After the Fall of Adam, God was
in a peculiar position. He had given
Adam unquestionable authority over
the earth. But when Adam committed
high treason against God and bowed
his knee to Satan, spiritual death—the
nature of Satan—was lodged in his
heart. Actually, Adam was the first
person ever to be born again. He was
born from spiritual life to spiritual
death. God had said, “But of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil, thou
shalt not eat of it: for in the day that
thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
die” (Genesis 2:17).

God said that Adam would die the
very day he ate the forbidden fruit, yet
he lived several hundred years longer.
God was not referring to physical
death. He meant that Adam would die
spiritually—that he would take on the
nature of Satan, which is spiritual death.

This process is reversed when you
make Jesus the Lord of your life. You
are born from death into life. The law
of spiritual lordship is our way back
into the hands of God. You take on
a new Lord and receive the nature of
your new Lord which is eternal life
(John 3:16). This is why Jesus went to
the cross. First John 3:8 says, “For this
purpose the Son of God was manifested,
that he might destroy the works
of the devil.” Jesus turned to the most
religious men of His day and said,
“Ye are of your father the devil” (John
8:44). By going to the cross as the sinless
Son of God, Jesus took away the
dominion Satan had over mankind.
First Corinthians 2:8 states that had
the princes of this world known, they
would never have crucified the Lord of
glory. This was a trap that the Father
and Jesus had set for Satan. He walked
into it, and it cost him his lordship
over the earth.

After Adam’s Fall in the Garden,
God needed an avenue back into the
earth. He needed some way to break
the union between Satan and mankind.
Since man was the key figure in
the Fall, man had to be the key figure
in the redemption, so God approached
a man named Abram. He re-enacted
with Abram what Satan had done
with Adam, except that God did not
sneak in and use deception, as Satan
had. God offered Abram a proposition
and Abram bought it.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

In the beginning God created the
heavens and the earth. Genesis
1:26-27 says:

And God said, Let us make man in
our image, after our likeness: 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. So God created man in
his own image, in the image of God
created he him; male and female
created he them.

From the dust of the earth, God
formed a man, named him Adam, and
placed him in the midst of the Garden
of Eden. This man Adam was given the
awesome authority of lordship over
God’s creation on earth. God gave him
dominion over every living thing on
the face of this earth. He was to
subdue the earth and replenish it. He
was given the right to be the father of
God’s family. He was to sire the human
race. What a privilege!

God set a law into motion at creation
which I call the law of genesis—or
the law of beginnings. According to
this law, every living thing was created
by God to produce after its own
kind. Man was no exception. God is a
Spirit, and Adam was created in God’s
own image and likeness—a spirit being.
They walked in close fellowship
and communion together, and Adam’s
descendants were to live in harmony
with God, their spiritual Father. But
something happened in the Garden
that caused a great and terrible change
to occur. Satan approached Adam’s
wife Eve and deceived her into disobeying
God’s command. Then Adam
willfully followed her in this rebellion.

According to the law of genesis,
man takes on the nature of his
spiritual father or lord. God was
Adam’s spiritual father. But when
Adam disobeyed God and bowed his
knee to Satan, he changed spiritual fa-
thers. Satan became the illegitimate
stepfather of mankind. Adam committed
high treason. At that point, all
the dominion and authority God had
given him was handed over to Satan.
Suddenly, God was on the outside
looking in.

Until this time, Satan did not have
any authority on earth. All his authority
had been taken away when
he led the rebellion against God in
heaven (Isaiah 14:12). He came into
the picture absolutely void of authority.
But by deceiving the woman, he
manipulated man’s authority into his
own hands and became the god of this
world (2 Corinthians 4:4). In Luke
4:3-7, when Satan tempted Jesus in
the wilderness, he took Jesus up on a
high mountain and showed Him all
the kingdoms of the earth. He said,
“All this power will I give thee, and
the glory of them: for that is delivered
unto me: and to whomsoever I will I
give it. If thou therefore will worship
me, all shalt be thine” (Luke 4:6-7).

Some people think this was just
one of Satan’s lies. But if it had been a
lie, it would not have been a temptation
and the Bible says that Jesus was
sorely tempted. This was real temptation,
brother! Satan had it to give.
Jesus was tempted, but He used the
weapon for which there is no defense.
He said, “It is written…” and Satan had
to flee from Him!

Kenneth Copeland Ministries