01.21. The Practical Exercise of Authority

The believer has now accepted the place of exaltation with his Lord.. There has opened for him a life of holiness in the presence of God, and of watchfulness in the presence of the enemy, in a deeper sense than he has known before. His first lesson will be personal. He must learn the significance of the term "Satan" (the Adversary), and come to understand why one of his titles is "Accuser of the brethren." Just as Joshua (Zechariah 3:1) , when he came to stand before the Angel of Jehovah, found "Satan standing at his right hand to be (lit.) Satan," so will the spiritually-energetic child of God. He will encounter a constant stream of accusations in his own heart. These will trouble him, until he discovers that the purpose of the enemy is to turn him in upon himself, and, through the creating of a consciousness of personal unworthiness, draw him down from the place of perfect faith. He learns to "overcome him by the blood of the Lamb" (Revelation 12:11). That is to say, he presents the Blood as his only answer to these accusations. But he speedily learns a further use for this divine provision. The Blood represents, not only the cleansing from the guilt and power of sin, but it is also the witness of that overwhelming victory gained at Calvary, by virtue of which the Lord is now seated on high. Once this is grasped, the believer sees that he has not to fight against the foe, but simply to hold over him an already-accomplished triumph, the authority of which he shares to the full. Not all at once the full vision comes, but, as he holds his place and exercises his ministry, there will he a gradual perfecting in the heavenly warfare. It will be in his province, as concerns the hosts of darkness, "to bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron," and, in that approaching day of full exaltation in the presence of the King, "to execute upon them the judgment written." Oh; that all God’s people might come to the understanding of their high calling, for it is expressly stated: "This honor have all his saints" (Psalms 149:8-9).