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Satan Confounded

Satan was conquered by that nature he had cast headlong into ruin. A woman, by his subtlety, was the occasion of our death; and a woman, by the conduct of the only wise God, brings forth the author of our life and the conqueror of our enemies. The humanity of the old Adam had infected us, and the humanity of the new Adam cures us (1 Cor. 15:21, ‘By man came death; by man also came the resurrection from the dead’). We are killed by the old Adam, and raised by the new Adam; as among the Israelites, a fiery serpent gave the wound, and a brazen serpent administers the cure. The nature that was deceived bruises the deceiver, and destroys the foundations of his kingdom. Satan is defeated by the decisions he took to secure his possession, and loses the victory by the same means he thought he would preserve it. 

His tempting the Jews to the sin of crucifying the Son of God, had a contrary success to his tempting Adam to eat of the tree. The first death he brought upon Adam ruined us, and the death he brought by his instruments upon the second Adam restored us. By a tree, if one may so say, Satan had triumphed over the world, and by the fruit of a tree, one hanging upon a tree, he is discharged of his power over us (Heb. 2:14, ‘Through death he destroyed him that had the power of death’). And thus the devil ruins his own kingdom while he is thinking of confirming and enlarging it, and is defeated by his own policy, whereby he thought to continue the world under his chains, and deprive the Creator of the world of his purposed honour….Thus did the wisdom of God shine forth in restoring us by methods seemingly repugnant to the end he aimed at, and above the suspicion of a subtle devil, whom he intended to baffle.

STEPHEN CHARNOCK 
(Source: Works of Stephen Charnock, Volume II)
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