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The Easter Cycle
and to maintain that judgment through the many centuries of the Church’s history. The world
mistakenly thought that with His burial, Christ’s doctrines and teachings had been buried with
Him. But the Holy Ghost came to supply for the crucified Christ. The gospel of Christ spread
with incredible speed through the cities and towns of the empire, and captured the hearts and
minds of the people. Although the Jews rejected the gospel, it was accepted by the Gentiles, who
believed and were admitted to baptism. They rallied to the standard of Christ and made their
abjuration of Satan. They renounced Satan and the world with all its vanities, its specious maxims,
its deceptive power. The Holy Ghost is to construct a new world founded on Christ. All who
believe are to live in the greatest harmony. Men no longer consider their possessions their own;
all is held in common. No longer are there any needy ones among them; all dwell together in
peace. “And all they that believed were together, and had all things common. Their possessions
and goods they sold, and divided them to all, according as every one had need” (Acts 2:44 f.).
The disciples of Christ were not troubled by covetousness, envy, and discord; harmony,
charity, joy, and devotion to God reigns in their midst. They were not proud or egotistical, but
they submitted in all humility to the guidance of the apostles and of the Church. “The prince
of this world is already judged.” He has been judged and sentenced. Judgment had been passed
upon his maxims, his spirit, his way of life, not only in the ancient Church, but in the Church
of all times. This judgment has been accepted by millions of faithful Christians in the East and
in the West, in the past and in the present. Moreover, the Church of Christ is never without
its saints. Thus again the Holy Ghost passes judgment on the prince of this world. “For all that
is in the world, is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes, and the
pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and
the concupiscence thereof ” (1 Jn 2:16 f.). Satan has been judged, sentenced, and condemned;
he has been proved a liar. We, too, pass this same judgment on Satan and the world, for we will
have no part in them.
“The prince of this world is already judged.” This is the song of the Church and of the Christian
soul at Easter time. Satan has been overpowered and dethroned. But nevertheless the Lord has
given him an hour of grace for our own good. He still wanders about in the world, using the
hours given him by God with the greatest zeal, to deceive and mislead the world. He propagates
his lies, which the world mistakes for pronouncements of truth. The hearts of many men, which
should be raised to heaven, Satan manages to turn again to the earth. Many Christians, having
been deceived by him, turn to material and transitory things.
“The prince of this world is already judged.” He is judged, not only by the risen Christ
Himself, but also by His members who are risen with Him. The condemnation of the prince
of this world must be verified in us also, just as it is in Christ. We must condemn him with our
thoughts, our words, and our speech. Each of our actions must pass judgment on Satan. We
pass judgment on him through our faith in Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, and through
the love which we manifest for Him “who loved me and delivered Himself for me” (Gal 2:20).
We condemn him by our confidence in Christ, by our faithfulness to the vows we made at the
time of our baptism, by the nobility of our ideals, by our opposition to evil, its influence, and
its illusions.
“The prince of this world is already judged.” The fruitfulness of the work of the Holy Ghost
in the Church, in the baptized, is also evidence of the judgment passed on Satan and the world.
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