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Satan and the Corruption of Nature: Seven Arguments
Category: Essays
Tags: Apologetics, Essay, Problem of Evil, Spiritual Warfare
Topics: Creation Care, Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict, The Problem of Evil
Man…trusted God was love indeed And love Creation’s final law – Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw With ravine, shrek’d against his creed” —Tennyson, In Memoriam Tennyson nailed it. We trust that God is love, but we also believe that God is the Creator of nature, and nature simply…
The “Christus Victor” View of the Atonement
Category: Essays
Tags: Atonement, Church, Essay, Jesus, Spiritual Warfare
Topics: Christus Victor view of Atonement, Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
God accomplished many things by having his Son become incarnate and die on Calvary. Through Christ God revealed the definitive truth about himself (Rom 5:8, cf. Jn 14:7-10); reconciled all things, including humans, to himself (2 Cor 5:18-19; Col 1:20-22), forgave us our sins (Ac 13:38; Eph 1:7); healed us…
What Is The Warfare Worldview?
Category: Essays
Tags: Blueprint Worldview, Essay, Evil, Free Will, Love, Providence, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
Greg has written extensively on something he calls the Warfare Worldview. Many today believe that everything that takes place in the world is ultimately part of a divine blueprint and contributes in some way to the glory of God. As opposed to this view, Greg argues that wills other…
What is the Warfare Worldview?
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Spiritual Warfare, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
The warfare worldview is based on the conviction that our world is engaged in a cosmic war between a myriad of agents, both human and angelic, that have aligned themselves with either God or Satan. We believe this worldview best reflects the response to evil depicted throughout the Bible. For…
New Testament Support for the Warfare Worldview
Category: Essays
Tags: Bible, Essay, New Testament, Spiritual Warfare, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
Warfare in Jesus’ Ministry The theme of God striving to establish his sovereign will (his Kingdom) on earth over and against forces that oppose him is prevalent in the New Testament. In keeping with the apocalyptic climate of the time, there are many references to angels at war with God,…
Old Testament Support for the Warfare Worldview
Category: Essays
Tags: Bible, Essay, Old Testament, Spiritual Warfare, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
Rebuking Hostile Waters Satan plays a minor role in the Old Testament relative to the New Testament. Instead, the warfare worldview in the Old Testament is expressed in terms of God’s conflict with hostile waters, cosmic monsters, and other gods.Like their Ancient Near Eastern neighbors, ancient Jews believed that the…
Terror in the Night
Category: Essays
Tags: Essay, Fear, God, God's Love, Q&A, Spiritual Warfare
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
I’ll never forget the night it first happened to me. I was thirteen, sharing a bedroom with my older brother. I woke up in the middle of the night and felt as if something was pinning me to the bed, choking me, and electrocuting me, all at the same…
Warfare Worldview: A Basic Definition
Category: General
Tags: Blueprint Worldview, Evil, Open Theism, Satan, Theodicy, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
The warfare worldview is based on the conviction that our world is engaged in a cosmic war between a myriad of agents, both human and angelic, that have aligned themselves with either God or Satan. We believe this worldview best reflects the response to evil depicted throughout the Bible. For…
What are the main principles of the warfare worldview?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Q&A, Spiritual Warfare, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
In my book God At War (IVP, 1997) I flesh out what I call the “warfare worldview” of the Bible. This is the view that the world is a battle ground between God and good angels, on the one hand, and Satan and fallen angels, on the other. In my…
Six Theses of the Warfare Worldview
Category: General
Tags: Spiritual Warfare, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
The trinitarian warfare worldview seeks to reconcile our experience of radical evil with the conviction that reality is created and sustained by an all-loving, all-powerful God. Six principles form the foundation for this view. These principles are based on Scripture’s account of God’s battle with Satan as well as our…
“Natural” Evil? 7 Arguments Implicating Satan
Category: General
Tags: Creation, God at War, Natural Evil, Problem of Evil, Satan, Theodicy, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Creation Care, Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
Image by Jmos® via Flickr We believe that God is the Creator of nature, but nature simply does not seem to point to a God of love. Parasites, viruses, bacteria, diseases and cancer kill millions and torment millions more, humans and animals alike. Earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunamis, mudslides and volcanoes do…
The Reality of Satan and the Spiritual Realm
Category: General
Tags: Blueprint Worldview, Evil, Satan, Satan and the Problem of Evil, Spiritual Warfare, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict, The Problem of Evil
Image by Lawrence OP via Flickr A theme that underlies Jesus’ entire ministry is the apocalyptic assumption that creation has been seized by a cosmic force and that God is now battling this force to rescue it. Jesus understood himself to be the one in whom this battle was…
What does the Bible mean when it says God “sent an evil spirit” on certain people?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Bible, Demons, Old Testament, Q&A, Responding to Calvinism, Spiritual Warfare
Topics: Interpreting Violent Pictures and Troubling Behaviors, Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
Verse: 1 Samuel 16, 1 Samuel 18, Judges 9
Question: In Judges 9:23, I Samuel 16:15ff and 18:10 it is said that God sends evil spirits on people. Doesn’t this support the idea that everything Satan and demons do is under God’s sovereign control? Answer: I’ll make six points in response to this question. 1) If everything Satan and…
Did God use Satan to test Job?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Bible, Old Testament, Problem of Evil, Q&A
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict, The Problem of Evil
Question: In Job 1:21 and 2:10, Job seems to accept “adversity” from God while continuing to trust him. Job blames his troubles on God (i.e. “He shattered me” [16:12], “He breaks me down on every side” [19:10], “For he performs what is appointed for me” [23:14]). In Chapters 1 and…
Prayer Matters
Category: General
Tags: God's Will, Kingdom Living, Prayer
Topics: Hearing God, Prayer, Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
Martin Sharman via Compfight Jesus taught us to pray in a way that recognizes that God’s will isn’t manifested in evil; it’s manifested when he and his people revolt against it. Jesus tells us that the cry of our heart is to be for God’s kingdom to come and…
Did Jesus Believe in Satan?
Category: Q&A
Tags: Demons, Jesus, Satan, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
Jesus’ teaching, his exorcisms, his healings and other miracles, as well as his work on the cross, all remain somewhat incoherent and unrelated to one another until we interpret them as acts of war. As in apocalyptic thought of the time of Jesus, the assumption that undergirds Jesus’ entire ministry…
Angels and Spirits in a Secular World
Category: General
Tags: Angels, Demons, Spiritual Warfare
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
This week, we’ve been thinking about why we should believe in a spiritual realm in a world shaped by secular thought. One argument that supports the belief that spirits are real is the oldest, most venerable, and most popular argument for this belief in the western intellectual tradition. In essence…
What Does Spiritual Warfare Have To Do with the Cross?
Category: General
Tags: Atonement, Cruciform Theology, Jesus, Spiritual Warfare
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
Last week, we covered a few posts on the nature of the Atonement and the Christus Victor view. The following continues this theme, specifically looking the motif of spiritual warfare and how it relates to Christ’s work on the cross. This is an adaptation from Greg’s article in The Nature…
The Cross and Cosmic Warfare
Category: General
Tags: Atonement, Christus Victor, Salvation, Spiritual Warfare, Warfare Worldview
Topics: Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
Since the time of Anselm in the 11th century, Western theology has focused almost all of its attention on the anthropological dimension of the atonement. In the most popular understanding, the chief thing that God was accomplishing on the cross was satisfying God’s perfect justice and thereby atoning for our…
God’s Kind of Holy War
Category: General
Tags: Book of Revelation, Jesus, Lamb of God, Self-Sacrificial Love, Spiritual Warfare
Topics: Biblical Interpretation, Spiritual Warfare, Cosmic Conflict
This is part three of a series on Revelation. You can find part one here and part two here. While there will come a day when the sacrificial victory of the Lamb and of his people will be apparent to all (5:13; 15:4; 21: 23-4), only to those who embrace…