Characteristics

 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 6:12)

 

The next section of The Christian in Complete Armour deals with the characteristics of the devil and his followers. The first piece of the puzzle is that they are spiritual beings, meaning that they are immaterial. This doesn’t mean that they can’t take on material forms or apparently material forms. Energy slowed down sufficiently, becomes matter, according to Einstein’s formula E=mc². 

Gurnall says next that they are highly intellectual. They may have lost some wisdom (because they continue to fight against Someone they can’t defeat) but they are clever and intelligent.

Thirdly, he says that they are immortal and indefatigable. They can’t die and they don’t get tired. And lastly, he says that they are inventors of sin. They look for, find, and employ anything that will separate man from God, and in general, they are effective.

          With all that as a preface, there are two issues about them that need to be addressed. First, contrary to the teaching of some, they aren’t named after a specific sin, and that specific sin is not the only one with which they are able to tempt someone. There is no reason to suspect that there is a demon named Lust, and the demon who tempts you to lust may in the next moment tempt you to lie. At the same time, if a demon finds that you are easily tempted to lust, there’s not much need for it to tempt you to lie, since the lust does all that it desires.

A larger challenge with regard to the demonic is that we tend to be tempted to believe that they don’t exist. Only that which is physical exists, some maintain. Others will go so far as to say “matter and energy” exist, but that neither have wills or personalities. As a counter to this, I submit that ideas are not matter or energy, but they certainly have power. We claim to be speaking allegorically when we say “an idea whose time has come,” but it doesn’t matter whether it’s only an allegory or not – the power is still there, and it is the ideas and their power that are the problem. They are the weapons used against us.

I believe devils exist. Scripture teaches that they are beings with the characteristics that Mr. Gurnall describes. But even if they are nothing more than ideas that we - as human beings  - twist into something ugly, ideas have enormous power.