Authority Lost
When God created man, he gave him authority.
Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground
(Gen 1:26).
This was God using his sovereignty to delegate authority to his created being, that authority being over all creatures, and all Earth itself. It pleased God to do so.
God saw all that he had made, and it was very good
(v31).
Adam sinned against God. Paul said:
Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey...?
(Rom 6:16).
According to this principle, Adam, when he obeyed Satan, effectively became a slave of Satan. Adam's God-given authority then became available to Satan. This is similar to when a large company takes over a small one with a particular expertise or resource. That resource becomes the property of the large company, to do with as it wishes. Whether by this means or otherwise, we do know that Satan claimed authority when he tempted Jesus:
The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him,
(Luke 4:5-7).
Jesus answered by stating that God alone should be worshipped. He did not contradict the devil's claims.
I will give you all their authority and splendour, for it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. So if you worship me, it will all be yours
This authority, it seems, can be transferred. God gave it to Adam. Adam ceded it to Satan. Satan can give it to whomever he wishes.
The Authority of Christ
How does God rescue this tragic situation? He needs another Man! Why is it that only a man will do? Why not pick an angel, or some other created being? But it was to Man that God gave authority over the earth originally. He is not one to change his mind. It seems that he looked for a man, but found no-one able to overcome:
He saw that there was no-one, he was appalled that there was no-one to intervene; so his own arm worked salvation for him, and his own righteousness sustained him. He put on righteousness as his breastplate, and the helmet of salvation on his head; he put on the garments of vengeance and wrapped himself in zeal as in a cloak (Is 59:16,17).
Here we see some of the armour of God that Paul listed in Ephesians 6 being attributed to God himself. We can now see that the answer was his Son, Jesus, who came in the flesh as a man.
Although he was a man, it was important that he was not a son of sinful Adam. The angel Gabriel told Mary:
The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God
(Luke 1:35).
She was a virgin, and therefore Jesus was not the son of Joseph. But neither was he the biological son of Mary, since the angel said the child would be called the Son of God, leaving Mary out of the picture. The power of the Most High took over both roles, and this was to be essential if Jesus was to be untainted by the sin of the first Adam. Mary had agreed to become a surrogate mother. This explains his reply on being told that his mother and brothers wanted to speak to him:
(Matt 12:48-50).
This seems a harsh statement until we realize that he is not biologically related to Mary and her children. This is also supported by Paul's assertion that Melchizedek was like Christ:
Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?
Pointing to his disciples, he said,
Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother
Without father
or mother,
without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, like the Son of God he remains a priest forever
(Heb 7:3).
In addition, Paul calls Christ
the last Adam
(1 Cor 15:45).
This tells us that he is another Adam, rather than a son of the first Adam, as does:
The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven
(v47).
Christ is a new man, come from heaven, and is the Son of God.
Note that as Son of God he already had supreme authority as creator (Col 1:16).
But when he became a man he
made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant
(Phil 2:7).
The literal translation here is that he emptied himself. He cast off his divine authority. His mission was to overcome as a man, and so prove that he was righteously worthy of inheriting, as a man, the authority that God intended man to have from the beginning. And this he did. He had no sin in him, either inherited, or of his own making
(2 Cor 5:21; 1 Pet 2:22; 1 John 3:5).
When he was baptised by John in the River Jordan, the Holy Spirit descended on him,
and a voice from heaven said
(Matt 3:17).
God was pleased with him, and this can be seen as the moment when he received authority as man over Earth and everything on it in the same way that Adam did originally, directly from the Father. Satan then tempted him to turn stones into bread, which he now had the power to do, except it was not the will of the Father. After this he began his earthly ministry in the power of the Spirit (Luke 4:14).
He demonstrated authority over evil spirits [representing Satan, who first appeared as a serpent]; over a storm and waves (Luke 8:24);
over an unridden [hence unbroken] colt (Luke 19:30)
and even over a fish (Matt 17:27).
After his resurrection, Jesus declared
This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me
(Matt 28:18).
So Jesus recovered authority that had fallen into the wrong hands. We have an illustration of this in the book of Esther, with Mordecai as Jesus and Haman as Satan. There we learn that Haman was promoted and given authority in King Xerxes' kingdom above all the other nobles (Est 3:1).
Mordecai the Jew, however, would not bow to him. This is reminiscent of Jesus not bowing to the devil in the temptation in the wilderness
(Matt 4:9,10).
Haman in his hatred plotted to destroy not only Mordecai, but all Jews (v6).
This is similar to Satan attacking not only Jesus, but all humanity. Haman obtained authority from the king to execute his plan (Est 3:9-11).
But Esther later found favour with the king, and Haman was hanged (Est 7:10).
Then
The king took off his signet ring, which he had reclaimed from Haman, and presented it to Mordecai. And Esther appointed him over Haman's estate
(Est 8:2).
So Haman is defeated, and the authority that he possessed has been reclaimed by the king, who is now able to bestow that authority on Mordecai. This is a picture of the situation today. Satan, although still around, has been defeated and disarmed (Col 2:15), and all authority has been given to Christ.
Authority Shared
So Christ has all authority now. But God is not finished there. He has further plan in mind:
And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything
for the church
(Eph 1:22).
God has not forgotten mankind that he has created. His eternal purpose to bless Man still stands. The problem is Adam's disobedience. God cannot give his authority to man in a fallen state. He must be redeemed first, released from death, and given new life. The redemption discussed earlier is essential before he can be given authority again. He needs a redeemer. Since it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins (Heb 10:4),
the redeemer has to be a man:
For just as though the disobedience of one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous (Rom 5:19).
For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive (1 Cor 15:21,22).
So a man is needed, both to reclaim authority once given to man, and also to redeem man and make him fit to be be given authority again. This man we know is Christ, the Last Adam, who fulfils both roles.
We learn from Paul that
If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection
(Rom 6:5).
I have already discussed our being united with him in his death, bringing us justification. But it didn't stop there. We are also united with him in his resurrection. We are now alive to God in Christ Jesus (v11)
and a new creation, finally in a position to receive the authority that Adam lost. We need to have died in our lost condition, and be resurrected and alive before we can receive the authority he has gained for us.
Incidentally, a similar statement is that Jesus
was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification
(Rom 4:25 ESV).
The Greek word translated
for
here [twice] is
dia
,
meaning
because of
.
When we read this verse in English using this literal translation, the first clause, saying that Jesus was delivered up because of our sins, makes sense. However, the second clause, that he was raised because of our justification, seems odd at first. Hence we interpret
for
in this case as meaning that he was raised to
bring about
our justification, rather than
because of
our justification. But this is unlikely because we are justified by his blood (Rom 5:9),
i.e. by his death, not by his resurrection. The explanation is that we are united with him in his death, and therefore justified, and since we are justified we can also now be raised up with Christ in his resurrection. If this justification had failed, Christ could not be raised from the dead with us still united to him! That would be bringing sinful man into God's presence. This is similar to the Garden of Eden, where access to the Tree of Life was forbidden after Adam sinned. What would become of Jesus if he was not raised? He is the Son of God. He could have left his humanity and body behind and returned to his former position with the Father, without us. Jesus was raised from the dead
because of
our justification, and therefore the Resurrection is
proof
of our justification!
The book of Esther didn't finish where I left off above. Had it done so it would have seemed complete to a casual reader. Haman was dead, and Mordecai had been empowered, and given the signet ring, the king's authority. But there was still a problem. The edict to destroy the Jews had already been enacted and published (Est 3:14)!
What was the solution: to revoke the edict? That was not possible
for no document written in the king's name and sealed with his ring can be revoked
(Est 8:8).
This was similar to the dilemma of Darius and the den of lions
(Dan 6:14,15).
The only solution was to enact another decree, the opposite of the first. It prescribed a counterattack by Jews against all their enemies (v11).
Mordecai had the authority to make this decree (Est 8:9,10),
which gave the Jews the authority they needed to legally attack the followers of Haman. Jesus has done the same. Although his enemies have not been removed yet, he has given his followers authority to overcome them. This he did while on Earth. He not only exercised authority himself, for example in casting out demons, but he also empowered his followers to do the same. He had authority to delegate authority. As Jesus said to the seventy-two:
I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you
(Luke 10:18,19).
As discussed previously, this delegated authority that the disciples received was based like any other blessing on the Cross, the only way by which God could bless sinners.
This empowerment continued with the coming of the Holy Spirit, and is available to the Church today. Believers who are in Christ will, as Jesus said,
do even greater things than these [miracles], because I am going to the Father
(John 14:12).
So the sharing of authority did not stop with the disciples. Since Pentecost, Christ, with all authority given to him, has given authority to the Church, i.e. to believers. Because they are united with him in his resurrection, they are now in position to receive authority in his name, and to use this authority to reign in life (Rom 5:17)
as well as to counter the works of the enemy. Their own counterattack has begun! But this one is not carried out using physical weapons:
For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ (2 Cor 10:3-5).
We need this authority because enemies are still active, and there is still a battle going on. We need to be strong in the Lord and take our stand against the devil's schemes
(Eph 6:10,11).
So it is not just because of the more overt works of he enemy. We need to be on guard against his subtle attacks, such as the way he defeated Eve in the Garden using deception. It is apparent that this is an ongoing process. Victory was not achieved in an instant, since
He must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet
(1 Cor 15:25).
Today our situation is as when Mordecai had been given authority, but the enemies of the Jews were still entitled to attack the Jews, because of the first edict. Jesus has been given all authority, and Satan has been disarmed, but the powers of this dark world are still at war against us. We can take confidence in the fact that Satan has been defeated. Although we must wait for the final victory, we have in the meantime been given all the authority we need to be overcomers. We are enlisted in this warfare as the Body of Christ. Like the Jews at the time of Esther, we need to participate in the counterattack! We need to be fully protected with the armour, fully armed with the word of God, and strong in the Lord and in his mighty power (Eph 6:10).
The Name of Jesus
Any authority we have comes from Jesus. We need to acknowledge this, and be prepared to declare it whenever we use it. We do so by invoking the name of Jesus:
The seventy-two returned with joy and said,
Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name
(Luke 10:17).
Peter said to the crippled man at the temple gate:
Silver and gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk
(Acts 3:6).
Paul said to a spirit in a slave girl
In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her
(Acts 16:18).
We pray also using that name:
Jesus said:
You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it
(John 14:14).
Jesus said:
my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name
(John 17:23).
Jesus, however, will not lend his name to anything not in accordance with the will of the Father. That is why, when we use his name, we need to be confident that what we ask is indeed in accordance with that will, as John explicitly states in his epistle:
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of him (1 John 5:14,15).
Books have been written on knowing the will of God. The starting place is the Bible. Does your proposal agree with the word of God [bearing in mind the distinguishing of covenants as discussed previously]? After that, have you sensed any leading by God? We need to bear in mind that just because we want something, it is not necessarily God's will. We have to be honest, and able to distinguish between our will and God's. On the other hand, just because we want something doesn't mean it's
not
God's will! We need the leading of the Spirit (Gal 5:18).
Under our covenant,
we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code
(Rom 7:6).
So we
do
have the Spirit. We just need to be led by Him when making any decision, including when and how to use the authority we have in the name of Jesus.
But in that name we can be bold in using that authority. By the direction of Mordecai,
The king's edict granted the Jews in every city the right to assemble and protect themselves; to destroy, kill and annihilate any armed force...
(Est 8:11).
So in like manner believers have the
right
to protect themselves and subdue any opposition - not human opposition, in our case:
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have one everything, to stand (Eph 6:12,13).
We need to take authority and stand our ground. We have the right to do so!