Christus Victor is the Latin phrase the early church fathers used to describe Jesus and his atonement. Roughly translated, it means, “Our victory is not in ourselves but in Christ.”
If we defeat an enemy when the odds are fifty-fifty, we are tempted to think, “I won the battle.” If we have exhausted all our resources and thrown up our hands and say, “I can’t do this,” God says, “I have you right where I want you.”
Usually, Old Testament stories are taught to children not as spiritual truths but as moral instruction. For example, the lesson of Jonah is generally presented as “Don’t disobey God, or you’ll get into deep trouble.”
Most of us were taught the story of David and Goliath in Sunday school, and the lesson was, “Be brave and courageous.”
The trouble with this interpretation of Old Testament stories is that we are teaching our children to do something they are unable to do. We are unable to perfectly avoid sinful behavior that offends God, so Jonah’s story is all of our stories. With David’s story, there was not a single Israelite soldier who could have survived a hand-to-hand fight with Goliath. That battle was beyond even the bravest man, David included. Bravery and boldness are not sufficient when we are in a spiritual battle. David knew he was no match for Goliath. In fact, he wasn’t even a soldier yet; he was too young. David was only armed with bread and cheese for his brothers when he showed up at the battlefront.
The difference with David was that he knew the battle was God’s. When he heard Goliath’s taunts, he testified, “‘This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head…that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give you into our hand.’” (1 Samuel 17:46-47, ESV).
The real lesson is Jonah’s, to admit our helplessness and fully fall on Jesus as our divine deliverer. He cuts through all our anguish and despair with an authority no demon can stand up to. The battle is the Lord’s. Spiritual victory is never our own; it comes from our heavenly deliverer.