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“War and Peace Part 3:” by Romans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqLnL0Sa-WE
We are continuing in our “War and Peace” Series, and we are also continuing our focus on the War aspect of this Topic. There is still much we need to cover, and can easily foresee, even after tonight's Discussion, another two or so installments of War. Tonight, we are going to going through the article, “Spiritual Conflict,” as it is thoroughly discussed in the book, “The Complete Book of Everyday Christianity: An A-To-Z Guide To Following Christ in Every Aspect of Life.” I hope you all find it, as I did, to be very illuminating and insightful. Let's begin:
“SPIRITUAL CONFLICT
Contents: 1.) The Flesh Against the Spirit; 2.) The Spirit Against the Flesh and 3.) Walking in the Spirit
Why do I still experience lust? When I am criticized, I become deeply hurt and lash out in anger. What is the matter with me? There are some people I find almost impossible to love, and they are some of the people I am closest to in this life! I feel continuous tension between the demands of home and workplace. Is my profession too important? I desire to do good but seem unable sometimes to make it happen. Sometimes I seem almost driven to do wrong things. I feel a hateful fascination with what I see in the theater or on television—wanting and not wanting at the same time. When I try to serve God in the world, it seems an invisible army contrives to make it impossibly difficult.
Contrary to the teachings of some, Christians struggle until the day they die. There is no experience of God that can usher one into sinless perfection free of the slightest twinge of difficulty. Spiritual growth is the progressive transformation of our persons into the likeness of Christ. But the transformation is not complete in this life. Some aspects of the conflict involve spiritual warfare with the principalities and powers. There is an invisible backdrop to our struggle—a host of social, political and economic structures and invisible spiritual beings that frustrate the Christian’s life and service in the world. (As we have already seen in Ephesians 6:12: "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
But part of the struggle is with flesh and blood, with human nature as it has become through sin, in opposition to life in the Spirit. This article will explore the tension between flesh and spirit—or more accurately, flesh and Spirit—in Paul’s writings and will offer some practical help in dealing with spiritual conflict.
The Flesh Against the Spirit: In Paul’s writing sarx, translated as “flesh,” is a complex word not easily understood in English. Sometimes it merely means what is human about us... By human standards not many of the Corinthians were wise and educated (see 1 Cor. 1:26). Sometimes flesh simply refers to one’s bodily life that is normally good or, at least, neutral. Paul did not agree with the Greek view of the body as a hindrance, but as a Jew he believed that people can glorify God with and in their bodies. Our ultimate future is, not to be holy souls floating around eternity, but to be resurrected persons experiencing complete, personal, physical and communal life in the presence of God in a new heaven and a new earth (see Rev. 21-22). So flesh is not always pitted against life in Christ or the Spirit.
On this point it is remarkable that the works of the flesh Paul lists in Galatians 5:18 are largely nonphysical: “impurity; . . . idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy” (NRSV). These are mostly psychological, spiritual and relational. The war is not mainly between our physical bodies and our human spirits but between something inside us that “desires what is contrary to the Spirit” (Galatians 5:17 NRSV). Though four of the listed works of the flesh—sexual immorality, debauchery, drunkenness and orgies—involve the physical body, the root of these destructive activities is to be found in what Scripture calls the heart or soul.
While many modern versions translate sarx as “human nature,” they must not be understood to communicate that there are two parts to us, one good and one bad, one higher and one lower, one given to God and the other given to sin. No, it is our whole person—body, soul and spirit—that struggles to live under the reign of Christ and in the Spirit. Biblically we do not “have” a body, “have” a soul and “have” a spirit, but are bodies, souls and spirits—integrated wholes. Touch someone’s body in a sexual affair, and you have touched that person: such affairs arise not from an irrepressible instinct in our bodies but from something wrong in our persons. Idolatry and sorcery involve the secret tampering with the powers of evil through drugs or witchcraft.
Enmity, strife, fits of anger, selfishness, dissensions, party spirit and envy are relational sins—in which persons are out of sync with others, seeking their own advantage or cherishing pain when someone else is honored. Even drunkenness and carousing are, in the end, not physical problems because they both involve the choice to give one’s consciousness to a substance. So the works of the flesh are not to be located in our physical drives and appetites but in the fundamental orientation of our lives.
Sometimes Paul uses flesh in his letters to refer to that fundamental orientation, for example, in Romans 7:18 (“I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature [sarx]”; NRSV) and Galatians 5:17 (“For the sinful nature [sarx] desires what is contrary to the Spirit”; NRSV).
Here flesh stands for flawed human nature as it has become through sin. It is life lived as though Christ had not come, died and been raised. It is life outside and against the Spirit. Flesh describes—but does not ultimately account for—the oft-repeated situation in which a person knows what to do but feels helpless to do it (Romans 7:8). There are many interpretations of Paul’s striking confession in Romans 7:15: “For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (NRSV). On one extreme, some argue that Paul was speaking of his pre-Christian state, and on the other, that he is confessing his present experience of struggle. Whatever the meaning, James Stewart offers a helpful pastoral comment on these words: “It is safe for a Christian like Paul—it is not safe for everybody—to explain his failings by the watchword, `Not I, but indwelling sin. . . .’ but a sinner had better not make it a principle” (p. 77). This is precisely the emphasis Paul brings in Galatians 5:16-26. Let’s look at that:
Galatians 5:16: “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. 18 But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, ncleanness, lasciviousness, 20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. 24 And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. 26 Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.”
The Spirit Against the Flesh
Seldom noted in Paul’s correspondence—sometimes because of the translation—is the fact that Paul’s most common use of Spirit and Spiritual involves the use of a capital S. The war within is not between a lower nature (flesh) and a higher nature (spirit), but between the flesh and Spirit, between human nature as a whole turned inward and organized against God’s purposes and the presence and power of God. Paul’s point in saying that flesh and Spirit “are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want” (Galatians 5:17 NRSV) does not reflect a war over which the believer is helpless but speaks to people who are already “in the Spirit.”
These are reminded by Paul that just as they began their Christian life not by human effort but by receiving the Spirit (Galatians 3:2-3), they cannot attain the goal of the Christian life by performance, religious or otherwise, but only through faith and Spirit. They can be taken triumphantly to heaven, but it is through the power of the gospel all the way.
So Christians are under obligation to live according to the Spirit and not to gratify the desires of the flesh {which we just looked at}. Walking in the Spirit precludes Christians from making provision for living according to the impulses of their former way of life: “Spirit people cannot do whatever they like. Freedom is not freedom for the flesh; it is freedom for the Spirit, so that they serve one another in love” (Fee 1991, p. 17). The possibility of a Christian’s giving in to sin from time to time remains. Though the flesh has been crucified with the cross of Christ, a Christian might live as though he or she had not been redeemed, adopted, forgiven and indwelt by God’s own Spirit. But it is inconsistent so to do. The fact that we continue to struggle makes it imperative not only to understand the nature of the conflict but also to learn how to deal with it.
Walking in the Spirit
In Galatians Paul teaches us how to live victoriously in the thick of battle, not how to live the victorious life. He starts with the fruit of the Spirit and gives a list of benefits from being in Christ (Galatians 5:22-23)—experiential (such as joy), attitudinal (such as patience) and behavioral (such as self-control). What is remarkable about this list is that Paul does not regulate the Christian life by a series of rules and behavioral requirements. For the Christian there can be no law (Galatians 5:23) to regulate food, clothing, religious practices, entertainment and recreation. Human commandments have no value at all.
What Paul proposes is letting the Spirit bear fruit in our lives. The contrast between works of the flesh and multiple fruits of the Spirit is often noted. Works must be accomplished; fruit comes from irruption of life within. Ironically the first and foremost strategy for refusing to live by the flesh is indirect: to turn from concentrating on the flesh to concentrating on the Spirit.
In a shocking, anonymous article entitled “The War Within: An Anatomy of Lust,” an American spiritual director revealed his long-standing struggle with pornography and voyeurism. He admitted that lust is fully pleasurable and has its own compelling rewards. He despaired that time after time when he repented in prayer and cried out to God to take away his desire, nothing changed. Then he chanced on a line from François Mauriac, stating that purity is the condition for a higher love—for a possession superior to all possessions: God. Whereas all the negative arguments against lust had failed and guilt had provided no power to change, “here was a description of what I was missing by continuing to harbor lust: I was limiting my own intimacy with God” (“The War Within,” p. 43).
Fruit bearing is also the context for Paul’s second strategy, a strategy that is also positively motivated. Crucifying the flesh is not first and foremost a negative work. It is like repentance. C. S. Lewis once remarked that repentance “is not something God demands of you before He will take you back and which He could let you off if He chose; it is simply a description of what going back is like” (quoted in “This War Within,” p. 45). Paul’s repeated exhortations in Galatians to the effect that “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires” (see Galatians 5:24) should be understood this way. As with the fruit of the Spirit springing up from God’s work within us, this experience basically springs from the ongoing effect of Christ’s work for us and comes through in Paul’s declaration, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14).
These statements are not appeals to self-crucifixion, mortification or self-hatred; such negative good works cannot accomplish anything more than positive good works. Paul appeals for a full and continuous awareness of and agreement with God’s judgment on our autonomous, self-justifying life in the cross. John Stott reminds us that a crucifixion is pitiless (and we should not treat the flesh as respectable), painful (even though the pleasures of the flesh are fleeting) and decisive (as suggested by the tense in the Greek—fully accomplished) (pp. 150-51). Here, as everywhere in the Christian life, we move from the indicative (what exists) to the imperative (what ought to be done). Jesus has died for us, and the flesh has been substantially overcome; therefore, we should maintain a crucified perspective on the flesh. But mortification is less than half of living a victorious battle.
Once again Paul preaches good news. We do not have to live defeated lives: “So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. . . . But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law. . . . Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16, 18, 25). Here again we move from the indicative to the imperative. We are children of God and by the Spirit call God “Father” (Romans 8:15). We are led by the Spirit (an image used to describe a farmer leading cattle or soldiers escorting a prisoner to court). Because the Spirit leads us to do the walking, we have a continuous, gentle pressure toward goodness.
Two words for walking are used—the ordinary word for “walk” and stoikeō, which means “to draw people up in a line,” thus, “to line oneself up with the Spirit’s initiatives.” Both suggest an action on our part, but that is responsive to the constant and creative initiative of the Spirit in our lives.
Negatively, walking according to the Spirit means not setting the mind on the things of the flesh (Romans 8:5) or doing the deeds of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21). We put these desires and deeds to death by the Spirit (Romans 8:13; Galatians 5:16-18, 24-26). Involved in this is repudiating our boasting in human achievement, human wisdom or human law keeping as ways of achieving righteousness. Positively, walking according to the Spirit involves setting one’s mind on the things of the Spirit (Romans 8:5), allowing the Spirit to produce character fruit (Romans 12-14; Galatians 5:19-21) and receiving the Spirit’s power for works of holiness (Romans 12:9-21; compare Isaiah 58).
Until Christ comes again and introduces a new heaven and a new earth, we will never cease to experience tension and struggle. But we need not live defeated lives. As surely as Christ has come, has died and has risen, we are living in the age of the Spirit. And we can live by the Spirit. Indeed we will. New Testament spirituality is Spirit-uality. So Paul says, if translated literally, “Live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16).
Life in this world is not easy. Your child watches television in a neighbor’s home, and you discover later that some of the material was pornographic. Your church is denied the right to expand its building because of a residents’ lobby in the neighborhood. Your boss requires you to do graphic art for a business with dubious connections. The school system teaches a godless approach to all subjects including the creation of the world. Your money seems to purchase less and less because of global economic factors over which you have no power.
The reason for the complexity of life is not simply the perversity and sin of individual human beings or even the cumulative effect of all the sinners in the world, but something more systemic, something all-embracing. For every visible foreground to a person’s life—embracing family, work, community service, leisure, citizenship and church—there is an invisible background that is profoundly influential.
We want to do good, to serve God and our neighbor, to do an honest day’s work, but we find ourselves confronted with “the system”—with frozen tradition, with intractable institutions, with deeply engrained social patterns that resist us, and, finally, with the world of spiritual beings and forces. What makes life difficult is systemic evil. In this article we will look at the biblical evidence for an invisible world that affects us both positively and negatively, consider how people interpret and experience this world and suggest some approaches to living victoriously in the battle of life.
Identifying the Powers
The trouble we experience in the world is multifaceted and comes to us through unjust or unloving structures, systems of business and finance, principles of conformity, language and social patterns, customs and traditions that marginalize the life of faith or positively oppose it, and the ever-present influence of the mass media. In addition there is the world of the spirits. All these are interdependently, systemically resistant to God’s purposes in the world and dog the steps of believers. The Bible says relatively little about the ultimate source of evil. Rather it concentrates on describing the complexity of our life in this world and, most important of all, God’s ultimate supremacy over all the powers.
Scripture describes the realities encountered by people in their life in this world by means of various names, among them the world, the flesh, demons, Satan, angels and the divine council. This includes a variety of evil personages and forces unified under a single head, Satan, who is totally opposed to God and God’s purposes in this world. The Bible also talks about principalities and powers.
Naming the Powers
Paul deals with the trouble of living in this world through a cluster of terms that include power(s), thrones, authorities, virtues, dominions, names and thrones. We will explore them under the general title principalities and powers. Each term must be understood in the immediate context of its use and in the larger context of the Bible as a whole. Rulers refers to those in charge. The whole of this present world is under rulers who crucified Christ and who are on their way to destruction. Satan is the ruler of the kingdom of the air (see Ephesians 2:2). The authorities are those who have the right to decide on behalf of others, generally through the entitlements of an office, administrative as well as political, local as well as imperial, as in the case of the Roman governor (see Romans 13:1).
In contrast, Paul uses some phrases that appear to deal not with earthly rulers but with heavenly realms: “the powers of this dark world” (see Ephesians 6:12), “the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” and “the basic principles of the world.” Thrones may allude, according to intertestamental literature, to thrones occupied by angels who were created and redeemed by Christ (see Col. 1:15-20). Powers may refer to spiritual beings and the angelic armies of God, since the term is used in the Greek version of Daniel and in 1 Enoch. Dominions and lordships may suggest “spheres of influence formerly understood to be ruled by the gods of the nations” (Reid, pp. 746-52) or the influence of idols (see 1 Corinthians 8:5).
The interpretation of these terms has generally followed one of three lines. First, these powers are a mythic projection of the human disease onto the cosmos. Second, these powers describe structures of earthly existence: tradition, morality, justice and order. Third, these powers are sociopolitical and spiritual forces, both the outer and the inner structures of life, both the earthly and the heavenly. It is this last view that seems most persuasive.
A stunning example of how the inner and outer realities of a power are intertwined and inseparable is the case of money. Mammon is an alternative god; the name Mammon in Aramaic comes from the word Amen, which means firmness or stability. It is not surprising that a common English phrase is “the almighty dollar.” As Jacques Ellul (pp. 76-77, 81, 93) shows, wealth has some of the pretended claims of deity:
(1) it is capable of moving other things and claims a certain autonomy; (2) it is invested with spiritual power that can enslave us, replacing single-minded love for God and neighbor with commercial relationships in which even the soul is bought (Rev. 18:11-13); (3) it is more or less personal. So money, “unrighteous mammon” (Luke 16:9 RSV), is a form or appearance of another power (see Ephesians 1:21).
So we encounter both supernatural and earthly forces in the world. These make their appeal and persuade us to give them their loyalty, sometimes appropriately as good servants of God (such as government and social structures like marriage) but usually as intransigent and unruly alternatives to the kingdom of God. It is critical to understand these powers in the light of our current social situation.
Experiencing the Powers
Fallen social structures. Many authors, some of whom are cited, understand our experience of resistance as primarily the structures of earthly life, structures that hold society together but have gone wild. These powers can best be described by anthropology, psychology and sociology. We experience these as political, financial and juridical forces (Barth); traditions, doctrines and practices that regulate religion and life (Barth); dominant images and cultural icons like Marilyn Monroe (Stringfellow); corporate institutions like GM or IBM (Stringfellow); ideologies like communism, capitalism and democracy (Stringfellow); the power of money or mammon (Ellul); and the inner aspect of all the outer manifestations of power in society (Wink).
Most people writing about these are concerned with the hermeneutical question of how to identify powers in society today rather than the metaphysical question of the nature of their existence. We do not have an adequate explanation of why structures so frequently become tyrannical. But if there are inadequacies in locating the powers exclusively in the human realm of structure and tradition, there are dangers as well in locating them exclusively in the angelic and demonic.
Personal spiritual beings. This approach assumes that the heart of our experience of multilevel resistance is the presence of personal spiritual beings that are capable of purposeful activity. Representative of this approach is the following quotation of Heinrich Schleir:
Satan and his hordes, those manifold developments and effusions of the spirit of wickedness with their combination of intelligence and lust for power, exist by influencing the world and mankind in every sector and at all levels, and by making them instruments and bearers of their powers.
There is nothing on earth which is absolutely immune from their power. They can occupy the human body, the human spirit, what we call “nature,” and even the forms, bearers and situations of history. Even religions, including the Christian teaching, can become tools of their activity. Their spirit penetrates and overwhelms everything. (pp. 28-29)
A number of popular novels and treatments of spiritual warfare, notably the works of Frank Peretti and David Watson, take this approach. Its strength is that without these powers we lack an adequate explanation of why structures so regularly become tyrannical. Its weakness is that too often it focuses energy only on prayer and spiritual warfare instead of also working to change structures, traditions and images in a concrete way.
Western society has largely rejected the spiritual interpretation of life. Even the church has frequently turned to social analysis to find out what is going on and left out the spiritual realities behind and within the visible and present. The influence of such people as Charles Darwin in science, Sigmund Freud in psychology and Karl Marx in politics has certainly contributed to this one-dimensional view of reality. But the Christian in the world must deal with both the seen and the unseen. And Scripture witnesses to the complexity of systemic evil: structures, spiritual hosts, angels and demons, the devil and the last enemy, death (1 Cor. 15:24-27)—all arenas for Christian resistance.
Systemic evil.
The approach taken here is sometimes called “the double reference” interpretation because it regards the visible human rulers and authorities as political vehicles for cosmic, invisible powers. A truly biblical theology of the powers must include the Gospels, wherein Jesus is clearly depicted as encountering evil spiritual beings (see Luke 9:1) as well as structures. So in reality many of the seemingly autonomous powers are being influenced by Satan himself. And in some cases the alien power (Satan) has home rule.
The complex vision of the last book of the Bible reveals multiple (and systemically interdependent) levels of difficulty, which can be pictured as concentric circles of influence: the red dragon (Satan; Rev. 12) at the center of it all, the two beasts (Rev. 13) representing diabolical authority and supernaturalism, the harlot (Rev. 17) representing the sum total of pagan culture and Babylon (Rev. 18) as the world system. This elaborate picture shows that the Christian in the world encounters not only a multifaceted opposition but one in which there are interdependently connected dimensions.
This elaborate vision in Revelation shows us that the political power of Romans 13 (then the good servant of God) has become in Rev. 13 the instrument of Satan (in this case the same government but more colonized and corrupted)—thus showing the way in which supernatural forces and personages may influence and corrupt human institutions, structures, and patterns of cultural and social life. What we encounter in public discipleship is systemic evil, interconnected realms of dissent that do not operate in isolation from one another.
Understanding the Powers
Good theology can help us make sense of our life in this world and equip us to live victoriously. Scripture shows that God has both visible and invisible servants. All were created good. All have been corrupted. All have been substantially redeemed by Christ’s saving work. All are personally ambiguous in the work they do. All will be finally and fully redeemed in the last day when Christ comes again and transfers the kingdoms of this world to the Father.
The good powers. Far from being the result of the Fall and a necessary evil to protect us from ourselves, these powers are part of God’s good creation. They are not innately evil. They are made by Christ and for Christ! Paul claims that through Christ “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” (Col. 1:16). This, as Hendrik Berkhof brilliantly describes it, is the invisible background of creation, “the dikes with which God encircles His good creation, to keep it in His fellowship and protect it from chaos” (p. 28).
They were intended to form a framework in which we live out our lives for God’s glory. Four such frameworks are marriage, family, nation and law, each ordained by God for our good. For example, without marriage and family, relationships would become meaningless; children would grow without the shelter of marriage.
The fallen and colonized powers. Along with some supernatural beings (2 Peter 2:4; Jude 1:6), these same structures have become broken, hostile and resistant to God’s rule. Ephes. 6 claims we should resist these fallen powers as part of our daily existence. There will be no cessation of this spiritual conflict until Christ comes again or until we depart to be with Christ, whichever comes first. Some of these powers have taken on a life of their own, making idolatrous claims on human beings: government, religion, culture, various “isms” symbolized in the names and titles that dominate the news (see Galatians 4:8-9; Ephesians 1:21). In Ephesians 6 Paul suggests these powers have been “colonized” (though the term is not used) by Satan himself.
The overpowered powers. No Old Testament passage is quoted as frequently in the New Testament as Psalm 110:1, which declares that all the powers have been subjugated by the Messiah-Christ. Throughout the Gospels Jesus is seen as supreme over the evil spirits. He casts out demons by the finger of God (see Luke 11:20); he destroys the power of Satan (see Matthew 12:26; Mark 3:23-26; Luke 11:18); he enters the strong man’s house and plunders his goods (see Mark 3:27). This extraordinary power of Jesus to overpower the powers is delegated to his followers (see Matthew 10:1; Mark 3:14-15; Mark 6:7; Luke 9:1-2; Luke 10:1). Paul’s further development of this elaborates the extensiveness of Christ’s work now that he has died and been resurrected.
Paul variously describes how the hostile powers have been subjugated: they have been abrogated, stripped, led in triumphal procession or into captivity, made to genuflect, pacified or reconciled . Drawing on the three phrases of Col. 2:15, Berkhof points out three things Christ did to the powers. First, Christ made a public example of them. What once were considered to be fundamental realities are not seen as rivals and adversaries of God (Berkhof, p. 38). As divine irony, the title “King of the Jews” was placed over the cross in the three languages representing the powers that crucified Jesus: Hebrew (the language of religion), Latin (the language of government) and Greek (the language of culture).
By volunteering to be victimized by the powers through his death and thus using the powers to accomplish a mighty saving act, Jesus put them in their place as instruments of God rather than autonomous regents, showing how illusionary are their pretended claims. Second, Christ triumphed over them, the resurrection being proof that Jesus is stronger than the powers, including the power of death. Third, Christ disarmed the powers, stripping them of the power and authority by which they deceived the world, namely, the illusion that they are godlike and all-powerful and that devotion to them is the ultimate goal of life.
Oscar Cullman compares the powers to chained beasts kicking themselves to death. Between the resurrection of Jesus and the Second Coming they are tied to a rope, still free to evince their demonic character but nevertheless bound. Cullman used a helpful analogy to explain the tension. D-Day was the day during World War II when the beaches of Normandy were invaded and the battle was turned. One could say the war was “won” that day even though there were months of battling ahead and many lives still to be lost. V-Day was the day of final victory. Christ’s coming and death represent D-Day, but we must still live in the overlap of the ages as we wait for the final consummation of the kingdom at the Second Coming of Christ (Cullman, p. 84).
Grappling with the Powers
There are four historic approaches to the powers, all of which have their place in Christian mission: (1) exorcism and intercession, (2) suffering powerlessness, (3) creative participation and (4) just revolution (see Structures). The church, however, must engage in a full-orbed approach, which includes discernment among other approaches.
Discernment. The Prayer Book of the Anglican and the Episcopal Church provides a handy summary of our multifaceted problem: “the world, the flesh and the devil.” Each must be fought differently. We deal with the spirit of the world through nonconformity with it and conformity with the will of God. We deal with our lower nature by mortification (identifying with Christ’s crucifixion) and aspiration (breathing in the Spirit).
We deal with the devil by resisting and fleeing (James 4:7; Rev. 12:11). It is a multifronted battle. And our Lord meets us at each of these fronts: transfiguring us from within (Romans 12:2) so we can transform, rather than be conformed by, the world as we penetrate it in our work and mission; bearing Spirit fruit through us (Galatians 5:22, 25) as we determine to walk in the Spirit and regard the flesh as crucified; and overcoming the evil one, the devil (Rev. 12:10), as we put on Christ’s armor through all kinds of prayer (Ephes. 6:13-18).
Prayer. Karl Barth once said that “to clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world” (quoted in Leech, p. 68; see James 4:7; Rev. 12:10-11). Paul uses an elaborate metaphor for arming ourselves in Ephesians 6:10-18 by referring to the armor worn by a Roman soldier. The belt of truth means living with integrity. The breastplate of righteousness involves having right relations with God and living righteously. The “go” of the gospel implies that we are ready and “on the way” to share the gospel—there is more than defense here!
The shield of faith deflects the enemy’s attacks, and the helmet of salvation brings assurance to our minds that we belong to a God who will never divorce us. The sword of the Spirit is the Word of God, read, obeyed and spoken. All these are ways of “putting on Christ”: Christ’s righteousness, Christ’s message, Christ’s faith, Christ’s finished work on the cross and Christ’s Word. All of these are put on by prayer: prayer on all occasions and all kinds of prayer (Ephes. 6:18).
Preaching the gospel. The first and most effective strategy against the false claims of the powers is preaching the gospel. Our duty is not to bring the powers to our knees: this is Christ’s task. Our duty is to arm ourselves with Christ (Ephesians 6:10-18) and to preach his cross. However much we attempt to “Christianize” the powers, we must not bypass preaching the gospel and calling people to embrace the reign of Christ through repentance and faith.
Some of these powers deserve the loyal submission of Christians {to Civil Authority} (see Romans 13:1). Some of them should be Christianized by the involvement of Christians and the church in creational and re-creational tasks: directing the resources of the world in education, politics and culture to serve human beings as defined by God’s intention. Some powers will be unmasked by the martyrdom of faithful believers (Rev. 12:11).
Public discipleship. Christ’s complete victory over the principalities and powers, over Satan, sin and death, assures us that there is nowhere in the universe so demonic that a Christian might not be called to serve there. We fight a war that is already won. Therefore as far as is now possible, Christians should Christianize the powers, pacify the powers through involvement in education, government and social action, all the while knowing that the task of subjugating them is reserved for Christ alone (Ephesians 1:10; Phil. 2:10-11). We work on the problems of pollution, food distribution, injustice, genetic engineering and the proliferation of violence and weaponry, knowing that this work is ministry and holy.
In the short run our contribution may seem unsuccessful, but in the long run it will be gloriously successful because we are cooperating with what Christ wants to do in renewing all creation.
Living with practical heavenly-mindedness. Jürgen Moltmann spoke of eschatology, or the “end times,” as the most pastoral of all theological disciplines because it shows us that we are living at the dawning of a new day rather than at the sunset of human history (p. 31).
Keeping the end times in view is critical to grappling victoriously with the powers: it shows us that work done in this world is not resultless but, in some way beyond our imagination, contributes to a world without end. Eschatology also liberates us from a messianic complex (or inappropriate egoism), since the future is ultimately in God’s hands. The kingdom will come to consummation in God’s own way and time.
Lesslie Newbigin comments on this with great depth: We can commit ourselves without reserve to all the secular work our shared humanity requires of us, knowing that nothing we do in itself is good enough to form part of that city’s building, knowing that everything—from our most secret prayers to our most public political acts—is part of that sin-stained human nature that must go down into the valley of death and judgment, and yet knowing that as we offer it up to the Father in the name of Christ and in the power of the Spirit, it is safe with him and—purged in fire—it will find its place in the holy city at the end. (p. 136)
This concludes this evening's Discussion, War and Peace, Part 3
This Discussion was presented “live” on May 2nd, 2018
References and Resources
M. Barth, Ephesians, 2 vols., Anchor Bible (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1974); P. L. Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1967); H. Berkhof, Christ and the Powers, trans. J. H. Yoder (Scottdale, Penn.: Herald, 1962); G. B. Caird, Principalities and Powers: A Study in Pauline Theology (Oxford: Clarendon, 1956); O. Cullman, Christ and Time: The Primitive Christian Conception of Time and History, trans. F. V. Filson (London: SCM, 1951); J. Ellul, Money and Power, trans. L. Neff (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1984); J. Moltmann, Theology of Hope, trans. J. W. Leitch (New York: Harper & Row, 1967); K. Leech, True Prayer: An Invitation to Christian Spirituality (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1980); R. Mouw, Politics and Biblical Drama (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976); L. Newbigin, Honest Religion for Secular Man (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1966); D. G. Reid, “Principalities and Powers,” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, ed. G. F. Hawthorne, R. Martin and D. G. Reid (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1993) 746-52; H. Schleir, Principalities and Powers in the New Testament (New York: Herder & Herder, 1964); J. S. Stewart, A Faith to Proclaim (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1953); W. Stringfellow, An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1973); W. Stringfellow, Free in Obedience (New York: Seabury, 1964); W. Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992); W. Wink, Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984); W. Wink, Unmasking the Powers: The Invisible Forces That Determine Human Existence (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986); J. H. Yoder, The Politics of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972).
—R. Paul Stevens
References and Resources
D. L. Alexander, ed., Christian Spirituality: Five Views of Sanctification—Reformed, Lutheran, Wesleyan, Pentecostal, Contemplative (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1988); W. Barclay, Flesh and Spirit: An Examination of Galatians 5.19-23 (London: SCM, 1962); W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism: Some Rabbinic Elements in Pauline Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980); G. D. Fee, God’s Empowering Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1993); G. D. Fee, “Some Reflections on Pauline Spirituality,” in Alive to God, ed. J. I. Packer and L. Wilkinson (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992) 96-107; G. D. Fee, “The Spirit Against the Flesh: Another Look at Pauline Ethics,” lecture at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, November 7, 1991; M. Green and R. P. Stevens, New Testament Spirituality: True Discipleship and Spiritual Maturity (Guildford, Surrey, U.K.: Eagle, 1994; quoted with permission); J. S. Stewart, A Faith to Proclaim (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1953); J. R. W. Stott, The Message of Galatians (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1968). A. C. Thiselton, “Flesh,” in Dictionary of New Testament Theology, ed. C. Brown (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975) 1:671-82; E. Underhill, The Fruits of the Spirit (Wilton, Conn.: Morehouse-Barlow, 1989); “The War Within: An Anatomy of Lust,” Leadership 3, no. 4 (Fall 1982) 30-48.
—R. Paul Stevens
From "The Complete Book of Everyday Christianity: An A-To-Z Guide To Following Christ in Every Aspect of Life."