SATAN in Scripture assumes the image of a serpent, which steals along behind you, which moves noiselessly after you, and from behind stings you in the heel with its poisonous fangs.
That is the crafty cunning of the treacherous waylayer. To wound you, mortally to wound you, before you can be aware of the need of defense.
And over against this stands the Christ, Who goes directly after Satan, seeks him out, attacks him in front and gives him such a mortal blow on the head, that the vanquished serpent stretches out its curled body in death.
With judgment Zion was to be redeemed; not by craftiness or cunning. And as the ungrateful and reckless child of man had thrown himself into the arms of Satan, in the work of redemption the Mediator would honor the right, be it even the right of that satanic serpent. He would not attack him from behind, but face to face with him He would bruise his head, so that in the end Satan himself would have to acknowledge that he had been vanquished by our Avenger in lawful conflict.
Therefore the Mediator does not hide from before Satan. After He is baptized in the Jordan, He is at once driven by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness, that He might be tempted of the Devil.
When it comes to that temptation, the Mediator does not repel Satan with divine superior power, but struggles with the Evil One according to the rules of combat. Weapon against weapon. Scripture against Scripture. Till finally Satan ends the combat with that holy weapon, and leaves Him for a season.
When afterwards Satan sows dissention among the disciples, Jesus in Peter attacks Satan again with open visor. When He knows that Satan is about to enter into Judas, He does not draw Himself back, but gives Judas the last sop. And when finally it comes to Gethsemane and Golgotha, the struggle and emotion of soul is truly dreadful above all description, but even in this crucial hour He bravely meets that Cup and that Prince of the world.
He was come “to destroy the works of the Devil”, and He broke his power, and from on high still battles that His church shall not be prevailed against by the gates of hell. Yea, once the day shall dawn, when with all His saints He shall engage in the last conflict against Satan and his satellites, and ultimately cast Satan into the abyss, where, with his bruised head, he shall lie forever at the bottom of hell.
The head of Satan must be bruised. And though in person Satan is incorporeal and therefore has no head, yet it is clear what “head” here means. Our head is the seat of our consciousness. From the brain come deliberations and thoughts. Truly, in connection with surgings from the heart; but, in the head they assume the form of searchings, deliberations and attempts.
In Satan’s head was schemed the evil purpose. From his head the lie went forth, which inimically stood over against the truth. With his head he swelled in pride to vie with God Himself.
Therefore Satan must be trampled on the head. Because he is the father of lies, the Mediator must crush him by the truth.
And so the Mediator comes, to place over against the brood of Satan’s lies and the fabrications of his evil intents, the holy, pure, clear, heavenly truth; and to declare the Divine decree.
Do not say therefore, that “truth is of less account; that first and more and permanently it depends alone upon “holiness”; and that such a Savior is sufficient, Who wondrously imparts to us a holier sense, a holier life.
This is to subvert God’s ordinances. To subvert the whole order of salvation. To subvert the awful course of history.
No, from the head of Satan, through the lie, sin has come into the world, and only from the Head of the Mediator, through the truth, can power go forth into the world, which breaks the power of Satan.
In the wilderness the Mediator combats Satan through the Word.
That Word is a hammer which breaks the rocks in pieces. The double-edged sword that pierces even to the dividing asunder of the joints and marrow. The Word always leads the van.
And naturally from the truth proceeds “holiness”, even as from the lie “sin” was generated.
But Satan can not succumb, except as by Him Who is the Truth, he is trampled on the head.
Watch therefore not merely over your heart, but also over your head.
Also upon what you think, what you believe, what your conviction, what your confession is, it all depends. It depends upon this with you, and also with the whole church of God. Also in our schools. And also in the training of the family.
We have thoughts, and the rising generation also has conceptions and ideas, by which it lives.
If it is nothing to you, whether young people foster healthy ideas, pure conceptions, and true representations, Satan takes good care from the evil heart and the wicked world to inspire them with unhealthy ideas, impure conceptions and untrue representations. And on these your own soul feeds; on these feed the souls of your children; on these feed your kindred and your people; and in the end, Satan wields a terrible power, against which an accessorial Bible class or an accessorial church attendance avails so little.
We are in conflict with the head of Satan; with his false insinuations; with his seemingly beautiful practice of raising expectations; with the seeds of sinful thoughts, which he sows within us.
And therefore Jesus said: “The Truth shall make you free.” Every drop of truth that enters into you, is an antidote against what ideas crept into you from Satan’s head. Every true, pure representation is a power, with which to break again a band of Satan.
Satan knows full well the power of pure, unadulterated, healthy truth, and therefore in all ages he is bent on nothing so much as on falsifying Truth by all sorts of heresies in the church, in the family of believers, and in the training of the rising generation.
Heretical truth is still truth, but it is as a lion whose teeth have been drawn. It is powerless, and by its false admixture it does harm.
No discipline in your church; no discipline in your education; no discipline over yourself; this is as Satan gladly wills it. In this grows his strength, in this flourishes his power. For in all ages error has been the fruitful mother of unbelief, apostacy and moral corruption.
And therefore in His conflict Christ calls on you to take part with Him, and to struggle with Him, in bruising the head of Satan.
He has bruised Satan’s head, but with and under Him you must fight the little heads of the demons, which in all sorts of ways find entrance into your heart and life.
For truly it does not avail, that in every way you despise and stigmatize moral evil. The demoniac spirit is a power which even as the serpent in the fable, ever grows again, so long as the head is not found and crushed.
So it is in your heart and in the heart of your children.
No conflict avails, neither does it hit the mark, so long as the head of the demon in your heart is not attacked and broken.
Only when the head is bruised, is the power of the demon ended.
All victory therefore begins with faith, and ever proceeds from faith; for faith flings away the head of the demon that dwells within, and over against the lie of Satan, bears witness to the truth as it is in Jesus.
← 45. Because He hath Poured Out His Soul unto Death · Contents · 47. And the Earth did Quake →