We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

5241719485_7a5437c744

Spiritual Warfare: What is it?

The Kingdom is “not of this world,” and neither is its warfare. Jews had always believed that God confronted spiritual opposition in carrying out his will on earth. In the Old Testament, these evil forces were usually depicted as cosmic monsters and hostile waters that threatened the earth. For a variety of reasons this belief in spiritual warfare intensified significantly in the two centuries leading up to Christ.

This intensified understanding of evil and this new view of history is commonly referred to as the “apocalyptic” worldview. The authority ascribed to Satan in the New Testament, the frequent depictions of illness and deformities as demonically caused, and the general characterization of this present epoch as evil and as approaching its end all reflect this worldview.

We find references to Satan, rulers, principalities, powers and authorities, along with dominions, cosmic powers, thrones, spiritual forces, elemental spirits of the universe, gods, and a number of other spiritual entities. For short, I’ll just call them “Powers.”

Understanding this worldview helps us see that Jesus’ radically countercultural ministry wasn’t first and foremost a form of social and political protest, though it certainly was that. It was, rather, most fundamentally a form of spiritual warfare.

This apocalyptic context makes it clear that Jesus’ deliverance ministry wasn’t the only way Jesus confronted evil. Every aspect of the Kingdom of God Jesus manifested revolted against a corresponding aspect of the kingdom of the Powers. In Jesus, and in the movement he came to establish, the long expected apocalyptic battle between God and the Powers was—and still is—being waged.

When Jesus revolted against the oppressive religion of his day, for example, he was engaging in warfare against the Powers that use religion to oppress people. So too, when Jesus refused to live in accordance with his culture’s assumptions, laws, and social taboos regarding nationalism, race gender, class, and wealth, he wasn’t just waging a social protest; he was engaging in warfare against the Powers that oppress people.

Paul reflects this point when he informs us that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” From a Kingdom perspective, if it’s got “flesh and blood”—if it’s human—it’s not our enemy. To the contrary, if it’s got “flesh and blood” it’s someone we’re commanded to love and thus someone we’re to be fighting for—even if they regard us as their enemy.

The primary way we wage war on behalf of others, including our enemies, is by imitating Jesus and refusing to buy into any aspect of the Powers’ oppressive regime—including the universal tendency to make other people our enemies. Whereas earthly wars are fought with pride, strength, and violence, the Kingdom war is fought in humility, weakness and love. Any aspect of our own life, our society, or our global community that is under the Power’s influence and is inconsistent with the loving reign of God as revealed in Jesus is something that we are called to revolt against.

—Adapted from Myth of a Christian Religion, pages 30-32

Image by h.koppdelaney via Flickr

Related Reading

God’s Goal for the World

 Helga Weber via Compfight In a world that is all about doom and gloom… In a time when we never seem to have enough… In the midst of messages that tell us that we don’t measure up… In an age when we are more interested in whether or not we can own automatic weapons than…

Getting Free From the Sin of Sodom: Living With Outrageous Generosity

Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction. Erich Fromm Jesus, the poor and the greedy Though it’s often missed by American Christians, confronting poverty was central to everything Jesus was about. Jesus didn’t just care about the poor. Though he was…

Uncrossed

Did any of you catch SNL this weekend? They did a parody of Tarantino’s DJango Unchained called DJesus Uncrossed. Many were deeply offended by the depiction of Jesus in this, but David R. Henson blogged about how this skit revealed what we’ve already been doing for quite a while as a culture. In his blog…

Little Pacifism

Richard Beck spoke about something he names Little Pacifism on his Experimental Theology website. It’s so easy, in the name of peacemaking, to become angry and aggressive. I suppose this is just part of what it means to be human. However, if we hope to bring the Kingdom of God closer the earth (and to…

A Blessing for 2015

Image by Jean-Michel Guisiano via Flickr In the Kingdom, there is no waiting. There is only now. The time to be fully awake and fully alive is now. The time to abide in Christ and to live passionately in love is now. The time to live in God’s presence and let God be “all in all” is…

We Are All Weird Adopted Kids

Russell D. Moore wrote a thoughtful response to Pat Robertson’s recent comments on various men’s refusal to get involved with a certain woman because of her  internationally adopted children. As a people who are all beneficiaries of adoption by God who have also been commanded to lovingly care for the “least of these”, this is…