“What the Devil Don't Know Will Hurt Him”

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

I have a question about the devil. I was wondering whether or not he knew of God's plan for salvation beforehand or if he thought he was victorious when Jesus died on the cross.  I heard somebody talking about this once; they said Satan believed that he had won when Jesus died on the cross.  I was just wondering if and where the verse was that stated this because I don't want to believe it if I can't find it.

Sincerely, Devilishly Curious

Dear Devilishly Curious,

There is no specific verse that states the devil didn’t know what was going to happen when Christ died on the cross – but there is some really good circumstantial evidence that he didn’t see it coming.

God says that the angels didn’t know what was going to happen when Jesus went to the cross (1 Pet 1:11-12). If the angels didn’t know, I doubt the devil did either.

Another thing is that the devil isn’t stupid. Evil?  Yes.  Stupid?  No. Just read the account of Christ’s temptation by the devil in Luke 4, and you can see how wiley and clever he can be. If he had known that he was causing his own demise by attacking Jesus, he probably wouldn’t have done it. Even Jesus said that it wouldn’t make sense for Satan to attack himself (Mk 3:23).

Instead, we see that the devil had his hour of darkness (Lk 22:53), and in his attempt to destroy Jesus’ life (Lk 22:3), Peter’s faith (Lk 22:31), and the church’s future (Jhn 16:32), the devil was unwittingly defeated. Nope, I don’t think he ever saw it coming.

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