Deliver Us from the Evil One

Good Friday| John 18-19| Pastor James Preus| Trinity Lutheran Church| April 3, 2026

The Seventh Petition

But deliver us from evil.

What does this mean? We pray in this petition, in summary, that our Father in heaven would rescue us from every evil of body and soul, possessions and reputation, and finally, when our last hour comes, give us a blessed end, and graciously take us from this valley of sorrow to Himself in heaven.

The seventh petition of the Lord’s Prayer is a summary of the first six petitions. It is also a petition directly against Satan. In the Greek, the petition literally says, “But deliver us from the evil one.” The evil one is Satan. We pray against Satan by praying every petition of the Lord’s Prayer, because Satan is opposed to everything we ask for in the Lord’s Prayer. And in the passion of Christ on the cross, we see our Lord secure every request we make in the Lord’s Prayer, thus defeating Satan and delivering us from his power.

We pray, “Hallowed be Thy name.” Jesus says in John 12 as He approaches the hour of His passion, “Now My soul is troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify Your name.” The Father responded from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” To which Jesus said, “Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to Myself.” He said this to show what type of death He was going to die. (John 12:27-33) So, we see God’s name glorified in Jesus’ crucifixion. And through the preaching of the cross, God’s name is made holy among all peoples.

“Thy Kingdom come.” Jesus said to Pilate, “My kingdom is not from this world.” (John 18:36) Yet Jesus reigns as king from the cross, by which He drives out Satan’s kingdom. As Jesus told His disciples the night before, if He does not go to the Father by way of the cross, the Holy Spirit will not come to them (John 16:7). But since Jesus has established His reign on earth by His death on the cross, He sends the Holy Spirit to comfort us by His cross.

“Thy will be done.” The good and gracious will of God is shown in no greater way than Christ suffering and dying for our sins while we were still sinners. The prophet Isaiah prophesies, “It was the will of the LORD to crush Him.” (Isaiah 53:10) And Jesus prayed in the garden, “Not my will, but your will be done,” (Matthew 26:39) before He went to the cross to fulfill His Father’s will. God reveals His will to us in the passion of Christ, and so we pray according to that passion, which thwarts the devil’s will.

“Give us this day our daily bread.” Even this petition is made certain by the cross. St. Paul assures us in Romas 8, “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?” And so, Satan, who would prevent us from receiving anything good and desires our starvation and death, is defeated by the cross of Christ, which shows our God’s desire to give us all good things.

“Forgive us our trespasses.” This of course, is why Christ died, to win for us forgiveness of our sins and to cancel the debt that stood against us. St. Paul writes, “And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross.” (Colossians 2:13-14) In Jesus we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses (Ephesians 1:7).

“And lead us not into temptation.” As we learned last night, Christ’s cross not only gives us certainty of the forgiveness of sins, but also strength to resist temptation, as the Apostle to the Hebrews writes, “For because He Himself has suffered when tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted.” (Hebrews 2:18)

And finally, to sum it all up, we pray, “Deliver us from the evil one.” And this was Scripture’s first declared purpose of Christ’s cross. Way back in Genesis 3:15, while the newly fallen Adam and Eve were still in the Paradise of Eden, God spoke the Gospel of the cross for the first time to the evil one, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.” For this reason, we glorify God in the proper preface for Holy Week by confessing, “that the serpent who overcame by the tree of the garden might likewise by the tree of the cross be overcome.”

Jesus is the seed of the woman. In His crucifixion, His heel was bruised by Satan. That is, Satan enticed Judas and the leaders of the Jews and cowardly Pilate to betray, slander, and crucify Jesus. Yet, this ultimately resulted for Christ to be but a bruised heel. Yet, by it, Christ crushed the head of Satan, handing him utter defeat.

Jesus is the seed of the woman, a descendant of Eve herself. That means He shares in our flesh and blood. The Apostle to the Hebrews states, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil.” (Hebrews 2:14) The devil had power over death, because the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Satan’s power is found in his temptations to sin and his accusations against us for our sin. Yet, Jesus redeemed us from sin, death, and the power of the devil with His holy precious blood and His innocent suffering and death. That is, He condemned sin in His own human flesh. And because He shares in our flesh and blood, He was able to suffer the consequences of sin for us all. St. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5, “One has died for all; therefore, all have died.” (vs. 14) Therefore, Satan is stripped of the power of death.

When we pray, “Deliver us from evil,” we pray that God would grant us a blessed end and graciously take us from this valley of sorrows to Himself in heaven.” Did Jesus have a blessed end? On the one hand, He suffered the most ignoble death imaginable. There has never been a more evil death than the one Christ died when He bore the punishment for every sin. Yet, on the other hand, Christ died the most blessed death, because He was able to declare in truth, “It is finished,” and commend His spirit to His Father in heaven. What was finished? Everything required of Him in Scripture to atone for our sins, from God’s first proclamation of the Gospel in Genesis 3:15, to the directions for the Passover Lamb that not one bone would be broken, to David’s prophecy that they will pierce His hands and feet and cast lots for His clothing, to Zechariah’s prophecy that they will look on Him whom they have pierced. Jesus finished everything required to pay for the sins of the whole world, so that no sinner should be in doubt that Christ has won forgiveness for him. It was the most evil death in history as Satan came to devour his prey, yet it was the most blessed death in history, because it took away death from everyone and devoured Satan in turn.

It reminds me of a joke about Chuck Norris, the martial arts master and actor who recently died. Chuck Norris was once bitten by a venomous snake while on a hike. And after three days of intense agony, the snake died. Well, Christ was bitten by the deadliest of venomous snakes, Satan Himself, yet it is Satan who is defeated. Jesus rose from the dead after three days.

So, can you have a blessed end? Yes! You find certainty of your blessed end in Christ’s blessed end on the cross. When God created Eve out of Adam’s rib, Adam said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of a man.” And Moses concluded, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Yet, St. Paul says that that same passage refers to Christ and His Church (Ephesians 5:31-32). How so? Because when Christ, the second Adam from heaven bowed His head in rest on the cross, and a soldier pierced His side, blood and water poured out from which God formed Christ’s bride, the Holy Christian Church, the mother of all who live eternally (Genesis 3:20; Galatians 4:26). The bride of Christ is formed through Baptism and is nourished by the Sacrament of Christ’s body and blood. Both Sacraments pour from Christ’s side on the cross. And so, Christ Jesus says of us, His Bride, “This at last is bone of My bones, and flesh of My flesh.” Through faith in Christ, we are one flesh with Him. So, His death is our death, for He died for all. His accomplishment is our accomplishment, for our head has said, “It is finished.” And when He cried, “Father, into Your hands I commit my Spirit,” (Luke 23:46) He prepared a place for our souls to rest as well, until we join Him in His resurrection.

In Christ’s passion on the cross, we see our every prayer answered. We see our deliverance from the power of the evil one. We see our blessed end.

Be Thou my consolation,

My Shield when I must die;

Remind me of Thy passion

When my last hour draws nigh.

Mine eyes shall then behold Thee,

Upon Thy cross shall dwell,

My heart by faith enfold Thee,

Who dieth thus dies well!

And when I am departing,

O part not Thou from me;

When mortal pangs are darting,

Come, Lord, and set me free:

And when my heart must languish

Amidst the final throe,

Release me from mine anguish

By Thine own pain and woe. (Bernard of Clairvaux, Paul Gerhardt, ELH 334:8-9)