The Denver Catholic reported:
Satan knew the power and glory of God. He saw that men and women were destined to receive a share of that glory and he rebelled. So, aware of God’s power, the devil waited to see how he would respond to the fall of Adam and Eve, looking for an impressive rescue plan. Instead, God launched a secret counter assault. He came as a humble and defenseless child, born in a stable, in poverty, to the little-known Mary and Joseph.
It might seem like a stretch to talk about Jesus’ life and death in terms of waging battle, but this was not a strange idea for the early Church Fathers. Today we think of Jesus’ death on the cross as him showing us the love of the Father or as making atonement for our sins, but in the first centuries of the Church, Jesus’ mission was described as him going to war to save us.
St. Ephrem the Syrian described it in this way:
“Death had its own way when Our Lord went out from Jerusalem carrying his cross; but when, by a loud cry from that cross, he summoned the dead from the underworld, death was powerless to prevent it.
Death slew him by means of the body which he had assumed, but that same body proved to be the weapon with which he conquered death. Concealed beneath the cloak of his manhood, his godhead engaged death in combat; but in slaying Our Lord, death itself was slain. It was able to kill natural life but was itself killed by the life that is above the nature of man.” [https://denvercatholic.org/inside-gods-covert-rescue-operation/]
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