Dear Reader,

 This blog may be a review for some of you, but every time I hear or study about this subject, a new layer; a new facet of understanding is added for a more complete picture.  Maybe that is true for you too. Do you ever find that the review of insights is likely to send you back to scripture to see if what is being shared is accurate? I hope so.

A good teacher will do that.

A good teacher will cause you to look deeper into whatever the topic may be. I hope you have good teachers available to you.

Having said this, here was my experience the other day. I believe it to be a timely truth for the season ...

I was listening to a podcast while I was walking. I often do this unless I'm walking with Jim, then he is my favorite "podcast." However, he wasn't with me that day. I found the title regarding powers and principalities catching my attention as I scrolled thorough the offerings on YouTube.  The teachers being interviewed on this particular show, were the ones I liked, and found their insight informative and stimulating toward greater understanding.
 
Separately,  the teachers had much to offer with their great wealth of knowledge and understanding, but it was a limited perspective of Scriptural context to what they gleaned. Granted, it was more than I knew, but still limited.  But together a greater understanding was offered. What I liked best in the whole interaction, however, was that allowance was given for someone else to add to their knowledge.

Have you ever tried to talk with someone who thinks they know it all and no one can teach them any more than what they know and can discover for themselves? It takes a great humility to be able to converse with someone and allow them to teach as well as receive.

Likewise it is very draining to always be in the teaching role and never receiving or to converse with someone bent upon their own understanding without the ability to hear. 

 The conversations I enjoy the most are with those who can contribute as well as receive ideas, explore understandings, and come to mutual conclusions regarding a topic because they have also studied and investigated on their own.

Back to the Podcast:

One teacher came from the perspective of understanding the context of the Old Testament writers and their world situations  through the literature of the time. The second teacher was a New Testament scholar who focuses mainly on the Pauline letters and their context among world events of the first Century and before.

Both were adding their expertise regarding the subject and the Truth it revealed about God, about humanity and about the relationship between the two. But together, a greater picture was revealed as to the work of Christ regarding the disarming of evil  powers and principalities and their ability to manipulate and destroy what God was doing.
 
As the teachers' understanding, and my knowledge of Scripture came together, I found in the forefront of my mind a vision of Jesus on the cross. As I gained some greater clarity regarding the disarming of the powers of darkness I came to appreciate even more the sacrifice and victory of Jesus for us and the wisdom of the plan of God for His Church.
 
One teacher said this disarming of the powers and principalities, happened at the cross.

I don't disagree with him, but I also believe the work Jesus did did not end with his death on the cross....It wasn't like he took a nap or something for three days afterword, as some would have you think by their lack of attention to what happened between the cross and the resurrection. Hard work was still being done by Jesus to dismantle the weapons of the powers of darkness over humanity.  Jesus had to go get those keys of hell death and the grave. He had to go where they were, in hell.

As the teacher continued speaking, I kept seeing Jesus on the cross. That sacrifice of He who had done no wrong but took on the sins of all humanity, endured a punishment on the "tree" and then in hell, that was meant for us. When  we jump from the cross and then ahead to the resurrection on Easter Sunday without understanding the fulfillment of the Law that Jesus accomplished, we miss an important part of the Gospel message.

It's about the keys....

You see, the life and death of Jesus, His seeming defeat (from the perspective of darkness) and His descent into the "lower regions of the earth"(hell), and the suffering He experienced there, as I said, was for us. He was fulfilling the law of the Old Covenant (Lamb of God, perfect sinless sacrifice). It was that law that condemned humanity. The law could not rid humanity of sin, therefore there was always a hold for the accuser to dig in its claws and manipulate humanity and undermine the plan of God for them and for the Church. But when Jesus fulfilled the law, He paid the price and no more payment needed to be made for those who believed and changed their allegiance from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light (Romans 8). 

The devil was disarmed.

But there is more! With the victory Christ won for us, the deliverance from the powers of darkness, the atonement for the sin that held humanity, came the tools to continually go from glory to glory, from victory over old thought patterns that led to sinful desires, from hurt to healing...

"...beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified." (Isa 61:3)**

When we choose to live by that law now, we submit ourselves to the punishment already paid for by Jesus. (Hebrews 10) It was that law the powers of darkness accused humanity of violating. And they were right. They had us. Condemned for ever, no longer able to live the life God intended.
 
Until Jesus....
 
  Jesus took away the main weapon of evil powers...the law. Jesus fulfilled the Law, just as He said he would (Matt 5), made all who believe righteous (John 1, Romans 8). Many converted believers don't understand this and as a result continue in their own efforts to overcome sin in their lives because of the deception to which they are vulnerable, that somehow they are not right with God and must make atonement for this.

To explain a little further:

When we are fully converted with the understanding of all Christ did, nothing accusatory can "stick." "There is no more condemnation for those in Christ Jesus," says Paul. When we fully understand what God has done for us in and through Jesus Christ, that understanding is a weapon against evil's attempts to bring us back into the bondage of condemnation. But when we KNOW the Truth, that Truth sets us free. We can claim that victory as ours and the devil has no answer for it. He knows the truth too, and he and his minions are powerless against it. But if he  can deceive a person into believing it isn't true and with this comes the seeds of bitterness, fear and rebellion.  I know it is unpleasant to think of Jesus having to go to hell for us and pay the price, but aren't we glad for the Victory won? Aren't we over joyed that the Holy Spirit given at Pentecost is available to us to help us spot the deception and embrace the Victory?
 
These seeds of darkness manipulate those who refuse to believe into doing anything to disrupt and deceive with the only end goal to kill, steal and destroy anything and everything. This belly-button distraction to focus on self, personal failures and agendas,  serve only to keep a person from participating in the corporate fulfillment of the instructions God has for the Church He is building--to be one body, His body and functioning upon the earth as citizens of His Kingdom of righteousness and peace,  to defeat the powers of darkness by maintaining the Kingdom perspective of the Law of the Spirit of Life (Romans 8).

Don't you know who you are? What is available to you who believe?
 
Grace and Peace, 
Anne

** Isa 63 is a wonderful chapter, go read the promises! Jesus quotes the first verses in Luke 4. Consider the promises of Isaiah fulfilled through the Holy Spirit in our lives through the Victory Jesus won for us and the disarming of the devil accomplished.