I like to walk in the mornings, and it’s usually still dark when I do. When I walk on the levee behind our house, I must be careful because sometimes I encounter all kinds of critters: a possum, an armadillo, and once a wild hog. But there is one critter that I’m always on the lookout for. The reason I’m especially alert to this one is because you can come very close to it and not be aware until it’s too late. If you get too close, you will be “skunked,” and that smell is all over you, wherever you go.
I think the devil is like a skunk. How is he like a skunk? I will come back to that, but first a few words about the devil.
DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE DEVIL?
Do you believe in the devil? I do. Psychiatrist Scott Peck, in his book People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil, spent years investigating evil in the human condition, including the demonic. He wanted to understand, from a psychological perspective, whether there is any evidence for the existence of the demonic. His conclusion: “I now know Satan is real. I have met it.”[1] Evil and the evil one are real. But the evil one has been defeated and disarmed, and he is powerless in the Presence of the crucified, risen Jesus. While our focus needs to be on the One (Jesus) who has triumphed over evil, it is important for us to understand how the evil one works so that we “are not ignorant of his devices” (2 Cor. 2:11).
SATAN AND THE STRONGER MAN
The Old Testament doesn’t talk much about the devil. The Hebrew words “the Satan” (which means “the accuser” or the “adversary”) appear 3 times (Job 1, 2; Zech. 3:1-2; and 1 Chron. 21:1). The Satan is presented as a supranatural being who accuses and opposes humanity. The Hebrew word for Satan is translated in the Greek version of the Old Testament as the “diabolos,” or the devil.
Although the Old Testament doesn’t talk much about the devil, there is one very important idea in the Old Testament that still applies today: whenever people worship idols of any sort in place of the one true God, such idol worship is where the demonic is present (see, for example, Deut. 32:16, 17; Ps. 106:37; 1 Cor. 10:2). When humans put their trust and allegiance in anything over and above the one true God (which is what idolatry is), then the demons come to work their destruction.
The New Testament has much more to say about the devil and demons. Jesus, the Son of God, came to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8) and to liberate us from the one who tries to keep us in fear (Heb. 2:14, 15). The Gospels display a cosmic showdown between Jesus and the devil, with God taking on human flesh (in Jesus) to liberate humanity from every form of evil and from all the pain, suffering, sickness, and death the evil one brings. We see evidence of this in the Gospels as Jesus casts out demons with a word, heals the sick, raises the dead. Jesus used an illustration that powerfully depicts what God is doing through Jesus:
“No one can enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can rob his house” (Mark 3:27)
The “strong man” is Satan and the forces of evil in the world. But the “stronger man” is Jesus, who binds the strong man so that Jesus can steal the treasures held captive in the strong man’s house. What are those treasures? Us! Jesus came to bind or “disarm” the spiritual forces of evil to rescue us, so that we would no longer live in fear, addiction, loneliness, greed, violence, destruction, death, or tyranny. As Paul put it, Jesus “disarmed” the powers and authorities of this dark world and triumphed over them in the cross (Col. 2:15).
THE POWER OF LOVE OVER THE LOVE OF POWER
How has Jesus “disarmed” the powers of evil? Paul says he did so “in the cross” (Col. 2:15). The way evil is overcome is sort of like judo, using evil against itself and “smothering” evil through sacrificial love. The cross exposes evil for what it is, but the cross also displays for all the world to see the true nature of what is real and lasting–the faithful love of God. Jesus has proven that evil is never overcome by more evil; fighting is never overcome by more fighting; hate is never overcome by more hatred. The only way to overcome evil is love. In the cross, evil has spent its power on God himself, and a new power, the power of God’s love, has been unleashed into the world.
But the story doesn’t end at the cross. The resurrection confirms all that Jesus taught about God and all that Jesus did on this earth and accomplished on the cross. The resurrection of Jesus is the preview of the future, of all that God had originally intended in creation.
But the resurrection also means there has been a regime change; this creation really is under a new world order. Because Jesus rose from the dead, death doesn’t have the power we once thought it did. We also know that evil will not have the last say and that perpetrators of evil will not get away with it. God isn’t weak to deal with the world’s death and evil; he deals with evil just like he always has, through his patient, faithful love, but also by putting an end to evil and death.
In raising the crucified, selfless Jesus from the dead, Paul tells us that God has “seated him far above all rule and authority and power and dominion,” not only in this age but also in the “age to come” (Eph. 1:21). But then Paul quickly reminds us that God put all things under the feet of Jesus “for the church,” the bodily presence of Jesus in this age (Eph. 1:22). God’s regime change is being played out in this present evil age through the church, the community where racial, ethnic, political, and other divisions and hostility are put to death, and where reconciliation and healing begins. Paul says, “through the church, the multifaceted wisdom of God is being made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places” (Eph. 3:10). As Tim Gombis put it, “The powers have ordered the present evil age in such a way as to exacerbate the divisions within humanity. God confounds them by creating in Christ one unified, multiracial body consisting of formerly divided groups.”[2]
WHAT ARE THESE “POWERS OF DARKNESS?”
Although Jesus has overcome the evil one and his end is certain, we still live in this “present evil age” and not yet in the “age to come.” Paul says that our spiritual struggle in this present age is not only against “flesh and blood,” but against these “cosmic powers over this present darkness” and against “the spiritual forces of evil in the unseen realm” (Eph. 6:12). How are we to understand these “powers of darkness”?
Instead of thinking about “powers” as demonic beings “fluttering about in the sky,” we should instead think of evil forces that influence, use, and corrupt things within our world. Evil often uses various “structures” in our world, such as intellectual structures (ideologies), moral structures (codes and customs), and even political structures (government, political parties, and even nations). These structures are not evil in themselves, and in fact, Paul describes government as “God’s servant” intended for the good of humanity (see Rom. 13). But although created by God, these structures can become “polluted, distorted, and destructive” by evil powers.[3] And this is especially so when they are corrupted by greed and a lust for power. They can become idols to which people are willing to give their unquestioning allegiance. And remember, idolatry is where the demons play.
IDEALOGY AND POLITICS BECOME IDOLS WHERE THE DEMONS PLAY
In their book, Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies,[4] N.T. Wright and Michael Bird warn of two competing “powers” that currently hold sway over the United States. On the one hand is progressive liberalism, the “cancel culture” in which religious views are not tolerated and which at times promotes an aggressively anti-Christian ideology. But there is currently another power that is just as dangerous. This is what Wright and Bird term “Christian nationalism.” Christian nationalism is more than love of country or seeking to preserve Christian principles on which our nation was founded. Christian nationalism puts its trust in government or a nation, not in the power of God’s Spirit working through His church. Thus, as Wright and Bird write:
Christian nationalism…leads to a superficial Christianity rather than to sincere faith and deep discipleship. Christian nationalism is impoverished as it seeks a kingdom without a cross. It pursues a victory without mercy. It acclaims God’s love of power rather than the power of God’s love. As a result, we should resist Christian nationalism as giving a Christian façade to nakedly political, ethnocentric, and impious ventures. Jesus warned against mistaking the work of God’s holy spirit for the work of the devil. There is equal danger the other way round, when people suppose they are working for God while unthinkingly serving the ‘powers.’[5]
Just as the powers were defeated by the sacrificial love of Jesus on the cross, so now those same powers are defeated in our present evil age as disciples of Jesus show His sacrificial love, even for our enemies. The place where this can be experienced by us, and displayed for the world to see, is the church. The church is where Jesus teaches us to be humble and unselfish, where we learn to think, act, and talk like Jesus, where the fruit of the Spirit can be nourished. As Jonathan Leeman, “Life in a multiethnic church…is incubating me in humility, understanding, and a desire for justice. It’s teaching me to walk and think more carefully, to speak more circumspectly. It’s teaching me to love my enemy and look for the plank in my own eye. It’s teaching me a better politics.”[6]
HOW ARE WE SMELLING?
Which leads me back to my thought that the devil is like a skunk. You know you’ve gotten too close to a skunk when you start smelling like a skunk.
I think the same is true of those “powers” in our culture–those things can become idols where the demonic play. If we get too close to the skunks (putting our trust and allegiance in them and their ways instead of Jesus and his ways), we may begin to smell like the skunk—to think and act in skunk ways. We may even start justifying and rationalizing the way the skunk acts.
The stench of the skunk is obvious: “idolatry, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, divisions” (see Gal. 5:20). In contrast, the aroma of Christ is being spread by those who surrender our allegiances to Jesus and put our trust in Him; by those who seek to act like Jesus; by those who do not justify the ways of the skunk; by those who “walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph. 5:1). By doing that, we will reap the fruit of the Spirit, which brings reconciliation to this divided and divisive world: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal. 5:22, 23).
[1] Scott Peck, People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil (Simon and Shuster, 1983), 183. By the way, Peck writes that the cure for the healing of evil and the demonic is prayer (bringing the power of God “into the fray”) and love. Peck, 182-211.
[2] Timothy Gombis, The Drama of Ephesians: Participating in the Triumph of God (IVP Academic, 2010), 220.
[3] See Scot McKnight, The Letter to the Colossians: The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Eerdmans, 2018), 255.
[4] N.T. Wright and Michael F. Bird, Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies (Zondervan, 2024).
[5] Wright and Bird, Jesus and the Powers, 71.
[6] Jonathan Leeman, How the Nations Rage: Rethinking Faith and Politics in a Divided Age (Nelson Books, 2018), 134.