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The conquest is dipicted really in six stages:
1.Stage one is the conquest predicted.
The first prediction given by God himself in the Garden of Eden as part of his judgement on the serpent:`And I will put enimitty between you and the woman,and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head,and you will strike your heel'(Gn.3:15)
2.The second stage was the conquest begun in the ministry of Jesus.
3.The third and the decisive stage,the conquest acheived,at the cross.
Perhaps the most important New Testament passage in which the Victory of Christ is set forth is Collossians2:13-15.
He forgave us all our sins,having cancelled the written code,with its regulations,that was against us and that stood opposed to us: he took it away,nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities,he made a public spectacle of them,triumphing over them by the cross.
So the victory of Christ,predicted immediately after the Fall and begun during his public minsitry,was decisively won at the cross.Its remaining three stages were the outworkings of this.
4.Fourthly, the resurrection was the conquest confirmed and announced. We are not to regard the cross as defeat and the resurrection as victory. Rather, the cross was the victory won, and the resurrection the victory endorsed,proclaimed and demonstrated.
5.Fifthly,the conquest is extended as church goes out on its mission, in the power of the spirit,to preach Christ crucified as Lord and to summon people to repent and believe in him.
6.Sixthly, we are looking forward to the
conquest consummated at the Parousia. The interim between the two advents is to be filled with the church`s mission.The Lord`s Anointed is already reigning, but he is also waiting until his eniemies become a footstool for his feet.
On that day every knee shall bow to him and every tongue confess him Lord. The devil will be thrown into the lake of fire, where death and Hades will join him.For the last enemy to be destroyed is death. Then, when all evil dominion,authority and power have been destroyed, the Son will hand over the kingdom to the Father, and He will be ALL IN ALL....The I AM that I AM. Amen!
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