Thank you for all of you efforts and insight. I have a question regarding Satan. If he indeed studies scripture to know what he knows about the future, then why didn’t he know about Jesus’ coming crucifixion and what it was going to accomplish? I have read that if he could look into the future, he would have never let it happen. Am I missing something?
The passage you’re referring to is 1 Cor. 2:8. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
Although prophecies about the Lord’s crucifixion can be found throughout the Old Testament, no one alive at the time understood the full implications of the event. Neither did Satan. He thought by putting the Lord to death he was forever placing most of mankind out of God’s reach.
But here’s what actually happened;
When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross (Colossians 2:13-15).
Until he actually saw all the charges against us nailed to the cross, Satan didn’t realize that the Lord’s death would cancel the penalties for all sins, past, present, and future, and would actually open the door to salvation for the Gentiles (uncircumcision) as well as Jews. That’s what disarmed Him and made what he thought would be a great victory into a public spectacle.