(Col. 2:15)
This spiritual warfare started in heaven, when the devil rebelled against God. He wanted to be like God in his prideful ways for having received a high honor of a cherub. The Bible describes him as “the anointed cherub that covers with overshadowing… You were upon the holy mountain of God; you were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering: the carnelian, topaz, jasper, chrysolite, beryl, onyx, sapphire, carbuncle, and emerald; and your settings and your sockets and engravings were wrought in gold. On the day that you were created they were prepared” (Ezekiel 28:13,14). This is quite a description of Satan! He had the highest position of all angels. He became proud and wanted to be like God, as a result, he was thrown out of heaven. From that time, he was called Satan, the devil. A destroyer, an accuser, a liar, a thief, a tormenter that’s what he is and more. YAHSHUA said, “The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance” (John 10: 11).
What was really happening at the time YAHSHUA was crucified? Reading Genesis 3: 15 we see that YAHSHUA was fulfilling the prophecy of redemption for humankind. It reads, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her Offspring; He will bruise and tread your head underfoot, and you will lie in wait and bruise His heel”. Satan’s head was bruised and treaded underfoot while YAHSHUA was being sacrificed. The Bible says, that “when the proper time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born subject to the Law, to purchase the freedom of those who were subject to the Law, that we might be adopted and have sonship conferred upon us” (Gal. 4:4-5). YAHSHUA, while on the cross, won the victory over Satan, and humankind was reconciled to God. In the suffering of the Son of God, while carrying our sins and diseases, we were reconciled with the Father and healed from diseases and Satan lost the battle. We see that in His death, even nature revolted, when the earth shook and the rocks were split (Matt.27:51a) showing the tremendous connection it has with its Creator. It spoke loudly and clearly, but just a few understood it, as in the centurion and his soldiers.
It was all invisible to the human eye what was happening. But at that time the spiritual war raged to free mankind from the power of Satan and nature felt it. For it also suffers corruption, as a consequence of man’s sin. In Romans 8:19-23 Paul gives a picture of nature in its longing for their redemption. He said, “For even creation waits expectantly and longs earnestly for God’s sons to be made known; for the creation was subjected to frailty, not because of some intentional fault on its part, by the will of Him Who so subjected it- with the hope that nature itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and corruption [and gain an entrance] into the glorious freedom of God’s children. We know that the whole creation has been moaning together in the pains of labor until now”. There at Calvary, at the death of YAHSHUA, their Creator, they understood that they too were being liberated from decay through the reconciliation between man and God.
There, on the cross, “YAHSHUA disarmed the principalities and powers that were ranged against us and made a bold display and public example of them, in triumphing over them in Him and in it [the cross]” (Col. 2:15). Before then, men’s spiritual situation was that they were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of their flesh. God brought to life together with [Christ] having forgiven us all our transgressions (Col. 2:13). We were slaves to sin and condemned through eternity. But our Lord, YAHSHUA in His loving-kindness took upon Himself the punishment that due us and set us free, disarming the principalities and the powers, which were holding us prisoners to them. Principalities and powers, in this case, correspond to spiritual wickedness in the heavenly places; evil spirits that oppose everything and everyone. In Ephesians 6 Paul tells us to put on the armor of God to be able successfully to stand up against all strategies and the deceits of the devil; “for we are not wrestling with flesh and blood, but against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spirit forces of wickedness in the heavenly sphere” (vs. 12). The works of darkness are powerless, because YAHSHUA nailed them to the cross. Before the blood of YAHSHUA they cringe with fear. They well know about their end publicly expressed and acted against them there on the cross.
Light from the Word 