The Work of Demons
We must not overlook the presence of demonic activity in our scientific age.
When I was baptized in the Lutheran church, the minister asked my parents, “Do you renounce all the forces of evil, the devil, and all his empty promises?”
The devil and demonic activity are significant realities of life in this world, so it is not inappropriate that the Lutheran baptismal rite (and others) include an explicit rejection of the devil. But do we rightly understand the work of demons in this world?
In my experience we tend to give the devil either too much credit or too little attention.
When we yield to temptation, it’s far too easy to proffer a slightly more refined version of the child’s excuse (“the devil made me do it!”). Do you ever find yourself responding to sinful choices by asserting, “I’m under severe demonic attack!” when the reality is you simply haven’t been partaking deeply in the means of grace for some time? Or perhaps I am the only one who has experienced that?
We know Satan and his interns (i.e. demons) don’t often have to work very hard to get us to yield to temptation:
But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. (Jas. 1:14–15)
More likely, it wasn’t the devil who made you do anything; it was your own wicked desire. It’s not as though any of us are like Eve or Adam with wholly pure desires.
I. Three Goals of Demonic Activity
I do not at all mean to suggest the devil is not active in the world now that sin has entered into our race and corrupted our desires. The Belgic Confession (Article 12) summarizes ongoing demonic activity in this way:
The devils and evil spirits are so corrupt that they are enemies of God and of everything good. They lie in wait for the church and every member of it like thieves, with all their power, to destroy and spoil everything by their deceptions.
I will not be giving a thorough treatise on the origin and activity of Satan and his minions in this world. Nonetheless, as I see it there are three primary categories of satanic activity in Scripture.
A. Discredit the Church
The Scripture gives numerous instances in which Satan (whose name simply means adversary or accuser) brings charges against the Church of the Living God. For example Satan insists Job loves His Creator for mercenary reasons:
Then Satan answered the LORD and said, “Does Job fear God for no reason? Have you not put a hedge around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will curse you to your face.” (Job 1:9–11)
Much later Satan returns to accuse the Church - represented by the High Priest in filthy garments - but God refuses to allow Satan even to make his accusations:
And the LORD said to Satan, “The LORD rebuke you, O Satan! The LORD who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?” Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments. And the angel said to those who were standing before him, “Remove the filthy garments from him.” And to him he said, “Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.” (Zechariah 3:2–4)
In that instance, Satan had many scandalous and glaring charges to bring against the Church; he wouldn’t even have to make anything up. But God refuses even to give Satan a hearing.
It’s not that God doesn’t want to hear how bad His people are (the prophets brought ample indictments throughout the history of the Kingdom of God), but rather God will not tolerate anyone to speak ill of His bride:
If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? (Romans 8:31–35)
B. Destroy the Church
Time and again the agents of the devil attempt to wipe out God’s people in order to scuttle God’s promise: Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, Pharaoh and Israel, Herod and Jesus.
At one point in the history of the Church, the line of promise seemed to rest entirely upon one little baby hidden in a linen closet as the wicked scion of Jezebel and Ahab, Queen Athaliah, conspired to murder all the line of David (cf. 2 Kings 11).
The Apocalypse to John shows this reality on a cosmic scale:
And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days. (Rev. 12:1–6)
God defends His Church not only from the accusations of the devil, but from Satan’s futile attempts to destroy her.
C. Deprive God of His Glory
Satan and his fallen angels (i.e. demons) rebelled against God before the history recorded for us in Genesis 1-3. Satan knows he cannot win and he has already been defeated; he is presently chained and unable to deceive the nations on the scale he was able to do so prior to the ascension of Christ (cf. Rev. 20). Yet He craves the worship God alone is due, which is his primary motivation.
Particularly during the days of the Apostles, demonic activity seemed especially focused on robbing God of the glory due His Name. For example, Satan sought to entice Jesus to worship him in exchange for all the glory of the kingdoms of the world (cf. Matt 4:7ff).
The demons try to rob Christ of his glory by revealing His Name, titles, and dignity on their own terms rather than in truth, but Christ silences them so they cannot lead the people astray with misconceptions:
And in the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, “Ha! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent and come out of him!” And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm. (Luke 4:33–35)
Another way the demons attempt to deprive God of His glory is by disabling and disfiguring those made in His image:
A man came up to him and, kneeling before him, said, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he has seizures and he suffers terribly. For often he falls into the fire, and often into the water. And I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him.” … And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly. (Matt. 17:14–18; cf. 9:32ff, 15:22ff, etc.)
The Scriptures record numerous instances of demonic oppression; in each case it seems the goal of the demon(s) is to distort the manifestation of the imago Dei within the person by depriving the person of his or her faculties.
Jesus came to overthrow and break the devil’s power over the oppressed so the glory of God may be more beautifully revealed in mankind and so that the nations may be glad and come to worship their creator in Spirit and Truth. It is especially in this area, I believe, that the devil works in our time: to rob God of His glory in His creatures and His worship from mankind.
II. Two Manifestations of Demonic Activity
The Devil’s tactics are both finite and known to us: “So that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.” (2 Cor. 2:11)
Satan hates humanity because he hates God and mankind is the Image of God. Even in our fallen state, humanity reminds Satan - and the rest of the Cosmos - of God’s reign and so humanity confronts Satan of his certain defeat.
Satan may work from time to time with and/or empower individual humans where it furthers his ends, but even this is for the purpose of robbing God of His worship and abusing those made in God’s image (e.g. see the occult and consider the suffering that ordinarily attends its practitioners).
I believe we continue to see the devil at work in our society. I do not think he is working to incite every sin a Christian or pagan commits (as I note above, we often don’t need his instigation), but I do believe there are two areas in which demonic activity is particularly pronounced to prevent God from receiving the worship and glory that are rightfully His.
A. Abortion
Abortion is not about women’s health; If it were about women’s health, we would see abortionists willing to be arrested and jailed for the sake of their patients’ health. But instead, we see them cancelling these “elective procedures” and hitting the golf courses while the courts sort this out.
In the abortion movement we see the devil’s work especially clearly. Since 1973, sixty million people (in this country alone) who might otherwise have worshiped the true and living God and given Him thanks and praise for giving them life were murdered before they could take their first gasps of air.
I have been saddened that prominent Christian leaders - even some in the PCA - have written or preached to restrain the rejoicing and thanksgiving of so many Christians at the overthrow of Roe v. Wade.
Abortion on demand is one of the clearest, most brazen expressions of demonic activity I can imagine because it snuffs out the lives of those made in God’s image before they can even be born.
In olden times, the priests of Moloch offered infants in sacrifice; the Scriptures refer to these false gods as demons. The Abortionists of our time have improved the efficiency and effectiveness of the ancient practice, but they serve the same devil.
B. Transgenderism
Thanks to ubiquitous attention and encouragement by the media, the portion of young people identifying as “LGBTQ+” has skyrocketed recently (16% among Generation Z in 2020). As the number of LGBT-identifying people has increased exponentially, so too has awareness of various new dysfunctions and disorders. The most destructive among them is called “transgenderism” now.
What was once little more than dress up has degenerated to the point where men may be surgically mutilated to appear as women and women as men. And here is where we see the demonic activity so evident.
Not only does this rob God of the reproductive fruitfulness of the victims of “gender re-assignment surgery,” but it mars and corrupts the image of God at the core of what God made man: “in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Gen. 2:27; emphasis added).
Transgenderism is a frontal (dare I say, top and bottom?) attempt to assault the dignity of humanity as male and female and thus aimed at obscuring God’s glory. But it cannot succeed.
III. Certain Restoration in Christ
The devil continues his feeble attempts to discredit the church, destroy the church, and deprive God of His worship and glory. But he cannot. Even among those who have yielded to the devil’s lies and done unspeakable acts in their own bodies, God’s grace in Christ brings such people to know His mercy and his love.
The gospel assures even those long-held in bondage to the devil that there is not only pardon, but freedom in Christ for those who turn to Him with the empty hands of faith. As the apostle wrote:
In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. (Eph. 6:16)
And we know that all who take up the “shield of faith” can likewise be assured: “the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Romans 16:20).
And that is where God’s glory is most clearly seen: in the gospel, where sinners are forgiven, given new life, and one day will be raised gloriously with perfectly restored bodies as eternal monuments to God’s grace:
And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him. (Colossians 1:21–22)
Extremely well said, well thought out both spiritually and logically. I'm looking forward to following you.
Excellent article.