"What Satan Can and Cannot Do"

    

How can such a powerful enemy be resisted? Here are the purposes and limitations of Satan, and why we must never ascribe to the Devil powers which belong exclusively to Almighty God.

With Calvary before Him, the Lord spoke these remarkable words

‘Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.’ He was referring to His imminent suffering on Calvary’s cross, which would immediately accomplish salvation for His people, and judgement for Satan. From the time of Calvary Satan would be curbed in his power, a defeated enemy, still able to work much wickedness until the final day, but severely limited.

But how exactly was Satan cast out  by Christ’s death?

We know that Christ’s death saved vast numbers of people from eternal death, and by so doing, saved the human race from becoming extinct. Since the Fall of man in the garden of Eden not one person would live a perfect life, nor anything like it. The entire human race would therefore be condemned, leaving Satan triumphant and victorious. By tempting Adam and Eve he had utterly thwarted the purpose of God in making the human race, and

God appeared to have failed in His design. Satan could flaunt himself throughout time as the murderer and conqueror of the human race, and, in a sense, the conqueror of its Creator.
But Christ came as the representative of His people, and in every conceivable way obeyed His Father, even to the death of the cross.

And through that perfect obedience culminating in Calvary, His people (and therefore the race) were saved from condemnation. By His righteousness and atonement, a continuing human race was purchased, so that a glorified earth could be thronged by ransomed people. The human race would no longer be a failed concept, and God’s design would be restored and redeemed.
 
Satan’s apparent triumph was crushed, leaving him susceptible to judgement and curbing. No longer would he be able to keep people from the Truth.
 
The curbing of Satan’s power after Calvary is clearly revealed in the New Testament. The Saviour spoke, for example, of how ‘with the finger of God’ He cast out devils, to mark that the kingdom had arrived (Luke 11.20).

This was judgement language, referring to a limitation of satanic power operating from that time.
Demons themselves knew that Christ would end their liberty, and this is seen in their anguished cries as the Lord cast them out. Possession was common in the time of Christ, but His ministry marked the end of demonic liberty to occupy human souls at will.

We are aware that today there are still some reports of New-Testament-style demon possession, but only where people have voluntarily (and strenuously) invited demons into their lives by deep involvement in occult practices. (We disregard the unauthentic claims of demon ­possession made within the charismatic movement.)

Satan via his demons can no longer enter uninvited into human souls to possess them since the work of Christ, this being one aspect of Satan being ‘cast out’.

Another of Satan’s limitations is that he is not allowed to reveal or show himself, being forced to work entirely by secrecy and stealth. He is a vicious enemy to all human souls, but non-appearance is a significant containment of his power. We learn in 2 Thess­alonians 2 that Satan must content himself with an appointee, the man of sin, who will appear on his behalf at the end of time, only to be immediately destroyed by the brightness of the coming of Christ.
 
Satan is now a spiritual vagrant, powerful, yes, with a vast host of fallen angels doing his bidding, but he must tempt us from ‘outside’, and secure our co-operation for everything he wants us to do. He is certainly the prince of this world, but a prince with no palace or rights – a dispossessed and a doomed prince.

This limiting of Satan is also referred to in the book of Revelation, chapters 12 and 20, the last of these telling us that Satan would be bound during the Christian era so that he would not be able to deceive the nations any more by keeping them in total spiritual darkness. All nations would be penetrated by the Gospel of Christ.
 
We read in Ephesians 4.8 that on Calvary Christ led captivity captive, binding a multitude of captives – the devil and his demons. In Colossians 2.15 we are told that Christ ‘spoiled principalities and powers’, making a show of them openly, and triumphing over them. In other words, He took powers away from them and contained them – terms for the curbing or limiting of the devil and his hosts.

However, we repeat that he remains until the last day a dangerous and evil enemy of souls, and for this reason we need to know all we can about his powers and limitations.