You remember that Jesus said, “All things are possible to him that believeth” (Mark 9:23). He walked in the spirit realm and that is our realm today. What a challenge this is to the believer.
The Greek word believeth means a believing one.
There never were any believing ones until the family of God came into being on the day of Pentecost, so everyone that comes into the family is called a believing one.
Jesus, in that declarative statement, has issued a challenge to us, a challenge for us to live in the realm of the spirit, or, in other words, to live in the realm of miracles.
Now, notice a few facts. We have God’s nature, eternal life. This puts us into God’s class of being. We have become by a new creation the very children of God.
When He says that we are heirs and joint heirs with Christ, we know that it is no metaphysical statement, but a statement of fact.
Romans 4:13 tells us that Jesus is “the heir of the world.”
No one knows the limits of the possibilities of the sons and daughters of God. We not only have God’s nature in us, but the great, mighty Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead has made His home in us. And greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world. (See 1 John 4:4.)
That “he that is in the world” is Satan. The He that is in us is God. We have limitless possibilities.
The church has been governed by sense knowledge philosophy. They have a philosophical redemption, a philosophical new birth, and a philosophical relationship with God as Father. Only a few men have come into the realization of the realities of these mighty spiritual forces.
Let it be understood that spiritual forces are greater than physical. A Spirit created material substance, such as the world with all its minerals, metals, and chemicals. This was brought into being by God, and God is a Spirit.
Satan is also a spirit. He is the author of all the confusion, sin, wars, hatreds, jealousies, and every other wicked thing.
God is greater than Satan, and He has imparted to man, in the new birth, His own nature.
Jesus said a phenomenal thing when He gave the Great Commission as recorded in Mark 16:17, “In my name they shall cast out demons” (DBY).
He lays down a law and by this law, the believer is greater than demons because he can cast them out. If he can cast out demons, then he is master of Satan. If he is master of Satan, then he is a master over the works of Satan.
Satan is the author of sickness and the author of wars and all the unhappiness and misery in this old world.
If the Word means anything to us, then we are masters of the circumstances and the forces that are governing the world today.
The church has not recognized it. The church has been dabbling with unbelief. It has been praying for faith, the most absurd thing for which man ever prayed.
You say, “But the disciples said to the Lord in Luke 17:5, ‘Increase our faith.’” Yes, but they were Jews under the first covenant, with unregenerated spirits. You cannot find any such folly as that in the Pauline revelation.
He calls his revelation, the “word of faith” and it is just that. It is the Word that produces faith and gives birth to faith.
Ephesians 1:3 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.”
When you need a thing, you do not have to ask for faith to accept it, do you?
Well, if you knew the Word of God was absolutely safe and reliable and could be acted upon as the word of a bank or any other large corporation, prayer would be a different thing, wouldn’t it?
So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. (Isaiah 55:11)
If you knew that no Word from God was void of power; that it could be utterly depended upon; that no Word from God is void of fulfillment; that He watches over His Word to make it good; that the eternal throne is founded upon His Word; and that Jesus is declared to be the surety of the new covenant, Jesus is the surety of every word from Matthew to Revelation, His throne is behind it, and His integrity is enwrapped in it—if this were real to you, then you would have no faith problem.
The Word of God is a part of God Himself.
Jesus said, “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it” (John 14:13–14).
You know that the word ask here means demand. It is just as though Jesus said, “Whatsoever you demand in My name, I will make good.”
That is not prayer. When Jesus talks about prayer, we have it recorded in John 16:23: “And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.” That is prayer.
You are to go to the Father in that name. Jesus has told us that whatsoever you ask of the Father in that name, the Father will give you.
The other Scripture has reference to demanding that demonic forces be broken over men’s lives, like Paul casting the spirit of divination out of the woman (see Acts 16:18), or Peter saying to the man at the beautiful gate, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk” (Acts 3:6).
Peter and John performed so many miracles in the name of Jesus that the Sanhedrin arrested them and commanded them not to preach or teach in that name. (See Acts 4:1–21.)
That name was the mightiest force in the entire country at that time, and that name has lost none of its power or authority.
Jesus has given us, the believing ones, the power of attorney to use it. In His name, we may cast out demons, heal the sick, and break Satan’s dominion over men’s lives.
We have another mighty weapon called the sword of the Spirit.
The Living Word
That Word on our lips saves lost men, brings courage and victory where defeat has reigned as a king, produces faith in the faithless and hope in the hopeless, and gives courage and mastery to brokenhearted men.
That Word on our lips has creative energy and power.
It is not a problem of faith; it is a problem of our acting, fearlessly and intelligently, on what God has spoken.
Before Jesus went away, He said to the disciples, “Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:49).
Acts 1:8 says, “But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you” (ASV).
The Greek word translated power here means ability.
Now note: “I want you to tarry in Jerusalem until you receive ability from on high.” That will be God’s ability.
You are to have God’s ability in you: God’s ability to speak, to use the name of Jesus; God’s ability to understand the Scriptures; God’s ability to do His will; His ability to face the world with fearless confidence; and His ability to suffer any kind of persecution without yielding a particle.
God took uneducated fishermen and gave them His ability, His wisdom.
They had the knowledge of their earth walk with Jesus. They had knowledge of His actual death and resurrection. They had knowledge of what happened on the day of Pentecost. Now He becomes their wisdom to use that knowledge—and how they used it!
How they shook the very foundations of the Roman government and the Jewish nation!
They had God’s ability; they had God’s life that flowed out of God’s nature that was imparted to them. They had ability to walk in love, to walk in the Word.
What mighty men the ability of God made out of common, uneducated fishermen!
Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:13–14)
The Reality of Redemption
Our redemption was a reality.
God’s Son became incarnate, went on the cross, and went down into hell as our substitute. When He had satisfied the claims of justice against the human race, He was justified because He had wrought the thing for which He was sent. He was made alive in Spirit, actually recreated.
God said, “Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten Thee” (Psalm 2:7).
That was not His birth through Mary. That was His birth out of spiritual death, out of satanic dominion down in the dark regions of the lost.
There, He was justified and made alive in Spirit. There, He put off from Himself the principalities and powers, and He conquered the forces of hell, absolutely defeating them. He left Satan and his cohorts absolutely defeated, stripped them of their authority, and then He arose from the dead.
He said, “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death” (Revelation 1:18).
When He arose from the dead, He was master of Satan and of all hell.
He had redeemed us out of the hand of the enemy.
Now you can understand that we are delivered out of the authority of darkness.
Satan is darkness. Jesus is the light of life.
We were not only redeemed out of darkness, but we were translated by the new birth into the kingdom of the Son of His love.
It is in this Son of His love that we have our perfect redemption. In the mind of the Father, you are as perfectly redeemed from the hand of Satan as Jesus was when He arose from the dead.
In Ephesians 1:7, you catch a glimpse of the utter reality of this redemption: “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.”
This redemption is “according to the riches of his grace.”
The believer is just as really redeemed from the hand of the enemy as Israel was from the authority and dominion of Egypt when they crossed the Red Sea.
Satan has no dominion over our finances unless we permit it. He has no dominion over our physical bodies unless we permit it,
He has no dominion over our spirits to keep us in bondage and give us the sense of inferiority and unworthiness because we have been made new creations in Christ Jesus and have become the righteousness of God in Christ.
When we know the truth, then the truth sets us free. (See John 8:32.)
The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory…hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all. (Ephesians 1:17, 22–23)
“His feet” means the church. For we are His body and He is the head of that body. He put all things in subjection under the church, which is His body. That church is the fullness of Him “that filleth all in all.”
No one knows what the church really means to the heart of the Father. No one knows what it means to Christ. He gave His own life for it! The Father gave His own Son for it!
It was not His purpose that the church should be a bunch of weaklings over whom the devil could reign and dominate.
No, the body has the same authority that Jesus had in His earth walk.
Individuals in the body of Christ have the same ability, as far as dealing with sickness, disease, and the works of the devil, that Jesus had in His earth walk.
Satan’s Dominion Is Broken
It is the new era of freedom for man.
John 8:36 has become a glorious reality: “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”
If the Son shall set you free, you are free in reality. And the Son has set us free!
What are we going to do with our freedom?
We want to be sure of one thing: that we have not received the grace of God in vain, that we are taking advantage of our rights and privileges in Christ.
Do you understand Romans 3:24? “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
Justified means declared righteous, made righteous.
Being therefore made righteous by His grace through this marvelous redemption that is wrought in Christ Jesus—this is a limitless thing.
Now I want you to turn with me to 2 Corinthians:
There is a new creation whenever a man comes to be in Christ; what is old is gone, the new has come. It is all the doing of the God who has reconciled me to himself through Christ and has permitted me to be a minister of his reconciliation. (2 Corinthians 5:17–18 MOFF)
Way translates 2 Corinthians 5:17–21 this way:
And of all this, God is the source. He reconciled me to Himself by the mediation of Messiah; and He has assigned to me the office of this reconciliation, the Charter whereof is: “from God was present in the Messiah reconciling to Himself the world, cancelling the record of their transgressions.” And the message of this reconciliation He entrusted to me. I am acting, therefore, as Messiah’s ambassador. It is as though God were pleading with you by my mouth. As Messiah’s representative, I implore you, be reconciled to God. Jesus knew not sin; yet God made him to be The World’s Sin for our sakes, that we, whose sin he had thus assumed, might become, by our union with him, the very righteousness of God.
Notice the ring of reality in these verses: “God was present in the Messiah reconciling to Himself the world, cancelling [or wiping out] the record of their transgressions.” What a declarative statement!
When you become a new creation, there is nothing in the books against you. It has all been wiped out.
He has entrusted the message of this reconciliation to you and to me. We are acting therefore as the ambassadors of heaven.
Now I want you to notice what this new creation is. It was created in Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 2:10 says, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus.”
Did you notice that we are His workmanship, just as much as Adam was His workmanship? We are actually born of the Spirit. We are actually partakers of the very nature and substance of God.
We have become the very righteousness of God in Him.
Read Way’s translation once more: “Jesus knew not sin; yet God made him to be The World’s Sin for our sakes, that we, whose sin he had thus assumed, might become, by our union with him, the very righteousness of God.”
We have become the very righteousness of God. The thing that has held us in bondage all of our lives has been sin consciousness, the sense of unworthiness. Our ministers have preached sin instead of righteousness.
Whenever they mention righteousness, they carry the thought of our being right and doing right rather than our being made, by the new creation, the very righteousness of God, and that there is no longer any sin consciousness to disturb us and keep us in bondage to the adversary.
Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever. (1 Peter 1:23)