Who is the Enemy?

Everyone is up in arms and ready to fight. So many are pointing the finger towards what they see as the problem. However, everyone is pointing the finger at different entities. We all seem to acknowledge that there are real enemies and that there is a real battle. But we seem to spend so much time arguing over who the real enemy is. Followers of Jesus acknowledge that there is a spiritual battle that has consequences in the real world. We should not be surprised about the evil and strife writ large for all to see. Yet at the same time, we have resources from the Scriptures to identify where evil is coming from. So, who is the enemy?

Scripture has a multifaceted and nuanced way to speak about spiritual evil. The Scriptures acknowledge that there is the principle of sin at work in all people. The Bible also testifies to the reality of real spiritual evil led by Satan. And in other places it says that the “world” is the enemy. What are we to make of this? How can we identify the threefold enemies of sin, Satan and the world? How do they work together? And most importantly, what has Jesus done to address them?

The Bible speaks about Sin and sins. Sins are specific thoughts and/or actions that break God’s moral law and harm his creation. All of the various sins come from the sinful nature of humanity. In other words, there is a principle of sin at work in humans that makes them want to do things that are wrong. This is explained in Romans 5. All humans inherit a sinful nature because of the failure recorded in Genesis 3. So in one way sin is unnatural because it is how God originally created mankind. Yet in another way, sin is natural because no one has to be taught to sin. So in sum, the enemy of sin are the acts committed by individuals and the sin nature at work in individuals.

The Bible also states that there is a spiritual enemy, Satan. Jesus called him the father of lies. He is the tempter. He inspires sin and rebellion in the minds and hearts of people. He is also the accuser. He heaps condemnation and shame on people that he has deceived into sin. He is the root of much hate and murder. Satan and demons can take over control of people to do evil. It is correct to call the atrocities of mass murder and sex trafficking demonic. So to say that the enemy is Satan and the demonic sees the battle primarily against spiritual evil.

The Bible also talks about the “world” as God’s enemy. The world is the collective sin of people expressing itself in communal rebellion against God. The world is the prominent values and systems that counter the righteousness and justice that God values. You can see it in the materialism of the West. It is the collective force and values that enshrine particular sins as normal. To see evil in this way is to see the enemy as those “out there” collectively working against God’s Law.

So we see that there is not just one enemy. There are three. And these three work together to bring death. So individuals have a propensity to sin. Oftentimes individuals are tempted to sin by the demonic. And the predominant sinful values in the culture make certain sin patterns more appealing to those living in that culture. To illustrate, I will use the sin of racism in the Jim Crow South. Racism is an individual sin of partiality and hate in the heart that works social and physical violence. At the same time, there was a demonic influence of temptation and rationalization that led people down the road of racial hate. Lastly, the culture not only made the sin acceptable but made it so that the sins of racism and prejudice could be committed and enshrined in law on a large scale.

How does Jesus deal with the threefold evil. Jesus died for our acts of sin as an atoning sacrifice. His resurrection power works in us to make us new. Jesus died for our sins so that the accuser cannot rightly accuse us because Jesus bore our guilt. He gives us the light of his Word and Spirit so that we can rightly see the falsehoods of temptation. Jesus gives us grace to test the “world” or culture through the lens of his Word and speak truthfully about what is happening, resist the influence of the “world” and work towards justice that lines up with virtuous morality.

In a later blog, I will detail the tools that God has given the church for comprehensive spiritual battle. I will leave you with this: Since the Bible does not give simple answers to the problem of evil, we should not be satisfied with simple answers to the problems of evil in our day.