Spiritual Authority Part 1
If you keep your spiritual eyes open during certain seasons, you’ll see the Lord directing his messengers to remind his Bride of certain spiritual truths. I believe we’re in one of those seasons, and the message the Lord wants to remind us of is that we have spiritual authority through him.
If I told you that Jesus has authority over Satan and every other spiritual power, that wouldn’t come as a shock to most of us; however, since it’s necessary to lay the foundation for this teaching, let’s examine a few Bible passages that teach us about Christ’s authority.
We’ll start by having a look at a prophecy found in Genesis 3:15
“I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
If you reference Gen. 3:15 in a good commentary you’ll find some great teachings on this verse, but as Dr. Chuck Missler said, “The best commentary on the Bible is the Bible itself.”
I do need to say that the Commentators whom I lean would likely identify the “seed of the woman” as Christ and the “seed of the serpent” as Satan.
If we take the Commentator’s position and Gen. 3:15 at face value and say the seed of the woman is Christ and the seed of the serpent is Satan, then we need to interpret “crush your head, and strike your heel.” Those statements likely mean Christ on the cross struck the “head” or authority of Satan, while Satan dwelt a temporary blow by striking the “heel” of Christ by crucifying the Lord.
Consider: 1 Cor. 2:8
None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
Some will interpret the passage to mean “human” rulers, but I see it as “spiritual powers. ” I’ll leave it to you to decide for yourself.
Regardless, it is accurate to say Christ conquered or stripped the authority from the Devil on the cross, which we’ll see later, but I think this goes deeper.
Let’s have a look at 1 John 3:8-9.
v8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The Son of God appeared to destroy the works of the devil.
v9 No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God.
Consider John 15:7:
“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”
From John 1, we know that Jesus is the living word of God. To use the Greek term, he is the Logos of God.
So, the “seed of the woman,” the Word of God, crushed the head or authority of the seed of the serpent, which from 1 John 3:8-9 appears to be sin.
Consider 1 John 3:8:
“Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.”
So, 1 John 3:8 connects sinning with the devil.
Consider Romans 6:23:
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Let’s move along.
We know from Col. 2:13-15 that the Word of God, Jesus, canceled the “record of debt” of legal demands of the law that “stood against us.” The Word (Jesus) nailed the legal demands that gave Satan power over us to the cross.
Let’s look at a few more Colossians passages.
Colossians 1:13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, v14, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
The method GOD chose to deliver was by canceling the “record of debt” that legally held us captives under the “kingdom of darkness.”
I want to go off track just for a moment and mention a few passages that deal with Spiritual authority but from the perspective of sharing the Gospel.
2 Cor. 4:3 And even if our Gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. v4 In their case, the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
This passage connects with Matthew 13:19:
“When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path.”
Sometimes, we labor seemingly in vain to share Christ with someone, but they just seem incapable of coming to the knowledge of the truth. Perhaps they’ve been spiritually blinded. Pray and ask GOD to remove the blindfold which Satan has placed upon their spiritual eyes.
To wrap up Part 1, let’s look at something Jesus said in Matthew 16 and then something he said in Revelation 1.
Matthew 16:18, Mark 8:29, and Luke 9:20 all testify that the Apostle Peter correctly identified Jesus as the “Christ, the Son of GOD,” but only Matthew’s testimony adds this part: “The gates of Hades shall not reveal against it [the Church].”
I don’t have time to get into the entire teaching, but many times, you’ll hear this passage used to say the powers of the satanic kingdom will not prevail against the Church. While plenty of passages would agree with that, I don’t believe that is what Christ had in mind when he told his disciples, “The gates of hell shall not prevail.”
Here are a few quick points to help you understand my position:
1: The Greek word is Hades in Matthew 16.
2: Satan’s kingdom is in the air, not Hades, which is always referred to as “down.” (Eph. 2:2)
3: Christ took the power over death from Satan after he conquered him on the cross (Heb. 2:14-15; Matt. 10:28)
4. Christ has the keys to Hades, which is the prison where souls are held awaiting judgment (Rev. 1:17)
The way I interpret Matthew 16:18 is that “death” or “hades,” in the sense of the prison which represents death, that Satan once had authority over, will no longer have any power over those who are found in Christ Jesus because “the gates shall not prevail against the Church.”
In other words, the “record of debt” gave Satan certain legal rights to hold people captive under his domain, and when Christ canceled that record on the cross by paying the debt, Satan lost his power or authority. In other words, he couldn’t legally prevent GOD from taking us out from under his jurisdiction since our debt was “paid in full” by the work of Jesus on the cross.
To further make this point it’s important to understand the Church. The word church in Greek means “the called out ones.” Called out from what? Well, that’s what Colossians 1:13 tells us,
“He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,”
Let’s look at Revelation chapter 1:17. It says, “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, v18 and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.”
In this passage, the word “keys” likely means authority. When you have the keys to something, you are the one with the right to access that place. Therefore, Christ, by his victory on the cross, legally took the “keys” or authority from the one who had them, and as we know from Hebrews 2:14-15, the one who had the keys was Satan.
In conclusion, Christ conquered spiritual forces by his death on the cross. He canceled the record of debt which held us in slavery under the kingdom of darkness and because of that, GOD has translated us from under the power of darkness into the Kingdom of Light.
This concludes Part 1 of our Spiritual Authority teaching. Later this week, in Part 2, we’ll discuss various spiritual powers that war against us. Then, in Part 3, we’ll discuss our authority through Christ over those spiritual powers.