Storming The Gates Of Hell Kingdom Conflict In The Teachings Of Jesus

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.

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:

This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come to the light, so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light.

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.

For so long as he was blind, there was exhibited in him an example of the divine severity, from which others might learn to fear and to humble themselves. It was followed by the benefit of his deliverance, in which the wonderful goodness of God was reflected. . . . He reminds them in general that this cause [of God] must be abundantly seen as true and lawful in the theater of the world when God glorifies his name. Nor have men any right to argue with God when he makes them the instruments of his glory in both ways, whether he appears as merciful or severe.55

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:

Would God Almighty permit a man to be stripped of his family and all his possessions, to be struck with such illness that he would find himself sitting in ashes bemoaning that he had ever been born, just so that God himself might be vindicated? Would God permit a man to be struck with total blindness throughout the better part of his life so that in God’s own time he might become the object of a miracle performed by the Lord Jesus Christ? . . . In the light of the Word of God we answer not only that God would do such things but that he has done them and, indeed, continues to do them.56

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,

The hypothesis of the imperatival hina . . . releases the text from the fatalism which had obsessed it, and dissolves the picture which had become familiar through all our English versions, a man destined from birth to suffer for the sole purpose of glorifying God when he was healed.60

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.

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.