Devotional Grist – Page 5

Lent … I Peter 5 … Humility & Repentance

Here we are one week into Lent. And of course the practice of Lent and even the use of the Church Calendar among Protestants is considered verboten in many quarters. Some might even style the habit of paying attention to the Church Calendar as apostasy.

However, a significant reason as to why I’ve become at least tender to the thought of the Church calendar is that by its use of ordering time in a Christian direction it shapes us as Christians. Instead of being shaped by Int’l Women’s Day, or Black History Month, or May Day we are shaped by Advent, Epiphany, Lenten, and Resurrection. If Christians have dominion over their Calendar as a habit, it is much easier to believe that they will practice dominion over other areas of life as a habit.

Another reason to be sympathetic to the Church Calendar is that as a people we are shaped by our customs and rituals. Customs become habit forming and as habits customs and rituals shape us. This is true both positively and negatively.

Negatively the custom of course language makes for a reinforcement of a course people.

Positively the custom of praying before meals works to make us a God-conscious people.

Meaning of Lent

Lent is characterized as a time of especial humility, meekness, and repentance in the Christian’s life. It was to be a time where the Christian identified with the Cross of Christ just as the Easter season was to be a time where the Christian identifies with the Resurrection and triumph of Christ. It became part of the texture of the Church giving a motif to the Christian calendar of humility followed by triumph.

However, over time Lent became burdened with showmanship. People became proud of their performances of humility and repentance.

Another danger in the Lenten season is that there crept into the Church a way of thinking that somehow self-denial and ritual performance was a means of earning favor with God in the sense that man was adding a something needed that wasn’t already present in Christ’s work. This reminds protestants that if we participate in Lent that to enter Lent properly we needs be convinced that there is nothing about Lent that is improving our right standing before God in Christ.

Of course, anything can become abused in the hands of fallen man. And all because a habit is abused doesn’t mean that it is inherently wrong. Scripture clearly calls for self-denial and inasmuch as lent has typically been a time emphasizing self-denial we shouldn’t dismiss that aspect of it out of hand.

In our text this morning Peter writes to believers telling them,

^{I Peter 5:6}Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, ⁷casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. ⁸Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

I am positing this morning that the call for humility, in order to be hearkened to requires also a spirit of repentance. We can not be a humble people if not repentant and where there is no repentance there can be no humility.

Scripture itself yokes the idea of humility and repentance together as it often associates repentance with humbling oneself.

Examples,

^{I Chronicles 7:14}If My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

I Kings 21:27ff — It came about when Ahab heard these words, that he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and fasted, and he lay in sackcloth and went about despondently. ²⁸Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, ²⁹“Do you see how Ahab has humbled himself before Me? Because he has humbled himself before Me, I will not bring the evil in his days, but I will bring the evil upon his house in his son’s days.”

Isaiah 57:15 — For thus says the high and exalted One
Who lives forever, whose name is Holy,
“I dwell on a high and holy place,
And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit
In order to revive the spirit of the lowly
And to revive the heart of the contrite

Proverbs 15:30: — He whose ear listens to the life-giving reproof

Will dwell among the wise.

32 He who neglects discipline despises himself,

But he who listens to reproof acquires understanding.

33 The fear of the Lord is the instruction for wisdom,

And before honor comes humility.

And so a humble people are characterized as a people who are familiar with repentance. This is why Luther could offer as #1 in his 99 Theses

When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, “Repent” (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.

Of course, the virtues of both humbleness and repentance are byproducts of living before the face of God. I seriously doubt the ability of anyone to be adorned by these character markers who do not believe in the God of the Bible.

Men who do not believe in the God of the Bible have no sure foundation for either humbleness nor repentance. Men who do not believe in the God of the Bible live with themselves as the center of their reality and if anything approximating humility or repentance is pursued it is pursued with themselves at the center of their actions. How do I know this?

Well, men apart from Christ can only live with self at the center. Self never denies self. Self, by its definition, is anti-humble, and anti-repentant. Self, by definition, is proud and assertive. And so only the Christian man or woman is concerned for a Scriptural humility and repentance that reflects their “in-Christness.”

This call that Peter gives for humility and, by way of extension, repentance is a call for God’s people to become increasingly epistemologically self-conscious about the fact that our audience in all our living is primarily God. God is the one before whose presence we live in all our doing. God is to be the primary backdrop that should condition and inform all of our behavior. It is because of the reality of God that we can be a humble people.

Peter’s counsel here begins with the call of submissiveness to the Elders. But even this call of a proper submissiveness for the young was presaged by Peter’s teaching that the leadership should not be haughty with those they were to shepherd (vs. 3).

³nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock.

This is why in vs. 5 Peter can start with the word “Likewise.” The Elders are not Shepherding as those who are “Lording over those in their charge,” and youth are in turn also being submissive to the Elders.

A brief excursion here.

We must add that this necessity to be submissive to your Elders adds credibility to the necessity to be in a congregation where you share a common confession and a common worldview with those who are Elders. If you are a Biblical Christian in a Church that is ruled by Elders that are Historical-Critical Christians you are setting yourself up for the necessary inability to be submissive to your Elders. There will be little capacity to be submissive in a Christ-honoring way if you are part of a congregation that does not share your core beliefs.

And practicing a lack of submissiveness, even as the needing to do so might be necessary is not a good thing to practice because it lays down a lack of humbleness as a principle of your life.

So, make sure you’re part of a Congregation where being submissive isn’t an automatic issue because of conflicting confessions and worldviews.

When Peter uses the word “elders” here it may be a reference to the leadership in the Church. More likely it is referring to seasoned saints in general.

This call for respecting of age is not without parallel in the Scripture. Paul can advise Timothy

“Do not sharply rebuke an older man, but rather appeal to him as a father…”

From this call to the youth being submissive to Elders Peter then moves to a call for a spirit of mutual submissiveness and to be clothed with humility.

Of course, human relations in Churches and in general work better where people are preferring one another. This idea of mutual submissiveness is consistently called for in Scripture.

Phil 3:3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or empty pride, but in humility consider others more important than yourselves. 4Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Romans 12:10Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Outdo yourselves in honoring one another.

However, we must keep before us that this call for being humble and mutual submissiveness does not eliminate proper hierarchy in the Scripture. For example, the fact that we are to be submissive to one another does not mean that parents are to be submissive to their children in terms of their proper roles. Submissiveness looks different according to the different stations and rank wherein God has called us.

What is being called for here is a spirit of humility in general.

Peter then, quoting from Proverbs 3:34, then provides the reason for humility,

“God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble”

James 4:6 also cites this scripture.

6.) “Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God.”

Humble yourselves — The necessity to be pro-active about the matter

Might hand of God — Refers of God’s providential dealings.

6b.) The promise that God has not forgotten — (He may exalt you in due time.)

7.) Casting all your care upon him, for He cares for you

Of course the only reason we can be confident that God cares for us is because we are located and anchored in the finished work of Christ. We can obey this call to humility because we are safely ensconced in Christ.

Parable of Good Samaritan

We come to a passage this morning that is likely one of the most well known passages in Scripture. It is also one of those passages that is one of the most misinterpreted and most ill used.

It is a simple enough passages. Two exchanges between Jesus and a Religious Lawyer at the time. I believe that the exchange was adversarial between the two. In other words I believe the the intent of the Lawyer in questioning Jesus was not benign. I advance this because of the word “test” in the passage. The Lawyer “stands up” which was a sign of respect in the culture and asks a question to “test Jesus.”

We see this “testing of Jesus” frequently by his detractors.

The Pharisees and Sadducees came to Jesus and tested him by asking him to show them a sign from heaven. (Mt. 16)

Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” (Mt. 19)

They said this to test Him, in order to have a basis for accusing Him. (John 8)

The fact that this is an adversarial setting is important to keep in mind because in such situations Jesus seldom gives a straight answer to questions but instead often answers their questions with questions. What happens here is no different. The Lawyer asks questions and Jesus deflects the questions with questions of His own to drive the conversation Jesus desires.

Well, back to how the text is misused. Time does not allow us to go as fully in depth in dismissing these errant readings as I would like. I want to raise them. Try to dismiss them. Then move on to the correct reading of the Parable.

I.) Mis-reading #1 — The Good Samaritan Parable Was Given In Order to Support Amnesty Legislation for Illegal Immigrants in the West.

I can’t tell you how much material I’ve run across in preparation this week which appeals to the Parable of the Good Samaritan as the template that all Christians must use in order to demand that amnesty for illegal immigrants be put in place.

The Good Samaritan has been made the tool of Social Justice Warriors everywhere and by it we are being taught that in order to inherit eternal life we must disinherit ourselves and our children so that the alien and the stranger can inherit the here and the now. This is an exceptionally un-neighborly thing to do to our Children and our descendants. According to this interpretation the teaching of the Good Samaritan means that we must treat our children and our people as Aliens and Stranger in order to treat Aliens and Stranger like our children and our people.

The failure with this interpretation lies in the attempt to universalize a particular obligation. Jesus is teaching here in a very specific and particular situation. The Lord Christ was not laying down policy for 21st century Nation States to take up. He was not creating new policy for Magistrates of all time everywhere to pursue. He was speaking to a religious Lawyer in order to crack his smug confidence that he indeed was a good person.

Jesus is giving ethical instruction, I believe, to the end that the Lawyer would see that he is not an ethical person.

The thinking that insists that the parable of the Good Samaritan is about immigration and amnesty policy, if taken literally, would mean the disappearance of borders and nations and peoples. It is a world where we can

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do

Upon giving this Parable, Jesus was not setting National or International Policy. He was not teaching on the Universal brotherhood of all man. He was not negating the reality of ever widening concentric circles whereby we first have to look out for our own who are of the household of faith. Jesus was not negating the prioritizing of them who are of the household of faith in terms of our care and affection.

He is simply teaching that in the course of our daily living, as we walk through life, when we come upon a real live human being in desperate need of care we have a duty and privilege to care for the least of these.

Some will retort that by seeing this passage as individual and personal that I am not loving my neighbor. Some will insist that by not championing that the Government open up the borders that I am not loving my neighbor. But what of my next door neighbor who can’t find work? How loving is it to that neighbor to glut the market with cheap labor so he will never find work? What of the minority communities in this country who’s unemployment rate is 25-30% in some quarters? Is it neighbor love to them to insist on an amnesty which will cement their unemployment? Is it neighbor love to fellow Christians to invite in a global population that is hostile to Biblical Christianity? Is it neighbor love to Christian women to open the borders to those from misogynistic cultures?

Those who want to use the Parable of the Good Samaritan to the end of pursuing the Cultural Marxist agenda of Social Justice have only incompletely thought through the matter. In many instances the misuse of the Parable of the Good Samaritan is just a means to advance a liberal humanist non Christian agenda.

Much more could be said but time wanes.

II.) Mis-reading #2 — The Good Samaritan Parable Was Given In Order That We Might Be Able to Inherit Eternal Life

One of the curios of this passage is that many people don’t bother to spend the time to point out that Jesus is not here pointing out how it is that someone can go about inheriting eternal life.

What the Lord Christ is doing here is showing the folly of the premise of the Lawyer. You want to inherit eternal life? Fine … go to the law and fulfill all that it requires you will inherit eternal life?

What does it mean to fulfill the law to love God and neighbor? Well, let me tell you a story. Now, you go on loving God and neighbor in just this way and you will indeed inherit eternal life.

The “Go and do likewise” we find at the end of the passage was NOT good news. The impact of the “go and do likewise” at the end of the passage would have been punctuated by the sound of wind being sucked through the collective audience’s teeth as they doubtless asked themselves “who then can be saved.”

The impact of this teaching, I am convinced, is to bring the man to the end of himself. The necessity of loving God with all my heart, soul and mind and my neighbor as myself as a prerequisite for inheriting Eternal life is not good news for humans this side of heaven. We are a people who are incessantly self centered. In even the most thoroughly converted of us we tend to look to our own interest and not the interests of others. We have problems loving our own kith and kin unselfishly never mind the complete stranger … or worse yet time worn enemies. What Jesus tells this man he must do to inherit eternal life is not possible for those of us who know ourselves.

Love God and neighbor? Is that all? Well why didn’t you tell me that sooner Jesus? No problem. Is that the way we would really have God’s people think about this passage? As ministers do we want our people leaving service thinking that they can indeed do something to inherit eternal life?

So, why does Jesus play along with the Lawyer here? Why not just say … “Only legal heirs inherit eternal life, there is no doing unto Eternal life?”

Likely the answer to that is that Jesus desired the Lawyer to come to that conclusion by lifting the requirement bar for doing that would bring inheritance so high that the Lawyer would conclude, “Who then can be saved.”

Jesus speaks this way from time to time. When he says that “ye must be perfect even as your heavenly father is perfect,” He raises the behavior standard so high for inheritance of heaven that it is seen as impossible. When Jesus gives the behavioral standard for a rich man to get into heaven He is met with the exclamation … “who then can be saved.” When Jesus speaks this way the intent is to both esteem the Law AND to bring people to an end of themselves in terms of thinking of themselves in terms of doing the law in order to inherit eternal life.

So, this parable is not here so that people can love God and neighbor so well that they can inherit eternal life. The passage is not here to stoke confidence in the self which is exactly what the Lawyer is seeking to accomplish. We know this because the text tells us of the Lawyer,

²⁹But he, desiring to justify himself …

Benson in his commentary offers,

(He asks this), to show he had done this, and was blameless, even with respect to the duties which are least liable to be counterfeited … ”

The Lawyer wanted it to be clearly seen that he indeed had fulfilled the law in terms of loving God and neighbor and had earned his inheritance of Eternal life. Jesus tells the parable, I’m convinced, in order to dissuade this Lawyer and everybody else of this conviction.

So, the Good Samaritan Parable Was not Given In Order That We Might Be Able to convince ourselves that we are the excellent doers, who, because of our doing, will inherit eternal life.

So, what is the proper reading of the parable of the Good Samaritan? If these are improper readings what is the proper reading of this text.

III.) The Proper Reading of This Text Examined

A.) A proper reading of the parable reminds us that the function of the law is both a street light to show us our sin and a guide to life.

Jesus goes to the Law, thus demonstrating He is not antinomian.

But the Law has more than one purpose. As I have said earlier the purpose here is to cut out the legs from underneath this self righteous lawyer’s misinterpretation and smugness.

However, this does not mean that the law does not have the purpose as a guide to life. It should be our intent to be a people who help others in need as we have opportunity and means.

And so a proper reading of this text esteems the law, as rightly interpreted.

B.) A proper reading of the parable casts us upon Christ.

Our tendency in reading the Scriptures is always to make the Scripture about ourselves. This text is no different. Often we leave the text examining ourselves to see if we have been Good Samaritans in our lives. And there is nothing automatically wrong with that. Scripture calls for self examination.

However before we make the passage subjective as about us we should pause to ask if the passage is about someone else being a good Samaritan.

Examined closely the parable of the good Samaritan is not teaching us about what our immigration policy should be. After all, this parable was not given in order for the Magistrate to set policy but it was given that men might see Christ and their own individual duty. The parable is not teaching us that we can earn eternal life. After all, if loving God and neighbor perfectly is the standard who can earn eternal life? The parable is only about us after it is about Christ. Christ is the good Samaritan who found us as beaten by the fall and stripped of any hope. The Priest and the Levite, representatives of the Law, passed by, unable and unwilling to do us any good. It is Lord Christ, who was, just as the Samaritan was, one who was not received by the institutional religious community and it is the Lord Christ, just as the Good Samaritan, who stops and binds up our wounds and gives us the medicinal oil and wine of the Gospel … who has compassion upon us as completely unable to help ourselves … who took it upon Himself to do all the doing that we as beaten sinners could not do.

You see, we are not so much the Good Samaritans of the account here. We are the unidentified chap robbed, beat up, and left for dead. The Good Samaritan is Christ who has bound up our wounds and treated us with the oblation of Himself.

Here is the picture of inheriting eternal life. We were left for dead and someone came along and did all the doing.

If we have any hope to be Good Samaritans ourselves it is only in light of the reality that Christ was first our own Good Samaritan. He had pity on us as beaten and stripped sinners and provided our healing and paid all our costs.

The parable thus shows that Eternal life is not a matter of us fulfilling all the law and so being worthy of life as inheritance. The parable demonstrates the Gospel of Christ as doing what we can’t do for ourselves.

________________________

Conclusion

1.) Many people want to use this parable to show that Jesus was sharply attacking communal or racial prejudices. I don’t see that in the text. The chap beaten up was unidentifiable. The Priest and the Levite do not pass by because they know the victim is Gentile or Samaritan or Jew. There is no communal or racial prejudice connected with their passing by. They pass by in keeping with their teaching from the book of Ecclesiasticus,

12 When you do a good deed, make sure you know who is benefiting from it; then what you do will not be wasted.^[a] ²You will be repaid for any kindness you show to a devout person. If he doesn’t repay you, the Most High will. ³No good ever comes to a person who gives comfort to the wicked; it is not a righteous act.^[b] ⁴Give to religious people, but don’t help sinners. ⁵Do good to humble people, but don’t give anything to those who are not devout. Don’t give them food, or they will use your kindness against you. Every good thing you do for such people will bring you twice as much trouble in return. ⁶The Most High himself hates sinners, and he will punish them. ⁷Give to good people, but do not help sinners.

They pass by because of concerns about becoming ceremonially unclean.

If Jesus is sharply attacking anything He is sharply attacking what He constantly attacks in Scripture and that is the damnable hypocrisy of the Religious leadership.

Jesus introduces the Samaritan in order to demonstrate that those thought to be religiously and racially vile are more righteous than the supposed religious good guys.

The Samaritan likewise knows nothing about the victim. The point isn’t that he is rising above his racial prejudices. The point is that the hated Samaritan enemy is more of a lawkeeper than the righteous.

2.) We live in an age, as one writer has put it, of pornographic compassion. We bleed over the sensationalism made by the news media of the suffering in Rawanda, or Afghanistan, or Syria, all the while we turn a blind eye to the needs that Jesus has brought to our own feet found among our family and neighbors. We rush past the stripped and beaten of our own circle of influence so that we can feel good about ourselves by how big a check we cut for the stripped and beaten 4000 miles away.

In the words of Thomas Fleming,

“We have been plagued … by the cynical sentimentalism that raises trillions of dollars to help strangers while poisoning us against the needs of family, neighbors, and friends.”

Ask the Pastor…. “But Christians Aren’t Under the Law?”

Dear Pastor,

Scripture says that we (Christians) are no longer under law. Can you explain to me why you teach that Christians are obliged to walk by God’s Law-Word?

Patrick
Colon, Michigan

Dear Patrick,

Let’s look at the passage that you reference

^{Romans 6:12}Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, ¹³and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. ¹⁴For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

Paul is using the word “law” here to designate that which must be fulfilled as a required precursor to acceptance with God. The Christian has been delivered from being under law as a means of find peace with God. As such, when St. Paul says here that we are not “under law” he is not suggesting that God’s law is no longer relevant to the Christian. Paul is saying that the Christian is not under law as a systematic program to escape condemnation.

If Christians did yet remain under the law as a totalistic program for righteousness then sin would continue to have dominion over the Christian since the law, as a program for righteousness, cannot deliver but can only accuse. Because the Christian is under the reign of grace as God’s means of righteousness the Christian can refuse to let sin reign in their mortal bodies. “Under the reign of Grace” provides a power source for dealing with sin that “Under the reign of Law” could never provide, dead as we were in Adam.

Note also, though that at the Apostle repeatedly talks about “sin.” This implies a necessity for the concept of law because there is no way to even know what sin is apart from a standard (God’s Law) by which sin can be defined and identified. If we were to be done with the law, as many Christians advocate, then we would also be done with any concept of sin. It does me no good to encourage me to say no to sin or to lust if at the same time there is no law that standardizes what sin is. How could we possibly know what behavior, thinking, attitudes please our great Liege-Lord apart from His Law-Word?

Christ did not redeem us so that we might walk contrary to His Law-Word. The Law’s intent is not so that by the keeping of it we can be saved. We can’t keep it as it is needed to be kept. That is why Christ came as our covenant head. Our Lord Christ fulfilled the law in our stead and because of the righteousness accounted to us we are counted Law keepers. Similarly, our covenant head, the Lord Christ, bore our penalty in our place on the Cross that our indebtedness to the Law is fulfilled as we are united to Christ.

BUT now that the law has been fulfilled for us in Christ’s law keeping and penalty bearing we now walk in terms of God’s law. We delight in God’s law now, not as means of gaining something we do not have. We delight in God’s law now, as a consequence of being given something, via imputation of Christ’s righteousness, that we could not earn or merit.

As WCF IX:18 notes, “Law and grace do doth sweetly comply (agree).” We can not posit Grace against law for the Christian. God’s law for the Christian is gracious and God’s grace unto the Christian was due to its honoring all that the law required.

So, now we study God’s law in order to more fully delight in God’s grace.

Some will contend that we have been delivered from the law and so interpret that to mean that we have nothing to do with the law. This is an unfortunate error in interpreting and thinking. The aspect of the law that we have been delivered from is the condemning aspect of the law. Because we are in Christ we are delivered from the law’s condemnation. There is, after all, therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. However, deliverance from the law’s condemnation is not equal to the idea of no longer having anything to do with the law. This is why the inspired Apostle can say that; “The law is Holy, Righteous, and Good.”

Praise God for His kindness to usward as expressed by giving us His Law-Word. Praise God that the Lord Christ was and remains the embodiment and incarnation of God’s Law. To properly love God’s law is to love Christ. Correspondingly a lack of love for God’s Law-Word is a lack of love for Christ.

Meandering Thoughts On The One and The Many

Diversity absolutized would end in the uniformity of absolute diversity. In point of fact absolute diversity is impossible since sameness must exist in order to identify diversity. In a world of absolute diversity one could not recognize diversity because in order to measure diversity there has to be a corresponding idea of sameness in order to measure diversity. Hence absolute diversity leads to uniformity. If everything is different than nothing can be different because no continuity would exist between the differentiated things in order to know recognize and identify differentiation. If diversity is absolutized so that uniformity is allegedly eclipsed than the consequence is a absolute uniformity of differentiation where everything is the same because nothing is the same.

In the same way Uniformity absolutized is the end of uniformity. If there is no determinative way or manner in which uniformity can be distinguished from differentiation then how could we possibly know if there is uniformity? Uniformity requires the reality of differentiation in order to be able to identify uniformity. If everything is the same nothing is the same. If everything is Macaroni and Cheese than how can we know what Macaroni and Cheese is if there nothing to differentiate it from anything else?

Uniformity and diversity need each other because without each other neither can exist or find meaning as Uniformity nor as diversity.

Of course the denial of Uniformity and diversity is a denial of the God of the Bible and without the God of the Bible no meaning can be located anywhere. God is the Transcendent One and Many which gives meaning to all the Immanent One and Many’s.

I Corinthians 4:4 … The God of this age (world).

The god of this age (world) 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.

I Corinthians 4:4

When Scripture teaches that “Satan is the God of this world,” what one needs to understand is that Paul is using “world” in a technical fashion. “World” here means “as this world lies in Adam.” It is a truism that as this world lies in Adam Satan is the God of that world. However, what it does not mean is that Satan is over planet earth. To not see that distinction would give us a contradiction with Scripture that teaches that the Lord Christ is in possession of “all authority” in heaven and on earth as well as those passages that teach that the “Lord God omnipotent reigneth.” Obviously St. Paul is not introducing some kind of Manichean dualism by positing two competing Gods … one over things not of this world and one over this world.

Another example of this kind of language is used by John,

I John 5:19 We know that we are of God, and that the whole world is under the power of the evil one.

What world is John speaking of when he writes that the ‘whole world is under the power of the evil one?”

Well, he is speaking of the world as it lies in Adam and opposed to God. He is speaking of the unregenerate world. We know that the world John is speaking of is not inclusive of Christians who live in the world because John writes that ‘we are of God.’

Neither Paul nor John, are saying that planet earth belongs to Satan. That would contradict passages which speak of Christ as the ruler,

^{Eph. 1:21 (Christ is)}far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. ²²And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church…

Colossians 2: He (Christ) is the head over every power and authority.

So, if this is true of Christ then it cannot also be true that Satan is the God of this age, or the God of this World in the sense that Satan has some controlling ability in this world that rises above God.

So we have before us an example of the necessity of reading and interpreting Scripture in terms of Scripture. It is not proper to locate one verse and then say, ‘see, this proves that Satan is God over planet earth,’ or to say that God rules spiritually but Satan rules non-spiritually.’ We must compare Scripture with Scripture.

What shall we conclude about this. Well, Scripture forces us to say that Satan has been delegated certain authority so it can be fairly said of him that He is God over the people who refuse to bow the knee to Christ and His Lordship.

St. Paul begins to get at this when he writes,

¹³For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves,

You see… formerly they were in the dominion of darkness where the God of this world rules but now they have been rescued by the God who is over the God of this world and are delivered into the Kingdom of God’s dear Son. Notice though, if Satan were the absolute ruler as God of this world or age then God could never have rescued His people from Satan. We see then that the God of this world or age is not to attribute to Satan absolute power over any territory. It merely is to teach that those who are of their Father the devil have Satan as their God.

As an aside, this demonstrates again that there is no neutrality. Either one belongs to the God of this age or one belongs to the Kingdom of God’s dear Son. One either belongs to the God of this age or one belongs to the God of the age to come.

You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes
Indeed you’re gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody

Another passage that supports what I am getting at is John 12:31. St. John quotes Christ as saying,

“Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out.” And again,

John 14:30 I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me,

John 16:11 Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.

In the work of the Cross Satan was driven out. He has no power except to those who are of their Father the Devil, but even then, just as with Job, Satan is a permission seeking being in terms of his designs and intent. The Devil is merely God’s attack dog on a long leash.

The Devil does God’s bidding. The Devil may be the God of this Age but he does the work assigned to Him by God. Scripture is replete with examples regarding this. And it is to those examples we turn.

Book of Job

Judges 9:23

God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the leaders of Shechem and caused them to treat Abimelech deceitfully,

1 Samuel 16:14

After the Spirit of the LORD had departed from Saul, a spirit of distress from the LORD began to torment him.

1 Samuel 18:10

The next day a spirit of distress sent from God came upon Saul, and he prophesied inside the house while David played the harp as usual. Now Saul was holding a spear,

1 Samuel 19:9

But as Saul was sitting in his house with his spear in his hand, a spirit of distress from the LORD came upon him. While David was playing the harp,

1 Kings 22:21

Then a spirit came forward, stood before the LORD, and said, ‘I will entice him.’ ‘By what means?’ asked the LORD.

So, we see the Devil, evil spirits, do not operate independently of God’s boundaries. The Devil is God’s Devil.

Then there are other passages that says God Himself deceives those who hate him. This passage from Isaiah is quoted frequently in the NT

9And He replied, “Go and tell this people: ‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’ 10Make the hearts of this people calloused; deafen their ears and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.…

Romans 11:8

as it is written: “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that could not see, and ears that could not hear, to this very day.”

Deuteronomy 29:4

Yet to this day the LORD has not given you a mind to understand, eyes to see, or ears to hear.

Romans

God Turned them over …. (3x)

Thes. 2:11 For this reason, God will send them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie,…

So, we see from all this that Satan is not an independent agent. We who are in Christ have no need to fear him or be preoccupied with Him. He is a very real enemy but He is an enemy who has been vanquished. Further, we see that Scripture cannot be appealed to in order to make the Devil out as someone who has a dominion that is outside of God’s dominion. The Devil is God’s Devil and his dominion is held at God’s leisure.

So, dear Christian, as Satan is not literally in charge of planet earth as belonging to him there is no room for surrendering anything in the Cosmos to Satan as if he has right of authority because he is “the god of this world.” Satan is the god of the dung heap, of falsity, of fiat non-reality. He has no hold over this world because in the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, God has and intends to continue to redeem the whole Cosmos so that it is even more than Eden ever was.

The age to come has come in Christ and is rolling back this present wicked age that has the prince of the power of the air as its Captain. This mopping up exercise is fait accompli. The “God of this age” is a grifter and the only weapons he has are smoke, delusion, and intimidation. Greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world.

Satan as “God of this world?” Only in the sense that a rebellious three year old thinks he is the “God of his bedroom,” in defiance of his parents placing him there for discipline.

Implications

1.) If we belong to God and are members of Christ’s Kingdom Lucifer is not a being we should be over consumed with. Yes, he exists, as do his lieutenants. Yes, they hate God and the Saints. But greater is He who is within us than He who is in the world as it lies in Adam.

2.) Because of this, there should be a growing confidence that is characteristic of us as God’s people. Do we really believe that as we belong to the Sovereign of the universe that anything can do us harm? The truth here should push us to attempt great things for God… to ask great things from God so that His name might be better known. We are more than conqueror because if God be for us (and He is) then truly opposition is insignificant.

3.) We should be extraordinarily wary of any theology that is consumed with the power of demons, evil spirits, or Satan. On the other hand we should be equally wary of any theology that ignores their reality upon those who belong to the God of this world.

4.) Because of all this we should be a people who fear God so much that we would do anything so as not to be deceived. We should be those who cry out for wisdom and to be delivered from all deception. We should hunger for God’s thinking so that we won’t find ourselves turned over.

5.) We see God’s absolute sovereignty once again. We should be preoccupied with God alone. No need to be preoccupied with the devil’s ability to destroy us if we are preoccupied with God’s ability to keep us.

6.) We are safe from the machinations of the God of this World because of the finished work of Jesus Christ. As our catechims notes,

He has fully paid for all my sins

with his precious blood,

and has set me free

from all the power of the devil.

Conclusion,

So we need to make proper distinctions on this matter. The this “world” distinction is critical. When the scriptures say “My kingdom is not of this world” or “love not the world” or that “Satan is the God of this world,” it is not speaking of the Cosmos or physical world and creation of God, but the “way of the world” or the “philosophy of autonomous worldly men,” or the “world as it lies in Adam.” This is a critical distinction, that is too often lost on many in the Christian community.