Casting Out the Counterfeit

"Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. "And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself." But He was saying this to indicate the kind of death by which He was to die. (John 12:31-33)

After exposing myself to an in-depth intensive on Matthew 18 for the past 3-4 months this passage takes on significantly deeper meaning. My recent study has opened my mind up to a clearer understanding of the real issues surrounding the death of Jesus and has also unmasked some of the confusing assertions that people have believed about the cross.

These verses come on the heels of an event that many also struggle to make sense of in the story of Jesus. Some Greeks had come wanting to have an encounter with Jesus and then Jesus prays to His Father from a troubled heart. Immediately the Father responds by speaking publicly His affirmation over His Son and the interchange revolves around glorifying the Father's name. Then Jesus begins to speak of evicting the ruler of this world and drawing all to Himself.

I am coming to believe that this truth about the eviction of Satan as the ruler of this world and Jesus replacing him is one of the most misunderstood parts of the gospel. There are so many confusing and conflicting ideas and doctrines surrounding these issues that we are kept largely in the dark about the importance of this. But the reason this is so is because Satan knows that when we begin to take hold of the real truth of what Jesus is speaking of here that he will lose his power and influence over us and he will stop at nothing to prevent that from happening.

In the process of finishing up Matthew 18 the concept of living 'in Christ' has begun to emerge and to take hold of my attention. I have not spent much time researching this concept though I have heard about it off and on for a number of years. But I am beginning to realize that having a correct understanding and even more importantly having a vital experience of living 'in Christ' is the only effective preparation that will be useful for those of us living in these times of the end. It is our woeful lack of awareness about what it really means to be 'in Christ' and to have our lives radically transformed through that relationship that is our greatest danger.

As I began to do some research along this line to discover for myself what this phrase that shows up so many times in the New Testament really means, I started to perceive some very compelling truths about the meanings of a number of key elements in salvation. From heaven's perspective this world has been hijacked and taken over by a spurious representative who claims that he represents all of us as the legitimate leader of this planet. However, his claims to be the head of this world, the rightful ruler of humanity has some serious flaws that have not gone unchallenged. Nevertheless, he has been seemingly successful for thousands of years in maintaining this claim of ownership and rulership through various means of fraud, deception and intimidation – all elements of his counterfeit system of governance.

Because Adam, the original and rightful ruler of this planet, relinquished his role to Satan as the ruler of this world and subsequently died, there was no one else to represent this planet in the councils of heaven. Up until the death of Jesus Satan was able to insert himself into those councils as the rightful representative of this world seemingly successfully, though I suspect he aroused a great deal of mistrust and doubts on the part of most all the rest of the representatives there.

Part of Satan's problems with his claim to be ruler of this planet is that unlike all the other representatives, Satan is not the same order of beings as those he claims to represent. And since Satan is not a human it raises very serious questions about the legitimacy of his claim to represent humans. But his trump card was that since there were no qualified humans able to represent this world and able to make the trip to the heavenly meetings, he was the only one available. And since the legitimate assigned ruler of this world had given over the position to Satan in the beginning, then his credentials had to be accepted even if there were questions surrounding their authenticity. Through deception, fraud and even suppression of the truth Satan was able to maintain his position in the heavenly courts for around 4000 years.

But God had a plan whereby He intended to challenge the validity of Satan's claims to this world and to upstage him and expose the massive scheme whereby Satan had been able to maintain his cruel tyranny over humanity. But for us to properly follow the logic in this intrigue that took place over this planet between Christ and Satan we have to understand some key issues from heaven's standpoint and perceive the real concepts involved in salvation. Otherwise we become confused by the egocentric ideas promoted by religion and instigated by the great deceiver to keep us in the dark about what has really taken place. And more importantly Satan wants above anything else to prevent us from knowing about the great victory Jesus accomplished to rescue us from the tyrannical dominion of Satan's kingdom.

First of all I believe it is important to establish that every kingdom is in reality a dominance over the minds and hearts of people, not an issue of territorial control only. The whole concept of dominion as primarily an issue of territory can be misleading. Unless the individuals who occupy a region are loyal to someone that person asserting control really does not have the control they claim they do. Thus it has been important for Satan's claims to have validity to bring everyone under the dominance of his thinking and his ways of governing so as to validate his claim of being the prince of this world.

From the very beginning of sin there has been a power struggle on this planet over the allegiance issue between God and Satan. And ever since Adam and Eve began to have children and Cain became the human leader of the openly rebellious the vast majority of humans have come down on the side of living selfishly which is Satan's badge of allegiance. Selfishness is the control mechanism implanted into the heart of every human being and passed along genetically that Satan has successfully used to keep in place his claim of legitimacy. Adam and Eve were not created with this trait and so Satan felt that because this virus was so resistant to being eradicated and so successfully passed to every human being that his claims as prince of all those who reflected his basic mindset could stand forever.

One of the core accusations that Satan issued against God long before even this world was created was that the claim of God about being totally selfless and loving was a fraud. Satan has always asserted that selfless, humble, self-sacrificing love was an impossibility and that it did not even exist. He went to great lengths to convince as many as possible of all the intelligent beings that God was really hiding behind this front of claiming to be selfless while all along He was simply manipulating people's perceptions to think He was selfless while all along He was really doing it all for His own benefit.

It is easy to fall into that line of thinking ourselves. When we hear that God wants all of our worship exclusively, it is very easy to begin to wonder about the selflessness of God's character. All of us must have wondered at one time or another about how God can claim to be selflessly loving and yet demand our worship, our affections, our time, our money and our total allegiance. We struggle to explain these things and make them fit into our perceptions of what love means and often end up redefining what love must really be in the process and water down the truth about pure love. This is exactly what Satan wants us to do for it keeps us in the dark about the real truth of God and causes us to view Him with at least some of the same suspicion that caused one third of the angels to abandon their allegiance to God.

But even coming closer to a true understanding intellectually about the issues at stake is not sufficient to release us from the domination of Satan's control over our hearts. The kingdom of darkness has far deeper roots in our souls than any of us can ever imagine and it requires a strategy and a power far greater than any of us yet appreciate to extricate us from the dominion of sin. But this is exactly what Jesus came to do and He fully accomplished that work that He came to do on this earth and wrested the title of representative of this planet away from Satan forever.

But it is extremely helpful to understand the issues involved in our salvation, our deliverance from the kingdom of darkness if we are to actually enter into and experience the victory that Jesus accomplished on our behalf. Otherwise in our ignorance and rebellion we may reject the option of freedom that Jesus created for us at the cost of His life and embrace any one of the many counterfeit explanations that Satan has created to divert us from really being delivered from his control.

There is the issue in question about our representative being of the same order of beings as those they represent.

There is the issue of availability for that representative to actually show up in the councils of heaven.

There is the issue of the acquiescence of those being represented to the one claiming to represent them.

There is the issue of the legitimacy of using coercion and deception verses freedom to choose. Satan claims that since Adam and Eve freely exercised their freedom of choice to let him have their job that this transfer of authority extended to all following generations. But Jesus asserts that that transaction was conducted without full disclosure and was based on fraudulent claims and therefore can be declared null and void.

All of these issues and more are directly discussed in the New Testament rather openly, but because we have not placed them in the right context we have largely missed their significance to the main issue of our salvation and have thought they were just legal details to be argued about by theologians. But these are not matters to be left for others to grapple with in our place but are vital life and death matters that each one of us needs to comprehend and experience. If we are to ever enter into the freedom and joy of the deliverance that Jesus has opened up for us we must get a more accurate understanding of the real issues in the great war that we are caught up in and that affects our destiny for eternity.