Revelation 12:7-17: A Yen for the Yin

C.S. Lewis, the twentieth century’s most influential Christian author, once wrote that Christians often make the error of either giving Satan too much credit, or not enough (sorry; I don’t remember exactly which book he said this in). Sometimes we ignore Satan and don’t recognize that he really can harm us in all sorts of ways. But at other times we become so afraid of him that we forget that Christ has already defeated him.

Popular spirituality in America over the last few decades has been influenced by an emphasis in eastern religions on harmony and balance. In its proper place and with a correct understanding, that’s fine. I’m all for moderation and keeping things even. However, if we take this a step too far when it comes to our understanding of spiritual matters, we risk falling into one of the oldest and most pervasive Christian heresies. It’s usually summed up with the term “dualism.” The most common expression of it these days is the widespread use of the Chinese “yin-yang” symbol. It has risen the rank of coolness and PC’ness. When it comes to symbols, it’s right up there with the peace symbol and the smiley face. The “yin” is light, activity, male, and height; the “yang” is darkness, passiveness, female, and depths. The way most of us think about it, however, yin is good and yang is bad. The world is a balance between good and bad: two opposite forces struggling against each other. In some ways of looking at it, it’s a balance kind of like the “circle of life.” In others, it’s a never-ending conflict between two opposite forces.

Throughout Christian history, the idea of a conflict between the forces of good and evil has led many people to see it as a dualism struggle between opposite but equally powerful forces. Dualism can be found in many different Christian heretical movements through the ages: the Gnostics, the Manichees, the Cathars, and so on. Even among orthodox-evangelical American Christians today, it’s easy to see signs of dualism. In our case, we think that God ultimately has more power than Satan, but only barely. It’s an epic struggle between God and Satan, and it takes everything that God has to defeat his ancient adversary. And somehow Satan always rises back up for another round of fighting.

This, however, has nothing to do with the Bible’s presentation of Satan’s power in comparison to God’s. C. S. Lewis’ advice would do us well. Yes, we need to be aware of what Satan is doing; more on that in a moment. But he is already a defeated enemy. His abilities and strength are laughably puny in the face of God’s infinite majesty. Or to use the yin-yang scheme, the yin is immensely more powerful and prevalent than the yang. Today’s passage gives us a poignant image of this truth.

In verses 1-6, we read about Christ’s successful invasion into Satan’s domain, the world. Despite Satan’s best efforts, he came into the world and won his victory. His people (us, the church) are still in the wreckage of Satan’s world (or, the first budding of Christ’s kingdom on earth), but God gives us refuge from Satan’s attacks. Now, in three short verses, we read of Satan’s counterassault on God’s heavenly stronghold. John begins this passage with the sentence, “There was war in heaven.” Ah! we may think. This is the final confrontation between God and Satan: the forces of good and the forces of evil. But if we do, we are sorely mistaken. God doesn’t even bother lifting a finger. He leans over to Michael, one of his archangels, and says, “Michael, would you please go out and take care of that mess outside?” This is only one of three places in Scripture where Michael is mentioned (the other two are Daniel 10 and Jude). In the common Jewish understanding of the time, however, Michael was the guardian angel of the Jewish nation. So he’s not exactly a minor angel. Nonetheless, he’s an angel; a servant of God. There’s no dualist tension between God and Satan. Michael, one God’s peons, can handle Satan and his crowd without any help from God.

However, we keep losing sight of this fact. We keep thinking that Satan is powerful. Well, he’s dangerous. And we need to be aware of him. But if we are resting secure in the grace of God, we don’t need to lose any sleep over him. The reason why we may give the devil more than his due is, well, because we fall for his tricks. In this passage, we read two descriptions of Satan and what he does.

Let’s start with the second one: Satan as the accuser, which we read about in v. 10. This is actually what the name “Satan” means: the accuser. In the original Old Testament understandings of Satan, this is how he was first understood. He was the one who brought accusations to God about the sins of the people. It may be easiest for us to think of Satan as the prosecuting attorney, presenting a case against the people before God, the judge. But over time, he wasn’t content merely to accuse people for what they had done wrong. He began to create situations so that he would have something to accuse us of. That’s a bit more sinister than simply presenting a case; it’s as though the DA’s office starting making people commit crimes so that they could prosecute them. And this brings us to Satan’s second description (which we find in verse 9. He is the one who leads the world astray. Satan is the deceiver. And he does it in order to undermine God’s authority (well, to try to undermine it). He began his work of deception all the way back in the Garden of Eden (read Genesis 3 again, and notice carefully how he twists things to get Eve to believe what isn’t true, so that she will sin). He’s call the deceiver frequently in the New Testament, and deception is one of the greatest threats in the early church (and in the church today, I’d say). In order to have something to accuse us of, to rip us away from God’s loving friendship, he leads us astray so that we think what we’re doing is OK. Then, after we’ve gone down too far, Satan springs up and yells “Surprise! God, look at what he’s done! You’ve got to punish him!” And then he chuckles to himself because he’s managed to trick one of God’s followers to fall away. Like it or not, Satan’s accusations were accurate. He may have been acting in bad faith and stacking the deck against us. But our sins were real, and led to punishment.

That plan worked pretty well for Satan for a long time, until God put a stop to it. Once Christ entered the world to take charge of what is rightfully his, he created a way for us to escape from Satan’s accusations and still be in a loving relationship with our Lord. Through Christ’s atoning work, we have been set free from all accusation. Our sin has been redeemed and there’s nothing we can do, or ever could do, that will undo the salvation that Christ has brought to us. Satan can accuse us all he wants, but God has an answer for it all. “Yes, they have sinned. But payment has already been made for that sin, and for any and all sin that will ever happen. My relationship with my people no longer depends upon them living sinless lives. It only depends upon the victory that Christ has won on the cross and in the tomb. Satan’s career as an accuser was over. Our sin is overcome by the blood of the Lamb, and there no longer any accusation.

However, Satan didn’t stop his work at deception. All he did was change his tactics. He now tries to trick us into believing that there’s something we can be accused of. Just as he tricked Eve into believing something about God’s commands about Garden of Eden that wasn’t true, he know tries to trick us into believing that maybe Christ’s work of redemption wasn’t so powerful after all. And who knows? Satan may believe that himself. He may be a dualist and still think that he has as much power as God does. He can try to make us believe that we are still under the threat of accusation. If he can get us to doubt that Christ has saved us, then he can get us to deny his salvation and not accept it. And sadly, he’s pretty effective at this. It may be something along the lines of “If you want God to forgive you, here’s something hard that you have to do to earn it.” As if we could ever earn God’s love, or would ever have to! Or, his deception could be something more like “Yeah, Christ died for your sins. But what you just did, and the person that you are, is so horrible that not even God can love.” He can try to get you to deny the greatest truth of all creation: God loves us, and there is nothing that can ever stop or interfere with that love. We are not capable of doing something so big that God cannot forgive it.

So, how do we resist Satan? We hear the answer in verse 11 of the song of victory. We can be like our “brothers,” who resist and overcome Satan with two things. First, the blood of the Lamb: an acceptance of Christ’s self-giving sacrifice for us. Through his death and resurrection, Satan’s accusations no longer have any hold over us. Second, they resist and overcome Satan “by the word of the testimony.” It’s so simple and obvious that it’s easy for us to overlook. The best way to combat deception and lies is with the truth. We silence accusation and we expose deception by proclaiming the truth of Christ’s atonement.

Now, Satan isn’t going to like that. He’ll try to shut us up. And his attacks against some of our fellow believers has killed them. Well, at least their bodies and their lives on this earth. But if we love God above all else, even life, Satan can never win. But even at this, we need to remember that God’s power to protect and save us is infinitely greater than any attack Satan can throw at us. The worst thing that we can do is to forget his love and his power, and begin to believe the Satanic lie that we are caught in an epic battle between good and evil. It’s all good.