It is significant that James says, "Submit yourselves therefore to God.  Resist the devil, and he will flee from you" (jas. 4:7).  Note here the divine order.  Successful resistance to Satan can come only as one submits utterly to God.  As lon- as self plays a part in the life, resistance to the devil is sheer folly.  The devil simply says, "Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?" God's sure road to successful resistance of the devil is first of all to become "victim-victors." Only as we are first Christ's captives, can we stand with Him in conquest over the devil.

This brings us to consider just how Satan's head was bruised.  Is Christ indeed the Lion of the tribe of Judah?  Jesus plainly ascribes His victory over the devil to the Cross.  His uplifting is the judgment of this world's prince.  But how?  Was he not crucified through weakness?-led as a lamb to the slaughter?  Has the reader wondered how such a tragedy can be a triumph?  The writer puzzled over this.  He accepted it simply because the Bible said it.  And that is always sufficient reason.  But it seemed so utterly irrational.  Did not the murderer and father of lies have all his own way at Calvary?  Jesus said: "This is your hour, and the power of darkness." The twelve legions of angels He refused.  But why turn Himself over to the devil and his dupes?  Let the Almighty manifest His power.  Send Satan to his own place.  Thus reason raves.

But God's ways are above ours.  Victories in the ethical world cannot be weighed in the scales of gross matter.  Morals and might are not the same.  A poor infidel lawyer asks, "If your God is omnipotent, why does He allow the devil to be loose in the world?" That may sound original and clever--as though ten thousand saints have not puzzled over this gordian knot.  God's ways are past finding out.  Satan will yet be bound for a thousand years and then again "loosed" as part of God's "ways." But his destiny is the lake of fire.  God might have bound the devil to begin with?  But why dwell upon "why"?  The devil is a postmaster with if's and why's.  Saints have learned to lean upon a God of infinite wisdom.  They have found Him such.  The Cross has already proved to them "the power of God and the wisdom of God.' For them the Cross has cured sin, and has broken the grip of the devil in their lives.  They have found that Satan is servant, that the Saviour is Master.  Furthermore, they see that even now Satan's victims are being taken from him, right under his nose through Calvary's omnipotent attraction.  But how?  That is still the question.

Paul says concerning the Cross: "The hostile princes and rulers He (Christ) stripped off from Himself, and boldly displayed them as Ms conquests, when by the Cross He triumphed over them" (Col. 2:15, Wey.). As we face the mystery of this triumph, it is manifest that sheer force has neither part nor lot in the matter.  Let us behold the Lamb as He ascends Golgotha's brow.  He will go to the Cross undefended, and unresisting in utmost obedience to His Father.  In a perfectly selfless humanity, He will meet the enemy in final awful combat.  Let him do his worst.  Let him empty his last volley.  But the last Adam will continue to love the Lord his God with all His heart and His neighbor as Himself.  He will refuse to pity Himself, refuse to come down from the Cross, refuse to save Himself.  When God, with averted face, smites His beloved Son as He bears the woes of the world, even in that dread-ful hour Christ will still say, "My God." His was an obedience unto death--even the death of the Cross.  His victory carries Him to the throne of the universe.  The devil hasn't a leg to stand on.  He has photo-graphed himself at Calvary.  He is the father of lies.  He is the murderer of souls, "coming to steal, to mutilate and destroy." He is a lying, deceiving serpent.  Together with "the princes of this world," he has slain the holy, the harmless, the undefiled.  Now is the judgment of this world.  The prince of this world has been cast out.  Christ is victor.  He has shaken off the demon forces.  He has displayed them as His victims.  "Thus, through the triumph which Christ achieved in His death, the ultimate, absolute judgment of the world, the worldly principle, and its prince, potentially took place.  The Cross, as Christ viewed it, represented the last standard, 'the last judgment' before which all moral and spiritual principles will be brought for their final unveiling; and there He was victorious." (Dr.  Mabie, quoted by Huegel.)