Satan's Rights Destroyed

Col 1:13  Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: 

"Who delivered". What a tremendous amount there is in that word, what a history!

We shall see that eighty years of the life of Moses were taken up by God with the formation of one who could deliver; deliverance is such a tremendous thing. 

"Who delivered us out of the authority" - the word 'power' is in our version, but it is that word which means authority or right, and here it has a double meaning. It refers to the person. 

You notice that it is translated in the plural in Eph. 6:12 - "Our wrestling is... against the principalities, against the powers..." - the same word, 'authorities'. These are personal things. 

They are entities in a certain position. The authority of darkness is firstly a person, of whom Pharaoh is but a faint type.

And then the authority is that power which is wielded and exercised by one in a position to exercise it, who has the right to exercise it in his own realm, and whose very strength is in his right;

From whom you cannot be delivered just in the direct way of snatching from his grasp, but you have to undo his right to hold, you have to take from him all ground of jurisdiction, to bring him to judgment and judge him clean out of court, so that he has not any more ground to stand upon, he has no case left.

Hath delivered us from the very case that the devil has against us' - that is a tremendous thing, that he has no more case against us.

He will forever be seeking to have a case against us, to find some ground on which he can bring up a case against us.

Hence he is called "the accuser of the brethren" (Rev. 12:10), but he has had his case spoiled, his ground destroyed, his rights nullified, and in this way we are delivered out of the authority of darkness.

The Cross of the Lord Jesus is that kind of exodus, that escape, that way out, that glorious achievement.

You see, this word 'authority' carries with it the idea of rights, and that great battle in Egypt, headed up to the Passover and consummated at the Red Sea, was all a question of rights.

In the Passover, the rights of Pharaoh were wound up.

If we understand the meaning of the virtue of the blood of the lamb, the dying of that lamb, the identification by faith of every believer with that lamb in death, and the appropriation by faith of the blood of the lamb, then we understand the meaning of Pharaoh's rights being wound up.

From that moment, he had no rights over them, and they began their exodus.

He sought to re-assert his rights and he met the authority of superior rights and his hosts were destroyed in the Red Sea.

He had no ground to stand upon, morally, spiritually and literally; his ground was gone.

All that is gathered into the Cross of the Lord Jesus. The work of the Lord Jesus in His Cross is all gathered into the Passover; and then, as He leads His people out through the offering of Himself, the shedding of His Blood, Satan's rights over them have been destroyed..

And they have a position which means that while Satan will be active afterward, he is only active against himself while they maintain their position in faith;

He is only bringing upon himself his own destruction while we hold to the ground that the Blood of the Lord Jesus has provided.

That mighty Passover can turn back upon Satan for his own undoing.

~T. Austin Sparks~