Jesus Christ and the Red Dragon

Dragons are frightful creatures which haunt the halls of our imagination. Stories and paintings abound that tell us of a time when valiant men fought and killed these menacing monsters of the ancient world. One particular dramatic scene by the Renaissance artist Jacopo Bellini shows a warrior with sword and shield engaged in battle with a winged reptilian adversary. Satan is symbolized in the Book of Revelation as a great, red dragon whose intent is to destroy the Virgin Mary’s child (Rev. 12:4). Though the devil makes his appearance as an angel of light he is in reality a fierce, depraved antagonist to God. The Old Testament unfolds a drama of conflict between the seed of the woman (the coming Christ-child) and the seed of the serpent (Satan) (Gen. 3:15). Satan’s desire is to establish an enduring kingdom independent of God and to do this, Jesus Christ, Israel’s Messiah, must be eliminated as a threat. All through the Bible Satan can be seen attempting to destroy the Lamb of God either by death or deception. We are reminded by all this that there are “hidden forces” behind the course of human events determined to get rid of Jesus Christ as the one “who is to rule all nations with a rod of iron” (Rev. 12:5; Psa. 2:9).

It was Jesus who said that the devil was a murderer from the beginning (Jn. 8:44). Cain was doing the devil’s work when he killed Abel. It was Satan’s desire to corrupt the line of Seth. Abraham endangered Sarah and the messianic seed by lying. Rebekah’s plan to cheat Esau out of his birthright and the consequent enmity of Esau against Jacob was a threat to the promised seed of Abraham (Gen. 27). Pharaoh and Egypt’s allegiance to her pantheon of gods stood as the sinister background to the murder of male children in Israel (Ex. 1:15-22). Male infanticide was but another strategy of Satan to remove the possibility of the coming of Israel’s Messiah. The Amalekites’ war on Israel, the Canaanite’s moral and spiritual corruption of Israel, the apostasy of Israel, Saul’s attacks upon David, Queen Athaliah’s attempt to destroy the royal seed (2 Chron. 22:10) and Haman’s attempt to slaughter the Jews (Eshter 3-9) were all a part of the conflict of the ages.

The consistent attempts of the Israelites to murder their own children for sacrificial purposes was a self-inflicted, Satanically inspired drive to destroy the seed of the woman. If the Messiah could not come, God’s covenant with Abraham fails. Antiochus Epiphanes turned his hatred upon Israel and foreshadowed the future Antichrist’s anti-Semitic campaign in the Great Tribulation (Dan. 11:21-35). Following in the footsteps of other enemies of the coming Messiah, Herod the Great declared war on all male children in Bethlehem from two years old and under, as a desperate attempt to kill any would-be rival to his dynasty (Matt. 2:16). In a further advance against the redemptive plan of God the temptation of Jesus was an all-out assault of the devil to make Jesus fail. Satan would have loved nothing better than the disqualification of Israel’s Messiah and the Savior of the world.

The works of the devil were rendered a mortal blow at the cross through the atoning death of Jesus Christ (Heb. 2:15). However, until his final judgment Satan is mobile and prowls about as a roaring lion. So after the death and resurrection of the Son of God the great, red dragon had to change his mode of attack. At His ascension Jesus left the domain of the devil and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Heb. 12:2). Since he could not prevent the sin and death-slaying work of God, Satan would seek to deceive the nations regarding Jesus Christ. Jesus and the apostles predicted that this would happen (Matt. 24:11, 24; 1 Tim. 4:1). Satan is a liar and sponsors all maligning witness against the person of Christ. At the dawn of the church age a religious philosophy that eventually came to be known as Gnosticism arose (from the Greek word gnosis, “knowledge”). This movement exalted knowledge and enlightenment as the key to saving oneself. Its dualistic philosophy, which views all matter as evil and the immaterial world of the spirit as good, promised salvation by the understanding of secret or esoteric knowledge. It was an early form of this false teaching that John attacks in his first epistle. Some were teaching that Christ’s spirit descended on Jesus at his baptism and ascended at the cross before he died. Others claimed that because God could not live in a human body, Jesus was only a phantom. This ancient heresy has been refurbished and sold as the “real truth” which has been suppressed by the church for two thousand years. At least this is what The Da Vinci Code would have you to believe. Yes, of course, the book is a novel (fiction), but it is the kind of fiction that, for many, the wish is the father of the thought. If only the Jesus of the Bible can be discredited, then we are off the hook. The author of this best selling book (over 40 million copies in hard back) uses the word “fact” at the beginning of his action packed page-turner to highlight some of the historical framework upon which his story hangs. The fact remains that the premise of this “intelligent thriller” is as flimsy as a ship’s sail made of tissue paper. The book, like such a ship, cannot weather the winds of reality. The truth about the Son of God is found in the infallible, inerrant Word of God, the Bible, not in the mythologies of the Gnostic libraries.

Satan is no match for the Lion of the tribe of Judah. The eternal Son of God, Jesus Christ our Savior reigns supreme. That old red dragon can hiss, posture, attack, and deceive, but the seed of the woman has crushed the serpent’s head at the cross. Jesus’ deity was not the result of a vote. He is God the Son who has enjoyed eternal fellowship with the Father. So we say to The Da Vinci Code, sit down and shut up. Every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Dr. Howard E. Dial
Berachah Bible Church