This is something as a Believer, you ought to be aware of, or better said, to live in the awareness of this eternal truth.
Based on the work of redemption that Christ wrought for us, in His death, burial, and resurrection, Satan, his entire kingdom of demons, and evil spirits, have been completely disarmed of all and any legitimate power or authority they once had, and wielded over the human race. It’s in the light of this that Scripture declares the following;
Col 2:15 He (Christ) defeated the rulers and powers of the spiritual world. With the cross he won the victory over them and led them away, as defeated and powerless prisoners for the whole world to see. (ERV, emphasis mine)
Another translation of the same verse reads;
“He stripped the rulers and authorities of their power and made a public spectacle of them as he celebrated his victory in Christ.” (GOD’S Word Translation)
The Passion Translation renders the same verse in this way;
“Then Jesus made a public spectacle of all the powers and principalities of darkness, stripping away from them every weapon and all their spiritual authority and power to accuse us. And by the power of the cross, Jesus led them around as prisoners in a procession of triumph. He was not their prisoner; they were his!” (TPT)
Looking at what these translations say, we realize the following; Satan and his kingdom have already been defeated, and the victory is ours to eternally celebrate. Secondly, Satan and his hordes of evil forces have been stripped or disarmed of their powers and authority they once enjoyed and wielded over mankind. Thirdly, Satan and his kingdom of darkness have been disgraced and they’ll remain so forever. He and his evil forces of demons and other fallen spirits are our prisoners and their final sentence will soon take effect.
But that’s not all, one other very important thing many fail to realize in reading Colossians 2: 15 is the fact that Satan no longer has the power or legal grounds to accuse us anymore, before GOD and His universal court of justice. We are not only forever free of Satan’s accusations, he has also actually lost the ability to do so against us, as the book of Revelations mentions.
Rev 12:10 “…For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who relentlessly accused them day and night before our God, has now been defeated — cast out once and for all!” (TPT)
If many knew this truth they’d actually rise up and stop giving attention to Satan’s seeming loud lies of accusations of condemnation, and guilt, that he speaks into their ears, and attempts to heap on them through the religious teachings emanating from many of our pulpits nowadays.
Well, someone might say, “If truly Satan can no longer accuse us anymore,” what about Job? Did Satan not accuse him before GOD? (Job 1: 6 – 12; 2: 1 – 7). Truly Satan did accuse Job. He accused Job of being an upright man only because GOD had prospered the work of his hands. Satan argued that if GOD were to remove his protective hedge and allow Job to suffer, he would no longer remain upright. Satan really was challenging the genuineness of Job’s love and faith and suggested that it was driven by self-interest rather than true devotion.
Some people read this account of Job and still are unable to connect the dots, and so conclude that Satan is still out there accusing us before GOD as he did to Job. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Now the first thing we must realize here is that we are not living in the same dispensation as Job. Unlike Job, we are living in the Grace or New Covenant dispensation. But Job lived in the dispensation of promise. This was “the period without law” (Rom. 2: 12), also referred to as “the times of ignorance” (Acts 14: 15, 16; 17: 30). It is so called because, during that period, men lived in abject ignorance of the right way to worship GOD, (they had lost the right knowledge of GOD) and because of this ignorance, they became terribly deceived and resorted to the worship of idols, of nature, and fallen angels, etc., confusing it to be the same as GOD worship (Rom. 1: 19 – 32). Despite all this, GOD was forbearing (Greek; Anoche, meaning to tolerate, or endure something, despite disagreeing) with them (Rom. 3: 25), because the revelation of the right way to worship GOD was yet to be unveiled to man then, because GOD was still in the process of actualizing this through His promise to Abraham, to make of him a great nation, through which the revelation of GOD would be restored on the earth, systematically, and finally through the birth of the promised Seed – Jesus Christ the Messiah or Savior of the world, to bring redemption to mankind. All of these were still in process. The nation of Israel wasn’t yet formed then, and the Messiah wasn’t yet born. But then, even though people were living and worshipping in ignorance at the time, GOD still related with a few folks, to whom He personally revealed Himself, to accomplish the deal He had made with Abraham in the promise of the Abrahamic covenant.
Now what many don’t realize is that during this dispensation of promise which began from Gen. 12: 1 to Exod. 12: 42 (lasting 430 years). It was a period in which Satan was known to be operating brutally with “Adamic authority,” which was the highest authority in the created world, that Adam in the fall (Gen. 3: 6: 7) had willingly transferred to him, and he was using this “Adamic power and authority” up to the time of the birth of Christ. Satan himself attests to this fact in the temptation of Jesus Christ in the wilderness,
Luke 4: 5, 6 “Then the devil led him up to a high place and showed him in a flash all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, “To you I will grant this whole realm – and the glory that goes along with it, for it has been relinquished to me, and I can give it to anyone I wish.” (NET)
Adam, in the Garden of Eden, relinquished his authority to Satan, when he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
It is this Adamic authority that Satan had used to accuse Job in the presence of GOD, as I earlier mentioned. So all through the Old Testament, we could see Satan using this “Adamic authority” all along, to accuse GOD’S people before GOD.
Another recorded instance where we read of him using this authority, is in the case of Joshua the high priest, in the days of the prophet Zechariah (Zech. 3: 1 – 5). In his vision, Zechariah had seen Joshua the high priest standing before the Angel of the Lord, but Satan was also standing at his right hand just waiting to accuse Joshua. But the LORD rebukes him.
The first two verses of that passage reads.
Zech. 3: 1 – 2 Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at the right side to accuse him. The LORD said to Satan, “the LORD rebuke you, Satan! The LORD, who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?” (NIV)
So you see all through the various dispensations of the Old Testament period, Satan had and was freely using the power and right he received from Adam, to accuse anyone before GOD.
But today, there’s a big difference, I must say, between the way people lived back then, and the way we live in this time and age of Grace, also known as the post-redemption era.
In this dispensation of Grace, through His redemptive work, as the Holy Spirit tells us through Paul (Col. 2: 15, TPT), Jesus Christ undid all the errors that the first Adam made. Spiritually speaking, Adam's error which transferred his authority over to Satan at the beginning of the fall has been corrected, and the power and authority retrieved and restored to man through Christ. Therefore, Satan has been forever disarmed of that “Adamic authority” that he once had, which he was using to accuse GOD’S people. Not only that, Christ, through the New Birth has bequeathed to us in the New Creation, a higher authority than the first Adam had. The power and authority that we have now in Christ is higher than the power and authority that the first Adam had.
Based on the redemption that Christ provided for mankind, Satan can no longer approach GOD’S presence to accuse anybody, not even the unbeliever, not to mention the Believer in Christ. We are truly free of Satan’s false accusations. We are unaccusable. Satan no longer has any grounds or valid reason to hold us guilty or blame us for wrongdoing. We’re totally free indeed!
In the presence of our Father, we are faultless! We are not subject to accusations. This is where religion has failed woefully because it attempts not just to bring back, but forcefully tries to impose accusations on people who simply can’t be accused of any offence.
Today, all that Satan has is merely his baggage of lies and deception that he uses to deceive and defraud those who ignorantly succumb to his lying trickery, in whatever area of their lives in which they’re Scripturally uninformed. This is the inroad Satan looks for in people.
This is why religion is one of his tools of lying to trick the gullible.
This explains why Paul tells us to not be ignorant of this lying or manipulative use of religion, which the adversary employs in order to deceive and to continually ambush naïve Believers into accepting a false of unrighteousness, which impacts negatively on their walk of faith. Paul describes this as Satan’s maneuvers. He says, “…for…I know his manoeuvres.” (2 Cor. 2: 11, Moffat). It is through these religious maneuvers that Satan gaslights a lot of Believers.
Finally, let's continually walk in the awareness of this truth; that Satan has become totally powerless and handicapped that he can take advantage only when he sees you’re buying into, or bowing to his lies. He’s using nothing other than the same power of ignorance that you release, which he taps into whenever you express a lack of spiritual or physical knowledge in any area of life. He taps this power from you. A complete impostor and fraudster, that’s what is left of him. That’s why religionists are very dangerous people to hang around with because, through their religious mentality or teaching, they help Satan accomplish his despicable deception in the lives of many.
Therefore Paul says;
Eph 4:27 Don’t give the slanderous accuser, the Devil, an opportunity to manipulate you! (TPT)
Don’t listen to, or give in to anyone who is trying to use fear or make you feel guilty or condemned, as a way to attempt to gain your attention, to have advantage of you.
In the presence of GOD, you’re beyond accusations!
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Wow!!! this is so powerful.. Halleluyah, Praise be to God!!!!