Finalizing an already-won victory is never easy. Dogged, die-hard, guerilla
forces still hanging on must be ferreted-out and destroyed, and that is always difficult. With 20/20 hindsight, one can see that this is exactly the job God created mankind to do with Satan and his “principalities and powers.”.
The following four paragraphs are based on ideas I got from Paul Billheimer, some years ago, in his book Destined for the Throne. They have helped form my understanding of our ruling purpose.
At the cross, Satan and his minions murdered Jesus, Unlike all other humans, the virgin-born Jesus was not a descendant of Adam. Therefore, Satan had no legitimate authority in Jesus’ life.
After trying to kill Jesus as a baby, tempting Him in the wilderness, and then causing the Pharisees to look for a way to kill Him, Satan was trying desperately to get Jesus to stray from His Father’s will, as Adam had done. This was all to no avail, and in a fit of rage, Satan murdered Jesus on the cross. Though he had always been a murderer in his heart, he now became a murderer, legally, in God’s Court of Divine Justice. As a legal murderer, He disqualified himself as the legitimate “god (ruler) of this world” as he had been since Adam and all his descendants fell in the Garden of Eden.
However, at the cross, Satan overplayed his hand, and was legally stripped of this legitimate power and authority that he had taken from Adam at the Tree. “It is finished,” said Jesus as he died. The cross was a divine “sting operation,” as Satan was tricked into killing a Man over whom he had no authority. This made Satan powerless, with deception and lying as his only remaining weapons.
Today, he is still prowling around, pretending to be “…a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). Now, he is really only as powerful as a “toothless tiger,” a pussycat, to us. It is the church’s job to equip us with how to ignore, even laugh, at his empty bluster. and then ultimately finish off Satan’s resistance completely!
The Bible tells us that this is indeed our God-given task here on the earth. Daniel 7:13, 14, is a foundational passage in the understanding of that job. Here, the prophet Daniel saw 500 years into the future to prophesy that God the Father, the Ancient of Days, would welcome home Jesus at His Ascension back to Heaven after His mission on earth was over::
“I was watching in the night visions, And behold, One like the Son of Man, Coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, And they brought Him near before Him (Daniel 7:13).
In his vision, Daniel saw Jesus “Coming with the clouds of heaven.” Interestingly, at the Ascension, Jesus “was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight,” (Acts 1:9). and angels appeared and told the disciples that Jesus, “will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).
Is it any wonder that those who teach “rescue theology” teach Daniel 7 as the Rapture of the Church? They teach that this passage is Jesus returning at the 2nd coming, after the Rapture, to rule physically Himself, on the earth, in the millennium. In other words, He does our job!
But there is a “fly in their ointment” with this interpretation of Daniel’s prophecy. In his prophecy, Jesus was COMING UP to the Ancient of Days (God the Father) and NOT COMING DOWN to the earth. No, here Daniel is simply giving us a look at what would happen in Heaven when Jesus arrived at His Ascension. Here’s what he prophesied, and it is what is happening, whether or not we can see it at this moment!:
Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, That all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, Which shall not pass away, And His kingdom the one Which shall not be destroyed” (Daniel 7:14).
God the Father initially gave His Kingdom to Adam (1). It was stolen from him by Satan (2), God recovered it from Satan at the cross (3), and the Kingdom is here, right now, as this verse teaches, given by God to Jesus at the Ascension (4). At that time, Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, became King over all other kings and Lord over all other lords!
However, the Kingdom’s journey, after stopping at four distinct locations. is not yet over. In the plan of God, Daniel tells us that there is one more, all-important stop. In Daniel 7, just after the Kingdom is given to Jesus in verse 14, the prophet relates that final step in verse 18:
“But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom, and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever.“.
Yes, Daniel prophesied that Jesus, after receiving the Kingdom in verse 14, will then delegate it on to us, as the “saints of God.” 500 years after Daniel prophesied this, we received the power to accomplish our ruling mission at Pentecost, as the Holy Spirit was poured out on mankind!
Interestingly, this prophecy is not unique to Daniel. About 500 years earlier, David had already seen this same vision, corroborating Daniel fully, but with more detail. We will discuss this next week.
