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After the Flood

In my previous article I related the history of the ancient spiritual war through God’s judgment on the earth by the world-wide flood. By way of summary we covered the original act of sin when Lucifer became Satan, Lucifer’s fall from grace followed by his successful effort to destroy the spirit of man and his almost successful effort to corrupt human DNA.

We discovered that although Satan no longer has a place in the kingdom of God, he still has access to heaven and is seen in God’s presence having a discussion about Job. The next big shift in the spiritual war is about to develop.

The Birth of the Seed of the Woman, our Kinsman Redeemer

Despite Satan’s best efforts, human DNA remained pure through Noah and the seven members of his family. It has been estimated that the earth’s population at the time of the flood was around 9,000,000,000 people, all but 8 drowned; which is certainly a catastrophe of Biblical proportions!

Now the work of correcting the distortion that had been created by Adam’s sin would be begun by the one person who could do it, the Lord Jesus Christ. The eternal Second Person of the Trinity, the one who created the universe and continues to sustain it by His power, would humble Himself so as to become a man, flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone and, as our Kinsman Redeemer, restore mankind to its rightful place as intended by God.

In the perfection of His saving work, He would even elevate us to a much higher plane than Adam ever knew, we were to become children of God and joint heirs with Christ in God’s eternal family. It was this that Satan dreaded and hated and sought to stop by his unsuccessful effort to corrupt human DNA. God’s promise to Adam and Eve of a seed would be perfectly fulfilled in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Most of us are familiar with the story of the birth of Christ and Herod’s attempt to kill him; our Kinsman Redeemer was born in order to die on the cross on our behalf and nothing was going to interfere with His perfectly achieving that goal.

The Victory is Won

It may seem strange to think of a horrible death on a Roman cross as a moment of victory, but that is exactly what it was; at that point the ransom was paid and the earth redeemed from Satan, Christ’s work of redemption was finished. It pleased God to delay the final implementation of this redemption to allow all who would be called to enjoy the blessings of salvation; this delay resulted in our becoming part of God’s family and more are being added every day.

The Next Big Step

Around 50 days were to pass after the resurrection before a new type of human being would be created by the power of God; this process of re-birth would continue until the Church was removed at the Rapture. The Holy Spirit of God came to earth to indwell all who had received Christ as Savior; the fabled temple in Jerusalem had been replaced by frail human bodies as the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. From that point on the world contained two distinctly different classes of people, those who were spiritually alive and indwelt by God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and those who were not and were still spiritually dead.

For an unrevealed number of centuries, God would be creating a new form of life, the born-again Christian who collectively would form the true Church, the body and bride of Christ. It would be impossible to overemphasize the vitally important nature of this change; God Himself would now indwell each individual Christian and never leave that individual either in time or eternity.

Individual human beings would be added to this group by the power of God starting at Pentecost and ending at the Rapture of the Church; before that there was no equivalent creation and after that process is closed, at the Rapture of the Church, that process will be stopped forever.

What Does This Mean?

God has done an enormous thing in creating this new creation, the Christian; those who have been born-again have been blessed beyond measure by being made a dwelling place for God. The Christian can never be separated from his creator because his creator is in him, forever. This should be the dominant thought in the mind of every Christian, we are the temples of God, we are the vessels through which Christ lives His life on earth.

There are several sections of the Bible where this is revealed:

¹⁹ Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; ²⁰ you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

⁹ You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. ¹⁰ But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. ¹¹ And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you. Romans 8:9-11

²⁰ I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20

¹⁵ “If you love Me, keep My commandments. ¹⁶ And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—¹⁷ the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.¹⁸ I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. ¹⁹ “A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. ²⁰ At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.²¹ He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.” John 14:15-21

What an unqualified cause for rejoicing and gladness; this knowledge alone should make every day of your life a joy and be a never-ending source of praise and thanksgiving! We have every reason to rejoice in Christ always and delight ourselves in the blessings He has poured out on us. The words of Philippians 4:4-7 should dominate our thoughts, “⁴ Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! ⁵ Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. ⁶ Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

One More Thing

While the Holy Spirit is now indwelling all those who are born-again, there is another ministry of the Holy Spirit to the world which is described in John 16:7-11 ” ⁷ Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.⁸ And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:⁹ of sin, because they do not believe in Me;¹⁰ of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more;¹¹ of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.”

The Holy Spirit is restraining sin in the world today, as bad as it seems to be it will get worse when the Church is removed at the Rapture; things will become more like they were before the flood when, “⁵ Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Genesis 6:5

In the last of this series we will cover from the Rapture to the end of the spiritual war.