As we read through Ephesians the first five chapters are filled with a deep beauty of thought as we are exposed to the bright secrets of grace: the mystery of our election, the celebration of divine power in our lives, our heavenly position, our peace, our unity, our unique giftedness, and then the call to live our lives as light and to be filled with the Spirit. These were such exalted thoughts, substance for almost dreamy reflection, and then a cold slap in the face, the ugly blood, grime and gore of war with the enemy of our souls. Nevertheless, it is still a beautiful life to be lived even though we are camped out in enemy territory.
This is a spiritual reality and to thoroughly understand this is necessary for those of us who want to live out a victorious life in today’s post-modern world. The prevailing materialistic, mechanistic thinking of our age leaves no room for the supernatural, or indeed anything without a physical cause. Sadly, many believers are so influenced by this thinking that even though they give conscious assent to their belief in Satan and spiritual warfare, their lives show no evidence of this reality. They actually live in unconscious disbelief [as Kent Hughes describes it]. For people such as these, this passage [Ephesians 6:10-17] provides a much needed antidote. And then there are those who have an unhealthy preoccupation with the Devil and attribute every problem in their lives to demons. So spiritual discernment and a sense of balance are key.
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” [v. 12]. In asserting that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood” the apostle makes three key points. First the struggle is supernatural – beyond flesh and blood. Second the struggle is personal. The word for ‘struggle’ here indicates a hand-to-hand fight [as the Spanish say, mano a mano]. The root idea here is not an exchange of artillery or arrows, but sweat against sweat, breath against breath. And lastly, the struggle is futile if fought in and by our own flesh. We are all involved in a superhuman battle in which conventional tactics will avail nothing.
The angels we struggle against “rulers,” “authorities,” “powers,” and “spiritual forces of evil” form a vast organized hierarchy. The word translaterd “powers” or “world rulers” is kosmokratoras, basically cosmocrats, which F. F. Bruce thinks refers to high-ranking fallen angels such as the angel-princes of Persia and Greece who hindered the archangelic messenger in his divine errand as recorded in the book of Daniel [10:12, 13].
The immediate implication is that Satan is terribly powerful. To be sure he does not possess anything near the power of God, but in God’s inscrutable arrangement he temporarily dominates and drives the world, which on the whole is separated from God’s grace. Though Satan can only be in one place at a time, with his myriads of malignant spirits he imitates God’s omnipresence and omnipotence – for he desires to be God more than anything. His cosmocrats are strategically positioned in the world’s culture, both secular and ecclesiastical. His lieutenants are likewise well-schooled and well-placed so as to best spread their cancer. The consensus of Scripture is that this world is the cosmos diabolicus. John tells us “We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one” [1 John 5:19]. Paul writes that “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” [2 Corinthians 4:4]. In 2 Corinthians 2:2 he adds that Satan is “the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.”
In our own culture we see some of this in the immoral and amoral banter on the TV talk shows and especially in the network and cable programming with the recent exaltation of the homosexual, bisexual and transgendered lifestyles. Our culture has become a herd of morally desolate groupies committed to unthinking, doctrinaire relativism, regularly calling good evil and evil good [see Isaiah 5:20], approving actions that even dogs under full sway of their animal natures would never do! The “Evil Empire” is worldwide, sometimes showing itself in oppression of the truth and at other times in license and debauchery, and both are typical of the cosmos diabolicus.
A parallel implication is the terrible total spiritual evil of Satan. Our verses allude to this as we are told that we struggle against “the powers of this dark world” [or “this present darkness” as the RSV has it]. We understand from Romans 1-3 that all of us are totally depraved. By this we mean that every part of our nature is tainted by sin. This does not mean that we are as bad as we could be. There is always room for more "depravement" and some humans fall deeper into their depravity than others – say serial murderers such as Ted Bundy or dictators such as Adolph Hitler or Joseph Stalin. Yet even those who have gone so low have not equaled Satan’s evil. Satan has no conscience, no compassion, no remorse, no morals. He feeds on pain and anguish and filth. This is the spirit with whom we wrestle. There is nothing in Satan which is redeemable. There is no virtue, but only a dark, cannibal void. Along with this, he is supremely cunning. Verse 11 refers to this as “the devil’s schemes” or as the Greek says, methodias – methods. And he has been honing his methods for millennia. His emissaries visited the church councils at Nicea and Chalcedon. He sat in on medieval faculty meetings. He is an accomplished philosopher, theologian, and psychologist. He has had thousands of years to study.
Sadly, one of his most deadly methods is masquerading as an agent of God, as Paul records in 2 Corinthians 11:14, 15 “And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.” Today his emissaries may don Brooks Brothers suits, flaunt Madison Avenue aplomb, and travel between New York, London, Berlin, and Paris. He specializes in mixing just enough truth with falsehood to make it seem plausible, just as he did with Eve in the garden. Heresy is truth out of proportion, and twisting the truth is his specialty. Perhaps his most common method today is sensuality. How many people have sold their souls to accommodate their declining morality. Theological aberration is as often the result of moral declension as it is an intellectual process.
One of the Devil’s most effectual methods is to instill doubts about God’s goodness. This was the tool he most effectively used against Martin Luther. Roland Bainton, his great biographer, writes: “The content of his depressions was always the same, the loss of faith that God is good and that he is good to me.” Seldom does Satan ever attack openly. His strategies as ministered by his demons are nearly always unseen, shrewd, and perfectly tailored for the victim. What a terrible foe we face. He is immensely powerful, imitating God’s power and presence with his demonic hosts. He is evil beyond our comprehension and without conscience or principle. He is diabolically cunning. And he is after us!
“Our struggle is not against flesh and blood.” This struggle is too much for the 21st century, one-dimensional materialist and indeed for many who think themselves Christian. Our enemy is subtle and powerful. He hates Christ. He hates God’s children. He hates the Church.
On earth, among mortals, Satan has no equal, but in the heavenly realms he is far exceeded by the Triune God. Paul’s letter to the Colossians states dramatically that Satan, and in fact the entire invisible spiritual realm, owe their existence to Christ: “For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.” Satan is not the counterpart of God. Because Satan is finite and God is infinite, our enemy is infinitely inferior! Satan’s power is overwhelmed by the power of God. Recall in Exodus 7 [vv. 6-12] when Aaron at God’s command threw down his staff before Pharaoh and it became a snake, demonstrating that God’s power was with Moses and Aaron. But then remember how Pharaoh’s magicians did the same and there were vipers everywhere! But then Aaron’s viper swallowed up all the rest. Those grotesque moments, as Aaron’s snake was consuming all the other serpents, said it all: God has power – Satan too has power – but God’s power is far superior! Think how Aaron felt when he reached down and picked up that fat snake and it again became his staff.
But that is not the end of it – Christ is not only more powerful by virtue of his being the spirits’ Creator. He is also more powerful because he defeated Satan at the cross, and as a result, Satan and his minions are under the feet of Christ. In fact, the apostle Paul tells us in Colossians 2:15 that our Lord Jesus Christ has led them in a victory parade: “And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” He has sealed their doom, although during the present overlapping of the new age with the old, they still exercise control over those who have not yet found freedom in Christ.
So in respect to these cosmic realities about Satan’s vast power, but Christ’s transcendent power, what must we do? Paul leaves two commands, which dominate his advice to the end of this passage. First: “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power” [v. 10]. According to Hughes, this is a passive imperative: be made strong in the Lord, find your strength in him. We cannot fight Satan ourselves. All our own doing will be in vain. Nevertheless, there is something we can do, and that is to avail ourselves of the Lord’s strength. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12:9, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” We are to acknowledge our weakness and invite his power. Next we are to “put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes” [v. 11]. But what is most called for here is a breathing out of dependence upon self and a breathing in of God’s mighty power. I can’t think of a better time to start than right now!
My next blog entry will be posted on my 50th birthday, which incredibly is a mere four days away. It is entitled, Turning Fifty: Coming Closer to Myself. Read it and weep. I know I did as I wrote it.
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