Carman, one of the most dramatic showmen in Christian music, recorded an unforgettable song that tells the story of Jesus’s death and resurrection: “THE CHAMPION.” This was 1985 and there is a ROCKY-feel to this upbeat, synthesizer-backed ballad that pictures Jesus and the devil in the boxing ring together. Satan arrives, proud and ready for a fight. Jesus arrives, they touch hands, box for forty days, then Jesus drops his hands from the boxer’s traditional defensive posture and he allows Satan to land the death blow. Jesus falls to the ground. The spoken lyrics continue:
“The devils roared in victory, the saints shocked and perplexed, as wounds appeared upon his hands and feet.
Then Satan kicked him in his side and blood and water flowed. And they waited for the ten-count of defeat.
God the Father, turned his head,
His tears announcing Christ was dead.
The ten-count would proclaim the battle’s end.
Then Satan trembled through his sweat
In unexpected horror yet,
as God started to count by saying
‘Ten, (hey, wait a minute, God)
Nine, (stop, you’re counting wrong)
Eight, (his eyes),
Seven, (what’s that twitching?)
Six, (oh no!)
Five, (he’s alive!) ….”
And as the song changes, “Suddenly Satan realizes it’s not a ten-count: it’s a drumroll.”[1] The song goes on to proclaim the Lordship of Jesus more dramatically than I can hope to re-create here. You must hear it (see the link below)—what a great combination of campy ’80s/Rocky-style storytelling, but also some profound thoughts about the crucifixion! The song ends with the words: “Satan is defeated and Jesus… is… the Champion!” (No seriously, you’ve got to hear this.)
What I have always remembered about this dramatic, amazing song is a single unexpected moment. When God begins the ten-count by saying, “Ten” and the devil realizes something is wrong: “it’s not a ten-count, it’s a drum roll.”
Satan is shocked. His whole plan backfired. Have you ever thought about that? Why would the enemy of our souls be in such a hurry to crucify Jesus? Did he not know that the crucifixion and resurrection were God’s plan? Jesus certainly knew it.
Satan made a terrible blunder. I’m not sure why.
Satan misread the Old Testament prophecies. Jesus explained that parables are enigmatic, revealing truth to those with tender hearts and ‘ears to hear,’ while keeping truth hidden from those whose hearts are hardened, Matthew 13:10-17. Perhaps prophecies are like enigmatic parables; they allow God to speak truth to His children, while concealing it from others.
It seems God did not allow anyone but Jesus to understand that the Messianic prophecies are divided–some apply to the first coming of Christ, some to the second. We know no humans understood this before Christ. Perhaps the devil did not understand either. If he thought the first coming was the ONLY coming, perhaps he also thought a crucifixion would mean he won, somehow.
The devil is genius-smart, but his pride clearly blinds him to certain realities–such as the reality that he could never have defeated God.** (No matter how smart you are, your pride, hatred, bias, jealousy, lust, or other sin can influence you: it will cause you to make mistakes, to misread scripture, situations, and people, to simply be WRONG.)
Why didn’t Satan grasp that by killing Jesus, he was acting as a tool in God’s hand, making possible the salvation of millions of souls? Again, I’m not certain.
But for whatever reason, the devil’s interests were temporarily aligned with those of his greatest enemy: they both moved toward the cross.
When “Satan entered Judas” in Luke 22:3, he did it to ensure that Judas would betray Jesus into the hands of the priests who would put Him on trial and push Pilate to crucify Him. Satan wanted Jesus to go to the cross.
And Jesus knew the cross was ahead, and moved willingly toward it: “Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and the chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day” Matthew 16:21. A Tim Sheppard song puts it more bluntly: Jesus was “Born to die to rise again…”[2]
When Jesus predicted His death and resurrection, the enemy was certainly listening. Satan had been at war with God since before human history. When God made Adam and Eve, Satan showed up. When God sent His Son to earth, Satan knew his war had just taken a dramatic turn. He would have assigned minions to watch and listen to every moment of Jesus’s entire life.
The incarnation of Jesus was the most important thing that had ever happened in the devil’s war against God. He was paying attention. Satan knew the Bible backwards and forwards. He understood a great deal about God. But he did not understand the cross, and he did not anticipate the resurrection. Of course, I don’t know exactly what the enemy knew or understood. I can only speculate. But when Jesus died on the cross, I am certain the devil wanted him to stay dead.
And then Aslan broke the stone table. Remember that scene in THE LION THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE? C.S. Lewis understood what Carman tried to convey in his song: the devil was taken by surprise somehow.
Aslan was killed as a sacrifice in place of Edmund, but during the night, there was a great crack and the Stone Table was split down the middle. The Deep Magic, inscribed in the Stone Table, was reversed by Aslan’s sacrifice, according to the rules of the Deeper Magic from Before the Dawn of Time, thus defeating the White Witch.
You must respect the enemy. We mock him and make jokes, we ridicule him in silly songs, weak Christians with very little prayer life or knowledge of scripture talk boldly to the devil as though fussing at a small bird that flew into the house by mistake: “Get out of here, you devil! Go on! Shooo!”)—but you should respect your enemy–or a better way to phrase it might be: do not underestimate your enemy.
The devil is a genius beyond all human intellects. He has been paying attention for literally thousands and thousands of years. He knows scripture, he knows human nature, and he knows you.
But he does not know everything. He is not omniscient, or omnipotent. And God constantly uses everything the devil does, causing “all things to work together for good, to those who love God and are called according to His purpose” Romans 8:28. The devil has knowledge and power. But his knowledge is limited and his power is limited. God is a million-billion-trillion times smarter and more powerful than Satan.
The finite cannot be compared to the infinite. Think about it mathematically: the finite cannot be compared to the infinite.
God is so much greater than the devil that your enemy is small and weak and infinitesimal by comparison.
And the crucifixion—Satan’s greatest victory—became his greatest defeat. He completely misread the situation. In spite of a genius mind and millennia of experience with God, Satan did not understand the cross.
I suspect his hatred and hubris blinded him to the realities of God’s love and forgiveness. Imagine that: a brilliant military strategist, a war general who has been battling God for millennia, yet his mind is so filled with hate and hubris that he loses the war to a sacrificial act of love and humility. He should have known the simple truth: “God is love.” But the mind of this evil genius was corrupted and blinded by hatred and rage, and he caused Judas to betray Jesus, Pilate to surrender to the mob, and Roman soldiers to crucify Him. Satan must have enjoyed and relished the crucifixion.
But as the song says, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s a Coming!” And three days later, everything changed.
In the crucifixion, Satan’s greatest victory became his greatest defeat.
Read Luke 22.
ΑΩ
[1] https://fencingwithink.com/2021/02/20/top-10-carman-songs/ (scroll down to number five for an audio of the song and some analysis of its power).
[2] See Tim Sheppard’s ‘Hosanna’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBhn-e0qCws
** It takes more than intellectual genius to interpret the scripture. You need love and humility. You need to know something about the God of love who created the universe. Otherwise, you will read scripture and draw incorrect conclusions, as Satan does.
Household Words: 