The Cross and the Courts of Heaven

If we are to operate in resurrection power from the Courts of Heaven, we must understand the legal relevance of Jesus’ activities on our behalf.

This includes His death, His burial, His resurrection, and His ascension. We must know how to take what He has legally done and present it as evidence in the Court of Heaven that it might speak for us. One of the greatest joys of my heart is presenting evidence in the Courts of Heaven based on Jesus’ atoning work. All that was done in regard to these things was legal in nature. Through His death He legally judged sin, sickness, poverty, disease, and any other thing against us. Remember that Romans 8:3 tells us that Jesus condemned sin in the flesh.

For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh.

The word condemned is the Greek word katakrino. It means “to judge against, to sentence.” Jesus’ activities in the midst of His suffering legally made all that was against us illegal. His legal activity made this powerless to effect and determine our life and our future. However, the effects of this must be set in place in the Courts of Heaven. Any verdict rendered from the cross of Jesus must be executed into place. This is why we come before the Courts of Heaven and present the work of Jesus as evidence on our behalf. This is one of the things we so often don’t do as New Testament believers. We don’t aggressively set these things in place to speak for us. When we read certain scriptures in the New Testament and even in the Old, they are the stated verdicts from the cross of Jesus. For instance, Colossians 2:14 declares anything against us was proclaimed illegal at the cross.

Having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

Jesus legally revoked all accusations against us. He caused them to be non-effective through His sacrifice. Many times, I take these words into the Courts and ask that any voice coming against me would now be silenced. Just because there is a verdict in place for me doesn’t mean voices will not try to speak in the spirit world against me. I must present as evidence that which Jesus has done. Another scripture that should be presented is Galatians 3:13.

Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”).

This is all legal language. Jesus, as the sinless, unadulterated Son of God, offered Himself for us. He took our place on the cross and took the curse. Remember, He became sin for us, that we might be the righteousness of God in Him. This is according to Second Corinthians 5:21.

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

This again is legal verbiage designed to awaken in us the reality of what Jesus has accomplished. All this and so much more was done because of Jesus’ suffering and brutal treatment at the hands of sinners and the devil. He suffered so much that we might have the legal things necessary to live an abundant life of resurrection. Let me help us take these things and present them before the Lord and His Courts.

In addition to Jesus’ suffering, sacrifice, and atoning work for us through His death, He also accomplished much by His resurrection. Through His death He took on Himself legally the penalty for my sin. Through His resurrection, however, I am raised with Him into a newness of life. This also is a legal accomplishment. Romans 6:5-11 gives us some astounding insight into what legally happened for us at not only Jesus’ death but also His resurrection.

For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Baptism is a means by which we literally lay hold of what was legally done. When we are baptized in water, we legally identify with His death, but also legally identify with His resurrection and life. Just like the life Jesus presently lives is a result of His resurrection, we through faith reckon all this into place. We acknowledge and embrace His legal work for us. The Holy Spirit then takes the legal significance of His resurrection and brings that eternal life into us! This means that what might have tried to cling to us from the old is removed as we enter into the new. It has no place in our new experienced as the raised of the Lord.

There is one more aspect to what Jesus legally accomplished and that is His ascension. Just like His death and resurrection set things legally in place for us, His ascension accomplished legal issues as well. The main thing legally accomplished was the right to release the Holy Spirit to us. The Bible stated in Acts 2:31-33 that when Jesus ascended and sat down with the Father that the Holy Spirit was given to Him to pour out on us.

He, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear.

As Jesus was resurrected and took His place with the Father, this allowed the Father to legally give the Holy Spirit to Jesus. He then poured the Holy Spirit out on those in the upper room. Yet not just those but us as well. The legal work of Jesus in His death, burial, resurrection, and then ascension caused the Holy Spirit to be poured out on us. One of the aspects to this was the Holy Spirit came to dwell in us and not just on us or with us. John 14:17 tells us this wonderful truth.

The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.

Up until this point, the Spirit had anointed people but never really been in them. This is because we had never legally been cleansed so that we could be a suitable dwelling place for Him. However, the blood has so sufficiently cleansed us that we can now see the Spirit dwell in us. The blood of bulls and goats was not sufficient for cleansing us. However, when Jesus gave Himself as the Sacrifice, what legally and functionally was done allowed the Spirit of God to inhabit us as consecrated vessels to Him. Everything was now legally in place for the Spirit of God to take up residence in us. We should claim this before the Courts of Heaven and accept the anointing and presence of the Spirit of God into our lives.