12: The Incarnation & Spiritual Warfare

(00:02) Stephanie: Season 4, Episode 12. Hello, Father.

(00:06) Marcus: Hello, daughter. Here we are again. This is fun.

(00:09) Stephanie: Here we are again and all right, On the Trail family, you know the drill. This Saturday we had an epic event, Your Bible, Your Brain and You with Drs. Jim Wilder and Marcus Warner. If you were there, tell us a highlight. What was your main takeaway from that event? Let’s keep that conversation going because that was pretty cool.

Also, as I say, “On the Trail family”, I’m feeling this need that we create an official name for our little tribe, our little community. We say On the Trail listeners, On the Trail family, On the Trail community. Well, we’re not just listeners, we do have some viewers. I have to admit on the tip of my tongue, I always want to say, “Hey, Trailblazers,” but then that’s our wonderful donors, and there’s a good Venn diagram there, but I’m percolating on it. I feel like we need a name. So I thought I’d bring in all of our little tribe here. What do you think our name should be? Just ponder that with me. Soft launching a little brainstorm here.

All right. Well, on that note, last week we talked about the kingdom of darkness in our spiritual warfare series here. We’re looking at the biblical foundations of spiritual warfare. This week, we are going to be actually looking at the role of the incarnation in spiritual warfare. So that’s a heady topic. I’m excited for it.

Father, will you start off by getting us on the same page by what we mean when we say the incarnation? What is incarnation?

(01:55) Marcus: Yes, absolutely. So there has only been one incarnation. You will see articles like Wikipedia, maybe even an AI search or something, that will tell you that this happens in multiple religions, but it doesn’t. What happens in a lot of places including the Bible is spirit beings taking on human form temporarily. We see the angel of the Lord takes on human form temporarily. We see other gods and goddesses from other religions taking on human form temporarily. That is not technically an incarnation. Jesus is the only one, the spirit being from another realm, who was born to a woman and became a human. And so in that sense, he did more than just temporarily take on a body. He was actually, physically born and experienced the entire realm of what it means to be human and to live in this world in the flesh. That’s incarnation.

(02:54) Stephanie: Okay, so we’re going to be talking about Jesus’s incarnation, his ministry as he walked the earth, and beyond, and how that relates to spiritual warfare. So it’s pretty cool. Why is Jesus walking around the earth not just looking like a human, but actually being a human?

(03:22) Marcus: Yeah, well, you’re not the first one to ask that question, right? The demons were the first ones like, “Why are you here?”They couldn’t figure that out at all. It’s like, “Wait a second, we know who you are. Why are you here?” And it was very confusing to them. They probably knew the Book of Enoch and intertestamental stuff really well. And they were like,”Well, there’s a day of judgment coming and we’re going to be cast into eternal fire someday, but it’s not time for that yet. So why are you here?” That’s why they’d asked, “Have you come to torment us before our time? Have you come to send us to judgment before our time?” They couldn’t figure it out.

The apostle Paul alludes to the same thing when he says, “If the rulers of this age (by which I don’t think he just means the human rulers, but he also means the spiritual rulers) had known what this was all about they would never have crucified the Lord of glory.” And so, yeah, it’s a good question. Why was he here? What was he doing? And we’ll dive into that a little bit.

(04:34) Stephanie: Yeah, why does this relate to spiritual warfare?

(04:40) Marcus: So it relates to spiritual warfare first in that it is kind of fun just that they were confused, but I don’t think God did it just to have fun with them.

(04:47) Stephanie: Just a mess with the demons.

(04:48) Marcus: Just to mess with them. But he did have to mislead them because he was leading them into a trap, basically. He came to convince them to do something that would bring about their own demise and that would give God an ultimate victory in the battle between the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of God.

Jesus came here specifically to do several things. One was to defeat death. Because of sin, everybody was consigned to death, and death was the ultimate trump card against humanity, and it was the ultimate trump card in Satan’s hand. And so God had to do something about death. He came here to defeat that and to make eternal life possible.

To deal with that, he had to deal with sin, and so sin required a substitute, it required a sacrifice and that was part of why he came. He also came, at another level, just to enter into suffering with us to show that he was not a God who didn’t care and that he wasn’t somehow aloof and up there watching us go through hell on earth just to say, “Yeah, well, you brought it on yourself. Tough.” He actually came and became human and went through all that suffering with us.

And then ultimately he came to reveal what was really going on from a divine perspective, and to give us a divine perspective of life on this planet and what it’s all about, so that we could know truth and reveal the truth and put our confidence in that.

So he had multiple reasons for doing this. He came to spiritual warfare specifically though to deal with sin, to deal with death, and by dealing with sin and death he disarmed the principalities and powers of this world.

(06:45) Stephanie: Well, the kingdom of darkness has been reigning and he’s like, “Hey, actually the kingdom of heaven is at hand. My kingdom is at hand and here’s some light.”

(06:57) Marcus: One of the things that happened, too, is that the nations of this world were given to the kingdom of darkness. There are different theories on how that happened. One is that Adam gave it to them when he ate the fruit, that he handed the world over to the devil. One is the Heiser theory that Babel is when the nations were given over to the gods of the kingdom of darkness. However it happened, we know that Satan could say to Jesus, “If you’ll worship me, I will give you all of the nations.” He had some level of authority there, and he’s called the god of this age and the prince of this world.

But after the resurrection, Jesus could say, “All authority in heaven on earth has been given to me.” And in Philippians, Paul could say that Jesus had been given a name above every name. The point here is that there was an authority and a title that was earned by Jesus through what he did in the incarnation and through what he did at the cross that he did not have before. And so that name that was given to him, that authority that was given to him is all about spiritual warfare because now the nations become Christ’s. And because of that, he said, “I’ll give you permission. You can walk into any nation you want. They’re all mine. Share Christ.”

(08:33) Stephanie: Which is where we get the legal approach to spiritual warfare, the permission and authority paradigm.

(08:40) Marcus: And also legal permission to even do evangelism. This is why Peter could say, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. But as for us, we’re going to obey God.” And that’s part of it. God has said, “Go into every nation and make disciples.”

(08:59) Stephanie: Mm-hmm. Well, that would be on mission. Talk more about Jesus’ mission.

(09:06) Marcus: Sure, so Jesus came first to reveal truth, and his message, if you put it on a bumper sticker, was “Repent, the kingdom of heaven is near.” And I think about when they summed up what Jesus called people to do was an action step, and that is, repent. And you think about it, he’s like, “You’re going the wrong direction. You’re thinking about this all wrong and you’re going the wrong direction. So I need you to turn around, think about it differently, and start moving in a different direction.” So he came with a clear call to action and it was, repent.

To fill out the repentance idea, “You don’t understand the kingdom of God. You don’t understand God’s perspective on these things. You’ve adopted a worldly perspective. You’re living like citizens of the world. You need to repent of that and turn in a different direction, and go and turn around.” He came to reveal truth so that we could know how God looks at things, what God values, and how we should therefore live.

You know, we were talking before we got on the air about sometimes you hear people say, “God could clear up an awful lot of things if he would just hold an interview. A ten minute interview could clear up a lot of things.” And I just laugh at that because that’s not true. He did way more than that. He sent his son into the world to clear it all up and to tell us what was going on and to make it abundantly clear what was going on. And then, to prove that Jesus really was his son, he raised him from the dead. And so, if that isn’t sufficient, I really doubt his Zoom meeting from heaven is gonna clear anything up.

Jesus said basically the same thing, “They’re not going to believe somebody even if they come back from the dead.” And John put it this way, he says, “We’re blinded to the truth because of our darkened hearts.” Jesus came to reveal truth. He also came to do something about our darkened hearts so that all those who turn to him can have the lights turned on inside and see things more clearly.

(11:17) Stephanie: That’s pretty epic. Will you talk a little bit more about the resurrection and the ascension and what that has to do with the incarnation and why the incarnation would affect that and how that all works together with spiritual warfare? Because obviously there’s lots that could be said about resurrection and ascension.

(11:35) Marcus: Sure, by becoming human, Jesus became the second Adam. The first Adam sinned, and through that sin, death entered the world. Death and exile are very similar ideas. We’ve talked about this before, but on the day that Adam ate the fruit, he went into exile, and we’ve all lived in exile ever since. And at the end of our life, we die. And so we are living in a sort of a spiritual death now, but spiritual death is a metaphor for that exile that we’re in.

Jesus said that’s the fundamental thing that needs to be defeated. We need to turn that around because people need to get access to life, to eternal life, to abundant life. That is the ultimate victory over the kingdom of darkness. We see this in Revelations, that the riders on the horses are Death and Hades, and it’s this idea that that’s our destiny that God wants to do something about. And so to do that, he had to come and be the second Adam. And the second Adam lived a perfect life, did not sin, and reclaimed life. And the second Adam had to be human so that he could reclaim for humanity all of the original rights that God wanted to give to the humans that had been forfeited by our original sin.

(13:02) Stephanie: So then he is launching a new era when he resurrects a new era for humanity.

(13:13) Marcus: Yes. It’s one of the reasons why the Bible would say we are in the last days now. Two thousand years ago, we were already in the last days and it was because a new age began. It was the age in which someone had been raised from the dead, never to die again. And that was Jesus. And now we are in an age where people are being grafted into, and attached to, and entering into union with Jesus so that if we die to our old selves and we are born again into a relationship with Jesus that we can now enter into that resurrection life with him. And that is something that was only available in the final age of humanity. That’s why this is called the last days, already for 2000 years we’ve been in the last days, because it’s been the era since his resurrection.

(14:07) Stephanie: Yes. He’s the first fruits. So as he has been resurrected to live forever and he is with God in his ascended glory, can you speak to that from a spiritual warfare perspective?

(14:33) Marcus: Can you say it one more time?

(14:35) Stephanie: So we’ve been talking about his mission and his death and his resurrection. And so then he comes back and ascends to sit at the right hand of God. What does the incarnated, died and rose-again Jesus, his glorification mean?

(14:52) Marcus: His glorification then. After the incarnation, he is raised from the dead and he enters into a glorified state. And even when he was in his incarnated state we have this interesting experience on the Mount of Transfiguration where he reveals what he looks like in all of his glory. He shows himself to be a divine, heavenly, not-of-this-world being to three witnesses, well, five really, three human witnesses, and then Moses and Elijah.

So he is witnessed by the people of heaven, that he is indeed the son of God made flesh, and he is witnessed by humans that he indeed, this person in the flesh, is actually a divine son of God. And so we have the law of Moses satisfied that everything must be established by two or three witnesses. And then you have the judge, God himself speaking, and saying, “This is my son whom I love,” on the Mount of Transfiguration. It’s a really powerful, potent event. It is identifying Jesus very clearly, so there could be no mistake, this is who he is.

And then he dies and then he is raised from the dead and he ascends to the right hand of the Father. All of those things collectively: the death creates atonement, the resurrection defeats death, and the ascension and glorification place him in a position of authority, where he at the right hand of God is now sitting and waiting for this present age to come to an end, and then he will reign over everything and everything will be restored to the way that it was.

So the glorification is basically, the battles are still being fought, but the war has been decided. Judgment has been passed in heaven and it has already been decreed, and that’s kind of the idea of the book of Revelation, too, with the scroll and the seals. It’s like this decree has already been issued and Jesus, because he is the victor, has the right to bring about this final victory. It all connects, right? Death goes through resurrection to the defeat of death, and his sitting at the right hand to the authority that he has over all nations and all spiritual beings too.

(17:14) Stephanie: Mm-hmm. So what does this all mean for us in our just everyday Christian lives? How can we apply the incarnation to our lives?

(17:37) Marcus: Well, yeah, I mean, the incarnation is huge for several things beyond spiritual warfare. But one of them is that one of the things the devil hits us with on a regular basis is that God doesn’t care about our suffering. And he’s like, “You can’t trust God because a God who really loved you wouldn’t have made you go through so much suffering.” That’s a real common temptation for us. And yet the incarnation is the ultimate answer to that.

God didn’t spare his own son from this either. Jesus entered into suffering. He was rejected, he was humiliated by people, he was harmed physically, he went through all kinds of trauma, and yet he did it in a way where he said he could have left at any time, he could have called for angelic armies to rescue him, and he didn’t. He entered fully into our suffering, and that is a huge part of our apologetic. One of the reasons why we love God and we serve God is that he knows what it’s like to suffer. He knows what it’s like to die. He knows what it’s like to go through and be faithful to the very end.

(18:49) Stephanie: And that’s the climax of his suffering. He spent his whole life, baby up until that point, living through the day to day toils and struggles. You know, he went through puberty. All the things.

(18:58) Marcus: Yeah, exactly. All the things. He was a refugee who fled to Egypt, right? He was fully human and tested in every way like we are, only without sin, it says. The incarnation also lets us know that we have a high priest, as Hebrews says, who can understand what we’re going through so that we can come boldly before the throne of grace to ask for mercy in our time of need. It creates a foundation for us to know that we’re loved, to know what the truth is, and to be an anchor for our theology, but also an anchor for our relationship with God. And it’s also the cornerstone for the fact that we can walk in victory over all of the fiery weapons of the enemy.

(19:59) Stephanie: Huzzah!

Well, thank you everyone for being on the trail with us every week. Thank you to each donor who keeps us on the trail every week. We’re so grateful to you and so happy to be here. Keep thinking about that name. I want a name for who are the Deeper Walk On the Trail listeners. What’s our name?

Next episode, we’re looking at the role of the atonement in spiritual warfare. Father any final thoughts for the role of incarnation?

(20:31) Marcus: One of things I like about the Christmas season that’s coming up, and Advent and all that, is the opportunity to ponder and reflect, to meditate on the incarnation and the sacrifice that Jesus made in doing that and the awesomeness of what he accomplished on our behalf. It’s because of all that that we can walk in victory and we can walk in intimacy with God. And so I would just encourage people, especially this season of the year, to take time to reflect and to ponder some of the mysteries of the incarnation and what it says to us about God’s love for us.

(21:15) Stephanie: I like that idea. All right, see you all next week.