At Damascus, the governor under King Aretas was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me, but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped his hands.
You can read about this particular event in Acts 9.[1]
You get the point, I hope: It seemed as if Paul was “wrestling against flesh and blood” human beings all the time, yet somehow he still says, in spite of this, that we Christians do not wrestle against flesh and blood. What does that mean?
It means that we have a more ultimate Enemy behind all human enemies, and his name is… Satan, and he has an army of fellow demons at his disposal, all of whom—like Satan, their chief—were created by God as angels in the heavenly realms—to love, serve, and glorify God. Yet these angels chose to rebel against God—as Adam and Eve and the rest of mankind would later do; they chose to sin. And now, the Bible warns repeatedly, they oppose us; they are the ones against whom we ultimately wrestle… Even when it seems as if we’re wrestling against mere flesh-and-blood people.
This was true of Judas when he betrayed Jesus—we’re told that Satan “entered into him.” This was true, Paul says, of false teachers and false apostles in the churches. Satan was working through them. This was true even of Peter, when Jesus rebukes him, saying, “Get thee behind me, Satan.”[2] If Satan can manipulate and use Jesus’ closest disciple, then it goes without saying that Satan can manipulate and use even good people and good Christians—including people like you and me. We can unwittingly do his bidding.
I can hardly stress this point enough: You and I face a deadly Enemy who is at work right now, even as I speak these words. Here I am, after all, trying to sow within your hearts the seed of God’s Word, and Jesus says in Mark 4:15 that Satan has the power to “immediately come and take away the word that is sown in [you].” Indeed, Satan is doing everything within his power right now to destroy us, to ruin our lives, to ruin our families, to ruin our marriages, to ruin us for ministry, to ruin our church, to cause us to lose our souls, to cause us to spend eternity in hell. Or to see to it that our loved ones go to hell!
Do you know that the devil is at work right now to see to it that your own children, or grandchildren, or great-grandchildren will spend an eternity separated from God. Do you see how high the stakes are when we talk about the devil? Does that bother you? Does that anger you? Does that motivate you to want to fight? Because whether you enlisted in this war or not, you’re being called to fight—simply because you’re a Christian! You have a target on your back!
Someone told me not long ago, “Brent, you don’t want to overemphasize the devil.” And I’m like, “You’re right: I don’t want to overemphasize him. I want to emphasize the devil exactly as much as Jesus does! I want to take the devil exactly as seriously as scripture does! Can we just start there?” Jesus, for example, calls Satan the “ruler of this world.”[3] Paul, writing words that were breathed out by the Spirit of Christ, calls Satan the “god of this world”[4] and, in this very letter the “prince of the power of the air.”[5] When Satan tempts Jesus in the wilderness for 40 days at the beginning of his ministry, his third temptation is to tell Jesus that Satan has authority over all the kingdoms of the world—and he can give these kingdoms to Jesus. Consider this: Satan wasn’t lying about this authority. If he were, then Jesus wouldn’t have been tempted. Instead, he would have said, “Satan, you and I both know that you don’t have the ability to give me these governments and kingdoms.” But Jesus knew that Satan did have that power and authority!
But I get it: Our popular culture tells us that believing in devils—and angels, for that matter—is silly and superstitious. But isn’t that what Satan would want us to think? Keith Green wrote a song in the seventies from Satan’s point of view. He sings: “I used to have to sneak around/ But now they just open their doors/ You know, no one’s watching for my tricks/ Because no one believes in me anymore.”
In his brilliant, depressingly funny book The Screwtape Letters,C.S. Lewis writes, “If any faint suspicion of [Satan’s existence] begins to arise in [a person’s mind], [the devil’s strategy is to merely] suggest to him a picture of something in red tights, and persuade him that since he cannot believe in that… he therefore cannot believe in [Satan].”[6]
If you’re my age, you likely remember the series of sketches on Saturday Night Live back in the eighties in which Dana Carvey played “the Church Lady,” and she was always blaming “SATAN” for everything and seeing him in everything. In this picture, for example, she rearranges the letters in “Santa” to reveal his true identity. It’s funny, of course, but the problem is that these pop cultural depictions make Satan seem unreal. “I can’t believe in that cartoon version of Satan, therefore I can’t believe in the real thing, either.”
I confess, many years ago in my walk as a Christian, I was also skeptical of a literal devil. I was under the influence of some bad teachers and pastors, and I was fighting and losing spiritual battles in my own life. But thank God, the Lord rescued me and changed my thinking on the subject. And the change happened, in part, when I began to take seriously—once again—the complete truthfulness of the Bible, not to mention the credible testimonies of Christian teachers I respected who believe in the reality of the devil.
For instance, N.T. Wright, a retired bishop in the Church of England who is a world-class Bible scholar… In a commentary on today’s scripture, Wright said something that caught me off guard Matt years ago: He said that whenever he writes on the subject of Satan and spiritual warfare, odd things happen. “One time,” he said, “a workman outside the house drove a nail through a main electricity cable, and I lost half an hour’s writing on the word processor. Sometimes domestic crises suddenly arise and distract me. Today,” he said, “the computer jammed completely just when I was about to begin writing. I have come to accept this as normal—and to be grateful that this is all that has happened. So far.” He said, “I have noticed over the years that the topic of spiritual warfare is itself the subject of spiritual warfare.”[7]
Did you get what he just said? This great clergyman, this prolific and bestselling author, this leading New Testament scholar with a doctorate from Oxford University, this funny and down-to-earth guy who once matched wits with Stephen Colbert on late night TV—this brilliant man just blamed Satan for breaking his computer when he was writing about the reality of Satan and spiritual warfare. In fact, he said, Satan does this sort of thing all the time in an effort to prevent the truth about the devil from getting out.
And it’s not just him… I’ve read other well-respected scholars who’ve reported similar things happening to them. I’ve talked to clergy friends who’ve had supernatural experiences that have convinced them of the reality of Satan—and the army of other demons whom Paul describes in today’s scripture as “rulers, authorities, cosmic powers over this present darkness, and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
But maybe you’re skeptical too? Maybe you agree with our popular culture that Satan seems unreal. If so, I want to challenge you to think of your own life. Pay attention to the timing of events in your life—when some bad thing happens at the most inopportune time, and it just wrecks you; it disorients you; it overwhelms you with fear or anger or a sense of hopelessness. Doesn’t it make sense that there are spiritual forces who are actively working against you?
I challenge you to believe that we have an unseen Enemy who wants to harm you!
The question is, will you be prepared for him when he attacks? Will you be prepared to stand your ground and fight?
Because the good news, according to today’s scripture, is that we possess, through the Holy Spirit, everything we need to wage this war successfully.
As the Bible says elsewhere, “the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world.”[8] And in today’s scripture, Paul says that in the Spirit we have all the equipment we need to fight successfully. For example, in verse 14, we are to “fasten on the belt of truth.” How does this work? Let me give you an example. Since you have your Bibles, turn with me to Colossians 2:13-15:
And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.[9]
Do you get that picture? Before we believed in Jesus, we had a “record of debt” before God because of our sins. [Singing: “He paid a debt he did not owe…”] But Jesus “nailed it to the cross” and “canceled” that debt. How? By suffering the penalty for each one of our sins. Suffering God’s wrath for each of our sins. But look at what he says next, in verse 15:
He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.[10]
He disarmed the rulers and authorities… That’s the same language he uses in Ephesians 6. These are references to Satan and his army of demons. How did Jesus’ death on the cross, by which our sins are forgiven, “disarm” Satan? By taking away from him the most powerful weapon in his arsenal—his ability to “accuse” us and make us feel guilty of our sins. Satan wants to whisper in our ear, “God doesn’t really love you. Think of how disappointed he must be in you! You call yourself a Christian, but you still let him down. He’s mad at you, and he’s going to punish you! No wonder all these bad things happen to you. No wonder you can never win. What makes you—sinner that you are—believe that God is going to save you?”
But you fasten on the belt of truth and say to him: “You’re lying, Satan, and you are indeed the ‘Father of lies,’[11] because you see… while it’s true that I have sinned, that I do sin, and that I will sin, God won’t punish me for my sins or send me to hell. Why? Because he’s already punished every one of my sins—on the cross of his Son Jesus. It would now be unjust on God’s part to punish those same sins again—and my God is a God of perfect justice.”
And you put on the “breastplate of righteousness” in verse 14 and remember, for example, 2 Corinthians 5:21. “For our sake [God] made [his Son Jesus], who knew no sin, to be sin on the cross, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”—so that we might stand before God perfectly righteous. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”[12]
And then you put on the “helmet of salvation” in verse 17 and remember the joy that God experienced when his Son Jesus rescued you—who were like a lost sheep. “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.”[13] You remember the joy the father experienced in the parable when the Prodigal Son returned home:
But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.[14]
Your salvation through Christ is worthy of a great celebration in heaven! You—yes, you—bring your heavenly Father joy. He enjoys being in a relationship with you. You were so precious to God our Father that he was unwilling to spend eternity without you. So he sent his Son Jesus to die on a cross to rescue you.
And you can rest securely because “he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”[15] You remember the promise of Jesus: “I give [you] eternal life, and [you] will never perish, and no one will snatch [you] out of my hand.”[16] And you remember the promise of Romans 8:38-39:
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Do you see what I’ve done? I’ve taken the “sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” in verse 17, and defeated Satan.
My prayer is that you’ll do the same! And that you’ll the claim the victory that belongs to you!
1. Acts 9:23-25 2. Matthew 16:23 KJV 3. John 12:31 4. 2 Corinthians 4:4 5. Ephesians 2:2 6. C.S. Lewis, “The Screwtape Letters” in The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics (New York: HarperOne, 2002), 203-4. 7. N.T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: The Prison Letters (Louisville: WJK, 2004), 72-3. 8. 1 John 4:4 NLT 9. Colossians 2:13-14 ESV 10. Colossians 2:15 ESV 11. John 8:44 12. Romans 8:1 13. John 15:6 14. Luke 15:22-23 ESV 15. Philippians 1:6 16. John 10:28
Brent, it is interesting that you cite to N.T. Wright and also say, “But Jesus ‘nailed it to the cross’ and ‘canceled’ that debt. How? By suffering the penalty for each one of our sins. Suffering God’s wrath for each of our sins.” I am right now reading, at the suggestion of my boss, Wright’s famous book, “The Day the Revolution Began: Reconsidering the Meaning of Jesus’s Crucifixion.” From what I have read so far (about half through), Wright disagrees with you (and most traditional conservative biblical scholars) on this point, taking great offense with the notion that Jesus’ death on the cross was somehow a receipt of the wrath of God. I agree, however, with what you say, instead of with what he says.
I also agree with you that “Satan is Alive and Well on the Planet Earth” (though I haven’t read that book nor know if I agree with its contents–but the title is right). And irrespective of whether that reality today causes any “miraculous” occurrences, certainly it results in the much more deleterious existence of and exposure to temptations.
Finally, though, while I agree that Jesus paid the debt for our sins, I am not sure that they no longer result in any type of “demerits” for us. The devil cannot keep us believers out of Heaven (at least I don’t think so, though there are lots of people whose opinions I respect who believe we can “fall from grace,” a reality of which, if correct, would certainly mean that God can still hold our sins against us). But I find there to be passages of scripture that to me still suggest that sin carries consequences. “Be not deceived, God is not mocked–for whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap.” Jesus says that men shall give an account for even “every idle word.” James suggests that we should “weep and howl” over certain sins. Paul suggests that some who dishonored the Lord’s Supper died as a result. The Letters to the Seven Churches certainly suggest some deleterious consequences to shortcomings. Paul says that there will be varying levels of rewards, and that it is possible that for some whose works are burned up that they will receive no rewards at all, but rather get to Heaven “as one escaping through the flames.”
My take on this can be seen from this analogy. I can’t pay to go to Harvard. Some benefactor pays that “debt” for me so I can go. I’m in. But it still remains to be determined what grades I will get once there, and that in large measure depends on what efforts I put in. If I goof around instead of studying, I won’t get good marks. In a similar fashion, Jesus’ death on the cross makes up the impossible debt that I would owe to get into Heaven. So I’m in. But the eternal rewards that I will get do very much depend on my efforts–or lack thereof. Of course we also have the advantage of a “heavenly tutor” in the Holy Spirit, but it is possible for us to “quench the Spirit.” Something along those lines.
Our only disagreement, I think, is over the definition of “punishment”: I distinguish punishment for sin (which the cross frees us from) and “discipline,” which I very much believe in. And much of what you say above falls into that category.
As for Wright, I’m grateful for his ministry, but I don’t read him anymore, aside from his commentaries. He helped me at a time in my life when I desperately needed it. He usually ends up affirming classic Protestant doctrines but not before qualifying them with a “yes, but…” He drives me crazy sometimes. He has said in the past that he believes in penal substitution, but only after nuancing it to death.
(Don’t know if I hit the “notify” button, so am doing so here.)