Christ's victory over Satan

For one thing, Satan was supposed to be a servant of God but he left his place. Jesus, on the other hand, always kept the will of God as his only desire. They both had individual will and power to do what they wanted according to their own desires, but Jesus never acted that way.

Secondly. Jesus never was moved from doing God's will by temptation from without like man was. Satan successfully tempted and got man to rebel against God. So man yielded to an outside temptation, but Jesus never did. Satan tried very hard, once he realized Jesus was in a position as a man where this was a possibility to tempt Jesus to act in his own interest and disobey God.

Third. Jesus then, not having any sin of his own, took on our sin and went all the way to death. Yet death could not hold him. That was also a victory.

We don't have any way to know why God allowed Satan to rebel and do what he did. But we do know that once man had sinned and in a sense also left God's kingdom, Satan had an advantage. If God did move against Satan, as a just and righteous ruler God would have to destroy all of us with Satan, or else appear unjust. If Satan could have gotten Jesus to act on his own or sin against God then he could always say that no one can possibly obey. So Satan became a great accuser of men before God. The actual victory of Jesus over Satan on our behalf then is the fact that now Jesus can lead those back into God's kingdom who become united with him like Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt. Jesus suffered for our sins and paid the price, so he can now lead those who follow him into God's presence.

I'm not completely used to using these explanations. They come from G. Campbell Morgan, who was not a Calvinist. But to your question, it seems to me at least that the problem God faced was not that he couldn't crush Satan when he chose, but in his love for men, how to do this without destroying all of us who are rebels and have somehow ended up in Satan's camp, so to speak.

 

Jon, I don't know who this person is but the first part makes no sense. Offering himself certainly is essential but doing what he offered seems to be demanded by reality. Everything does depend on who He is because the sacrificial death would not help us otherwise. Has this guy not read how Abraham, when he offered Isaac, was asked by his son "Where is the Lamb". And of course the truth of the importance of the seriousness of offering a sacrifice cannot be denied, the conclusion of the matter was that God has provided a lamb, who was slain. Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. And in the case of Jesus he said no one takes his life without his permission so yes, the "offering" was essential or it would not have happened - but it did happen, because it had to happen.

 

Here we have a false claim, that the OT saints who gained approval by faith, were "saved" because they believed the promise of the Messiah. Total fiction.

Were they made perfect in Abraham's bosom or did they have to wait to be made perfect until after Christ died?

 

I have not claimed special revelation. I have mentioned the "mystery of godliness" and used the same adjective that God inspired, great. This seems to be one of the major stumbling blocks to understanding that people like you have. God gives us several "mysteries" during this age and they are "secrets" to those to whom God does not reveal them because they do not even know they are there though they be in plain sight.

1Ti 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

1Co 4:1 Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.
2 Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.

Mt 13:10 And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?
11 He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.

1Co 13:2 And though I have [the gift of] prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

1Co 15:51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

Eph 3:2 If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward:
3 How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words,
4 Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ)
5 Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit;
6 That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel:
7 Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power.
8 Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ;
9 And to make all [men] see what [is] the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:

And on and on I could go. You fellows accuse believers because you seem to have never read the scriptures yourselves and if you have you have not been very curious about them.

I f you make derogatory comments about me because I have studied these mysteries of the faith that are associated with this age because Paul wrote to reveal them and explain them to us gentiles. He said that, I did not.

 

That statement, by itself is problematic. It's a partial quote so I really don't know but it sounds like he is saying the death of Christ is not what constituted atonement but rather it was the offer of Christ to serve as the sacrifice. What do you mean by address what we were speaking of? You put up the quote. Your going to have to explain that or put up more of what he said. True I don't know anything about him but from what little you can quickly find it seems he was against a limited atonement but I have already seen quotes that seem like he was ok with substitutionary atonement.

 

You are accusing me of something I am not guilty of, adding to the scriptures. I took time and space, a lengthy post to explain how I was making the application. You dismissed all of that and did not answer a single point and now you are taking a condescending attitude.

Jesus, the perfect and unspotted Lamb of God, substituted himself and took the penalty for our sins, which is death, separation from God, body and soul, in the lake of fire. It is the only place God has created where he has chosen not to be. This place is described in several parables of Jesus as the place where unsaved sinners go. All the things that Jesus suffered on the cross is what sinners will suffer there. God will not be with them there. Jesus became one of us, a man, so he could suffer this in our place and then rise bodily from the dead. Why would Jesus cry out to the Father and the Spirit, my God, my God, why hath thou forsaken me, if he had not forsaken him. Separation is the meaning of death. All men are spiritually dead because they are separated from God by their sins.

Jesus Christ our Lord really did suffer on that cross what unsaved men will suffer. This is the only way to God. Jesus is the only one who could have made this way.


Matthew 10:28
And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Revelation 20:12-15
12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

The first death is physical. There is a bodily resurrection and the second death is final when both body and soul is separated from God forever.

Jesus came to save sinful men from this. He is the only door to Gof. We must trust him and receive him as our savior and depend on what he did for us.

 

Don't worry about making it easy, just rebut what I said. The idea that it made perfect sense to someone else in earlier times has no meaning at all. They could have been right, or wrong, or did not have portions or scripture, or had other more pressing issues to deal with in their world.

I got a feeling that all Torrance was saying in the portion you quoted was that the actual physical death and suffering of Christ as a thing isolated from everything else in the atonement doesn't work because the benefits of his death cannot occur without all the other aspects of the work of the Trinity in our redemption. I don't know of any reformed person who would disagree with that. In fact, that bolsters the case for the strict Calvinist in my mind because it helps to integrate the council between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the determinism in the fall of man, the coming of Christ, his death, and resurrection and so on.

It may seem like reformed theology does isolate and separate the various aspects of God's work towards us especially when they are debating Catholic schoolmen or Arminians but overall, they are not guilty of that charge. Anyway, I have Torrance's book on the atonement on the way and if I can read it I will.

If so. And if that is what Torrance says I'm interested in finding out how that can be anything but penal substitution. I read a little about him on the internet and on the Puritan Board and have not come across him denying penal substitution.

 

Looking at the statement above would be the kind of thing I find a little troubling. Are you by any chance into incarnational trinitarian theology?

 

@JonC . When you look up Torrance you end up at websites about incarnational trinitarian theology. When you read some of their own articles you get similar sounding arguments to you. That's why I was asking. You make a mistake when you try to act like the Reformation was some kind of rebellion against the early church fathers. If anything they were attempting to get back to the ECF's from the deviant paths the RC's had taken. The ECF's had a knowledge of the atonement as a blood sacrifice to turn away the wrath of God. The Reformers developed and articulated it and linked it with the Old Testament and Hebrews better than those that came before, but they did not discover it.

At the best, all you're doing is taking elements of penal substitution and refusing to call it penal substitution. At the worst you are moving towards deemphasizing the core issue of our broken relationship with God which is our sin and God's holy nature that is opposed to it. And you are demeaning the central point of Christ's sacrifice. If that sounds strong it's no worse than what you say about reformed theology above.

Several posts on this thread explain how Christ has victory over Satan. You can keep asking the same question if you want but I can't tell you any more that what is readily available. My book by Torrance should come tomorrow. By the way, it's on sale for $25 which is cheap for his works. I heard he is a bear to read so I'll just have to see but I am interested in his views.

 

Two quick words from holiday.
It is possible that your theory supposes that God was punishing Jesus, but the Doctrine of Penal Substitution holds that God was punishing our sin. The Lord Jesus was our sin-bearer (Isaiah 53:5-6; 1 Peter 2:24) and so 'the chastisement [NIV, ESV: 'punishment'] that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.'

Secondly, I am very disappointed that no one has made any reference to the O.P. We are being dragged away from it constantly by either the Church Fathers or by @JonC's theory about Penal Substitution.

 

This was the sentence from your theory that I was opposing. God did not punish the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus had done nothing to deserve punishment.

Much better. That is also what the Doctrine of Penal Substitution teaches

So have you made any reference to the O.P.? Or have you not introduced your views on the Church Fathers and your theory about Penal Substitution?
I remember some years ago you challenged me to provide a Bible defence of the Doctrine of Penal Substitution. When I did so you made only one vague and passing refence to it and then studiously ignored it. That seems to be your modus operandi.