That there are these two spheres of life and that Christ Jesus died and rose again to bring men out of the one into the other is declared in many passages of Scripture. We shall study only three passages. In Paul's defense before Agrippa he states his God-given commission as a minister and a missionary to the Gentiles. God told Paul exactly what he expected him to do.
Acts 26:17, 18, "Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles unto whom I now send thee, to open their eyes, and t turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me."
Those to whom Paul preached were blinded, befogged, bound men and he was sent that they might be enlightened and emancipated. They were to be turned from something to Something, they were to be turned from some one to Someone.
Col. 1:13, "Who delivered us out of the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love."
The believer has been rescued from satan's dominion and removed into God's kingdom.
Ephesians 5:8, "For ye were once darkness, but are now light in the Lord: walk as children of light."
There are these two sharply contrasted and distinctly marked spheres in which men live and each reader this moment is in one or the other of these spheres.
Two Seeds. With the defection of Adam satan thought he had won the first step in God's defeat and dethronement. A terrible conflict began. God did not minimize its sinister seriousness but on the very threshold of the conflict He triumphantly claimed victory over his enemy.
Genesis 3:15, "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman,and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."
This prophecy-promise contains God's declaration of war. A battle is to be fought to a finish between two seeds. The issue at stake is the sovereignty of God. The immediate object in the conflict is the redemption and reconciliation of the human race ruined though sin. The ultimate object is the restoration to God of undivided sovereignty over all His universe; in other words the rule of the Kingdom of God.
Enmity is to exist between two seeds - the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. satan's seed traced through Scripture is the antichirst; the woman's seed is the Christ. Toward these two persons pitted against each other in a final conflict all Scripture prophecy converges.
satan knows that Jesus Christ is "the seed of the woman." It is He whom the devil hates. Ever since this first Messianic prophecy was uttered in Eden satan's virulent attacks have been against the Person and work of the Lord Jesus. From the moment God said "I will put enmity between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel" until Christ, the Saviour, fulfilling that prophecy on Calvary cried, "It is finished," satan waged incessant warfare against the Person of the Lord Jesus.
Old Testament history unfolds to view repeated attempts to destroy the line through which "the woman's seed" would come, thus preventing the incarnation. These being brought to nought by God's protecting intervention, he then sought to kill the Christ-child at birth. Failing in this he tried to thwart the fulfillment of God's eternal purpose in His Son by tempting the Lord Jesus in the wilderness to declare His independence of God. Defeated in his direct appeal he used indirect means to keep Him from the Cross of Calvary. He used both Christ's enemies and His friends as his tools. He instigated His enemies to kill Him and repeated attempts were made upon His life. He used His friends to dissuade Him from the voluntary sacrifice of Himself as the world's Saviour. His defeat in all these varied attempts maddened him into an attack upon the spirit, soul and body of the Son of Man in Gethsemane, his last futile effort to blockade the way to Calvary. Jesus Christ went to the Cross, He died and rose from the tomb; the seed of the woman bruised the serpent's head.
Failing to hurt the Person of the Lord Jesus satan has been occupied trough the past nineteen centuries with attempts to nullify His work. He has done this by deceiving men and blinding their minds thus leading them to disbelieve and deny the truth of the Gospel. By so doing he hopes to delay the final fulfillment of the prophecy regarding his own utter defeat.
From the moment of the pronouncement of this prophecy-promise God has made steady progress in its fulfillment. In the garden of Eden it was announced; in the manger cradle at Bethlehem it was actualized; on the Cross of Calvary it was accomplished; and on Mount Olivet it will be attested.
The kingdom belongs to God. satan maintains his claim only as a traitor and an usurper. Christ came, lived, died, rose, ascended into Heaven and will come again that He may sit upon His throne and reign (Acts 2:30) until every foe is conquered (Acts 2:35) and all is put again under the divine sovereignty of the triune God (1 Cor. 15:22-28).
In Eden the final fate of satan is clearly announced. "It shall bruise thy head." It is to be a fatal stroke which effects his ultimate defeat,dethronement and destruction. The doom pronounced upon the devil in Genesis 3:14-15 is an eternal doom: the end for him is eternal torment in the lake of fire prepared for him and his angels (Matthew 25:41).
In the manger cradle of Bethlehem the final fate of satan is actualized. The incarnation of the Lord of Heaven means the beginning of the end for satan, and he knows it. That is why he fought the birth of the Christ-child and why he now denies the God-breathed truth of the Virgin Birth. His destruction was actualized when God-manifest-in-Christ entered openly and aggressively into the field of operation to lead His forces on to victory.
On the Cross of Calvary the final fate of satan was accomplished. There his doom was sealed. God's eternal purpose in Christ's Saviourhood was realized. Henceforth Heaven looks upon the devil as a defeated foe. Christ in anticipating His death upon the Cross regarded it as the time and place of the devil's defeat for He said, "Now shall the prince of the world be cast out" (John 12:31).
But not until on the Mount of Olivet the Lord Jesus Christ comes from Heaven in all His majesty and glory will the final fate of satan be attested. The sentence pronounced upon him in Eden will then be executed. Through God's permission the traitor-prince still rules the kingdom of satan but when God's eternal purpose in Christ Jesus is carried out fully then God's judgment upon satan will be executed finally.
~Ruth Paxson~
(continued with # 24)
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