Without the merciful gifts of God’s armor and repentance and Spirit, we cannot defeat the temptations of the devil. But the only reason God’s full sanctifying mercy is flowing to us (through his armor and repentance and Spirit) is because his wrath isn’t.

And the reason his wrath isn’t is because Christ endured it for us on the cross. Therefore, our deliverance from Satan’s temptations is based on our deliverance from God’s wrath.

One other way that the New Testament shows this is by teaching us that when Christ died for us, we died with him. And because we died with him, we can reckon ourselves dead to Satan’s temptations to sin.

“We have been united with [Christ] in a death like his . . . . [O]ur old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin” (Romans 6:5-6; cf. Galatians 2:20). “One has died for all, therefore all have died” (2 Corinthians 5:14). Therefore, one of the ways we fight Satan’s temptations to sin is to reckon ourselves dead to sin. “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11). We can do this because when Christ died for us, we died in him.

But why did he have to die for us? Why did we have to die in him? Because the wages of sin is death. God’s righteous wrath sooner or later falls on all sin (Colossians 3:6). Therefore, the death of Christ, by which we die to sin, is the same death that endures the wrath of God for us.

The death that we die in Christ is both our punishment for sin and our death to sin. They are inseparable.

That is why Christ’s work to deliver us from the wrath of God is not only his deliverance from the accusations of the devil but also from the temptations of the devil.

On this day...

• Exodus 21 - 2024
• Genesis 20 - 2024
• April 17, 2014 - 2014
• Psalm 24:3-6 - 2011
• Psalms 45:8 - 2009
• Ezekiel 34:26 - 2009
• Job 10:2 - 2009
• Genesis 24:63 - 2008
• John 9:7 - 2007
• volition - 2007