09/17/2015 The Surpassing Greatness of His Power - Part Two

At the Cross, Jesus took on the sins of the entire world, past, present, and future; then He died because "The wages of sins is death" (Romans 6:23). In that moment every human being's death was represented. He didn't just die for us, but as us. Then, after His willing and deliberate submission to death, God the Father, on the third day, looked into the pit of hell and saw His dead Son, Who was not there because of His own sins, but was made sin with our sins.

And God said, I" am satisfied. Death has been conquered for everyone who believes." And deep in that dark pit, God, the Father, remembered the covenant that He made with Abraham back in Genesis 22 when He asked Abraham to offer up His only son, Isaac.

Genesis 22: 15 - 19, "Then the Angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, 'By Myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, indeed I will greatly bless you and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens ad as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies. In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed My voice."

Hebrews 11: 17 -29, "By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He knew who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son even though God had said to him, 'It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.' Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death."

Just as the Father gave back Isaac to Abraham from the dead, now looking upon His holy Son in the depravity of the pit, He knew that He was justified to bring forth His Son from the dead. Justly and without hesitation, God, the Father, poured His Spirit, His very Life and His Glory over His Son. In that moment, Jesus was quickened to life and energized with invigorating power and arose from the dead...overcoming the power of death and the prince of death, the devil himself.

Jesus then showed and revealed Himself openly and fully alive from the dead for forty days in the earth with "many infallible proof and spoke of things pertaining to the Kingdom of God" (Acts 1: 3). On the fortieth day after His resurrection, He assembled His disciples on the Mount of Ascension and in view of them and a host of others, He ascended up and "a cloud received Him out of their sight" (Acts 1:9).

While the crowd was looking steadfastly toward heaven, two men in white apparel spoke saying: "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as you have seen Him go..."(v.10).

At that moment of His ascension, all evil and its horrid effect was positioned beneath the feet of Jesus. The Apostle Paul affirms this in Ephesians 1: 22, "And hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be Head over all to the Church, which is His body: the fullness of Him that fills all an in all."

If we are the Body of Christ and all things have been put under His feet, then all those same things have been put under our feet. Notice that the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 2: 4-7: "But God, who is rich in mercy for His great love wherewith He loved us...Even when we were dead in sins has quickened us together with Christ: by grace are you saved...and has raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus...that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus."

I am incapable of understanding or explaining as clearly and fully as I'd like just how great the events of the resurrection and the ascension of Jesus really were. Just as all the power of death, hell and the grave were completely and eternally conquered and entombed by His death, so the fullness and the limitlessness of ZOE' life were releasedtoward us by His resurrection and ascension to the Father's side. At that very moment every power and force on earth and in the universe...both good and evil...were put under His authority and His government.

We'll explore this further in our next blog post...God bless!