God is going to prove to Satan that grace still prevails when every earthly support is withdrawn from the believer. Satan has dared to enter into dispute with the Almighty God. It is a war which he cannot win, but it is too late now to withdraw from the lists. He cannot pretend that his intention was anything other than the complete humiliation and defeat of God Almighty; he cannot now withdraw from the battle and claim he had some less malign intention. Truly, Satan must be the most frustrated spirit in existence for no matter how hard he struggles to hurt God, he only manages to bring more glory to God, and more shame and punishment on himself. Every attack he makes backfires on him.
Our new natures created at conversion are beyond Satan’s sight and his understanding. He is consumed with hatred towards the upright, and is cynically determined to prove they are not genuine, for he cannot believe they have what he does not have. God’s will is to defeat him through a creature that has for the time being been made a little lower than the angels, but who will tread Satan under his feet.
Satan cannot touch the believer or his property without the permission of God. Satan’s will is always the same: ‘to steal, and to kill, and to destroy’ (John 10:10); he waits only for permission from God to do so. God’s permission to Satan is very precise. He may go so far and no further, as the prophetic word in Revelation shows: ‘Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life’ (Revelation 2:10). God determines our circumstance very precisely. We are never entirely in the hands of the devil even when we are under his attack, for God’s will is the final control. This is a comfort to us, for if we believed we had been taken out of God’s hands and placed entirely in the devil’s hands, we would despair. At this stage Satan was not allowed to attack Job's person, because this had not been part of his accusation; it was for comfort and worldly security that he accused Job of serving God.