FROM THE CROSS TO THE THRONE

By Pastor Mitch Horton | May 2007 | Posted in • Featured Content | (0) Comments However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. (7) But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, (8) which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. (1 Corinthians 2:6-8) The wisdom of God sent Jesus to the cross. For our redemption to become a reality, Jesus had to become our sin substitute. There was no other way for God to break the chains of sin, bondage, and death from us. Here is a brief synopsis of what God did for us in Christ. God has had a family plan from eternity past. When He created the earth as a habitat for His man, He planned for there to be perpetual human life on earth for eternity. He set eternity in our hearts. 1 Prior to God’s creation of Adam, somewhere in eternity past, God created one of the most perfect and beautiful creatures He had ever formed. This creature was the anointed Cherub called Lucifer which means “bright one.” Lucifer was so beautiful that his pride got the best of him. He thought that he was worthy of taking God’s place as the supreme sovereign of the universe and led an insurrection2 of perhaps one-third of the angels against God.3 He was kicked out of heaven for his rebellion. Jesus said He saw Satan fall like lightning out of heaven.4 When Lucifer was kicked out of heaven, he fell to the earth.5 There is an interesting idea floating among many scholars called the “gap theory.“6 This theory hypothesizes that there was an indefinable period of time between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. During this time, Satan fell to the earth and corrupted it, as well as a race of beings called the Pre-Adamite race. Due to their severe corruption, the Pre-Adamites and the first social order on earth were destroyed by a flood. The theory holds that the Genesis creation is actually a re-creation.7 After restoring order to the chaos that followed the first creation,8 God created man uniquely in His image, after creating vegetable and animal life. God created us to be His eternal companions. He scooped Adam’s body from the ground and breathed a spirit nature into him.9 God envisioned an eternity of fellowship with Adam and his children in an earth that was made to be man’s perfect habitat.10 When Satan saw God’s endearment to man, and how much God loved mankind, he devised a plan to corrupt God’s plan and to pay God back for his being thrust out of heaven. Satan determined that if he attacked God’s family, he could still hinder God’s eternal purposes. Adam and Eve clearly understood God’s instructions to never eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the garden created for them by God. Yet Eve was seduced by the tempter by the desires of her flesh, mind, and body, and by her pride.11 Self-centeredness became an instant problem when Adam and Eve sinned. And even after the New Birth, we must deal daily with the desire to place our will and plans before the will of God in our lives. Jesus said that we must take up our cross daily and follow Him. That lets us know that the temptation to choose our way of living over God’s best will have to be constantly guarded against.12 When Adam and Eve yielded to sin, two major things happened. First, their fellowship with God was immediately broken. Secondly, their authority over the earth, given to mankind by God, was instantly transferred to God’s arch-enemy, Satan.13 Satan gained a great advantage over man and thought he had completely foiled God’s plan to fellowship for eternity with a human family. Satan thought, for good reason, that there was no redemption available to Adam. The ground was cursed after the fall, and God could not make another man to help Adam out of his plight. Besides that, creating another man would not help Adam’s and Eve’s sin problem, because another creation from the dust of the ground would not connect both races of men. A man sinned, and only a man could redeem humanity from sin. Also, God gave control of the earth over to Adam,14 and when Adam sinned, that control was transferred to Satan. God couldn’t just ignore Satan’s newly gained, time-limited authority.15 Satan also knew that God was just and had to live by the very laws He created to govern the universe. Had God been unjust, He could have dispossessed Satan of his legal authority gained over the earth and man, and could have simply forgiven Adam and Eve of their sin of disobedience. But God’s justice and truth make Him fair even to His enemies. What Satan underestimated was the great love that the Father had for the human race. He had no idea to what great extremes God would go to redeem the human race from sin.16 God had devised a plan before the creation of man that would guarantee man’s redemption if he fell and yielded his will to God’s enemy, Satan. Immediately after Adam and Eve sinned, God implemented that plan of redemption. God slew an animal and covered Adam’s and Eve’s naked bodies with the skin of the animal. The innocent blood of an animal was spilled so a covering could be provided for man’s sin. This was the beginning of the blood covenant redemption that God would grant humanity. Later, God cut a blood covenant with Abraham, promising Abraham and his descendants that they would be blessed by honoring the covenant, and that every human being would be affected by that covenant.18 On the basis of this blood covenant, God gave Moses the law, the sacrifices, and the priesthood.19 The law gave fallen man an understanding of the standards of a holy God. The sacrifices provided an atonement20 for man’s sin. And the priesthood provided man a representative before God. All of these offered a foundation for understanding what God would do when a promised redeemer21 came and placed a New Covenant into effect. Hundreds of years after God’s promise to Abraham and His giving of the law to Moses, an angel appeared to a young virgin girl named Mary, who was espoused to a young man named Joseph.22 The angel revealed to Mary that she would become pregnant with a child that she would conceive by the Holy Spirit. He would be the God-Man, the redeemer of mankind from sin. She was to call his name Jesus.23 Because Jesus had no human father and was conceived by the Holy Spirit coming upon Mary, He was not born in bondage to the fall of man. Because God was His Father, Jesus was divine. Yet, because Mary was human, He had the limitations of a physical body. Mary simply clothed the Son of God with sinless flesh. Jesus was born in fellowship with God, free from Satan’s control, and lived in an immortal24 body, the same kind of body that Adam had before he sinned. Jesus is called the last Adam25 because He was the first man born since Adam sinned that had fellowship with God. Every man born of two earthly parents is automatically born unable to fellowship with God, under the dominion of Satan, with a mortal body, and subject to death. Therefore, every person born of two human parents is immediately barred from being the person who can legally pay man’s sin penalty. And this is the reason for Jesus Christ being born of a virgin. Most people don’t realize that, although God is love, He is also fair and just. For God to hold the position of the highest sovereign in the universe, He must be fair to every living being. He must be fair to Satan His enemy, to man, and He must Himself abide by the laws that He formed to govern the universe. Justice and judgment are the foundation for His love for us.26 Every sin committed by man must be legally paid for if man is to be completely redeemed. If God just forgave us of sin because He loved us, it would not only devalue us, but it would also be an injustice to Satan. Here’s what the judicial side of our redemption demanded: A man got us into sin, so a man must legally pay our sin penalty. But not just any man. For a man to qualify to pay our sin penalty, he must first meet certain criteria. He must be in fellowship with God, and he must be guilty of no sin of his own.27 He must not be subject to Satan’s control,28 and he must have a body that is not subject to physical death. As stated above, no human born of two human parents is capable of legally paying for the sins of mankind, for he is sinful himself, is under Satan’s control, and is already subject to death. When Jesus hung on the cross,He cried out as God literally turned His back on Him and made Him to become our sin.29 Our sin is a spiritual thing. Though Jesus suffered untold agony when He hung on the cross, His physical sufferings did not begin to touch our sin problem.30 Jesus literally bore our spiritual death. He really died twice on the cross. He died spiritually when He cried out as God forsook Him; He became our spiritual death. Later, He died physically, but only after He had died spiritually by becoming our spiritual death.31 When Jesus died, He went to hell to pay our sin penalty. The penalty for sin is spiritual and physical death, and incarceration in hell.32 Jesus bore our sin penalty and went to hell for us the moment He died.33 In this way, He legally dealt with our sin problem, and He made a complete redemption available for us! Hell was divided into two compartments before Jesus died and rose from the dead.34 According to Jesus, there was the righteous side of hell, called Paradise by Jesus on the cross,35 and also called Abraham’s bosom.36 There was also the unrighteous side of hell, where all unbelievers of all ages go upon death.37 When Jesus died, He went to the unrighteous side of hell and stayed there until God was satisfied that our sin debt was completely paid in full.38 When God’s justice toward our sin was satisfied, the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus in hell,39 and He was Born Again,40 that is, He came back alive unto God, and His fellowship with the Father was restored! He then went to Paradise, the righteous side of hell, and led the Old Testament believers in a triumphant procession out of the righteous side of hell. On the way to heaven, they appeared to the saints in Jerusalem.41 Jesus then conquered death by being resurrected from the dead in a new flesh and bone body.42 His resurrection took the sting out of death for us43 and guarantees us a physical resurrection when Jesus comes for us in the rapture of the church.44 Jesus defeated death, hell, Satan, and the grave for us when He was raised from the dead.45 His resurrection makes available to us the New Birth,46 access into the presence of God anytime day or night,47 victory over Satan and all his forces, healing for our bodies from sickness and disease, the promise of all our needs being met in this life, and the promise that one day we’ll have brand new immortal bodies just like the one He received at His resurrection. Jesus is now seated at the right hand of the Father, where He ever lives to make intercession for us. He is our heavenly defense attorney,48 and He’s never lost a case! We are seated with Him far above the power of Satan and his emissaries.49 Take your place seated in heavenly places with Jesus Christ, and rule and reign in your life through the victory gained FROM THE CROSS TO THE THRONE!50 __________________________________ Resources & Endnotes 1. Ecclesiastes 3:11 2. See Ezekiel 28:11-19 3. Revelation 12:4 4. Luke 10:17-19 5. Ezekiel 28:17; Isaiah 14:12 6. For exhaustive commentary on this idea of the Gap Theory, see Dake’s Annotated Reference Bible (Lawrenceville, GA: Dake Bible Sales, 1963), p. 54, column 1, “The Pre-Adamite World.” Another excellent source is God’s Plan for Man (Lawrenceville, GA: Dake Bible Sales, 1977), p. 117-132. I do not present this idea as doctrine. It is simply a theory and at best is speculation. But there is enough evidence that it should be given some thought. It could answer many questions as to the age of the earth, where the dinosaurs originated, and why we see bones from what looks to be man’s ancestry. This theory is worthy of investigation by thinking Christians. For me, it makes sense and answers questions. Still, it should never be presented dogmatically and should not be considered doctrine. 7. In Genesis 1:2, the phrase “without form and void” is in Hebrew tohu va bohu. The word tohu means “waste, desolation”; the word bohu means “empty, ruin, void.” According to Isaiah 45:18, God did not create the world “in vain” (the Hebrew word here is tohu – “waste”). Some believe a reference to this is also found in Jeremiah 4:23-26. 8. Genesis 1:3-25 9. Genesis 2:7 10. Genesis 1:31 11. 1 John 2:15. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life are still the primary ways that Satan tempts believers today. For an excellent book on resisting sin, I encourage you to read Go and Sin No More by Michael Brown. 12. Matthew 10:38-39; Matthew 16:24-25; Mark 8:34-35; Luke 14:26-33; John 12:24-25. Jesus addressed the rebellious human will in every gospel and spoke in forthright terms of its needed submission to the will of God. We must all come to terms with how selfishness hinders our relationships: with God, with our self, and with others. We must be willing to take up our cross, that is, to let our human will bend to what God’s Word says, and to put down and refuse to yield to our fleshly desires. 13. Satan is called the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4), the prince of this world (John 14:30), the prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:2), and he himself mentions that the authority of the kingdoms of the world had been turned over to him (Luke 4:5-6). 1 John reveals that the whole world is under his power and control (1 John 5:19, NLT). 14. Genesis 1:26-27 15. It seems that God’s original authority given to Adam and Eve to take care of the earth was for a duration of time. Demons who were being cast out by Jesus mentioned that their authority was time-limited – Have you come here to torment us before the time? (Matthew 8:29) Then Revelation 12:12 mentions Satan’s wrath being stirred because he knows his days of ruling on earth are numbered. Satan’s stealing, killing, and destroying will come to an abrupt end at the second coming of Christ! (Revelation 20:1-3) 16. 1 Corinthians 2:7-8 17. Revelation 13:8; Ephesians 1:4 18. Abram (“Exalted Father”) was changed to Abraham (“Father of a Multitude”) after he entered into a blood covenant with God. This covenant guaranteed Abraham’s protection and blessing. This covenant affected Abraham’s immediate and future descendants and included a promise of a certain parcel of land to Abraham’s offspring which would be their possession for eternity. See Genesis 12:1-7; Genesis 17:1-8; Deuteronomy 28:1-14; Genesis 13:14-17; Genesis 15:18-21. 19. See Hebrews 8-10 for an explanation of how these were a type and shadow of the New Covenant that was to come. 20. The word atonement means “covering.” 21. Redeem means “to buy back, to rescue,” so a redeemer is one who buys back, or rescues another. 22. Mary was around sixteen years of age when the angel appeared to her. Mary was espoused to Joseph. Espousal was an engagement period which lasted one year. The engaged couple still lived with their parents and did not consummate the relationship sexually until the actual marriage, at the end of the one-year espousal. 23. See Luke 1:26-35. 24. The word mortal means “death doomed.” Jesus was born according to the natural law of generation. He had a body not subject to death. Mary clothed Jesus with immortal, sinless flesh. 25. 1 Corinthians 15:45 26. Psalm 89:14 27. 1 Peter 2:22 28. Ephesians 2:2; 1 John 5:19 29. Matthew 27:46; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Isaiah 53:6 30. In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus’ humanness was faced with what it would take to redeem mankind. It was not just the physical suffering that caused Him to sweat blood under intense duress, but it was the fact that He knew that He must be separated from the Father in order to bear our sin. See Matthew 26:36-46. 31. If sin is only a physical problem, then physical death can take care of the sin problem. If that is the case, then there was no need for Jesus to bear our sin penalty. We could just bear our own sin penalty when we experience our own physical death. This idea is preposterous at best! 32. Romans 6:23; Revelation 20:11-15 33. Matthew 12:40; Acts 2:31; Romans 10:6-7; Ephesians 4:8-10. 34. No Old Covenant saints could go to heaven prior to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Nothing that defiles can enter heaven, and when these Old Testament saints died, they still died in their sins. They had a promise of salvation, that one day a Messiah would come to rescue them from sin, but they only had a promise of this. Faith in animal sacrifices guaranteed them that they would be saved from sin when the Messiah came. 35. Luke 23:43 36. See Luke 16:19-31 37. Luke 16:23-24; Revelation 21:8 38. See Psalm 88 for a graphic depiction of Deity suffering for humanity in hell. 39. Romans 8:11 40. Colossians 1:18 41. Matthew 27:52. 1 Peter 3:18 and 1 Peter 4:6 both reveal that the gospel was preached to the spirits in prison. This happened when Jesus paid a visit to hell for you and me, and released all the Old Testament saints from bondage. 42. Luke 24:39 43. 1 Corinthians 15:54-57 44. See 1 Corinthians 15:51-54; Philippians 3:21; 1 John 3:2 45. Revelation 1:18 46. John 3:3 47. Hebrews 4:16 48. 1 John 2:1-2 49. Ephesians 2:6 50. Romans 5:17