Ephesians 5:8 “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.”
We have stated thus far that in order for Jesus to be able to destroy the devil, God had to persuade him to kill Jesus and take Him down into Hades to suffer torment. So how did God do that? In order to do that God had to convince Satan that Jesus had become subject to his authority. As we have already seen, it is only those who have died spiritually as a result of their sin that fall under Satan’s authority. And so we see that God had to convince Satan that Jesus had died spiritually as a result of sin that He had committed. So how did God do that? When men incur spiritual death their spirits transition from light to darkness. We saw that same phenomenon occur when Satan and his angels rebelled against God, for they transitioned from being angels of light to become angels of darkness. The apostle Paul confirms that truth for us in the above quoted passage of scripture, by describing the spiritual condition of saints before and after they are saved, for he declares that before we were saved that we were darkness, but now we are light in the Lord. It is the spirit of the individual that is either light or darkness. In other words if God were to allow us to see into the spirit realm we would see that the spirits of the saved are light while the spirits of the unsaved are darkness. Therefore because Satan resides in the spirit realm he sees the condition of the spirits of men, thus identifying who is subject to him and who isn’t. And so in order for God to convince the devil that Jesus had become subject to his authority, God had to ensure that Jesus’ spirit transitioned from light to darkness, which could only happen if Jesus had died in spirit as a result of sin.
2 Corinthians 5:21 “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
When Jesus was born into the earth the devil understood that He was sent to execute God’s plan of salvation for mankind, although at that time the devil had no idea what that plan was. And so in his attempt to thwart God’s plan, Satan had two options available; he could either kill Jesus or tempt Him to commit sin, and so he chose to employ both options. The first option which we will discuss is Satan’s attempt to kill Jesus. So why would Satan try to kill Jesus? Satan knew that Jesus was not immortal, because as we read earlier, Jesus had the same body that all men have i.e. a body made of flesh and blood. In other words Jesus’ body was mortal just as all men are. And so Satan knew that if Jesus died while He was spiritually alive that, just like all children who die, He would ascend back into heaven to be with God. In other words as one that was not spiritually dead, Jesus would be unable to descend into Satan’s domain of death, and thus He would be precluded from implementing God’s plan of salvation. And so on numerous occasions Satan attempted to have the Lord Jesus killed. For example Herod tried to kill Him when He was a baby; His hometown of Nazareth tried to throw Him off a cliff; and on numerous occasions the Jews tried to stone Him. However, as long as Jesus remained spiritually alive, all of Satan’s attempts to kill Jesus proved to be unsuccessful, because God protected Him. This brings us to the second option which Satan employed, which was his attempt to tempt the Lord Jesus to commit sin. It is obvious why Satan would use this option, because if it proved to be successful then Jesus would incur the penalty of sin, i.e. He would die in spirit and thus fall under Satan’s authority as the one who had the power of death; and thus Satan would have thwarted God’s plan of salvation. And so on numerous occasions Satan attempted to tempt the Lord Jesus to commit sin. For example, Jesus successfully overcame all three of Satan’s attempts to tempt Him in the wilderness. Nevertheless even though Satan was unsuccessful on that occasion, scripture teaches us that the devil departed from Jesus until an opportune time (Luke 4:13). In other words, there were other occasions when the devil tempted the Lord. Nevertheless all of Satan’s attempts to tempt the Lord Jesus proved to be unsuccessful, because the Lord never committed any sin; until the time arrived for God’s plan of salvation to be made manifest. We have seen that Satan’s attempts to kill the Lord Jesus and his attempts to tempt Him to commit sin all proved to be unsuccessful. So how did God accomplish that which Satan had found impossible to do? The answer lies in the above quoted passage of scripture, for this passage declares that God made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin for us. So what does that statement mean? It means that God took the sin of the world and placed it on His Son. The moment God did that, Jesus’ spirit incurred the punishment of sin i.e. His spirit died and Jesus became subject to the one who had the power of death, i.e. the devil. Although this passage reveals to us how God made His Son to be sin, it does not reveal how God was able to convince the devil that Jesus had finally committed sin. So why was that so important? If God had simply made Jesus to become sin with our sin, Satan and his angels would have immediately suspected that something was not right, because they had first hand experience as to just how impervious Jesus was to committing sin. And so if Satan and his angels suspected anything untoward they would never have killed Jesus, thus denying Him access to their domain of death.
Luke 22:2-6 “And the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might kill Him, for they feared the people. (3) Then Satan entered Judas, surnamed Iscariot, who was numbered among the twelve. (4) So he went his way and conferred with the chief priests and captains, how he might betray Him to them. (5) And they were glad, and agreed to give him money. (6) So he promised and sought opportunity to betray Him to them in the absence of the multitude.”
So how did God convince the devil that Jesus had finally committed sin? The answer lies in the above quoted passage of scripture, for in this passage we see that Satan himself influenced Judas to betray Jesus. This action which Satan took raises two questions; firstly, why was Satan interested in influencing Judas to betray the Lord Jesus; and secondly, why had Satan specifically chosen Judas for that task? To answer both questions, we first need to discuss how the Lord Jesus appointed His twelve apostles. Scripture teaches us that prior to the Lord choosing His apostles, that He spent all night in prayer to God, and the following morning He called His disciples to Himself; and from them He then chose twelve whom He named apostles, of whom Judas was one (Luke 6:12-16). And so, for the devil who was observing our Lord’s actions, it looked like the Lord spent all night in prayer to make sure that He chose correctly, i.e. those whom God had preordained to be His twelve apostles. But if we examine scripture more closely we see that right from the outset Jesus knew exactly who His twelve apostles were, and not only that but Jesus also knew that Judas had been chosen to betray Him (John 6:64-71). And so we see that the Lord’s actions on the night prior to His appointing of the twelve were designed to create an illusion to convince the devil that Jesus was prayerfully seeking God’s counsel, because He couldn’t afford to make a mistake in His choosing of the twelve apostles. God needed to create that illusion to reinforce the devil’s suspicion. So what did Satan suspect? In observing the Lord’s twelve apostles, the devil knew that Judas was a thief and that he was stealing from the Lord’s ministry finances (John 12:6). And so Satan became convinced that Jesus had missed God in choosing Judas, for Satan could not conceive that God would have chosen a thief to be one of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. Therefore it was for this reason that Satan was so keen to persuade Judas to betray the Lord Jesus, for he reasoned that if he could persuade Judas to betray Jesus, it would prove that Jesus had disobeyed God in choosing him. In other words Jesus would have committed sin. And so we see that when Judas betrayed the Lord Jesus with a kiss on the night before the Lord was crucified (Luke 22:48) that it was in that moment that God placed the sin of the world on His Son. The moment that happened, Satan saw the Lord’s spirit transition from light to darkness as He incurred spiritual death. And so Satan was deceived into thinking that Jesus had committed sin by appointing Judas whom God had not chosen. And because Satan was convinced that Jesus had indeed committed sin resulting in Jesus incurring spiritual death, he was also convinced that Jesus now fell under his authority as the one who had the power of death. And so we see that Judas’ betrayal of the Lord Jesus played a crucial role in God’s plan of salvation.
Michael E.B. Maher
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