Though Jesus is not one hundred percent unique to the point that He would not be recognized and understood by anybody, He is obviously and distinctively set apart from anybody that came before or that would come after in a number of ways. Here, we need not go very deeply into this point, but needless to say, the crucifixion, Resurrection, and ascension, combined with the portended effects and meanings of those three things, position Jesus as the unique Son of God in a way that greatly distinguishes Him from the entities to be found and readily understood within the son of God tradition. Though the acts were unique, the purpose remained the same, as we can wholeheartedly agree that Jesus was revealed---put forth as the Son of God in and for the world---to destroy the works of the devil.
Jesus announced His mission in a synagogue in Nazareth by quoting from a familiar passage in Isaiah, and informing His hearers that He had been “anointed to proclaim good news to the poor… to proclaim release to the captives…the regaining of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed” (Luke 4:18b). Later on, when John the Baptist would make an inquiry about Jesus and His mission, Jesus instructs John’s disciples to tell him that “The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news proclaimed to them” (Luke 7:22). To this list we can add the casting out of demons. Does this not sound like the destruction of the works of the devil? Jesus went about engaging in workings that served the purpose of eliminating that which was marring God’s image bearers. When He touched and when He spoke, doing so in the authoritative context of the declaration of the kingdom of God, He was revealing God to men. He was forcing humanity to center their attention upon Himself, and in so doing, away from all else that could claim its allegiance. This, in the most basic sense, is what destroyed the works of the devil. That which was out of joint and out of place was set to rights when the men and women to whom He came were able to set their gaze upon the one that was revealing God.
That destruction of the devil’s works, which was ultimately the delivery of death to humanity and to the world, would be accomplished in their totality by means of the crucifixion and the Resurrection. In His crucifixion, Jesus would be visited by that which was the common fate of all of mankind. With His Resurrection, that fate would be overcome and conquered in His person, as He would be raised to a new physical life, completely animated by the Spirit of God, as Jesus was present in a world that was now beginning to be altered by the presence of the power that had accomplished that Resurrection. To this was attached the hopeful promise that as it had been done for Jesus, so too it would it be done for all those that believed in Him and claimed Him as Lord.
The power of the Resurrection, as confirmed by His ascension, inaugurated the kingdom of God on earth, with Jesus as its Lord and King. Though this kingdom is now present with power, it is still to come, and its ongoing purpose, which would be accomplished through the verbal and physical witness to Jesus’ Lordship that is made by His church, is to continue that which Jesus and the sons of God before Him had been commissioned to do---the destruction of the works of the devil. If this is the task that has now been given to the church, then Christ’s church, as His body---His hands and feet in the world---must now be understood, like Israel before it, as the son of God. Much follows from this realization. This gives an even greater weight to Paul’s thinking about the church that is presented in the first chapter of Ephesians, where Paul undergirds the entirety of the Christian life with the premise of being “in Christ.” There, he writes about God’s adoption of sons through Jesus (1:5), and presents the church as “His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (1:23). It’s almost as if Paul, along with the author of the works of John, believe that the church of Jesus has been appointed to take the place of Jesus in the world, and to be His representatives. Of course, that is exactly what they believe, with Paul reinforcing such thinking by speaking of those that are in Christ as ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20), and as the church as God’s covenant faithfulness (righteousness) in the world (5:21).
Beyond the constant repetition of the theme that those who believe in Jesus have become the sons of God (which we are now able to contemplate in terms of the mission to destroy the works of the devil---as outlined by Jesus words and actions), there is the demonstration of the foundations of the church as such, which has been previously referenced in the course of this study. After His Resurrection, upon Jesus’ first appearance to His disciples, He told them “Just as the Father has sent Me, I also send you” (John 20:21). Jesus was sending His disciples into the world, as revealers. As Jesus had been the direct revelation of God, so would His disciples now reveal God through revealing and proclaiming Jesus. This revelation would have the purpose of destroying the works of the devil. The words of sending that Jesus employed carry an echo of His baptism, when the voice of confirmation and approbation spoke from heaven. Likewise, when Jesus “breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’” (20:22), the repetition of His baptismal scene was continued, as His delivery of the Holy Spirit to them attunes us to the descent of the dove. As it was said about Jesus, so too could it be said of those that would speak the word of His kingdom---this is “the Chosen One of God” (John 1:34b).
It is quite possibly with all of these things in mind that the same author would pen: “By this the love of God is revealed in us: that God has sent His one and only Son into the world so that we may live through Him” (1 John 4:9). By receiving the Spirit of God and becoming living beings for the first time, the church is now a son not unlike Adam---a new creation charged to steward God’s creation/kingdom and reflect His glory into the world by rightly bearing His image and reminding the world of its true Lord and King. This connection is not untenable, as Adam received life through the breath of God, Jesus is called the last Adam, and the church operates as the body of Christ to be the living, breathing, ongoing witness of the love of God that was made supremely manifest in the life and death of the Son.
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