The Accuser Cast Out

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“Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: ‘Now have salvation and power come, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Anointed. For the accuser of our brothers is cast out, who accuses them before our God day and night. They conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; love for life did not deter them from death. Therefore, rejoice, you heavens, and you who dwell in them. But woe to you, earth and sea, for the Devil has come down to you in great fury, for he knows he has but a short time.’”Revelation 12:10–12

Revelation 12 reveals to us how the beast was conquered. Michael and his angels have thrown the dragon down from heaven. Now a voice in heaven explains what that victory means for us. It is the first song of victory in the chapter, and it is sung before the battle on earth is even over.

The accuser of our brothers

The voice gives the dragon a new name: “the accuser of our brothers.” The NABRE note on 12:10 explains that this is what the Hebrew word satan means. It points us to the Book of Job, where the accuser stands before God to question Job’s goodness (Job 1–2), and to the prophet Zechariah, who sees the high priest Joshua standing before the angel of the Lord, “while the adversary stood at his right side to accuse him” (Zechariah 3:1). The note adds that the accuser still accuses Christ’s disciples.

How does he accuse us? The Devil accuses us of breaking the law. And the hard thing is that he is not always lying when he does it. We have broken it. We know our sins, and he knows how to hold them up in front of us, “day and night,” until we stop believing that God could still love us. That is his favorite work: not only to tempt us into sin, but then to tell us that our sin is the last word.

Conquered by the blood of the Lamb

The answer of heaven is not that we are innocent. It is that the Lamb has paid. “They conquered him by the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 12:11). The accuser loses his case, not because the charges are false, but because the debt has been cancelled. St. Paul says Christ was “obliterating the bond against us, with its legal claims, which was opposed to us, … nailing it to the cross” (Colossians 2:14).

So the courtroom is turned around. “Who will bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who acquits us” (Romans 8:33). Christ does not stand beside the accuser. He stands with us: “if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one” (1 John 2:1). That is why St. Paul can say, “Hence, now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

The Lamb’s blood justifies the humble who seek God’s mercy. Remember the tax collector who would not even raise his eyes, and prayed, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner.” Jesus says he “went home justified” (Luke 18:13–14). The Catechism teaches the same confidence: “One who entrusts himself to God does not dread the devil” (CCC 2852). And in confession, where the priest speaks Christ’s absolution, the accuser is silenced; the Church says the whole power of that sacrament is to restore us to God’s grace (CCC 1468).

I say this gently. Those who refuse to give themselves to Christ remain under the law and its condemnation, because they are standing in the courtroom without an Advocate. But we judge no one. Only God sees the heart. Christ did not come to condemn the world but to save it (John 3:17), and the door of mercy stays open as long as we live. Our part is to pray, and to tell people where the Advocate can be found.

The word of their testimony

The second weapon is “the word of their testimony.” Christians witness to Christ, and some have witnessed even to martyrdom: “love for life did not deter them from death” (Revelation 12:11). They did not love their lives more than they loved him.

This is not contempt for life. It is freedom from fear. Christ shared our flesh and blood “that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who through fear of death had been subject to slavery all their life” (Hebrews 2:14–15). The martyrs did not fear death, for they knew they would rise with the risen Christ: “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live” (John 11:25). Most of us will not be asked for our blood. All of us are asked for our testimony, in our families, at work, and in the small daily choices no one sees. My page on the courage of the martyrs goes further into this.

A short time

Heaven rejoices, but the earth hears a warning: the Devil “has come down to you in great fury, for he knows he has but a short time” (Revelation 12:12). His fury is the fury of one who has already lost. A short time does not mean we can count the days. No one knows the day or the hour (Matthew 24:36; CCC 673). It means that his time is limited and God’s is not. Whatever he does in his rage, he cannot undo the victory of the Lamb.

Fr. Charles Arminjon, ending his conference on the last judgment, gives the right response to that fury: “Let us not, then, be intimidated by the arrogance and dark threats of the wicked. … If God is silent and seems at this moment to be asleep, He will unfailingly awaken in His own time.” And he closes with the verse that answers the accuser: “Let us live with the Lord Jesus all the days of our life, and then we shall be freed from all fear, for there is no condemnation upon those who dwell with the Lord Jesus” (The End of the Present World, pp. 105–108; Romans 8:1).

The dawn before the Sun

I first wrote about these verses on the feast of the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary, September 8. The Church keeps the feast of her Immaculate Conception on December 8, nine months before. From the first moment of her life, Mary was kept free from the accuser’s claim. She is the first fruit of the Lamb’s victory, given to her in advance.

St. Andrew of Crete, in a sermon the Church reads in the Office of Readings on her birthday, says: “The present festival, the birth of the Mother of God, is the prelude,” while the final act is the union of the Word with our flesh (Oratio 1). Mary’s birth is like the dawn before the Sun rises. The woman of Revelation 12 is clothed with the sun because the Son she bears is the light that the accuser cannot put out.

Sources

• Revelation 12:10–12 and the NABRE note on 12:10: bible.usccb.org
• Scripture: Job 1–2; Zechariah 3:1; Colossians 2:14; Romans 8:1, 33–34; 1 John 2:1; Luke 18:13–14; Hebrews 2:14–15; John 11:25; John 3:17; Matthew 24:36 (NABRE)
• Fr. Charles Arminjon, The End of the Present World and the Mysteries of the Future Life (Sophia Institute Press, 2008), Third Conference, pp. 105–108
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2852: vatican.va
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1468: vatican.va
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, 673
• St. Andrew of Crete, Oratio 1 on the Nativity of Mary (PG 97, 806–810), Office of Readings, September 8

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