In His death on the cross Christ was the last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45b) causing the old man to be crucified (Rom. 6:6). Adam, the head of all mankind, made himself with his descendants a fallen man in God’s old creation through his fall. Christ, as the last Adam, as the conclusion of the old man, brought the old man to the cross to be crucified. When He was crucified, our old man was crucified with Him.
Although Christ crucified the old man, He did not do this directly. Rather, He crucified the old man by dying as the last Adam. His crucifixion as the last Adam caused our old man to be crucified. Because the Lord Jesus died as a man in the old creation, our old man was dealt with through His death. Romans 6:6 says, “Our old man has been crucified with Him.” Similarly, Galatians 2:20 says, “I have been crucified with Christ.” Because the marvelous death of Christ was all-inclusive, it included us. We were put into Christ by God, and we were in Him when He was crucified. Hence, we were included in His all-inclusive eternal death. Galatians 6:14 says that through the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ the world has been crucified to us and we to the world. The world has been crucified to us and we to the world not directly, but through Christ who was crucified.
Colossians 1:15 says that Christ is the Firstborn of all creation. Because He is the Firstborn of all creation, in His death on the cross the Lord Jesus terminated the old creation, dying as the Firstborn of all creation. With respect to His humanity, Christ was the first item of God’s creation. When He died on the cross, He died as this first item of the old creation. Hence, through His death on the cross the entire old creation was terminated.
The redemption accomplished by Christ is not only for man but also for creation. Chapter one of Colossians tells us not only that Christ is the Firstborn of all creation but also that through Christ’s redemption all the created things in heaven and on earth were reconciled to God (v. 20). Christ’s redemption is for all things. Hebrews 2:9 says clearly that Christ tasted death not only on behalf of every man but also on behalf of everything.
If Christ were only a man and not the Firstborn of all creation, the first item of all the creatures, He could not have accomplished redemption for all the creatures. In the same way that it was necessary for Him to be a man to accomplish redemption for man, it was necessary for Him to be a creature to make a redemption for all the creatures. It was necessary for our Redeemer to be the first item of all creation in order for Him to redeem all creation; therefore, He is in the first place as the Firstborn of all creation. In the same principle, He is the last Adam, the head of all mankind, and as such He is qualified to be the Redeemer of mankind.
In His work on the cross Christ also cast out the ruler of this world and judged his world. “Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the ruler of this world be cast out” (John 12:31). This indicates that Christ’s work in His death included the casting out of Satan, the ruler of this world. Satan thought that he was wise in having the Lord Jesus crucified. Actually, by doing this Satan caused himself to be cast out. The cross was the way used by God to cast out Satan.
The New Testament reveals that Satan has formed an evil, satanic system called the world. Through the world, the satanic cosmos, Satan has systematized fallen mankind under his usurping hand. Satan uses the world to keep people from the purpose of God and to distract them from the enjoyment of God. But this evil world system, the kingdom of darkness, was judged through Christ’s work on the cross.
Because the world system is connected to Satan, when he, the ruler of the world, was judged, the world was judged as well. The ruler of this world was cast out when Satan was cast out by Christ’s work in His death. Simultaneously, the world system related to Satan was judged.
When the Lord Jesus was crucified, the entire old creation and the satanic world were crucified with Him. Hence, the Lord’s crucifixion was the termination of the satanic world. Therefore, in Galatians 6:14 Paul could declare, “Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world.”
When Christ died on the cross, He died as the brass serpent destroying the Devil, who had the might of death. In John 3:14 He said concerning this, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” Here the Lord Jesus applies to Himself the type of the brass serpent lifted up by Moses in the wilderness (Num. 21:4-9). When the children of Israel sinned against God, they were bitten by serpents. God told Moses to lift up a brass serpent on their behalf for God’s judgment so that by looking upon that brass serpent all may live. This is a type. Applying this type to Himself, the Lord Jesus indicated that when He was in the flesh, He was in the likeness of the flesh of sin (Rom. 8:3), which likeness was the form of the brass serpent. It had the form of the serpent but not the poison. Christ was made in the likeness of the flesh of sin, but He had no participation in the sin of the flesh (2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 4:15).
The brass serpent in Numbers 21 was a representative of the people bitten by the serpents. In the sight of God, those people had become serpents. For God to forgive them, save them, and recover them, they needed to be judged by God. Nevertheless, they themselves were not judged, but they were judged in and through their representative, which was the serpent made of brass. In the sight of God that serpent lifted up on the pole and judged there was the representative of all those people who had become serpents, but the brass serpent possessed only the form of the serpent and not the poisonous nature of the serpent. Likewise, in His death on the cross the Lord Jesus was crucified as a serpent in form.
No doubt, the Lord Jesus was crucified as the brass serpent in order to deal with Satan, the Devil, the old serpent. It was through being crucified as the brass serpent that He crushed the head of the old serpent (Gen. 3:15). In this way the Lord Jesus destroyed the Devil, who had the power of death (Heb. 2:14). In His humanity and through His work in His death Christ has destroyed Satan. Therefore, Christ died not only as the Substitute of fallen men, who had been bitten by the serpent, but also to destroy the Devil.
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