HOW DID JESUS OVERCOME THE WORLD?

³³ “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

What did Jesus mean by “the world”? How did He experience the world? The world represents everything that people say, do, think, and react to that is the fruit of unbelief in Jesus and falls short of God’s perfection.

It was prophesied that Jesus would be “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”. Why was that, especially since He was also “anointed with the oil of joy…”? We must remember that, as the God-man, He fully experienced both the perfect joy of heaven and also sorrow for a world of people without God.

Therefore, He could rejoice with His disciples when they experienced tiny glimpses of God’s kingdom at work when the demons were subject to Jesus’ authority through them.

Hebrews tells us, also, that it was the anticipated joy of a mission accomplished and His consequent return to His heavenly existence together with the reward for His obedience, a new family just like Himself, that enabled Him to “endure the cross”.

“… Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honour beside God’s throne.”

Hebrews 12:2b NLT

He also grieved over the unbelief of His people and  their failure to understand what He came to reveal about the Father, His grace and mercy. He wept over Mary’s disillusionment when she thought He had apparently failed to come in time to save Lazarus from death.

He felt the full might of the world’s sin in His day-to-day interaction with people. The common people were fickle and unpredictable. His opponents. the religious leaders whom He exposed for their hypocrisy, hated Him. Even His own disciples vacillated between trust and unbelief. Most of all, He was aware of the daily conflict with the devil who used every subtle trick to try to undermine Him.

“Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people…”

Hebrews 12:3 NLT

How would we cope with such “stress”?

Peter gives us the answer, in one jewel of a statement.

“When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.”

1 Peter 2:23 NIV

Despite every form of abuse Jesus endured throughout His life, He lived the life of a perfect Son, in perfect obedience and submission to His Father. Never once did He react or behave like a “sinner” in thought, word, deed, or attitude. So, He could ask of His opponents….

“Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me?’

John 8:46 NIV

No matter how people in the world treated Jesus, they could not induce Him to behave like them. He was always the perfect man, as Adam was before the fall. Therefore, He proved that He was sinless, and eligible to be the perfect atoning sacrifice. He also made it possible, through His grace and by His Spirit in us, for us, also, to live the life of trust and obedience that does not give in to the flesh but overcomes the world.

Since He overcame, we have no need to fear anything the world can produce against us or do to us. Therefore, we can rejoice. Hallelujah!!!!