A friend of mine belongs to a Christian off-shoot group who are perhaps most famous for not believing in the Trinity or in the divinity of Jesus. But there are other differences. They don’t believe in hell, for instance, and they don’t believe that there is a personification of evil, or Satan. Now, I’m not wanting to scrutinise these beliefs here in much detail, but there was something I heard the other day about his church’s belief regarding Satan that got me thinking.
My understanding is that my friend would say there is not a single devil, rather that the devil is inside. This is a curious concept. There are ways in which I can understand what he means. I have been in churches where people are very ready to blame Satan for things for which they are themselves responsible. The standard “The devil made me do it” defence is an exceptional alibi, and a wonderful way of pretending that it wasn’t the evil impulses in you that made you act that way.
But in terms of there being no objective, external force of evil, and in terms of evil being indwelling, there are some significant issues. Does evil continue to indwell after one becomes a Christian? And what is the source of that evil?
If, in fact, what is happening inside of us is a battle between Satan and God, then that’s a frightening thing to experience and endure – a “Devil and God are raging inside of me” scenario – and, while God is clearly more powerful, it is difficult to know whose side we are on and if we will, therefore, be able to rejoice in God’s victory or be destroyed in the process. Doesn’t it all depend, in such a case, on which side has the more dominant hold upon us?
People who have experienced anxiety, depression or other forms of mental illness will perhaps relate best to the dread that this kind of proposition can hold for believers who still feel ongoing condemnation and spiritual dread – and I imagine there are far more people in churches today fitting into that category than we might be aware. One of the greatest and most comforting preachers for people with bruised spirits was Charles Spurgeon, and 152 years ago yesterday he preached on this very topic:
I remember a certain narrow and crooked lane in a certain country town, along which I was walking one day while I was seeking the Saviour. On a sudden the most fearful oaths that any of you can conceive rushed through my heart. I put my hand to my mouth to prevent the utterance. I had not, that I know of, ever heard those words; and I am certain that I had never used in my life from my youth up so much as one of them, for I had never been profane. But these things sorely beset me; for half an hour together the most fearful imprecations would dash through my brain. Oh, how I groaned and cried before God! That temptation passed away; but before many days it was renewed again; and when I was in prayer, or when I was reading the Bible, these blasphemous thoughts would pour in upon me more than at any other time.
It was only when Spurgeon had the courage to speak to a wise believer about this problem that he received this encouragement: if he hated those thoughts, and did everything he could to fight them, then he could be confident that they were not his, and he could have the courage to keep fighting them, and to send them to where they belonged.
Evil is within all people, and it is certainly true that our lives as Christians will be an ongoing process of defeating that evil. But for the Christian evil no longer has a hold on us; Christ does. This is something I need to remind myself of, and I hope and pray that others who have these same fears can know the same encouragement that John gave 1900 years ago:
He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. (1 John 4:4b)
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