Thoughts on faith, life, and art.
5. A harmful spirit from who?
There was a sentence that stood out to me in the story where Saul allowed the sun to go down on his anger. It was the passage that said, “The next day a harmful spirit from God rushed upon Saul. . .” (1 Samuel 18:10) You probably had the same reaction as me. A harmful spirit from God? Did I read that right? Was this typo? Actually, it isn’t. When you think about it in the context of God’s sovereignty, the harmful spirit being “from God” is the only thing that makes sense. God is supreme in power and authority. He is all-knowing, all-powerful, and in all places at once. Nothing can happen in all of creation apart from his will and permission. That includes the actions of Satan and other harmful spirits. One of the old reformers says it this way:
[Satan’s] authority is not absolute or unlimited. He cannot do what he pleases, and therefore [we] find him begging leave of God for the exerting of his power in particular cases. . . he could not [even] enter into the swine of the Gadarenes till he had Christ’s commission for it. [1] - Richard Gilpin, Daemonologia Sacra
Harmful spirits can not act without God’s permission, and one of the ways God gives that permission is through the laws he has instituted, such as, “letting the sun go down on your anger” (Ephesians 4:26). But actually, it goes even further than simple allowances via spiritual laws—Gilpin used the word “commission,” because commissioning is another whole layer to this thing. There is a fascinating account given in 1 Kings 22, where we catch a small glimpse of the inner workings of God’s throne room. We see in this passage, the entire commissioning process as God determines which harmful spirit will punish the wicked King Ahab and how.
“I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left; and the LORD said, ‘Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and [die in battle] at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one said one thing, and another said another. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the LORD, saying, ‘I will entice him.’ And the LORD said to him, ‘By what means?’ And he said, ‘I will go out, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And [the LORD] said, ‘You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do so’” (1 Kings 22:19-22).
This is very reminiscent of the scene in Job, where “the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them” (Job 1:6). In the story of Job, a similar back-and-forth takes place where God asks a question, and this time instead of different spirits answering in turn, the conversation is between God, and one spirit in particular—Satan. God asks Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job,” and Satan gives his answer. The exchange ends with God basically giving Satan the commission to do whatever he wants to Job, as long as he doesn’t kill him.
It is important to note that in both of these instances (Ahab and Job), there are no clear instances of either one of them “giving ground” through a specific sin. And sure, while Ahab was a wicked king, being punished for a specific sin wasn’t the point of the story. In his case, we see that while God had allowed his wicked reign up to a point, he had also determined his end down to the final details. Job, on the other hand, was a virtuous man, who God even held up as an example of being upright and blameless. His situation was not a commissioning given through ground, but rather one given because God was up to something greater than Job (or his friends) could understand at the time.
This highlights the importance of not judging a person’s circumstances, and assuming that their woes or hardships are due to some hidden or unconfessed sin. The disciples of Jesus made this exact same mistake when they encountered a man who had been blind since birth. They said, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him” (John 9:1-3). Again, God was up to something bigger than the blind man or even Jesus’ own disciples could understand at that moment.
To me, that’s what’s so interesting about all of this. It would appear that even though there are spiritual laws in place to allow people to be opened up for demonization—even within those parameters, Satan and his minions are not able to do as they please. Not only do they have to get permission on who is going to take the ground, but they are also given very clear boundaries and limitations about what they can do with that ground. Pastor and theologian Erwin Lutzer summaries this point perfectly:
“The devil is just as much God’s servant in his rebellion as he was God’s servant in the days of his sweet obedience. Even today, he cannot act without God’s express permission; he can neither tempt, coerce, demonize, nor make so much as a single plan without the consent and approval of God. We can’t quote Luther too often: The devil is God’s devil! . . . Satan is simply not free to wreak havoc on people at will . . . Why is it important that we know this? That God might be rightly honored as King of kings, as God, the ruler of heaven and earth. [2]
So back to the quote from Gilpin. He writes, “[Satan has] a standing commission, [just] as petty kings governors had under the Roman emperor when they were authorized to exercise an authority and power, according to the rules and directions given them.” I believe that this standing commission is what we see in the book of Job, and in 1 Kings where the sons of God come to present themselves to the Lord. These “sons of God,” and “all the host of heaven” are two different ways of saying the same thing. They are the rulers, the authorities, the cosmic powers, and the spiritual forces in the heavenly places that Paul speaks of in Ephesians 6.
“Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” - Ephesians 6:11-12
Gilpin continues, “[Satan] can, when allowed, make excursions and inroads into the kingdom of Christ, so far as to molest, disturb, and annoy [Christ’s] subjects…” The operative words being, “when allowed.” And I believe that allowance is given through the mechanism of “ground.” And he concludes, “And Christ so far permits this as it is useful to his own designs, yet still with [strictly enforced] limitations to Satan, and a resolved rescue [plan] for his own people.” [3] So let us take comfort in this one fact. Though we are at war against an enemy far more powerful than us, that very enemy has been defeated and can not act against us in any way without God’s consent. The fact that the enemy does act against us, and does so with God’s consent, is the topic I will discuss next. It was a sticking point for me, and I really wanted to get to the bottom of how and why. Until then, let us conclude with a quote that perfectly summarizes everything we’ve just talked about:
We ought to accept as a fixed certainty the fact that [Satan] can do nothing unless God wills and assents to it. For we read in the history of Job that he presented himself before God to receive his commands (Job 1:6, 2:1), and did not dare undertake any evil act without first having obtained permission. Thus, also, when Ahab was to be deceived, Satan took upon himself to become a spirit of falsehood in the mouths of all the prophets; and commissioned by God, he carried out his task (1 Kings 22:20-22). For this reason, too, the spirit of the Lord that troubled Saul is called “evil” because the sins of the impious king were punished by it as by a lash (1 Sam 16:14, 18:10). And elsewhere it is written that the plagues were inflicted upon the Egyptians by God “through evil angels” (Ps 78:49). According to these particular examples Paul generally testifies that the blinding of unbelievers is God’s work (2 Thess. 2:11), although he had before called it the activity of Satan (2 Thess. 2:9, 2 Cor. 4:4, Eph 2:2). Therefore Satan is clearly under God’s power, and is so ruled by his bidding as to be compelled to render him service. . . Now, because God bends the unclean spirits hither and thither at will, he so governs their activity that they exercise believers in combat, ambush them, invade their peace, beset them in combat, and also often weary them, rout them, terrify them, and sometimes wound them; yet they never vanquish or crush them.[4] - John Calvin
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Richard Gilpin, Daemonologia Sacra: or, A Treatise of Satan's Temptations, in Three Parts, (James Nisbet and Co., 1867), page 17.
Erwin Lutzer, God’s Devil (Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2015), page 124, 125.
Richard Gilpin, Daemonologia Sacra: or, A Treatise of Satan's Temptations, in Three Parts, (James Nisbet and Co., 1867), page 17-18.
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill (Westminster John Knox Press, 1960), page 175-76.
(posted 05-23-23)