How Did the Cross Disarm the Devil?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Good Monday morning, everyone.
00:00:05.800 | A big week ahead on the podcast.
00:00:08.160 | Next time on Wednesday, we're gonna look at
00:00:10.080 | what we as Christians do with our disordered desires.
00:00:12.840 | We still have those disordered loves within us.
00:00:15.400 | So what do we do with them?
00:00:17.240 | That's on Wednesday.
00:00:18.080 | Friday, we look at whether or not we can become more holy
00:00:20.300 | if we treat our bodies more harshly,
00:00:22.540 | which is a key discussion on asceticism, really important.
00:00:25.720 | But first up, the week starts
00:00:27.240 | as we look at the power of our adversary,
00:00:29.640 | the devil.
00:00:30.480 | The Bible tells us that Satan has been disarmed.
00:00:34.320 | So what did he get disarmed of?
00:00:36.840 | What powers did he have that he no longer possesses?
00:00:39.940 | That's the question from a podcast listener named Dan
00:00:43.480 | in Altoona, Iowa.
00:00:44.800 | Pastor John, hello.
00:00:45.800 | Colossians 2.15 tells us our savior, Jesus Christ,
00:00:49.360 | disarmed the rulers and authorities
00:00:51.360 | and put them to open shame by triumphing over them.
00:00:54.880 | It's a great text.
00:00:56.440 | But what is here meant by disarmed?
00:00:59.440 | Was there something they were wielding then
00:01:01.320 | that they do not wield now?
00:01:03.360 | And if so, what is the weapon Paul speaks of
00:01:05.920 | here in this text?
00:01:07.520 | - I love this question because I love the glorious truth
00:01:10.720 | not only of Colossians 2.15,
00:01:15.680 | but the way verses 13 and 14 prepare for it
00:01:20.680 | and put a massive foundation under it.
00:01:26.000 | So let's read the whole unit
00:01:28.800 | and then I'll give a couple answers to the question,
00:01:33.120 | in what sense did the death of Christ strip Satan
00:01:36.600 | and his demons of their weapons?
00:01:38.520 | Here's the verses.
00:01:40.220 | And you who were dead in your trespasses
00:01:45.040 | and the uncircumcision of your flesh,
00:01:48.200 | God made alive together with him, with Christ.
00:01:53.200 | Having forgiven us all our trespasses, how?
00:01:58.320 | By canceling the record of debt
00:02:01.520 | that stood against us with its legal demands,
00:02:03.800 | this he set aside, how?
00:02:08.080 | Nailing it to the cross.
00:02:10.160 | And here comes the key verse we're being asked about.
00:02:15.160 | He disarmed, this is verse 15,
00:02:17.520 | he disarmed the rulers and authorities
00:02:20.840 | and put them to an open shame
00:02:23.240 | by triumphing over them in him, in Christ and in the cross.
00:02:28.760 | This is one of the greatest passages I think in the Bible
00:02:32.480 | about what really happened when Christ died.
00:02:37.160 | So let me describe seven terrible and wonderful things
00:02:42.160 | in the order in which they happened in this text
00:02:45.840 | and end by describing the glorious disarming
00:02:50.880 | of rulers and authorities.
00:02:52.400 | First, we were dead in trespasses and sins.
00:02:56.080 | All human beings are spiritually dead and blind
00:03:00.360 | to the reality of the glory of Christ.
00:03:03.240 | We are as dead to spiritual truth
00:03:07.320 | as a human corpse is dead to being touched.
00:03:11.920 | Paul describes the legal nature of this condition
00:03:15.600 | in verse 14 with the phrase,
00:03:17.640 | a record of debt stood against us with its legal demands.
00:03:22.240 | In other words, we're not only spiritually impervious
00:03:26.240 | to God's touch, but we are legally condemned
00:03:30.880 | by the long record of sins that stood against us.
00:03:35.300 | Second, God took that long list, that record of sins,
00:03:40.300 | and put it in the hand of Christ
00:03:44.320 | and drove a spike through it and through his hand
00:03:48.780 | so that he became a substitute for us
00:03:53.780 | bearing the punishment for the record of our debts
00:03:59.200 | in his own death.
00:04:00.340 | He nailed it.
00:04:01.920 | The text says he nailed it to the cross.
00:04:05.020 | Third, then verse 14 makes explicit
00:04:10.020 | that this nailing of the record of our debt to the cross
00:04:15.040 | canceled, it canceled the record of our debt.
00:04:19.340 | It is canceled.
00:04:20.420 | The debt is canceled because the debt of punishment
00:04:24.500 | that we owe to the justice of God has been paid
00:04:28.980 | in the punishment of Christ on the cross.
00:04:33.460 | Fourth, then Paul adds,
00:04:36.540 | he set the record of our sins aside.
00:04:41.060 | Literally, it says he took it out of the midst.
00:04:44.920 | Very unusual thing to say.
00:04:47.960 | In other words, in the courtroom of heaven
00:04:51.400 | where our record of debt guarantees our condemnation,
00:04:56.400 | nobody can find it.
00:04:59.100 | It's taken.
00:05:01.520 | Where did it go?
00:05:03.080 | This was in a folder here just a minute ago.
00:05:06.560 | It's taken out of the midst.
00:05:08.440 | It is gone as far as the east is from the west.
00:05:12.120 | So far does he remove our transgressions from us.
00:05:16.660 | Fifth, then he makes explicit that the effect
00:05:21.280 | of our sins being nailed and the record of debt
00:05:26.240 | being taken out of the way, the effect is we're forgiven.
00:05:30.800 | He applies to us personally
00:05:33.620 | what Christ accomplished perfectly.
00:05:37.340 | When we are united to Christ by faith,
00:05:40.420 | his punishment becomes ours
00:05:43.400 | and his righteousness becomes ours
00:05:45.420 | and God counts our sins against us no more.
00:05:50.420 | Sixth, Paul says in verse 13,
00:05:53.740 | "Therefore God made us alive with him."
00:05:57.520 | Because our sins are forgiven, he makes us eternally alive.
00:06:02.520 | Now we're no longer a corpse anymore
00:06:06.780 | that can't be touched by spiritual reality.
00:06:11.360 | We see Christ for who he is and we are moved
00:06:15.400 | to prefer him and prize him and treasure him
00:06:18.320 | and love him and trust him above all things.
00:06:22.160 | And now on the basis of those six terrible
00:06:27.040 | and glorious realities, we see in verse 15
00:06:32.040 | that something amazing happened to the rulers
00:06:36.400 | and authorities to Satan and his cosmic forces
00:06:41.000 | in the heavenly places.
00:06:42.700 | As it says in Ephesians 6,
00:06:45.280 | "He disarmed," this is verse 15,
00:06:47.800 | "He disarmed the rulers and authorities
00:06:51.360 | and put them to an open shame, triumphing over them in him."
00:06:55.640 | The word translated disarmed means literally stripped.
00:07:00.640 | It's used one other place, namely in chapter three,
00:07:04.120 | verse nine, where the Christians are to strip off
00:07:07.280 | their old nature.
00:07:09.080 | So what we see first in verse 15 is that just when people
00:07:13.920 | thought Jesus was being stripped of his clothing
00:07:17.440 | and shamed in nakedness at his final trial
00:07:21.000 | and led in triumphal procession to Calvary,
00:07:24.560 | what was really happening was the reverse,
00:07:28.320 | namely Satan and his demonic forces were being stripped,
00:07:32.860 | they were being shamed,
00:07:34.280 | they were being led in triumphal procession.
00:07:37.920 | And I see three ways, or I'm only gonna mention two,
00:07:42.460 | there are more, two ways that the achievement
00:07:45.640 | of the death of Jesus in verses 13 and 14
00:07:49.720 | bring about this stripping or this disarming
00:07:52.900 | of Satan and his rulers.
00:07:54.520 | First, we know from Revelation 12, 10,
00:07:59.020 | that Satan, by the very meaning of his name,
00:08:01.720 | is the great accuser.
00:08:04.000 | Satan can do a lot of damage to us,
00:08:07.340 | physically, emotionally, relationally, in this world,
00:08:11.380 | but he can only condemn us or damn us
00:08:16.180 | or bring us to eternal ruin in one way,
00:08:21.040 | namely by a valid accusation of our sins before a holy God.
00:08:26.040 | If he can do that, we're done for.
00:08:30.020 | If he can make our sins stick in the courtroom of heaven
00:08:34.020 | as he accuses us before the judge of the universe,
00:08:37.500 | we're doomed, we're hopeless.
00:08:39.540 | And the point of verses 13 and 14
00:08:42.620 | is that the record of death that Satan could use
00:08:45.660 | to accuse us and condemn us has been nailed to the cross.
00:08:50.360 | The one damning weapon that he has,
00:08:54.180 | namely unforgiven sin, with which he could accuse us,
00:08:57.900 | has been stripped out of his hands.
00:09:00.820 | This is what Paul meant, I think,
00:09:02.020 | when he said in Romans 8, 33,
00:09:05.380 | who shall bring any charge against God's elect?
00:09:09.180 | It is God who justifies who is to condemn.
00:09:11.820 | Christ Jesus is the one who died.
00:09:16.560 | So the first way that the demonic world
00:09:20.080 | was stripped and disarmed by the cross
00:09:24.540 | is that the power to accuse God's people successfully
00:09:29.540 | has been taken away.
00:09:33.540 | That sin is already punished.
00:09:37.140 | It was nailed to the cross.
00:09:39.040 | We can't be accused with it.
00:09:41.380 | And the second thing, the only other thing I'll mention,
00:09:45.380 | is a glorious thing experientially now,
00:09:49.580 | namely Satan was robbed.
00:09:52.440 | The powers and the rulers, the authorities were robbed
00:09:56.460 | of a script of their power to hold us in slavery
00:10:01.460 | to the fear of death.
00:10:05.340 | Now I get that straight out of Hebrews 2, 14,
00:10:08.300 | which is an absolutely amazing, wonderful verse.
00:10:11.880 | Since therefore the children, that's us,
00:10:15.040 | share in flesh and blood, that is, we're human,
00:10:18.020 | he himself, that's Christ,
00:10:20.660 | likewise partook of the same nature, he became human,
00:10:23.980 | that through death, so he became human so he could die,
00:10:27.660 | that through death, that's what happened in Colossians 2, 14,
00:10:31.900 | he might nullify the one who has the power of death,
00:10:36.900 | that is the devil.
00:10:40.720 | Nullify, abrogate, revoke, abolish.
00:10:43.820 | When Christ died in our place,
00:10:46.380 | he took the sting out of death
00:10:49.200 | because he took sin out of death.
00:10:52.700 | He took condemnation out of death,
00:10:55.500 | and so he took fear out of death,
00:10:59.160 | which means that the second great weapon of the devil
00:11:04.160 | that was stripped from him is the power to hold us
00:11:09.680 | in bondage, which is what the next verse in Hebrew says,
00:11:13.380 | he held us in bondage through the fear of death
00:11:17.260 | our whole life long, and he can't do that anymore.
00:11:22.260 | He has been disarmed of the weapon of fear of dying
00:11:27.520 | because the sting of death is sin,
00:11:32.980 | and the power of sin is the law,
00:11:35.120 | and all of it has been satisfied and punished on the cross.
00:11:40.120 | So you can see why I love Colossians 2, 13 to 15.
00:11:44.520 | The riches of these verses are infinite,
00:11:48.140 | and I encourage you to spend hours pondering the glories
00:11:53.140 | of what God achieved for us on the cross,
00:11:56.540 | especially as it relates to the devil
00:11:59.580 | and the evil rulers and authorities,
00:12:02.420 | and I've only mentioned two.
00:12:04.860 | There are other ways that Satan has been stripped,
00:12:09.280 | but these two are wonderful.
00:12:11.540 | The power to condemn us with sin, stripped.
00:12:15.160 | Power to terrify us with death, stripped.
00:12:18.980 | - Amen, Colossians 1 and 2 are stunning chapters.
00:12:21.540 | Thank you, Pastor John,
00:12:22.380 | for walking us through this text in Colossians 2, 15,
00:12:25.460 | and Dan in Altoona, Iowa, great question.
00:12:28.260 | Thanks for sending the question in
00:12:30.000 | and taking the time to write it out for us.
00:12:31.500 | If you have a great Bible question for Pastor John,
00:12:33.460 | send it to us at our online home
00:12:34.900 | at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:12:40.140 | Well, next up, we talk about divided hearts.
00:12:42.060 | What do we do with these divided hearts of ours,
00:12:44.180 | these hearts still struggling with inordinate desires,
00:12:47.340 | inordinate loves?
00:12:49.300 | That's up next time.
00:12:50.340 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:12:51.500 | We'll see you back here on Wednesday for that.
00:12:53.740 | See you then.
00:12:54.560 | (upbeat music)
00:12:57.140 | (upbeat music)
00:12:59.720 | [BLANK_AUDIO]