We have seen six main things in the past chapters on the meal offering: 1) it constitutes the proper worship to God; 2) it affords the proper diet for the priesthood; 3) it produces the standing boards; 4) it forms God’s house by uniting the boards; 5) it produces the proper gifts; and 6) it produces the flow of life. Now in this chapter we must see that the humanity of Jesus is absolutely necessary for the spiritual warfare.
The spiritual warfare between the enemy and the saints is mainly dependent upon the humanity of Jesus. According to the Bible, the spiritual warfare is between Satan and God, yet God would never fight the battle by Himself. This is because Satan is a creature of God and a fallen creature at that. God is the Creator. The Creator would never fight with His creature; to do so would lower His position. This is why there is the need of man, and this is also why man was created by God. For the spiritual warfare, God needs another creature to deal with the fallen creature.
In Genesis 1, God says that He commits His dominion to man that man might subdue the earth. The word “subdue” includes the meaning of fighting. It is impossible to subdue something without a certain kind of fighting. God’s intention was that man would war against Satan to subdue the rebellious earth. Yet we know how man was ruined by Satan. Satan knew that man was strategic in the spiritual warfare; therefore, he caused man to fall.
But, praise the Lord for Genesis 3:15! God promised that Christ would come as the seed of a woman. This seed of woman is a man, but a man who is different from the other man. The Bible says that Christ is the second man (1 Cor. 15:47). The first man failed, and then God sent the second man. Christ became a man to fight the battle for God. He partook of blood and flesh that through death He might destroy the Devil (Heb. 2:14). These verses reveal to us that Christ as a man fought with his humanity against Satan.
The temptation in the wilderness was the first confrontation between Satan and the Lord Jesus. There the Devil challenged the Lord by saying, “If you are the Son of God....” This was not only a challenge, but also a subtle attack. If the Lord Jesus had acknowledged at that time that He was the Son of God, He would have been defeated. But Jesus knew the subtle wiles of the enemy. Therefore, He answered, “Man shall not live by bread alone.” He said, in other words, “Before you, Satan, I am not in the position of the Son of God, but in the position of man. I am not fighting against you as the Son of God, but as a man.”
This is the reason why the demons cried out that Jesus was the Son of God when they met Him. They dared not confess that Jesus was the Son of Man. If they had, they would have been defeated. Nevertheless, the Lord silenced them. And this is why 1 John 4:2-3 says that every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not the Spirit of God. This means that we all must confess that the Lord Jesus did come in the flesh. He came in the flesh not only to redeem us, but also to defeat Satan.
Christians today have the wrong concept. They believe that to fight the spiritual warfare we need spiritual power with something heavenly and divine. But listen to what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10:1: “Now I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ.” Paul’s beseeching was real fighting. The spiritual warfare between the enemy and the saints is not so much in divine power, but in the proper humanity. For the spiritual warfare, we need the humanity of Jesus. To fight the battle against the enemy, we must exercise the humanity of Jesus in our daily walk. Our family life needs the humanity of Jesus. Among the saints in the church we need the humanity of Jesus. In other words, if we are not proper in humanity, it is impossible for us to defeat Satan; we are defeated already. As long as we do not have the proper and normal humanity, we are already defeated.
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