- Tread down Enemies
Psalm 108:13
Through God we shall do valiantly:
For he it is that shall tread down our enemies.
God promises He will crush and utterly defeat our enemies; that sin, death, and the devil will be trodden under foot like the crushing of the head of the Serpent; that we shall do valiantly, that is, we will fight courageously and win the victory. The Victory Promise begins in Genesis and ends in Revelation. In between Genesis and Revelation 20 battle skirmishes may swing back and forth but in the end we have the absolute guarantee of absolute victory over all spiritual enemies forever. The crushing triumph was finished at the cross and sealed at the tomb for us to implement and extend through the preaching of the Gospel until the Day when Victory is wrapped up and worked out forever.
He (God) will tread down our enemies, but it also says that we shall do valiantly. So is it He or We? It really is clear: God does all the work, all the fighting, all the living, all the dying, all the resurrecting, all the ruling, all the everything. Clearly, we do nothing, we can’t do anything, we are nothing. So in what sense do we “do valiantly?” It feels like we are involved in doing something; even though someone else outside of me does all this salvation victory, completes it, wraps it up and gives it to me as a gift the Holy Spirit works it in me in such a way that I subjectively sense that I am doing valiantly; the union of Christ in me says, “I live by faith in the Son of God” in such a powerful way that distinguishing who is doing the activity is beyond my ability. I am not watching a movie; I am living it. The Union is so tight that when He is treading down the enemies it feels like my feet are doing it. Am I using Christ or is He using me to tread down the enemy? The truth: it is Christ. The experience: it is I. I may think and feel like I did something good, but in reality I know from the Word of God that Jesus did it all.
Nonetheless, I do valiantly when Christ treads down the enemies, as God promises.