Although we Christians have rightly rejected naturalism as an acceptable view of ultimate reality and hold faithfully to historic theism, naturalism nonetheless deeply influences our view of the daily events of our lives. This influence helps shape our view of the world of spirit beings, both benevolent and evil. Anthropologist Paul G. Hiebert of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School writes of his own struggles in this area as a missionary to India in an article entitled “The Flaw of the Excluded Middle.” John’s disciples asked, “Are You the Coming One, or do we look for another?” (Luke
7:20). Jesus answered not with logical proofs, but by a demonstration of power in the curing of the sick and casting out of evil spirits.
So much is clear. Yet when we read the passage as a missionary in India, and seek to apply it to missions in our day, we might have a sense of uneasiness. As a Westerner, we are used to presenting Christ on a basis of rational arguments, not by evidences of His power in the lives of people who were sick, possessed and destitute. In particular, the confrontation with spirits that appeared so natural a part of Christ’s ministry belonged, in our mind, to a separate world of the miraculous—far from ordinary everyday experience.
Biblical psychology makes no attempt at precise definitions and distinctions about human nature as does modern psychology. The Bible is not a textbook on psychology just as it is not a textbook on geology, astronomy, or any of the sciences. Where it touches on any of the areas covered by these disciplines, however, the Bible is without error. But since its purposes lie in another direction, the Scriptures should not be used to attempt to create a full-orbed science.
In the New Testament world, sickness was often looked upon as coming from spirits. While the people were aware that illness was caused by organic malfunctions, accidents, and disease, they also knew that many sicknesses involved evil spirits. Therefore, if they could find a healer or exorcist whose familiar spirits had greater power than the afflicting spirits, they could be healed. In the case of demonization, it was the same. One had to find an exorcist with power over the power of the afflicting spirits. It was just that simple.
Ephesians 2:2 is unique in the
New Testament. The words ton aioμna tou kosmou are literally, “the age
of this world.” Paul says “the age of this world is evil” because it obeys “its
unseen ruler (who is still operating in those who do not respond to the truth
of God)” (PHILLIPS).
I want to know all God wants me to know within the natural limitations we possess as earthly human beings (1 Cor. 13:9–13). Let's keep it simple - to four perspectives - 1. How our world view—understanding of the ultimate nature of reality—affects our view of spiritual warfare. 2. Look at spiritual warfare from a theological perspective by examining the progressive development of the spiritual warfare motif in both Old and New Testaments. 3. Approach the subject from an exegetical perspective, studying key passages of Scripture. While the Scriptures leave us without all the information we often feel we need, they say more about spiritual warfare than most of us realize. 4. Examine spiritual warfare from a practical perspective, seeking to discover the implications of our study for human life in general and the Christian life in particular.
The idea of being united with Christ in His death and in His crucifixion is a familiar teaching of Paul (Rom. 6:1f; Gal. 2:20; 5:24; Col. 2:20f; 3:1–4). In Galatians 6:14 the idea is the same, this time with focus on the world. “The world,” Paul is saying, “strives to bring us into bondage to its declared values and philosophies be they secular or religious. We reject both. We are released from the world’s point of view through our identification with Christ in His crucifixion. He died in our behalf unto the world’s ways and we have been united with God in His ways. The world, in turn, no longer has any claims upon us. It is dead to us, crucified unto us.”
Missionaries believed that demons were automatically kept in check by Christ’s defeat of Satan on the Cross and by His resurrection. Evil supernaturalism, while recognized, was seldom openly challenged and defeated through power encounter. In missionary work among animists or spirit worshippers, the first generation of converts was and is often won through power demonstrations on the part of God through His servants. Following conversion, however, no biblically nor culturally relevant theology of the demonic world or power encounter is usually developed for the new converts. Most of the intuitive recognition of and fear of the world of evil spirits, ghosts, and the spirits of the ancestors or of animals held by the host cultures is regarded as “superstition.” It is thus relegated to the unreal and becomes something to be ignored in Christian living and evangelism. National Christians often feel timid in speaking of “the old ways.” They usually do not receive from their spiritual fathers, the missionaries, an adequate biblical and functional theology of the spirit world, power encounter, and spiritual warfare. They are left unprepared for the spiritual warfare into which they are being thrust as Christians.
Identifying Scripture as the written Word of God, the claim is then that God has revealed Himself historically in acts, centrally and supremely in Jesus Christ. It also means that God has revealed Himself personally to persons to redeem them; that God has revealed Himself "content-fully," i.e., that God’s self-disclosure is not fully given in a bare Act of power (e.g., Exodus) nor in dramatic, but conceptually empty, "will-o’-the-wisp" personal encounters, but "content-fully" in ways effectually expressible in and as human language, even written language.
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