As a child, I started reading the bible quite early. My favorite reading was the first two chapters of Genesis. The thing that antiqued mi was the divine omnipotence displayed as the entire creation came into existence by the spoken word. I considered how there was nothing at all and imagined things just appearing as commanded and wondered what power my God has. Every time there was a discussion of power, my own example of power will be god’s creative powers with spoken word.
During those days, I did not quite understand the rationale that necessitated the Death of Jesus when God could speak forgiveness, or speak a total annihilation of satanic powers so that the earth will once more be free for man to live. Why did God not by a fiat cause the redemption of man? Why wait for the death of another man, even an innocent person to bring about salvation for guilty ones? These questions form the background of His work.
The world as affected by the fall of Eden stood in need of redemption and that through death and the shedding of blood. This is because God has pronounced death as penalty before man sinned. Even though every aspect of the creative earth needed redemption, the interest of God lied in man because the fall involved the man that was created as the crown of all creation. The creative process of man was different from all other created things. The purpose for which man was created set man higher above all other creation.
Man was created in the image of God, not by word fiat, but through the molding of the divine fingers and for the purpose of running the earth under God. That man became a living soul was through the transfer of divine life into Him. If the creation of man caused the triune conference, the folding of his sleeves and stooping to mould with his hands, the hovering over and breathing into his nostrils the breath of life, do you expect a redemption, or recreation process to be by word fiat? The most complex and highest of God’s creation is man and if the clothing of man demanded the death of another (Gen 3:2) then to restore him back to a creative position, purpose and authority will necessitate a death.
We need also to consider the harm or damage that was done by the fall. The divine warning to Adam was “the day you eat of this tree, you will die”. The death was not a sort of annihilation; he was not smashed as a clay pot, rather the damage done by the fall was such that man will continue live in evil and has the ability to continue procreating even in that fallen state. The harm had a multiplying effect that man will live as a constant affront to the Almighty Creator. Man died spiritually as he was instantly separated from God, but the physical life was not snuffed off and man was to live in sin until redemption was affected and that necessitates the death of another.
The fall created a barrier between God and man which god never wanted for man. God was wrath against man living in the sinful state. The wrath of God is one of his perfections, and should not be seen in the light of man’s anger which involves the loosing of temper. God’s wrath is consistent in its opposition to evil, as being judicial.
It is an aspect of God that human being chose for themselves when they chose the momentary pleasure of sin, against the eternal bliss of God’s kingdom. Man has been clearly warned ahead of his sinning of divine displeasure against sin when he announced to him the penalty that “the day you eat of this tree, you will die”. Man cannot contain in any way, the wrath of God hence the need t get back to Him, secure his pleasure and live in peace with him. If a man like you is wrath against another, we can contain him or find friendship in another man.
We can easily say to one another “I can do without you” but not so with God. Your health, breathe, accommodation and in fact your total existence is dependent on God and no man can do without God for one day. Above all, God’s wrath cannot be appeased on man’s terms; rather, he who has been offended by human sinfulness is one to decide the terms of reconciliation. It is here that the death of Jesus became inevitable in our relationship with God.
The second issue occasioned by the fall of man is the fact of Satan’s ruler-ship over msn in the earth. By virtue of man’s creation and divine pronunciation, man was to have dominion, rule or superintend over the earth under God. As God reigns in heaven, so man was to be on earth. A god he was to be on earth exercising his authority over created things.
This position, honor and authority given to man became the envy of Satan having lost his place in the realms of glory where the celestial dominate in all activities. The temptation of man in Genesis chapter 3 was a product of satanic envy had a serious attempt to wrest from man the ruler-ship of the earth. It was a carefully, meditated, strategy that caught the unguarded man unaware and occasioned the fall resulting in man handing over the coveted number one position to the cunning , ancient serpent and the accuser of the brethren.
By that singular defeat, man lost his fellowship with God resulting in his flight from the presence of God; he lost the covering of divine glory and began to feel shame of his nakedness resulting in his attempt to cover himself with the work of his hands. Man lost the place of his abode and the enjoyable employment of lending the garden and keeping it resulting in his laboring to eat outside the now heavily guarded Garden of Eden, and ultimately, man lost the authority to rule over the earth in immortality resulting in the reign of the devil and his terror of death. From that moment and by the act of the fall, Satan took charge of the created universe and began to exert his influence of evil over the entire creation.
Rather than deny the ruler-ship and the authority of Satan over the earth, the scripture confirms it through different mention of his activities. Jude made us understand that this wicked ruler struggled the body of Moses when he died out of disobedience in the wilderness. The Gospel narrators present to us a scenario where the devil confronted Jesus with the claims of control of all the created world and even his ability to give it over to Jesus on his own terms rather than the cross (Math. 4:8-9). Jesus In the story of his temptation surprisingly did not argue with the devil over his rulership of the earth.
Rather, in another encounter, Jesus himself referred to Satan as the God of the world (John 14:30) Does it surprise you that Paul writing to the Corinthians said if our Gospel is hidden, it is hidden to those that the prince of this world has blinded the eyes of their mind (2 Corinthians 4:3-4) indicating that Satan is the prince of this world and so exercise pernicious influence over the minds of those who have not yield their hearts to Jesus Christ? You need further proof, yes, john, the great apostle that Jesus loved, declared in one of his epistles that “the whole world lieth in wickedness” or as the modern version puts it in the hands of the wicked on. (1 John 5:19).
How did this happen? It became a possibility the day man sinned, he by reaching out for the fruit of the tree of good and evil was giving out his ruler-ship of the world, it is a picture of Esau despising and giving out his birthright when he reached out for Jacobs’s morsel of beans and bread. Should the world remain perpetually in the hands of Satan and will that in any way fulfill divine intention in the creation of both man and the earth? Your guess is as good as mine, but to change the situation, death became a necessity.
From the moment man handed over to Satan as stated above, the position of man shifted from that of a master, ruler and head to that of a slave. Not only did Adam become a slave but the entire human race became slaves to sin and Satan. Take a picture of Goliath, that philistine warrior and epitome of satanic conflict against the people of God. In his forty days of intimidating Israel and blasphemy against God, he posited one thing: “chose a man from among you to fight with me, if he kills me then my people will become slave” (1Sam 17:8-10). That was a replay of the ancient battle strategy for enslavement where Satan fights by representation. When Adam and Eve as representatives of the human race were beaten in the Garden of Eden, the whole race walked around as dying slaves of Satan.
Because of this enslavement to sin and Satan, death became the fear of man. Sin and death are two sides of the same coin from the day God pronounced death as the penalty of sin. Whoever commits sin, Jesus said, is a slave to sin (Jn. 8:34) and “the wages of sin is death (Rom. 3:23). A man, who sins according to Christ, is doing the work of his father the devil (Jn.8:41). Because man is a slave, the devil wields the stick of death before him always. We see the death of children, marriages, businesses and dreams. Man then because of fear of death, enters into further enslavements through association in evil societies, enactment of evil or satanic covenants and all sorts of satanic activities. This enslavement must be stopped and freedom must be given to the slaves, death must be defeated by the payment of the price determined by our sinful acts thereby issuing life, and life everlasting to the human race. Here lies the necessity for the death of Jesus, even the death of the cross.
On the day that iniquity was found in Lucifer, he was thrown out of heaven and in the day of Adam was discovered, he was cast out of the Garden of Eden. Two things happened that day that set the tune of Grace and difference in the two victims and I will mention once here and the other later. The first thing that happened indicated death as the solution to the crisis of sin and man, which is seen in the slaying of the animal in order to cover the shameful nakedness if Adam and Eve before their expulsion from the garden of beauty. In occasion later in the history of man, when God demanded the obedience of Abraham by slaying his son, Isaac on mount Morriah, God provided a ram in place of Isaac having ascertained Abraham’s obedience and total dependence upon him. Further in the history of man and this time in the life of the people if Israel, by judicial enactment and the institution of the priestly cast, the Jewish sacrificial system provided for an animal dying for the sins to be covered. These acts of god in the Old testament presents that one can die in the place of and for the good of another, thereby making freedom and blessing possible.
A closer look at these acts will show a picture of God’s mercy and grace at work and the fact that the solution found in death for the problem of sin is not the work of man’s hands. Adam in Genesis 3 was so dumbfounded by the guilt of his sins to even ask god for forgiveness, yet God in his mercy slew an animal to cloth him. Adam’s idea or contribution was not need in what the children of Israel cannot produce or explain what the blood of the animal that is tune for their sins. All were God’s plan and God’s execution for his own accomplishment. The death of Jesus was necessitated on the premises that one will die for another and still that the one that will die for the other must be God’s provision. But how did the death of Jesus fit into all this?
Let’s get back to the issue of God’s wrath of the father against the sin of man and thus made it possible for God to be propitious towards his people. The propitious on the side of god is far different from what happens when plagues seek to appease their God. But in this setting, God made the attempt and propitiated his own wrath, no man knows how and what to use to appease God. Jesus is the eternal son of God, and member of the Godhead. From eternity, he has secured the pleasure of the father and even in the incarnation. God announced to the world in two occasions that he is pleased with the son (Matt. 3:17, 17:5). It is he who has a pleasurable relationship with God. He abandons glory, worship, riches and immortality and took upon himself the mortal body and instead of worship men secured him, instead of glory he was insulted, in his mortality, he could lay down his life at Calvary by that act, and his death appeased God’s anger, satisfied his pleasure and thereby reconciled man with God.
Divine pleasure was more important to Jesus in his death as his wrath was dangerous to the destiny of man. Can you now place properly the prophecy of Isaiah that “it pleased god to bruise him” (Isa. 5:3-10) he was bruised for our transgression and the chastisement of our sins was upon him’. So that the pleasure of the almighty might be secured and that he might be propitious towards them. God could not have been pleased by a legislative pronouncement of salvation, his pleasure was in the bruising of the savior, and Jesus died as a propitiation for our sins.
The act of sin in Eden was publish handing over a man’s earthly dominion to Satan since that date, Satan walks the earth as in charge and pitched against God always. This enemy had to be defeated and god must be just in doing that, the death of Jesus came to bring on end to Satan’s claim of ownership and rulership of the world. I lift are things out when I mentioned that there were two acts of grace on the day of sin. Here is the second issue. Man in sin, full of guilt and unapologetic standing before God in the nakedness of his sins and instead of the pronouncement of his eternal down, God announced his plans for man’s salvation by saying to the old serpent “the seed of the woman shall bruise thy head and you will strike his heads”. (Gen. 3:15).
The head is the authority and when the head is bruised, it is gone. By the death of Christ, Satan was only striking his heed by the word of (Gen 3:15) to me, when all hiss effect to divert Jesus from the cross failed, he tried to scatter the church, his body, which was in the making. “Strike the head” the Bible says and the sheep will scatter”. No wonder peter denied him and others ran away, but the word has already gone out that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church” (Matt. 16:18). So in all, the death of Christ was the bruising of the serpents earth, a total defeat to the “god of this world’, a retrieving of the power that Adam handed over. Praise God that Jesus died, Satan is as longer in charge; his reign has been terminated by the death of Jesus.
God’s wrath has appeased. Satan reign has been terminated and what happened to the dying slave of Satan and the penalty of his sins. Man did hand over himself and the earth into the wicked one at that ignorance sell out in Eden, but Jesus died to pay the price of the that “sell out”. By his death, he wished redemption for man and for everything that was sold and thereby freed us from the bondage of sin. Death was the penalty and God had no new to change his mind, and who ever must help man must pay the price of death. Satan then used death as a weapon to enslave the human race. To help man, the devil must be beaten in his game.
Outside Christ, death remains the supreme enemy of man, the symbol of alienation from God and the ultimate power of Satan over the sinful men. Yet, by death, Christ put away sin forever, and by death, he delivers man from death. Have you noticed the beautiful way the New Testament refers to death? You will notice that the fear has been taken away from that last enemy of man. The New Testament refers to death as sleeping (1 cor. 15:5, 1 Thess. 4:14) rather than dying. This is because, Jesus having borne the full honour of death have transformed death so that it is no more than sleep for behaviours. Today, death cannot separate us from the love of God (Rom. 8:38) neither can we again remain slaves to Satan because of the terror of death – (Heb. 2:14-17). All these have been accomplished through the death of Jesus Christ.