Jesus Christ is the prince of peace (Isa. 9:6) but He is also a warrior-king who dashes His enemies to pieces and whose arrows are sharp in the hearts of His enemies (Ps. 2:9, Ps. 45:5). And just as the biblical narrative is one of abundant blessing and shalom (human flourishing), it is also a story of warfare, conflict, and battle. God is described as “mighty in battle” (Ps. 24:8) and is frequently given the designation “YHWH of Hosts”, a peculiarly military term. Even the Hebrew word ezer, describing Eve as Adam’s “helper” in Genesis 2:18, is used frequently in the Old Testament for God’s glorious help in military circumstance (Ps. 20:2, 33:20, 115:9-10, etc.).
That the God of the Bible is a God of warfare is not just attested by the Old Testament. Paul reminds the church in Ephesus of the reality of the spiritual war they are called to fight (Eph. 6:10-17). Perhaps the most striking picture of this spiritual warfare theme we find in the New Testament is in the book of Revelation.
Steadfast faith, in the book of Revelation, is described in terms of conquest and victory over opposition. Christ regularly promises rewards to the “one who conquers” by holding fast to the faith amidst spiritual attack. The spiritual warfare of Revelation expresses itself in a number of ways including persecution, false teaching, idolatry, and assimilation into the sinful culture that surround the church (i.e. “the world”).
The Christian has three main enemies: the world, one’s own flesh, and the devil. John focuses on the good spiritual war against the devil and the world in particular in the book of Revelation. The language he uses alludes to the long war that has been raging since the very beginning.
God’s War Against the Serpent
Revelation 12:3 introduces us to a ferocious enemy of God and His people:
And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems.
Revelation 12:3, ESV
This dragon symbolizes Satan as John confirms just a few verses later:
And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
Revelation 12:9, ESV
John calls the dragon “that ancient serpent”, a clear allusion to Genesis 3:1. He uses the Greek word ophis which is used in the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament) in Genesis 3:1 to describe the devil in the garden of Eden on his mission to tempt humanity into rebellion against God.
And this indeed is where the cosmic war between God and the Serpent began. The Serpent’s powers of seduction and deception that enticed Adam and Eve in their sin are still at work in Revelation. But something has changed between Genesis 3 and Revelation 12. The change is first glimpsed in Genesis 3:15:
I will put enmity between you and the woman,
Genesis 3:15, ESV
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.
God curses the Serpent and promises that warfare will result from the Fall of mankind. There will be enmity between the Serpent and the woman and between their offsprings. This immediately commences in the following chapters of Genesis as humanity splits off into two paths: one following God and one following their own authority. One might say these two lines of offspring are personified in Cain and Abel. Cain kills his brother Abel in jealousy and Abel becomes the first human casualty in the war between God and the Serpent.
The War in the Old Testament
This war continued through the Old Testament where we see it coming up again and again. Goliath’s scales of armor, resembling a snake, can’t protect him from David, the rising king of Israel who cuts off his head, furthering the typology of the head-crushing seed of the woman. (Strikingly, the book of Judges also presents stories of women crushing the heads of Israel’s enemies. See Judges 4:21 and 9:53.)
Wisdom literature presents God’s victory over the Serpent in numerous places. For example, in the book of Job, God questions Job and asks,
“Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook
or press down his tongue with a cord?”
(Job 41:1, ESV)
The implication in the question is that, while Job is powerless to tame the chaos and power of Leviathan the sea monster, God has vanquished him and holds all authority over the creature. (I believe that Leviathan may well be a literal ancient beast that is also used symbolically in this passage to refer to the chaos of evil, and possibly Satan himself. See Job 41:34 which describes Leviathan as the “king over all the sons of pride”.) There is some mystery that surrounds the Hebrew name “Leviathan” but the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, uses a form of the Greek word drakōn here. That same word is the one John uses in Revelation 12:3ff to describe the eschatological enemy of God and His people.
Asaph, the psalmist responsible for Psalm 74, also declares God’s conquest of the serpent Leviathan:
Yet God my King is from of old,
Psalm 74:12-14, ESV
working salvation in the midst of the earth.
You divided the sea by your might;
you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters.
You crushed the heads of Leviathan;
you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.
Here again, the word drakōn is used in verses 13 and 14 (translated “sea monsters” and “Leviathan” respectively). Also, the notion of God “crushing the head” of the Serpent is found.
Psalm 91:13 is also relevant although it expresses God’s victory over the evil Serpent differently. In this case, the crushing of the Serpent is done by one who trusts in the Lord.
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
Psalm 91:1, 13, ESV
will abide in the shadow of the Almighty…
You will tread on the lion and the adder;
the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot.
Not only does God have authority over the evil forces of darkness but His people also have been granted to fight in this war against Satan and his forces as well, as they fight with God’s strength.
The prophet Isaiah also declares YHWH’s victory over the Serpent:
In that day the LORD with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea.
Isaiah 27:1, ESV
The True Seed of the Woman
Ultimately, we see Jesus fulfilling the promise of Genesis 3:15 as He is the true seed of the woman who has come to crush the head of the Serpent.
When Jesus comes to Jerusalem during His final days before crucifixion He confronts the apostate Jewish religious leaders who reject Him and have, in a sense, “defected” in this long, cosmic war. (Although one could argue that their rejection of Jesus proved they were never on God’s side to begin with.) He tells the Jewish leaders that “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires.” (John 8:44) Here Jesus explicitly puts the Jewish leaders on the devil’s side of the battleground. He pronounces judgment on them in the book of Matthew:
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.
Matthew 23:29-35, ESV
What is striking here is that Jesus refers to the scribes and Pharisees as “serpents” (plural of ophis) and in the same breath tells them that they will be held accountable for all the righteous blood shed on earth, starting with the blood of Abel! Although Abel’s death long pre-dates the establishment of the Israelite nation, the Jewish religious leaders are presented by Christ as within the same offspring of the Serpent and thus responsible for the martyrdom of Abel.
Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension is the apex of the long war against the Serpent. But even before these historical events, Jesus was already declaring victory over Satan and his demonic forces. After Jesus sends out his disciples to heal and preach the gospel of the kingdom, they return with ecstatic reports of their success. Jesus replies,
And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
Luke 10:18-20, ESV
Satan falling like “lightening from heaven” is also alluded to by John in Revelation 12:9 as we have seen above. Furthermore, John goes on,
And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.
Revelation 12:10, ESV
Satan’s accusatory power was stripped from him when Christ paid for our sin on the cross. Hebrews 2:14 tells us that “through death [Jesus] might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,”. Paul tells the Colossians that God “disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.” (Colossians 2:15) In the context of the passage it is clear that this was accomplished through “canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands…nailing it to the cross” (Col. 2:14).
Therefore, the cross fulfills the ultimate crushing of the Serpent’s head by the seed of the woman. Furthermore, Christ’s resurrection and ascension, never to be divorced from His death on the cross, is the ultimate victory.
This victory over the devil is ours as well, in union with Christ who has conquered through His death and resurrection. Similarly to Psalm 91:13, quoted above, Paul tells the Roman Christians that “the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Romans 16:20).
This triumph has been inaugurated in Christ’s first coming and will be consummated in His second coming. John foresees the day when “the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and…will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Revelation 20:10). This, along with the declaration in Revelation 21:1 that “the sea was no more” encourages us with the truth that one day, God will fully and finally eradicate evil in His new creation and His people will at last be free from warfare.