Post by Murph on Jan 13, 2024 7:36:54 GMT -6
What Do We Know about the Devil?
Thinking and writing about the devil is strange. I would argue that teaching on the devil has been largely neglected in the contemporary Reformed church. While there may be the more obvious danger of the devil’s being blamed for all sorts of our sins and living lives in fear of the evil one, in my experience that hasn’t been our great temptation as a church. Our danger is being unaware of the devil’s schemes and being very naive in our thinking about his role and place.
One of the reasons that I think it’s important for us to think these issues through is that it again reminds us that we are dealing with the supernatural. I fear that even in our proclamation of the gospel, we shy away from the spiritual realities of our faith. Christianity at its heart is unashamedly supernatural. Even a cursory reading of the Gospels demonstrates this with angels, healings, demons, miracles, and resurrection. In seeking to make the gospel more palatable, we may easily downplay the supernatural. Ephesians 6:12 tells us, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
We are at the very limit of our powers in seeking to understand the origin of the devil, trying to grasp the ungraspable and know the unknowable. There are many questions about why God allows the devil to exist. Why did He create, knowing that our world would fall into sin?
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