On the cross Christ tasted death, destroyed the devil, and nullified death, and in resurrection He became a life-giving Spirit; now we can reign in life over death, for the divine life enthrones us as kings. Hallelujah!
In the church we see the Lord’s word being fulfilled: on one hand He builds His church, and on the other, the gates of Hades fight against the church, attacking the church with death, but they cannot prevail against the church.
The attack upon the church comes from the gates of Hades, from death; Satan’s goal is to bring death into the church.
The church is the only entity on the earth that is fully of life and in resurrection, having nothing of death in it, so Satan wants to inject death into the church. He has already ruined all human beings, and all men are born in sin and in spiritual death, so now he tries to attack the church with death.
Whenever there are problems in the church, when there are some turmoils or troubles, we need to not analyze and see who is right and who is wrong, but pay attention to life and reject death.
The enemy’s temptation is for us to try to understand things and discern right from wrong, but the Lord wants us to remain in life, enjoying Him as the tree of life and being filled with His life.
We all need to have more experiences of the resurrection life, so that we may be filled with death-swallowing and death-defeating life.
In ourselves we cannot defeat death; we are mortal, just like all human beings, and death is more powerful than us, but we have One in us who has already defeated death, and this One fills us with His life and He wants to manifest His death-destroying life in us. Praise the Lord!
Satan injected death into us, but by believing into the Lord we receive the only One who can overcome death, that is, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Today we want to see what the Lord did to taste death, destroy the devil, and nullify death, and how we have Him in us as the life-giving Spirit imparting life into us.
As we enjoy Christ as grace, grace reigns in us, and we can reign in life over death. Amen, Lord, open our eyes to see the divine reality of being a person filled with the life-giving Spirit, and bring us to the point of reigning in life over death in our practical daily experience!
Christ Destroyed the Devil, Nullified Death, and Walked out of Death with the Keys of Death and Hades
The Lord Jesus was made a little inferior to the angels because of suffering of death so that He may taste death on behalf of everything (Heb. 2:9). On the cross Christ tasted death, destroyed the devil, and nullified death (Heb. 2:9, 14-15; 2 Tim. 1:10).
Through His death, Christ destroyed the devil and nullified death. Death hasn’t been removed, just as Satan hasn’t been removed; the Lord needs the church to execute judgement on Satan in this age, further judgement in the next age, and the final judgement after the millennium to cast him into the lake of fire.
It is the same with death; death has been nullified, cancelled, brought to nought, but it still exist, yet not exhorting the same control.
Today we may go through profoundly grievous experiences, our heart may be broken and we may mourn, but we’re categorically different from unbelievers, because in the midst of that loss we can proclaim that our Lord Jesus Christ nullified death, and we proclaim His victory in the midst of this situation.
What happened after the Lord Jesus died and before He resurrected? There are some verses in the Bible that give us an indication what happened.
On the one hand, the Lord was put to death in the flesh, but on the other, He was made alive in Spirit, in which also He went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison (1 Pet. 3:18-19). When He was on the cross, Christ’s flesh was put to death, but His Spirit – His divinity – was enlivened.
In that Spirit He descended into the depths of Hades and preached – He proclaimed to the spirits that were bound there. These spirits, we believe, are the angels mentioned in Genesis who tried to carry out Satan’s scheme, who took human bodies, took human wives, and produced the ugly Nephilims, the giants, and the judgement was on them.
The Lord went to Hades, and He proclaimed to those bound evil spirits God’s victory over their leader and their entire kingdom on the cross! He descended into the abyss after His death (Rom. 10:7); this abyss is the dwelling place of the demons, and from there later Antichrist will come, and it is there that the devil will be bound and cast.
Christ went into the lower parts of the earth, He conquered them, He proclaimed His victory over the enemy, and conquered the very domain of the evil power of the enemy.
And death tried to hold Him (Acts 2:24), but God raised Him up, having loosed the pangs of death, for it was not possible for Him to be held by it.
Hallelujah, Christ didn’t fight death or run out of death – He simply left, walked out of death, and He took the keys of death and Hades (Rev. 1:18) with Him! He is the living One; He gave Himself up to death, suffered death, entered death, conquered death, and then He left death with its keys!
Hallelujah, death is now under the Lord’s control, and Hades is under the keys which He holds.
He is now among the churches, walking among the local churches, as a Victor in resurrection, and He has the keys of death and Hades in His hand; He assures that He has conquered the ultimate weapon of the enemy! Hallelujah!
And this is something we can experience daily – we can experience His resurrection life to reign in life over death.
When we lose someone dear, though we may mourn humanly, we can worship the Lord and tell the enemy that he has no ground here – the enemy has been defeated, and we are in resurrection, and resurrection life streams out of us wherever we are in earth. Hallelujah!
Death is still here, but death has lost its sting, its power, its control, and its tormenting factor. We will not live in fear of death; rather, we will reign in life over death because the Christ in us is such a Victor!
Praise You Lord for Your death on the cross, through which You destroyed the devil who has the might of death and released those who were held in slavery because of the fear of death! Hallelujah, we now no more fear death and are released from its slavery. Praise the Lord, death has been nullified, made of none effect. Wow, thank You Lord for overcoming death and breaking through death. Death could not hold You; rather, death was defeated by You, and You resurrected and overcame death! Praise You, Lord, You hold the keys to death and Hades, and we can reign in life over death because of the wonderful victorious Christ!
We can Reign in Life over Death and Minister Life to others for the Building up of the Body
How wonderful it is that death could NOT hold the Lord, the grave could not restrict Him, and Hades could not detain Him; Christ resurrected, and now He as the life-giving dwells in us.
Because the resurrected Christ as the life-giving Spirit dwells in us, we can reign in life over death (Rev. 1:17-18; 1 Cor. 15:45; Rom. 8:10; 5:17).
When we enjoy the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness, we reign in life, for grace reigns unto eternal life (Rom. 5:21). We want to be grace-receivers more than ever before.
We want to eat Jesus and receive grace upon grace, every day and every hour and in every situation, and this grace will flood us, constitute us, and cause us to reign in life over death unto eternal life.
Grace is superior to death; grace will reign unto eternal life, and we are learning little by little, with one another and from one another, to fight death together and conquer death together.
The Son of God has overcome death and has destroyed Satan; He has the keys of death and of Hades, and He is victorious over the grave.
Christ, the Son of Man, was not only vindicated by God in resurrection, but He was also victorious over death, Satan, Hades, and the grave, all of which are of great concern and trouble to us.
Now such a Christ is walking in the midst of the local churches, taking care of them as golden lampstands.
He cares for all of us; He is a High Priest that can be touched with the feeling of our weaknesses, He is interceding for us, and He is also the Son of Man, assuring us of His victory over death.
This One as the resurrected Christ is the life-giving Spirit dwelling in us, and because of Him, we can reign in life over death.
When we see how dreadful and abominable death is and begin to see what a price our Savior paid to conquer death and Hades and the grave and Satan, we will be motivated to stop the spreading of death in any way, and we will consecrate in particular our tongue and mouth that what comes out of us would be the expression of the resurrected Christ as the Spirit in our spirit! Amen!
The Lord went through such a process to conquer death and deliver us from death; we should just cooperate with Him by letting Him by enjoying Him and being constituted with Him as grace until He reigns in us and we can reign in life over death.
For the building up of the Body of Christ, we need to minister life; we experience and enjoy the resurrection life within, and then we minister this life by being a channel through which this life can flow into other members of the Body (1 John 5:11-12, 16; 2 Cor. 4:10-12).
Amen, this is our need, to experience and enjoy the resurrection life within so that we may reign in life over death, and then to be channels through which this life can flow into the other saints for the building up of the Body of Christ!
Dear Lord Jesus, thank You for coming down from heavens to be our food; You are the bread of God, the bread of life, the living bread. Show us what it really means to eat You and live because of You, so that we may have life and be filled with life. Lord, we praise You for Your glorious victory over the devil, death, Hades, and the grave. Thank You for releasing us from the slavery of death. Thank You for nullifying death and for becoming the life-giving Spirit who is now joined to our spirit. Hallelujah, You have the keys of death and Hades. Lord, may we enjoy You as grace until grace reigns in us and we reign in life over death, and may we learn to minister life to others for the building up of the Body of Christ!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Romans, msgs. 35-36, 48 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Leviticus (2), week 4, The Significance of Eating and the Defeat of Death.
- Hymns on this topic:
# What a victory! What a triumph! / God Himself became a man, / Clothed Himself in human nature / To fulfill His mighty plan. / He through death destroyed the devil; / Risen now, the Son of Man! (Hymns #1174)
# Death cannot hold the resurrection life, / All of God’s fulness it will manifest; / God’s righteousness and holiness it yields, / His glorious image by it is expressed. / Oh, may I know this resurrection life, / In every kind of death its pow’r outpoured, / In my experience ever realize / This life is nought but Christ my living Lord. (Hymns #639)
# Through God’s dispensing, abundance of grace, / Christ’s saving life will reign and death displace; / God’s holy nature, our life sanctifies, / His saving life soon, our life glorifies. (Song on, Being Saved in His Life)
