Indeed there had been an era during which Israel had been a free people, in which her leaders had spread Jewish influence abroad. The Torah HAD gone gone out of Zion and been rendered into the universal language of the nations, - Greek - so that all the world now possessed the word of G-d. The gentiles had indeed come to Jerusalem seeking Him. The arrival of the Annointed One had seemed immanent.
But what now? Israel's glory had been trod underfoot by bar-barous men, agents of the anti-God, Satan, the Adversary, the demonic force in the universe. Who was Satan? Satan lived within all people. He was what Jews called the Yetser haRa, the evil inclina-tion within the human heart which made man seek knowledge, and thereby become like G-d. Man had the power to resist the Yetser haRa but chose not to do so. Hence he was thrust into a long exile in which Satan assumed more and more power over him. It was this ad-versarial inclination in man that prolonged the the exile. Israel had been shown the way of overcoming the Adversary within by living a life of divine commandments, and yet it failed to do so; hence it continued to be dominated by the Adversary who resided within each of the four beast-kingdoms seen by Daniel.
But through the generations of Israel, there had been another perception, another understanding of who Satan was. He was perhaps more than the evil inclination in man. He was perhaps the intrinsic demonic force in the universe, Samael, Azazel, the Serpent par ex-cellence! Thus he was also recognized, for a time, as a personality who stands outside the pure relationship between G-d and His world, the personification of Evil who is jealous of both G-d and of man and who wishes to destroy the realtionship between G-d and man, and make himself G-d. Thus did he rebel against the authority of G-d, it was believed by many Jews who lived at the time of Jesus.
"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!
how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the
nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into
heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of G-d: I will
sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of
the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I
will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to
the neither region, to the sides of the pit. They that see
thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying,
Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake
kingdoms; that made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed
the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners"?
Isaiah 14:12-17
No matter that the prophet here was speaking of the Babylonian beast, Nebuchadnezzar, who would put Judea to waste and destroy her Temple, and lead her away captive, as he had done to so many other nations. In the understanding of later generations, this must be the arch-rival of G-d and man. It is "Heyleyl", the Light-bearer, to become "Lucifer" in Latin. As he had been always the enemy, taking the form of the beast, be it Babylon, Persia, or Greece, now the Adversary, Satan, stood in the imperial palace in Rome and placed his foot upon the neck of Israel, thereby mocking G-d. It was he whom Paul would later call, "the Prince of this world!"
The land of Israel was once more divided. This time, not by the tribes of Israel, but by the whim of Rome. Judea was governed by the Roman procurator; Samaria as well, and peopled by a race who held a counterfeit claim to be the true Israel. Galilee was ruled by a hated Jewish tyranical colaborator whose only allegence was to the Satan in Rome, who thought nothing of handing over his fellow Jews to the heathen to be tortured and crucified for daring to fight the battle of the L--d.
Into this setting was born a child in a small obscure village in Galilee whose life and death were to change the course of human history. His parents called him Joshua, - a Hebrew name meaning "salvation". he world knows him as the Jew Jesus upon whom is founded the gentile religion of Christianity.
Jesus was a man of his time and place. He shared the common dreams and hopes of the people he lived among. Just as they wished for the end of the reign of Satan, so did he; just as they prayed for the coming of the kingdom of Heaven, so did he. Jesus was a visionary, a passionate and charismatic leader of people. He came to believe that he had been especially touched by G-d and he transmitted this belief, by his words and deeds, to the people who surrounded him and followed him. By the strength of his faith, and by the force of his personality and of his words, he gave hope to the multitudes who came to him to be taught and healed. They trusted him because he was one of them, - their brother. Jesus told his Jewish followers of his vision:
"And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven."
Luke 10:18
This is the only time, in the Gospel record, in which Jesus speaks of "seeing a vision", so powerfull is the idea of this vision within him of the immanent fall of the anti-G-d. And he believed that he himself would play an instrumental part in bringing about the downfall of Satan. He may have suspected throughout his entire ministry that he himself might have to die in the process of ushering in G-d's King- dom on earth, but he was prepared to become a martyr on Rome's cross just as he had seen so many of his fellow Galileans become martyrs on similar crosses. He was willing to do this in order to help bring sal- vation to his people. In time to come, other people gave their own interpretation to the meaning of this salvation - but to the Jewish followers of Jesus, it meant nothing less than the overthrow of Satanic Rome, and the establishment of G-d's messianic kingdom.
