Open War is Upon Us
Any military veteran who’s been to war will tell you that war is a terrible thing. They’ll also tell you that in war, you have to take a side. In the enlightened West, many think that neutrality or diplomacy are the only legitimate ways to deal with evil and injustice. But some enemies don’t offer that option. When an enemy wants your annihilation and death, not taking a side means choosing death.
This is the kind of spiritual war raging in the unseen realm for the souls of God’s image bearers. Neutrality isn’t an option. In this war, you must choose a side.
The war we find ourselves in is a turf war between Satan and God. After Adam and Eve sinned against God, the Lord launched his plan to renew the world, his new covenant plan to become a man to make sure he succeeded where Israel failed. The Lord’s good rule and blessing would spread across the earth as originally intended. Eden would be restored.
But the gods of the nations would not sit idly by while God’s good plan unfolded. They would resist; they are resisting. The fallen and corrupted divine beings who broke allegiance with the Lord resist the advance of God’s kingdom. Hostile and unseen powers are actively working against God’s good work in the world, in the church, and in your life.
Evil Demands Loyalty to Jesus
Do you believe in supernatural evil that’s opposed to all that’s good in the world? We tend to think that evil is out there in the really bad things and the really bad people of the world. We say, “Yeah, I believe in evil,” but we believe in evil the way we believe in the duck-billed platypus. We know it’s out there somewhere. We’re not sure where, but wherever it is, it’s pretty irrelevant to our life.
There’s a scene in The Lord of the Rings where Gandalf says to Théoden, “You must fight.” Théoden responds, “I will not risk open war.” Then Aragorn says, “Open war is upon you, whether you would risk it or not.” This is our reality. “Open war is upon us” whether we like it or not, and we must choose a side.
In our text today, Luke 11:14-26, we’re going to see one of Jesus’ forays into the fight against evil. Jesus exorcizes a demon but is falsely accused of working for Satan. So he seeks to set the record straight and he says there’s no neutral ground when it comes to following him.
The main point of this text is that, because Jesus’ work is from God, he demands total loyalty. We’ll see God’s work, our choice, and Satan’s suicide.
God’s Work
First, we see God’s work in Jesus’ power over evil (vv. 14-26). Jesus casts out a demon that was hindering a man from speaking and people are amazed (v. 14). But some (Matthew and Mark tell us it was the scribes and Pharisees) start a smear campaign against Jesus, while others are skeptical and want more proof that God is working through Jesus (vv. 15-16).
Jesus’ enemies refuse to admit that his work is from God. They don’t want to change their beliefs. They have proof right in front of them that God is working, but they can’t and won’t see it for what it is.
Other people wanted more proof. They “kept seeking from him a sign” (v. 16). They were on a quest for proof that would never be satisfied. They’d never have enough evidence to make a commitment.
I recently heard an interview with atheist Sam Harris where he said that if some of the laws of physics or science would’ve been written in the Bible, then he’d believe that God actually wrote it. He couldn’t believe God until God gave him more proof that he existed.[1] But, as one writer says, “God does not coerce faith with irresistible proof and does not submit to human demands for verification.”[2]
A Challenge for the Challengers
In verses 17-26, Jesus responds to these challenges with some challenges of his own. It’s a seven-stage response to the defamatory charge that he works through Satan.
First, in verse 17, he says a divided kingdom will fall. Division always leads to destruction. Civil war at any level is counterproductive. If our soldiers in the Middle East started fighting each other, what chance would we have of succeeding? If our nation’s leaders always fight each other and never work toward compromise, how can we expect them to get anything done?
Second, in verse 18, Jesus exposes the illogical nature of their proposal. Why would Satan commission Jesus to wreak havoc on his own kingdom? It should be obvious that Jesus’ exorcisms are God’s assault on Satan’s kingdom, not Satan’s assault on himself.
Third, in verse 19, Jesus says that what the opponents say about Jesus, they must accept for anyone else who does the same thing. If he’s casting demons out by Satan, then so is everyone else.
Fourth, in verse 20, Jesus says that his exorcisms reveal that God’s reign has come upon them. Jesus is saying, “If Satan isn’t behind this work of power, then God is. And since God is the one behind the miracle, then ‘the kingdom of God has come upon you.’”
This is the already/not yet principle. God’s kingdom has already come but not yet in fullness. The victory at D-Day secured the overall victory for the Allied forces in World War 2. The war was essentially won, but there were still many other battles to be fought before World War 2 finally ended.
Because Jesus’ power comes from God and not Satan, God’s kingdom has come. Not in its totality and consummation, but in inauguration.
Fifth, in verses 21-22, Jesus says that a stronger man can overcome even a well-armed man. Satan is the “strong man” and Jesus is the “stronger man.” The exorcism means that Satan is overrun/defeated. His fortifications are inadequate against Jesus’ bombardments.
Sixth, in verse 23, Jesus says those who don’t side with him make matters worse by scattering instead of gathering Israel. More on this verse in a moment.
And seventh, in verses 24-26, Jesus says the nature of evil spirits is to make things worse, not better. If his work is driven by evil, why are people getting better? Demons are always probing for weaknesses and if they find that no security system is in place, it calls in reinforcements and makes things much worse than before. Dark powers do not cooperate with Jesus but do everything they can to neutralize and undo and destroy his good work.
But Jesus, of course, isn’t a pushover. He came to take back what is rightfully Gods. This is what John means when he says, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 Jn. 3:8).
Jesus clearly performed an unusual work and it must be explained. It’s too unusual to be ignored. Someone who used to not speak now speaks! There must be an explanation. If you witness something supernatural, and you’re unwilling to attribute the work to God, then the only other alternative is to attribute the work to Satan. You have to decide: how did this just happen? Is Jesus’ work from Satan or God? Jesus’ work forces us to make a choice about who he is.
Notice also that, even though these people recognize the power of evil, that doesn’t mean they turn to the truth. Why? Because evil deceives. The powers of darkness make good to look like evil and evil to look like good. Evil often lurks in the shadow of things claiming to be good.
Jesus performs an exorcism, is accused of using dark magic to do so, and offers seven reasons why that can’t be the case. He says his work is a result of God’s work.
Our Choice
Since Jesus’ work is God’s work, verse 23 says we have a choice to make. This whole episode about the healing of the mute man was really Jesus testing these people to see where their loyalties would lie. Jesus says plainly, “Whoever is not with me is against me.”
He’s saying that, when it comes to deciding about him, there’s no neutral ground. A war is going on and we must choose sides.
Jesus’s work reveals God’s work and demands our loyalty. But how can we express that loyalty? What are we supposed to do to tell the world whose side we’re on?
I want to mention three things that you may not often think about as ways to express your loyalty to Jesus: baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and church discipline. Let’s take these one at a time.
An Oath of Loyalty
First, baptism is an oath of loyalty to Jesus and a declaration that we’re on the Lord’s side in his fight against evil. I want to look briefly at one of the most debated passages in the New Testament to show you this, 1 Peter 3:14-22.[3]
Peter compares baptism to what happened with Noah and the flood. But what does he mean when he says that Jesus “went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison” after his death (v. 19)?
Peter is thinking about the event in Genesis 6:1-4, where the sons of God slept with the daughters of men, and what a non-canonical book, 1 Enoch, says about what happened to these offending divine beings. Enoch calls them “Watchers” and says they were imprisoned under the earth for what they had done. These are the “spirits in prison” in verse 19, also referred to in 2 Peter 2:4.
In the Enoch story, the Watchers appealed their sentence and asked Enoch to talk to God on their behalf. God rejected their appeal and Enoch had to go tell them the bad news.
This story is on Peter’s mind in 1 Peter 3 and is key to understanding what he says. He sees a theological analogy between the events of Genesis 6 and the events of Jesus’ death and resurrection. As Michael Heiser says, “Just as Jesus was the second Adam for Paul, Jesus is the second Enoch for Peter.”[4] Enoch descended to the realm of the dead to announce the doom of the fallen angels. So also, Jesus descends to the same realm after his death to tell these “spirits in prison” that they were still defeated, despite his crucifixion. To tell them that God’s plan was still right on schedule. To tell them that his crucifixion actually meant the defeat of all evil, which is why verse 22 ends with Jesus risen from the dead and at the right hand of God “with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.”
How does this relate to baptism? The key is verse 21, where Peter says that “baptism….(is) an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” The word for “appeal” can mean “pledge,” and the word for “conscience” doesn’t refer to the inner voice of right and wrong, but to “the disposition of one’s loyalties.”[5] Heiser summarizes:
“Baptism, then, is not what produces salvation. It ‘saves’ in that it reflects a heart decision: a pledge of loyalty to the risen Savior. In effect, baptism in New Testament theology is a loyalty oath, a public avowal of who is on the Lord’s side in the cosmic war between good and evil.”[6]
Baptism is also a reminder to the fallen angels that they’re defeated. It reminds them of their doom as a result of the gospel. The earliest Christians made this connection between baptism and spiritual warfare. When a Christian was baptized in the early church, they’d renounce Satan and his angels.[7] Why? Because baptism was their public declaration of whose side they were on. It was an oath of loyalty. It was a declaration of holy war.
Renewing Our Vow
The second way we reveal our loyalty to Jesus is through the Lord’s Supper. Paul brings this out in 1 Corinthians 10:14-22. Notice that Paul says the pagan gods were demons (vv. 20-21). This is based on Deuteronomy 32:17, “They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods they had never known.” Behind every idol is demonic darkness.
What does this have to do with the Lord’s Supper? Paul is arguing that, though it’s not categorically wrong to eat meat sold in the marketplaces (v. 25), there are times when the Corinthians “provoke the Lord to jealousy” (v. 22) by participating in pagan sacrifices. This phrase from verse 22 comes from Deuteronomy 32:16, the verse right before the one about sacrificing to demons. It says, “They stirred him to jealousy with strange gods; with abominations they provoked him to anger.”
Paul is worried that some of the Corinthian Christians may be participating in demon worship unawares. The meat they bought in the market wasn’t the issue, being involved in the sacrifice of the animal to the idol was. Apparently, some in the church had gone beyond just eating the meat to actually participating in the idol worship (v. 14). Maybe they assumed that since an idol was just wood or stone (cf. 8:4), their participation wouldn’t offend God. So Paul taught them that this wasn’t true, and he used the Lord’s Supper as an analogy (vv. 14-18).
He says participating in the Lord’s Supper meant solidarity with the Lord (v. 16). Therefore, participating in idol sacrifice was participating in demon worship. There was no middle ground. The Lord’s Supper commemorated Jesus’ death (11:23-26) and the covenant relationship that the Lord had with his people.
Therefore, it should be unthinkable for Christians to violate that relationship by participating in sacrifices to other gods. Doing so was siding with the gods of the nations. Followers of Jesus must avoid anything that would compromise their allegiance to him, an allegiance we renew each time we take the Supper together.
Keeping the Holy Ground Holy
Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are things Christians are commanded to do to express their loyalty to the Lord. But when a church member lapses in their loyalty to Jesus, when clear moral or doctrinal boundaries are clearly and repeatedly and unrepentantly crossed, the church must remove them from their membership. We call this church discipline (1 Cor. 5:9-13).
Paul says in verse 5 that the unrepentant church member should be “delivered to Satan.” The goal is “the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.”
Paul often used the word “flesh” to refer to our sinful nature. He isn’t suggesting that someone removed from the church will die immediately, but rather that they’ll live in their sin and be forced to endure the consequences of it.
Why does Paul call this being “delivered to Satan”? The Israelites saw their land as holy ground and the land of the surrounding nations as under the control of demonic gods. Israel was holy ground because it was where the presence of the Lord resided. The opposite was true elsewhere.
But with the coming of Christ, the church became the temple of the Lord, the place where the Lord lived. The Corinthain church was “holy ground” and everything outside the church was demonic ground. Therefore, “To be expelled from the church was to be thrust into the realm of Satan.”[8] Through church discipline, the church works to keep the holy ground holy. Works to keep us honest by making sure our profession of allegiance to the Lord matches our lives.
Through baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and church discipline we declare who’s side we’re on. There can be no neutrality. You’re either on the Lord’s side or you’re on the devil’s side (1 Jn. 3:10). The question Moses asked Israel after the golden calf incident, “Who is on the Lord’s side?” (Ex. 32:26), is the question for each of us today.
Satan’s Suicide
What inspires loyalty to the Lord? The only thing strong enough to move us to the kind of loyalty demanded to follow Jesus through this demon-infested world is the grace of God. And that grace of course comes to us through the death of Jesus.
It’s been said that Jesus’ death on the cross was the suicide of Satan. Satan thought he was winning by Jesus dying but he was duped because it turns out that Jesus’ death was actually Satan’s undoing.
In Colossians 2:13-15, Paul shows us how the cross defeats Satan. This is the gospel in a nutshell. Jesus’s death cancels “the record of debt that stood against us” (v. 14). God has a record of everything we’ve ever done, good and bad. It’s a long record, especially on the bad side, and more than sufficient to condemn us to an eternity in hell.
But amazingly, God takes this record and nails it to the cross. He takes the warrant for our arrest and execution and nails it through his Son’s hands on the cross. He “set it aside” so that its “legal demands” no longer apply to us.
Then verse 15 says that, by doing this, he triumphed over the devil. Verses 14 and 15 seem unconnected. How does the triumph over the devil and his demons in verse 15 relate to the nailing of the warrant for our arrest to the cross in verse 14? How does Jesus’ death on the cross result in triumph over the devil?
The cross is a triumph over Satan, the suicide of Satan, because even though he has many weapons and can do all sorts of things to you, because of the cross, he cannot condemn you. Only one thing can send you to hell, only one thing can keep you from a relationship with the God who created you and loves you, unforgiven sin. And that weapon was taken out of his hand 2,000 years ago. He cannot use unforgiven sin against those who trust in Jesus. Our accuser is conquered by the blood of the Lamb:
“And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, ‘Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death” (Rev. 12:10-11).
The healing of the mute man in Luke 11 means that Satan’s kingdom is under attack, but Jesus’ work on the cross means our accuser is thrown down and, by the blood of Jesus, we stand over him in victory.
“The Stone Table Will Crack”
At the end of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Aslan volunteers himself to die instead of Edmund, who’d betrayed his siblings. Aslan gives himself to the White Witch and her evil minions to be killed by her. He’s bound, humiliated, and placed on a giant stone altar, or table. The White Witch tells him, “You are giving your life and saving no one. So much for love. Tonight deep magic will be appeased and tomorrow we’ll take Narnia for our own.” And then she plunges her blade through Aslan’s heart and says, “The cat is dead!”
Susan and Lucy find his dead body on the stone table and are distraught. But as they walk away, the earth quakes and the table breaks in half. Then Alsan appears to them alive! He tells them:
“If the White Witch knew the true meaning of sacrifice, she might’ve interpreted the deep magic differently, that when a willing victim who has committed no treachery is killed in a traitor’s stead, the stone table will crack and even death itself will turn backwards.”
Aslan’s death was the White Witch’s suicide. He defeated evil by letting evil kill him.
Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, Satan’s greatest weapon has been stripped from him. He can no longer dangle our sin over our heads to taunt and ridicule and shame us. Jesus paid for our sins. He paid all that was owed for all of them.
His gospel and kingdom are now advancing across the world, lighting up the darkness and rescuing people from Satan’s grasp.
If we believe Jesus’ work is from God, then we owe him our allegiance. There’s no neutrality. You’re either for him or against him. Who’s on the Lord’s side?
[1]Sam Harris | #449 – Dogma, Tribe, and Truth
[2]David E. Garland, Luke, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academic, 2011), 482.
[3]This section is a summary of Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015), 335-9.
[4]Ibid., 338, emphasis his.
[5]Ibid.
[6]Ibid.
[7]Ibid., 338-9.
[8]Ibid., 343.