From the Stars of Heaven to the Victory Over Death The Recovery of That Which Was Lost
The work of salvation did not begin with the natural birth of man, nor can its full meaning be understood by beginning only with man's conduct upon the natural earth. To understand what Christ came to recover, we must understand what was lost. And to understand what was lost, we must look beyond the natural creation into the spiritual order that preceded it and is reflected by it.
The history begins with conflict:
"And there was war in heaven." (Revelation 12:7)
The salvation work must be understood against the background of this war. It began in the heavenly order, but its conflict did not end there. The war continued as its participants were cast down, and its effects extended through the spiritual earth and ultimately into the hearts and minds of men, where the conflict between darkness and light continues even unto this present hour.
Within this heavenly conflict, the dragon exercised his power against a portion of the stars of heaven:
"And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth." (Revelation 12:4)
The language is forceful. The stars were cast down. The dragon acted upon them and cast a third part of the stars of heaven into the earth.
Elsewhere, stars are associated with the righteous and with God's heavenly order:
"And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever." (Daniel 12:3)
The stars cast down by the dragon therefore represent a portion of righteous spirits belonging to the heavenly order of God.
Revelation then describes the defeat of the dragon within that same heavenly conflict. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and his angels:
"And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven." (Revelation 12:8)
The dragon was cast out:
"And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan… he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." (Revelation 12:9)
Jesus described that fall:
"I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." (Luke 10:18)
Satan was defeated and cast down with the suddenness and force of lightning.
Then heaven announced the consequence:
"Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time." (Revelation 12:12)
The war that began in heaven had now moved into another realm. The righteous spirits had been cast down into the spiritual earth, and the dragon who had cast them down was himself afterward defeated and cast into that same lower realm.
The conflict continued:
"And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed." (Revelation 12:17)
The dragon's expulsion from heaven did not end his opposition to God. His sphere of operation had changed.
This establishes the beginning of the spiritual history necessary to understand the salvation work. Those whom Christ would ultimately liberate originated in God. Darkness was not their beginning. Darkness came afterward.
Cast Down Into the Spiritual Earth
The earth into which these spirits were cast is spiritual earth—a lower spiritual realm or condition in contrast to the heavenly order from which they came.
God declares:
"Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool." (Isaiah 66:1)
The stars occupied the heavenly order and were forcibly cast down into the spiritual earth.
The dragon was afterward cast into that same lower realm, bringing his wrath and darkness into the realm where the spirits had been cast.
The war therefore continued below.
What had begun as war in heaven became conflict within the spiritual earth.
Darkness Upon the Face of the Deep
This spiritual order brings the opening of Genesis into view:
"And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep." (Genesis 1:2)
The earth under darkness is the spiritual condition preceding the bringing forth of the natural earth. The darkness upon the deep describes the spiritual condition produced under the dominion of the opposing power.
Throughout Scripture, darkness is associated with that power.
Paul speaks of being delivered:
"From the power of darkness." (Colossians 1:13)
Christ speaks of:
"The power of darkness." (Luke 22:53)
Paul describes its operation:
"In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light… should shine unto them." (2 Corinthians 4:4)
Darkness blinds.
It conceals knowledge.
It prevents understanding.
The spirits who originated within God's righteous heavenly order now existed within a realm over which darkness exercised its power.
Then God spoke:
"Let there be light." (Genesis 1:3)
This light appears before the sun and moon are appointed as the natural lights governing the visible creation. God introduces light in direct opposition to spiritual darkness.
Paul reaches back to this same language when describing God's operation within man:
"For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts…" (2 Corinthians 4:6)
The same God who commanded light against darkness now performs that work within the heart.
The natural creation then gives visible expression to spiritual realities. The invisible things of God are understood:
"By the things that are made." (Romans 1:20)
The visible creation therefore reflects a spiritual order that preceded it.
What Darkness Took Away
The righteous spirits existed before darkness exercised dominion over them. Their origin was in God.
What darkness accomplished was blindness.
Knowledge was obscured.
The spirits lost the knowledge of who they were, from whom they originated, and the spiritual order to which they belonged.
Psalm 82 reveals this condition:
"They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness." (Psalm 82:5)
God then declares:
"I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High." (Psalm 82:6)
And immediately follows it with:
"But ye shall die like men." (Psalm 82:7)
The progression is unmistakable.
They do not know.
They do not understand.
They walk in darkness.
Yet they are children of the Most High.
And in the absence of knowledge concerning their true spiritual identity, they die like men.
Their ignorance prevents them from operating according to the reality of their origin.
Their identity as gods does not mean that each possesses an independent deity. Their identity exists within the oneness of the Spirit of God.
"He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit." (1 Corinthians 6:17)
Jesus prayed:
"That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee… that they may be made perfect in one." (John 17:21–23)
The children of the Most High belong within the one spiritual family and life of God. Their identity is inseparable from the Spirit from whom their life proceeds.
But darkness concealed that knowledge.
"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." (Hosea 4:6)
They are God's people, yet lack of knowledge leaves them subject to destruction.
The war that began in heaven is now being fought over knowledge, identity and spiritual consciousness.
Christ Came as the Light
Christ came to liberate the captive spirit.
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me… to preach deliverance to the captives… to set at liberty them that are bruised." (Luke 4:18)
Paul identifies the power from which liberation comes:
"Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son." (Colossians 1:13)
Christ enters the condition of darkness as Light:
"I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." (John 8:12)
Light brings knowledge.
Knowledge brings liberty.
"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." (John 8:32)
The spiritual progression is direct:
Darkness produces blindness. Light produces knowledge. Knowledge of truth produces liberty.
The work of salvation therefore includes the restoration of the knowledge that darkness had concealed.
Christ came to reveal to the lost spirit its origin, its identity and its relationship to God.
Jesus pointed again to the declaration:
"Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?" (John 10:34)
The identity is collective within the oneness of the Spirit. The children of God do not exist as separate gods independently possessing divine life. They participate in the one Spirit of God.
Christ came to reveal the Father, truth and life, restoring those who had walked in darkness to the knowledge of the spiritual reality from which their understanding had become alienated.
"For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." (Luke 19:10)
The lost belonged to God before becoming lost.
Christ came to recover that which belonged to God.
Renewed in Knowledge
The language of renewal reveals the work taking place within man.
Paul speaks of being:
"Renewed in the spirit of your mind." (Ephesians 4:23)
And:
"Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." (Romans 12:2)
Most significantly:
"And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." (Colossians 3:10)
Renewal is connected with knowledge, and that knowledge is connected with the image of the Creator.
The spirit that walked in darkness begins to see.
The one who did not know begins to know.
The one who had lost the knowledge of his spiritual relationship begins to understand his life in God.
The one who lived under the consciousness of separation begins to understand oneness.
The mind is renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator.
The battlefield has now moved directly into the mind and heart.
And as knowledge increases, faith must rise with it.
Faith Must Rise to the Knowledge
Knowledge reveals the spiritual reality. Faith enables the awakened spirit to live according to what has been revealed.
A person may hear that he has passed from death unto life and continue believing himself governed by death. He may hear that the old man has been crucified and continue identifying himself with the old man. He may confess Christ while inwardly continuing to believe that Christ possesses one kind of life and he possesses another.
Faith must therefore rise to the truth being revealed.
Yet this faith is itself the operation of God.
"For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." (Philippians 2:13)
Christ is:
"The author and finisher of our faith." (Hebrews 12:2)
The natural man cannot elevate himself into the consciousness of God's righteousness through determination. The natural consciousness remembers weakness, shame, former conduct, limitation and mortality.
God must elevate faith beyond the natural man's estimation of himself.
Isaiah declares:
"And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD'S house shall be established in the top of the mountains…" (Isaiah 2:2)
The righteousness is God's.
Faith does not reason upward from what the old man was.
Faith accepts what God has made the new man to be in Christ.
From Adam Into Christ
Death entered man's natural experience through disobedience:
"In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." (Genesis 2:17)
And:
"The wages of sin is death." (Romans 6:23)
Death therefore possesses a direct relationship to sin.
But the same passage announcing the wages of sin declares:
"The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23)
Death governs the condition established through disobedience. Life governs the condition established in Christ.
"For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." (1 Corinthians 15:22)
Adam — death.
Christ — life.
The believer has been spiritually translated from the government of Adam into the life of Christ. The sentence governing Adam does not possess unchanged jurisdiction over the life existing in Christ.
Paul declares:
"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." (Romans 8:2)
There has been a change of government.
Jesus says:
"He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life… but is passed from death unto life." (John 5:24)
He is passed from death unto life.
Eternal life is the believer's present spiritual reality.
Sin, Condemnation and Confidence
Death cannot be addressed without addressing sin because:
"The wages of sin is death." (Romans 6:23)
Freedom from death therefore requires the believer to understand his freedom from sin.
Paul declares:
"For he that is dead is freed from sin." (Romans 6:7)
And:
"Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness." (Romans 6:18)
Again:
"But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life." (Romans 6:22)
The believer has been made free from sin.
This freedom removes condemnation:
"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." (Romans 8:1)
And the absence of condemnation produces confidence:
"Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God." (1 John 3:21)
The heart free of condemnation possesses confidence toward God.
That confidence is essential to faith.
The believer now lives under the government of the Spirit:
"But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law." (Galatians 5:18)
And:
"Where no law is, there is no transgression." (Romans 4:15)
God governs the heart of the believer.
Righteousness is not established merely by the external judgment of another person. Neither is righteousness established by human self-will. God Himself governs the inward man.
"For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." (Philippians 2:13)
When God convicts, the heart knows conviction. When God governs the heart in righteousness, the condemnation of another person cannot establish divine condemnation where God has placed none.
Jesus demonstrated this consciousness:
"Which of you convinceth me of sin?" (John 8:46)
Men accused Him repeatedly. Yet their accusations did not become His inward condemnation.
His testimony remained:
"I do always those things that please him." (John 8:29)
He knew the Spirit from which He operated.
When He entered the temple, overturned the tables, scattered the money and drove out those conducting business there, His conduct disrupted what had become accepted practice. Yet the judgment of those observing Him did not determine the righteousness of His action.
His conduct proceeded from His oneness with the Father.
So it is with the believer governed by the Spirit.
The believer does not establish righteousness according to fleshly desire. Neither does another human being establish his condemnation merely by declaring his conduct wrong.
God governs the heart.
The believer who knows that his actions proceed from the persuasion of God's Spirit possesses confidence toward God.
And that confidence becomes indispensable when faith confronts death.
Christ Took Authority Over Death
Death possessed standing authority as the penalty of sin.
Christ entered death itself.
He entered the grave and arose from it.
He declares:
"I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore… and have the keys of hell and of death." (Revelation 1:18)
Christ possesses the keys.
Christ possesses authority over death.
Hebrews declares:
"That through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them…" (Hebrews 2:14–15)
Christ went through death and broke the power associated with it.
At His death:
"The graves were opened." (Matthew 27:52)
Then:
"Many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many." (Matthew 27:52–53)
The saints were released from the grave.
Immediately surrounding the resurrection of Christ, the authority of His victory reached into death and manifested itself in the release of those who had slept.
Then the risen Christ declares:
"All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." (Matthew 28:18)
Death does not stand outside the authority of Christ.
Defeated in Heaven, Defeated on Earth, Defeated in the Grave
The war that began in heaven now reveals the extent of Christ's victory.
The adversary was defeated in heaven and cast down:
"I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." (Luke 10:18)
On earth, the powers of darkness recognized the authority of Christ:
"What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?" (Matthew 8:29)
The devils requested permission to enter the swine. Their request demonstrated their subjection to His authority.
Then Christ entered death and emerged possessing the keys of death and the grave.
The adversary was defeated in heaven.
He was subject to Christ upon earth.
His power of death was broken through Christ's death and resurrection.
The remaining battlefield is within the heart and consciousness of man.
The war that began in heaven has reached the heart.
The defeated enemy continues to exercise government where darkness continues to persuade those whom Christ has liberated that they remain subject to powers over which Christ possesses authority.
The entire progression now returns to the beginning.
Darkness produces ignorance.
God commands light.
Light produces knowledge.
Knowledge reveals truth.
Truth produces liberty.
Liberty removes bondage.
Freedom from sin removes condemnation.
Freedom from condemnation produces confidence.
Confidence permits faith to stand.
Faith apprehends the victory already accomplished in Christ.
The final battlefield is within man.
The Bride and the Last Enemy
Death is an enemy.
"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." (1 Corinthians 15:26)
Christ possesses authority over that enemy.
And Christ loves His bride.
"For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: for we are members of his body." (Ephesians 5:29–30)
The bride participates in His body and His life.
Christ does not surrender His bride to the authority of an enemy He has defeated. As the members of His body awaken to the knowledge of the victory residing in Christ, they are brought to understand that surrender to death is not the highest expression of faith.
Victory over death is not the believer independently attempting to accomplish something Christ failed to accomplish.
It is Christ's victory becoming operative within those who have awakened to their oneness with Him.
The believer does not manufacture the victory.
"Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Corinthians 15:57)
God gives the victory.
God supplies the faith.
God works within the believer both to will and to do.
The believer awakens to the authority of the divine life in which he now exists.
"Ye Shall Die Like Men"
We can now return to the declaration:
"I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. But ye shall die like men." (Psalm 82:6–7)
The preceding words reveal their condition:
"They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness." (Psalm 82:5)
They lack knowledge.
They walk in darkness.
And they die like men.
But light changes the condition.
Those who did not know begin to know.
Those who walked in darkness receive the light of life.
Those who understood themselves merely according to natural man discover that their true life is hidden with Christ in God:
"For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." (Colossians 3:3)
The believer discovers that he is joined unto the Lord as one Spirit.
The ancient darkness then begins losing its final territory.
The heart awakens.
The Manifestation of the Victory
The salvation work can now be seen as one continuous spiritual movement.
There was war in heaven.
A portion of the righteous stars of heaven was cast down into the spiritual earth.
The dragon was afterward defeated and cast down into that realm.
Darkness exercised its power there.
Darkness produced ignorance.
The spirits belonging to God lost the knowledge of their spiritual origin and identity and consequently lived beneath powers inconsistent with their true relationship to God.
God commanded light.
The natural creation became a visible reflection of the spiritual order.
Christ entered the world as the Light.
He came to liberate the captive spirit from the power of darkness.
He revealed the Father.
He revealed truth.
He revealed life.
He declared that knowledge of truth would make the captive free.
Through the Spirit, the mind is renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator.
The awakened believer discovers his life in Christ.
He discovers that the law of the Spirit of life has made him free from the law of sin and death.
He discovers that he has been made free from sin.
He discovers that there is no condemnation in Christ.
His heart ceases to condemn him.
Confidence toward God arises.
God raises his faith beyond the limitations of natural consciousness.
He discovers that Christ has defeated the adversary.
Christ possesses the keys of death.
Christ possesses all power in heaven and earth.
And Christ is the believer's life:
"When Christ, who is our life, shall appear…" (Colossians 3:4)
The final work is therefore not the creation of another victory.
It is the manifestation within the awakened spirit of the victory already accomplished in Christ.
Let There Be Light
"Let there be light." (Genesis 1:3)
The power of darkness operates through ignorance:
"They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness." (Psalm 82:5)
But God commands light into darkness.
The truth comes to the captive.
The Spirit renews the mind in knowledge.
The children of the Most High awaken to their origin and identity within God.
As knowledge increases, faith rises.
As faith rises, the government of darkness loses its place.
Sin loses its jurisdiction.
Condemnation loses its voice.
The believer gains confidence toward God.
And ultimately the awakened spirit confronts the final enemy:
death.
Death is not Lord.
Death does not possess the keys.
Death does not possess all power.
Christ does.
Christ has passed through death.
Christ has arisen from the grave.
Christ possesses the keys of death.
Christ possesses all power in heaven and earth.
And Christ is the believer's life.
Therefore the believer's victory over death is not an independent human achievement. It is the victory of Christ becoming manifest within the believer through the knowledge and faith that God Himself produces.
God illuminates the heart.
God produces the faith.
God completes the awakening.
"For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." (Philippians 2:13)
The work began with war in heaven.
The conflict moved into the spiritual earth.
Darkness entered the hearts and minds of men.
God commanded light.
And the war reaches its conclusion as the light of God drives the darkness from its final place of government within man.
Everything concealed by darkness is brought into the knowledge, liberty, authority and life of God.
The victory is not man's victory apart from God.
It is God's victory manifested in man.
"Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Corinthians 15:57)
The stars were cast down.
Darkness covered the realm into which they were cast.
But darkness was never their origin.
God was.
The work of salvation is the work of Light recovering that which belongs to God, restoring the lost to the knowledge of their true life, and bringing them again into the liberty and authority of the one Spirit from whom they came.
The war began in heaven.
Its final battlefield is within man.
The last enemy is death.
Christ has defeated the power of death.
And the victory belongs to God.
