(Please read the passage cited above first.)
“In Christ, by his blood, we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
If we should want to conquer a people, we’d have to destroy their culture and civilization. We’d do this by destroying their religious customs under the pretext that they are idol worship. We’d do it by destroying their language and rewriting their history according to us, the victors. We’d do it by disrespecting their cherished folklore and customs, calling them filthy and subhuman. We’d do it by transforming them into copies of their victors.
This is what we did with the indigenous peoples of the Americas. This is what we did with those we kidnapped from Africa to make them slaves. This is what we want to do with those trying to enter the United States.
Only one there is who has conquered others without destroying their self-esteem and culture. Jesus is the one who has conquered everyone by destroying our death and giving us the divine life of God.
Christ conquered our sins by blessing us with his divine life. Christ has formed us into the same image of God that we received from God in the creation of the first Adam. Christ has conquered us by destroying what did not belong to us, sin, and restoring what was ours by God’s creation of us.
“In Christ, by his blood, we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” The redemption Christ gives is the forgiveness of our sins, it is the restoration of our human dignity.
God the Father has blessed us in Christ with every kind of blessing, spiritual and heavenly. God has chosen us in Christ before the creation of the world for us to be holy and without blame in God’s eyes and be children of God.
With Christ we are co-heirs of God’s glory. This is the plan that God intended to make real through Christ. We are not a conquered or destroyed people, but in reality we are alive with Christ so that we can share with Christ the glory of God the Father.