SATAN DEFEATED?

SATAN DEFEATED?

Was Satan completely defeated at the cross?  Of course Jesus dealt him a devastating blow by His resurrection, and death itself was defeated (2 Ti 1:10).  Satan is still an adversary we must watch out for though (1 Pet 5:8), so how do we reconcile those two things?

Let’s take a closer look at a few applicable passages.  Col 2:13-15 talks about Jesus canceling the charge of our legal indebtedness, and disarming the spiritual powers and authorities.  It’s worth mentioning that this passage also makes a note of Jesus “triumphing over [the spiritual rulers and authorities] by the cross”, so clearly Jesus won a significant victory over Satan at the cross.  The presence of Satan continuing to attack God’s people throughout the rest of the NT though, along with God’s people being urged to continue fighting back and making war against Satan after the cross (2 Co 10:3-5, Eph 6:10-8, et. al.) are clear indicators that Satan was not completely defeated at the cross.

Heb 2:14-15 is another passage that discusses Christ’s victory over Satan at the cross.  Note particularly the language about “…so that by His death He might break the power of him who has the power of death – that is, the devil….”.  This passage indicates that Satan’s power was broken at the cross, but he himself was not completely destroyed yet.

1 John 3:8 is another verse worth examining as a part of this study.  There, we read that “…the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.”  Again, notice that Jesus’s death and resurrection destroyed the devil’s work, not the devil himself yet.

Looking ahead in Rev 20:10, we see that the devil will be thrown into the lake of burning sulfur for ever and ever.  But that time has not happened yet.  Per Rev 21:4, at that time “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”  While Jesus is alive and well and all-powerful now, His full coming has not happened yet, and one result of that is that Satan is still attacking and we still experience hardship, death, and persecution from the enemy.

A brief summary of the above may look like:

·         Jesus destroyed death by His death and resurrection

·         Satan was disarmed, had his power broken, and had his works destroyed by Jesus’s death and resurrection; but he himself was not destroyed yet and is still on the prowl looking to attack

·         Satan will one day be completely defeated and God’s people will finally be free from his attacks

A fair question to ask at this point is why would God set it up this way?  Why would He defeat death so fully on the cross but allow Satan to continue to torment and attack?

I believe at least one of the answers can be found in Jdg 3:1-2.  Even a quick reading of these verses makes it clear that God purposely left enemies for His people to fight because He wanted them to know warfare.  Part of His heart for us as His people is that we know how to war.  Since God does not change who He is (Mal 3:6a), I believe He still wants us to know how to war.

With that in mind I believe at least one of the reasons God has chosen to let the enemy continue to attack for now is so that they can be our target practice and training dummies for spiritual warfare!  He wants His people to know how to fight, but if there are no enemies to fight, and His people haven’t experienced battle, how will they know?  There will come a day when we know longer have to battle ever again, and that day will be glorious, but in the meantime our Good Father who knows what we need (Matt 6:8) has deemed it best that we can and do fight.

Let this encourage us, because God is not letting the enemy stick around so we can be afraid of him.  Conversely, the enemy should be terrified of us as believers who have the spirit of Jesus living in us.  We should strike first and take the offensive in this battle, being confident that the Lord has given the enemy into our hands.

David Repair