Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “Satan, a Defeated Enemy”. All us Christians have been taught and do acknowledge that Satan is a defeated foe. But when was he “defeated” and how was his “defeat” accomplished? We often rightly claim his defeat was accomplished at the cross. We get this idea from Christ Himself when He spoke of His death on the cross: “’Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.’ This He said, signifying by what death He would die” (John 12: 31-33). So this plain statement of Christ begs the question, how was Satan’s defeat affected at the cross? Some Christians would say that Christ bearing our “penalty” on the cross has eviscerated Satan. That we sinners have our sins paid-for at the cross and that this has nullified any sin Satan could cause us to commit. That all sins are “paid for” and therefore Satan has nothing to use on us. But this seems to me a bankrupt reason. As if temptation, sin, and Satan-the-Tempter can be dispensed-with in this manner. I think this is not the way Satan is “cast out”. The problem with sin and Satan who tempts us to sin, is that sin has captured our thinking and our emotions. We like self-serving. We like to be #1. We like to be right. We like the sin that so easily besets us. So for Satan to be “cast out”, he needs to be “cast out” from our desires and our thinking. And this is not done in some legal fashion or in some Divine proclamation. This “casting out” from our mind and emotions must be our choice, our will. Done because we choose not to be so controlled. Done from a changed mind and heart. And this is what Christ dying on the cross does. This Divine demonstration of love is what changes us.
If we see Christ’s death on the cross as merely a legal arrangement between Father and Son whereby the Father accepts the Son’s death in place of our death, than this understanding has little to do with the expulsion of Satan from our affections. It only marks a legal resolution. But Christ’s death is so much more than a legal solution. Christ’s death shows us the Father’s heart of love. Love that will come in our shoes, as a man, and live a sinless life demonstrating the Father to us by His life and death (and by extension showing us ourselves, too, for we are made in God’s image). And then showing us how God treats His enemies (like the way Christ treated His tormentors… He forgave them). Christ’s life and death demonstrates the true nature of God and the true nature of Satan, who tempted men to torture Christ and kill Him. In this way, the lie about the Father started by Satan at the very beginning is demonstrated to be untrue. He stands unmasked before us. By seeing the truth about God, we unmask Satan. And we are now in a position to cast Satan out of our affections… if we will.
Which brings us to “how” Satan is “cast out”. It is an act of each individual’s will. You and I expulse sin. “The expulsion of sin is the act of the soul itself. True, we have no power to free ourselves from Satan's control; but when we desire to be set free from sin, and in our great need cry out for a power out of and above ourselves, the powers of the soul are imbued with the divine energy of the Holy Spirit, and they obey the dictates of the will in fulfilling the will of God” (Desire of Ages 466). Amazing! Freeing ourselves from Satan’s control (the expulsion of Satan and the sin he tempts us with) is an act of your soul! Once Satan is unmasked by Christ’s demonstration of the Truth at the cross, we no longer cringe in fear before God. We see the true nature of righteousness, the true nature of sin, and are in a position to cast Satan and the sin he promotes from our affections. We now hate what we once loved, for we see it in its true colors. And we love that which we once feared… God our Father. All because of the cross and all that it means.
This “casting out” must be done by each of us. Satan was “cast-out” of heaven when the faithful angels saw his true intent, as revealed at the cross. Satan no longer held their affections. They cast him out of their affections. And so for each of us. We, each of us, must “cast out’” Satan for ourselves. We can stay willfully blind to Satan’s lies and deceptions. We can look the other way and go on with our life of sin and self-destruction. Or we can look at our Savior on the cross and see the lies unmasked. And see our Father, our Savior, standing with open arms calling us home. It’s up to each. What do we want? You decide. But let us not dawdle over this. For even now, we are destroying ourselves the more we wait and postpone looking to the cross to see the truth, and then choosing to “cast out” Satan from our affections. “Every act of transgression reacts upon the sinner, works in him a change of character, and makes it more easy for him to transgress again. By choosing to sin, men separate themselves from God, cut themselves off from the channel of blessing, and the sure result is ruin and death” (1 Selected Messages pg. 235). We wait at our own peril. For in this quote we see what causes the death, shown to us at the cross. Sin causes the death. It is not execution at the hands of our loving Father. And so another Satanic lie is debunked and we are set free to further cast the father-of-lies from our affections.
When we see the truth, it sets us free. Free to choose. And if we choose to cast Satan and self-serving from us as the destructive evil it is, all the power of heaven is on our side. “By yielding up your will to Christ, you ally yourself with the power that is above all principalities and powers. You will have strength from above to hold you steadfast, and thus through constant surrender to God you will be enabled to live the new life, even the life of faith” (Steps to Christ pg. 48). May we so choose to cast Satan from us as did the loyal angels… and countless others who have seen the truth. The choice is in your hands.
With brotherly love,
Jim