“[A]ngels and authorities and powers [are] subject to him.”

In 1 Peter 3:22 we find that angels, authorities and powers have been made subject to Christ.  This 3-fold reference is a complete description of all spiritual authorities in the heavenly realm.  Thus he is their ruler, the One in charge of them who has complete authority over them.  As the late Christian philosopher and theologian Francis Schaeffer said, “Christ is back of everything,” especially of these powers.

Peter tells us the reason or the basis for this authority: Christ’s resurrection (v. 21).  Even though Paul wrote that Christ, by virtue of being the Creator (Philippians 1:16), was the head of all such power (Colossians 2:10), there was a cosmic rebellion.  Spirits in the heavenlies followed Lucifer and consequentially were thrown out of heaven.  Thus there are very real spiritual powers that we wrestle against (Ephesians 6:12) because they want to destabilize, disrupt and destroy God’s work if at all possible.

Paul wrote the book of Colossians because the church was under attack from false teaching.  The nature of this false teaching was that to become spiritually mature, a person needed to worship a series of angels and spiritual beings starting from the lowest order and moving to the highest.  The character of these powers and authorities is clearly evil because Christ is neither central nor present.  Naturally rituals and works were thrown in, which is always a good tip-off of false teaching regarding one’s salvation status with God.

In Colossians 2:13-14a Paul points to Christ’s resurrection when he tells us that “[Christ] has made us alive together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements [claims of God’s law] that was against us, which was contrary to us.”  But the decisive action came before the resurrection.  It came at his death, which Paul mentions next in 14b-15:  “And he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.  Having disarmed principalities and powers, he made a public spectacle of the, triumphing over them in it.”  In other words, these evil powers and authorities were using the guilt of people’s sin as a prime source of continued accusations.  It was through Christ’s death on the cross that he took God’s righteous claims of God’s Law against us as sinners, claimed them as his own, and paid for them.  When Christ said, “It is finished,” (John 19:30), it really was!  He forever disarmed them, taking the wind out of the sails of their allegations.  No wind, no movement, no credibility.  Every single one of them was nailed to his cross!  Nevermore could any of their accusations be accurate or stick to them!

It also says that Christ “triumph[ed] over them in it.”  One of the interesting things about this is how Christ won: in weakness.  It was not two wrestlers matching strength for strength.  It was Christ at his physically weakest moment that he won the victory for us.  He absorbed every evil (ours) hurled at him by the Father (Isaiah 53:10a), bearing “the sin of many” (Isaiah 53:10b).  Bearing the sin, he was cut off from his Father (“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” – Matthew 27:46), experiencing death like every unsaved person.  But no, his death was not loss but a triumph — a point of supreme rejoicing — for the sake of righteousness, because it not only conquers all, it also is now freely available to all.

On Good Friday it appeared to be total defeat, but Sunday was coming.  The victory was so complete that the power of these fallen angels and authorities was never the same.  The only real power they now have over Christians is what believers give them by their fear and lack of faith in Christ and his authority.  God has “raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come” (Ephesians 1:20b-21).  That is the position of Christ.

What is your position today?  What do you fear?  Have you given power to those under Christ’s authority?  Have you forgotten where Christ is seated?  In Colossians Paul wrote, “Set your mind on things above” (3:2).  Is your mind set there today, serving the risen and glorified Christ?