Jesus the True Super-Hero 

Chapter 17 of Corrupting the Image vol 2: Jesus the True Super-Hero [Part-1]

A true story comes to us from Australia where a father heard the cry of his son who was being attacked by a 15-foot (4.5 m) python which had sunk its teeth into the boy’s leg and was trying to pull him away, but the child was holding on tenaciously to a fence. The father ran to save his boy, hit the snake, and then pried open its jaws to free the boy. However, the snake kept coming after the boy. So, the father fought it back some more. Finally, somebody brought a sledgehammer, and the dad finished off the snake.  

Figure 60 4.5 Meter python killed by Australian father. 

That story is analogous to what Satan did to humanity. He cheated mankind out of his birthright and staged a coup against his Creator. God summarily declared: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed [zarakha זַרְעֲךָ] and her seed [zarah זַרְעָהּ]; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel” (Gen 3:15). Over the millennia, Satan tried time and again to thwart the coming of Messiah who was prophesied to bruise his head. He sent the angels to Mt. Hermon where they cursed themselves if they should not fulfill their mission. With only eight people left in the world who had not become irreversibly corrupted, God sent the Flood.  

He then caused Nimrod to become a gibbor and made him into a god. Acting through Nimrod, Satan erected the gate of the gods in Babylon to have communication between the realms; and as a result, God scrambled the languages. Using Nimrod as the god Ninurta / Amurru, Satan seduced and altered the population in order to permeate the Promise Land with genetically modified Nephilim / Rephaim and was ready to meet Israel. His purpose was to ensnare Israel as soon as they entered the land and to stop Israel from remaining faithful to God.  

The perverted and lustful Babylonian system that he created did indeed infiltrate the life of Israel. It was her wisest king, Solomon, who brought Molech / Milcom “the king” into the daily life of Israel. As a result, Israel cursed themselves, just like Adam and Eve had done. (See Appendix 5 Balaam). Consequently, the Kingdom of Israel split; God divorced the ten northern tribes and sent them away, calling them: “not my people” and “no mercy.” (See Hosea 1:6, 9). The remaining people in Judah were not divorced but were chastised in Babylon, of all places, and then returned to the land. Satan did not surrender; He tried to get Judah to fail again through marriage to pagan women. Satan orchestrated a wave of Greek influence that seduced Judah.  

Again, the people cursed themselves when they abandoned the ways of God and craved Greek philosophy, games, sports, language and gods. The people of Judah were Hellenized by choice and embraced the Greek culture and religion. The Greek king even desecrated the Holy of Holies with an abomination. Mankind falls for Satan’s schemes; Humanity was doomed and could only be rescued by a true hero. 

There is a funny meme that illustrates how Jesus did something like the father who saved his son from the python. In the meme, the Marvel superheroes: Thor, Iron Man, Spiderman, Captain America and Hulk are sitting around Jesus who says: “…and that’s how I saved the world.” It drives home the point that Jesus is the ultimate superhero who saved the world! He is the one that came to save us from the jaws of the enemy who had his teeth sunk into our leg, and would not let us go and kept coming after us. Jesus was willing to do what was necessary to save us from Satan’s bite.  

That father in Australia, I have no doubt would have been willing to lay down his life for his child. I would absolutely do that for my children without hesitation. However, Jesus could not merely take a sledgehammer to Satan’s head and rescue us; he had to be wise, disciplined, and come with a plan. Because Satan is no dummy, Jesus had to outsmart him. We need to understand who Jesus was. He is not just some little kid who rose up to achieve greatness. He existed before he came to this planet. He existed before he was born of a virgin. He had greatness. He had all the splendor and the praise that you could ever imagine. Jesus was clothed in glory to such a degree that Paul says: 

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross (Philip 2: 5–8). 

When Jesus is praying to the Father in the garden, He says: “O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was” (John 17:5). Jesus was “the word who was there in the beginning. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). The glory He had was rightfully His; He decided to lay that aside and to come as a humble child.  

He was not born in luxury, nor in a great palace with servants in attendance; no one was waiting for him saying: “Come, Your Highness, we have the best room waiting for you.” No, Jesus came humbly; He was born in a lowly manger: “She brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger” (Luke 2:7). He was born in a barn because “there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7). Nevertheless, God’s angels lit up the sky and announced the birth of the long-awaited and promised Messiah. They proclaimed that:  

Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. “For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord (Luke 2:8–11).  

He came and he humbled himself to do what was necessary to redeem us, to buy us back and to save us from the jaws of the snake.  

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.” When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him (Matt 2:1–3).  

God warned the wise men that Herod was up to no good, so they did not return to Herod and disclose the baby’s location. Herod did not want to locate the baby to adore the new King; He wanted to kill Him. Thus, Satan the snake-dragon tried to destroy Jesus before He could become a threat.  

Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry; and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men (Matt 2:16). 

The dragon would try to destroy the child as soon as He was born. Herod was the representation of the serpent, used by Satan to try and destroy the child. 

Despite all that, when the child came of age, John “saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’” (John 1:29). Then when Jesus came up from the water, “the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon Him (Matt 3:16). And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, ‘This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased’” (Matt 3:17). 

Satan the great dragon was the greatest of all creatures. He easily outwitted Adam and Eve, like taking candy from a baby, but the shrewd move secured him dominion over the entire cosmos. Therefore, when the arrival of the “seed of the woman” finally came, after so many millennia, Satan would need to test His claim and determine if He could be quickly brushed aside.  

SATAN TESTS THE TRUE HERO  

Matthew tells us that “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted [πειρασθηναι peirasthenai] by the devil” (Matt 4:1). When God tests us, He wants us to pass—He wants to prove our faith. Nevertheless, the same word [πειρασθηναι peirasthenai] is used when Satan wanted to test Jesus, and show Him lacking. Naturally, the dragon does not want a fair fight, so he began the testing after Jesus “had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry” (Matt 4:2).  

His first question was a challenge “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread” (Matt 4:3). Robertson aptly notes:  

The devil is alluding to the words of the Father to Jesus at the baptism: “This is my Son the Beloved.” He challenges this address by a condition of the first class which assumes the condition to be true and deftly calls on Jesus to exercise his power as Son of God to appease his hunger and thus prove to himself and all that he really is what the Father called him.^clxxxiv 

In other words, Satan accepted the claim just as he heard God’s voice from heaven. And that being true, he wanted to see Jesus in action. I am grateful to my friend Dr. Michael Heiser, who on my show, “The Awakening Report”, made an astute observation that Satan was testing Jesus to see what he knew and what he would divulge; would he use his power, and most importantly, could Satan kill him?^clxxxv Thus, perhaps we could frame Satan’s challenge like this—“Can I mislead you through a selfish use of your power and thereby disqualify you as man’s champion?”  

Jesus answered and said, “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’” (Matt 4:4). He passed the first test and then came the second:  

Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone’” (Matt 4:5–6). 

Satan specifically presented the Messiah with a messianic passage. In fact, Satan must have left off the next verse deliberately: “You shall tread upon the lion and the cobra [פתן peten], The young lion and the serpent [תנין tanin] you shall trample underfoot” (Ps 91:13).  

The Hebrew words are incredibly provocative. We already investigated peten in the context of Bashan, and found the meaning: snake-dragon. Tanin is also often used for a type of dragon. Satan was encouraging Jesus to “tread the lion-snake-dragon”! Satan was saying I am Ušumgallu, the great dragon, I am Mušḫuššu the fierce red dragon, I am Bašmu, king of Bashan; You came to crush my head—let’s go! You are here to fulfill the prophecy of doom, let’s get started. Satan knew exactly why Jesus had come; and after waiting thousands of years, he wanted to get straight to the point.  

In other words, Satan was baiting Jesus: if you jump to fulfill this Messianic prophecy and the angels catch you up—you will have proven that you are indeed Messiah. Did Satan hope Jesus would be sophomoric and try to fulfill the prophecy in the most obvious way? If Jesus had taken the bait, Satan would know that Jesus could not kill him.^clxxxvi Yet very adroitly, Jesus answered, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the LORD your God’” (Matt 4:7).