How the Cross of Christ defeated Satan, vindicated God, and gives Christ the right to rule the universe for eternity.
Editor’s Note: This is an extra feature for those who are interested in faith matters and is in addition to the regular monthly Faith column.
1. The Greatness of Christ
Do you think you know Christ — who He is, what He came to do, and how far His work reaches?
We haven’t even begun to grasp His greatness. The real Jesus Christ is beyond human comprehension, greater than theology can define, higher than imagination can scale. Yet Scripture invites us to look upward and outward — to stretch our minds and hearts toward the edges of what revelation allows. Even then, we will only dimly perceive the immensity of His glory.
Still, what we can know is enough to change everything.
Come with me for a moment, and let’s look at Christ, not only as Savior of humanity, but as Lord of the universe. What if the work He did on earth — His birth, His life, His death, and resurrection — did more than redeem fallen people? What if it also resolved an ancient question that shook heaven itself?
That is the astounding truth we will explore: that the Cross of Christ answered the greatest question in the universe and gave Christ the right to rule it forever.
2. The Immensity of God and the Mystery of His Care
We often speak of the intimacy of God — His nearness, His personal concern — and rightly so. But we can become so familiar with His intimacy that we forget His immensity.
In 1995, NASA turned the Hubble Space Telescope toward what seemed an empty patch of sky — a speck no larger than a grain of sand held at arm’s length. When the image came back, it revealed ten thousand galaxies, each containing billions of stars. Later calculations suggested that if that tiny patch of sky held such multitudes, then the whole universe might contain thousands of millions of galaxies, each bursting with suns and worlds beyond counting.
Our Milky Way — with its 100 to 400 billion stars — is only one among them. The nearest galaxy, Andromeda, is two and a half million light-years away. We can state such numbers, but we cannot truly imagine them. The distances defy comprehension.
Now consider this: Believers hold that the God who created all this — who spoke light itself into being and spread the heavens like a curtain — also formed you. He knows the number of hairs on your head. He notices the sparrow that falls unseen in a forest. The same mind that planned the superclusters of galaxies cares about your secret thoughts.
And even more incomprehensible: that this infinite Creator stepped into His own creation. Out of all the stars, all the worlds, He came to this small planet, in an ordinary galaxy, among ordinary people — and emptied Himself to become one of us. He lived sinlessly, taught truth, healed the broken, and finally, out of infinite love, offered Himself on a cross to atone for sin, reconciling us to God.
We believe this — we must believe it — but we rarely pause to ask what it means beyond our personal salvation. Love motivated the Creator of the cosmos to come here. Yet, could His mission on this single world have cosmic consequences?
3. The Ultimate Question in the Universe: Is God Good?
Many imagine the central issue of creation to be power: Is God sovereign? But even the demons never doubted that. When they confronted Jesus, they cried, “Have You come to torment us before the time?” (Matt. 8:29). They knew who ruled.
The deepest question of all is not over God’s sovereignty. The true issue — in heaven as on earth — is the character of God.
If God is all-powerful but not good, creation trembles. If His motives are self-serving, every intelligent creature has reason to fear. And if He demands love without proving His worthiness of it, then love itself would be coerced.
For eternity to be secure, the following question must be answered beyond dispute:
“Is God good — really, truly, perfectly good?”
God’s ultimate purpose has always been love — a freely given, mutual relationship with His creatures, both human and angelic. Scripture describes redeemed humanity as “the Bride of Christ,” united to Him in everlasting devotion. But love cannot exist where trust is absent. Before creation can rest in joy, the goodness of its Creator must be demonstrated beyond all doubt.
That is the issue Satan raised at the dawn of rebellion — and the question Christ came to settle once and for all.
4. The Indictment: Satanís Accusation Against God
Satan’s war against God did not start with open violence but with a whispered question about God’s goodness.
The word “Satan” means accuser. From the beginning, his strategy has been to slander God’s character, to plant doubt in the hearts of creatures about the purity of their Creator’s motives. He has always sought to make God appear untrustworthy — powerful, yes, but selfish, withholding, and ultimately unjust.
The First Indictment: The Garden of Eden
When Satan approached Eve in the garden, his temptation was not merely about fruit. It was about faith — whether she would trust the goodness of the One who had made her.
“The serpent said to the woman, ‘You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil’” (Genesis 3:4–5).
The serpent accused God of lying, of keeping good things from humanity, of clinging jealously to His power. “God knows… you will be like Him.” The implication: God isn’t truly good. He’s holding you back.
The tragedy of Eden began when Eve lost faith in God’s goodness. Sin entered the world not merely through disobedience, but through distrust. Humanity fell by believing that God was not as loving as He claimed.
Yet even then, notice what God did not do. He judged the sin, He cursed the serpent, but He did not defend Himself. He offered no verbal rebuttal, no heavenly press release to explain His motives. He would let the record of history — and ultimately the cross — be His answer.
“Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies” (Rom. 8:33).
The time would come when He would justify not only sinners but His own name.
The Second Indictment: The Case of Job
The same accusation appears again in the book of Job. In a celestial assembly, Satan mocks the faith of a righteous man:
“Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not made a hedge around him?… But put forth Your hand now and touch all that he has; he will curse You to Your face” (Job 1:9–11).
Once again, Satan charges that God’s goodness is a facade — that His followers love Him only for what He gives. In essence: God must bribe His creatures to trust Him.
Job’s suffering becomes the arena of that accusation. Through the loss of all things, Job’s faith endures — and God is vindicated. Yet even at the end, God offers no explanation to Job. He never says, “It was Satan’s doing.” He simply reveals His majesty and lets His character speak for itself.
In both Eden and Uz, God remains silent under accusation. But in time, He would speak — not in words, but in wounds.
5. The Ancient War: Heavenís Unseen Conflict
The rebellion on earth is only a front in a much older and larger war — one that began not in Eden but in heaven itself. Scripture gives us glimpses:
“How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! … You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God’” (Isaiah 14:12–13).
“The great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan… and his angels were thrown down with him” (Revelation 12:9).
Once, Satan was a magnificent being — perhaps the most glorious of created spirits. But pride turned him from worshiper to rival. Through deceit, he drew a third of the angels into his rebellion (Rev. 12:4). They chose autonomy over adoration, self-will over submission.
Yet two-thirds of the angelic host remained loyal. On what basis did they remain loyal? The astonishing answer is that they did so by faith!
They did not have all the answers. God had not yet explained why evil was permitted or why He did not immediately destroy the rebel. The loyal angels chose to trust the goodness of their Creator even when they did not fully understand His ways.
They were not sinners needing an atonement, but they were believers trusting by faith. Their loyalty was tested. Their faith in God’s goodness — in the absence of explanation — awaited being proven right.
And for that proof, all heaven waited.
6. Why God Did Not Destroy Satan Immediately
We might wonder, Why didn’t God simply destroy Satan at once? Why allow millennia of suffering, deceit, and rebellion?
Because if God had crushed Satan without answering his accusations, the Ultimate Question would remain unresolved. Every intelligent creature — angel or human — might wonder in eternity: Was Satan right? Was God hiding something?
True justice must be transparent. Power alone cannot prove goodness. If God’s goal is a universe of free and loving beings, He must win their trust — not by force, but by demonstration.
Thus, the rebellion was permitted to unfold until every doubt could be silenced. The arena of that demonstration would not be heaven, where angels dwell, but earth — the one place where God and rebellion, Creator and creature, would meet in flesh and blood.
On a hill outside Jerusalem, the question “Is God good?” would be answered forever.
“For it was the Father’s good pleasure… through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross — whether things on earth or things in heaven” (Colossians 1:19–20).
7. The Role of Christ: God’s Final Self-Defense
Across the ages, God endured the accusations of His enemy in silence. He did not debate Satan. He did not convene a heavenly court to clear His name. He waited until the appointed time — until the fullness of history — to step into His own creation and personally answer every charge.
When the Word became flesh (John 1:14), God entered the courtroom of the universe. In Jesus Christ, the invisible Creator stood visible among His creatures. And there, before watching worlds, He lived the very life Satan said God would never live — humble, obedient, self-sacrificing, compassionate to the lowest and least.
“He who was revealed in the flesh, was vindicated in the Spirit, beheld by angels…” (1 Timothy 3:16).
The life of Christ was the living defense of God’s goodness. The Cross was His closing argument.
At Calvary, God answered the indictment that began in Eden. Satan had said, God is selfish; He withholds the best from His creatures. Yet there, on that blood-stained hill, God gave His best — His own Son — for those who had rebelled against Him. The devil had claimed that God bribes obedience with blessing; but in the garden and on the Cross, Christ obeyed in utter poverty, pain, and rejection, proving that love for the Father is not mercenary but pure.
In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God demonstrated before the watching universe that His power is never separated from love, that His justice is never divorced from mercy, and that His goodness is absolute.
The Cross was not merely an event of human salvation; it was the cosmic vindication of God’s character.
At last, the silence of heaven was broken — not with a thunderclap, but with a cry:
“It is finished.”
Those words were more than victory over sin; they were the final answer to every accusation ever raised against the goodness of God.
“For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself… whether things on earth or things in heaven” (Colossians 1:19–20).
At the Cross, heaven itself was reconciled — the very realm that had first questioned.
8. The Salvation of Angels
We rightly say that angels do not need an atonement — they are not fallen in sin as we are. But there is another kind of salvation: the salvation of faith.
Before the Cross, even the loyal angels lived by faith in God’s goodness. They trusted Him through millennia of mystery — through suffering they could not explain and evil they could not yet understand. They watched rebellion rage across the heavens and saw their Creator apparently endure blasphemy in silence. They believed He was just, but they had not yet seen the full proof.
Peter tells us that these things were “things into which angels long to look” (1 Peter 1:12). They peered into the unfolding drama of redemption, waiting for the final revelation of God’s heart.
At Calvary, they saw it.
There, the Almighty allowed Himself to be bound. The Creator let the creature drive nails into His hands. The Word, by whom all things were made, hung mute between heaven and earth — the Maker slain by His own creation.
The angels watched in astonishment as divine love did the unthinkable: it suffered. And in that moment, their faith was justified. Everything they had believed about God — His justice, His mercy, His unselfish goodness — was vindicated forever.
No longer would any heavenly being need to ask whether God was good. The Cross settled it for all eternity.
From that day forward, the loyalty of the angels could never again be shaken. They serve now not merely from duty, but from unveiled adoration. They have seen love itself — any possibility of future doubt was foreclosed.
Thus, in a profound and mysterious sense, Christ’s work was for them as well as for us. Not to atone for their sin, but to confirm their faith. Heaven itself was “reconciled” — not cleansed, but convinced.
“He made known to us the mystery of His will… to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ” (Ephesians 1:9–10).
9. The Cross as the Hinge Point of the Universe and eternity
The Crucifixion was not just a local event. It was the cosmic axis around which all creation turns. From the smallest atom to the furthest galaxy, everything in heaven and earth finds its meaning there.
When Christ was born, angels filled the sky with song:
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased” (Luke 2:14).
They knew what was at stake. The war that began in heaven would end on earth.
Throughout His ministry, angels watched — from the wilderness temptation to Gethsemane, from the empty tomb to the Mount of Ascension. They were not distant spectators but invested witnesses. The honor of their Creator, the vindication of their faith, the peace of their realm — all hung upon the outcome of that lonely cross.
When Jesus cried out, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit,” and the veil of the temple tore in two, the universe itself shifted. The rebellion’s great lie had been exposed. The love of God had been revealed in a way no creature could ever dispute.
In that moment, the greatest power met the greatest goodness, and they were one.
“Having disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Colossians 2:15).
Through His wounds, Christ conquered. Through His humility, He claimed the throne. Through His suffering, He silenced every accuser in heaven and on earth.
The Cross is not just the center of our salvation — it is the center of everything.
10. The Defeat of Satan
Satan’s last weapon was accusation. For ages he had charged that God was unjust — that His commands were arbitrary, His judgments cruel, His love self-serving. He hurled those charges across heaven and earth, sowing doubt wherever hearts could hear.
But on Calvary, the accuser lost his case.
“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 brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night” (Rev. 12:10).
When Christ offered Himself without sin, the devil’s argument collapsed. No longer could he point to God and sneer, “You demand obedience but give nothing of Yourself.” At the Cross, God gave all of Himself. The Creator bore the pain of His own creation. The Judge took the judgment.
For every being who ever questioned the heart of God, the Cross stands as eternal evidence: God is good beyond all question.
For every being who ever questioned the heart of God, the Cross stands as eternal evidence: God is good beyond all question.
Satan is not yet destroyed — his sentence awaits execution — but he is utterly defeated. His lies have been exposed. His power to accuse is gone. The victory is not one of mere might but of moral triumph. The universe has seen love stronger than pride, humility greater than power, and goodness unconquerable even by death.
“Through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14).
In Christ’s pierced hands, the moral government of the cosmos is secure.
11. The Summing Up of All Things in Christ
What began in rebellion ends in reconciliation. Through Christ, God is gathering every thread of creation into one vast tapestry of harmony and praise.
“He made known to us the mystery of His will… the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.” (Eph. 1:9–10)
The Cross is that mystery revealed — the meeting place of heaven and earth, justice and mercy, Creator and creature. By it, the alienation introduced by sin — and the suspicion sown by Satan — are healed.
Paul writes: “It pleased the Father… through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven” (Colossians 1:19–20).
That phrase — “things in heaven” — often goes unexplained. It cannot mean forgiven sinners, for heaven needs no atonement. It points instead to something deeper: the reconciliation of the heavenly realm itself, the restoration of trust, the vindication of angelic faith.
At the Cross, not only were human sinners redeemed, but the entire moral structure of creation was made whole. Every being, every law, every realm finds coherence in Christ.
When we see the work of Christ against the immensity of the universe — the thousands of billions of galaxies, the unmeasured expanse of creation — one might wish the universe were smaller, or the atonement somehow bigger. Yet the truth is the reverse: the atonement is far greater than we have ever imagined.
Its power reaches beyond our world, beyond our history, beyond time itself — summing up all things in Him who died and rose again.
12. The Right to Rule: Why Christ Must Reign
Because Christ alone answered the Ultimate Question, He alone is worthy to rule. His throne is not seized by force but granted by moral right.
“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing” (Revelation 5:12).
In the heavenly vision of John, no one was found worthy to open the scroll of destiny — until the Lamb appeared, bearing the marks of crucifixion. Power belongs to Him precisely because love belongs to Him. His scars are His credentials.
• Through His humiliation, He has been exalted.
• Through His obedience, He has inherited the name above every name.
• Through His sacrifice, He has earned the allegiance of every realm.
“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me” (Matthew 28:18).
No other being could claim that crown. Angels are mighty but not merciful enough. Humans are compassionate but too frail. Only the God-Man, crucified and risen, unites strength with goodness, justice with grace.
The Cross has made His rule incontestable. The universe has witnessed the heart of its King — pierced, yet triumphant. He reigns not merely because He created all things, but because He redeemed them; not merely because He is infinite, but because He is infinitely good.
13. The Universe at Peace
When Christ cried out, “It is finished,” the words rippled through creation. The conflict that began before time had reached its conclusion. The rebellion born in pride was defeated by humility. The accusation that God was not good was answered by love nailed to a cross.
At last, heaven and earth could rest.
No corner of creation remains untouched by that triumph. The stars that once witnessed the rebellion now blaze to His glory. The angels who waited in faith now sing in sight. Humanity, once estranged, is invited home. Even the groaning of nature (Rom. 8:22) awaits its renewal under the hand of the Redeemer.
In the New Creation, there will be no shadow of doubt, no whisper of accusation, no suspicion of the heart of God. The wounds of the Lamb will stand as eternal testimony: God is love.
“And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying,
‘To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and power forever and ever!’” (Revelation 5:13).
Every realm will join the song. Angels who once watched in wonder will harmonize with redeemed humanity. The universe will become a symphony of praise — every note resonating with the goodness of God revealed in Christ.
There will never again be a challenge to His throne, never again a question about His heart. The Cross settled it. The Lamb reigns because He is worthy.
In that eternal peace, the faithful angels will rejoice that their trust was not in vain. We, the redeemed, will know that grace was not cheap. And all creation will live in the light of the One who proved beyond all measure that omnipotence and goodness are one.
14. Closing Reflection: The immense Atonement
When we look at the night sky — at the swirling arms of galaxies beyond number — we may feel small, even lost. Yet in the center of that vastness stands a cross.
The Maker of worlds became flesh on one small planet, in one brief moment of cosmic history, to reveal the truth about Himself to every realm and every heart. That act did not merely save sinners; it secured creation. It ensured that love, not power, would rule the universe forever.
In eternity, we will still be studying it. As Christ said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away.”(Mat. 24:35) The story of the Cross — the truth it reveals about the heart of God — will remain the subject of angelic praise and human wonder without end.
For now, we see it dimly. We struggle to imagine how one event on one hill could shake galaxies. But someday, in the fullness of glory, we will understand that the atonement was not only sufficient for sin — it was large enough for everything.
When we behold the expanse of creation, we need not wish the universe were smaller, for the atonement is vast enough to fill it.
The throne of the universe belongs to the Lamb who was slain. His crown is love. His reign is peace. And His name will be praised in every world, by every voice, forever.
“For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.” (Romans 11:36) ###
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