God does and we do.
Revelation 12 gives an interesting “timeline” of the battle against the devil.
- We see Christ being born, “who was to rule all nations with an iron rod”, and the Dragon wanting to devour Him, but he was defeated since “her son was taken up to God, and to his throne”.
Now we witness a battle in the heavens:
- “And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon…and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceives the whole world: he was cast out into the earth.”
Now the dragon does not give up and turns back towards the Woman:
- “And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman, who brought forth the man child: And there were given to the woman two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the desert unto her place”
- “the woman fled into the wilderness, where she had a place prepared by God”
Is this a reference to the escape in Egypt? To the Assumption of Our Lady? To both?
Now the dragon, unable to strike the Son, defeated by s. Michael, unable to strike the Woman, does not give up:
- “the dragon was angry against the woman: and went to make war with the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.”
The Dragon is seen again in Revelation 20, after the defeat of the Beast and of the False Prophet:
- “I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit…And he laid hold on the dragon the old serpent, which is the devil and Satan…And he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should no more seduce the nations…Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go forth, and seduce the nations…And they came upon the breadth of the earth, and encompassed the camp of the saints, and the beloved city… And there came down fire from God out of heaven, and devoured them; and the devil, who seduced them, was cast into the pool of fire and brimstone, where both the beast. And the false prophet shall be tormented … And I John saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”
Now, some important observations: the book is clearly hard to understand, the events do not necessarily follow a chronological sequence. But if we follow it in the way delineated, it becomes clear that the devil:
- first attempts to devour the Son, but he raises to God’s throne
- then fights Michael and is cast down to earth
- then goes after the Woman, but she is taken to a safe place
- then goes after the Woman’s offspring - the Church - and
~ fights through the Beast and the False Prophet, who are defeated by Christ
~ is cast into hell by an angel whom Tradition identifies as the same Michael
~ released after a time, for a time, seduces the nations all over the earth and goes to fight “the camp of the saints and their beloved city”
- at this point “fire comes down from God” and the devil is cast into hell once more and forever.
Who defeats the Dragon? God.
But in Christ is the Church, the mystical body of which we are all members.
The heavenly hosts rightfully sang: “***they *
defeated him by the blood of the Lamb”.
Everyone in the Church plays a role: by excellency, the Woman who was tasked to crush the serpent’s head, and subsequently the rest of her offspring, the saints. We cannot forget what s. Paul said: “
we shall judge angels”. True, the devil is bound and cast by the hands of the holy angels - especially Michael - but the *defeat *of the devil is “through Christ, with Christ, and in Christ”.
Nobody should be surprised or scandalized if the statement “God defeats him” does not contradict the statement “we defeat him”. As the Church Fathers write:
The Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself. (Iraeneus) He was God, and then became man, and that to deify us. (Athanasius). For the Word Himself is the manifest mystery: God in man, and man God. (Clement) He was made man that we might be made God. (Athanasius)
