Thesis 22/36: The Spirit World

DOCTRINES OF ESCHATOLOGY
Doctrine 22 / 36: The Spirit World

It is easy today for Christians to mistake what they can see, as being the "real world," while 2 Corinthians 4:18 says that what can be seen is only temporal, but the eternal is invisible. The Christian life is a war, fought against spiritual forces, principalities and powers, which are led by Satan (Ephesians 6:11-12). The warfare is not carnal, but spiritual, and must be recognized as such before it can be fought properly (2 Corinthians 10:3-4).

The Bible speaks of angels all the way back in the book of Genesis. Two angels went to Sodom, to pull Lot out of it before they destroyed it (Genesis 19:1, 12-13). They are described as "men" (Genesis 19:12), and throughout the Bible it can be seen that angels can often take the form of ordinary men. So much so, that in Hebrews, Christians are admonished to be hospitable to all men because they may be entertaining angels without knowing it (Hebrews 13:2). Contrary to modern folklore, in the Bible, angels are never described as having wings nor being female. They are incredibly powerful beings. They destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. One angel is said to have slain 185,000 Assyrians in one night (2 Kings 19:35). An angel smote king Herod so that he died in an instant because he did not give God glory (Acts 12:23). Nowhere does it ever plainly state when angels and other spiritual beings were created, but we do know that they were around when God laid the foundations of the earth, as the angels were there singing at the time (Job 38:4-7).

Angels were created for God's purposes, along with other spiritual beings. However, Isaiah 14 tells the story of one such being that puffed himself up and desired more for himself than God had designed for him. His name is Lucifer (Isaiah 14:12-15). This fall of Satan (Luke 10:18), must have happened before Genesis 3, as he then shows up in the Garden of Eden tempting Eve (Genesis 3:1-6; Ezekiel 28:13). It appears that when Satan fell, he took some of God's angels with him, possibly one third of them (Revelation 12:4). These fallen angels now help Satan with his purposes of lying, murdering, and stealing (John 8:44). Satan still desires the worship that he wanted in Isaiah 14, and he is walking around the earth today seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8).

Satan's fallen angels first show up in Genesis 6, where "the sons of God" came upon the daughters of men and produced giant offspring. This intermixing was one of the reasons that God determined to destroy the world with a flood. These fallen angels show up again in strong force during the Gospels. During the life of Christ and of His apostles, they are found often possessing the bodies of men and women (Matthew 4:24; 8:16; 9:32; 12:22; Acts 8:7; 16:16). They are able to give supernatural strength, they cause men to hurt themselves, and be naked (Mark 5:3-4, 15). However, they are always subject to Jesus' word (Mark 5:8). Also, as Satan himself pretends to be a good thing, "an angel of light," even so do his ministers make a show of being something good to deceive people (2 Corinthians 11:14-15).

Satan himself is not somebody that a Christian ought to take lightly. The Bible describes him as a roaring lion (1 Peter 5:8). He is not someone to make jokes against or to rail on, "Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst no bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee" (Jude 1:9). An angel is able to kill 185,000 men in a night, and Michael is a chief of the angels, an archangel. Yet, Michael himself did not even dare to rail on Satan when disputing over Moses' body, but rather turned it over to the Lord. How foolish are people when they assume that they can rail on evil powers, or to make fun or light of them. Foolish songs such as, "And if the Devil doesn't like it he can sit on a tack," should have no place in the church. The sons of Sceva in Acts 19:13-17 could help teach this lesson. Seven of them came in to exorcise an evil spirit, yet they were overcome and ended up departing "naked and wounded." The spiritual warfare is not a game.

While certain care must be taken in dealing with Satan and spiritual forces, knowing that there is a great war going on between Christians and the Devil, it is necessary to realize that this war is not a war between God and Satan. Dualism teaches that there is an eternal battle between good and evil, between God and Satan, and only time will tell which force will end up being stronger. The fact of the matter is that God created Satan and at times uses him as His tool. There is no contest for God to deal with Satan; simply at His word, the battle would be over. And in fact, His word has already been pronounced in Revelation 20. Satan will be bound for 1,000 years, and then after that will be "cast into the lake of fire... and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever" (Revelation 20:10). God is sovereign over all of His creations, including the spiritual ones. The Christian must look to Him and His power to win the war. Stand in His might (Ephesians 6:10).

"Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world."