The Seed War - The Cross Heaven's Power Play
- stephenrainey71
- 2 days ago
- 9 min read
In the last message we talked about the Seed War that involved two gardens, the Garden of Eden and the Garden of Gethsemane.
Gethsemane literally means "oil press" and we showed how Jesus was crushed and pressed beyond measure as He prayed in the Garden knowing the separation and burden of sin He would carry on the old rugged cross.
The prophecied Seed War of Genesis 3v15 was about to enter it's decisive and pivotal battle at the cross.
The title of this message may seem unusual but the definition of a "power play" is exactly what happened at the cross albeit at a great price.
A power play is a strategic advantage where one side gains superiority over another.
Calvary - the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ was the ultimate "power play". Jesus would bruise Satan's head at the cross with a blow from which he cannot nor will not recover in spite of his best efforts over the next two millenia. Yes he will have one final attack in the Seed War - the period when his evil prodigy will reign over planet earth for 3.5 years but even that is due to God's permissive will and will end in total defeat - but his fate was sealed at Calvary!
Bruising Battle but Ultimate Victory
In order to win this victory the Lamb of God would bear the sin of the world as spoken by John the Baptist in John 1v29.
In order to bruise Satan's head Jesus had to experience the suffering of the cross and most of all the separation from the Father, this was the bruising of His heel.
In Luke 2v34 when Jesus was brought to the temple as a baby, Simeon by the Holy Ghost, foretold the pain and heartache that Mary would suffer in the words "a sword shall pierce than own soul also".
The Creator and Christ was destined to be the Crucified Lamb who would die for the sins of the world.
Redemption's Price - The Blood of the Lamb
To reconcile us He had to redeem us.
This redemption came at an awful price, it wasn't a cheap thing, it wasn't possible to pay the ransom price with gold or silver, no something far more precious and priceless was required to pay the penalty for mine and your sin, His precious blood had to be shed - not spilled as many modern songs put it, which gives the sense that it was an accident.
Blood must be shed in order for sin to be remitted.
Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. Hebrews 9v22
At the Last Supper Jesus said, "This is my blood of the new testament (covenant) which is shed for many for the remission of sins" Matthew 26v28
The Greek word translated remission is "aphesis" and means a dismissal, release from debt, i.e. Complete and total forgiveness.
Remission of sin is the theological, often judicial, act of forgiving, cancelling, or sending away the guilt and penalty of wrongdoing, based on Christ's sacrifice. It indicates a complete release from the debt of sin, rather than just a temporary reprieve, offering newness of life.
Isn't that wonderful, Christ's sacrifice and redemptive work is not temporary in it's effect but it produced a complete release from the debt of sin.
He paid the price in full, once and for all for all who will repent and believe by putting their complete trust in His atoning death and finished work at Calvary.
The Apostle Peter under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost captures the significance and magnificence of the redemption price when he says in 1 Peter 1
18Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers,
19but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
20He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you
21who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
The Greek word for redeemed is λυτρόω (lutroó) - Strong's g3084 and means:
To release on receipt of ransom; mid: to redeem, release by paying ransom, liberate.
The ransom price was the most precious substance in the whole universe - the blood of the sinless, spotless Lamb of God.
Redemption's Power - the Blood of the Lamb
Approximately 1400 to 1500 years earlier, it was the blood of a male lamb, without blemish that was a year old, that delivered the children of Israel from the death angel in Egypt.
They were instructed to kill the lamb and take the shed blood and to strike it on the 2 side posts and on the lentil or upper door post of the house.
That night in the last of the 10 plagues the death angel passed through Egypt to smite all the firstborn of both man and beast but this was the promise and security of applying the blood
Exodus 12
13‘Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.
This was a type or foreshadowing of Jesus being our substitutionary sacrifice and the redeeming power that is in His blood to deliver us from the plague and power of death and eternal separation from God.
Praise God there is power, power, wonder working power in the blood of the Lamb, and the blood shall never lose it's power, nothing in heaven, earth or under the earth can diminish, withstand or overcome it's power.
Redemption's Passion - The Blood of the Lamb
The Word of God tells us in Romans 5
Christ in Our Place
6¶For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
7For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die
8But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
That's how much He loves us and longs for us to be reconciled to Him.
He couldn't do more to demonstrate His love for us. He died for us to pay the penalty for our sin and to redeem us to Himself.
John 3v16
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes on Him should not perish but have everlasting life"
He didn't have to do it, He could have let us die in our sins and face a life of eternal punishment, banished from His presence, without hope and without God in this world.
So why redeem us?
Why pay such a price to ransom our never dying souls?
Ask yourself that all important question, why did He die in my place?
The answer is simple and at the same time profound and almost incomprehensible.
Because we are SPECIAL to Him, we are His children and He LOVES US WITH AN EVERLASTING LOVE AND PASSION that is beyond understanding or comprehension.
He longs for us to be in right relationship with Him and He made it possible to be so because of the cross.
Redemption's Purpose
On the cross Jesus hung, suspended between heaven and earth, the bridge that alone could connect mankind once again with his Creator.
He hung with outstretched arms embracing a sin cursed, depraved world that had rejected Him.
Those outstretched arms, nail pierced hands and feet and thorn pierced brow cried with a level of clarity and certainty that has never been matched, I love you, come unto me all you who labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.
The Cross equals unmatched, unfettered love
It means redemption and forgiveness of sins
It means reconciliation to God and adoption into His family
It means freedom from fear and guilt and glorious liberty to those who are bound by chains of sin and darkness
The cross turns our minus (the horizontal beam) - our sin, guilt, hopelessness, depravity, shame into a plus (the vertical beam) - so that we can experience freedom from the penalty, power and of sin and right relationship with God, not through any goodness of our own but through Christ's atoning sacrifice.
The hymn writer could say
The price is paid
My soul is free
And by His mighty power
The blood that washed my sin away
Still cleanses every hour
I am redeemed
I am redeemed
I'll sing it ore and ore
I am redeemed
Oh praise the Lord
Redeemed for evermore
Redemption Predetermined - God's Sovereign Plan of Salvation
The prophet Isaiah prophesied of the great price the Messiah would pay to redeem mankind 800 years before the events on the hill called Golgotha when Jesus Christ suffered one of, if not the cruellest form of execution ever devised by mankind, crucifixion at the hands of the Romans.
Isaiah 53 is one of the most detailed prophecies of how the Suffering Servant, Messiah Ben Joseph would die in order to pay the ransom price for you and I.
You see the Jews believed that prophecy taught of two types of Messiah::
Messiah Ben Joseph (Messiah son of Joseph) - the Suffering Servant who like Joseph would suffer pain and injustice.
Messiah Ben David (Messiah son of David) - the Victorious King who would defeat their enemies - the Romans - and liberate them from bondage.
Messiah Ben David is who they expected and longed for and when Jesus came on the scene He did not fit the bill as it were, they didn't want the Suffering Servant spoken of in Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22.
There is a very important verse in Isaiah 53
v10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him;
He has put Him to grief.
When You make His soul an offering for sin,
He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days,
And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.
This verse tells us very clearly that Jesus was made an offering for sin according to the foreknowledge and will of the Father.
It pleased the Lord to bruise Him, He put Him to grief, the Father made His soul an offering for sin.
In His wisdom and omniscience God had a plan of salvation already prepared before the foundation of the world, before Adam's fall and the sentence and bondage of sin and death was passed to all his descendants.
We sing the old hymn
Oh the love that drew salvation's plan
Oh the grace that brought it down to man
Oh the mighty gulf that God did span at Calvary
Peter preaching on the Day of Pentecost said in Acts 2v22-24
Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know:
Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:
Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.
The Greek words used in v23 mean it was the ordained and predetermined plan of God. God the Father decreed it - it was by design and according to the will of God that Jesus was offered as the atoning sacrifice for our sin - that's how much God loves us and how willing Jesus as the Son of God was willing to fulfil the Father's will and plan in spite of the pain, humiliation and suffering.
You and I are loved and favoured more than we can ever comprehend!!
Peter again in 1 Peter 1v20 (we have already covered this verse in the section titled Redemption's Price) refers to the preordained nature of Christ's death, burial and resurrection
Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,
Redemption and the shedding of Christ's precious blood was foreordained before the world was even founded or came into being.
The Greek word for foreordained means to foresee or know beforehand. See also Romans 3v25
There is a very interesting verse in 1 Corinthians 2 where Paul talks about the deep wisdom of God and how this is for those who are mature in the faith
However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.
In the next message we will examine the power that made our redemption possible, the ultimate prize of redemption's plan and the promise to those who have been and will be redeemed.
Comments