Sunday October 26, 2025 | Greg Boyd
Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
“Now have come the salvation and the power
and the kingdom of our God,
and the authority of his Messiah.
For the accuser of our brothers and sisters,
who accuses them before our God day and night,
has been hurled down.
They triumphed over him
by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
as to shrink from death.
Therefore rejoice, you heavens
and you who dwell in them!
But woe to the earth and the sea,
because the devil has gone down to you!
He is filled with fury,
because he knows that his time is short.”
Greg Boyd highlights the way of lies versus the way of truth. The way of lies is founded upon the deception of Satan that draws us into the pursuit of ascent, rising to more power, more stuff and more acclaim. The way of truth is the way of the cross, the way of the Lamb. By counting the cost of discipleship, we move toward Christ and live in love.
In this passage, we read about an adversary, Satan, who employs deception to keep humanity from living in the truth. Greg explains how Satan aims to keep us in the lies of darkness, which means we cannot find the freedom of light. Originally, this adversary was an angel of heaven, but he sought to ascend and then he was cast out and hurled to the earth. This imagery has roots in Isaiah 12 where we are told about Lucifer, an angelic being who sought to ascend to the throne of God, to be as glorious and as powerful as our creator. His insatiable hunger for more brought about his fall.
This adversary continues his war on the love of God as he seeks to steal, kill and destroy. He uses his deception to suck people into his darkness. While he knows that he has been defeated by the cross, he seeks to bring as many as he can into his realm of defeat.
In contrast, there is the way of the Lamb, the one who conquered evil through the cross. It looks like weakness, but the truth is that love wins. It is the only thing that actually lasts. And thus, followers of the Lamb overcome the dragon by adopting the cross-like love of the Lamb. This is what we are told in the passage above. The early church defeated the enemy by the blood of the Lamb, their testimony and not holding on to their lives. This means that they not only embraced the fact that Jesus died and rose for our sins, but they also adopted the way of the cross as a way of life. The “blood of the Lamb” refers to the call of Jesus followers to live in the same self-sacrificial love that Jesus, the Lamb, displayed when he chose to offer up his life on our behalf.
Therefore, we overcome by trusting God’s love for us, by bearing witness to the truth about who God is and the truth about who we are, and refusing to cling to our own lives. Throughout Revelation, martyrdom is expected. It assumes that ultimate victory has already come.
To fail to see this is to live in deception. In a world deceived into thinking it’s natural to live for our own self-interest through the pursuit of perpetual ascent, the lies of Satan continue on. We believe the truth about what Jesus did for us, but we often stop short of entering into the way of the Lamb. Instead, we abstain from anything that might cost us, cause us to suffer or challenge our comfort. The call to follow Jesus is a call to death, to be living sacrifices who embrace the way of the Lamb and live out the way of love.