Christmas Brings Freedom, As God Aims For A Low Salvation

12.26.21 Hebrews 2:14–16

14 Therefore, since the children share flesh and blood, he also shared the same flesh and blood, so that through death he could destroy the one who had the power of death (that is, the Devil) 15 and free those who were held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death. 16 For surely he was not concerned with helping angels but with helping Abraham’s offspring.

Christmas Brings Freedom, As God Aims For a Low Salvation

In the Disney movie Mulan, Mulan is being chased by the enemy, and she aims a rocket at him. But at the last minute, she aims up at the mountain instead. Mushu bursts out, “You missed! How could you miss?!? He was right in front of you!” But she had a bigger purpose. By aiming high and hitting the snow at the top of the mountain, she was able to cause an avalanche to drown almost the entire army in snow.

Now let’s think about Christmas. In aiming to destroy the Devil, it would appear that God aimed TOO LOW. He came down to humanity. Why would you become WEAKER in order to destroy that which is stronger? If you were going to save a prisoner, why not at least become a prison guard instead of a prisoner. Or if you’re the warden, why not just set them free?

Well, there’s different ways to conquer strength. In Proverbs chapter 30, the third thing that Solomon couldn’t figure out was “the way of a man with a maiden.” It’s an amazing thing how a small and tiny woman can change and sometimes even control a strong and powerful man. How does she do it? She becomes attractive to him. She uses words and emotions. She makes him want to change his ways and mellow him out, calm him down. Why? Because of his love and attraction to her.

Now, Christmas is different. God isn’t trying to attract Satan. He’s attempting to conquer him, and re-capture humanity from his grips. But in order to do that, He has to win us and woo us within the realms of justice and love which are according to His nature of right and wrong. Just setting us free by divine decree would not meet those standards. Pure power would not do the trick.

Now, you might wonder, “Why doesn’t God just destroy the devil?” It seems that God respects the nature with which He makes stuff. He made angels to be eternal. He doesn’t just annihilate them from nature because they stop doing what He designed them to do. He finds a different way to deal with them, a just and fair way. He lets them live. He lets them keep being evil. But He still makes them pay for their evil in the process, and He still works their evil out for good, proving that He is an amazing God indeed.

And before we go ANY further, let’s take a step back and think about this too: don’t forget about the fight that Christmas is about. Christmas is to fight against evil. Evil isn’t just in unjust wars and immorality within humanity. Evil, pure evil, exists behind the scenes, in the devil, tempting people to do terrible things, and performing evil acts on us as well. There is a real devil with real demons in our world. Jesus came to save us from sin and hell. In order to do this, He also had to conquer Satan. This is what Christmas is about. A baby comes to conquer the devil. How embarrassing for the devil, to be conquered by a man who enters this world as a helpless baby, and the devil still can’t defeat Him. Awesome stuff!

How does the baby come to destroy the Devil? Let’s look at how he is described. The writer to the Hebrews describes the Devil as “the one who had the power of death.” That’s kind of a head scratcher. When comparing Himself with the false gods, God said in Deuteronomy 32, “See now that I myself am He! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand.” Here God seems to be saying that only HE can put to death. Yet God also acknowledges that we can put people to death when He forbids us from MURDERING people. We also think of the story of Job where the devil caused a wind to come up and make a structure fall on Job’s children and kill them. When God says only HE can put to death, we recognize that God could stop murder and death if He wanted to step into the nature of things here. Jesus did it many times through His ministry when He healed sick and dying people. He also kept the Devil from putting a hand on Job in the same story where he allowed Job’s children to die. In the big picture, the devil doesn’t ultimately have the power of death. God does.