[MARTIN CAREY]
“Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11).
Those of us brought up in Adventist traditions had to learn this text, and we were told to apply it. We knew that Satan was our enemy, that we must resist his schemes, and we tried our best to resist him. Very often we felt defeated. Satan’s power often loomed very large in our minds, sometimes larger than Jesus’ power to protect and help us. We lived under the threat of Satan’s power because of the Adventist doctrine that elevates him.
In spiritual warfare, if we don’t understand Satan’s role in the light of Jesus’ divine authority, we’ll be defeated. In fact, many Christians today have distorted Jesus’ authority and Satan’s power against us. Some teach that we must defeat Satan by binding him and “loosing” the Holy Spirit to enable Him to work. For them, Satan has great ruling power over the world, and the duty of Christians is to retake Satan’s territory.
On the other hand, there are many church-going people who do not give Satan much thought and consider the whole concept of evil powers to be an outdated superstition. They will tell you that good and evil are primarily human choices, and that we just need to focus on doing good—with God’s help, of course.
Adventists have their own distortion of Satan’s power. The great controversy taught us that Christ and Satan have been engaged in a cosmic battle for 6000 years, with Christ trying to restore and save humanity, while Satan has been destroying it. According to the great controversy teaching, Satan has been given much freedom to tempt and destroy since he put God on trial. By accusing Him of being unjust for giving us a law that no one can keep, Satan has placed God on the defensive, and put God’s honor and reputation in question. God must defend Himself against Satan’s charges and vindicate His honor before millions of watching worlds. So, He greatly limits His sovereign power over evil to protect the free will of all creatures, including Satan’s.
The consequences for God’s self-limitation are devastating. To prevail in the great controversy, God must allow Satan to wreak terrible suffering and death on humanity in order to demonstrate to the universe the true nature of Satan’s “principles.” Allowing Satan free reign in his destructive rampage is intended to make the universe more secure:
“It was God’s purpose to place things on an eternal basis of security, and in the councils of heaven it was decided that time must be given for Satan to develop the principles which were the foundation of his system of government. He had claimed that these were superior to God’s principles. Time was given for the working of Satan’s principles, that they might be seen by the heavenly universe” (Desire of Ages, 759).
The horrors of sin and death in the world are there for the continuous demonstration of Satan’s character.
“Sickness, suffering, and death are work of an antagonistic power. Satan is the destroyer; God is the restorer.” (The Ministry of Healing, 113)
Adventism’s great controversy theory taught us that Satan is the cause of all pain, suffering, disaster, and death. Therefore, God could not have actual sovereign power over the trouble in our lives. We learned to fear the power of Satan to destroy, for God had allowed him to be in control of all our suffering. We hoped that all our suffering would not be in vain, that we would be among the faithful that God would consider “safe to save.”*
According to White, if we aren’t among God’s most obedient children, Satan can gain the advantage in the battle for our souls:
“Satan has control of all whom God does not especially guard. He will favor and prosper some in order to further his own designs, and he will bring trouble upon others and lead men to believe that it is God who is afflicting them.” (The Great Controversy, 589)
How would I know if I am one of the few people that God especially guards? Where does that leave all of us who struggle to trust and obey? There is no foundation here for faith or hope. The god of the great controversy is a weak, political god who, instead of exercising the righteous power needed to save and protect his dying creatures, watches his popularity polls, waiting for votes and vindication. Such a god could never be trusted to save us and is unworthy of our worship.
My Counsel Shall Stand
How much stronger and more righteous is the God “who works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11). We need the real God in charge! He declared,
“Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose” (Isaiah 46:8-10).
God is in control of the events of history, over nations, wars, and our lives, and all His purposes will be accomplished, even in the worst disasters:
“I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the LORD, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things” (Isaiah 45:5-7).
God is sovereign over calamity, disaster, sickness, and death. Satan is allowed to work evil, but he does not rule over our troubles, great or small. Nowhere does the Bible say that Satan has challenged God’s justice or right to rule. Satan cannot put God on trial. He is not an independent agent of evil, or an equal and opposite power that can challenge Christ. The only beings in the universe who would question God’s justice are called “objects of wrath,” under the power of Satan (Eph. 2:1-3). God has him on a leash, and his designs go no further than God’s designs and limits. Satan’s power to cause harm is derived from God, who gives permission and sets absolute boundaries, as He did for Job (Job 1:12; 2:6). Satan can only inflict suffering that will serve God’s good purposes:
“So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited” (2 Corinthians 12:7).
Whatever Satan’s malevolent intentions were for Paul, his painful attack could only serve as God’s instrument to humble Paul and magnify God’s mighty grace (vs. 8-10). Every attack by Satan on the Christian, no matter how frightening, is God-designed to show that His grace is always sufficient. Jesus told us,
“In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).
The Lord Jesus has already humiliated and defeated Satan and has total authority over him. This is good news, but it only applies to the person who has trusted in Jesus to forgive his sins, and is born again by the Spirit. Otherwise, we are all under the power of Satan (Eph. 2:1-3). For us who believe, Jesus has overcome Satan’s domain and triumphed over him on our behalf:
“He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” (Colossians 2:15).
The Power of Christ Alone
Jesus is the Name that will cause every knee to bow, in heaven, on earth, and under the earth (Philippians 2:9-11). He is not inferior to God the Father, and He did not become any less God when He became a man. As Garrit Scott Dawson wrote,
“There is no god behind the back of Jesus. God is nothing other than who he is toward us in Jesus Christ. Jesus ‘is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.’” Hebrews 1:3 (Gerrit Scott Dawson, https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/jesus-only-jesus)
Whoever has seen Jesus has seen the Father (Jn. 14:9). The great controversy’s Jesus is a lesser god. He gave up his divine attributes; he could have failed, and he could have sinned. That Jesus is not the God who saves; rather he the way-shower who gave us an example to imitate and thus to vindicate God’s reputation. The great controversy doctrine contains a powerful Satan and a weak, insufficient Jesus.
That takes us to the heart of the matter. Do we believe Jesus is truly God and sufficient for all our needs? All that God wants to give to us is found in Christ alone. Before we engage Satan in battle, we better know whose power and authority we’re under! We’re not called to command the demons with our claims of authority. Nor should we try to command the demons with our words, as if we’re Harry Potter using magic spells. We won’t impress them with our clever tricks. Our enemies only fear Christ’s power and authority, and they fear Him greatly!
That is why faith is so powerful, for only the weak, empty hand grasps Christ’s all-sufficient power. When Jesus is fully God-with-us and sufficient for all our needs, only then can we stand against Satan. So, let’s look at this great passage describing our warfare with evil:
“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” (Ephesians 6:12).
Cleary, evil spiritual powers are very real, they wish to destroy us, and we are called to battle them. We take them seriously, but with Jesus for us, we don’t fear them. The Bible doesn’t tell us much about Satan and his demons, for good reasons. Our fleshly nature wants to know all about evil and focus on it’s morbid details. Wanting to know good and evil was the original temptation (Gen. 3:4-7). Instead, we are to be like children:
“For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil” (Rom. 16:19).
Now, having considered who has the authority and power (Christ alone!), we can prepare for battle. Before we can put on the armor of God, we must: “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might” (Eph. 6:10). Only His strength and might, His Holy Spirit power, can prepare us for this battle. James tells us,
“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:6-7).
The humble believer knows where his strength comes from, and is given all the grace needed to resist the powerful, cosmic, evil beings that oppose us. Then we can put on God’s armor. Let’s look at each piece of armor:
- Belt of truth: The belt holds our armor together. We must know the truth and hold tightly to it. The devil tries to create confusion about what is real, and will do his utmost to lure us into false realities, such as a great controversy worldview. He will also attack our relationships, attack our pride, our sense of fairness, and tempt us to accept falsehoods about each other. Our truth must be anchored in Jesus as fully God, whose sacrifice was fully sufficient for all our needs. Christ and Him crucified is our central truth.
- Breastplate of righteousness: We can’t forget that Christ is our righteousness (Philippians 3:9), and this protects us from many attacks.
- Shoes of the gospel: We wear the gospel of peace like footwear, covering rugged ground, while bringing peace. We bring good news for a world ravaged by war (Is. 52:7)!
- Shield of faith: The devil throws fiery darts of deception, insinuations, and slander at us. Faith in God’s promises will snuff them out, not retaliation with darts of our own. Satan will try to make us afraid, and we can resist with God’s word. We give authority to whomever we fear. We fear Him alone.
- Helmet of salvation: We protect our heads, minds, with knowing salvation by Christ alone, faith alone, for the glory of God alone. False gospels lead to soft, confused, vulnerable heads.
- Sword of the Spirit: Our only offensive weapon is God’s word, wielded against our enemy. Only spiritual weapons will defeat spiritual enemies. It has power to destroy spiritual strongholds that arise against God (2 Cor. 10:4-5). Don’t underestimate its power!
- Pray at all times in the Spirit: We pray to our Father in Heaven, as Jesus taught us, and no one else. The Bible never tells us to speak to Satan in our prayers. We can rebuke him in Jesus name, but we must keep our focus on God. He defeats Satan, not us.
When we have done these things, we can stand firm in the evil day. Friend, if you belong to Jesus, He is all we will ever need from God, and He is fully God. Having defeated Satan once and for all, there is no controversy about His authority anywhere in God’s whole universe. Down here on earth, we rejoice in the reality that Jesus is our Lord, our Friend, our Everything, and He has defeated our enemies. We can sing with total confidence,
In Christ alone my hope is found; He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground, Firm through the fiercest drought and storm (Getty and Townend).
*To understand the Adventist great controversy doctrine, see Colleen Tinker’s article, “The Great Controversy: Living in a Worldview of Deception,” (https://www.lifeassuranceministries.org/proclamation/2011/2/greatcontroversy.html).
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