In His crucifixion, the victorious Christ caused the angelic rulers and authorities to be stripped off and triumphed over them in the cross by God, and He nullified death. Hallelujah for Christ’s wonderful death on the cross, His all-terminating death for the fulfilment of God’s purpose!
In His crucifixion, the victorious Christ cast out the ruler of this world, He destroyed the devil, He caused the rulers and authorities to be stripped off, and He nullified death. Wow! What a death!
Even when He was on the cross accomplishing the work of redemption, Christ was involved in a spiritual battle, and He was victorious over Satan through the cross.
Yes, He died for our sins, and yes, He created the one new man in His body on the cross, but at the same time Christ was fighting the spiritual warfare on the cross, and He won the victory! Hallelujah for our victorious Christ who defeated and even destroyed the devil on the cross!
In His work on the cross, Christ cast out the ruler of this world and He judged the world. In Him Satan as the ruler of the world had nothing, and through His death on the cross Christ cast out the ruler of the world, He judged the world, and He released us, His people, from the usurpation of Satan through the world.
Today most people may love the world, appreciate it, and are fully immersed in it. But actually in the spiritual reality behind what we can see there’s a spiritual warfare, for Satan has systematized the world to be his evil system through which he can usurp God’s people from fulfilling God’s purpose and from enjoying God.
So Christ came and cast out the ruler of this world, and He judged the world through His death. Once you take away the ruler of the world, the world system is gone. When Christ died on the cross, the base of Satan’s rebellion was shaken and the strongholds of his earthly kingdom were shaken. Hallelujah!
In His crucifixion Christ destroyed the devil. He came in the likeness of the flesh of sin and concerning sin, and He as the bronze serpent died on the cross to bruise and destroy the serpent, Satan (John 3:14).
In His humanity and through His work on the cross, Christ has destroyed the devil. It was through being crucified as the brass serpent that He crushed the head of the old serpent (Gen. 3:15).
Hallelujah, Christ destroyed the devil, who has the power of death (Heb. 2:14). Christ died not only as our Substitute on the cross, but He died to destroy the devil, to render him powerless and of none effect.
In His Crucifixion Christ Caused the Angelic Rulers and Authorities to be Stripped off and to be Triumphed over in the Cross by God
The crucifixion of Christ took place more than two thousand years ago, but when it took place, it was the center of the universe, and on it there was a fierce spiritual battle.
A very important, hidden, and unknown aspect of the Lord’s death which is found only in Col. 2:15 is that through His death Christ caused the rulers and authorities to be stripped off, He made a display of them openly, and He triumphed over them through the cross.
This is the invisible scene taking place at the cross. He as a man was dying on the cross, but actually there were a lot of spiritual beings present there in the unseen realm.
The angelic rulers and authorities came into being when Lucifer rebelled, when he willed something against the divine will, and a third of the angels followed him in his rebellion. These followers of Satan became the rulers, the powers, and the authorities in the air.
And according to Col. 2:15, these were all at the cross when Christ was crucified – they were swarming around Him, pressing in closely to the cross. At that time the cross was the center of the universe, for God was there, man was there, and the devil with his angelic powers were also there, pressing in closely.
Christ was doing something to carry out His judicial redemption for God’s complete salvation, God was also doing some things at the cross, and Satan with his angels were also working.
Christ was accomplishing redemption, He was crucifying the flesh, sin, Satan, and the world, and He was creating the one new man in Himself. No wonder that the enemy was terrified and wanted to stop Him!
God was there also judging sin and, nailing to the cross the ordinances that caused the enmity in the old man.
While God and Christ were working, the evil rulers and authorities came in to frustrate this; they were swarming around the cross, trying to stop what was happening.
As they were clinging to Christ, God stripped them off, and made a display of them openly, putting them to shame, and triumphing over them through the cross. There was a battle going on there, and Christ was victorious over Satan and all his evil angelic powers.
Hallelujah, Christ triumphed over all the angelic powers and authorities through the cross, and God openly put them to shame through the cross. What a fact!
On the positive side Christ on the cross released His divine life into all the members of His Body, He broke down the middle wall of partition to make us all one Body in Him, and He created the one new man.
On the negative side, Christ was involved in a fierce war on the cross, and even though Satan wanted to kill Him, when he realized what was going on, the devil and his authorities were trying to stop the Lord from dying.
Christ’s death terminated the devil, destroyed him, shamed all his angelic powers and authorities, and caused God to triumph over them in the cross. Hallelujah!
Praise You Lord Jesus, our victorious Christ, for causing the angelic rulers and authorities to be stripped off and be made a display of openly through the cross. Hallelujah, nothing can stop our victorious Christ until He has fully accomplished the work of redemption and until He triumphs over all His enemies through the cross! Lord, we praise You, and we stand in Your victory to remind Your enemy that he has been destroyed, put to shame, stripped off, and triumphed over in the cross by God. Hallelujah!
Through His Devil-destroying death, Christ Nullified Death – He made Death of None Effect
Our Savior Jesus Christ was manifested to nullify death and bring life and incorruption to light through the gospel (2 Tim. 1:10). Hallelujah!
In this verse Paul tells us that, through His work in His death, Christ nullified death.
The Greek word for “nullified” is the same as in Heb. 2:14 and Rom. 6:6, which means to make of none effect, to bring to naught, to do away with, to abolish, to annul, to discard.
Through His death on the cross, Christ entered into Hades, took a tour of Hades, and walked out of death, taking the keys of death and of Hades with Himself.
Furthermore, through His devil-destroying death, Christ nullified death – He made it of none effect, He did away with death, He abolished death, He annulled death, and He discarded death.
This doesn’t mean that death doesn’t exist anymore, but that death has been made of none effect for all those who believe into the Lord Jesus.
The worst enemy is death, and the last thing to be removed after the millennium is death, which will be cast into the lake of fire then (Rev. 20:14). Death is the last enemy destroyed by the Lord Jesus (1 Cor. 15:26).
However, even though death has not been yet removed, it is a fact that death has been nullified through Christ’s death on the cross. The sting of death, the power of death, and the fear of death have been removed.
Death is something necessary in this age, but death has no power over us, those who believe into the Lord Jesus and experience the death-overcoming and devil-destroying Christ.
Unless the Lord returns in our lifetime and we are raptured to be with Him, we may all die physically, but praise the Lord, death has been nullified through the victorious crucifixion of Christ!
We need to see a vision of what the victorious Christ has accomplished through His death on the cross. Yes, death will be eliminated last, after the millennium, but we should no longer live in fear of death, and death should have no power over us because Jesus Christ has nullified death on the cross!
Death has been made of none effect through the Lord’s devil-destroying death on the cross. On the one hand, Christ nullified death, and on the other, He brought in and released His resurrection life which swallows any death!
Christ’s death-defeating-life is His eternal life, His resurrection life, the life that has conquered death and swallows up death. This life and the incorruption that is its consequence have been brought to light and made visible to men through the preaching of the gospel. Praise the Lord!
We praise You Lord for nullifying death through Your devil-destroying death on the cross. Hallelujah, death has been made of none effect. Death has been annulled, the sting of death has been removed, and we are no longer living under the power and fear of death. We praise You, our victorious Christ, for defeating Satan, judging the world, casting out the ruler of this world, putting to shame the angelic rulers and powers, and nullifying death on the cross! Praise the Lord for His devil-destroying and death-nullifying death!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message given by Mark Raabe for this week, and portions from, The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 773-775 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Spiritual Warfare of the Church as the New Man (2018 Memorial Day Conference), week 3, The Victorious Christ.
- 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)
# Lord, how we praise You for Your cross, / Your all-inclusive death! / The center of the universe, / It has untold, eternal worth! / Lord, how we love Your cross, / Lord, how we love Your cross; / Oh, hallelujah, for such a cross! (Hymns #1087)
# Praise Him! Christ is resurrected! / God hath raised Him from the dead! / All the pow’r of death is swallowed, / Man from death to life is led! / Broken through are hell and darkness / And His pow’r exhibited! (Hymns #124)
