If Christ had not wanted it, Satan would not have appeared before Him, tempted Him, and attacked Him. But Christ here did not fight for Himself. Instead, He fought as surety, as a third party, as a substitute for the entire human race.
By sin, all people sold themselves to Satan, becoming servants and subjects of his kingdom. Therefore, when Christ wanted to redeem men and save them, He came, as the true owner of all people's souls, to conquer Satan, to destroy his kingdom, to remove his plunder from him, to free us from his dark power, and to lead us through the kingdom of grace into the kingdom of eternal glory. Christ did this mainly by His bloody death of atonement on the cross for all the sins of the world. By this, the head of the snake was totally crushed and all people were completely redeemed. The battle with Satan described in our text (Matthew 4:1-11) was the beginning. It was the first engagement that had to be fought by the Prince of our salvation to trample Satan under His feet and to deal the first deadly wounds to him. It was the first defeat the hellish army had to experience to show them that the Stronger One had now come.
Jesu Juva,
Soli Deo Gloria
Soli Deo Gloria
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