We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

When Did Jesus Bind the Strongman?

Question: In Luke 11:21-22 Jesus said: “When a strong man, with all his weapons ready, guards his own house, all his belongings are safe. But when a stronger man attacks him and defeats him, he carries away all the weapons the owner was depending on and divides up what he stole.” My question is, when did this happen? And if it already happened, why does it seem that Satan continues to have so much power in this world?

Answer: Your question addresses the famous “already/not yet” tension in New Testament eschatology. The New Testament speaks of Christ’s victory over Satan and of our salvation in three tenses: past, present and future. Christ defeated Satan on Calvary, is defeating Satan through the Church, and will defeat Satan when he fully establishes his Kingdom on earth.

The analogy that is often used to describe this “already/ not yet” tension is D-Day. World War II was for all intents and purposes won by the Allied Forces on June 6, 1944 (D-Day). Yet, it took another year to get to V-Day (Victory Day, when Germany surrendered). Meantime, there were still important battles to fight.

So, Jesus accomplished D-Day when he died and rose again.  In principle, the “strongman” was bound at this time.  Yet, this victory is still in the process of being manifested and will only be fully manifested when Christ returns and fully establishes his Kingdom on the earth.  This will be the V-day of the Kingdom and for all creation.

Related Reading

How do you respond to Bart Ehrman’s book, “Misquoting Jesus”?

Question: I just read Bart Ehrman’s book Misquoting Jesus and it’s sort of rocked my world. How can we believe the Bible is God’s inerrant Word when we don’t even know what the original Bible said? Answer: I actually went to graduate school with Bart Ehrman (at Princeton). We used to smoke pipes together up…

What is the right way to interpret Revelation?

Few biblical topics have captured the imagination of contemporary evangelicals like the book of Revelation. The recent unprecedented success of the Left Behind series is evidence of this popular fascination. Many evangelicals don’t realize that the futuristic interpretation of Revelation advocated in this popular series is only one of several interpretations evangelicals espouse. Here’s the…

A Review of a Review of Benefit of the Doubt

I’d like to offer a brief response to a curious on-line review of Benefit of the Doubt,  published on thechristians.com. It’s titled, Which came first, Jesus or the Bible? A clever heretic draws a false division between God and Scripture.  That “clever heretic” would be yours truly, and I allegedly draw this false division in…

Is There Room for Doubt in Faith?

Many Christians today assume that faith is the antithesis of doubt. In this view, a person’s faith is thought to be strong to the extent that they don’t question their beliefs or struggle with God in whom they believe. As widespread as this view is, I believe it is unbiblical and profoundly unhelpful. My experience…

SERMON CLIP: Hell in a Nutshell

Is hell for real? Is it what we have been told it is? Does an all-loving God really torture people there forever? These are a few of the questions that Greg Boyd touches on in this weeks sermon clip. In the full sermon, Greg explores the fallacy of relativism, the singular truth of Jesus as…

What is the warfare worldview?

The warfare worldview is based on the conviction that our world is engaged in a cosmic war between a myriad of agents, both human and angelic, that have aligned themselves with either God or Satan. This is the view that is presupposed throughout the entire Bible, and it’s especially evident in the New Testament. For…