Battle lines were drawn in the opening chapters of Genesis, even before our first parents’ exile from Eden. “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel” (Gen. 3:15). The offspring of the woman would come to bring victory and deliverance.
Many centuries later, in the fullness of time, we read of the arrival of that promised Deliverer, with mission in hand. “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8).
The writer of Hebrews lends his voice to the announcement. In the first chapter of his pastoral treatise, the writer clarifies the identity of the Deliverer as the only begotten Son worthy of worship and eternal with the Father. Then turning to His incarnation as Man on messianic mission, the writer explains: “Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb. 2:14).
Christ’s first encounter with the devil was at His birth. In the book of Revelation, John sees a horrific dragon, that great serpent and deceiver of the whole world (Rev. 12:9; 1 John 5:19) and the accuser of the brethren (Rev. 12:10). In fearsome power, “the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born” (Rev. 12:4).
At the start of His public ministry following His baptism at the Jordan River, Jesus, freshly anointed by the Spirit, is led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil (Matt. 4:1-11). Like the first Adam, Jesus as representative faced off against the enemy.
Just as Satan in the Garden appealed to human desire so he did with Jesus who had gone forty days and forty nights without food. Just as he did in the Garden, Satan sought to lead the second Man to test God. Just as the devil quoted God’s word in the Garden, so he twisted God’s word to find leverage with the last Adam. In each instance, Jesus rebuffed the devil with the sword of the Spirit from the book of Deuteronomy.
And now at the climax of His earthly mission, His hour having arrived, what Luke calls “the power of darkness” (Luke 22:53), Jesus gathers with His disciples in an upper room. John frames the gathering in these terms: “And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him” (John 13:2). Judas, having given himself over to the cause of darkness, will later become an instrument for the devil himself (John 13:27).
Christ’s solitary battle would not be for His victory alone. It would be for ours, the sheep given Him from the foundation of the world, wrested from sin’s bondage for life eternal.
How is Jesus a deliverer in a way that you could never be?
