Paul Chapter 5 Sin and Satan

Chapter 5

Sin and Satan

Whence the deception? Is there an intelligent influence outside the human race involved in programming consciousness? Are we alone? If not, what are we to believe about the other-than-human beings? Paul has much to say regarding these influences and our relationships to them. His understanding of the opposing forces unfolds as he personally experiences them. His instructions are given to the converts according to the nature of their struggle with satanic opposition and their immediate capacity to understand and therefore effectively resist.

The enemies are real and present but the nature of the battle, the essential battle, is not primarily in the realm of the physical; it is intellectual, it is spiritual. It was Jesus who reduced the commandments of God — those things that most concern God in regard to his children — from volumes to a singular canon of one line. It was this “great commandment” that provided the basis for Paul’s interpretation of the battle with evil. The battleground as Jesus affirmed was not physical, but spiritual.  The “spiritual” of Jesus and Paul though primarily non-physical, was by no means abstract or ethereal. The sum of spirituality was a personal and pervasive love for God, others, and self. So the focus of resistance is heart, soul, mind and strength (of will) in loving God and others; it’s me and God, and me and others.  The mission of the opposition is to distract people by any means available from living in Divine order — in love. Paul recognized the dichotomy between Divine order and the unnatural, forced order which operates as the prime mover in the present cosmos. It is a relentless compulsion, an irrational drivenness to press everything out of measure. The Greeks knew as well that the world tended to be obsessed and driven beyond the natural order and flow. “Nothing in excess” was an axiom of Greek wisdom along with “know thyself”. These, inscripted in the Temple of Delphi, attest to the universal acknowledgement of a problem; a human predicament which calls for conscious resistance through self-imposed discipline and reflection. Although in substantial agreement with the Greek sages, Paul was not so optimistic concerning the human ability to self-improve. The bone of human nature is not broken, merely in need of mending, it is out of joint. Nothing can be done to set human nature in order in this disjointed condition; it must be reset in its proper position in relation to the whole. But the evangelical idea of total human depravity is an unjustified extension of Paul’s view of human nature; indeed, Paul acknowledged the desire of humanity in general to live good lives and did not fail to recognize good and honorable behavior when he encountered it.[1] But in the final analysis, human nature at its best misses the mark; often able to ambulate, but always hobbled. The deck is stacked against human beings. Paul describes the opposition as three-fold: first, the nature of human beings as tending to evil; second, he describes the world as being off course—a sort of global immune deficiency feeding on itself like a virus; third, Paul identifies spiritual enemies as having a supreme leader over an oligarchical government of princes and rulers who in turn marshal hordes of demon soldiers in the battle against mankind, and most specifically and intensely against the followers of Paul in the gospel.[2]

 

[1] Spouses pleased to dwell; Masters worthy of honor; Noble Felix; Gammaliel…be not unequally yoked with unbelievers

[2] Ephesians 6:12