the real satan by james kallas ~1975~

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JAMES lA' LAS


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FromBiblical Times

to thePresent

JAMES KALLAS

AUGSBURG PUBLISHING HOUSEMinneapolis, Minnesota


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TH E REAL SATAN

Copyright 1975 Augsburg Publishing HouseLibrary of Congress Catalog Card No. 74-14184

International Standard Book No. 0-8066-1466-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permissionexcept in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articlesand reviews. For information address Augsburg Publishing House,426 South Fifth Street, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55415.

Scripture quotations unless otherwise noted are from the CommonBible, copyright 1973 by the Division of Christian Education of theNational Council of Churches of Christ in the United States ofAmerica.

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF A1>1ERICA

Contents

Introduction: Giving the Devil His Du e .................... 9

I. Satan in the Old Testament .................................. .The Heavenly CouncilTranscendence and ImmanenceAngelsSatan the Servant

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II. Satan in the Intertestamental Period ............... . 2 7Alexander the Grea tAntiochus Epiphanes-PersecutionPharisees an d SadduceesThe EssenesThe Principle of RetributionSatan-From Servant to EnemyThe Will of God

Seeds of Despair

III. Satan in the New Testament ............. . ............. 49The Baptism of JohnThe Power of SatanNew Testament Demonology

IV. Jesus in Conflict with Satan.

Jesus' Self-understandingThe Miracles of JesusThe Lord's PrayerThe Mission of the Disciples

V. The One Who Conquers Death.The Turning Point at Caesarea PhilippiTo Jerusalem-and Victorious Death

Emmaus-and Understanding

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Conclusion: Proclaiming God's Victory ....................... 107

EX LIBRIS ELTROPICAL


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D e d ic a t e d t o J a c q u e a n d J im . .. K in g s le y a n d P a r is . ..


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INTRODUCTION

Giving the Devil His Due

What a difference a decade makes! Ten years ago,fifteen years ago Satan was pronounced dead, andevery theologian of any international stature wasrushing forward, volunteering to be a pallbearer at

the funeral. Rudolf Bultmann read the epitaph atthe graveside. Solemnly he sermonized, assuring usthat the death of the devil was long overdue, for heha d lingered too long, an d no one any longer believed in him.

Bultmann wrote:

Now that the forces an d the laws of naturehave been discovered, we can no longer believein spirits, whether good or evil.

Sickness and the cure of disease are likewiseattributable to natural causation; they are not theresult of daemonic activity or of evil spells.

I t is impossible to use electric light an d thewireless and to avail ourselves of modem medicaland surgical discoveries, an d at the same time to

believe in the New Testament world of spirits andmiracles. (Kerygma and Myth, New York, Harper,1961, pp. 4-5)

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I

Satan in the

Old Testament

The place to begin in discussing the biblical doc-trine of Satan is with the first place he is mentioned,the Old Testament.

I f one would understand the role of Satan in theOld Testament, there are two words to engrain inthe memory. Those two words are (1 ) Satan in theOld Testament is insignificant; and (2 ) Satan in theOld Testament is a servant of God, no t an enemybu t a servant.

Let's take the two words one at a time. First, in-significant. How many times is Satan explicitly men-tioned by name in the Old Testament? And whereare those places? Can you correctly answer thosequestions? Very few can! Most people answer, "Heis mentioned in Genesis, in the temptation of Adamand Eve, the fall into sin." Wrong! Satan is no t men-tioned there! Check your Bible carefully and you willsee that i t is the serpent, not Satan, who tempts

Adam and Eve and leads them into sin. Satan is notpresent! I t is only later theology that identifies Satanwith the tempting serpent (w e will return to that

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26 THE R E A L S ATA N

Where is the change? The Old Testament presentsSatan as an insignificant enemy. Th e New Testament

saysthat

heis

the very embodiment of evil enmitytowards God. Obviously, the change came betweenthe Old and the New Testament an d to that periodwe now turn.

Satan in the

Intertestamental Period

II

The story of Satan in the Intertestamental perioddoes not begin with Satan and i t does not begin inthe Intertestamental period. The roots are deeper,older than that. I t all began about four centuries be-fore Jesus was born. I t began when a rugged youngGreek warrior strapped on the sword, and at th e agewhen most men are learning how to shave, con-quered the world. His armies rolled out of northernGreece, rolled across the Hellespont from Europeinto Asia, smashed the Persian Heet at Issus in 333B.C., an d

swung the pendulum of power from east towest where it remained for th e next 2000 years. Th ebattles this young warrior won were of such heroicstature that the world ever since has superfluouslyadded "the Great" to his name, Alexander.

Alexander th e Great

The strength of Alexander wasthat

he was a mag-nificent soldier. His men revered him like one of th egods. Convinced that he was indestructible they took

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48 T H E R E A L SATAN

and plague are joined by the betrayers of publictrust. There is a frightening parallel between thecollapse of our confidence and the shattered convictions of the Jew. They then saw the reality of Satanfor the first time. And that is true of us as well.

For the first time in American history the doctrineof Satan has moved to the fore. We, like the Jewsof old, are overwhelmed by the shocking realizationthat there are inexplicable forces of evil active in ourcosmos. We have seen the explosion in our time of a

belief in the demonic. Thereis

despair afoot, and indeed, despair is the only possible e v e n t u ~ l i t yif onestops at that point. I f one merely recogmzes the reality of evil and then says no more, all that there canbe is despair. That is the condemnation of modemtalk about the devil-it stops right there.

But the Jew did not stop on a note of despair. Thebiblical doctrine of Satan does not stop by insisting

that suffering is real and Satan is an enemy of God.That is but the beginning of the doctrine of Satan,no t the conclusion. The conclusion to the doctrineof Satan is found not in the Intertestamental period,but in the New Testament. To that we now tum.

I I I

Satan in the

New Testament

The New Testament picks up where apocalypticthought, where Essene thought, leaves off. The NewTestament accepts the awesome reality of the deviland emphasizes his pervasive power. This is seenin the very circumstances of the beginning of Jesus'ministry. He is baptized by John the Baptist, probably an Essene. John is baptizing less than two milesfrom Khirbit Qumran, the home base of the Essenes. Everything we know about John identifieshim with that group. They wore practically no clothing as a sign of self-abasement. John wore a camelskin loincloth. They ate almost no food, disdainingthe body because i t was exposed to the influence ofthe evil one. John ate locusts. Essenes were celibate,giving up sex and marriage in order no t to bringmore children into a world ruled by the evil one.John was alone in the wilds of Judea. They wereconvinced, however, that God would triumph andrestore his rule over a cosmos captured by the evilone. They affirmed that the angels of God, the sonsof light, would triumph over the forces of Satan,

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IV

Jesus in

Conflict with Satan

We have, in this discussion, introduced withoutemphasizing it, another motif which must be ex-plored-and that is the growth of Jesus. Fo r thoseof us who take the incarnation seriously and 'believethat Jesus was true man, we must believe preciselythat-that Jesus became true man! One must take apassage such as Luke 2:52 literally and seriously.Luke insists that as Jesus grew up, he "increased inwisdom and in stature." That is, just as his bodyexpanded and grew, so also his comprehension, hismind, matured and expanded and grew.

Jesus' Self-understandingWe have already insisted that the virgin birth

stories and the story of the twelve-year old Jesus inthe temple must be taken seriously. From the outset,he saw himself as the one sent by God, the divineredeemer. But while he saw his overall destiny inadvance, he did not see the details of that destinyclearly at the outset. He grew in wisdom and in

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92 T H E R E A L S ATA N

ful. A gritty subsoil under the satanic empire haskept it from toppling. The efforts of the disciples

were not enough. The kingdom of God did not come.

v

The One

Who Conquers Death

Jesus must withdraw to think through the issuesanew. And withdraw he does. In Matthew 11: lIf., inthose verses we have already examined, he speaks

about the counterattack of Satan, the resistance ofthe violent ones subjecting the coming of the kingdom to violence. And then he withdraws, in isolationwith his disciples, to the remote areas of CaesareaPhilippi.

The Turning Point at Caesarea Philippi

At Caesarea Philippi Jesus comes to recognize thatno efforts of the disciples will be sufficient to topplethe satanic empire. No broadside attempts by themwill cause Satan to crumble. He, Jesus, is the onewho must do itl He is the one who must grapplewith the most powerful weapon of Satan-death. AtCaesarea Philippi, for the very first time, after theabortive attempt of the disciples to bring in thekingdom in Matthew 10, Jesus speaks of death forhimself. From that time [Caesarea Philippi, never

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106 THE REAL SATAN

.. . Who shall separate us from the love of God?Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ... No, in allthese things we are more than conquerors throughhim who loved us. For I am sure that neither death... nor anything else in all of creation will be ableto separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesusour Lord" (Rom. 8:31-39).

Satan is strong. But Christ is stronger. That is whythe message of Jesus can be summarized in the words

he spoke so often, "Fear not!"

CONCLUSION

Proclaiming God's Victory

We have tried to show two things. First, that theNew Testament believes in Satan. I t takes the powers

of the demonic seriously. Indeed, the entire fabric ofthe ministry and message of Jesus fails to makesense unless we too take Satan seriously. He is amalignant foe of great dimension. The entire ministryof Jesus unfolds against the backdrop of conHict withthe evil one. And that power of Satan continues today. The resurrection was not the end of the reignof the evil one, bu t rather the turning point i n thatwar. He will not be fully destroyed until the returnof Jesus. The New Testament takes seriously th ereality of Satan equipped with great power.

Second, we have tried to show that the New Testament is positive, optimistic, throbbing with a senseof triumph. While Satan is strong, Christ is stronger.That is the vibrant center of Christian thought.

And precisely at that point much contemporaryreligious thought, with its heavy concentration onSatan, ceases to be biblical. Contemporary thought

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the real satan by james kallas ~1975~

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