Chapter 12—The Conflict Ended
When Christ cried out, “It is finished,” all Heaven triumphed. The
controversy between Christ and Satan in regard to the execution of the
plan of salvation was ended. The spirit of Satan and his works had
taken deep root in the affections of the children of men. For Satan
to have come into power would have been death to the world. The
implacable hatred he felt toward the Son of God was revealed in his
manner of treating him while he was in the world. Christ’s betrayal,
trial, and crucifixion were all planned by the fallen foe. His hatred,
carried out in the death of the Son of God, placed Satan where his true
diabolical character was revealed to all created intelligences that had
not fallen through sin.
The holy angels were horror-stricken that one who had been of
their number could fall so far as to be capable of such cruelty. Every
sentiment of sympathy or pity which they had ever felt for Satan in
his exile, was quenched in their hearts. That his envy should be
exercised in such a revenge upon an innocent person was enough
to strip him of his assumed robe of celestial light, and to reveal the
hideous deformity beneath; but to manifest such malignity toward the
divine Son of God, who had, with unprecedented self-denial, and love
for the creatures formed in his image, come from Heaven and assumed
their fallen nature, was such a heinous crime against Heaven that it
caused the angels to shudder with horror, and severed forever the last
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tie of sympathy existing between Satan and the heavenly world. Satan
had forth extraordinary efforts against Jesus from the time he appeared
as a babe in Bethlehem. He had sought in every possible manner to
prevent him from developing a perfect childhood, a faultless manhood,
a holy ministry, and an infinite sacrifice in yielding up his life without
a murmur for the sins of men. But Satan had been unable to discourage
him, or to drive him from the work he had come on earth to do. The
storm of Satan’s wrath beat upon him from the desert to Calvary; but
the more mercilessly it fell, the more firmly did the Son of God cling
to the hand of his Father, and press on in the bloodstained path before
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