uplifted in the act of blessing them, He was parted from them and they beheld Him rising higher and higher until suddenly a cloud intervened and hid Him from their view.

Then, turning back to the 24th Psalm, I believe we have a prophetic glimpse of the ascending Christ as upward and upward He moves through space, beyond the stars, toward that central spot somewhere in the immensity of the universe where rests the throne of God and the home of the redeemed. We see the angelic hosts divided into two companies, one escorting the conquering Son of God as He ascends, the other waiting at the gates of glory to welcome Him. Together they form a great heavenly antiphonal choir responding to one another in song. “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in,” is the shout from the ascending host. “Who is this King of glory?” is the refrain that floats down from yonder gate. “The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle,” echoes back from the approaching escort. Once again the responsive anthem is sung, and then as the procession sweeps through the heavenly portals both companies unite in one swelling climax: “The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory.”

Finally, we turn again to the New Testament, this time to the Epistles and the Revelation, and here we see the ascended Christ “far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named,” crowned with glory and honor, the Lamb seated upon His throne, exalted forevermore.

Such, then, was the glorious triumph of the blessed Son of God as suggested by this word “triumph” in our text and such—is it not wonderful?—is the word deliberately chosen by the Holy Spirit to denote also the nature of the experience of His followers upon Earth as led by their victorious Redeemer. We read it again: “Thanks be unto God who always leads us forth thus to triumph with Christ,” not hereafter in heaven, but here and now.

Can this be possible? Can the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ actually be realized and shared in our experience as Christians? Yes it can, for this simple reason that Christ triumphed thus, not for himself but for us, as the Captain of our salvation, as our great champion and leader. Just as David’s victory over Goliath was as Israel’s champion, and carried with it Israel’s complete victory over their traditional enemies, the Philistines, whom Goliath led, so Christ as our champion has utterly defeated and routed His enemies and ours, if we will but see it and enter into it. Hence the prayer of the apostle for the Ephesians and for us was that the eyes of our hearts might be enlightened, that we might know the exceeding greatness of His power to usward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power, which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and set Him in triumph at His own right hand, far above His enemies and ours and put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the head over all things to the church, which is His body.

Oh that the answer to Paul’s prayer might be realized in us, in our seeing and appropriating the power made available to us in our risen and ascended Lord! May we enter into the truth of these words, “As He is, so are we in this world,” and of the promise that “they which receive abundance of grace—shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.” Verily, Christ’s triumph is at once the ground and the measure of the believer’s triumph through Him.

The Condition Of This Triumph

If such wonderful victory is really our purchased privilege in Christ, then we should be keen to find out the conditions upon which we may enter into it and actually experience it. The comforting truth is that these conditions are extremely simple, indeed, they are identical with the conditions by which we received forgiveness of sin and justification.

First of all, we must spiritually discern and by faith lay hold of the work wrought out for us by Christ. That is why the apostle prays that the eyes of our hearts, not merely of our intellect, may be opened, that we may see that the very same power which raised Jesus Christ from the lowest and set Him in the highest is actually made available to us to ensure our living a life of victory.

We know that all true spiritual experiences must rest upon a spiritual discernment of the redemptive work of Christ for us. That is to say, every subjective spiritual experience of ours must have an objective fact to rest upon. Now, every stage of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ has, as it were, its counterpart in Christian experience. For example, the cross speaks of atonement. We see there the Lamb of God offering Himself in our stead. By faith we lay our hands upon Him, confessing our sins, identifying ourselves with His death, our burden thereupon rolls away and we get forgiveness through His cross. Then comes His resurrection. With the eyes of faith we see Christ risen from the dead and reckon ourselves as risen with Him. We are thereupon quickened with Him into the new life and experience in our souls that glorious liberty of the sons of God in the power of His resurrection. Then follows His ascension. We are told in Ephesians not only that we have been raised and quickened with Him, but also that we have been made to sit together with Him in the heavenlies. And so while the cross speaks of forgiveness, and the resurrection speaks of justification, the ascension of Jesus Christ and all that attaches to it speaks of our victory in Him. We are to be strong in our risen, ascended, glorified Lord in the power of His might.

There are two looks at Christ which we need to get. First, there is the sinner’s saving look at Christ upon the cross. This is beautifully suggested by that dear old verse:

Jesus, keep me near the cross,
There a cleansing fountain;
Free to all, a healing stream
Flows from Calvary’s mountain.

Verily, “there is a life for a look at the Crucified One.” But then there is that other look, the believer’s sanctifying look at Christ upon the throne. And another little verse expresses it beautifully:

Jesus, keep me near the throne
There Thy glory seeing;
Resurrection life and power
Fill my raptured being.

We have all, I trust, had the first look. But have we all had that sanctifying look at the Glorified One upon the throne, living in the power of an endless life to supply His all-sufficient energy to every member of His body? Are we recognizing our high position as seated with Him there in the heavenlies and partaking of the victory over all our enemies that Christ has won for us? This is the first condition of the believer’s triumph.

Then, along with this, the verse suggests the other condition. We are led forth in triumph. Leadership implies followership; lordship implies subjection. If we are to be led in this victory, it means, on our part, yielding in absolute surrender. We read that when Christ ascended, “He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.” I know that this refers primarily to His enemies and ours that He made captive by His cross and in His ascension. But there is a sense in which we also may be regarded as this captivity. We must first be led captive by Christ if we are ever to share His triumph. Before I can see myself seated in the triumphal car of the heavenly Victor, I must first see myself chained to the wheels of His chariot. In other words, Christ must triumph over me, and I must become His willing captive before I can take my seat with Him in His chariot and share His blessed triumph as a real experience in my life.

This brings us to the very practical point of victory in our Christian lives. What is it, practically speaking, that really stands between you and me and victory in our daily life?

Is it our circumstance? We think so. There are so many uncongenial things and people, so many testings, so much to irritate and try us, and we fancy if we could only change our circumstances and live somewhere else we should have victory. But I am confident that in such thoughts we only deceive ourselves. For if this victory is really Christ’s victory, circumstances can never defeat it. Jesus Christ triumphed over circumstances of every sort, and He is greater than all circumstances. Moreover, he has given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that cover the whole range of our experiences and conditions and assure us victory over them all. For example: the Word tells me that because the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, and that I am to take no anxious thought for my life, what I shall eat, what I shall drink, wherewithal I shall be clothed. He tells me that the very hairs of my head are numbered. Have I enemies that would harm me? He tells me not to be troubled about them. “Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath. Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.” The Lord Jesus is well able to deal with our enemies, and He will do it if we let Him. Again, the Word says, “Since God is for us, who can be against us?” “Since He hath said, ‘I will never leave thee nor forsake thee,’ we may boldly say, ‘The Lord is my helper and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.’” Or, summing up all these promises in that great Summum Conum [sic] of Romans 8:28, “We know that all things work together for good to them that love God.”

Oh no! Circumstances need not overcome us, but we can surmount them victoriously as we claim our share in Christ’s victory and lay hold upon His promises. It was this confidence that enabled Joseph, in spite of the sorest trials and standing face to face with his brothers who had sought his harm, to say, “Ye thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good.” It was this same confidence that enabled the three Hebrew children, confronted with the haughty Nebuchadnezzar and a fiery furnace, to exclaim calmly and unflinchingly, “We are not careful to answer thee in this matter, “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king” (Daniel 3:17). It was this that enabled the apostle Paul to endure courageously every variety of suffering and trial and to testify, “I have learned in whatsoever state I am, to be content—I can do all things through Christ, who is my strength.” With all of these saints there were no third parties or second causes. They accepted everything from God and met it triumphantly through faith in Christ.

Dear friends, let us face the fact. It is not our circumstances that rob us of victory. I am not unaware of the variety of hard and testing circumstances that you and I have at times to face. Nevertheless, we may face them all as Paul faced his, and say, out of a blessed experience, “Now thanks be unto God who always leads us forth to triumph with Christ.” In the last analysis, our victory or failure lies not between us and circumstances but between us and God. So let us not be found dragging God’s Word down to the miserably low standard of our defeated experience; rather let us lift our experience by faith up to the high standard of God’s Word and will.

The Effect Of This Triumph

We have seen something of the nature and something of the conditions of this triumph. And now what is its effect? As stated in our text, it is that God “by us diffuses the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ in every place.” The Christian who leads a victorious life scatters the fragrance of Jesus Christ wherever he goes.

What is fragrance? It is something invisible, intangible, perhaps undefinable, and yet something very real, something that is the very essence of certain objects, giving to them their true value. What would a rose be without its fragrance, or a lily of the valley? Their fragrance is their very soul. We all know what a difference the atmosphere of a place makes. Suppose into this auditorium should sweep some foul, fetid odor. How it would depress and distress us, and even make us ill! But, on the other hand, some sweet perfume wafted into our midst would refresh an exhilarate and uplift us.

Now, there are three odors, or savors, mentioned in God’s Word, any one of which may cling to and characterize us as Christians.

First, there is the savor of self. I turn to a very striking word in Jeremiah 48:11. “Moad hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity; therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed.” The illustration is that of the refining of wine. We cannot here go into it more than to note that it speaks of Moad, because of his unwillingness to submit to discipline, retaining the course, obtrusive, distasteful flavor of his self-life. How true, sadly true, this is of many Christians and even Christian workers. They have brilliant gifts and abilities, high qualities, real devotion to the Lord’s work, and yet along with it all is that raw, objectionable flavor of self—self-importance, self-assertion, self-seeking and the like—which mars their Christian testimony and service by robbing Christ of the glory. God save us from obtruding our ugly self-life to hiding the loveliness of Christ!

Second, there is the savor of our trials and conflicts. Some people get through their trials and come out on the right side, but they come out all spent and gasping. They have gone through the fire but have come out singed and with the smell of fire clinging to them. And they are forevermore telling about the trials and hard places they have been through. Such people diffuse not this fragrance of Christ but the savor of their conflicts. They have not been defeated, yet they have not come out “more than conquerors.” Contrast with these, the three Hebrew children who, for their fidelity to God, were cast into the fiery furnace as recorded in the book of Daniel. Of them we read that “upon their bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them.” Oh, that was victory indeed, to come through so fierce a trial unscathed but calm and sweet, without anything about them even to suggest the pressure they had been under.

Last and best of all: There is the savor of Christ of which our text speaks. It is that gracious spirit, that gentle manner which belongs to those who have led by Him in victory. Perhaps you have met some humble Christlike saint like this. I shall never forget the impression this kind made upon me by meeting those godly men, Andrew Murray and Hudson Taylor. I felt as if I had been in the presence of Jesus, so fragrant with His spirit were they. It was thus with those humble fishermen—disciples who were arraigned before the Sanhedrin in the Acts, of whom it is recorded that “they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus.” There was something about them, not culture, not education, not mere human personality, but that sweet fragrance of Jesus born of long and intimate communion with Him. Would that we all might have it and diffuse it by our presence and actions and words!

We talk much about orthodoxy these days, but mere orthodoxy is not sufficient. It can be cold and stern and even dead. It is the beauty of holiness we need as the mark of Christian life. We pride ourselves with being fundamentalists. Thank God for the fundamentals, but God save us from thinking that fundamentalism is the end when it is only the beginning. It is the right foundation, but there needs to be a superstructure of sanctified character and holy living upon that foundation, I fear that on the part of some very zealous defenders of the faith in these days there is too much acrimony and harsh denunciation, less of the polemic and more of the irenic is desirable, less bitterness and more sweetness, more of the spirit of Christ as manifested by Paul when to those stubborn Corinthians he wrote, “I beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ.” What the world and the apostate need today and what will be far more effective than invective or even sound argument is to see Jesus Christ reflected in the character and bearing of His followers.

Just one closing thought. We have seen something of the nature of the believer’s triumph, something of its conditions also and of its effect. I trust that in all of us a deeper desire may be created, and a stronger purpose formed to enter more fully into this wonderful victory, this triumph purchased and provided by the great Captain of our salvation for us.

Let me just remind you that this text is not merely a cold theological statement of a fact, but it is a glad doxology of praise to God for the fact. “Now thanks be unto God,” says the apostle, “that such triumph is possible, yea, that is actually mine.” There is victory in praise. Jehoshaphat thought so, and proved it so when he set the singers in the forefront of the battle to praise the Lord, for he won a glorious victory that day.

If perchance you are in the depths of discouragement this morning, my brother, my sister, over your defeat or your weakness, take courage and challenge the enemy by daring to shout, “Thank God, He does lead me forth to triumph in Christ.” And as you take that attitude of praise for the fact, daring to claim such victory as yours, the ascended Christ will verily make it good, and you shall have the joyous experience of actually being led forth to triumph in Him in your daily life and of having diffused by you on every hand the fragrance of the knowledge of your blessed Redeemer and Lord.