“The only thing more foolish than counseling a demon is casting out a psychological problem”: Five decades of insight, Part II. The Etiology of Evil: The World, the Flesh and the Devil (Ron Klaus)
After the Preface and Introduction with four key Incidents From Jesus’ Life that set the background for a Biblical approach to the demonic, we present Part II. of Ron Klaus’ synthesis, which focuses in on the etiology of evil.
The Origin of Satan and Demons
Two NT Passages
A cosmic battle began when Satan and a host of angels rebelled against the order of the spiritual world. All free-willed creatures, both angelic and human, were designed to live in interdependent relationships with God. He gave them considerable freedom but also gave them boundaries. These were not arbitrary but given because even such creatures, with all their capacities, were not capable of always choosing the good rather than what would immediately gratify them in ways that would ultimately corrupt the good. Thus, God needed to define what was good and what was evil.
But, Satan and his followers were not willing to live within these constraints.
And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day (Jude 6).
They wanted to usurp God’s role and cast off all restraint. That was inherently evil; it was an affront to the Creator. But it leads to the very thing God wanted to prevent, namely the creature becoming evil in him- or herself. It is unbounded self-centeredness that leads to death because it kills the life of God originally embedded within the creature. It is the equivalent of being deprived of oxygen which leads to a quick death. This rebellion led to to a conflict in heaven.
Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him (Rev 12:7-9)
Two OT Passages
Two sections in the Old Testament describe a powerful and beautiful angelic character who was not content with his exalted position and challenged God for ultimate authority. This resulted in his being expelled from heaven.
How you are fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, morning star, son of the dawn!
How you are cut down to the ground,
You who once laid low the nations!
For you have said in your heart:
‘I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;
I will also sit on the mount of the congregation
On the farthest sides of the north;
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,
I will be make myself like the Most High.’
Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol,
To the lowest depths of the Pit (Is 14:12-15).
From this passage, which occurs within the section, known as the “End of Babylon: the end of the King,” we move forward to the end of the penultimate section of Ezekiel’s prophecy.
You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: carnelian, chrysolite and emerald, topaz, onyx and jasper, lapis lazuli, turquoise and beryl. Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared.
You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you.
Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones.
Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth; I made a spectacle of you before kings (Ezek 38:12b-17).
Having been expelled from heaven along with a third of his followers (Rev 12:4), Lucifer (הֵילֵ֣ל [helel], “the shining one”), who became Satan (שָׂטָן [satan], that is, the “adversary”), and his evil army, who corrupted their angelic perfection into the horror of demons, sought to gain control of the earth. He was able to accomplish at least a measure of such control when our first ancestors chose to disobey God’s command and ate the forbidden fruit. Jesus calls him the “ruler of this world” (ὁ ἄρχων τοῦ κόσμου τούτου, John 16:11). Paul calls him “the ruler of the kingdom of the air” (κατὰ τὸν ἄρχοντα τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ ἀέρος, Eph 2:2).
In the ancient world, there were considered to be three levels of “heaven.”
First was the atmosphere in which it was thought that spiritual powers exercised control;
The second was the celestial realm; and
The third was what modern people consider heaven to be, namely the ultimate abode of God or the gods.
This means that Satan and his demons have considerable influence on the first level of power. However, God still has overall control because he rules the other two levels.
The conflict, therefore, goes on. Satan’s power is aimed finally, in the Apostle’s words, to “kill and destroy;” whereas as Jesus came to bring fullness of life (ἐγὼ ἦλθον ἵνα ζωὴν ἔχωσιν καὶ περισσὸν ἔχωσιν, John 10:10). In fact, we are told later by the same Apostle,
The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8).
That is taking place now as God’s faithful people resist and weaken his power. These are the small steps through which he will eventually reach this final end.
God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment (II Peter 2:4).
The Cosmic Conflict
The Bible is very explicit in picturing God as a warrior. After Israel’s glorious deliverance from the power of the Egyptian empire, the Song of Moses sung on the shores of the Red Sea, declares,
The Lord is a warrior (אִ֣ישׁ מִלְחָמָ֑ה); the LORD [Yahweh] is his name (Ex 15:3)
In one of Isaiah’s songs of praise to God he writes...
The Lord will march out like a champion, like a warrior (כַּגִּבֹּ֣ור) he will stir up his zeal; with a shout he will raise the battle cry and will triumph over his enemies (Is 42:13).
But these two alone do not do justice to the multitude of references to God as a warrior. In more recent translations of the Scriptures, there are over two hundred references to God that are translated as “God Almighty” or “Lord Almighty.” But these translations fall short of what the Hebrew original means. In these instances, the word, Almighty, really means, “Lord of the heavenly armies (יְהוָ֨ה צְבָאֹ֜ות [JWHW tsaba]),” thus reinforcing the repeated Old Testament picture of God as the commander of his army (cf. Josh 5:13-15).
Paul shared the ancient view that the world was influenced by various “powers,” some human (Titus 3:1) but many being superhuman, angelic or demonic (Rom 8:38; Eph 3:10; 6:12; Col 1:16; 2:10,15). A particularly illuminating reference comes from his description of the conflict in which followers of Jesus are all involved. He not only picks up this theme, but, moreover, includes us in the spiritual conflict taking place on earth.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the [cosmic] powers (κοσμοκράτορας [kosmokratór]) of darkness and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Eph 6:12).
The NIV and other translations do not include the word, “cosmic,” but it is clearly there in the Greek text (again, kosmokratór—the rulers [krateó] of the cosmos). It also has “this dark world,” but the Greek word is only “this darkness” (τοῦ σκότους τούτου). Both these details are important. Paul is not talking merely about earthly authority figures, but those that work on the cosmic level. The darkness is not just the darkness of this physical world, but the intrinsic darkness of these cosmic figures. We are involved in something that goes well beyond our earthly horizons. Paul’s description implies that they are organized into a malevolent army with different spheres of authority, both geographical and hierarchical.
To return to the OT, we should bring into this discussion the prophet, Daniel, who well knew the oppression of the Adversary. Having survived the initial stages of the Fall of Jerusalem only to be exiled to Babylon for the next eight decades of his life (from Nebuchadnezzar to Belshazzar, Darius the Mede and finally, Cyrus of Persia), he offers depths of insight into the nature of evil operating in the human sphere. In particular, he presents two references to someone he refers to as the “prince of Persia” (10:13, 20), with the context implying that this person is not a human political leader but a demonic person with authority over that empire.
Pause.
A demonic person with authority over that empire.
This is quite a paradigm-shifting statement.
That is to say, the variables, the determining factors, that enable us to grasp what is happening in the empirical realm may not actually be reduced down to our personal experience at all (what we see/hear/feel/experience in the present moment); rather, in the final analysis, we must be pushed beyond “the now” into the spiritual (that is to say, the everlasting) realm.
From the Prince of Persia to the operations of the World, the Flesh and the Devil
In the later, NT Pauline analysis, he contends that behind our ordinary actions in this world is an unseen kingdom of cosmic demonic forces that constantly wage war against us. The passage implies that there is a hierarchy of these evil forces that work on many different levels both in terms of power and geography. What they have in common is that they are driven by an entrenched internal evil that seeks to dominate the human race, both individually and collectively. Their aims are always destructive. They constantly work to deceive us and incite evil impulses. They seek to defeat us on three different levels, which the Apostle John elucidates as:
1. The World.
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.
For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever (1 John 2:15-17).
The “world” (cosmos) refers to ways we are attacked from the outside based on its philosophies and allurements. This includes ways of thinking pressed in on us from our culture, its media, and its educational institutions. They are always contrary to the way of Jesus. This likely is what Paul has in mind in his first letter to Timothy where he speaks of “things taught by demons” (4:1).
He is reminding us that culture is not neutral. It has been infiltrated with ideas and pressures whose source is demonic. This could be the deception that comes from prevailing cultural values, such as materialism, hedonism, or unhealthy individualism. It could be operating in what lays behind worldviews such as modernism, postmodernism and hypermodernism. The deception comes about because there is something partially true about their premises, but they are mixed with outlooks that are ultimately destructive. Attacks on this level, however (lest we become too abstract). can be very personal where, without realizing it, we can be drawn into the values of the world and unconsciously contribute to their further working.
John says this can include inordinate desires of the flesh (ἐπιθυμία τῆς σαρκὸς—the passions of the flesh), involving everything from sexual sensuality (Rom 1:24) to excessive desire for any type of immediate fulfillment in this Fallen Age (Mk 4:19, Rom 7:8, etc.). The lust of the eyes (ἐπιθυμία τῶν ὀφθαλμῶν) includes our inordinate desire to see entertainment and be mesmerized by beautiful things that seem to fill a need in our lives. The pride of life (ἀλαζονεία τοῦ βίου) can refer to a kind of boastfulness and selfish ambition for this transient life (Note the use of bíos as opposed to zōḗ—That is to say fallen, physical life as opposed to redeemed life in Christ).
The solution is twofold. First is the realization of how transient the world’s philosophy and pleasures are. The second is turning to what is permanent, namely seeking and obeying the will of the eternal God.
2. The Flesh
This refers to the way the Enemy attacks us through the internal weaknesses of our fallen flesh. The previous paragraph already sums up how this works. We have certain vulnerabilities and a tendency to sin that are deeply embedded in our personality and history, going back to the tendencies we inherited through our humanity. Satan is an expert at exploiting them to his advantage (with his demonic retinue having, as the Church Fathers say, “having six thousand years experience behind them…”).
3. The Devil
This level of attack takes place when one of the demonic powers attacks a person or group in a specific and personal way. The Greek word, daimonizomai has often been mistranslated as “demon possession.” That goes beyond what the word means. A better translation is “demonization,” which refers to a person who is noticeably vexed, tormented, or oppressed by demonic power. This covers a variety of levels of influence. It can merely refer to a mild but unsettling feeling of attack or influence, all the way up to such strong influence that a person feels almost or completely under the control of a demonic spirit. The degree of difference between these levels implies that the remedies may also vary in intensity.
The Rescue
Satan’s influence in the world had great effects on the human race.
The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God (2 Cor 4:4).
As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient (Eph 2:1-2).
These references communicate the reality of blindness and spiritual death through which Satan and his followers have made the world submissive to the evil impulses of demonic forces. Furthermore, the demonic influence makes sure that a person does not realize what is actually happening in his/her life.
This is a state that no one can escape. A person has/must be rescued, just as surely as drowning people need to be pulled out of the sea, being beyond their own help.
For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins (Col 1:13-14).
Such a rescue may not always seem dramatic. It can be a process of realization, then seeking, then understanding, and finally commitment. But it is a rescue nevertheless, driven by desire kindled by the powerful Spirit of God.
Regardless of how the experience plays itself out on the visible level when it takes place, it is a transfer between kingdoms. A person is either dominated by the satanic kingdom of darkness or else has escaped into a new kingdom, the kingdom of God. That means coming under the lordship of Jesus and becoming willing to live a life of inter-dependence with God, rejoicing in its newly-found freedoms from guilt, shame, domination by the flesh, feelings of worthlessness, lack of true love, domination by sinful habits). And likewise, it means entering more fully into the disciplines of Jesus-followers, which are learned most precisely within the context of membership in the community of the Church. It represents a fundamental change of allegiance.
However, even though a true conversion (metanoia) means a transfer of allegiance, it does not mean that the Enemy stops harassing such a person, trying to win him or her back under his influence. The place to begin, therefore, is the authority (ἐξουσία [exousía]) of Jesus which broke into This Fallen Age in the life, death, resurrection and ascension of the Messianic King.
And with that, we come to Part III: Models of Deliverance Ministry.