Satan will be Crushed

“The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you” (Romans 16:20).

 This verse fascinates me. It is such a vivid word picture. I think of crushing a bug under my feet or crushing a soda can.  Crushing something makes it dead or unusable. Satan is certainly alive and working in the world today, but I’m grateful that God is also at work.

This verse says that God is a God of peace and yet He is the One who will crush Satan.  I think about that mosquito or fly that gets in your car or house and gives no peace until you get rid of it.  Satan gives no peace. Only God gives lasting peace. We cannot crush Satan or get rid of him, only resist him with the Holy Spirit’s help. God will do the crushing in His time. This promise was first made in Genesis and it still stands. God said to Satan, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:15).

Reading through Paul’s letter to the saints in Rome it becomes apparent that those early Christians were dealing with the same kind of sins we have going on today. The Apostle reminds them that no one is righteous. It is only through our faith in Jesus, who died for us and rose again, that God credits righteousness to us (Romans 4).   Paul assures them and us that God can give peace and joy through our struggle with sin. It is a matter of living under the control of the Spirit and not our sinful nature. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13).

We will one day be free from our struggle with sin when Satan is crushed under our feet. So until then we walk in the Spirit and proclaim the message of salvation to all. Paul’s closing to his letter is filled with hope that through the proclamation of the Word all nations may believe and obey God.

“Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him—to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! Amen” (Romans 16:25-27).