Angelic Conflict part 231: Human history (the Christ) – Act 2:22-28; Heb 2:14-18; Col 2:8-15.

Title: Angelic Conflict part 231: Human history (the Christ) - ACT 2:22-28; HEB 2:14-18; COL 2:8-15.

 

ACT 2:22 "Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know — 

 

ACT 2:23this Man, delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.

 

ACT 2:24"And God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.

 

ACT 2:25"For David says of Him [PSA 16:8-11],

'I was always beholding the Lord in my presence ;

For He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken.

 

Remember that Christ is at the right hand of God defending while we saw satan at the right hand of Joshua the high priest accusing. Yet even before the session of Christ, He was defending His people.

 

PSA 73:23

Nevertheless I am continually with Thee;

Thou hast taken hold of my right hand.

 

PSA 121:5

The Lord is your keeper;

The Lord is your shade on your right hand.

 

ACT 2:26'Therefore my heart was glad and my tongue exulted; Moreover my flesh also will abide in hope;

 

The context suggests:

My flesh will rest in the grave in hope of deliverance from death.

 

David, through the prophetic gift given to him, realized that he would go to Hades but not remain in its possession or as its prisoner. Peter quotes this at his momentous speech, also through the ministry of God the Holy Spirit to reveal that Christ, who did not undergo decay, has completely conquered death by becoming a curse for us.

 

GAL 3:13

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us —  for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree" —

 

ACT 2:27Because Thou wilt not abandon my soul to Hades,

Nor allow Thy Holy One to undergo decay.

 

ACT 2:28'Thou hast made known to me the ways of life [resurrection life];

Thou wilt make me full of gladness with Thy presence.'

 

Thus the love of God in Christ presented Himself as the Substitute, paying the fine to the justice of God and satisfying the claims of the holiness of God. Thus the full vicarious, substitutionary payment was made and thus all mankind has a Savior and the slavery of death is vanquished as well as the slavery to a life that is not God’s gift of a gracious, surpassing life.

 

HEB 2:14 Since then the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil;

 

HEB 2:15and might deliver those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.

 

Freedom from fear in death means freedom from fear in life. Everyone is alive, but not everyone knows how to live.

 

HEB 2:16For assuredly He does not give help to angels, but He gives help to the descendant of Abraham.

 

HEB 2:17Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

 

HEB 2:18For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.

 

It immediately follows that there can be no claim whatsoever left against the sinner whose guilt has been put upon the Savior. He paid it all, and there cannot be anything left to collect from the transgressor.

 

If God attempted to exact payment from a believer after He Himself had put all his guilt upon the sinbearer, there would be unrighteousness with God. This is in fact what satan claims as a result of his judgment. It is finished and there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Living in fear, anxiety, guilt or condemnation denies this fact.

 

In this foundational message of the work of Christ I relate a story related by Barnhouse in his book The Invisible War.

 

A young Scottish minister, newly out of seminary, went to visit an old lady who was dying. She was a believer and she was filled with the glory that comes at the sunset of such a rich life with God. The young man was long on theology and short on the Bible and had never in his life experienced the rich fellowship and walk with God that this simple woman had for years. He attempted to relate her life, her past life, as more like his own with the struggles and conflicts within himself. He told her that she should be careful to give diligence to make her calling and election sure; that she must remember that the one who thinketh he standeth should take heed lest he fall. The dear old lady was so much beyond this in spiritual experience that she was not disturbed for an instant. She said to the young minister, “Laddie, if I should nae be in heaven then the good Lord would lose much more than I.” The young minister became indignant at such seemingly arrogant words and went on to again warn her of behavior and such nonsense as bringing her back to her past in an attempt to replicate in her his own fears. She calmly and lovingly looked at the tortured young man and repeated, “Laddie, if I should nae be in heaven, the good Lord would lose His honor and His word would be destroyed. He would lose much more than I.”

 

The enemy, the one who had power over death and the keys to Hades has been completely spoiled and deposed, and the keys have passed into the hands of our Lord and Savior.

 

The resurrected Christ has not always been, and so someone else had the keys to Hades. Almost all the pagan religions had an underworld that was ruled by one of the gods and in their mythology people could give gifts to get out, talk their way out, or be gotten out in a number of ways. All of these lies have forever taken away from the fact that only Christ could get anyone out and they had to believe in Him as the Messiah in life.

 

REV 1:17-18

"Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.

 

COL 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.

 

False teachers do not go out to win the lost but to kidnap them, and greater so if they kidnap believers in Christ.

 

Their false doctrines have their origins in man and these doctrines have been handed down over the centuries. There is nothing new under the sun.

 

MAT 15:2

Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders?

 

"elementary principles" - stoiceion[stoicheion] = one of a row or series, the delusive speculations of gentile cults and of Jewish theories, treated as elementary principles of the cosmos.

 

The KJV has "the rudiments of the world," spoken of as "philosophy and vain deceit"; these were presented as superior to faith in Christ; at Colossae the worship of angels, mentioned in v. 18, is explicable by the supposition, held by both Jews and Gentiles in that district, that the constellations were either themselves animated heavenly beings, or were governed by them. In ancient Greece, this word meant "the elemental spirits of the universe, the angels that influenced the heavenly bodies." It was one of the words in the vocabulary of the religious astrology of that day. Of all the methods that people used to predict the future by technical methods, astrology has been the most persistent among civilized people. It is also likely the oldest since it was practiced by the sons of Ham, championed by Nimrod, and likely one of the uses of the Tower of Babel.