Your answer will reflect your understanding of what really took place when Jesus died on the Cross and rose from the dead. Also, to what extent Satan was then defeated. Thousands of years before, God had said to the serpent: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:15 & John 8:44)
This prophecy — the first messianic one in the Bible — was spoken when God cursed the serpent after Adam sinned. It was fulfilled at the Cross when Jesus Christ crushed Satan’s authority with his heel. The Lord’s humanity was his vulnerable point.
What if the only way of preventing your child’s death by snakebite would be to crush the snake’s head with your bare heel? As you crushed its head it would sink its fangs into your heel. Would you do it regardless? Jesus did, to save us.
After crushing Satan judicially, Jesus conquered Death itself by rising from the tomb. He has the “keys” to hell and death: the grave and mortality. Just before his arrest and crucifixion he said, “Now is the judgement of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.” (John 12:31)
The repetition of “now” reveals that these two judgements were imminent. Jesus was about to “bind the strong man” and plunder his property. “No man can enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, unless he first binds the strong man; and then he will spoil his house.” (Mark 3:27)
“When a strong man, armed, guards his palace, his goods are safe. But when a stronger man encounters him and overcomes him, he strips him of the armour in which he trusted and distributes his goods.” (Luke 11:21, 22)
Satan’s “house”, the human heart, had been secure. His “goods” — those who were his property — were “in peace” and unaware of their perilous state, spiritually. The “stronger man” was Jesus, who was more than a match for the “strong man”. After conquering Satan through the blood of his Cross, Jesus stripped him of the “armour” in which he had trusted — his protection and confidence.
Since then, the Risen Lord Jesus has shared the spoils with those who are willing to fight “the good fight of faith” (Isaiah 53:12). “The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly”, Paul the Apostle wrote to the Christians in Rome. “Satan” in this instance being the emperor Nero, who was a “seed of the serpent” referred to in the Genesis 3:15 prophecy, as defined by Jesus in John 8:33-44. Nero was a pawn of Satan in much the way Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were, much later in history.
After Jesus “spoiled” rulers and authorities, he displayed them as conquests, having “triumphed over them through his Cross.” Our Lord triumphed over Satan as David had done over Goliath but in a much wider scenario. When the giant was slain the Philistine army fled, pursued by the Israelites, who suddenly changed from hapless to fearless!
We should not sing, “We’re binding the strongman” because Jesus did so two thousand years ago! Our job is to ‘mop up’ the defeated strongman’s bluffing but actually disheartened demons. The battle is long over, and our role is to declare our Lord’s victory, and when necessary, enforce it worldwide by spiritual means.
Why be a victim when, through the victory of Jesus, you can be a winner in life?