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The Victory of the Lamb

Could Jesus fail?

THE VICTORY OF THE LAMB
By Frederick S. Leahy
Banner of Truth. 126 pages. £4.50
ISBN 0 85151 796 X

Frederick Leahy is to be congratulated on providing a much needed popular treatment of an aspect of the cross which is still greatly neglected in conservative theology, namely Christ's victory over the power of Satan. This companion volume to his previous study, Satan cast out, seeks to remedy that.

In a masterly and sweeping survey of Scripture he seeks to establish that the Bible and human history can only be properly understood in the context of the titanic clash between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan. Human history is then a tale of two cities.

In an interesting chapter entitled The Protracted Struggle he develops this theme, examining the evidence indicating Satan's designs to thwart the arrival of God's promised deliverer, so we travel from Noah and the flood, preservation in Egypt to the attacks made on the royal line of David. This section is a very powerful reminder of God's overall plan and design which sometimes get completely lost in our overly devotional use of Scripture.

Less convincing (at least to this reviewer) are his comments surrounding Christ's temptations. Here he takes the view that it was impossible for Christ to fail in his struggle with Satan. Surely this detracts from his triumph in the wilderness and also seems to deny the reality of his true manhood.

There is an extremely useful chapter on the consequences of Christ's victory that stresses that victory over Satan was achieved at the cross. In our age, which has emphasised, perhaps inevitably in the light of Auschwitz, the suffering and solidarity of Christ with a sin-damaged world, we are in danger of forgetting the wonder of his victory concealed in the mystery of the cross. Leahy is a wise guide for today's church, which seems to swing widely between an unhealthy obsession with the demonic to an attitude which seems to confine all mention of the subject to the history books.

Ross Terranova, Aylesford, Kent