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One of the most vital truths in God’s revelation to man, is the fact that Jesus is Lord of all. Today in this universe, He holds the position of Lord. His ministry as Lord, is so important that we did not study it in our last lesson, or in chapter 24, in which we took up the present ministry of Christ. To know that Jesus is Lord is essential to a victorious Christian life; therefore, we are devoting two complete lessons to its study.
Over 700 times in the New Testament, the title "Lord" is given to Christ. He has regained the Lordship over creation that Adam forfeited. He is Lord over sin, disease, and death and the forces of Nature. He holds the highest position in the universe. The greatest and most blessed truth of all, however, is that He became the personal Lord of man. In previous lessons we have seen man’s right to righteousness, eternal life, etc. In this lesson we shall see that every man has a legal right to the benefits of the Lordship of Christ.
We shall study this subject in four divisions. The first division is Satan, the Lord; the second is Christ the conqueror; the third is Christ made Lord; and the fourth is Christ made personal Lord of man. In the above outline, we have in brief the story of Redemption.
The Word reveals to us and the facts of life bear witness to it, that Satan is Lord of the natural man. Christ showed that He recognized it when He called him the "prince of the world" (John 14:30). "For the prince of this world cometh and he hath nothing in me."
In the revelation that Paul received, Satan is called the god of this world: "The god of this world hath blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God, should not dawn upon them" (2 Corinthians 4:4).
Satan and his cohorts are called the spiritual rulers of this world. In Ephesians 6:12 we find these words: "For our wrestling in not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness, in the heavenly places."
The natural man is walking according to their rule. "Wherein you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the sons of disobedience" (Ephesians 2:2).
However, at the first, Satan did not hold this power and authority over the human race or creation. Man was the original Lord. God gave him the dominion over the works of creation, making him His under-ruler. Genesis 1:26-31 "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."
Man, even yet in his lowered and subjected state, bears within his being traces of his original position as God’s under-ruler. In his discoveries in the realm of science, his classification of knowledge, his understanding and utilization of the forces of nature, he has shown the capableness of his mind in fellowshipping the mind of the creator.
He who once ruled creation still shows ability as God’s under-ruler by multiplying and improving the products of animal and vegetable life. He has made the waters to swarm; he has turned the deserts into gardens. His being has thrilled with the harmonies of sound, form, and color of all creation; he has reproduced them in oratorio, in sculptured marble, on canvass and landscape gardening. He was nature’s sceptred king; it was for him that the earth was created, a home.
One single eternal human being means more to the heart of God than all the universe. Yet this one obeyed the voice of Satan, committing high treason, and became Satan’s subject. Satan desired to rule this world. He desired the position man held. He gained it by becoming man’s ruler. He became man’s ruler by imparting his nature to man and becoming to man what God should have been, his Father (Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-24; John 8:44; 1 John 3:6). Through the entrance of spiritual death (Genesis 2:17 cp. Ephesians 2:1-4), which we have studied in the past lessons, and through its reign over humanity, Satan has ruled as Lord.
Study again carefully Romans 5:12, 14, 15, & 17 with Hebrews 2:14, the "authority of death."
What a flood-tide of human suffering and misery has the rule of Satan brought to the human heart and life!
Man was given dominion over the work of God’s hands. He turned that vast dominion into the hands of Satan. Man by yielding allegiance to Satan went from Lordship to slavery. Even the animal and vegetable kingdoms have groaned under the Lordship of Satan (Romans 8:20, 21, 24).
But God did not leave man in this hopeless condition to suffer eternally under the reign of Satan. In the very presence of Adam’s crime of high treason, He gave promise of One, who would legally break the Lordship of Satan over the human race. Genesis 3:15-18 is the first prophecy of man’s redemption. We have studied before the full meaning of this prophecy.
God could not annul what Adam had done, and man must wait until the deliverer comes. Christ has broken the Lordship of Satan over the human race. He has brought to naught absolutely, the one who has for ages held the authority in the realm of death (Hebrews 2:14).
There are things here that we want to note. Christ did not bring Satan to naught for Himself. Satan was never Lord over Christ. The Son of God who had lived eternally on an equality with the Father, was not touched by Adam’s crime of high treason, which made Satan the Lord of the human race (Philippians 2:5, 6, 9).
Even when He became a man, Christ was free from Satan’s dominion. For, Christ was not born of natural generation (Luke 1:34-35). He was God incarnate (1 Timothy 3:16 cp. John 1:14), and by reason of His deity, He remained greater than Satan and his world rulers. Christ said "The prince of this world cometh, and has nothing (or no part) in me" (John 15:30).
The Incarnation of Christ gave Him no relationship to Satan. His humanity did not subject Him to the god of this world. He had the same kind of humanity that Adam had before his crime of high treason.
Therefore, in the life of Christ upon the earth, we have a sample of life of a man free from the Lordship of Satan. Satan in conflict with Christ, yielded ground and obeyed Him. Disease and sickness were His servants, and every force of nature obeyed His command.
Therefore, we have seen that Christ did not conquer Satan for Himself. He conquered him for man. Although Christ was free from Satan’s dominion and man wasn’t. Christ could break the power of disease over man’s life, and cast out demons, but humanity remained within the authority of Satan. They needed freeing from his lordship. They needed deliverance from his nature, out of which came selfishness, jealousy, the reign of sin, diseases, and rebellion toward God.
The Lordship of Satan over humanity, over the individual, must be broken by a man. Therefore on the cross, Christ identified Himself with spiritual death, the nature of Satan, and as one in union with us, He conquered Satan on behalf of the human race. 2 Corinthians 5:21 states "He who knew no sin, was made to be made sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."
We do not know the exact nature of that combat; we only know that when Christ arose from the dead, that as a man on our behalf, He flung off of Himself the conquered principalities and powers. Colossians 2:15 - "Having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it."
We do not know the exact nature of Adam’s treason, whereby Satan became his Lord, and the Lord of the human race, but we know that when Adam faced God in the garden, his nature had been changed, and that in his life a new master was now reigning: Satan. Although we do not know exactly how, we know that man crowned Satan as Lord over the human race. Luke 4:6-12 - "For they hath been delivered unto me; and unto whomsoever I will give it."
Even so, we do not know exactly how, but we know that one man, Jesus Christ, through His death on the Cross and His resurrection dethroned this Adam-crowned Lord, Satan. When Christ entered the Holy of Holies with His own blood, God recognized that complete Redemption from Satan’s authority and dominion had been wrought for the human race. "But through having obtained eternal redemption for us" (Hebrews 9:12).
The first man was cast forth from the presence of God, because Satan had become his master, and the human race was identified in that rejection (Genesis 3:22-24). Then the time came when a man who had once been made sin and forsaken of God, entered the Holy of Holies and was joyfully accepted, because the reign of Satan over man had come to naught. Hebrews 10:10 "By which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Christ one for all."
Man had been sanctified by the offering of Christ. To sanctify means to set apart, to separate. Man had not only been freed from Satan’s dominion but he had also been separated from Satan’s authority as Christ was before He became sin.
There had been made a remission of sins that were the result of spiritual death. "Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin" (Hebrews 10:18). Man had been declared perfect before God. Hebrews 10:14 - "For by one offering He has perfected forever them that are sanctified."
When Jesus was accepted and seated in the very Holy of Holies at the right hand of God, the entire human race was also accepted and seated also (Ephesians 2:5-6). (When we say the entire human race, we mean that the provision covered for the whole human family was available to all who would accept Christ as Saviour and Lord.)
Christ is the conqueror, because He has broken Satan’s Lordship over man. Hebrew 2:14 shows us "Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood He also Himself in like manner partook of the same that through death He might bring to naught him that had authority of death, that is the devil."
Because of this victory of a man over Satan, God has crowned Jesus as Lord. When Christ arose from the dead, He arose above every rule, and authority, and dominion, and power (Ephesians 1:12-22). These ruler, authorities, dominions, and powers were Satan’s. Now, not for Himself, because Christ was always greater, but for man, Christ was raised and seated far above every power. Christ's victory was man’s complete freedom from Satan’s rule, authority, and power, over his life.
The dominion which man had once had, was not given back directly to him lest he forfeit it again. The lost Lordship of man was given to Christ, who holds it for man. God made Christ "Lord." Acts 2:36 - "Let all the House of Israel therefore, know assuredly that God has made both Lord and Christ this Jesus whom you crucified." The angel on resurrection morning said: "Come, see the place where the Lord lay." (Matthew 28:6). Christ, the son of man, had risen from the dead, and broken the Lordship of Satan. Genesis 3:15 states in part that "the seed of the woman" referring to Jesus, would "bruise thy head" talking to Satan. "Bruise thy head" is an Eastern term that means "to break the Lordship over" or "to remove from the authority of." Jesus "broke the Lordship" that Satan had over humanity. Jesus further, "removed from the authority of" Satan all who would desire to depart. Legally the "door" (John 10:7) is open wide for "whosoever will, let him come." See Revelation 22:17.
"And what exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe according to that working of the strength of His might that He wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and made Him to sit at His right hand in heavenly places far above all rule and authority and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come." (Ephesians 1:19-21)
God crowns Him as Lord when He gives Him a name that is above every name, and invests within it the authority of His conquest. Philippians 2:9 "Wherefore also God highly exalted Him and gave Him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven and things on earth and things under the earth and that every tongue should confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father."
All that He is as Lord for us, for the authority of His Lordship has been invested in His Name, and that name is ours as we have seen in a previous lesson. He has been made Lord for us. Ephesians 1:22-23 - "And He put all things in subjection under His feet and gave Him to be head over all things to the Church, which is His body the fullness of Him that filleth all in all."
In the next lesson we shall study, "Christ, our personal Lord." We shall see what His Lordship means to us, personally.