Freedom in Christ

The gap between the daily experience of most Christians and the potential experience of Christians is so great that it poses a bit of a puzzle. Aside from lamenting it, is there anything we can do to rectify it? Neil Anderson has developed what is probably the most advanced model available for helping believers experience the fullness of who they are called to be in Christ:

1. Breaking alliance with the demonic realm and it’s many inroads
2. Renouncing Lies
3. Forgiving
4. Dealing with Rebellion
5. Dealing with Pride
6. Breaking bondage patterns
7. Renouncing curses and ancesteral connections
8. Staying Free

This idea is not new. It grew out of the early Charismatic deliverance ministers like Francic MacNutt, Don Basham, and Derek Prince. This in turn, I think was a development from Penteocostal and Holiness ideals of conversion. I think a process of this nature is very important and helpful, and that people like Anderson have taken a huge and important step forward, but that we need still another generation of ideas to come forward in this area. Anderson’s process has really great components, but it would work better if more tightly organized and patterned after the model of Biblical salvation. Secondly, his process emphasizes what you already are in Christ, whereas I see faith playing a larger role throughout the process. Here is a proposal with a mapping to Anderson’s steps in brackets:

1. Surrender to Christ.
2. Identification and Renunciation of all former allegiances. [1,7]
3. Renunciation of enslaving lies. (such as views of self, God and others) [2,5]
4. Repair of Human Relationships. (including repentance and forgiveness) [3,4]
5. Receving Total Forgiveness and Security.
6. Encountering the Presence of God.
7. Baptism in the Holy Spirit.
8. Physical Healing.
9. Fighting for Further Freedom. [6,8]

Part IX – Spiritual Power and Healing

We know from Daniel, that one of the most righteous, “prayed up” men on earth at the time had to waith three weeks for an answer due to warfare being waged over delivering the answer to his prayer. This gives us a unique window into what is really going on when we pray. It paints a more complex picture than we normally assume. We assume too quickly that when a prayer is not answered, it’s because it was “not God’s will.” In situations where God’s will is ambiguous that may be reasonable to expect, but what about cases where his will is unambiguous? I believe that if you were to build a theology of healing from Jesus’ ministry you find that healing is a case where God’s will is unambiguous, yes most churches don’t really believe that God wants all people healed, and those that do, don’t actually pursue it. We draw the wrong conclusions because we ignore the variables involved in getting a person healed. Let’s look at those variables with regard to healing as a test case for more general prayer issues:

1. The degree faith required (FR). How much power is needed to get this job done? This is a combination of several factors: The amount of spiritual power placed in opposition to a person’s healing, how entrenched the spiritual power is which is causing the sickness, and more generally how significant is this miracle (i.e. are we curing headaches or creating limbs)
2. The degree of faith in the person (FP). In various places in the Bible we see Jesus or an apostle pointing out someone’s “great faith.” When the recipient has great faith, then it is much easier to get them healed. A healer of “little faith” could get the job done. Likewise, a recipient of “little faith” is going to need a lot more faith on the part of the healer.
3. The degree of faith in the healer (FH). Jesus also draws attention to the faith or lack of it on the part of his disciples. Now the amount of “faith” someone has is more than just a general belief, it is an aggregate of who they are and have become. Faith can be built. It is impacted by things like your track record of success, the amount of time you have spent with God, and your theology.

So I think if it were math it would look something like this if FP+FH > FR then the person is healed. Now I admit this is definitely a simplification, but what I’m pointing out is that the factors involved are quite different than we tend to think. We tend to think that the only thing that matters is “God’s will” since of course he is God and nothing is too hard for him. This equation is if GW > 0 then the person is healed. I’m sorry, but God’s will is not the variable! It’s a constant. God’s will may vary for where you should live, but it doesn’t vary about whether a person should get healed or repent at the minimum.

Now the Word of Faith people place all of the emphasis on FP, the Faith of the Person. Of course this is very problematic. Jesus never blamed a person for not getting healed. He just healed htem. In general, people who are sick tend to be in a state of very little faith, and so Jesus rebuked disciples when there was a problem. The primary variable then is FH. Now the key thing to recognize is that faith and the resulting spiritual power is like a muscle. Therefore if you really believed God for someone to grow their limb back, and it didn’t happen, that wouldn’t mean that either you had no faith, or that God didn’t want it. It probably just means that you’re not Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Spirit yet. Now don’t hear me as saying that anyone cannot see a great miracle if they have faith, because they can. We should never be disqualifying ourselves. But the point is that we shouldn’t be discouraged if it didn’t happen and we did everything we knew to do to make it happen. Instead put yourself on a spiritual training program to start building your faith, and soon you’ll be pushing back the prince of darkness.

Grasping the basic variables of healing helps us explain a lot of otherwise confusing situations. How is it that you could go to a meeting and see 5 people healed of illnesses while others are not? Any one of those variables could be in play. First, the healer may not have as great faith for heart problems as back problems, for example. Secondly, a given person’s condition may seem physically worse than it is spiritually. So someone with “cancer” seems like a really hard case to us, but maybe a heart murmur does not. However, the amount of spiritual power required for the heart murmur could be greater. Thirdly, I think it is often the case that a few people with a lot of faith are healed in a meeting. While at first this may seem condemning to the others, it should be a source of hope. If they weren’t healed just because God didn’t want them healed, then there isn’t much they can do about that except be bitter with God. Someone’s degree of faith can be changed. But again, we should never blame them, because Jesus didn’t do that, and it’s never that simple anyway.

In addition, a basic “power equation” helps explain progressive versus instantaneous healing. An instantaneous healing is when FP+FR is immediately greater than FR, but if this is not the case, multiple appliations of faith may be required. It also explains why Jesus always got people healed. Since he had perfect faith, a complete lack of faith on the part of the other person was never an issue, nor was the degree of healing that they needed.

Subtexts and Apologies.

My wife and I had an extensive talk about about how men and women hear things differently last night. When you talk to someone, there is often what you could call a “subtext” beneath what you are saying. Such as if you say: “The closet is not clean.” The subtext could be “You haven’t been doing your job in keeping it clean.” Now what I was coming to realize that while both men and women can hear subtexts, women communicate largely on the basis of subtext. Jill would not say to Alice that “The closet is not clean” because Alice would definitely understand that to mean “You have not been doing your job” rather than just a plain observation of status of the closet. So Jill just starting to clean up the closet herself might prompt Alice to say “Oh, I’m sorry, I should have cleaned up the closet” which would be the intended result. So the net is that there is a bit of a rule that direct communication is generally too strong, and the best way to let the other person know something is for your actions or words to loosely alude to it.

Now this leads to an interesting situation regarding apologies. So if I tell my wife the closet is not clean, she will likely hear me accusing her of letting it get dirty and that will hurt her feelings. But if I then tell her that actually, no, I really wasn’t saying she did anything bad at all, but I was simply asking for help cleaning it up, then she’d immediately feel better. What I did was tell her “Don’t worry the bad subtext you heard was not really there, you’re perfectly fine.” So, often, Jaime will feel much better if I just explain the subtext.

It does not work in reverse, however! Let’s pretend that for some reason Jaime saying “The closet is not clean” really hurt my feelings. (sorry need to work on the example) I say, “That hurt my feelings.” She says “Oh I didn’t mean that you weren’t cleaning it up enough.” I will not feel better. This is because I was not hurt by what I thought she meant by it (the subtext). I was hurt by what she actually said. Now she is thinking “I didn’t mean anything malicious by this, I simply need to explain that to my husband and he’ll feel better” In reality, whatever her intent, it hurt my feelings. If she explains that she didn’t mean anything bad by it, she thinks she is saying “Don’t worry I didn’t mean anything bad” but what I will hear is “It’s not legitimate for your feelings to be hurt by this, get happy now.”

The more she explains how she didn’t mean anything bad, the worse it will get because that sounds like she’s justifying herself and invalidating my feelings. She is thinking, however, that “If he only knew I had no bad subtext, he’d feel better.” She may even be thinking “It’s not fair for him to get his feelings hurt if I wasn’t trying to hurt them. ” Which from a man’s perspective is kind of funny because his life as a husband is one of constantly trying avoid hurting his wife’s feelings when he doesn’t mean to hurt them He’s always trying to deal with the messages he either sent and didn’t know about it, or didn’t send at all, but were received that way by his wife because he doesn’t use the female subtext communications rules. Is there any way out of this, and where does the Gospel fit in?

Men: Men need to admit that subtexts are real. They are in the spirit of what is being communicated. Women may overinterpret a subtext, but if you are “out of the Spirit” you are legitimately sending a bad signal, and if someone is hurt by it, you need to be willing to apologize. In other words, you said “The closet is not clean” and what you wanted your wife to hear was “Can you clean it?” but deep in your heart you were also upset that she didn’t clean it before. The fact that she heard the part about you being upset in that case may not seem fair since it was just a fleeting thought, but it was there in the spirit so it’s actually perfectly fair. If you don’t want someone else to hear it, then don’t think or feel it. The only way to do that is to stay in the Spirit. If they do hear it, then own up to it, don’t argue about it. It feels really unfair when they hear that, and it’s frustrating because you were trying really hard for them not to. But they did. You can end up feeling like you have to be a perfect person not to hurt your wife’s feelings. Well that’s kind of true. So try to stay in the Spirit, but expect to hurt them, and if you can take responsibility when you are out of the Spirit by saying something like “You know what I’m frustrated, and I had a bad heart toward you about it, I’m sorry” instead of spending time trying to pretend that you were pure and she shouldn’t be hurt, you’ve got the gold key.

Women: It’s a very scary thing for a woman’s shortcoming to come out into the open because female culture is built on performance. If the woman does not perform, she is a failure. Women spend their lives trying to meet the hidden expectations in order to never fail to measure up and suffer the associated embarrasment and rejection. I personally believe that this is a missing key in breaking bondages for women — accepting and facing shortcomings. Trying to avoid being seen with any shortcomings is a kind of pride, and the effort to prevent that from happening is works. This is a very hard truth for women. I don’t think any kind of personal pep talks will fix the negativity women experience from this kind of culture. I believe the only way out is trutly to repent of the pride and works. This means being willing to be seen as “not measuring up” and when the devil jumps on you about it, to basically tell him he is a liar and that in fact by not measuring up, you’re ridding yourself of the pride and works that keep you from real godliness and spiritual beauty. Boy that’s tough isn’t it.

Now when women are dealing with men, it’s it’s harder because women know all about subtexts, and if they want to give you one it will be done intentionally. So when you get your feelings hurt and she wasn’t intending to hurt them, that’s going to be upsetting. “You heard a subtext I didn’t give, that’s not fair!” The hard part here is that either what you actually said was hurtful to him and you didn’t think it should be, or a subtext you sent that you thought was harmless was hurtful to him. You may have had no malice, but it had significance to him that you may not understand. You need to accept the fact that his feelings were really hurt by it, and try to understand why, or just make him feel better. Don’t try to convince him it wasn’t hurtful, which you’ll be heavily tempted to do. The fact is that it was hurtful, regardless of your intent. So for both men and women there is a similarity: something you don’t think should be hurtful can be. For men, because you are sending messages you’re not aware of, and for women because the message you’re sending seems fine to you but hurts him. In both cases, if you blame the hurt person for getting their feelings hurt, it’s an unhealthy form of manipulation.

Part VIII – Haman in Geopolitics

The discussion of Haman is important not because he’s the only kind of power player out there, but because he is the primary one that can stop you and hurt others. The people that are just out to save their own necks cannot compete with kind of respect, sacrificial ethic and God-breathed talent you should bring to a situation. Moreover invidual politics with Haman are representative of the way that geopolitics work as well. The devil is always trying to bring “Haman” governments into power. Those which are more than worldly and blind, those which are proactively demonic and evil. Hitler was the best recent example, although Stalin fits the profile very well too. Interesting that these two men went head to head. Stalin’s stunned reaction to Hitler breaking their pact of friendship clearly shows that Hitler was the more evil of the two and therefore more dangerous. Had it not been for the intervention of the Western powers, Hitler would have won it all.

This leads into the key point: every war in the world is either about the more wicked “Haman” powers gaining more power, or they are about challenging the “Mordecai” powers. The devil’s goal is to wipe all of the Christians and Jews off the Earth. If he could do that, it would be game over, because the rest of the world could not resist him, whether he wanted their worship or just wanted to kill them all. Therefore the devil’s goals are political, like it or not. He wants to gain enough political power to accomplish this extermination purpose. Therefore although God’s Kingdom is not political, God uses political powers to protect the church from the Haman powers.

Since the Reformation at least, this has been a very simple story. Catholic countries, incited by the Pope, did everything the could to eradicate the Protestant ones. The gave way to secular powers trying eradicate both Catholic and Protestant powers. In the first era, the “good guys” were Germany, Britian, Holland and the Nordics. In the second era, Britain and the United States have been the key protaganists. Although the political ends of these “good guys” were not universally in line with God’s purposes at any given time, and were never in majority born again people, their orientation in the world was essentially as political defender of the faith against any and every political beast that the devil could raise against them.

Some people are likely to hear this as some kind of “Western” pride, but it should be quickly recognized that the most advanced “Western”, “Protestant” nation also became the most sinister political beast of all time: Germany. It is not beyond belief that America, as the greatest force for Gospel propagation in history, could follow the same path in the not too distant future, and that a non-Western nation like China could play the role of Mordecai. What is however important to recognize is that in the current political moment, America plays the Mordecai role. If the devil were to succeed in removing American political power tomorrow, not only would great political atrocities by the other major powers follow, but the advance of the gospel would be severely curtailed — quite a prize for the enemy indeed. Those who want America to fall are singing the devil’s song.

Part VII – Shrewd as Serpents: Dealing with Haman

With this seeming paradox, Jesus gives one of the most important nuggets of wisdom for dealing with the powers of this world. As Christians we find ourselves in a unique place on the political chessboard. We will most certainly be hated more than anyone else by the Haman figure in the organization. If this person gains power, not only will we be in jeopardy, or near slavery, our bosses are in trouble from the ambition of the Haman figure, and so is the entire organization. Yet, we are likely the only ones with the spiritual discernment to know what is really going on.

The Haman figure will act “innocent” when dealing with authority and ruthless when dealing with all others. We on the other hand, will be actually innocent with authority and kind to all others. The authority is likely unable to tell the difference because of Haman’s ability to manipulate. It is important to know this general principle: anywhere that Haman is found the authority, no matter how much seemingly greater he is, is in grave danger as soon as Haman can gather enough power. Hitler removed Hindenberg, Stalin may have murdered Lenin, Gotti murdered Castellano, Haman himself clearly would have killed Xerces. You may be the only thing that can stop him.

Most Christians are innocent, but they are not shrewd. They are not shrewd because they assume that other people think and act and are motivated like they are. Nothing could be more wrong. People in the world are motivated by selfish ends, not altrustic ones. Even for “good” people, being nice and good will always take a back seat to self-preservation. True Christians have a capacity for and orientation toward Christ-like self-sacrificing love. “Good” people will submit to Haman or avoid him, but they won’t see his evil for what it is, because they are still slaves of the devil’s kingdom. Being shrewd therefore means recognizing Haman for what he is — a power hungry and self-serving person who will do anything to get what he wants. He is not acting in good faith. Once you recognize that he is not acting in good faith and that the only language he understands is force, you understand the first rule of confronting him.

Ronald Reagan understood this principle in history with regard to the communists. They were lying to us, because the “nice guys” who ran our government like Carter and Ford were easy dupes. They assumed that Haman meant what he said. Wrong. Haman used the fact that they were nice to gain more power for himself. Reagan came along and said “trust but verify” and he also said we’d build “Star Wars” which made them sweat, because it meant we’d have power they could never match. Terrorists are the same way. Isreal only exists because the Arabs fear it. As soon as they stop fearing it, there will be another war.

The second principle for dealing with Haman is that his arrogance is his undoing. The legitimate authority can remove him if Haman is exposed in time, but your discernment of his identity or even evidence you present against him will not be very effective, and may cost you your authority. When the authority recognizes Haman is a threat to his own position, the authority will act, but unless you help set a trap for Haman, this will always be to late. If the authority sees Haman as a direct threat from a long way off, he’ll win. Paul Castellano would not have blinked twice in executing Gotti if he had realized Gotti was a threat in time.

Part VI – Principalities and Powers

In the church age, God’s kingdom confronts the demonic powers which rule the world. Although Jesus’ death and resurrection stripped them of their right to control it, until the church comes into an area and removes them, they rule by default. The natural order of the world has a spiritual order behind it. Moreover the spiritual order has great influence over how the natural order will align. The two are deeply intertwined.

The church has recently started to recognize that these so called “principalities” rule the world and for a while there was a lot of rebuking of principalities going on. This however is a misunderstanding of how God’s Kingdom advances. Jesus told us to “bind it on earth” and he would “bind it in heaven.” This clearly identifies a partnership between our effort as His foot soldiers and His as ruler of the universe. We are to bind the demons we encounter on earth, confront the sin, sickness and disease and drive it out, and most importantly bring individuals out from the rule of the devil and into the rule of Christ. These are the things we “bind on earth.” When we do these things, this removes the authority of the principalities to rule in heaven, and Jesus removes them. Conversely Jesus may confront a principality in the heavens which allows us to advance the Gospel in the same sphere on the earth.

I don’t think these are generally things like a “Spirit of Abortion” or a “Spirit of Fear.” I think they are more geopolitical, although they may have specific ways they manifest and control a certain culture. I therefore would see something like a “Spirit of Islam” as being a very high ranking principality, with something like the “Prince of Persia (Iran)” as one of the principalities under him. Movements clearly have their own spirit, such as radical Islam, or in militant Communism. So the first thing to say about principalities is that they have authority because of the people that they control. If they control less people, they have less authority.

The second thing to understand is that there is “infighting” in Satan’s kingdom. This does not mean that it is “divided against itself,” because the more evil that is done the more Satan’s kingdom advances. Therefore war between two evil powers is not Satan against Satan, but two elements of Satan’s kingdom working their ultimate end of destruction. In general, the more wicked and ruthless power will prevail without the intervention of God and the church. The more authority that a wicked power can gain, the more destruction can be wrought.

This kind of demonic power warfare describes what is often termed “politics.” John Gotti was a ruthless man, behind whom was clearly a demonic power. When he killed Paul Castellano this meant that wicked power behind him had grown strong enough to overcome the one behind Paul Castellano, which although more powerful initially was clearly not as wicked. These kinds of power plays are common in companies, just without actual murder taking place. In some corporate cultures, the primary way of advancement is to be more wicked than all of the others, and in general heartless, self-serving people can do quite well. Behind the scenes these are actually spiritual power plays. When a wicked person gains great authority they do great evil, whether it is in a corporation or in a government. Likewise, when a godly person, like a Daniel or Mordecai comes into power, they thwart the powers of darkness in very significant ways, and great good is done. They will execute justice on the Haman’s of the government or company. Unbelieving “nice guy” leaders may not proactively do evil like Haman was doing, but they will ultimately fall victim to him without the aid of man with spiritual discernment.

Part V – Eras of Church History

After the resurretion, the army of God’s church begins to advance and incrementally changed the dymanics of the world. We see history unfolding in phases where each phase takes signficant steps toward a beautiful and righteous people which, having come from love for and slavery to evil, vindicates the character of God forever. The fact that they have repeatedly chosen Him over everything that the devil could do to them or offer them, is deeply touching to God, and a people that fulfills this in the fullest sense of the word, will only be manifest at the very end. It will not be just one man or a few, though, it will be an entire special people. Church history forms a road map toward that end. Here is how I see it breaking down:

1. The Rock Church. (29-317) The church is the Rock in Daniel which destroys all of the world empires. This in effect is what happens as the culmination of the first phase of Church history. Chrisitanity undermines the spiritual power which allows these world empires to rule. In that sense, it was Christianity which destroyed the Roman Empire.
2. The Outward Church. (317-1517) With the union of church and state the early church essentially died, and a new phase of leavening started. During this phase, Christian values slowly replace the formerly pagan values of Europe. Formerly pagan tribes turn away from paganism and to Christianity at least outwardly. While the union of church and state is corrupting, it is also the primary way that Christianity is defended from the threat of the devil raising a pagan enemy to slaugter all Christians.
3. The Jacob and Esau Church. (1517-1776) The reformation begins almost 300 years where the outward church (Esau) does everything possible to wipe out the true church (Jacob), much like Jacob and Esau. During this period, from old Europe is drawn a wide array of persecuted Protestants Christian people who form the primary seed of North American colonization.
4. The Advancing Church. (1776-1907) With the rise of the United States, the game is fundamentally shifted again. The French revolution is kicked off, and for the next phase of history the wars will not be Protestant/Catholic but they will be between secular beasts and protestant powers. During this period the seeds are sown for the first time in history for global Christianity. At the same time, by the end of this century, very little true Christianity remains in Europe.
5. The Exploding Church. (1907-2001) After Pentecost broke at Azusa street, the next century would be marked by an explosion of Christianity on every beach head established in the former era. The Global South explodes with the Gospel such that by the end of the century, many immigrants to old world nations are already Christian. The United States provides not only the vast majority of the global push, but also the political power to protect the advance of the church.
6. The Global Church. (2001-??) As national borders are eroding, populations becoming more and more diverse, the Global South is invading the North which evangelized them. I believe this may be the final phase of history. The period since the fall of the Berlin Wall has been the greatest period of evangelization in all of world history as the church possesses the numbers and power and no major political power opposes it. Islam is being raised up as a competitor, but is already showing signs of weakening as Pentecostals sneak in the back door. After Islam dissolves, the mission of world evangelization will near completion. After these things happen, expect to see one world government and essentially one world church go head to head in the final showdown of history. This will be a rematch of the early church’s destruction of Rome, except this will be for the entire worldwide prize, and Satan himself will be release to rule it. Severe persecution will ensue and large numbers of people who have become largely “Christianized” in the previous century will fall away, while at the same time, the true believers will look more and more like Christ. The church will triumph by refusing to bow under the authority of Satan himself, which before Christ was irresistable, and ultimately Satan’s authority will be broken in a final conflict with Jesus’ return.
7. The conflict with Islam and completion of world evangelization may take another Biblical generation or so ( 40 years ). At this point, I expect the final end time persecution and battle, which I believe will be short but severe. Given the pace and outline of world history, it is very much withing reason to believe that it will all transpire in our lifetimes.

Important to understanding these phases is understanding that outward geopolitical power acts as a cover for the advance of the true inward spiritual church, since througout history, Satan attempts to use geopolitical power to kill all of the seed of the church. When telling church history, some focus only on the outward advance, and others only on the inward, but in reality the inward Kingdom advance has very real outward consequences, just as the outward advance impacts the inward.

Part IV – The Cross and the Kingdom

When Jesus comes, it is more than a book end on a failed age: 4000 years where God used various strategies to get man, especially Israel, to do what he had planned all along. If that were the case, I believe God could have had Jesus go to the cross almost immediately in history. So I view the preceding history, as necessary, not accidental, even if we don’t fully understand all of the reasons for it.

When Jesus comes it is a direct confrontation of Satan’s power. It is also the highest stakes moment in history. God has not only submitted himself to a human form, but also to human weakness. It was at least theoretically possible for Jesus to succumb to Satan’s temptations. And if he had, not only would evil have triumphed, I believe the very fabric of the universe would have been destroyed as the Godhead would have been split. Just the opposite happened, however. Jesus resists every temptation of the wilderness, and this gives him authority over the devil. This authority does not extend beyond Himself and those under his direct authority, however. A final victory can only be won by actually setting the entire human race free from slavery to the devil. Jesus reverses the fall by actually proactively choosing good at every point that Adam and Eve chose evil. This releases God of the obligation to damn everyone because of their sin. Satan no longer had right of ownership over them, but anyone who would excercise faith in Jesus effectively reverses the effect of the fall on their own life, and destroys the devil’s authority to rule over them and drag the to hell in this life and the one beyond.

Furthermore, this has a corporate effect — as people are able to walk in direct fellowship with God and express his authority wherever the go. Now instead of just God spreading truth or maintaining a strand of his own people, an army is unleashed. Man has his original authority over the devil back. Wherever he goes, he will push back the Kingdom of darkness. This is first and foremost by depriving it of citizens and bringing them in to the Kingdom of light. It has secondary effects, however which are seen in the way the world itself operates. Each historical advance of God’s Kingdom creates a change in geopolitical systems.

Part III – God moves the battle forward in ancient history

God’s flooding of the Earth was basically the expected result from the fall of man – man under the devil’s rule becomes more and more evil to the point where God has to wipe him off the face of the planet. However, rather than totally end the war, God chooses to save one man and seemingly start over. Why this way? Perhaps it is because Adam and all of his progeny were born by natural descent, but Noah and his had to in a sense be born by faith. Therefore it’s not just literary flourish when the New Testament speaks of the flood as a “baptism.” The new earth is populated only by the children of a man who had passed through death by water through his faith. Furthermore, the earth itself has been baptized – rendered lifeless by water, and living again because one man had faith to pass through the death by water. So in what on the surface looks like a near total victory for the devil, God has taken a step closer to the redemption of mankind. The extreme corruption that Cain and his sons brought is forever forgotten, and a new race of Noah’s sons will pervade.

Noah’s descendants begin to move in the same direction when they start to build the tower of Babel – a way of saying “we don’t need an ark to save us”, but God stops it by destroying their tower and scattering them to the four corners of the earth. There they will languish, unable to rebuild the horrible ancient society and force God to wipe them out again until God’s redemptive plan has time to reach them. After thousands of years of living in the darkness caused by our God hating ancestors, these scattered people will be ready to turn again to the living God, because nothing makes you want good more than living with the consequences of evil.

In the meantime, God will advance his plan by calling forth a race from a man (Abraham), who was willing not only to sacrifice not only his son, but his entire future and dream on the altar. This demonstrates the kind of confidence in God’s character (faith) that will ultimately lead to the devil’s defeat. Moreover, it is no coincidence that it is the son that was on the altar from whom this people will be descended. Just like the baptism of the flood, it is only in death that man can have life. God is not just calling a single man now like Noah, but he’s calling a people out from among the rest of the Earth.

Saying that they are His is not enough, however, God must separate them from the world’s system in a permanent way. This is why they must come out of Egypt. Egypt was the capital of devil’s system. Leading a people of Egypt makes them separate from the world’s system and sets the stage for permanent conflict. The very existence of such a people is a threat to the devil, and so he must do everything possible to wipe them out. He has tried at every stage in human history, even after the cross. They are an inexorably “separated” people, and that’s a threat.

After coming out of Egypt the Israelites must establish a beach head in the world. God placed that beach head (Canaan) in the center of all the world’s commerce, so that they could be a literal light to all of the other lost people. The world was going to come to them as the Queen of Sheba did, but when they rebelled against God, he made them go to the world through the diaspora in the 6^th century. In this way God’s law becomes intermixed in the foundations of civilizations. Furthermore, where Israel had had conflict against the world’s empires (ruled by the devil) now they will be subject to those empires, and will participate in conflict within them. Mordecai and Ester are the outstanding example of this, and it is a direct precursor to Christ’s coming and expanding the conflict. Instead of one race in conflict with all others from within, now it will be a conflict within all races. The broader the conflict is, the more success God is having, because remember it had been down to a single righteous man at several points in history.

Part II – The beginning of spiritual warfare

In the beginning, God created the earth and placed the man on it. When He placed man there, it’s clear from His command to “take dominion” that man was the intended agent in a conflict against the devil. This is further reinforced by the fact that man is made in God’s “image” or literally “idol.” An idol represents a god on earth, and man represents the Living God on earth.

Why would God engage in a proxy battle with the devil instead of direct confrontation? I believe it’s because the devil has a basic accusation against God that there is no contest between a created being like himself and an uncreated being like God—God would always win. But if there were a “fair” fight between the devil and a created being, the devil believes he would win. In order to be vindicated, God permitted a real contest between the devil and His created representative, Man. This is the drama of history – the struggle between good and evil personified.

The devil’s second accusation is that God is not actually good, but just a celestial tyrant who defines good as “his way.” Lucifer, enamored with himself, set out to show that another way was not only possible but better. When he did this, God expelled him and his followers from heaven and put them on earth, but while that cleansed the heavens, it did not vindicate the character of God. Into this situation, man is born.

Why did there have to be a Lucifer? Couldn’t God have avoided creating Him in the first place knowing this would happen, so doesn’t it ultimately all go back to God? No. The Lucifer situation of some being with free will and unforced worship choosing to doubt God I believe is and was an inevitability of allowing free will in the first place. Therefore in creating Lucifer, God gets more than victory in a personal struggle, he gets vindication over evil personified. When He defeats Satan at the end of days, He will have permanent closure on the “dark side” of free will such that in heaven, free will and worship will be able to exist eternally without risk that any more would ever fall away into rebellion. So Jesus description of evil may apply here to: “such things must come, but woe to the one through whom they come”

The devil, however, wins the opening battle of the war by taking God’s representative captive, by engaging him in the same moral evil that he himself had partaken of. For all intents and purposes the war would appear to be over. Man deserves destruction now just like the devil, and God has no vindication. What the devil didn’t count on, and I think still has trouble understanding is God showing love to his creature. Rather than the instant judgment he himself had experienced and earned, man is given grace at every point. This grace begins to show on the divine stage of history that God’s character is fundamentally different than the devil’s. The devil returns evil for evil and even evil for good, but God returns good for evil.

Very slowly, this grace begins to lead to an establishment of God’s will upon the earth. And it’s slow because really God pursues it against all odds – a race of wicked people ruled by his arch enemy, God will carve out a people. In this way, God gets a vindication even greater than he would have gotten had Adam resisted the devil’s temptation and fulfilled his original mission. God will actually defeat the devil by redeeming a race of evil people who have become good, something seemingly impossible, and a permanent strike against evil.