Avoiding the Snare of Paganism in Spiritual Warfare
I find a danger for every believer is to cease seeing the world as a Christian, through God’s eyes, and revert to seeing the world as a pagan. This can happen when one buys into some kind of dualism wherein God and Satan are misconstrued as equal but opposing forces.
Stories are told of demons possessing God-like powers to levitate objects, change the weather, materialize at will, morph into various forms, bring the dead to life, and even procreate demonic human hybrids. Other stories tell of people getting demonic possessed and become unwilling participants in the committing all sorts of evil. Satan is, however, the chief of all the demons, whose power trumps them all. But this kind of demonology is really pagan as opposed to biblical Christianity, albeit these pagan ideas have crept into the church.
God and Satan are never to be considered equal and opposing forces. God is eternal without beginning or end, but Satan is a created being. God is in control of all things, but Satan acts within the parameters God sets. God knows all things (omniscience), but Satan’s collective knowledge comes as the result of a learning process or that he is omniscience.
Let’s look closer at the attribute of omniscience. Someone I know was worried because Revelation 12 indicated that Satan knew his time was short, so the person feared that the Devil was omniscient. However, one can hardly get this from Revelation 12, but if one takes time to read and theologically reflect upon the panoply of the Scriptures, it is easy to see that Satan’s knowledge of things is finite. Yahweh’s question, “Have you considered my servant Job?” (Job. 1:8; 2:3), implies that the Satan would need to acquire knowledge about a matter. Since the demonic accuser errors twice in his predictions about the way Job would respond to God permitting the removal of his wealth and health (Job 1:10-11, 13-22; 2:4-5, 9-10), we can conclude the Devil’s knowledge of things is imperfect, and that he must acquire knowledge through a learning process, which precludes him from being omniscience.
We can never overestimate the adversary’s power, thinking that he is on par with the Almighty in any way, shape or form. But, we dare not think he is irrelevant. Although Satan is a defeated foe on account of Christ victory at the cross, the Devil will still wage war against God’s people until the final end to all things.
Scriptures teach that all Christians at every milestone of their spiritual walk during this earthly sojourn will face temptations generated by their sinful flesh, the world, and the Devil (Mk. 14:38; Rm. 7:14-25, 12:2; 1 Pet. 5:8; 1 John 4:4-6). The believer’s struggle is to live faithfully to Christ in spiritual warfare, and while it is never demanded that the Christian identify the exact source of their temptation, the Word instructs them to put on the armor of God, so that they can stand until the end (Eph. 6:10-24).
~ WGN
Stories are told of demons possessing God-like powers to levitate objects, change the weather, materialize at will, morph into various forms, bring the dead to life, and even procreate demonic human hybrids. Other stories tell of people getting demonic possessed and become unwilling participants in the committing all sorts of evil. Satan is, however, the chief of all the demons, whose power trumps them all. But this kind of demonology is really pagan as opposed to biblical Christianity, albeit these pagan ideas have crept into the church.
God and Satan are never to be considered equal and opposing forces. God is eternal without beginning or end, but Satan is a created being. God is in control of all things, but Satan acts within the parameters God sets. God knows all things (omniscience), but Satan’s collective knowledge comes as the result of a learning process or that he is omniscience.
Let’s look closer at the attribute of omniscience. Someone I know was worried because Revelation 12 indicated that Satan knew his time was short, so the person feared that the Devil was omniscient. However, one can hardly get this from Revelation 12, but if one takes time to read and theologically reflect upon the panoply of the Scriptures, it is easy to see that Satan’s knowledge of things is finite. Yahweh’s question, “Have you considered my servant Job?” (Job. 1:8; 2:3), implies that the Satan would need to acquire knowledge about a matter. Since the demonic accuser errors twice in his predictions about the way Job would respond to God permitting the removal of his wealth and health (Job 1:10-11, 13-22; 2:4-5, 9-10), we can conclude the Devil’s knowledge of things is imperfect, and that he must acquire knowledge through a learning process, which precludes him from being omniscience.
We can never overestimate the adversary’s power, thinking that he is on par with the Almighty in any way, shape or form. But, we dare not think he is irrelevant. Although Satan is a defeated foe on account of Christ victory at the cross, the Devil will still wage war against God’s people until the final end to all things.
Scriptures teach that all Christians at every milestone of their spiritual walk during this earthly sojourn will face temptations generated by their sinful flesh, the world, and the Devil (Mk. 14:38; Rm. 7:14-25, 12:2; 1 Pet. 5:8; 1 John 4:4-6). The believer’s struggle is to live faithfully to Christ in spiritual warfare, and while it is never demanded that the Christian identify the exact source of their temptation, the Word instructs them to put on the armor of God, so that they can stand until the end (Eph. 6:10-24).
~ WGN
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