From the moment Adam and Eve sinned, the LORD God promised a programme of offensive action for the future.

The woman’s seed — her ‘offspring’ — would eventually bruise, crush, overcome and vanquish the evil one, ‘the serpent’ (Gen 3:14-15). Satan’s schemes, and indeed Satan himself, would be outdone, overthrown, destroyed.

‘The crucified Christ is the mighty conquering Christ — he is Christus Victor.’

One Person, Long Promised

The blessing of God would flow out to ‘all nations’ through the woman’s seed via the patriarchs (Gen 22:18), culminating in the coming and accomplishment of one ‘offspring,’ one Person: our Lord Jesus Christ (Gal 3:16).¹Cole, Against the Darkness, 142-43. Various parts of this material are guided by Derek W. H. Thomas’ class on ‘Victory,’ available at https://www.monergism.com/school-theology-mp3-series. Refer also to John Stott, ’The Conquest of Evil, in The Cross of Christ (IVP, 1986), 227-254.

When the Saviour-King came, he would be both born of woman — and therefore fully human — and at the same time the Son sent forth by God (Gal 4:4) to be the one and only ‘Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus’ (1 Tim 2:5).

As Mediator and Messiah (‘Anointed One’) he pursued and fulfilled the concerns and needs of both God and humanity through the help of God’s Spirit (Mark 1:10).

He Saw His Death as a Conquest

Jesus understood his own death as a means of conquest.

Through it, he said, ‘the ruler of this world’ — Satan — would be ‘driven out,’ and ‘all people’ drawn to Jesus himself (John 12:31-32; cf. 14:30; 16:11, 33).

Paul likewise saw the cross as the disarming and defeat of ‘the rulers and authorities’ (Col 2:15) — a phrase referring to satanic powers and their various physical-political manifestations. Yet it is the ‘blood of the Lamb’ that is the basis on which ‘the salvation and the power and kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ’ has been, and remains, established (Rev 12:10-11).

So the gospel of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and return is set against the broad backdrop of the conflict between God and the devil — a conflict which began with Satan’s rebellion prior to humanity’s fall, and which continues until the final overthrow, confinement, punishment and destruction of all evil powers.

With Christ’s ‘coming, cross, and coming to life again … the decisive blow was struck against the darkness.’²Cole, Against the Darkness, 141. The present paragraph tracks pages 141-48.

Four Ways He Did It

First, he remained obedient to God, standing faithful and true in the face of repeated temptation to sin (Matt 4:1-11).

Second, he taught the truth about Satan and demons (Matt 10:25; 12:43-45; 13:38-39; 25:41; Mark 4:15; John 17:15). And it’s worth pointing out that the devil cannot overthrow true truth taught and understood.

Third, he directly engaged and overpowered the devil — characterised by Jesus himself as ‘the strong man’ (Mark 3:27; Matt 12:22-29; Luke 11:21) — thus releasing sinful men and women from Satan’s grasp. According to Peter, ‘Jesus of Nazareth … went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him’ (Acts 10:38).

Fourth, and decisively:

‘The victory which establishes the kingdom of God is the victory of Christ’s obedience and his sin-bearing sacrifice. By the first he establishes himself as the King of God’s kingdom, with the second he wrests people from Satan’s grasp and provides them free access to his kingdom. The gospel truly understood has at its heart the sin-bearing cross of the Lord Jesus.’³Seccombe, The Gospel of the Kingdom, 137-38.

Why the Cross Breaks Satan’s Grip

Here’s the mechanism, and it’s worth following closely:

‘vital and repeated dimension of the New Testament testimony to the gospel of Jesus Christ … [is] that by his death and resurrection Jesus defeated Satan and all the hosts of evil. He has done so in the most utterly paradoxical way, by giving up his life as an offering for sin and so cancelling the debt of those for whom he died. It is this which breaks Satan’s power over them because it is their sin which empowers him and which he exploits to bring about their destruction. And so Jesus overcame him and all the spiritual powers of darkness by offering himself to God as an atoning sacrifice. … The crucified Christ is the mighty conquering Christ — he is Christus Victor.’⁴Ferdinando, Spiritual Warfare, 121.

Catch what’s doing the work there. Satan’s leverage over a person is their sin. Cancel the debt and the leverage disappears. That’s why the atoning sacrifice and the military victory aren’t two separate achievements — the one accomplishes the other.

Among the ways Christ’s saving activity may be understood, none is more closely tied to his kingship and lordship than the theme of victory. As the Westminster Shorter Catechism summarises: ‘Christ executes the office of a king, in subduing us to himself, in ruling and defending us, and in restraining and conquering all his and our enemies’ (Q26).⁵Van Dixhoorn ed., Creeds, 416.

This victory is won over sin, death and the powers of darkness — demonic forces unseen and invisible, yet no less real for that (Eph 6:12). And note the shape of the battle: it is waged not against God and Satan as equal contenders, but as Christ’s conquest of the world, the flesh and the devil together.

A Mistake Worth Naming

From the second century, a significant — and mistaken — strand of patristic thought understood the atonement as a ransom paid to the devil.

Represented with variations by Origen and Gregory of Nyssa (Great Catechism, chs. 18-26, esp. 24), this ‘rights of the devil’ theory was strongly opposed even in its own era by Gregory Nazianzen (Oration 45.2).⁶Lucas Francisco Mateo-Seco, ‘Devil,’ in The Brill Dictionary of Gregory of Nyssa, eds. Lucas Francisco Mateo-Seco and Guilio Maspero, trans. Seth Cherney (Brill, 2010), 223-26. See also, Cole, Against the Darkness, 154-155. See further, John A. McGuckin, ‘St. Gregory of Nyssa on the Dynamics of Salvation,’ in T & T Clark Companion to Atonement, 155-174.

Rather, it is God himself who both makes and receives payment by ransom — though it must be said that Scripture does not in fact describe this transaction in quite such exact terms.

C. S. Lewis’ rendering of the atonement in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe — chapter 14, ‘The Triumph of the Witch’ — however beloved, is similarly unorthodox on this point.

‘“Ransom,” although drawn from the background of purchasing the freedom of a slave or captive (i.e., to free by payment), is … used in a metaphorical sense for a setting free from sin and its penalty at the cost of the sacrifice of Jesus.’⁷Donald Hagner, Matthew 14-28 (Word, 2002), 582; cited in Cole, Against the Darkness, 155.

What Scripture depicts is Jesus making war on the evil powers. Not deceiving them. Not paying them off. But, by his sacrificial death and death-defeating resurrection, outdoing them and winning the war of God against them.

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• 1
  Cole, Against the Darkness, 142-43. Various parts of this material are guided by Derek W. H. Thomas’ class on ‘Victory,’ available at https://www.monergism.com/school-theology-mp3-series. Refer also to John Stott, ’The Conquest of Evil, in The Cross of Christ (IVP, 1986), 227-254. ↩︎
• 2
  Cole, Against the Darkness, 141. The present paragraph tracks pages 141-48. ↩︎
• 3
  Seccombe, The Gospel of the Kingdom, 137-38. ↩︎
• 4
  Ferdinando, Spiritual Warfare, 121. ↩︎
• 5
  Van Dixhoorn ed., Creeds, 416. ↩︎
• 6
  Lucas Francisco Mateo-Seco, ‘Devil,’ in The Brill Dictionary of Gregory of Nyssa, eds. Lucas Francisco Mateo-Seco and Guilio Maspero, trans. Seth Cherney (Brill, 2010), 223-26. See also, Cole, Against the Darkness, 154-155. See further, John A. McGuckin, ‘St. Gregory of Nyssa on the Dynamics of Salvation,’ in T & T Clark Companion to Atonement, 155-174. ↩︎
• 7
  Donald Hagner, Matthew 14-28 (Word, 2002), 582; cited in Cole, Against the Darkness, 155. ↩︎