Against Heresies: Book V
Chapter 21: Christ is the Leader of All Previously Mentioned Things. It was Appropriate for Him to be Sent by God, the Creator of Everything, to Take on Human Form, and to be Tempted by Satan, So He Could Fulfill the Promises, and Achieve a Great Victory
In His work of recapitulation, He has summed up all things, both fighting against our enemy and crushing the one who, in the beginning, led us captive in Adam. He trampled on the enemy's head, as you can see in Genesis when God said to the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your descendants and her descendant; He shall be on the watch for your head, and you for His heel.” From that time, the One to be born of a woman, specifically from the Virgin, in the likeness of Adam, was prophesied to keep watch for the serpent's head.
This is the descendant mentioned by the apostle in the Epistle to the Galatians, "that the law of works was established until the descendant came to whom the promise was made." This is made even clearer in the same Epistle, where it says, "But when the fullness of time came, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman." For indeed, the enemy would not have been justly defeated unless a man born of a woman conquered him. It was through a woman that the enemy initially gained the upper hand over humanity, setting himself as humanity's adversary.
Therefore, the Lord declares Himself to be the Son of man, embodying the original man from whom the woman was fashioned, so that as our kind was led down to death through a defeated man, we might rise to life again through a victorious one; and as through a man death claimed victory over us, so again by a man we may claim victory over death.
The Lord would not have taken on Himself that ancient and primary enmity against the serpent, fulfilling the promise of the Creator and following His command, if He had come from a different Father.
But since He is the same one who created us at the beginning and sent His Son at the end, the Lord did follow His command, being born of a woman, both defeating our adversary and perfecting man in the image and likeness of God. For this reason, He did not use any other source to confound him than the words of the law and used the Father's commandment to help destroy and confuse the apostate angel.
After fasting for forty days, like Moses and Elijah, He became hungry, first to show He was a real and tangible man—because it's human to be hungry when fasting—and second, to give His opponent a chance to attack Him. Just as in the beginning the enemy persuaded man to disobey God’s commandments with food, even though man wasn't hungry, in the end, he failed to persuade the hungry Christ to take food. When tempting Him, he said, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread.” But the Lord repelled him with the law's commandment, saying, “It is written, Man does not live by bread alone.” He did not comment on the enemy's words, “If you are the Son of God,” but by acknowledging His humanity, He baffled His adversary and weakened his first attack with His Father's words.
Thus, the corruption of man in paradise, where both parents ate, was undone by the Lord’s lack of food in this world. Being defeated by the law, the enemy tried another assault by quoting a commandment himself. He took Jesus to the highest point of the temple and said, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written, God shall give His angels charge over you, and they will bear you up, lest you hit your foot against a stone.” Here, he hid a falsehood under Scripture, as all heretics do.
Indeed, it was written that God gave His angels charge over Him, but no Scripture said, “throw yourself down.” This persuasion came from the devil himself. The Lord refuted him with the law, saying, “It is written again, You shall not tempt the Lord your God,” highlighting that it is man's duty not to tempt God, and regarding Himself, declared He would not tempt His God. The pride in the serpent was nullified by the humility in Christ, and the devil was conquered twice by Scripture when he was exposed as suggesting things against God's commandment, proving himself the enemy of God.
Having been defeated, he gathered all his power for falsehood and showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, saying, as Luke relates, “All these I will give you, for they have been delivered to me, and to whom I will, I give them, if you will worship me.” The Lord, exposing him, said, “Depart, Satan; for it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve.” By revealing his true name, He showed who He was.
The Hebrew word "Satan" means an apostate.
Thus, defeating him for the third time, He rejected him as being defeated by the law; and that violation of God’s commandment that happened in Adam was undone by the precept of the law, which the Son of Man observed, without transgressing God’s commandment.
Who, then, is this Lord God to whom Christ bears witness, whom no one should test, whom all should worship, and serve Him alone? It is, without any doubt, that God who also gave the law. For these things were predicted in the law, and through the words of the law, the Lord showed that the law does indeed declare the Word of God from the Father; and the rebellious angel of God is exposed by its words, revealing his true nature, and is defeated by the Son of man who keeps the commandment of God.
For as in the beginning he lured man to disobey his Maker’s law, thus bringing him under his control; his power lies in disobedience and rebellion, and with these, he bound man to himself.
However, it was necessary that through man himself, the rebellious angel should be conquered and bound with the same chains with which he had bound man, so that man, being freed, might return to his Lord, leaving behind the chains by which he had been bound, which is sin.
For when Satan is bound, man is set free; as “no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man.” The Lord, therefore, exposes Satan as speaking against the word of the God who made all things and defeats him through the commandment. The law is God’s commandment. The Man proves him to be a lawbreaker and a rebel against God. After the Man did this, the Word securely bound him as a fugitive from Himself, and took away his possessions—namely, those people he held in bondage and whom he unjustly used for his purposes.
And justly is he led captive, who had unjustly led men into bondage; while man, who had been held captive in the past, was rescued from the grip of his captor, according to the tender mercy of God the Father, who had compassion on His own creation and granted it salvation, restoring it through the Word—that is, through Christ—so that man might learn by real evidence that he receives incorruptibility not by himself, but by the free gift of God.