Crushing Satan's Head - 2

The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. (Romans 16:20)

As I come back and look at this verse again I begin to see even more of the complexity and awesome beauty of God's character and His ways. The more I learn about the real truth of what God is like the more exciting and insightful the Words of God become and pulse with life for me. The seeming contradictions that so often confuse Christians become much more clear when we have a more elevated view of what God is really like.

The first part of this verse can appear at first to be an oxymoron. How can it be that a God who is designated by the adjective peace accomplish the crushing of His enemy? Does He stop using peace temporarily while He crushes Satan or is there something else going on here that is easy to overlook? And why does it say that Satan will be crushed under our feet? I always thought that Psalms prophesied that the enemy would be put under Jesus' feet.

In my last writing I dwelt upon the connection between the first and last part of this verse. The grace of Jesus with me is very important to the crushing of Satan under my feet. And likewise, I also strongly believe that this word peace, just like the word grace, is a crucial part of the means that have to be used to accomplish this end. Otherwise if I attempt to use any other way to overcome Satan in my life I am stepping outside of God's ways and the results will be something very different – likely the crushing of me under Satan's oppression.

There is one extremely important truth that has come to my attention over the past few years that has helped me to understand many other things. That is the crucial fact that God never, ever uses compulsory force to accomplish His ways in the hearts of men and women. Any use of force to compel the conscience is guaranteed to be a counterfeit of Satan masquerading as religion.

I realize that taking this option away from Christianity creates a vacuum in our theories that stirs up consternation in the minds of many. But faced with this truth we are then confronted with a choice: we can either get defensive about our cherished beliefs in a God who sometimes employs the weapons and means of His adversary to His own advantage, or we can humble ourselves and seek to learn God's ways and accept His Spirit of peace.

I have been reading a book off and on for several months now called Overcoming God's Way which is a Biblical exploration of the belief in nonresistance. I have found it to be very close in many ways to what God has been teaching me over a number of years. And what God asks His people to do is never in conflict with the ways that God conducts His own affairs. What it is reinforcing in my mind is the consistency of God's ways and the superior power inherent in using peaceful means to overcome sin, both in our own lives and in the world in which we live.

When I let go of the option of force to get my way – or to impose God's way for that matter – it is very easy to become frightened and feel very vulnerable. But that is not a bad thing, the vulnerable part that is. Vulnerability is something that Christians have too often downplayed and marginalized and even viewed as something to be avoided. We as humans do not want to go there in our minds. We want to feel confident and self-assured and feel like we have it all together. Feeling vulnerable generally triggers a quick reaction of scrambling to find out what is wrong with ourselves. So the assumption that we are operating on is that when we feel vulnerable then something must be wrong with our lives or our relationship with God.

But in the teachings of Jesus this does not seem to hold water. If we are to take His words seriously it seems to me like we should get over our fear of feeling vulnerable and instead should use that feeling as an intense motivation to cling closer to God and trust in His promises to be with us, not scramble to shore up our facades and run from our fears. Jesus told Paul very plainly that it was in our weakness that His strength is made perfect. So why is it that we continue to avoid looking weak or vulnerable if we want to come into harmony with the ways of God?

It is assumed too often that vulnerability is a bad weakness that must somehow be overcome. It is assumed that when attacked we should defend ourselves. It is assumed that peace is a synonym of being comfortable and without any struggles or trials. But the reality is that we are to have the peace of God to envelop our souls and to keep our hearts safe in the midst of conflicts and trials. Peace and grace are the most important ingredients that the heart needs to live successfully through our conflicts with evil, not to avoid conflict.

I can see more clearly all the time how confused and twisted my assumptions have been about nearly every phrase and word in religion. It is becoming more difficult to communicate effectively using religious words and clichés because their real meanings have been usurped and diverted to mean something different. The whole system of counterfeit religion is constructed on these alternative meanings and our whole Christian life has often been based on these false meanings as well.

The more I have learned the true meaning of each word and phrase used by the Bible the more consistent and incredible is the truth and clarity of the bigger picture as I piece these words back together with their new (but really older and more original) meanings. As I do that it now becomes much easier to begin to grasp how it could be that a God of peace could accomplish the crushing of Satan under my feet. For God's ways of winning this terrible conflict with evil is not to stoop to using Satan's ways of fighting but to use the truth about His character that has never changed from eternity.

The way that God is going to win, and the way everyone who aligns themselves with God will also win, is to carefully stick unswervingly to God's methods that reflect the real truth about God. It is peace that overcomes because it is the lack of peace that causes the conflict to start with. It is grace that we must have to win over evil, not compulsion or force, for it is the lack of grace that started all the trouble with sin in the first place.

What does it mean when it says that Satan will be crushed? This word conjures up images associated with force right away in our thinking. But we must be extremely careful not to infuse our own assumptions into the language of the Bible. It is much wiser to allow the Word to explain itself and to be consistent with the real truths about God that He has already been revealing to us. I am not going to attempt a quick and simplistic answer to this question right here. But one thing I am rather confident of is that it does not involve the kinds of crushing that we typically prefer.

If there is one thing that God has emphasized to my mind and heart over the past few years it is that He will win this conflict with evil without resorting to changing His character or personality to accomplish that end. God will win without compromising His heart of perfect love and goodness. And the closer we get to His heart and accept His ways of viewing reality, the easier it becomes for us to see the perfect harmony in all His words and the illustrations He uses to convey the truths of reality to our minds.

Father, I need much more of Your spirit of peace in my life. I realize sometimes how my communications are hindered by my lack of true peace. My words take on an edge that discredits Your truths I am trying to share because my spirit is not completely at rest and peace. Father, I need much deeper infusions of Your grace to transform my spirit and my life so that those around me can see Your reflection and beauty more clearly instead of the edge of unresolved bitterness within me. Fill me right now with Your peace and Your grace so that Satan and all his schemes and designs against me will be crushed. Thank-you for the victory that is guaranteed through Your grace.

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