Our Authority My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being a priest for Me; because you have forgotten the laws of your God, I will also forget your children. (Hosea 4:6) Do you believe that you can live a victorious life for Jesus Christ? I don t just believe that you can live an abundant life for Jesus, I know that you can. Our problem is we lack knowledge. It seems that we don t want the knowledge that we need to live that victorious life. God has been showing me what authority and power we have in Jesus, if we only stand our ground and let Satan know that we have the power to defeat him. Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:37-39) And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. (Revelation 12:11) Our victory is won by the blood of the lamb and by our testimony. This scripture contains all we need to defeat Satan. If we are to understand that our power and authority came at Calvary, we need to look at what happened in the Garden of Eden. Man was originally made for authority. When he became flesh from the hand of God, he was given authority of the earth. Then God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. (Genesis 1:26) (see Palm 8:4-8) God created man to govern the world. We see God s tender care in creating man. He created the world for man. He prepared everything for his subsistence, convenience, and pleasure before He brought him into being. God gave the dominion of the entire earth to man. It was his to do with as he saw fit. There were no strings attached. What man did with this dominion was his responsibility. 1
When man at the time of his fall transferred his allegiance from God to Satan, he also transferred his dominion and his authority. The rulership of this earth was a true gift from God to man, man had a legal right to do with that dominion what he chose. Because it was given to man, the rulership of this world was no longer under God s direct control, for He gave it to man. Satan became the legal and actual ruler of this world, at man s fall. This is why Satan is called the god of this world, the prince of this world, and the prince of the air. The kingship, the rulership, of this earth which originally was given to man, legally became Satan s. Why did God not overrule man and take the dominion away from Satan? This is a very important legal issue. God would have been violating legal principles which were part of His Creation and a direct expression of His nature. If God had overruled man and forcibly taken the earth back, it would have been a violation of divine justice. For God has bound himself to observe principles of His divine law even where Satan the father of lies is concerned. God cannot be unjust even with Satan. Because man transferred the title for the dominion of earth to Satan, the only way God could legally recover it for man was through man, the original trustee of the earth. Man lost the dominion of earth by choice, it must be brought back by man. But where was the man who could do this? When Adam s allegiance went from God to Satan and with it the dominion of earth, man lost his freedom and became a slave of Satan. Being owned and controlled by Satan, man could not free himself. A man had to be found that Satan had no claim or control over in order to swing back to the original allegiance. This man must be able to remove Satan s legal claim to earth before it could be restored to its original rulership. This man had to be without sin. He had to be absolutely perfect in order to not furnish Satan with any legal claim upon him. He could not be Adam s son, for then he would have been tarnished by sin, he could not live a perfect life. If he was not divine, he could not live a perfect life and therefore come under the control of Satan. Everything depended on these two factors. If Christ is not the son of Mary and the Son of God by virtue of a supernatural conception, then He was the son of Mary and Joseph and inherited Adam s disposition to sin. If He inherited Adam s sin, He was Satan s slave; and He was both legally and morally disqualified to enter the battle. The Good News, Jesus came, a man among men. And when He appeared, a mighty battle took place between Christ and Satan. All the destiny of the world and of the human race depended upon the out come of this battle. If Satan could find one tiny flaw in His life or 2
His character, then Satan would control Him and Satan would be the undisputed ruler of the world and the human race. This battle raged for thirty-three years. It was in the wilderness, in the years of Jesus Christ s ministry, in the Garden of Gethsemane and finally clear up to the Cross at Calvary. Satan made every effort to secure a breakdown in Jesus allegiance to God and a transfer of that allegiance to Satan. Jesus defeated Satan in the wilderness. Away with you Satan! For it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve. (Matthew 4:10) Then Jesus defeated Satan in the Garden of Gethsemane. Father, if it is Your will, remove this cup from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours be done. (Luke 22:42) Satan s object in bringing Christ to the cross was to compel Him to rebel against the will of His Father. When at last Jesus bowed His head and died without once failing in His submission to His heavenly Father, Satan was defeated in the conflict. In Satan s desperate effort to compel Jesus to break with His heavenly Father, he killed an innocent man; one upon whom he had no claim. And in so doing, he brought upon himself the penalty of death. This is what the writer of Hebrews means, Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were subject to bondage. (Hebrews 2:14-15) If this means anything, it means that when Satan slew the innocent Son of God, he destroyed himself. Satan is now destroyed, not annihilated, but destroyed. All legal claims which he secured upon the earth and man through Adam s fall were now completely cancelled; since the cross, he has no right at all upon anyone or anything. It means that all the power which he exercises now he exercises solely by deception and bluff. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father. (John 10:18) This is the basis for Jesus statement in Matthew 28:18, All authority has been given to Me in heaven and earth. It is also the basis for the statement in Luke 10:18, Behold, I give you the authority to 3
trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall by any means hurt you. If all this is true, if Satan is actually destroyed, why is it that Satan continues to run things. Many of us have our doubts as to whether Calvary was really a victory or defeat. If we look at this fact with the human mind, we see that Satan is still in control of everything. We cannot reconcile the teaching that Jesus Christ is triumphant with what we see going on around us. The answer to this issue is a legality. Legally Calvary was Satan s complete undoing. Legally, the Cross completely destroyed Satan. All his claims were cancelled when he sent Jesus to the cross and died there. But like any other legal transaction, Calvary s legal victory must be enforced. The authority to enforce Christ s victory over Satan was given to the church. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and what ever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. (Matthew 16:18-19) The victory was won by Jesus on the Cross, but the agency that is to enforce that victory has failed. This is the church. We as Christians have failed to enforce this legal standing. If we as Christians realize that we are to enforce this legal victory on Satan, what mighty works we can do for God in this world. We must comprehend the power that is in the blood of Jesus and the spiritual power that we have because of the Cross. Satan has succeeded in keeping the people of God in the dark about this victory. By brainwashing and deception, Satan has succeeded in convincing the Church that he is almost as powerful as God, when actually he has no power at all. The moment we touch the Cross of Calvary and give our life in complete surrender to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we have the authority. The problem is we have never been taught that we have that authority. Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrew 4:14-16) 4
We have the authority and we have won the victory, all we need to do is be bold in our walk with God. 5