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.

resist

Resisting Evil

The New Testament refers to Satan as the “god of this age” and the “ruler of the power of the air” (2 Cor 4:4; Eph.2:2). In the first century Jewish worldview, “air” referred to the domain of spiritual authority over the earth. The author, Paul, was thus saying that the spiritual environment of the earth is controlled by an anti-god and anti-life force! John goes so far as to say that Satan has power over the entire globe (I Jn 5:19) and that the devil leads “the whole world astray” (Rev. 12:9).

People often ask, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” It’s an odd question really, given that Jesus promised us that bad things would happen, especially to “good people” (Jn 16:33). If we consider the fact that the Bible teaches a warfare worldview, it would stop surprising us when evil happens. In a war zone, you expect bad things to happen.

While few Christians would deny that Satan is in some sense the ruler of this world, since it’s so clearly taught in the New Testament, many nevertheless insist that everything Satan and every other free agent does fits into God’s divine plan that is governing every detail of world history. In this view, it’s not just the beautiful aspects of creation that glorify God. Everything, including evil events, ultimately contributes to the “glory of God.” God is ultimately behind it all.

As traditional as this view is, I frankly find it very disturbing.

Throughout history and yet today, very few Christians have seen themselves as belonging to a subversive resistance to evil—despite the clear teaching of the New Testament regarding the enemy-occupied status of the world. I frankly suspect that this God-is-behind-it-all theology is partly to blame. The belief that “evil” is ultimately controlled by a greater good tends to produce an attitude of resignation toward evil rather than an attitude of revolting against it.

Interestingly enough, there were many pagans in the ancient world before the time of Christ who believed every particular thing came to pass by a sort of cosmic necessity and that it all contributed to a greater good. The most well-known philosophical school espousing this view was known as “Stoicism.” Consistent with their determinism, Stoics advocated a form of piety that stressed peaceful resignation to all that afflicts humans rather than an on-going attempt to resist it.

How can you, and why would you, resist something you believe can’t be other than it is?

I suggest that Jesus had a very different mindset, as did most of the early Church fathers until the fourth century when St. Augustine advocated a Stoic view of providence. His view, unfortunately, more or less came to dominate Christian theology. This certainly wasn’t Jesus’ view.

When Jesus encountered people who were physically, socially, or spiritually oppressed, he never once encouraged them to resign themselves to their situation as a part of God’s mysterious plan. He rather viewed their various afflictions as the direct or indirect result of Satan’s will—and he resisted them.

For example, when Jesus confronted a Jewish woman with a deformed back, he asked, “should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free …” (Lk 13:16, emphasis added)? This is what we consistently find throughout the Gospels. Peter summarized Jesus entire ministry by saying he “went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil…” (Ac. 10:38, emphasis added).

Far from supposing that things like diseases and deformities were part of a great divine plan or that they glorified God, Jesus revealed God’s will and glorified God by coming against these things! Jesus ministry was not about helping people accept the world as it is—as though it now reflected God’s will. His ministry was about helping people resist the world as it now is—in order to bring about God’s good will.

Photo credit: Voluntary Amputation via VisualHunt.com / CC BY-NC-ND

Related Reading

Molinism and Open Theism – Part II

In the previous post on this topic I briefly outlined Molinism and then discussed “the grounding objection.” In this post I’ll first discuss another fundamental objection to Molinism and then discuss how it is overcome by the Open View of the Future. In the process it will be clear how the Open View differs from…

How do you respond to Isaiah 48:3–5?

The Lord proclaims to his idolatrous people, “The former things I declared long ago, they went out from my mouth and I made them known; then suddenly I did them and they came to pass. Because I know that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew and your forehead brass, I declared…

Podcast: Is It God Withdrawing OR Is It a Scheme of Satan?

Sometimes evil is attributed to God withdrawing. Sometimes it is attributed to a scheme of Satan. We are called to respond to each differently. So, must we be able to discern which is the case in any given situation? http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0189.mp3

A Very Brief History of Open Theism

While the open view of the future has always been a very minor perspective, it has had its defenders throughout Church history and it has never been called “heresy” (until in mid 1990s when some started using this label). According to some African American church leaders, it has been the predominant view in the African…

What is your perspective on the classical view that God is above time?

In a major strand of hellenistic (Greek) philosophy, change was seen as being an imperfection. This idea was adopted by many early Church fathers and eventually became almost an assumed dogma of the Church. It was thus assumed that, since God is perfect, he must be above all change. Not only does his character and…

What is the significance of Revelation 3:5?

“If you conquer, you will be clothed like them in white robes, and I will not blot your name out of the book of life…” If God is only the God of certainties, it is not clear how he can honestly speak in conditional terms (“If you conquer…”) and it is not clear why he…

Topics: