Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Genesis 3:15 | Date: August 15, 2021 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Take your Bibles, if you will, please, and turn to Genesis chapter 3. We’ve been going through Genesis in our Sunday school class, the adult class, on the Sunday mornings. This could be a continuation of that series, because we are almost to that point in that series, but this actually is part of our ongoing studies of the doctrine of salvation as it’s presented to us in Scripture. We have seen that under this broad category of redemption accomplished, Christ has come to offer himself as a sacrifice for sins and thus to secure salvation of his people. So we’ve been investigating what is the significance of that sacrifice. We saw that first of all, Christ died as a substitute taking the place of his people, bearing the wrath of God against them. That’s the doctrine of propitiation, that God satisfied the demands of divine justice against our sin. He died as our substitute. He died as a propitiation. He died then to redeem us—that was the next doctrine that we looked at—redeeming us, liberating us by the payment of the ransom in his blood, setting us free to God, free from the penalty of sin, free from the law, free from condemnation, because he has paid the debt himself in our place.

We have seen some other aspects of the atonement and today we come down to look at this theme of what historically in the church has been known as Christus Victor. That’s a Latin expression: Christ the conqueror, Christ triumphant. Now we started that last Sunday. You’ll remember we looked at the subject in John chapter 12 primarily, the theme of Jesus lifted up. And we saw the intended pun in all of that: Jesus exalted in his lifting up on the cross; being lifted up on the cross in shame and defeat, he conquers, accomplishing the redemption of his people, and so on. And now we continue that, this conquering theme of Christ’s death. And I want to begin at the beginning of that theme in the Bible, and that is in Genesis chapter 3. It’s a familiar account of Adam and Eve in the garden, but I’d like you to see it again. I’ll begin reading with verse 1.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you’ll be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was delight to the eyes, that it was a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

Then the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me from the fruit of the tree and I ate.” The Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me and I ate.”

The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.”

Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, in this passage that sets the stage in so many ways for the rest of biblical revelation, it’s so important for us for understanding the significance of Christ. We pray that on the one hand you will give us a greater appreciation of Christ as our promised champion. On the other hand, a greater appreciation for the wonderful defeat of our great enemy that he has accomplished in doing so. We ask in his name, amen.

The Promised Champion

The story here in Genesis 3 is a familiar one. With intent to thwart God’s purposes with regard to his newly created humanity, Satan comes on the offensive and he’s brought the whole human race now, through Adam and Eve, into sin. In response, God pronounces his judgment in verses 14 and 15. The long and short of verse 14 and 15 is, “You will be utterly defeated. You’ll crawl in your belly and eat dirt. You’ll be defeated.” Then in verse 15, he identifies who it is that will defeat him. Again, verse 15: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.”

Now remember, there is no previous biblical revelation to inform us of who all of these players are. But at this point, here’s the information that we have. God says to Satan, “You will have followers, the woman will have followers, and they’ll be opposed.” Then this fifth character—there’s this serpent in his seed, there’s the woman in her seed, and now there’s a fifth character introduced: he. That is, a male descendant of the woman’s offspring, he will bruise your head and you will bruise his heel. Now we have it in some versions translated, “He will crush your head and you will bruise his heel.” Actually the same Hebrew word is used in both instances, but the idea of bruising a head is obviously that of utter defeat, and so the translations often render it that way: “crush his head.” This serpent, this Satan, he will be utterly defeated, and when this champion is done with him, he’ll crawl on his belly and eat dirt, as it were.

Well, that’s the long and short of it. It’s cryptic, there’s no timeframe stated, there’s no specifics given, but even though there’s a metaphor involved—stomping on the serpent’s head and so on—it’s pretty clear that the tempter will meet his utter defeat and ruin through this champion who will come from the woman’s seed. “He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.” And here we have set up for us, right up front, the whole story of the Bible, the whole story of history itself. We have humanity commissioned by God as vice-regents to rule over the earth in faithful rule, representing God’s rule as created in his image. And it seems to have failed. The woman takes the fruit that was forbidden, she disobeys God, the man himself who was with her takes it and he rebels as well. They figure they can strike out on their own, and now they’re in sin. And God now comes in judgment and pronounces judgment on the tempter himself first, Satan, in verses 14 and 15, and says in brief, “A champion is coming, and you’re gonna be a goner.”

And that, in a sense, is the whole story of the Bible. God’s plan for humanity will not fail. Some offspring of the woman will come, and he’ll defeat, he’ll crush Satan’s head, even if it is at some cost to himself. Satan will bruise his heel. And so there it is, the whole meaning, the whole story of history in brief: humanity reeling from a satanic takeover and waiting in hope for the coming of that champion. The whole meaning of history, the whole story of the Bible.

The Conflict Between Jesus And Satan

Now anyone who’s read the Bible even once, you know that somehow this is pointing ahead to Jesus. This “he” who is mentioned here ultimately points us to Jesus. He is the champion who is promised to come. When we get to the Gospels—and I can’t have you looking to all of these verses, so you’ll have to listen fast this morning as I run through them—when we get to the Gospels, this conflict theme between Jesus and Satan immediately becomes very evident. Right on the heels of Jesus’ introduction to his ministry, he’s baptized. We’ve heard this affirming voice from heaven where God speaks from heaven and says, “This is my beloved son in whom I’m well pleased.” We no sooner have Jesus introduced in his ministry than we come to the Mount of Temptation.

And the way this passage of Jesus’ temptation is usually read is that, look how Jesus succeeds against the tempter and learn from it how to avoid temptation yourself and how to overcome temptation yourself. That’s generally how that passage is handled. And as important as that is, as legitimate as all of that application is, that is just secondary to the importance of the passage itself. We need to understand Jesus’ temptation from Satan, first of all, in redemptive historical terms. This is the promised champion who has come to do battle with the devil. And now we come to round one, and guess who wins? That’s the significance, first of all. The champion has come, he has done battle with the devil, and he wins. Round one goes to him.

In fact, this confrontation with Satan is something that’s emphasized by the gospel writers. In fact, there’s a sense in which we have to say the temptation did not come to him so much as he went to it. For instance, in Matthew chapter 4, we read, “Jesus was led by the Spirit to the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.” He’s going out to do battle with the devil himself. So we have here not just Satan on the attack, which of course he is, but we have Jesus on the attack. Jesus going out to meet him and to have, as I’ve called it, round one with Satan.

In Luke chapter 3, Luke casts all of this in terms of Genesis chapter 3 and the curse and the Garden of Eden. The bottom line of what we have in Luke chapter 3 is kind of like Jesus saying, “Okay, let’s get at this,” as he goes out to meet Satan in temptation. Luke talks about Genesis chapter 3; he traces Jesus’ genealogy back to Adam, who was the “son of God,” he says. The contrast is an Adam kind of Christology. Here, the faithful Adam, the last Adam has come, and he’s going to overcome the tempter. We have described here in the circumstances of it, we have a wilderness, he’s surrounded by wild animals. In Luke’s account, he was hungry. And all of that in contrast to Adam and all of the advantages that he had, Jesus now comes and enters into enemy territory, faces the tempter, and overcomes.

And in both Matthew 4 and in Luke chapter 4, we have Satan boasting when he comes to tempt Jesus. He takes him up on the mountain, you remember, and Satan points to all of the kingdoms of the world and says, “Look at all of them, they’re mine.” Jesus doesn’t dispute that. “I’ll give you all of these kingdoms if you bow down and worship me.” And yet for all that he offered, Jesus did not succumb to temptation. And finally, the devil leaves Jesus. Luke’s gospel tells us he would come back at another opportune time. In other words, Satan has lost. He realized it. He said, “I’m gonna have to go back and regroup and come again at another time.” In other words, then, we’re to see that event of the temptation of Jesus in terms of the champion who was promised has now come; this last Adam is a faithful son, and he has overcome and will overcome the tempter.

In Matthew chapter 12, Jesus describes this in graphic terms. You remember in the incident in Matthew 12, Jesus had cast demons out of the man in a very dramatic way. Enemies among the Jews were disputing how to explain all of this. And Jesus says—this is a brief account—Jesus says, “Here’s what that means. When I cast out demons, what that means is the kingdom of God has come among you. That is, there’s been an in-breaking of the kingdom of God in this kingdom of Satan. And now Satan’s kingdom is being ransacked. A strong man has been bound and we’re plundering his house.” That’s the imagery Jesus uses in Matthew chapter 12. So we have the inauguration of the kingdom signaled by the work of Jesus in casting out demons.

In John chapter 13, we have the account of Satan inspiring Judas to betray Jesus. In Mark chapter 14, Jesus tells us, “The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.” Many New Testament scholars have noted here that there’s a military connotation to those words, “Let’s get going.” It pictures soldiers on the march to the enemy to go get them. And that’s Jesus’ determination now. Only at this time, it’s not the Mount of Temptation. Here, the battleground scene is at the betrayal of Judas. The battleground scene will be the cross itself.

We saw that last time, and I think it would be helpful to go back and look at it in John chapter 12. John chapter 12—you remember the incident here. I can’t take time to go through the whole passage, but beginning with verse 20, we have this Greek person who is looking for Jesus. He comes to Philip and said, “We would like to talk to Jesus.” Philip is not too wild about that idea. “This is a Jewish thing; I’m not sure if Greeks should come to see Jesus.” So he goes and asks Andrew, “Should this guy come to see? A Greek wants to see Jesus.” And so Philip and Andrew both go to Jesus and say, “We’ve got a Greek man out here who wants to come see you.” And Jesus then responds in a fascinating way.

First of all, he compares his death to a seed that’s dropped into the ground and planted. That seed then dies—there’s the point of analogy—and sprouts up and brings forth not just one seed, but a harvest of seeds. And Jesus says, in effect, “My death is going to be like that. When I am planted in the ground,” so to speak, in his death, it “will result in a harvest of souls.” And then he speaks with confidence, you’ll see, remembering verses 31 and 32: “Now is the judgment of this world, now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself.” That is, “You thought it was significant that I would talk to a man who’s Greek? Ha, I’ll tell you this: when I’m lifted up from the earth, when I’m crucified, I’ll draw a people to myself from the world over.” It is a theme of success and triumph in his death.

And that’s why, as we saw last time, Jesus refers to his death as “his hour,” his finest hour. It is, in fact, the hour of his glory. This is the hour for which he has come. This is the hour. And his death, the time of his defeat, is the time of his success and triumph because there, as he says in verse 31, the world is judged, a people are saved, and Satan himself is cast out. In other words, then, in my death there is mission accomplished and, notice verse 32, the defeat of Satan.

Now that seems to be the point here that Jesus is emphasizing. Verse 31: “Now is the judgment of this world. Now will the ruler of this world be cast out.” In some sense, Jesus’ death dethroned Satan. Now do you see how we’re coming now to bring about the theme that was promised and introduced in Genesis chapter 3:15? This champion will come, you’ll bruise his heel, he will crush your head. And here we’re coming to that battle scene now that was envisioned way back then. “Now is the judgment of this world, now is the ruler of this world cast out.” In some sense, the death of Jesus dethroned Satan.

Now there’s all kinds of irony in this, and we saw that last time: that here in the moment of Jesus’ shame and defeat, if ever it would seem that Satan had won, it was here. But here in Jesus’ very death, he succeeds in accomplishing redemption for the people of God, and therefore dethrones Satan. And in fact, that irony takes us all the way back to Genesis 3:15. He will bruise your head, you’ll crush his heel—you will be brought to utter subjugation, though at some cost to him. So in Jesus’ death, Satan is defeated. His kingdom is ransacked. God’s people are rescued from his rule. And this is the story of this age now, flowing from this side of the cross. All of human history, what we have is a plundering of Satan’s kingdom. Those for whom Jesus has died are one by one rescued out of the grip of Satan and brought into the kingdom of Christ.

Now, Satan’s activity and Satan’s authority has not yet been completely brought to a halt. That’s obvious enough. He’s still called, after all, the prince of this world. Jesus refers to him as the god of this world. Paul speaks of him as the god of this world who blinds the minds of those who do not believe. John speaks of him as the one who holds the whole world in his lap, manipulating according to his own will. Paul speaks of that in Ephesians chapter 2. It’s very obvious that Satan’s authority has not been brought to a halt yet. And so we have this—you hear so often here—the “now” and the “not yet.” There’s one sense in which it has happened, it has come. There’s another sense in which we wait its full consummation, and we have that here: that Jesus has come and he’s dethroned Satan.

We often describe this in terms of D-Day in World War II. The Allies landed at Normandy. They’ve established a beachhead. It’s now inevitable. Anyone who understood the supply of matériel and the dwindling supply of officers among the Germans—all of this—establishing a beachhead in France, that’s the end of the Germans. The war is over. But of course it wasn’t over quite yet, and we still have the Battle of the Bulge, and we have some of the most bitter battling of the whole war seen yet. But in principle, the war was over at Normandy. And so because of D-Day, they came to V-E Day, Victory in Europe Day. And that is a wonderful analogy of what we have in Jesus’ work. He comes and in his death he dethrones Satan, finishes him off, and yet the fullness and the consummation of that defeat still wait his return. And we have that described for us in Revelation 19 and following, where Christ comes riding on a white horse. It has that imagery. He defeats the devil; that Satan is taken, he’s thrown into the abyss for a thousand years, and he’s let out for a while, and finally he’s tossed into the lake of fire and will be tormented forever.

But even though we still have the fullness of it to come, already, in history, the kingdom of God has been established. And it has been established by the death of Christ, which was itself the death blow to Satan. And so because, if we can return to the war analogy, because of D-Day, V-E Day is inevitable. Because of the cross, the conquering return of Christ is inevitable.

How The Death Of Christ Dethrones Satan

Now what the Gospels do not explain for us in an explicit way is just how and in what sense does the death of Christ dethrone Satan. I’ve hinted at it here and there already in this message, but the Gospel writers don’t get into that in explicit detail. Now this was actually a huge emphasis in the early church. This idea—the early theologians in the earliest centuries of the church often spoke of the work of Christ in connection with the defeat of Satan. They would often emphasize it in terms of a ransom. The difficulty with their theology at that point, and the reason it was ultimately rejected, is they would speak of it as a ransom to Satan: that God, through Christ, in his death, paid off the devil or tricked the devil. They saw the work of Christ in reference to the devil, and Christ paid him off and bought him off and now has freed God’s people.

That kind of thinking in various varieties of it dominated for centuries in the history of the church until finally in the Middle Ages Anselm came around, and we’ve learned better since him that, no, no, no, we should look at Christ’s work in terms of a satisfaction not to the devil but, first of all, a satisfaction to God. There’s been an affront to his majesty, and his majesty has been offended and needs to be satisfied. It wasn’t until the Reformers came along and the Puritans that refined it a little bit further. It’s not just God’s majesty that was offended; it was God’s justice that was offended. And so Christ’s death has to be understood in terms not only of rectifying the majesty of God, but satisfying the justice of God in taking the penalty of sin.

Well, that early view of the early centuries was eclipsed then, and it became such a dominant idea in the church that virtually all theologians understood the work of Christ now in terms of satisfaction to God. That dominated in virtually all Christian discussion until the liberals came along a couple of hundred years ago and began tweaking that and making it mean other things. But in fact, this understanding of Jesus’ death as a satisfaction for sin became so dominant in Christian thinking that the idea of Christ triumphing over Satan became almost entirely lost. To this day, if you look at all the standard systematic theology books outlining Christian theology, explaining the significance of Christ’s work on the cross, almost never do you find a section in them dealing with this point of Christ in his death triumphing over Satan.

But clearly, those early theologians were onto something, even if their particular view of it was skewed a bit. And Jesus confirms it here in John chapter 12, verse 31: “Now,” that is in his death that is just coming, “now the ruler of this world will be cast out.” So just how and in what sense did Jesus’ death overthrow Satan? The answer, in brief, is that Satan’s grip on humanity is tied to human sin. It is by human sin that Satan has the authority over humanity that he has. Man was created to rule over God’s creation as God’s vice-regent. Satan tempted him; that rulership was in a sense then surrendered to Satan. There has been a satanic takeover and all those scriptures since speak of Satan ruling over this world and his tyranny over it with the threat of death and so on. And so we have in Genesis chapter 3 the surrender of our kingship and, in a very real sense, the rulership of humanity belongs to Satan. But we are his subjects; we are Satan’s subjects because of sin. And the point then becomes that if Satan’s rule over humanity is tied to human sin, then if somehow that sin problem can be answered, Satan’s grip is lost. You see that? That’s the long and short of the point. Satan has his authority over humanity because of human sin. If that problem of human sin can be answered, Satan’s grip is gone.

And that, in fact, is how the New Testament writers take it. Even though Jesus’ words are cryptic here and not explicit, the New Testament writers take it further. And let’s take a look at a couple of them. Colossians chapter 1, verses 13 and 14: “He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness”—there’s the defeat of Satan theme—”He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Notice here he describes our salvation in terms of rescue out of the kingdom of Satan, transferring into the kingdom of God, and how is it done? Through redemption, which secured the forgiveness of sins.

Well, that’s just in brief, but now notice it more fully in Colossians chapter 2. Colossians 2, verse 13, where we have it more explicit:

You who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven all our trespasses by cancelling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him.

Now, in verses 13 and 14 here, we have the ground of Jesus’ triumph over Satan, and that is he forgives—he secured forgiveness for his people. He’s taken care of the sin problem. But notice how he forgives. He cancels the debt; he forgives or cancels the debt. It pictures sin as an accumulating debt before God, in bookkeeping terms. That’s a familiar metaphor in the scriptures. In judgment, God will open the books—that’s the metaphor that’s used. God will open the books, and he’ll turn to the page, and there’s a listing of all the debts, and judgment will be assigned accordingly. That’s the idea here, that sin is an accumulated debt, and he says that debt has been forgiven. It’s been cancelled.

How? Well, first of all, notice he speaks of it as a “record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.” That actually in the ancient world is a reference to what they had in the ancient world, this record of debts that stood against us with its legal demands. It’s an official notice of indebtedness: “You owe this.” Paul here is speaking of it in terms of our indebtedness to God. Every sin accumulating the debt. And now he says that’s been canceled. How? Verse 14—there it is: by nailing it to his cross.

Do you see the imagery? Here’s this notice: “You owe, you must pay. Here’s the debt that you owe.” And Paul says that notice was nailed to Jesus’ cross. That is to say he has canceled the debt, he has forgiven us of our sin, not simply by divine command. It’s not God just by divine fiat just saying, “Be forgiven,” but he has forgiven us by way of paying the debt himself. We’re back to the idea of the substitutionary death of Christ. He dies on the cross as the sinner’s substitute, taking the penalty of sin to himself. And because the penalty of sin has been paid by our substitute, we then have been forgiven and our debt has been canceled. So this is described then in terms of a commercial transaction. We are forgiven because Christ paid the debt in our place. And of course involved in this is Trinitarian theology. Christ is not some third party to the discussion, but he is in fact God the Son who has come to absorb divine wrath that we deserved in our place.

As a result, verse 15: Satan is disarmed. “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him.” There you have it: delivered from Satan. Why? Because we’ve been forgiven. The enemy has lost his grip because that by which he held grip has been removed. The imagery here is of a Roman victory parade. The Roman armies, when they would return back home, they would come in triumphal procession, and they would often have behind them a string of POWs, and they would have the booty, which sometimes they would share some with the crowd. People are cheering, and they’re mocking the POWs. The POWs are taken off to be killed somewhere, to be sold as slaves somewhere. And all the people are cheering and they’re mocking the ones who have been defeated. This is the triumphal procession; that’s the idea here. But here it pictures Jesus, or God, leading Satan in triumphal procession because of the work of Christ. Because of Christ’s death dealing with sin, Satan has been defeated and now he’s the one being mocked and put to open shame.

And in fact, this just drips with irony again, because when Jesus—it was in fact Jesus who was led through the streets of Jerusalem in open shame, being mocked. And there at the cross, he’s mocked. He’s the one being shamed and ridiculed and made fun of. And yet in that very moment of his death, he deals with sin in such a way that Satan’s grip is broken. And Satan now is the one who is defeated. “Now is the ruler of this world cast out.” John Calvin writes here—I thought it was an interesting comment: “Paul with good reason magnificently proclaims the triumph that Christ obtained for himself on the cross, as if the cross, which was full of shame, had been changed into a triumphant chariot.”

Well, there we have it then, in Colossians 1 and Colossians 2: Satan disarmed through Christ’s substitutionary payment of our debts, and because he has paid the debt, we are forgiven. Because we are forgiven, Satan has no hold. I have to look at another passage or two quickly: Hebrews chapter 2. This is one of the marvelous passages in the New Testament where the biblical writer describes for us the incarnation of Christ. In chapter 1 he has described for us at length the deity of Christ, describing him as greater than the angels, worshipped by angels; he’s the one who’s the very image of God and the display of his brightness. Now in chapter 2, God the Son has become a man. He’s become incarnate. And he became a man in order to be, as one of us, a substitute for mankind. We have this vivid portrayal of it here in chapter 2. We will come back to that at another point in this series and look at it in more detail. But we have here a rather vivid portrait of humanity held in Satan’s grip. Look at verses 14 and 15:

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise took part of the same… that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

So it’s a vivid portrayal of humanity as under the grip of Satan and, because of that, held in the fear of death. Satan wielding death, as it were, as the great threat over mankind. And the fear of death, of course, is because of human sin. The greatest fear we all have at the end is death. Unless somehow that sin problem can be taken care of, there’s no greater fear than death. What comes next? What will God do with me? How will eternity look? And so he pictures Satan here as wielding this threat of death over humanity, which is held subject to lifelong slavery and fear of death.

But verse 15, he tells us, Jesus delivered us. That’s the redemption language we’ve seen. He delivers us from that fear. How? Verse 16: “For surely it is not angels that he helps… he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that,” here’s our purpose clause again, “so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest of the service of God and to make propitiation for the sins of his people.” Now in verses 14 and 15, we have him described as one who will defeat the tempter who wields death over us. Now in verses 16 and 17, he shows us how he will do that: not by incarnation only, not by becoming one of us, but by becoming one of us and, as one of us, going to the cross and there becoming a merciful high priest who offers himself as sacrifice to God, making propitiation for our sins and thereby having dealt with the sin problem, this problem of Satan wielding the authority of death over humanity is broken. Having satisfied divine wrath, we are released from sin and then, if being released from sin, the grip of Satan over us is removed.

One more passage, look at 1 John chapter 3. Now we have—I want you to notice here—three different purpose clauses. Why did Jesus come? What is the reason he came? What was the purpose? 1 John 3, verse 5: “You know that he,” that is Christ, “appeared in order to take away sin.” That’s why Jesus came. So if someone asks, “All right, why the incarnation? Why did Jesus come?” Answer: to take away sin. Now look at verse 8: “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” That’s our theme for this morning. Now that brings us all the way back to Genesis 3:15, this champion who would come. He has come to destroy the works of the devil. Let me give you one more, just a page over, chapter 4 and verse 10: “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins.”

Now notice in those three verses now, you have a threefold statement of the single purpose of Jesus’ coming. What is it? By his death, the sinless Son of Man came to: one, make propitiation for sins (that’s chapter 4, verse 10); he came to remove sin (that’s chapter 3, verse 5); and then he came (verse 8 of chapter 3) to defeat Satan. The atoning work of Christ, you see then, works in three directions. He offered himself to God first to make satisfaction for our sins. Two, because satisfaction for sin has been made, sin is removed. And because through the satisfaction of sin, sin has been removed, Satan has been destroyed. You see that? This is redemption accomplished. Christ has come dealing with the problem of sin through which Satan held sway over us.

Our Defeat Of Satan In Our Christian Experience

Well, the New Testament then treats this in turn as the ground of another sub-theme in the New Testament, and that is of our defeat of Satan in our Christian experience. I mentioned earlier that books of theology don’t deal with this section, this topic of Christ’s defeat of Satan on the cross. They don’t do it very often at all. The Puritans did quite a bit in dealing with our defeat of Satan in our Christian experience, which is a sub-theme of that. And we do have that in the New Testament. And let me just read these verses for you quickly. How do we defeat Satan in our own experience?

First, Through Gospel Advance

Number one: we defeat Satan in our experience through gospel advance. Romans chapter 16 and verse 20: “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” Here he’s picturing the church as making its advance with the gospel, and with each new step of advance, it’s another stomp on the serpent’s head. That’s reflected for us not in the most explicit language, but it’s reflected for us in Matthew 28 in the Great Commission: “All authority has been given to me.” That’s the success of Christ’s work. All authority now has been given to him. He’s become universal Lord and universal Savior, universal judge. And so he says, “Go therefore into all the nations and make disciples.” Bring all of them into subjection to me. That in turn reflects the promise that we will see later in the series in Psalm 2 where the ascended Christ stands before the Father and repeats the Father’s words to him and says, “You told me that if I ask you, you will give me the nations for your inheritance.” And we have Christ doing that in this signing of the Great Commission, going after then all of the nations. All of that reflects what we saw already in John 12, that now this world is judged, now the ruler of this world is cast out, and “I’ll draw all peoples,” not just Jews, but this Greek and people the world over, “I’ll draw all peoples to myself.” So we defeat Satan in our Christian experience through gospel advance.

Second, Through Fearlessness In Death

We also, and we’ve already seen this, we defeat Satan in our Christian experience through our fearlessness in death. We saw that in Hebrews 2, verses 14 and 15:

Since therefore the children shared in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

This expression here, “through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery”—that’s death, the great terror held above everyone. And yet he says, because Jesus Christ, through his—to use the imagery here—through his wrath-absorbing, justice-satisfying, and sin-removing death, has ruined Satan’s grip, now we can be fearless in death. We’ll see that more in a minute in the context of the book of Revelation, but this is what we’ve seen so often since John Wesley’s time. It’s been common for Christians to say, “Our people die well.” There’s a certain confidence that marks the people of God. If Christ has answered the problem of sin, what fear in death is there? Old commentator John Bengel commented here: “Jesus who suffered death conquers. The devil who wields death succumbs to it.” So we defeat Satan in our experience through gospel advance. We defeat Satan in our experience through fearlessness in death.

Third, Through Faithful Living

And third, we defeat Satan in Christian experience through faithful living. This is perhaps the most common aspect of this theme in the New Testament: overcoming sin, overcoming the world, overcoming temptation, overcoming Satan. Paul speaks of it famously in Ephesians chapter 6 when he commands us to put on the whole armor of God that we might be able to stand in the evil day and stand against the wiles of the devil. He’s speaking of success that we have in Christian living made possible only because Satan himself has already been defeated. There has been D-Day. He has been defeated. And now we pick up and move on on the ground of that defeat of Satan.

The book of Revelation is more vivid in this, and the overcoming theme in the book of Revelation is a fascinating one in itself. It’s a key consideration in the faithful perseverance of the people of Christ. In Revelation chapter 12, we’ll take time to go there. In Revelation chapter 12, we have that apocalyptic imagery that’s so vivid. We have this woman in labor about to give birth, and we have the dragon standing in front of her waiting for the baby to come, waiting to devour the child. Suddenly the child, after it’s born, is taken up into heaven, and there’s this imagery of Jesus’ resurrection and ascension to heaven. Satan now, the great dragon, is in a rage and he chases the people of Christ out into the wilderness where he can persecute them for three and a half years.

The followers of Christ, we’re told in Revelation 12 and verse 11, overcome. Notice how they overcome. Revelation 12, verse 11: “They have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” Here we have the people of Christ enduring the affliction of the accuser. He comes and not only accuses them in heaven, as Revelation speaks of there—he’s the accuser; he accuses them day and night in heaven—but he comes on the attack all the time, all the time, all the time. And sometimes the persecution is particularly intense and even brings martyrdom. It says they overcame by the blood of the Lamb and through the word of their testimony. It’s as though the people of Christ, enduring all of this from the onslaught of the devil, are saying, “Bring it on. What are you going to do, kill us?” How do you threaten someone with death when he knows that the sin problem has been answered and that death will only bring him into the presence of Christ? And they overcame by the blood of the Lamb and through the word of their testimony. “Take our lives. We’ll be safe with Christ forever.”

So we make gospel advance then. We’re overcoming the devil in our own experience. We’re fearless in death. We overcome the devil in our own experience. And as we faithfully persevere, we overcome and we do all of that, this tells us, with an eye back—an eye back to the cross where Christ has given the decisive blow against Satan. He’s redeemed us from our sin and so Satan’s grip has been lost. And we do it all with an eye forward for Christ coming to bring his defeat of Satan to its consummation in the end when Christ comes.

All of this is tied to what we have already seen in the developing doctrine of Christ’s death and the significance of it. And here it comes down to this for us: that we have in Christ someone to rescue us from the authority of the devil and rescue us even in the face of death. We’ll commemorate that in the Lord’s table here in just a moment. Let’s pray together.