Jesus’ Warfare Teaching in the Synoptic Gospels

Jesus asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” They offered a few of the opinions that were floating around at the time. Then Jesus asked, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter, never known for his shyness, quickly shot back, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:13-16). Jesus was delighted with Peter’s correct response and told Peter that he was “blessed,” for “flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven” (v. 17).

When Peter later (only five verses later) tried to thwart the Father’s kingdom plan to have Jesus crucified and raised, however, Jesus sternly told him that this was of “Satan” (vv. 22-23). Everything that opposes God’s will, in Jesus’ view, derives from “the evil one.” Indeed, in the same way that David identified his enemies with Leviathan or Yamm (see chapter two), Jesus goes so far as to call Peter “Satan,” saying, “You are a stumbling block to me; for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things” (v. 23). But when Peter confessed Jesus as the Son of God, he was operating under the opposite influence. His confession was then inspired by the Father.2

Storming the gates of hell. Jesus then used Peter’s confession of faith to give his disciples an important lesson about the future church. Using Peter’s name as a springboard, Jesus says:

Several points are crucial to note in this important teaching. First, “Hades” was the standard term for the underworld, the realm of darkness and death, in Hellenistic culture. As is generally recognized, in using it here Jesus was probably referring to the whole of the Satanic kingdom.3 Second, the phrase “gates of Hades” is clearly a metaphorical reference to the fortified walls of the Satanic fortress. They are closed to keep opposing forces out. Hence they need to be overcome. Jesus may also be referring to the center of power of the Satanic kingdom with this phrase, inasmuch as the gates of a city in the ancient world were usually where the officials resided and important military decisions were made.

Third, Jesus says that these gates will not be able to “prevail against” the church. This translation of katischyo is preferable to the NIV’s “overcome,” for “gates” are defensive structures that keep an enemy out, not offensive weapons used to “overcome” an enemy. Jesus is here portraying the church as being on the offensive and Satan’s kingdom as being on the defensive. In the “conflict motif between Satan and the kingdom of God,” George Ladd rightly observes, “God is the aggressor; Satan is on the defensive.” Again, “it is the kingdom of God which attacks the kingdom of Satan.”4

Jesus is saying that he is going to build his church on the rock of his divinity—the confession that he is “the Son of the living God”—and the way this church is going to be built will be by bashing down the gates of Satan’s fortress. In other words, the church is to be involved in the very same warfare work that Jesus himself was involved in throughout his ministry. Based squarely on the “rock,” ministering in his authority and his accomplished victory, the church is to storm the fortress of Hades and bash down its gates.

Jesus also gives to all who confess his divine sonship “the keys of the kingdom of heaven” so that whatever they bind and loose on earth will be (or will have been) bound and loosed in heaven.5 While the exact meaning of this phrase is disputed, it is clear that it is an essential part of the kingdom-building activity the church is to be part of.6 Having been given “the keys” to the kingdom, Jesus is saying, whatever the church locks up when it bashes down the gates of Hades will be locked up in heaven, and whatever it unlocks and sets free will be set free in heaven. Understood in the light of Jesus’ overall healing and exorcism ministry, I can only read this as referring to the church’s authority to bind up demonic forces and to set people free. According to Hiers, “In the NT the terms ‘binding’ and ‘loosing’ refer to the binding of Satan or satanic beings (e.g., demons) and the loosing of such beings or their erstwhile victims.”7

This teaching provides a blueprint of what the body of Christ is to be about. It is to be about what Jesus was about: aggressively breaking down Satanic fortresses wherever we find them. In people’s lives, in families, in churches and in society at large, the church is to expand the rule of God on the authority of Christ by binding evil and setting people free. In a word, our charter is to live out a theology of revolt, throwing all we are and all we have into guerrilla warfare against the occupying army, the tyrannizing powers of darkness. When the church opts instead for a theology of resignation and thus attempts to accept as from God what Jesus fought as coming from Satan, the church exists in radical contradiction to its defining vocation.

The Lord’s Prayer. Without question the most famous of all Jesus’ teaching is the prayer he taught to his disciples, usually called “the Lord’s Prayer.”8 As often as this prayer is invoked, however, its eschatological and warfare emphasis is rarely acknowledged. If read in the context of the apocalyptic framework Jesus operated within, however, this dimension of the prayer becomes evident.

Jesus begins this instruction in prayer by telling his disciples to pray for the Father’s name to be “hallowed,” for his kingdom to come, and for his will to be established on earth as it is in heaven (Mt 6:9-10).9 He is, in effect, telling them to pray for the fulfillment of everything his ministry, and their ministry, is about—glorifying the Father by bringing about the rule and will of God on earth. Such a prayer assumes, however, that the will of God is not being carried out in this present world. As John Meier argues, “If . . . Jesus makes a major object of his prayer the petition that God come to rule as king, this naturally means that in some sense, according to Jesus, God is not yet fully ruling as king.”10

This prayer, then, is a prayer for change, and the change involves moving from a world in which the Father’s name is not honored, his will is not done, and his rule not established, into a world in which these things are as they should be. “Out of a world which is enslaved under the rule of evil,” Jeremias writes, “and in which Christ and Antichrist are locked in conflict, Jesus’ disciples, seemingly a prey of evil and death and Satan, lift their eyes to the Father and cry out for the revelation of God’s glory.”11

As Jeremias, Brown, Meier and others have argued, then, this petition is in essence a petition for the arrival of the eschaton, and it has decisive warfare overtones.12 Jesus is telling his disciples to pray that God’s eschatological reign, effected by the final overthrowing of his cosmic foes, the present world rulers, will be accomplished now.

The same eschatological and warfare significance is found in the petition of the Father to “give us this day our daily bread” (Mt 6:11). The passage may be implying that the disciples are to rely utterly upon the Father and to trust him for their daily bread as they work to bring about his eschatological rule (cf. Mk 6:8-9; Mt 10:9-10; Lk 9:3). More likely, however, is the solid case being made by a host of scholars that the word “daily” here (epiousios) should be translated “tomorrow.”13 In this case, the disciples are being told to pray for the “bread of tomorrow,” referring to the banquet feast planned for the eschaton (see Mt 22:2-3: Rev 19:9, 17). It is another way of asking for God’s rule to be established now.14

Two points need to be made concerning the next clause, the teaching that we are to ask the Father: “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Mt 6:12). First, in its original Aramaic, Jeremias argues, this phrase would not be understood as a type of quid pro quo declaration.15 Rather, Jesus is reminding the disciples of their need to forgive in the light of the Father’s forgiveness, especially the forgiveness that will characterize the final judgment (cf. Mt 5:23-24). He is certainly not teaching the disciples to ask God to condition and proportion his forgiveness on theirs.

Second, as already intimated, in its original context the petition for forgiveness is best understood as a “request [which] . . . looks toward the great reckoning which the world is approaching . . . the final judgment.”16 Throughout the Synoptics the fatherhood of God is associated with his willingness to forgive (e.g., Lk 15:11-32; 18:35), and the full manifestation of this fatherhood, and thus of God’s forgiveness, is understood eschatologically.17 Hence as Brown says, “it is by anticipation of his eschatological state that the Christian can confidently beseech God for the final pardon of debts.”18

The eschatological warfare theme comes out in an especially strong way in the final petition of the prayer: “do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.” The word “trial” (peirasmos) speaks not of moral “temptation” (cf. NIV) but of trials and hardships (as in Gal 4:14; Jas 1:12; 1 Pet 1:6; 4:12; 2 Pet 2:9; Rev 3:10). The disciples are not, therefore, asking God not to play the role of “the tempter” (Mt 4:13; 1 Thess 3:5; cf. 1 Cor 7:5), something God could never be suspected of doing (Jas 1:13). They are, rather, asking God to protect them from hardships that accompany their kingdom work as they approach the end of the age.

From whom would they expect such hardships? The closing line of the prayer makes it explicit: “rescue us from the evil one.” Jesus knew that carrying out the Father’s kingdom work would evoke attacks from Satan and his army. Thus he frequently warned his disciples of this, and here taught them to pray for divine deliverance (Lk 22:31; Mt 10:17-31; 26:41; Jn 15:18-20; 16:31-33; cf. 2 Cor 2:10-11; Eph 6:10-17).

It is likely, then, that the final clause of this prayer is requesting divine aid for the coming trials facing the disciples. This view has received a good deal of scholarly support, but it can be given an even sharper eschatological focus. Some New Testament scholars have argued that in ancient Judaism and apocalyptic thought, peirasmos (and related terms) was often used as a technical term in the context of God’s covenant relationship with humans. Against this background, its use in the Lord’s prayer implies “primarily a testing of the partner in the covenant to see whether he is keeping his side of the agreement.”19

Even more significantly, it has now been demonstrated that in apocalyptic thought, Satan (or some parallel figure) had come to be identified as the primary instigator of such “testings.” Further, it has also been shown that the final period before God’s ultimate victory over Satan had generally come to be identified as the ultimate period of testing (or tribulation; see, e.g., Mt 24:4-13; 2 Thess 2).20 What all this means for our understanding of this final clause of the Lord’s Prayer is this: if true, we must here understand Jesus to be teaching his disciples to pray not just for protection from satanically inspired trials and hardships in general, but even more fundamentally for deliverance from the fiery end-time trial, or at least for aid in remaining faithful during its terror.21

It is clear that the whole of the Lord’s Prayer, if read in its original context, is thoroughly eschatological and thoroughly entrenched in a warfare worldview. It is in various ways ushering in with prayer the eschatological rule of God over and against this present age, which is under the rule of Satan.

Oaths from “the evil one.” Throughout the Gospels we find Jesus prescribing a radical countercultural ethical system for those who participate in the kingdom of God. In contrast to all other ethical systems that focus on external behavior, the ethics of the kingdom focuses on the inner disposition of people. For example, Jesus teaches that it is not whether one murders someone that is the crucial ethical issue; in the context of the kingdom, the real issue is whether one has unforgiveness and hostility in one’s heart (Mt 5:21-26). It is not whether one commits adultery or engages in divorce that is the crucial ethical issue in the kingdom; it is whether one harbors such things in one’s heart (Mt 5:27-32). Living under the rule of God means having one’s heart, as well as one’s behavior, unconditionally submitted to the Lord.

For the same reason, Jesus forbids his followers to participate in the cultural convention of making ostentatious oaths as a way of buttressing their promises (Mt 5:33-37). They are not to make pledges on the basis of heaven, God’s throne, the earth, Jerusalem or their head. Nothing external to oneself is to be leveraged as a way of securing one’s words. One’s integrity, Jesus is saying, is to stand on its own. Hence kingdom people are to let their “word be ‘Yes, Yes,’ or ‘No, No.’” Then, most significantly, Jesus adds, “anything more than this comes from the evil one” (v. 37; cf. Mt 6:13; 13:19, 38).22

We here see manifested an important assumption of Jesus that is all the more noteworthy because it comes through in such an incidental manner. His assumption is that any impulse to go outside the parameters of kingdom ethics (viz., to define righteousness externally rather than internally, and to base one’s credibility on external matters rather than internal character) derives ultimately from Satan. He also assumes, obviously, that persons who violate this teaching are morally responsible for what they do. Why else give them this instruction? The New Testament never takes the ascription of responsibility to Satan in any way to qualify the moral responsibility of the person who carried out the act under Satan’s inspiration. By the same token, however, the assumption of a person’s moral responsibility is never taken to imply that Satan could not also, and even more fundamentally, be responsible for a particular evil. As with Adam and Eve in the garden, Jesus and the New Testament authors assume that both Satan and those who are influenced by him are responsible for the evil they freely bring about.

In any event, Jesus sees Satan as ultimately behind the temptation to attempt to buttress up our character with oaths. One is reminded of Paul’s later teaching that doctrinal systems that focus on legislating external behaviors derive from demons (1 Tim 4:1-3). The central point is that for Jesus (and Paul), walking in the kingdom means resisting the temptations of the one who at every turn opposes the kingdom. In other words, practicing kingdom ethics is not so much a matter of simply endorsing high ethical ideals as it is of engaging in spiritual war.

Sowing seeds and collecting weeds. The kingdom of God, Jesus taught, is like a farmer sowing seeds (Mk 4:1-12; Mt 13:1-9; Lk 8:4-10). Some seed falls on the path and is devoured by birds. Some falls on rocky ground and burns up in the sun. Some falls among thorns and is choked. And some falls on good ground and produces a healthy crop, up to a hundred times what has been sown.

The thorns, Jesus then explains, are the cares of this life and “the deceitfulness of wealth” (Mt 13:22 NIV; cf. Mk 4:19; Lk 8:14). The seed on rocky ground represents those who initially receive the good news but have no root. They therefore fall away when persecution comes. Reminiscent of other apocalyptic parables, the birds represent “the evil one” who “comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart” (Mt 13:19; cf. Mk 4:15; Lk 8:12).23 The portrait of Satan here is that of an ever-present predator seeking to undermine kingdom work by devouring whatever fledgling faith he can (1 Pet 5:8).

A similar theme is found in Jesus’ parable about the weeds sown among the wheat (Mt 13:24-30). Here the kingdom of heaven is likened to a man who sows “good seed” in his field. But while he was sleeping “an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat” (v. 25). When his servant asked where the weeds came from, the owner of the field correctly responds, “An enemy has done this” (v. 28). But, so as not to disturb the growing wheat, he decides to postpone pulling the weeds till harvest time. Then the wheat and the weeds will be separated, the wheat being put into the barn, while the weeds are tied up in bundles and burned (v. 30).

Lest there be any ambiguity, Jesus explains to his disciples that the weeds are “the children of the evil one” (v. 38) and the enemy, of course, is the devil (v. 39). The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are, interestingly enough, the angels (v. 40). In close alignment with a number of teachings found in John’s Gospel (as we shall see shortly), Jesus is expressing a limited dualistic worldview in which all that does not come from the hand of God is seen as coming from the hand of Satan, who is at every turn working to thwart the kingdom of God.

In this light, Beasley-Murray’s summary of the parables of Matthew 13 seem quite appropriate.

Violence and the kingdom. The apocalyptic background of Jesus’ ministry helps shed light on several Synoptic teachings of Jesus that have proved notoriously difficult to interpret. For example, while Jesus’ kingdom ethics included an intense pacifism—his followers were to use no violence, not even to defend themselves (Mt 5:38-42; 26:31ff.; Jn 18:10-11)—Jesus elsewhere said: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Mt 10:34; Lk 12:51).

The context of the saying, especially in Matthew, renders its apocalyptic orientation explicit, and helps us reconcile it with Jesus’ otherwise pacifistic orientation. Jesus had just sent out the twelve disciples to preach that “the kingdom of heaven has come near” and to demonstrate the reality of this kingdom by overcoming the “works of the devil” (1 Jn 3:8): to “cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons” (Mt 10:8). But he warned them that not everyone was going to appreciate their proclamation and demonstration of the good news (10:11-15). Indeed, he told them that he was sending them “like sheep into the midst of wolves” (v. 16) and that they must therefore expect all forms of hideous persecution, even from their friends and family (vv. 17-31).

It is in this context that Jesus announces that he has come to bring bloodshed on the earth. It is not that his followers are to practice violence, but that they should expect violence to be done to them. Spreading the kingdom of God invites retaliation from the evil one, who owns all the kingdoms of this world (Lk 4:6; Jn 12:31; 1 Jn 5:19); they should not think that the “powers that be” will remain neutral toward them. If the spiritual powers of this world incite violence against the Master, they will most certainly do so against the Master’s servants (Mt 10:24-25; cf. 1 Cor 2:8). Hence they are always to pray for protection “from the evil one” (Mt 6:13).25

Protection from Satan, however, is not guaranteed. In a significantly democratic cosmos, populated by billions of free human beings and countless free spiritual beings, and ripped asunder by a violent cosmic war, the Creator’s will and any individual human will are not the only variables. Thus Jesus tells his disciples that when they do come under persecution, they are not to fear “those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul”; only God can kill “both soul and body in hell,” and he is on their side (Mt 10:28). Hence if they lose their life, they will find it (10:39). They should rejoice over the fact that their names have been “written in heaven” even more than they rejoice over the fact that “the spirits submit” to them (Lk 10:20-21; cf. 6:23). In this war zone, Jesus is saying, bearers of the good news may in fact die by the sword. But nothing can touch their status as children of the kingdom (cf. Rom 8:35-39).

The violence Jesus was speaking of, then, is the violence that this demonically hostile world will bring against those who spread the kingdom of God. What strengthens this reading even further is that Matthew immediately follows it with an account of John the Baptist questioning Jesus’ messiahship from prison. Living in prison conditions and facing likely execution, Jesus’ forerunner was apparently having second thoughts about Jesus being the promised bringer of the kingdom. He asks, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” (Mt 11:3).

Given the thrust of Jesus’ ministry to demonstrate the kingdom by overcoming the scourges of the enemy, we are hardly surprised when we hear Jesus respond by telling John’s messengers: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them” (Mt 11:4-5). Then Jesus adds the central point he was making in his previous teaching: “Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me” (v. 6). Those who push back the work of the enemy by carrying out Jesus’ ministry must expect violence, and blessed is the one who does not fall because of this (cf. 24:13).

Finally, Jesus gives a bit of teaching on the stature of John the Baptist. This man was no mere prophet, he insists; rather, John was nothing less than the forerunner of the King of Glory himself (Mt 11:10, quoting Mal 3:1). In this sense he was greater than any preceding person of God. Yet, Jesus cryptically adds, “the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he” (Mt 11:11). Then Jesus explains himself: “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force” (Mt 11:12).

A number of issues surround this difficult passage, only a few of which we can presently address. The first is whether the verb biazetai is to be translated in the middle or the passive voice. The middle voice leads to a positive reading of the verse (e.g., “forcefully advancing”), whereas the passive voice has a negative connotation (e.g., “suffered violence”). The issue is grammatically unresolvable, but a slight majority of scholars favor the second reading for a variety of reasons.26

Closely related to this issue is a second one. While the NIV and a number of other translations render the noun biastai as “violent men,” the word means literally “violent ones.” This leaves open the issue of whether Jesus is speaking about people or spiritual forces, or both.

Now, if biazetai is taken in the middle voice, biastai must be taken as a reference to godly people violently advancing the kingdom. If biazetai is taken in the passive voice, however, biastai must be taken as a reference to some ungodly, hostile group of beings, spiritual or human.

While I do not pretend to be able to conclusively resolve this issue, several arguments against the first alternative and several arguments in favor of the second, when combined with the overall portrait of Jesus’ ministry as warfare, convince me, as well as an increasing number of scholars, that Jesus is referring to “Satan and his forces, including or excluding their human manifestations.”27

Against the first interpretation, consider four things. First, construing the “violent ones” in a positive light does not explain why John is less than those after Jesus who spread “the kingdom of heaven.” Yet explaining this is the point of the verse. Second, this interpretation is inconsistent with Jesus’ teaching that the kingdom is to spread without the use of violence. Third, this interpretation does not give sufficient strength to the verb harpazo, which has the connotation of violently or suddenly seizing something (e.g., Jn 10:28-29; Acts 8:39; 23:10). Indeed, I find it very significant that the only other two times Matthew uses this verb in his Gospel, it refers explicitly to the activity of Satan (Mt 12:29; 13:19). At the very least, it is quite unclear what Jesus could mean and who he could be referring to in saying that godly violent people violently seize the kingdom of heaven.

Finally, this interpretation is also inconsistent with the fact that John the Baptist, at this time, is in no position to be violent in any positive sense. He is, rather, the victim of violence done to him. How this verse, interpreted in a positive way, relates to the preceding verses on John the Baptist is unclear. But it fits the context perfectly to understand Jesus to be referring to hostile demonic forces, and perhaps the people they inspire (especially religious leaders), trying to violently seize the kingdom of God.28 According to this reading, Jesus is saying that his bringing of the kingdom of God has activated the kingdom of darkness into violent warfare on an unprecedented scale. What John is now experiencing, he is saying, is one small fallout of this violent activity from the demonic kingdom against the kingdom of God. Those who choose to fight for the kingdom of God from now on must expect even worse, as Jesus had just been teaching them. Concerning the assault of the “violent ones” against the kingdom of heaven, John is the least among those in the kingdom.29

The kingdom of darkness would eventually experience momentary success in violently seizing the kingdom, for Jesus would be crucified (1 Cor 2:8).30 But that victory would be very short indeed. For, as we shall see in the next chapter, according to the New Testament and the early postapostolic church, the very act by which this violent kingdom sought to achieve final victory resulted in its final defeat.

This second interpretation avoids the shortcomings of the first and fits in well with the general apocalyptic, warfare orientation of Jesus’ ministry. It also fits in better with the heavily apocalyptic context of this specific passage (see Mt 11:20-24). As such, it strikes me as the better option. Jesus is once again warning his disciples to expect strong opposition from the violent kingdom he, and they, are opposing.

An apocalyptic discourse. While we could discuss a number of other passages, one final sampling from Jesus’ teachings in the Synoptic Gospels must suffice to highlight the warfare dimension of his teaching ministry. All three Synoptic Gospels record a discourse that Jesus gave concerning the end of the world (Mk 13:1-17; Mt 24:1-51; Lk 21:5-36). In response to the disciples’ question about how they will know that the end is near, Jesus described a number of “signs” that were common in the apocalyptic thought of his day.

To follow Mark’s account, Jesus says that many deceivers will perform “signs and omens” to lead astray multitudes (Mk 13:5-6, 21-22). There will also be a violent widespread persecution of believers such that the level of “suffering” will go beyond anything previously witnessed on earth (vv. 9-20). Indeed, unless God “cut short those days,” no one, Jesus says, would survive (v. 20). Then, Jesus adds, the “sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken” (vv. 24-25).

The entire account speaks of a time of unparalleled demonic activity and warfare upon the earth, a time when deceiving and violent spirits will possess a “wicked generation” and bring unprecedented havoc upon the earth (cf. Rev 16:13-14; Mt 12:43-45). The references to “wars, earthquakes, and famines” are, as Beasley-Murray notes, “standing elements in prophetic and apocalyptic descriptions of the end and of the times leading up to it.”31 They are cataclysmic features of the final peirasmos (“tribulation”) when all the forces of heaven and hell are unleashed against each other.

The references to deceptive “signs and omens” and to the persecution of the saints refers to the assault that the people of God shall experience at the hands of the enemies during this time of “suffering.” These cataclysmic events are not initiated by God in judgment of the earth, though they are perhaps used by God to test and develop his people. But far from being God’s design, the passage says that the Lord will (apparently supernaturally) shorten the days during this period precisely in order to protect his elect (Mk 13:20).

In the end, the passage seems to be teaching that the “violent ones,” who were throughout Jesus’ ministry trying to violently seize the kingdom, shall at the end of time erupt in one final blast of violence. The fallen powers that (in the apocalyptic view) can afflict the world with all sorts of ills will intensify their demonic activity. Hence, Jesus says, famines, earthquakes, wars and the persecution of the righteous shall abound.

But, Jesus emphatically adds, these violent ones shall certainly be defeated. Indeed, as a number of scholars have suggested, read in the light of the broader apocalyptic tradition, “the stars” falling from heaven and “the powers in the heavens” being shaken (v. 25) may refer to rebel cosmic powers being defeated in battle.32 In the end, Jesus concludes, the Son of Man will reign victorious, seen by all as exalted “with great power and glory” (v. 26) as “he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds” (v. 27). The kingdom that he in principle established throughout his ministry will then be perfectly manifested, and the kingdom that he in principle defeated during his ministry will finally be utterly vanquished. He and all who belong to his kingdom shall reign over the earth (Rev 5:10)—God ruling through his vice-regents—just as God had intended from the start.

Jesus’ Teaching in the Gospel of John

In radical distinction from the Synoptic Gospels, John records no exorcisms by Jesus in his Gospel. The only case of demonization he speaks of is that of Judas being possessed by Satan, and this has a very different character from those instances of demonization related in the Synoptic Gospels (Jn 6:70; 13:27; cf. Lk 22:3).33 John’s precise reasons for omitting Jesus’ exorcisms are disputed, but for our purposes they are irrelevant, for this omission certainly does not lessen in the least John’s understanding of Jesus’ ministry as an act of war.34

Indeed, if anything, John’s Gospel is even more emphatic about the warfare nature of Jesus’ ministry than are the Synoptics. His entire portrait of Jesus is depicted in “strikingly dualistic” terms, which center around Jesus as the Son of God entering into “the world” and overthrowing its “ruler.”35 As Coetzee observes, “for St. John the confrontation between Satan and Jesus (and his church) belongs to the very heart of the redemptive history which finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ.”36

In what follows, I briefly overview three interrelated themes in this work that highlight the centrality of the warfare dimension of John’s portrayal of Jesus’ ministry.37 I conclude by examining one passage that has frequently been used to support the classical-philosophical theistic understanding of God’s sovereignty as encompassing even evil events in the world.

Light and darkness. John introduces the theme of the drama he is about to tell by providing the reader with a proleptic summary statement of Jesus’ ministry: “in him [the Word] was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (Jn 1:4-5). As is well known, John heavily employs the apocalyptic use of light as a metaphor for God or God’s kingdom and darkness as a metaphor for Satan or Satan’s kingdom.38 John is setting up the theme of Jesus’ ministry by stating that it most fundamentally constituted a conflict between the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness.39 As in Genesis 1 (which a majority of scholars believe is in the background here), the light shines against the darkness, and the darkness cannot overtake it.40 John is summarizing Jesus’ ministry as an ongoing warfare between light and darkness (a depiction that agrees perfectly with what we have found in the Synoptics).41

These same metaphors are used, with the same limited dualistic connotations, throughout John’s Gospel. In 3:19-21, for example, John again summarizes Jesus’ ministry:

So it is throughout John’s Gospel: Jesus is consistently depicted as “the light of the world” (8:12; 9:5; 12:35, 46), and all who put their trust “in the light” are “children of light” (12:36). Indeed, for John “God is light and in him there is no darkness at all” (1 Jn 1:5), and all believers must “walk in the light as he himself is in the light” (1 Jn 1:7; cf. 2:9-10). By contrast, those who resist the light stumble in the darkness (Jn 11:9-10; cf. 1 Jn 2:10-11). The conflict between light and darkness, we see, ultimately divides humanity between those who knowingly participate in the kingdom of God and those who knowingly or unknowingly are under “the ruler of this world” (Jn 12:31; 14:30; 16:11). The life and ministry of Jesus, according to John, simply make this distinction explicit.

The “archon” of this world. The Johannine manner of referring to Satan as “the ruler [archon] of this world” leads us to a second distinctive feature of Jesus’ warfare teaching in John. The term archon clearly denotes a being who possesses “great power and authority.”42 Indeed, in terms of denoting power, the word is second only to basileus (used of Jesus in an ironic sense in Jn 18:37). While Satan is not king of creation, for John he is the present evil controller of “the whole world” (1 Jn 5:19). As Paul puts it, he is “the god of this world” (2 Cor 4:4) and “the ruler of the power of the air” (Eph 2:2).43

For John, clearly, God created the world through his Son (Jn 1:3, 10), and he will ultimately rule it, again through his glorified Son (17:5, 24). But in “this world,” in this present evil age, the “evil one” (17:15) exercises an illegitimate tyranny over the King’s creation. Thus it is no surprise to discover that, according to John, the central reason why the Son of God appeared was to “destroy,” “drive out” and “condemn” this evil ruler (1 Jn 3:8; Jn 12:31; 16:11). Jesus has come quite literally to exorcise Satan out of the world, to restore God as the rightful ruler over humanity and humanity as the rightful ruler of the world. Judith Kovacs is certainly correct (yet unfortunately exceptional) in recognizing in John 12:31 and 16:11 a theme that is fundamental to John’s whole Gospel.44

Nevertheless, while John’s language is indeed “strikingly dualistic” (Kovacs), and while John clearly sees Satan as possessing incredible power over the world, it is also clear that John is miles away from any form of Gnostic or Manichaean dualism.45 The fact that each of the three passages that call Satan the “ruler of the world” does so in a context where Jesus’ victory over him is in view is enough to demonstrate the provisional nature of John’s dualism. But there are many other indications of this as well.

For example, while Satan is construed as the ultimate, powerful, evil force inspiring murders, and while he is said to have been a murderer “from the beginning” (Jn 8:44), he is not said to have been this murdering spirit “from eternity.” In John, only God with the Word and Spirit is understood to be eternal.46 What is more, though Satan indeed has control of “the whole world,” he does not and cannot exercise control over Jesus. “He has no power over me,” John’s Jesus teaches, for “I do as the Father has commanded me” (14:30-31; cf. 10:18).47 Most important, the oppressive tyranny of this evil “god” (2 Cor 4:4) shall come to an end, and indeed has in principle already been “driven out” and “condemned” through the obedient life as well as the death and resurrection of Christ (Jn 12:31, 42-45; 16:11; cf. Rev 12:5, 8-10).48

John’s dualism, therefore, is a “transitory dualism,” not a metaphysical dualism.49 Still, it is no less intense for this reason. In John’s view God must genuinely fight his evil cosmic foe; he is not playing charades. Jesus Christ, through his work on the cross, is the principle means by which this battle is being fought and won.50

“From God” and “from the devil.” This brings us to the third distinctive feature of Jesus’ warfare teaching in John. Unlike the Synoptic Gospels, one of the primary ways John expresses Jesus’ divinity is to describe him in terms of his origin: he comes “from above” (Jn 3:31; 8:23; cf. 6:33, 38, 41-42, 50-51, 58). Also, those that believe in Jesus are said to be born “from above” (3:3). Indeed, believers are consistently portrayed as being birthed by the Father and given to Jesus as a gift (1:12-13; 6:38-39; 10:28-29; 17:2, 9, 24).

By contrast, those who choose not to put their trust in Christ are said to be “from below” (8:23).51 They do not belong to the Father, but to “the world,” John’s term for this present fallen world order that is under the “ruler of this world” (12:31; 14:30; 16:11; cf. 1:10; 8:23; 14:17, 27; 15:18-19; 16:33; 17:9; cf. 1 Jn 2:15-17; 4:4-5; 5:4-5).52

With the same meaning, the Jesus of John’s Gospel describes those who believe in him as “children of God” (1:12-13; cf. 12:36; 13:33), while those who do not believe are portrayed as children of the devil (8:44).53 As in Paul, the view here seems to be that the “god of this world” had blinded the minds of unbelievers “to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ” (2 Cor 4:4; cf. Eph 2:2). Hence they cannot “know the truth” and be set free by the truth (Jn 8:32). They are, rather, “slaves to sin” (8:34), and only the Son of God can free them from this slavery (v. 36). But it is precisely this Son whom these people will not receive.

Indeed, as was said above, the only one in the world whom the devil does not have a hold of is Jesus himself, for he alone has not sinned but has consistently loved the Father and kept his commands (Jn 14:30). The rest of the world, however, is “under the power of the evil one” (1 Jn 5:19). Because of our sin, we are all part of the “kingdom of this world,” and will become part of Jesus’ kingdom, which is “not of this world,” only when we believe in him (Jn 8:12, 23; 15:18-19; 17:6-16). Getting us to this point, John tells us, was precisely why he wrote his Gospel (20:31).

The Jesus of John’s Gospel, we see, is a Jesus who has entered into a war zone between light and darkness, between the “ruler of this world” and the King of the earth, between what is “from above” and what is “from below,” between what is “of this world” and what is “not of this world”—in short, between God and Satan. Everything Jesus is depicted as saying and doing in John intersects with this central thematic point. In this respect, John’s depiction of Jesus is very much in line with that of the Synoptics.

John 9:1-3: The man born blind. We have seen that the assumption that runs throughout the Gospels is that sickness and disease are the works of the devil, not God, and hence that Jesus opposes them as he works to establish God’s kingdom. When we adopt this same attitude, I submit, we are motivated to do something about the evil we confront, rather than resigning ourselves to it as though it came from the mysterious providential hand of God.

One passage from John’s Gospel, however, has frequently been used to overturn this pervasive teaching and to argue the traditional theological position that even the devil’s work is ultimately in line with God’s sovereign plan. There may be war going on, this view says, but it is ultimately God who controls even what his enemies do.

In answer to the disciples’ misguided question about who sinned to cause a particular man to be born blind (Jn 9:1ff.), Jesus said, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.” This translation seems to suggest that it was God’s will for this man to be born blind. He was blind “so that” God could be glorified. A number of interpreters have seized this verse to support the classical-philosophical theistic position that God’s good will lies behind even apparently evil events in this world.

For example, in his commentary on the Gospel of John, D. A. Carson draws the following conclusion from this verse: “John certainly does not think that the occurrence of blindness from birth was outside the sweep of God’s control, and therefore of his purpose.”54 Carson’s view, however, is exceedingly reserved compared to Calvin’s. Calvin insists that the plural “works” (v. 3) is used by Jesus to emphasize explicitly that this man’s blindness is as much a work of God as is his miraculously receiving sight.

James Boice develops the classical-philosophical line of reasoning even more fully as he explains this verse with the help of his interpretation of the book of Job. He argues, in good Augustinian fashion, that all suffering is either to punish sin, to build character or to glorify God. Both Job and the blind man in John 9 are examples of the latter. Then he asks rhetorically:

What are we to make of this? Does this verse require that we conclude that when Zosia was getting her eyes plucked out, God was glorifying himself, or, according to Boice, punishing her or building her character? Thankfully, the verse implies nothing of the sort. I offer five points in brief response to the above translation and interpretation.

First, even if this verse did imply that God willed for this man to be born blind, it would be the one exception to what we have seen is the general Gospel understanding of afflictions as the work of the devil.57 As such, it should not be used to overturn the general teaching of the Gospels on the matter. It would simply mean that, in this one instance, God had a particular purpose in creating a man blind, or in allowing the devil to blind him.58

Second, it is significant that Jesus explicitly tells what this “higher purpose” is: God wants to display his power over blindness in healing the man. Hence this verse is particularly ill suited to serve as an example of how blindness as such fits into God’s providence.

But the verse should not be interpreted as suggesting that God’s will is behind this man’s blindness in the first place, and this is my third point. The original verse does not say that “he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed.” The Greek simply has hina with the aorist subjunctive passive of phaneroo (“to manifest”) and can readily be translated as, “But let the works of God be manifested.” As is certainly the case in Mark 5:23, Ephesians 5:33, 2 Corinthians 8:7; as is likely the case in Mark 2:10, 5:12, 10:51 and a host of other passages; and as is frequently the case in the Septuagint and later postapostolic writings, the hina here should be taken as forming an imperative, not a purposive, clause.59

In this light, Jesus is simply saying that, in contrast to the misguided moralistic speculations of the disciples, the only thing that matters concerning this man’s blindness is that God can overcome it and thus be glorified through it. In the satanically ruled world in which he and his disciples ministered, and in which we ourselves still live, there is no discernible particular reason why this man was born blind. The disciples’ questions, like the many assertions of Job’s “friends,” were based on the false assumption that God is behind all things, and thus that there must be a good reason for such things as blindness and the demonic torturing of a little girl—punishing sin, building character or glorifying God, for example.

In this reading, however, Jesus is simply refuting (not modifying) this assumption. He is, in effect, saying that the only response to this man’s sorry condition is, “Let the works of God be manifested!” This obviously has monumental theological implications. As Nigel Turner notes,

Fourth, this reading is also consistent with what we find elsewhere in the Gospels concerning Jesus’ view of evil. Not only does Jesus attribute all evil to the work of Satan, as we have seen, but he also explicitly rejects the assumption that God’s will is behind evil events. In Luke 13:1-5 Jesus refutes the popular moralistic view that certain Galileans were slain by Pilate, and eighteen people were killed by the collapsing tower of Siloam, because they were being punished for their sins. “Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?” Jesus asks (13:4). His answer is an unequivocal no (13:3). All sin will ultimately be punished, Jesus then adds (13:5), but his response flatly denies that one can interpret tragic events or “natural” disasters as being this sort of punishment—the very assumption the disciples were expressing in John 9:1.

If Jesus had any inclination to endorse the common view that God’s mysterious providence is ultimately behind the evils in the world, the context of Luke 13:1-5 would have been the perfect place for him to express it. Instead, we get an unequivocal denial. In my view, Jesus is doing much the same thing in John 9:2-3.61

Finally, this reading of John 9:1-3 fits in with the context in which it is given. In typical Johannine fashion, the miracle is immediately spoken of as a “work of day” and “light” staving off the “night” (9:4-5). The miracle once again illustrates the Johannine perspective that the one who is the “light” brings divine light to one who had previously been in demonic darkness.62 It also squares best with 10:20-21, which strongly suggests that this man’s blindness was a demonic work, which is why Jesus could not have healed him (as the Pharisees claimed) by demonic power (recall the Beelzebub controversy, Mk 3:20-30 and parallels). As throughout the Gospels, then, it seems best to see this miracle as an example of Jesus manifesting the work of God against the power of darkness that “scourges” people with such things as blindness.

Conclusion

From the last three chapters it should be clear that Jesus and the earliest disciples operated within an intense warfare worldview. They were as certain about the reality of Satan and demons as they were about the reality of God and good angels. They were certain that these two kingdoms were now engaged in mortal combat with each other. And they were certain that Jesus was the decisive player in this war.

This present kosmos was not in any sense seen by them as an Edenic garden in which God’s will was already being sovereignly carried out, sometimes bringing blessings and sometimes bringing curses to its inhabitants. Rather, in good apocalyptic fashion, this kosmos was understood to be a veritable war zone in which the sovereignty of God had to be established over against formidable forces of evil by faith and prayer.

As we have seen, Jesus and his disciples understood all the evil in the world—from barren trees to threatening storms to sicknesses and diseases, to demonized little children and sinful behavior—as being ultimately (and sometimes directly) due to the work of the all-pervasive Satanic kingdom. They therefore understood that their central mission was to oppose such things and overthrow them.

There is never any suggestion, John 9:1-3 included, that God has some “higher” good purpose behind or above this cosmic evil, as though Satan and his legions were secretly carrying out God’s will. From the Gospels’ perspective, all talk about finding “the sovereign will of God” above or behind the atrocities of the world is utterly misguided. Their view was, in the words of Karl Heim, that “the satanic power is God’s mortal enemy, that is to say not merely an intermediate stage on the way to the divine end of the world but the radical evil against which a total war must be waged.”63

Satan, therefore, was not for them an agent of God, but the enemy against God. Despite volumes of learned classical-philosophical theistic writings attempting to argue the contrary, these two offices are simply not compatible. As Howard Pendley inquires, “If Satan’s activity is part of God’s plan, how can it be said that Satan is God’s enemy?”64 Yet the assumption that he is God’s enemy runs throughout the whole New Testament.65 Hence all who hold this inspired library to be authoritative ought to abandon the impossible claim that he is also God’s “secret” agent, or (what is the same thing) that God is his “secret” controller.

Finally, in the last three chapters we have seen that this warfare is intrinsically connected to everything Jesus was about, centered on his teaching about and demonstrations of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is set up only as the kingdom of evil is torn down. The rule of God, the carrying out of God’s purposes, is not found in evil, behind evil or above evil, for, it is assumed, all evil ultimately comes from Satan, pure and simple. Rather, the rule of God is found in opposing evil. And just this ministry of coming against the “god” of all evil is what ultimately defines and unites all the various activities and teachings of Jesus.

In this light, the problem of evil in the New Testament is not the classical-philosophical theistic problem of finding a particular transcendent divine purpose behind every particular evil: Jesus and his disciples assume that there is none. The “buck stops” with the evil beings, human or otherwise, who perpetrate the evil. For Jesus and his disciples, the “problem of evil” is simply the problem of overcoming evil by the power of God. It is the task of setting up the kingdom of the Father in a war zone where it is resisted.

By contrast, as we have already said, the problem of evil for classical-philosophical theologians has been the problem of locating and explaining a mysterious, all-good, divine purpose behind all particular evils. Hence they search for the particular reason God must have had in decreeing (according to Calvinists), or at least in allowing (according to Arminians), children like Zosia to be ruthlessly tortured. This is not, I submit, the question Jesus or his disciples (when they were thinking in accordance with their Master) would have asked.

It is the question Job’s “friends” would perhaps have asked. It is the question multitudes of people in Jesus’ time asked in the face of various tragedies (Lk 13:1-6). It is the question Jesus’ disciples asked when they were not thinking straight, before he corrected them (Jn 9:1). But it is not the question Jesus or any inspired New Testament author would have asked. The only question they asked was, How can this diabolical work of the enemy be overthrown? How can “the works of God” be manifested here?

The fact that our construing of the problem of evil tends to have more in common with Job’s friends and those Jesus opposed than it has in common with Jesus and the New Testament is very significant for all of us who claim Christ as Lord. At the very least, it means that we need to seriously reconsider some of our classical-philosophical assumptions about God and the world. Perhaps the reason for our differences with the New Testament—and the reason for the traditional befuddlement over the problem of evil—is our unwittingly adopted assumptions that are not consistent with theirs.

Exploring this question will be my task in Satan and the Problem of Evil (forthcoming). But we have not yet completed the more fundamental task of assessing exactly what Scripture says about God’s battles with his foes. We have yet to examine what Paul and other New Testament writers have to say on the matter (chapters nine and ten). What we shall find is that the warfare theme is not diminished. If anything, it becomes even more intensified.