This article is based on Pastor Adrian Rogers' message, A Conquering Church.
Man—as God designed him and created him—was given rule, to control and master the Earth and its resources. Man was to be king of the Earth.
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
Well, look at today’s news. It is obvious that Man does not have dominion. Something has gone wrong.
But thank God, He has done something about it.
This dominion that Man was supposed to have, and was given, was legally lost by Adam. Key words: legally, and Adam.
The entire Universe is run by law. God created these laws and God keeps these laws.
God legally gave Adam dominion. Adam willfully turned over his dominion when he chose to obey Satan and ate of the forbidden fruit. Adam became the servant of Satan. (See Romans 6:16.) Now Adam is spiritually dead and legally dethroned.
The Apostle Paul talks about the mayhem, the disillusionment, the deadness and the darkness that is in the hearts and minds of men—and he says they are those “whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe” (2 Corinthians 4:4a).
Who is the god of this world? Satan. (See Ephesians 6:12.)
This dominion that was legally lost by Adam has been rightfully recovered by Jesus.
The word “rightfully” is very important. Dominion was legally lost. It must be legally regained.
Suppose God had just stepped in, and said, “Out of here, Satan! I’m going back to the beginning.” Law would have become a farce if God had failed to keep His own law.
God owes the devil nothing at all, but God owes something to His own righteousness, to His own principle of justice. So, what was God going to do?
Dominion was lost by a man. It must be legally recovered by a man.
There is no member of Adam’s race that can be found who could undo what Adam did—because all of us are the sons of Adam. “In Adam all die” (1 Corinthians 15:22a). The sons of slaves are slaves themselves.
Yet dominion must be redeemed by a human being. God’s answer is found in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who stepped out of Heaven and became a Man.
We are flesh and blood. “He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14b).
At Calvary, the full penalty of sin was paid. God did it all legally.
For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.
Jesus, the Son of God, was different from every other man that Satan had ever dealt with, except for Adam. This difference was that Jesus was sinless. So was Adam—at first.
Jesus, born of a virgin, inherited none of Adam’s sin. Jesus is not the son of Adam; He is the Son of God. He was not born a slave.
Jesus could have defeated Satan as very God of very God, but He defeated Satan as very Man of very Man.
Satan knew he must defeat this second Adam as he defeated the first Adam. We see the battle ensue in Luke 4.
Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, began His public ministry by fasting in the wilderness for forty days and nights.
At that time Satan came to Him, thinking, “He is weakened. I can overcome Him.”
The devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.”
But Jesus answered him, saying, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’”
Satan staggers back up again with two more temptations, and Jesus runs him through again with the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. (Read Luke 4:5-12.)
Jesus used the same weapons that the first Adam had: the Word of God and the Spirit of God. What Adam lost in the Garden, Jesus overcame in a wilderness.
Later, Jesus, knowing that He was facing the cross, went to pray in agony. His sweat became blood and mingled with the black dirt.
He was God. Be He was Man, also. In His humanity, He was saying, “O God, I don’t want to do this.” But—“Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will” (Matthew 26:39b).
Your destiny hangs on that word, nevertheless. Satan was defeated again.
Jesus could have stepped out of the whole thing and said, “That’s enough.” They said of Him when He was on the cross, “He saved others; Himself He cannot save” (Mark 15:31b). Wrong! Himself He would not save!
Jesus Christ went to bloody Calvary. He bowed His head and said, “It is finished!” That means it is paid in full. What was legally lost was legally regained.
But it is not over yet.
Christ sits at the right hand of God, and dominion is now gloriously given to His Church. This is why Paul prayed “…that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints” (Ephesians 1:18b).
Jesus is now…
…far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
The Church is Christ’s body. We are one with the Lord Jesus. He says to us as He sends us out for the purpose of evangelism, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore” (Matthew 28:18b-19a).
Does Jesus have authority over Satan? Yes. Then so do you. Does Jesus have constant victory? Yes. So do you. Satan hopes you never learn this lesson: that Christ has given you authority over all the power of the enemy.
The dominion that Adam lost was won back by Christ and given to the Church! The Lamb has prevailed. His conquest is complete. He conquered on the tree and in the tomb, and now He sits upon the throne.
You think, “Why then is my life so miserable, so defeated?” Because you fail to understand and practice this. The only power Satan has over you is what you yield to him by unbelief.
The Bible says that God has “raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6). We are already in the kingdom of God. All things are under Christ’s feet; therefore, they are under our feet.
Christ’s victory fulfills God’s Old Testament promise to Man in the New Testament. This is the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Jesus is God—from eternity past to eternity future where His bride, the Church, will enjoy eternal life in perfect unity with Him.
Ephesians 1:18-23, 2:6, 6:12; Genesis 1:26 ; Romans 6:16; 2 Corinthians 4:4; 1 Corinthians 15:21-22; Hebrews 2:14; Luke 4:3-12; Matthew 15:31, 26:39, 28:18-19
As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The LORD lives! Blessed be my Rock! Let the God of my salvation be exalted. It is God who avenges me, and subdues the peoples under me; He delivers me from my enemies. You also lift me up above those who rise against me; You have delivered me from the violent man.
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
