Chapter 3

The Reign of Spiritual Death

  In our last lesson, we saw the entrance of spiritual death into the life of man through the disobedience and fall of Adam and Eve. This explains the dominance and persistence of sin in its sway over the human family.
  Man has become Satanic in nature, in rebellion against God, this is spiritual death in manifestation. Ephesians 2:1-5 reveals man's condition of spiritual death, a child of wrath with his life ordered by Satan who has become the prince of the power of the air.
  There is no logical reason for man's response to intelligently organized sin, unless man's nature and will are in fellowship with it. God, our heavenly Father, had made known His will to man. His will was for man to eat of the Tree of Life (Genesis 2:9 & 16) which would have given to man the nature of God.
  There are three wills in the world: God's will, Satan's will and man's will. Just as man is dependent upon God or Satan for his spiritual life, his will must be in harmony with God's will or Satan's will. Matthew 6:24 gives the New Testament explanation: a man cannot serve two masters at once. He will love the one or hate the other. Man in the garden refused God's will, and become in bondage to Satan's. In seeking his own will in freedom from God's, he came into bondage to Satan (Romans 6:16).
  We now turn in our study to the Reign of Spiritual death in the life of the man who was created in the image of God, and to find the only answer to the spiritually dead man's need.

The Reign of Spiritual Death Begins

  The dominion of Satan's will over Adam's began the moment Adam obeyed Satan's voice. What a horrible awakening it is to man. Satan's nature breathed into the spirit and life of man.
  Ephesians 2:4 He is now by nature a child of wrath. (Genesis 3:8-13) He no longer responds to the call of God. Their fellowship has been broken. Now, man responds to the call of his new master, Satan.
  Genesis 3:22-24 He is an outlaw, an outcast from the garden, with no legal ground of approach to God. Genesis 3:24 "So He drove out the man, and He placed at the east of the garden of Eden, the Cherubim and the flame of the sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life."
  We have not realized the significance of this act on the part of God. It would have been an unthinkable crime for the nature of God and the nature of Satan to have been united in one individual.
  We cannot imagine the kind of a being which would have resulted from such a union. It is enough to know that it would have made redemption impossible.
  Genesis 4:8 Spiritual death, with its Satanic nature, now becomes a hideous reality to Adam. His first son murders his second, lying about it afterwards. The two characteristics of Satan are manifested in the life of man. He is a MURDERER and a LIAR.
  Adam is made to feel with keenness the effect of his fall -- his treason. He has not only sinned against God, but also against the human race, yet unborn.
  Genesis 4:26 A little grandchild is born into the family of Adam and he names him "Enosh." Enosh (means "mortal") crowded into the mind of Adam the awareness of frailty, death-doomed, Satan ruled. He apparently names his first grandchild in bitter regret of his sin.
  Genesis 3:17-19 At the rising of each sun, perfect beauty gladdened man's eyes; now he lifts them to devastation everywhere. Worms, briars, and thorns abound. The earth is cursed.
  The iron will of Spiritual Death in all its ramifications is making itself felt in the environment of man. Even the animals are effected by the fall. Spiritual Death has breathed hatred into the nature of the animal kingdom. To the ears of Adam come the discordant cries of malice and suffering; while before his eyes the carcasses of animals and insects lie rotting in the sun.
  Adam himself grovels under the Iron Will of Satan. He finds that his nature is no longer in fellowship with God. He has lost love; his rest, joy, and peace are gone.

Spiritual Death and the Birth of Reason

  Spiritual death caused man to cease walking in the realm of the spirit. Hitherto, man had walked in the Spirit Realm with his Creator. His spirit had dominated and ruled. It had been the Faith Realm, the realm of omnipotent power where faith spoke words into being and substance.
  Romans 4:17 It was the realm of Him who called the things that are not, as though they were. Adam had walked as the under-ruler of One who framed the worlds out of things which are not, by faith in His Word (Hebrews 11:3).
  Now that man's union with God is severed, man's ability is severed from God's ability. Man's word is severed from God's word. Man has fallen from the realm of God's ability into the realm of human ability. In this realm he is mind and body. The mind can derive its knowledge only through the senses of man's physical body. The sense of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell become the doors and windows of his mind.
  Man forms his conceptions of the world and himself by what he sees, hears, feels, tastes and smells. The senses bring the material to the mind and reason draws its own conclusions from the material of sensation. Faith has died, the supernatural is lost, and reason is born.
  Romans 8:1-11 gives an exposition of the natural man and life ordered by the senses of his physical body. Romans 8:6 "The mind of the flesh is enmity against God."
  The mind of the flesh is composed of deductions made from material sensation which the mind receives from the physical senses. In other words, reason, the product of man's senses, has always been at enmity toward the knowledge of God, faith, or any other act that is above the realm of human ability.
  Civilization becomes a cultivation of the arts which please the senses. Regardless of how high a man's aims may be, he cannot rise above the level of his senses. The walk of the spirit is lost. The cry of the spirit remains unanswered. At the dawn of human history, reason gains the supremacy.

Spiritual Death and Civilization

  The history of the human race has been an illustration of 1 John 5:19 -- "The whole world lieth in wickedness." Literally in the embrace of the wicked one. Sin has ruled as a king in the realm of spiritual death, where man lives under the cruel tyranny of the Prince of the power of the air, Satan.
  Every effort on man's part has failed to eradicate the power of sin. Education has failed. History confesses that every rise of civilization has been accompanied by a decline in morals. War has dominated every period of the life of every nation, destroying the youth and strength of humanity. It has brought untold suffering to man. Its cruelty is but a manifestation of Satanic Dominion at work in its destruction of man.
  Man has been unable to strike at the root and cause of sin, sickness, and death. The law of diseases has fastened itself upon the human body, blighting and scourging humanity. Death is the supreme problem that all men at all periods have faced. It casts its shadow upon every happiness born in the senses of man.
  Man lying in the embrace of Satan, cries in agony against this vain struggle which only ends in a hopeless death and doom. Despite the blighting curse, creation teems with marks of beauty and harmony. The marks and design of an intelligent creator are manifest in spite of the fall and curse upon creation (Genesis 3:14-19; Romans 8:19-24). Yet man can see no reason for his short span of life between birth and death. He is born to die; he brings no joy to himself or his creator. His spirit hungers for God, but he cannot find Him.
  His reason concludes that his creator is not a God of love; therefore, he rejects the Bible record that God is love and the Father of mankind. A scientist expressing the sentiment of the age, in contemplating on the life of man, said: "The God of the Christians is not a God of love; the sisters of Charity are kinder than He!" Man blinded by his spiritual father Satan, does not know that at the dawn of human history, Satan, the enemy of God, became the ruler of this world. He does not know that by the trespass of the one (Adam), death seized the sovereignty.
  Spiritual death, the nature of Satan, is the soil out of which has grown sin, sickness, physical death, and every sorrow that has darkened the life of God's man.

Man's Need of Eternal Life

  Ephesians 4:17-18 gives a picture of humanity as a result of the entrance of spiritual death into the life of Adam (Romans 5:12; Genesis 2:17; Ephesians 2:1-4). Man alienated from the life of God, walking in the realm of reason in the vanity of his mind, and that mind darkened and blinded by indwelling spiritual death lives out his days often untouched by revelation (2 Corinthians 4:4).
  Man is utterly helpless to redeem himself by his own efforts from this condition. After Adam had obeyed Satan, bringing himself and his authority under Satanic subjection, he had no authority to free himself from that condition. As far as human efforts were concerned, one man had sealed the fate of the human race (1 Corinthians 15:22).
  No man could ever redeem humanity, for every man would be under Satanic dominion. If a man were ever to be redeemed, someone greater than Satan must undertake on man's behalf. God Himself must redeem, liberate, deliver humanity.
  This redemption demands more than forgiveness. Although God should forgive the sin of Adam and all men, man's redemption would not be touched. The power and authority of sin over the life of man would still remain. It would be necessary for man to be given continually forgiveness for his sins. Such was the condition of Israel (Hebrews 10:11). Every Priest stood daily ministering and offering repeatedly, the same sacrifices for the sins of Israel. Israel, God's covenant people, were still spiritually dead and needed continual forgiveness for sins which were the outgrowth of that condition.
  Hebrews 10:3 There was continual remembrance in the mind of God of Israel's condition of spiritual death. Forgiveness of sins alone would not break the relationship that existed between man and his spiritual father, Satan. It abode in man (John 14:23). Redemption must be more than forgiveness. Redemption must be giving a new nature, a new life, must restore what man lost as a result of the fall.
  Redemption meant a new creation in the spirit of man (2 Corinthians 5:17). Man's need can only be met by his receiving the nature of God within his spirit (2 Peter 1:4). First, spiritual death must be absolutely destroyed in the life of man. The nature of Satan must be completely eradicated.
  Man must be freed from Satanic authority as though he had never sinned, and died spiritually (Romans 6:6). The body of sin, spiritual death, must be done away.
  Colossians 1:13 Man must be delivered from the authority of Satan (Hebrews 2:14). Satan, who reigns in the realm of death, must be dethroned from his position as lord of man (Hebrews 2:15). Man must be delivered from every fear of his old master who had held him in bondage. Then, man will be free to receive the life of God.
  Genesis 3:24 We remember that God had driven man from the garden of Eden so that he would have no access to the Tree of Life while spiritual dead. Man's need is Life, the nature of God; but God cannot impart His own nature to man until He first makes it possible for man to be freed from the nature and domination of Satan.
  We see that forgiveness on the part of God and reformation or education on the part of man would not strike at the root of sin, spiritual death. Just as Adam had been born again of a Satanic nature when he sinned, man who is by nature a child of wrath must be born again, born of the Life of God.
  John 3:7 This will make him a son of God (John 1:12). This life of God within the spirit of man will set him free from the law of sin (Romans 8:2; Colossians 1:13-14). 1 John 2:6 The nature of God will give to man the ability to walk with the Creator, his God and Father, just as Jesus Christ walked in fellowship with His father, Jesus although tempted by Satan, was able to walk absolutely in the Father's will, pleasing Him (Luke 3:22; John 5:30).
  This was due to the fact that He did not belong to the realm of death (spiritual), but possessed the life of God. Eternal Life within the spirit of man today makes him an heir with God and a joint heir with Christ (Romans 8:17). The man who has been born again, stands before the Father as Christ stood in His earth-walk, and has the same freedom from Satanic dominion and ability to please the Father (John 17:14-18; John 17:22-23; 1 Corinthians 1:30).
  Eternal life will set a man free from disease (1 Peter 2:24). Romans 8:11 does not refer to the resurrection, rather a quickening physically to those in Christ. The word "mortal" means subject to death. Therefore, the word "mortal" cannot refer to the condition of our bodies after death, for they are no longer death-doomed, but destroyed by death to await immortality at the second coming of Christ. Eternal life dwelling within these bodies will give life and healing to them. Man receiving of eternal life will make it possible for him to receive the spirit of God and for God to dwell in him (2 Corinthians 6:16; Ephesians 3:14-21).
  This brings man again into the realm of God's ability, the realm where all things are possible (Matthew 17:20). Man will be able to walk again in the realm of his spirit, the faith-dominating realm, where he lives by the Word of God (Luke 4:4).
  Eternal life will meet the need of man and the heart cry of our heavenly Father for fellowship. But before eternal life can be given to man, he must be declared righteous and God must have a legal right to take man from the family of Satan into His family (1 John 3:10; John 1:12). (Be sure to read all scriptures and study them.)


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