Part 3 – Lucifer’s Conflict Extended To Man

This Article is part of a multi-part Study Series called The Rapture of "the Church, Which is His Body," Dispensationally Considered.
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With the fall of Adam we see that ‘the conflict of the ages,’ which was initiated with Lucifer’s rebellion and fall, became extended to include mankind when Adam was usurped by the Serpent. Soon after Genesis 3, in Gen 4:19-22 (see Part 2), we saw how fallen mankind came to develop a ‘fallen world system’ to provide for himself… since man was now living independent of Godas ‘the god of his own life.’ With the account below we see the seeds of today’s godless world system, one that is independent of relationship with God.

  • In Genesis 4:19 we see how Tubalcain made weapons of brass and iron, whereas before the fall of Adam God originally was man’s protector in the garden,
  • Genesis 4:20 does not say Jubal had a farm raising all kinds of foods; no, he was a focused specialist in “herds, no doubt for commercial trade. God originally had been man’s provider; now man developed a system of commerce. Some had herds,” while others no doubt produced others foods, commercially.
  • Whereas God had been man’s enjoyment, now Jabal (Genesis 4:21) made harps and organs for musical entertainment.

The usurpation of mankind by Lucifer explains the awful human condition in the world while man continues to live independent from God and according to the “sin (nature) in the flesh” (Rom 8:3). We see evil being perpetrated daily due to the evil self-serving fallen nature in mankind, making them candidates for the coming “wrath” of God (Eph 2:3) after the age of grace ends with the Rapture. The world system is the best that Satan could craft to replace God as man’s source and provider. I personally appreciate the benefits of capitalist free-market system and what it has provided for mankind, yet I recognize that it really is simply ‘the best that Satan could devise’ to ensnare man. The world system based upon greed and self-interest, the very characteristics that are the mark of the Satan, and the diametric opposite of the divine nature of God.

The world; yes we live in it, we eat its food, we work in it, and we raise our families under it. So, as believers, we are in the world but not of the world. This because we’ve had a change of race, from the Adamic race to that of God’s “seed which is (Christ” (Gal 3:16). As “new creatures  in Christ,” our actual work and warfare is not to overthrow this world system, but rather we are “ambassadors for Christ” (2Cor 5:18-20)… “that some might be saved” (2Thes 2:10). Jesus lived under Rome, not trying to overthrow it directly. Our purpose is the preaching of “the gospel of the grace of God” (Act 20:24) to a lost and dying world.

In fact, our heavenly Father uses the world’s negative force for our eternal good, to shape us and renew our souls to trust Him in the face of “all things,” (Rom 8:28). We as believers will learn as Paul did that we have been “crucified unto the world” and “the world is crucified unto me (us).” (cf. Gal 6:14)

 “No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.” (2 Timothy 2:4)

Our outlook ought to be unto our new, sinless, spirit-body and our eternal home “in heaven” with the Lord.

“But Our Citizenship Is In Heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” (Philippians 3:20-21 (NIV)

By the fall of Adam the Devil added his ‘fallen mindset’ of the flesh into man, which is “at enmity with God” (Rom 8:7). The fallen mind devised the prevalent idea of humanism, which is the root of all godless thought that permeates the fallen mind of man. ‘Humanism’ is a system of thought that attaches prime importance to man’s self-abilities… rather than the divine source for real peace in Christ.” Humanism does not acknowledge that the total depravity of man that is rooted at his core… the fallen Sin-nature. The humanist ignorantly stresses the ‘goodness’ of mankind. They do recognize common human needs and then seek to devise human ways of solving human problems… apart from acknowledging and relying upon God (Rom 1:21). Paul writes of this nature that had previously governed him and the Ephesians to whom he was writing.

Ephesians 2:3 (AMP) Among these we as well as you once lived and conducted ourselves in the passions of our flesh [our behavior governed by our corrupt and sensual nature], obeying the impulses of the flesh and the thoughts of the mind [our cravings dictated by our senses and our dark imaginings]. We were then by nature children of [God's] wrath and heirs of [His] indignation, like the rest of mankind.

Every believer also had this same corrupt mindset of independence from God before they were saved… and they initially carry it into their Christian life. When we’re saved, most naively say; ‘Thank you God for saving me… now I know what to do… I’ll be good’; so we proceed to try and live the Christian life by our own wits and abilities and according to some old religious ideas we may have picked up along the way. Of course this is always a failure because we are not equipped, of ourselves, to live the Christian life. Most of us ignorantly cling to this fallen mindset for some number of years before we really, really, realize who “the Lord” is as the only Christian and the only One who is able to live the Christian life… through us. He is over all that occurs in our lives, working everything for our eternal good. He uses ALL life’s happenings to grow us in faith. We as believers can come to know and enjoy the security of His loving care… but only as we know and trust the truth of our new identity “in Him”… trusting Him in us as we endure life’s trials.

We must come to recognize the poisoned fruit of Adam’s rebellion; that it brought sin, death and conflict upon ALL Adam’s human lineal descendants, including us, and the creation itself. Sin has affected the “whole creation” (Rom 8:22) whereby now even animals that weren’t meant to devour each other, do devour each other, much as humans do by war and other inhuman acts. Note that in Christ’s coming Millennial Kingdom on earth, the lamb will dwell safely with the lion, etc.

Rom 5:12 By One Man (Adam) Sin Entered Into The World (Gk., kosmos, the arrangement between God and man), and DEATH BY SIN; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned”

When Adam and Eve believed Satan and took of the Sin-infected “fruit” of “The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” they actually took into themselves the lying words of the Evil One. The ‘Sin-spirit’ in man is the Serpentine nature that now dwells in the mortal flesh bodies of all men born into this world.

“But I discern IN My Bodily Members [in the sensitive appetites and wills of the flesh] a different law (rule of action) at war against the law of my mind (my reason) and making me a prisoner to the law of Sin That Dwells IN My Bodily Organs [in the sensitive appetites and wills of the flesh].” (Romans 7:23 (AMP)

All men are “conceived in iniquity (sin)” (Psa 51:5) and dead toward God, but Paul writes of believers who trust Christ: you hath he quickened (made alive), who were dead (toward God) in trespasses and sins;” (Eph 2:1). By eating of “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” Adam and Eve ‘thought’ they had made themselves to be “as gods,” seemingly ‘independent’ of God; but unknowingly, they became slaves of Sin. Unknown to men born since that day, all men are born ‘subject to’ and slaves of the god of this world” (2Cor 4:4).

“Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants (Gk. doulos, slaves) ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” (Romans 6:16)

Thus all mankind born of Adam became usurped by Satan. Paul wrote to the believers at Ephesus describing their former fallen nature as; the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by NATURE the children of wrath…” (Eph 2:3; cf. Rom 3:10, 23). This is the Sin-nature that is passed on as an infection of sorts in the Adamic flesh of all men, whose usurping ‘father of sorts’ is Satan as The Prince (highest) of the Power (authority) of the Air, the spirit that now worketh IN the children of disobedience:”

Adam, did in fact gain the “knowledge’ of good and evil” and it activated their ‘conscience.’ Paul here says he, of himself, could not live up to his conscience that bears that righteous knowledge.”  

However, it is no longer I who do the deed, but the sin [principle] which is at home in me and has possession of me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot perform it. [I have the intention and urge to do what is right, but no power to carry it out.] 19 For I fail to practice the good deeds I desire to do, but the evil deeds that I do not desire to do are what I am [ever] doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not desire to do, it is no longer I doing it [it is not myself that acts], but the Sin Which Dwells Within Me.” (Romans 7:17-20 AMP)

“But I discern IN My Bodily Members [in the sensitive appetites and wills of the flesh] a different law (rule of action) at war against the law of my mind (my reason) and making me a prisoner to the law of Sin That Dwells IN My Bodily Organs [in the sensitive appetites and wills of the flesh].” (Romans 7:23 (AMP)

We’ve all been slaves’ to the “Sin-nature in his flesh” (Rom 8:3b), with its darkness, sickness, and death… until Christ liberated us by our co-death with him and our resurrection to new life with Him (Rom 6:3-4). Fallen mankind “in Adam” is unknowingly under the tyrannical rule and dominion of Satan who reigns as their slave-master by his Serpentine Sin-nature within their ‘flesh.’ With the ‘knowledge’ man gained by eating of the tree, fallen mankind ‘knows what is right’ but the Sin-nature contradicts that knowledge… most often overpowering man and prompting acts of sin. In Romans 7:24 Paul describes the frustration of knowing what is right but not being able to live in accord with this knowledge.

“O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”(Romans 7:24).

“For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.” (Romans 7:15)

Any person who truly wants to live righteously by their self-effort under ‘a law of performance’ ultimately will become frustrated with themselves and hopefully then will simply trust Christ as their righteousness.

“For he (the Father) hath made him (Jesus) to be sin for us, who knew no sin; (so) that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Thank God that the fact is that every believer can enjoy their liberation from Sin’s tyranny.

“For the law of (the regulating operation of) the SPIRIT OF LIFE IN CHRIST JESUS HATH (HAS ALREADY) MADE ME FREE from the law of (the regulating operation of) SIN AND DEATH. (Romans 8:2).

It is only the power of Christ’s Shed Blood, Death, and Resurrection Life as “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Rom 8:2a)” in the believer that can set men free from the operation of “Sin and death” in their flesh…empowering them also to live the real Christian life as they continue to ‘trust Him.’

As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord (by grace through faith), so (likewise) walk ye in him (by grace through faith):” (Colossians 2:6)

Whether we “walk” in the liberty Christ affords us is a question for discussion at a later time. We do know that “in the fullness of times” God will ultimately recover and reign over both the heaven and the earth. Christ will rule heaven through the agency of “the body of Christ,” and then also rule on earth through the agency of the regenerated believers of Israel who will be born of God’s own literal Spirit-loins, that is by His “Seed (Greek, sperma) which is Christ” (Gal 3:16, 1Pet 1:23) dwelling in their human spirits.

Currently God’s eternally planned Kingdom on earth’ and ‘in heaven’ is delayed. But how long? Answer: until His eternal plan and purpose is completely fulfilled in “the dispensation of the fullness of times.” Christ will then establish His eternal kingdom authority in ALL the heavens and on earth, through the saved and redeemed of mankind in union with Christ.

That In The Dispensation of THE FULNESS OF TIMES he (God) might gather together in one ALL THINGS IN CHRIST, BOTH which are IN HEAVEN, and which are ON EARTH; even in him (Christ)” (Eph 1:10)

You might now be asking; what does the ‘Conflict of the Ages’ I’ve discussed have to do with the Rapture, which after all is the focus of this study series? As you will see in the course of this study, the Rapture of “the body of Christ” to heaven not only is the “blessed hope,” meaning the “confident expectation” of believers, but it also marks a very significant pivotal point in the outworking of God’s eternal plan. It is a turning point to execute God’s total undoing of Satan’s usurpation of man on earth and the liberation of the whole creation that currently “groaneth” ; totally ending Satan’s reign over the lower heavens and on earth.

The Rapture of “the body of Christ” to HEAVEN immediately precedes the restart of the outworking of God’s plan for Israel’s restored Kingdom, recovering THE EARTH.’

1) With the Rapture the Lord’s will restore His authority in heaven through the agency of the Raptured “body of Christ.”   

2) Then, about seven years later, the Lord’s authority will be executed on earth through the agency of the believers of the Nation Israel. They will co-reign with Christ (Rev 5:10, 20:6) during the promised Millennial Kingdom, to be followed by the Eternal Kingdom on the New Earth.

So the current continuing ‘conflict of the ages’ will end in “the dispensation of the fullness of times” when God’s eternal plan is entirely fulfilled… recovering “the heaven and the earth.” Then His righteous glory will be manifested throughout the universe… forever.