Setting the Accused Free

One of the big themes for Christmas is that salvation has come in Christ. In the book of Revelation we run into these double pictures, like in this verse: Jesus came as a baby in a manger to bring salvation and freedom from shame… and Jesus comes again in a final way for the same purpose.

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.” - Revelation 12:10

To explore some of the implications of this salvation, let’s reflect on the insights of Rachel Held Evans, below. What word do you need to hear today?

Sometimes in the Hebrew Bible, the devil is known as ha Satan, which translates in English to “the Accuser.” No matter what you believe about the devil or about Satan, whether you believe it to be an actual being, a fallen angel, the human forces of evil, or the shadow side of our own selves, we all know the voice of the Accuser. The voice of shame that mutters in our ears, the voice that somehow finds the express lane into our hearts and heads, the voice that identifies that deeply hidden, deeply rooted insecurity and toys with it, amplifies it, multiplies it—that is the voice of the Accuser. The voice of attribution directed at me, which tells me that I am the worst thing that I have done—that is the voice of the Accuser.

When I speak about the voice of the Accuser, I’m talking about the devastating, deceptive messages that play on repeat within us. They fixate not on what we might have done but on how awful we are. That’s something profoundly different from a rightly guilty conscience. It’s shame.

- Rachel Held Evans and Jeff Chu, Wholehearted Faith