Belief in spiritual beings, and especially evil spiritual beings is frequently considered antiquated.
We live in an age of great scientific discovery and nearly every unusual phenomenon is explained away. Every human problem can be attributed to some form of disorder or disease. With a prevailing naturalistic worldview, everything receives a natural explanation.
As a result, Christians who are willing to believe in God might be less inclined to believe in angels, or demons, or other inhabitants of the spiritual realm.
Scholar, Clinton Arnold, summarizes this point well when he writes,
“There is a distinct danger for Western Christians to discount or minimize the reality of the supernatural opponents. To do so makes us more vulnerable to their attacks by causing us to be less vigilant, less reliant on prayer, less dependent on God, and less dependent on spiritually gifted fellow believers.”[1]
Yet, a supernatural worldview is found throughout the Bible, and it is incredibly clear in Ephesians 6.
As the apostle Paul draws what is commonly considered one of his greatest letters to a close, he admonished the believers in Ephesus:
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil” (Eph. 6:10-11).
The Christian needs to be strong, not in themselves, but in the Lord. Why? We have a spiritual enemy. He is one who goes around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Pet. 5:8). Furthermore, he is not alone.
The apostle puts forth a variety of categories of spiritual foes for the Christian: rulers, authorities, cosmic powers over this present darkness, spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:12). While we may not know or understand how this sort of evil spiritual hierarchy works, nor do we need to, we do need to be aware that they do exist.
For believers in Ephesus who formerly practiced magic and worshipped idols, surely this was a very present reality.
It was in Ephesus that the seven sons of Sceva were attacked by a demonized man and stripped bare (Acts 19:16) and afterwards many who practiced magic brought forth their materials to be burned (Acts 19:19). They realized that these things were not to be messed with.
For those who sacrificed to idols, such as Artemis in Ephesus, were sacrificing to demons (1 Cor. 10:20). The apostle did not discount the reality of some spiritual being on the receiving end of these sacrifices, he just confidently concluded it was not God.
We cannot lose sight of the fact that evil is real.
Many problems are attributed to mental health and any number of excuses, and while mental health struggles are a real thing I think we are too quick to diagnose everything in natural terms. We quickly forget that there is a real spiritual realm with real evil entities.
With a spiritual war, the believer needs the help of our supernatural God and His equipment: truth as our belt, righteousness as our breastplate, the readiness of the gospel as our shoes, faith as our shield, and salvation as our helmet.
The Kingdom of God is at war with the kingdom of darkness. Yet, this war is not merely defensive. Paul also concluded that beyond having gospel-shoes, the believer is to take up the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, and with this we conquer.
Every person taken from out of the domain of darkness and brought into the Kingdom of God’s Beloved Son (Col. 1:13) is plunder. We stand against the myriads of attacks that come through our spiritual foes, and we go forth in the name of our God and take ground.
We need to be guarded, prayerful, and utterly God-dependent in everything that we might be ready in this fight.
Let us not be deceived into thinking then that there are no foes in the spiritual realm. For if we fall into that belief, he may have already won.
[1] Clinton E. Arnold, Ephesians, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), 471.
As I read this I kept thinking of the Screwtape Letters and how much easier it is for evil to tempt us with shiny things that don’t feel evil and yet still draw us away from God.