Preface

In my studies of law and matters of law (I am not a lawyer), I made an exciting discovery that helped me to make sense of my world. The discovery was the meaning of the word, "jurisdiction." Up until then I had been like most people who, as a lawyer once told me, have no concept of the meaning of jurisdiction.

The discovery of that word not only helped me to make sense of the world and history and law -- and how government has gone wrong today; even more importantly, through it, God has turned a light on the Bible and helped me to understand Scripture and the central theme of Holy Writ: the meaning of the cross. He also helped me to understand how there could be such things as suffering of the innocent in the light of the almighty, omniscient, and all-loving God. ... even how He had to be the perpetrator of some of that suffering (like the drowning of the Egyptian army, and the conquering of the land of Canaan). One of the charges of non-believers is that if God is good, He is not all powerful. If He is all powerful, He is not good. I submit that seeing the Bible through the divinely appointed concept of jurisdiction clears up that seeming paradox.

The mere mention of the word "jurisdiction" causes many non-lawyers either to choke or to snore. If you are one of those, I invite you to resist the temptation to do either for a few minutes, while I treat you -- in a nutshell of Genesis to Jesus -- to the exciting discovery to which God has led me through this important word. Using the concept of jurisdiction -- which He originated, I repeat -- God showed me things out of His law: things both wondrous and awesome!

---

Oh, Lord, Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold ...

WONDROUS THINGS

... out of Thy Law.

Psalm 119:18

God Delegated Authority to Adam

GOD, CREATOR OF THE WHOLE UNIVERSE, loved Adam. He blessed him and gave him dominion -- jurisdiction -- over the earth. Jurisdiction is the "right or power of administering law or justice, the extent of authority, and the territory over which such authority extends." (World Book Dictionary). Everything is in God's jurisdiction. So it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. He is God of gods and Lord of lords. But He delegated power and authority to rule to Adam.

... and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. -- Genesis 1:26

This was a legal act, not simply rhetoric. Let me be very clear about this, because if you miss this, you miss the whole central theme of the Bible. In delegating power and authority to Adam, God relinquished power and authority. It was no longer His. He had given it to Adam.

Adam Surrendered That Authority to Satan

Satan knew that dominion is power. He craved power. The scene in the garden was not just a naughty prank. It was all about power. And it was carefully orchestrated. (Genesis 3) Obeying Satan's suggestion (he doesn't usually give commands to humans, but suggestions), Adam surrendered not only himself, but also the power and dominion God had delegated to him, to Satan.

... to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey. -- Romans 6:16

And power Satan has. He is referred to in Holy Writ as "the prince of this world" three times by Jesus (John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11), and "the god of this world" by Paul (2 Corinthians 4:4). When Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness, he claimed that all the kingdoms of the world and all power had been delivered unto him and he could give them to whomever he would. (Luke 4:6) Jesus did not dispute the claim. (Nor would there have been any temptation had that claim been unfounded.) Rather, Jesus, without sin, rejected the offer and to Satan submitted not. Affirming submission to God, He quoted from holy scripture, saying,

It is written: Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve. -- Luke 4:8

We Were Born Into Satan's Jurisdiction

Satan, though in rebellion, is under God's jurisdiction and will be conquered in the end. Hell was prepared for Satan and all his demonic host; hell was never intended for man at all. But Adam wrote his own death warrant -- and ours, who were in his loins -- when he volunteered obedience to Satan, and thus surrendered his God-given power and authority to Satan.

Through the offense of one many be dead. -- Romans 5:15

Thus were we born into the abominable jurisdiction of Satan, the father of lies. We are utterly unable, under our own power, to obey God, and "there is no health in us." -- BCP 1928

...in me dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. -- Romans 7:18, 19

There is none righteous; no, not one. -- Romans 3:10

The law was given so that we might recognize and long for God's glorious rule and become aware of our lethal bondage to the darkness of Satan's wicked rule. From this utter evil we have no power of our own to extricate ourselves.

All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. -- Isaiah 64:6

O wretched man that I am: who shall deliver me from the body of this death? -- Romans 7:24

God, in His Mercy ...

BUT GOD, OUR GOD, merciful and loving, has made a way out. He did not repeal or annul His own immutable laws -- which even Satan knows He never does. Rather, He painfully and humbly submitted to them on our behalf. In so doing He foiled Satan -- and took him totally by surprise! Satan knew that, in His law, God had decreed that "the wages of sin is death." (Genesis 2:17 Romans 6:23) In His mercy God would not allow unredeemed mankind to live forever on earth; we would have turned earth into a veritable hell.

My spirit shall not always strive with man for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. -- Genesis 6:3

And, unredeemed, we could never survive heaven. It is even less possible for sin to live in the blazing light and purity of His righteous presence than for germs to live in the light of the sun.

Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. -- Hebrews 12:14

What had apparently escaped Satan's notice was that God had also decreed that a kinsman without debt may redeem his kinsman from bondage. -- Leviticus 25:48, 49

Both the fierceness of God's wrath against evil and the infinite love He bears us are at once revealed in this incredible act: He provided for us a debt-free kinsman in the sinless person of His beloved and only begotten Son ... and required of Him the total payment of all our debt!

Only the spotless Son of God was free of debt and could pay the price of our ransom. But only as Son of Man did He, as our kinsman, have the legal right to redeem us. So He stripped Himself [of all privileges and rightful dignity of godhead], allowed His infinitude to be totally confined in the womb of a woman, and was born as one of us: our kinsman. Philippians 2:6, 7. Only thus could He legally pay the price of our redemption: death! God's laws are immutable. Satan could not break the law of the Kinsman Redeemer and refuse to give up one thus redeemed, any more than you or I could break the law of gravity.

Having stripped Himself of divine privilege, power, and defense, Jesus walked the earth as the Spirit-filled Son of Man and obediently submitted even to the utter agony and humiliation of a criminal's death on the cross. And He overcame a revulsion totally unimaginable to us in taking all our sin into His pure and sinless Self.

... and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. -- Isaiah 53:6

He shed His own precious blood to rescue us: from the darkness of evil bondage to Satan and from sharing Satan's inevitable horrible end. He was torn that we might be mended. He died, that we might live forever with Him. What awesome love!

Satan Was Foiled and Taken by Surprise

WHAT SATAN DID NOT KNOW was that when the Creator of the whole universe (John 1:3), humbled Himself to become a tiny, helpless, and vulnerable part of His own creation, and, as a willing and innocent victim died on our behalf, He would go on to conquer death, itself, and be raised victorious from the tomb -- and ascending up on high would take captivity captive. -- Ephesians 4:8 Our natural inheritance from Adam is a cell on death row. Jesus' hideous death and glorious resurrection were the keys that unlocked our prison cell doors --

I ... have the keys of hell and of death. -- Revelation 1:18

For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. -- I Corinthians 15: 21, 22

From our prison cell we have only to walk out, legally, by a simple act of faith: by vocally submitting to His jurisdiction, and by accepting the unspeakable gift of so great salvation -- by believing that God was satisfied with Christ's substitutionary sacrifice in payment of our debt, signified by His raising Him from the dead. --

If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. -- Romans 10:9, 10

[The Father] hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son. -- Collossians 1:13

Born Again Into God's Jurisdiction

THUS ARE WE BORN AGAIN (John 3:7) into the light of God's glorious kingdom. We are washed clean by His blood (Revelation 1: 5), and Jesus' robe of righteousness becomes our swaddling clothes --

So by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous -- Romans 5:19

He hath clothed me with the robe of righteousness. -- Isaiah 61:10

However, while still here on earth, we dwell in enemy-occupied territory -- a war zone. Satan never relaxes the exercise of his power -- which we, in our own strength, are powerless to resist. We continually allow him to seduce us back into his abominable domain -- where he interferes with our hearts and in our affairs.

Life in Enemy-Occupied Territory

Only as we -- moment by moment -- commit ourselves, our activities, our loved ones, and our concerns to the loving care of our heavenly Father -- who never sleeps -- do we resubmit ourselves to God and to His wonderful rule. Thus we give Him lawful right to intervene in our affairs. He fills us with His Holy Spirit, renews our minds, gives us new hearts, and the strength and power to do His will. His power works in us ...

...that we might do the good works that He has prepared for us to walk in. -- Ephesians 2:10

He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. -- Philippians 2:6

For good reason St. Paul admonished us to pray without ceasing (I Thessalonians 5:17). Thus we come into that "glorious liberty of the children of God" (Romans 8:21), making the joyous discovery that "whom the Son sets free is free indeed." (John 8:36)

Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. -- I Corinthians 15:57

But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the LORD of glory!"
-- I Corinthians 2:7,8

Had the princes of this world known the plan of rescue, they would not have crucified the LORD of glory!

+ + + + + + +

Now we have the foundation to clear up the seeming paradox of innocent suffering. Go to Suffering of the Innocent