Satan’s Worst Nightmare: the Son Becomes “Earthbound”
Want to give the Devil a nervous breakdown? Just have God’s Son become a man, who teaches how God truly feels about His people.
When Jesus came, centuries of lies and corrupt, man-made, religious traditions started to crumble.
The Pharisees believed that Yahweh mainly cared about the Jews keeping His law. To them, God was critical and hard to please, a harsh judge who punished the guilty. The crippled and blind were seen as sinners, cursed by the Almighty. So many Pharisees showed little mercy or compassion for the disabled.
Then Jesus started miraculously healing the hurting. The blind saw, the deaf heard and the lame walked. Everyone rejoiced, knowing that God was actively blessing His people. Jesus portrayed God as warmhearted, tender and kind, especially toward broken people and repentant sinners.
John the Baptist came first and spiritually shook the people of Israel awake. But compared to John, Jesus was a divinely-inspired weekly “earthquake.”
The Pharisees became upset with this upstart Nazarene rabbi. Especially when He exposed their hypocrisy, greed and arrogance. But the Devil? Furious, frustrated and bewildered, he had to find a way to exile the Son of God from his territory. The world of men was Satan’s kingdom; he would not let Jesus ruin it.
God’s Devil
Below is a saying attributed to Martin Luther.
“Even the Devil is God’s devil.”
These words highlight God’s sovereignty over everyone, even our greatest supernatural enemy.
The Devil saw Jesus threatening his control of Israel.
But Satan didn’t know his actions would help our Savior to unlock Heaven’s gates for any human who wanted to repent and come in.
Free of charge.
We See the Devil as Menacing
Believers think the Devil is dangerous. Emotionally manipulative and sneaky. The Father of Lies. Peter calls him “a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour” (I Peter 5:8). Satan is very good at “baiting the hook” to trick people—even Christians—into a sinful lifestyle which eventually destroys everything they value.
But this fallen angel looks very different to the Trinity.
When Satan Lost the Chess Match
Picture a chess Grand Master insulted and challenged by an arrogant teenage boy who learned how to play chess only a few months before. The Grand Master thinks in terms of complicated multi-step strategies. He also knows how his inexperienced opponent will react to each new move on the board. Meanwhile, the teenager is totally clueless; blind to what the Grand Master is really doing.
In the cosmic battle between God and the Devil, I’m convinced that Satan had no idea what God’s Son really came to earth to do..
Using his influence over evil and greedy men, he had Jesus arrested, tortured and killed. I think Satan gloated during Christ’s crucifixion, sure he’d solved his “God walking on earth as a man” problem
