20 And the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.
20 And the God of peace [prosperity]
Paul wrote that God would exercise His sovereign rule over Satan by crushing him under the feet of the saints.
will crush Satan under your feet
All false teaching is satanic. Satan will never stop pervading the church. Because that is true, the church must be alert to what he is trying to do. Paul was saying that God would shortly “crush Satan” under the feet of the Roman believers.
Ironically, the “God of peace” will do something violent. He will crush Satan and his system. Peace biblically does not mean absence of conflict. God makes peace by defeating His enemy through teaching from the book of Romans. Verse 19 says that we are to be wise about what is good, about the Word of God.
“Peace” in the Bible is different from our Western idea. Today’s English idea of peace is the absence of war. The biblical idea of peace is wholeness, well roundedness. The idea is prosperity of the whole life. This verse carries the idea of peace as spiritual prosperity where it overcomes evil. Peace involves the defeat of evil.
The idea of crushing Satan under the feet might be an allusion to Genesis 3:15, where God promised the defeat of Satan by the Messiah’s death on the cross. Paul said that God would defeat the false teachers in Rome referenced in verses 17 and 18. God is the one who crushes, but the result is that Satan would end under the feet of the saints.
shortly.
God would defeat Satan “shortly” for the Romans. He would do it soon. This is not a reference to what God will do in prophecy. We can translate “shortly” as speedily or quickly (Ac 12:7; 22:18), carrying the idea of it being done unexpectedly (Re 22:7, 12, 20).
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
This sentence is the third benediction of Romans. The grace that saves our soul will continue to be with us. Understanding grace will give us wisdom about how God will intervene on our behalf.
Amen.
“Amen” is not in the oldest manuscripts but is in the majority of manuscripts.
PRINCIPLE:
Biblical peace involves prosperity of the complete spiritual life.
APPLICATION:
Peace in the Word of God is not the absence of conflict. Spiritual prosperity overcomes evil. That prosperity comes from the finished work of Christ, from what the God of peace does.
Re 12:11, And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.
