Summer in the ancient world was the traditional season for war: the Mediterranean Sea and roads were passable, farms could spare manpower, and clear weather conditions allowed scouts and officers to get better glimpses of enemy positions. Now, with the summer upon us, it seems appropriate to think about warfare on earth and in the heavenly places.
The enemy
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
-Ephesians 6:12
This famous Pauline verse is noteworthy for a number of reasons: it indicates a hierarchy among the powers of darkness; it indicates that they have not been destroyed by the Cross, but await their final judgment; and it shows us that the real battle must be won by spiritual means, not weapons of wood and steel. The enemy is a master of psychology and influence: he gains his victories not by ostentatious displays of miraculous power, but by appealing to human weakness and vanity. Satan’s deception of Eve in the Garden of Eden is recorded as an object lesson for humanity in the perils of temptation and speculation.
The term “Satan” is not found in the Garden story of Genesis 3: the identification of the Serpent with Satan occurred much later and features in the Book of Revelation: “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him” (12:9). A variety of terms are used to describe the enemy, revealing different aspects of his character and methods of war.
As the Dragon, Leviathan, and Rahab, he represents chaos, a force at enmity with God’s cosmic order. The story of creation in Genesis 1-2, written as a polemic against the mythologies of Israel’s neighbours, details how God created the world in an orderly fashion, subduing the chaotic waters, the abode of the sea dragon. The salutary lesson in all of this is that chaos is not to be desired – it fails to satisfy anyone and leaves misery in its wake. In our current Western culture, where cultural Marxism and postmodernism have created so much misery, the chaos-order motif helps Christians to realise the ultimate source of this upset. Looking a priori at our analytic concepts, we should realise that we must return to order, sensing that the return of Jesus, amongst other things, is for the purpose of restoring order to the world.
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
-John 8:44
As the father of lies, Satan knows how to deceive and manipulate us. He can appear “as an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14). He can mix truth with lies so as to make an attitude or course of action seem righteous, when it is in fact a deviation, great or small, from the true path. He is content to play long games: to draw us little by little away from the truth over a long period of time until, one day, the aggregate of those small steps is a great journey.
The remedy
Christ said, “I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man comes to the Father, except through Me” (John 14:6). As followers of Christ, we belong to the Kingdom of Light, and light banishes the darkness, revealing the facts. But we are also free agents: what we choose to expose ourselves to will influence us. Prayer in a spirit of humility, of openness to the Lord’s illumination, as Scoop reminded us recently, is the way to keep the darkness from our hearts and minds. The closer we stand to Christ the Lantern, the more light we shall have.
All Along the Watchtower 
I might be helpful to illustrate in simple form the internal ‘order’ that God gave us and which we struggle to set aright when it begins to get disordered.
Consisting of both body and spirit the proper order of the human being consists in this. In the area of bodily functions our desires and appetites are of the lowest oder. Above this is our reason, and intellect and free will. The body is disordered to self and its own pleasures and survival. In the spiritual realm of man is the soul which is naturally predisposed to God and that which lies above. Among its attributes and function is the influence and ability, through free will, to subjugate the desires of the lower bodily self to the higher spiritual self. So the struggle is always for the soul to seize control of free will and regulate the senses of the body so that they are ordered to our proper end; God.
Therefore, the well-ordered human is in control of his bodily desires and only utilizes or allows its desires to be satisfied if they are in keeping with the higher order of the soul which tends toward obedience to God. We can say then that the body is subject to the soul which is subject to faith and that faith is subject to God.
In the disordered the opposite ordering occurs: Our faith is not centered in God but in pleasure. Our pleasure and soul has surrounded to the lower animalistic desires of the body and the body worships the self rather than God.
This is the work of Satan and this is the struggle of man since the fall. The struggle itself in this life would be senseless unless the sin of Adam could be expunged and forgiveness for our actual sins during this life could be adequately repaid with a satisfactory good: the death of Christ accomplished that for us. So we have the remedy given us and now it is up to us to order ourselves to God so that we have not ourselves as the center of our lives but Christ dwells in our soul which creates the order that we lost during the fall.
Today we see chaos for people have abandoned religion for self and are sadly their desires are ruling their spiritual souls which makes of them devils. For our intended makeup and ordering has been turned on its head.
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*** surrendered not surrounded . . . 7th paragraph, last sentence.
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Nicholas, sorry about stepping your post with one of mine. I forgot that I had one set to fly . . . and should have delayed it.
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No worries, and I’m glad you’re doing more posts these days. Although I did a bulk earlier in the year, I’m in a dry spell inspiration-wise at the moment and I really enjoy your ones.
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Thanks. Sad thing is that I too find it hard to write all that often so it is almost self defeating to step on your toes. 🙂
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I tend to feel that other writers are covering current events better than I could, so no need to bother – e.g. Archbishop Cranmer.
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Sometimes I think that it is nice to simply refer to such articles because what is missing on those well written posts is a debate or conversation about the issues. We do that here although not as many of us as we had in the past.
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Agreed.
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How would your compare your Ephesians interpretation with Romans 13:1-7 is there a compatibility? Are were merely to consent to principalities? What about when they become clever enough to manipulate the theological virtues like the Shogunate in Endo’s “Silence?”
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The preaching of the Gospel drives the bad principalities out. Because Christ is superior, where His Kingdom is present, the principalities cannot rule legitimately. The authorities in Romans 13 are human authorities, whereas my focus is on the spiritual powers, the Sons of God and lower ranks of divine beings. When it comes to human authorities, they have no legitimate authority to prevent the preaching of the Gospel, because the preaching of the Gospel is an order from God, and God is raises and lowers kings.
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