Raised up with Jesus to Raze Down His Enemies
David W Palmer
(Acts 2:32–35 NKJV) “This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. {33} Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear. {34} For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself: ‘The LORD said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, {35} Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.”’”
This is part of the message Peter spoke on the Day of Pentecost. After the miraculous signs and wonders of that amazing day, the Holy Spirit revealed to Peter what was going on and how to explain it in such a way that his listeners would understand. What’s more, when he gave these words to Peter, the Holy Spirit had in mind that the audience would be far greater than the assembled crowd that day; he designed it to be part of God’s written word so it could feed generations with information and truth for eternity. Wow; God certainly is a genius.
So, we see that this passage is full of amazing truths, including the reality of Jesus now sitting at Father’s right hand and that from that place as King of kings and Head of the Church, he awaits the full subdual of his enemies.
We very much have part of this subduing of the enemy’s forces. Jesus already defeated their leader, Satan; and Jesus’s Father declared him the victor through his resurrection from the dead. But now, the devil’s recalcitrant hoards and underlings have to be subdued and have the reality of their legal defeat brought to bear upon them. This is our job. We are responsible to enforce the victory of Jesus over these rebellious forces of darkness until they are completely subdued and made Jesus’s footstool.
Secondly, today’s passage, in revealing Jesus sitting at Father’s right hand, is showing us our elevated position in Him. The Holy Spirit confirms this through the writing of Paul—an apostle who wasn’t present on the Day of Pentecost, so he couldn’t have received his information second hand; he received it directly from the Holy Spirit:
(Ephesians 1:20 NKJV) … He (Father) raised Him (Jesus) from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places.
(Ephesians 2:5–6 NKJV) … made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), {6} and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
The first of these passages confirms what the Holy Spirit showed to, and declared through, Peter by supernatural seeing and saying: Jesus was raised from the dead and elevated to Father’s right hand. This, of course, implies the highest place of authority, prestige, power, privilege, and influence that is possible in the whole of existence. It is from there that our triumphant Lord awaits the complete subdual of his enemies.
The second passage brings out an exciting truth for Jesus’s followers—his born again family, church, warriors, worshippers, and willing servants. When we receive his new birth and confess Jesus is Lord, our identity shifts to “in him.” Hence, the following applies to us: Father has “raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” In other words, we are raised in Christ to the place of absolute and dominant authority in him; we are seated with him at Father’s right hand. There simply is no higher place that we could ever attain. And it’s ours by denying self, yielding to Jesus completely, and walking in the spirit.
From that exalted position of reigning with Christ, it’s easy to see how we can be his agents—for overcoming and mopping up the defeated, demoralised, demoted emissaries and underlings of the conquered devil. In Christ Jesus, we have the upper hand over them through the all-authoritative living Word. As we allow the word of God to live through us and as we submit to it and brandish the overflow of it in indomitable sword strokes against the remnants of the enemy’s kingdom,
