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Chapter 14
The Victorious Blood of Jesus
Our Redemption From the Power of the Devil What does the Bible teach? Are we delivered from the power of the devil because Jesus went to hell, had a big fight with the devil and his demons, kicked the devil in the teeth, ripped the keys of death and hades out of his hand and rose again triumphant, having conquered the devil, and then gave us that victory and authority over the devil; OR are we delivered from the power of the devil because Jesus shed His precious blood on the cross? What does the Bible teach? Another question we shall answer is: Why did Jesus come to the earth and die? Did Jesus die primarily to set us free from Satan and his power, or does the Bible teach something quite different?1 A common teaching today is as follows: God created Adam and gave him authority and dominion over the earth. Adam, in the Garden of Eden, turned that authority over into the hands of a fallen angel called Satan. Satan, therefore, became the “god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4), and a curse came on the earth. God was separated from His man. His creation now had a stepfather. Satan now owned the world and all men in it, and God was on the outside looking in and no longer had a legal right to move in the earth. God could not go back to the dust of the earth to create another man, because the earth did not belong to Him anymore. He, therefore, made a covenant with Abraham through whom He was given the legal right to move in the earth. God began His plan of redemption, which was His plan for legal entry back into the earth for the purpose of delivering man from the devil and reinstating him to his rightful position of authority over the earth. So that Satan wouldn’t be able to hinder His plan, God kept it hidden from him (Eph. 3:8-9). Jesus then came to the earth and died on the cross, which was only the beginning of His work of redemption.2 Jesus died spiritually and was made to be sin. He went into the pit of hell for three days and nights, and made Himself obedient to death and put Himself in the hands of God’s enemy, Satan. After Jesus had suffered for three terrible days and nights at the hands of Satan and his hosts, Almighty God decided that the claims of justice had been satisfied. He rose from His throne in heaven, put His hands to His mouth and shouted down into the very pit of hell: “It is enough. He has satisfied the claims of justice. It is finished.” In the pit of hell Jesus was suddenly born again by the Holy Spirit, and He proceeded to kick open the gates of hell. He kicked the devil in the teeth and grabbed the keys of death and hades from Him. Jesus stripped Satan of his authority and left him standing naked in the doorway of hell wondering which way He went with his keys. Jesus rose again triumphant, leaving Satan stripped naked of every bondage he had over mankind. Satan’s power is thus broken. In contrast to the above, the Bible teaches that our victory over the devil is not through some mystical battle in hell, but it is rather through the shed blood of Jesus on the cross, as will be shown. We must not add to the blood. It’s all in the precious blood of Jesus. The Biblical Teaching
In Genesis 3:15, God revealed that there would arise a Man (the Seed of the woman) who would destroy the works of the devil, but in doing so He would have to die. In this verse, God predicted and pledged, immediately after the Fall and for the first time in the Bible, that man would be reconciled to Himself; but in the course of His effecting that reconciliation the heel of the woman’s Seed would be “bruised.” This is a clear prophetic reference to the death of Jesus on the cross.
Hebrews 2:14-15 teaches that it was through the death of Jesus’ body, and not through a battle, that the devil’s head was bruised. The Greek word translated “destroy” in this passage means “to reduce to inactivity” or “to bring to nought.” This means that through the death of Jesus on the cross, the devil has been rendered powerless with respect to the redeemed.
Paul says, in Colossians 2:13-15, that it was at the cross – where Jesus shed His blood and died – that the demonic principalities and powers were stripped of their authority (“spoiled,” KJV) by God. Jesus did not redeem us from Satan’s power through a battle in hell; He redeemed us by dying on the cross. That’s what the Bible says.
In John 12:31-33, Jesus taught that it was when He died on the cross that the prince or ruler of this world was “cast out.” Satan was defeated5 at the cross, by the shed blood of Jesus.
What could be clearer? The redeemed have victory over Satan through the shed blood of Jesus. You’ll search cover to cover in the Bible without finding any support for the notion of some mystical battle in hell between Jesus and the devil. That whole idea is totally unscriptural! The Bible teaches that the devil was defeated at the cross, by the shed blood of Jesus. But how did Jesus’ physical death on the cross set us free from Satan’s power and authority? Here is the answer to that question. The “God of This World” Satan certainly is the “god of this world.” His world dominion is very real. But the devil rules in the kingdoms of men only by God’s permission. Some have taught that God gave the world to Adam, and then Adam gave the world to Satan, and therefore God no longer owned the world until Jesus defeated the devil in a battle and took it back. The Bible, however, teaches that God has not only always owned the world, but that He has always been in complete control of the world and everyone and everything in it:
Genesis 14:19 and 22 confirm that it is God who possesses heaven and earth. In Matthew 5:45, Jesus said, before the cross, that the sun belongs to God:
and in Luke 10:21 He called God (not the devil) the “Lord of heaven and earth.”
The Bible clearly teaches that all men, including sinful men, belong to God and not to the devil:
God has always been the Sovereign Owner and Controller of all the natural world,
and of all the human world:
We could give many Scriptures to prove that God has always owned and been in complete control of all things. Even the heathen kings acknowledged that God is Sovereign Lord over all people and all things! In the words of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon:
If God exists, He must be absolute King over all, with the right to rule His universe, that He created for His own glory, the way He pleases. If God is not Sovereign Lord and Controller over all, then He’s not God. There is no such thing as a God who is not absolute Owner and Controller over all! Dominion Over the World When God gave Adam dominion over the world in the beginning, that action did not dispossess God of His dominion and lordship. Adam merely represented and was subordinate to God. In this same sense, Solomon was said to be “king for the Lord” in Israel (2 Chron. 9:8). This didn’t mean God was no longer Owner or Lord of the nation of Israel, but simply that He had delegated a measure of His authority to a man. The ultimate rulership was still God’s. Israel was still “the kingdom of the LORD” (1 Chron. 28:5). Since Adam had dominion wholly by God’s permission, when he disobeyed God, God took away his authority from him to a large extent. God then gave Satan a very limited dominion over both man and the earth to execute His (i.e., God’s) righteous punishment of man’s sin. Satan has dominion over man and the earth, not because Adam gave him dominion, but because God gave him dominion in punishment for Adam’s sin. Therefore, Satan rules only by God’s permission, and his rulership has never dispossessed God of His sovereign lordship over all things. That is why Paul can write both 2 Corinthians 4:4 and 1 Corinthians 10:26 and not be contradicting himself:
Satan is the Executioner of the Judgment of God Satan’s dominion over man rests upon the fact of sin. Adam sinned. God judged man for his sin, and the punishment was, and is, death, suffering, sickness, disease, poverty, natural calamities, etc.; and Satan is the executioner of God’s righteous punishment. Satan is no more than a dog on God’s leash, and he can only go as far as God lets him. Satan’s dominion over man is a limited dominion, and is increased as man’s sin increases and God judges accordingly.15 That God is in complete control of all of Satan’s activities is seen in many Scriptures. In Job chapters 1 and 2, the devil had to ask for God’s permission before he could strike Job.16
God is in control. Satan can go only as far as God lets him and no further. It is taught in many places in the Bible that God uses Satan and his demons to execute His righteous judgments and wrath against sin.
In 1 Samuel 16:14, because of Saul’s disobedience, God sent an evil spirit to trouble him. In Judges 9:23, God sent an evil spirit in judgment against Abimelech; and 1 Kings 22:19-23, says that in judgment for King Ahab’s sin, God sent an evil spirit to deceive Ahab through his prophets to the end that he would be killed. God is said, over and over again in the Bible, to be the One who kills:
and yet Paul says, in Hebrews 2:14, that it is the devil who “has [Greek] the power of death.”
and yet sickness is an oppression of the devil:
Moreover, God is said to be responsible for natural calamities:
and yet Jesus rebuked the storm in Matthew 8:26, thereby indicating that it had been aroused, not by God, but by Satan and his hosts. In Job 1:11, Satan told God to put forth His hand in adversity and destroy what Job possessed, and yet in verse 12, God told Satan, “all that he hath is in thy hand [Hebrew]; only upon himself put not forth thine hand.” The explanation for all this is that God, because of sin – or for the purpose of trial or chastisement – allows the devil to afflict men with sickness, death and natural adversity to execute His wrath and punishment for their sin. Satan is the actual agent of it all, but God is in such complete sovereign control that it can be said that He does it.25 We are not suggesting that God has to force or even encourage the devil to afflict and harm sinful men. The devil, from his side, is doing what he wants to do. Neither are we suggesting that God has any pleasure in the sufferings and deaths of sinful men. Ezekiel 18:32 reveals the heart of God:
We do, however, make no excuse nor apology for the righteous judgments and holy wrath of God. God is not ashamed of His wrath against sin, and neither should we be. God’s judgment of Egypt is a clear example of how the devil is the executioner of God’s wrath. God is said to have judged Egypt and smitten the firstborn,
and yet the devil (“the destroyer”) and his angels are said to have done it:
Both statements are true. God smote the firstborn, in His righteous judgment, by the hand of the devil. Exactly the same principle is taught in the New Testament. In Jude 5, God is said to have destroyed the unfaithful Israelites in the wilderness, …the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. and yet it was the devil who actually executed the righteous judgments of God:
That God uses the devil to chasten His children is clearly taught in Scripture:
Moreover, Revelation 2:10 shows us how God can use the devil to test and refine His people:
Second Samuel 24:1 and 1 Chronicles 21:1 both speak of the same incident in Israel’s history, and comparing the two verses again shows us that God is in complete control of Satan. Satan does only what God allows him to do:
Both these Scriptures record the same event. The account in 2 Samuel says God moved David to number the people, whereas 1 Chronicles says Satan did it. So we see that what Satan does is only what God allows him to do. Finally, Revelation 20:1 3 and 7 10, which describe how God will bind Satan in the bottomless pit for the Millennium and then release him for a short season to test the nations, after which He will cast him into the lake of fire for eternity, reveal that God is merely using the devil, and any time He wants to, He can dispose of him. Satan is a created being:
God is the infinite Creator. God has total power and authority over the devil. If He doesn’t, then He’s not God! Men Can Execute the Judgments of God Exactly the same principle is seen in the natural human realm where, because of sin, God delivers men into the hands of an enemy who executes His wrath and punishment of that sin. This is taught all through the Bible. The book of Judges, for example, is filled with repeated instances of Israel sinning against the Lord and therefore being delivered by God into the hand of an enemy until she repents and cries out to the Lord, at which time He delivers her.
In Nehemiah 9:37, Nehemiah acknowledges that it was God Himself who set foreign kings in dominion over Israel because of her sins:
In Psalm 41:2, David says that the righteous and faithful man, who deserves no punishment, will therefore not be delivered by God into the hands of his enemies who would have executed that punishment: The LORD will preserve him, and keep him alive; and he shall be blessed upon the earth: and thou wilt not deliver him unto the will of his enemies. In Lamentations 1:14 17, Jerusalem laments that because of her sins God has delivered her into the hands of her enemies. In Isaiah 10:5 6, 12 and 15, God calls Assyria “the rod of His anger.” In other words, Assyria, whether she knew it or not, was simply the instrument God used to punish Israel for her sins. In Zephaniah 2:12-13, God calls Babylon His “sword” with whom He judged the Ethiopians and the nation of Assyria. The Bible is filled with passages that teach this principle. Once again we are not saying that God has ever had to encourage or persuade the instruments of His wrath to do His will in this regard. God does not have to force the devil, or his agents, to act. He merely needs to allow them to act. From their side they are doing what they want to do, but God is always in complete control, executing His righteous judgments against sinful men. Redemption With Respect to Creation When Adam sinned, God not only delivered mankind into Satan’s hands to execute the curse of His broken law, but He also delivered the physical and natural world, to a certain extent, into Satan’s hands. God Himself is not the author of death and corruption in the physical universe, and neither is He personally responsible for the “law of the jungle” in the natural world. Those things are part of the curse upon man’s sin. All of creation has partaken in the judgment upon man’s sin. However, the trees, birds, animals and fish are not morally responsible, and God was not judging them but man.
Animals and plants aren’t morally evil, and when they came under the curse, it was not because of their sin but because of man’s. Creation itself isn’t sinful, but God allowed creation to partake of the penalty against man’s sin. God told Adam in Genesis 3:17:
This principle is seen in many passages throughout the Bible. The redemption of man was fully accomplished at the cross by the shed blood of Jesus, but redemption has not yet been fully applied to those whom God has chosen to redeem. When the redemption of God’s children has been “manifested” and completed, God will liberate the “groaning creation,” and will then bless man through the created order instead of cursing him through it. At that time, Satan will be bound for 1000 years, and Christ with His saints will reign on the earth. The earth will experience its “new birth” and be restored in the Millennium to the paradisal conditions of before the Fall. A redemption of world wide extent will occur, and the restoration of all things will take place. Conditions on the earth will include peace on the earth, harmony between men and animals, abundant natural productivity and economic prosperity, divine health and longevity. The curse of sin will be removed, and Satan will no longer be the god and ruler of the earth, but the whole world will unite in worship of the one true God, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will reign in His kingdom in blessing and glory. Our Redemption From Satan’s Power Through the Shed Blood of Jesus Some have taught that in the Garden of Eden, Satan took Adam’s authority over the world from him, and God, after much anxiety and hurried planning, then sent Jesus into the world to defeat Satan in a battle and win that authority back for man. That is wrong! Adam sinned. Adam sinned against a holy and righteous God; and God, in His wrath and righteous anger, in judgment upon that sin, permitted the devil to have limited dominion over the world to execute His (God’s) punishment. Jesus came to bear our punishment and He died on the cross and shed His precious blood. Therefore there is no more punishment from God for those whose sins have been covered by Jesus’ blood.51 God’s wrath is no longer abiding upon those who have been redeemed; therefore He is no longer punishing them by the hand of the devil. Thus the redeemed have been set free from Satan’s power by the blood of Jesus Christ. Jesus died on the cross to pay the infinite penalty for our sins. That was the purpose of His death. Salvation has to do with man’s sin against God, and not with Satan’s authority over man. Satan is simply the executioner of God’s righteous sentence of condemnation of sinners. The devil has no authority over men except by the just judgment of God.53 Satan is merely the executioner of the divine wrath against sin and sinners. In His wrath against man’s sin, God gave Satan limited dominion over the world. Jesus put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, and therefore Satan has no authority over the redeemed because God is no longer angry with them. Men are subject to the wrath of God on account of sin. Sinful men deserve punishment and deserve suffering. God gives the devil permission to inflict that punishment and suffering. All the devil is doing is afflicting men with the punishment which is due to them as sinners. We are delivered from this state of bondage and subjection to the power of Satan by the death of Jesus on the cross. His death, by satisfying the justice of God, has freed us from the penalty of the broken law; and freedom from the curse of the law means freedom from the power of Satan to inflict that penalty and curse. Jesus’ primary reason for dying on the cross was not to set us free from the devil’s power, but it was to pay the penalty for our sins and to satisfy the justice of an infinitely holy and righteous God. Jesus died to deliver us from God’s eternal wrath against sin. Consider these two verses from Matthew 25:
When comparing Matthew 25:34 with verse 41, we see that the lost are cursed, not by the devil, who is also cursed for his sin, but by God. Jesus has redeemed us from the curse of the broken law of God. We are saved from the penalty of our sins, and we had not sinned against Satan but against God. Salvation has to do with God.56 When Jesus shed His precious blood on the cross, He satisfied the justice of God; and since God is satisfied, the devil has no power over the redeemed, but is “put out of office,” as the executioner has nothing to do when the judge and the law are satisfied. Salvation has to do with God’s holiness, righteousness and justice. Salvation has to do with man’s sin. Salvation, in the purest sense, has little to do with the devil. Jesus didn’t die to redeem you from the power of the devil primarily. He died to redeem you from the wrath of God which was abiding eternally upon you because of your sins. You were under Satan’s authority, and when Jesus died, He certainly did redeem you from the power of the devil, but there is a considerable difference between saying that Jesus came to set poor old men free from that nasty devil who is making them sick and poverty stricken and miserable and unhappy, and saying that Jesus died on the cross to bear the judgment of our sin, and to satisfy the justice of a pure and holy God, who is furious with sin, and whose wrath and anger is abiding eternally upon rebellious sinners! All through the Bible we are taught that Jesus’ death on the cross was for the purpose of reconciling sinful men to a holy God. Through Jesus’ death on the cross we are saved from God’s wrath. Because of our sins, we were not God’s friends but His enemies. God was angry with us. In God’s righteous judgment, He is at war with sinners. Jesus paid the penalty for our sins on the cross and thereby reconciled us to God and restored us to peace and favor with Him. The Gospel is the Gospel of peace with God. Salvation has to do with the removal of God’s wrath towards man, and has little to do with the devil. Romans 8:1 and Galatians 3:13 show us that Jesus has set us free from the curse and legal condemnation of God’s holy law. We were captives to Satan, and our deliverance from the devil’s power through the shed blood of the cross is a very real deliverance, but in the purest sense, salvation has nothing to do with the devil. Salvation has to do with God. Jesus died to reconcile us to a holy God whose infinite holiness had been violated by our sin. Anselm wrote in Cur Deus Homo (Why God Became Man) that Christ died “to reconcile His Father to us.” Through Jesus’ death we are “brought to God,” “reconciled to God,” and made at “peace with God.” Jesus’ death is spoken of as being “propitiatory” four times in the New Testament. To “propitiate” means to appease or placate an offended party. Jesus died to appease the wrath of God. That’s why He died. Men are sinners, and the holy God who created the universe is furious with them, and His wrath is abiding upon them. This truth is taught in the New Testament just as clearly as it is taught in the Old. Jesus died to satisfy the justice of God and to turn away God’s holy wrath from men. That’s why He died. Jesus died to bear the punishment of our sins in our place, and He gave His life as a sacrifice to God. Just as the blood of the sacrifices in the Old Testament was given to God, so Jesus’ blood was for God. It was to satisfy His justice. It had nothing to do with the devil! John Bunyan put it beautifully in his allegory The Holy War in which he wrote: “…the King’s Son should take a journey into the country of Universe, and there, in a way of justice and equity, by making amends for the follies of Mansoul, He should lay a foundation of perfect deliverance from Diabolus and from his tyranny.” Delivered From the Enemy! This principle of deliverance from the enemy on the basis of God turning away His wrath is seen in many passages in the Bible.
In Zephaniah 3:14 15, Israel is told to be glad and rejoice because God has taken away her “judgments” (i.e., the punishments of her sin), and has therefore set her free from the enemy who would have executed those judgments and punishments. Consequently she will “see” (i.e., experience) evil and adversity no more. Thus, deliverance from the enemy is the result of deliverance from the punishment of sin. Many times in the Old Testament, Israel was delivered from her enemies only when she repented and was forgiven by God of her sins.
In Nahum 1:12 13 and 15, God promises Israel deliverance from Assyria, but the basis for that deliverance is that God will afflict Israel no more. Assyria was merely an instrument in God’s hands to execute His punishments of Israel’s sins. Since God would forgive Israel and afflict her “no more” for her sins, He therefore would break Assyria’s “yoke” from off Israel, and Assyria would be “utterly cut off.”
Exodus 15:26 says that God, in judgment, puts diseases upon sinners (by the hand of the devil, of course) but doesn’t put them on His redeemed people who obey Him. Here again our freedom from Satan’s authority is the natural consequence of our right standing with God.
In Psalm 41:1 2, David says that the righteous and faithful man, who deserves no punishment, will therefore not be delivered by God into the hands of his enemies who would have executed that punishment.
Psalm 124 reveals that our deliverance from “the snare of the fowlers” is because God has not given them dominion over us. The Passover Lamb The Passover lamb is an excellent type of Christ’s sacrifice for sin. God’s wrath is upon all men, but for those who will come in under the covering of the blood, God promises deliverance and salvation from that wrath. The blood “covers” us and is a sign (or “token”) to God that an innocent Lamb has already died. The blood is for God. The blood signifies to God that an innocent substitute has already died, and therefore God’s justice is satisfied with respect to those who are under the “covering” of the blood. Because an innocent Lamb has already borne the punishment of our sins, God is no longer angry with us. Therefore when He sees the blood, He “passes over” us. This means that He once would have struck us in judgment, but because He sees the blood of Jesus, He knows that, with respect to us, His justice has already been satisfied and the price for our sins already paid, and so He “passes over” us or misses us in judgment. This in turn means that the “destroyer” who would have executed that righteous judgment is not allowed by God to smite us.
In the same way, Rahab in Joshua 2:18 21 had to be under the “covering of the blood” (which was typified by the scarlet thread) to escape the righteous judgment and punishment by God of the wicked inhabitants of Jericho. Through the “covering of the blood” she was delivered from death at the hands of the armies of Israel who were the executioners of God’s punishment of the sinful Canaanites. Jesus’ death, by satisfying the justice of God, has freed us from the curse of the law, and freedom from the curse of the law means freedom from the power of Satan to inflict that curse. Because of our sin, we were the “lawful captives” of the devil (Is. 49:24), but Jesus paid an infinite ransom price and He has set us free from the hand of him who was “stronger” than we (Jer. 31:11). Victory Is Ours! Our deliverance from the power and authority of the devil is a very real deliverance and a complete deliverance. No Christian need ever fear the devil and his attacks, because God has freely given us a complete deliverance from his power, as well as authority over him. No Christian need ever be defeated at the hands of Satan. You don’t have to fail! You can fail if you want to, but you don’t have to. Jesus said:
The newest, youngest Christian, who is filled with the Holy Spirit and who walks with God in repentance and faith, has authority over the strongest demon, if he will just exercise it. And it’s all through the precious blood of Jesus! |
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