Has Satan really been cast out?
Has Satan really been cast out?
With the foreboding spectre of Halloween fast approaching, many Christians’ thoughts turn to the darker spiritual elements spoken of in the Bible. There are few truly helpful resources available, but in his book Satan Cast Out, Frederick Leahy helps believers to think biblically about such things. In the excerpt below, Leahy asks whether ‘the Lion’ is really chained, and what it means for Christians to answer that question rightly.
Is the Lion Really Chained?
To many people, including not a few Christians, the statement that Satan is even now cast out sounds hollow and unreal. He does not seem to be cast out. Those who live in areas where terrorism is rife and who are almost daily confronted by the appalling results of man’s inhumanity to man, often find it difficult to believe that at Calvary Satan was routed. ‘God is sovereign’, said a minister in Northern Ireland recently, to which he received the reply from a member of his congregation, ‘He doesn’t seem to be sovereign’.
In regard to this problem there are several things which must be said. We must understand that the Bible does not teach that the binding of Satan eliminates wickedness from the earth or renders Satan and his minions immobile. In Jude 6 we read that the fallen angels are enchained for ever, yet these demons are far from inactive as the Gospels testify. Satan is one of those enchained angels, but this in no way implies a complete cessation of activity on his part. In Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian was afraid when he saw two lions in the way. It was this same sight which had made Mistrust and Timorous turn back. ‘The lions were chained’, wrote Bunyan, ‘but he saw not the chains.’ Satan and the demons are cast into the abyss ( variously translated ‘bottomless pit’, ‘deep’ and ‘pit’ in the New Testament). The demons who possessed the Gadarene maniac besought our Lord that He would not cast them into the abyss (Luke 8:31). Although the abyss is their proper habitation, yet under the permissive will of God and for His own purposes they are allowed a certain activity on the earth until that day when they will be confined to the abyss for ever.
It must also be understood that while God will crush Satan under our feet because of Christ’s total victory, the two events are not co-incident in point of time. ‘The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly (or speedily)’ is the glorious promise of the victorious outcome of our battle with Satan. As Robert Haldane puts it, ‘There were two victories to be obtained over Satan. By the first, his head was to be bruised under the feet of Jesus Christ; and by the second, the rest of his body will be bruised under the feet of believers’.[1] The second victory will be as complete as the first!
Of course, it is only from the standpoint of the finite creature that there seems to be a gap between the victory of Christ over Satan and the final disposal of the defeated foe in the victory of the Church. To human eyes the victory of Calvary seems almost unreal in view of the tragedy and turmoil of our modern world. Frequently the illustration of sentence passed and judgment yet to be executed is used. But this does not agree with Scripture, which, as we have seen, tells us very plainly that the sentence passed in Eden was executed at Calvary. A better illustration would be that of thunder and lightning. In objective reality these are virtually one, but from our standpoint, owing to the fact that light travels much more quickly than sound, there is usually a time-lag between seeing the flash and hearing the thunder. With God the victory and the judgment are all in the cross. ‘Now shall the prince of this world be cast out’ (Jn 12:31). ‘The prince of this world is judged’. (Jn 16:11).
But to the believer who lives in time, there is a time-lag between the lightning and the thunder, between Satan being cast down and the hearing of the crash of his fall.
With God there is no such gap and at the final judgment, when time will have ended, we shall see for ourselves that the cross stood at the heart of history and that there Satan was in fact cast out.
The Christian Attitude to Satan
It is a dangerous thing to regard Satan as of little or no consequence. He is still a vicious enemy, a tempter, and ‘a roaring lion’. But our present concern is to demonstrate how it is no less perilous to hold exaggerated views of Satan’s authority and power. The conflict between God and Satan is not a struggle between two great powers with the outcome in the balance. We fight a mortally wounded foe! Satan’s counter-offensive is as hopeless as it is fierce. We must not believe his proud claim to the ‘kingdoms of the world’; His pretension to dominion is a lie. He is a usurper with no authority. It is God who holds the world in His hand, not this arch-pretender. And in God’s world Satan is an impostor, a squatter with no rights. Robert Recker is so right when he says, ‘To succumb to acknowledging Satan’s right to rule would be treason to Christ; it is an expression of unbelief, and at worst of idolatry.’ [2] As Christians we are summoned to confess here and now that ‘Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father’. It is because we have a regnant Saviour that we are, in His strength, to ‘resist the devil’ and he will flee from us. (Jas 4:7). With the shield of faith we shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one, and strong in the Lord and in the power of His might, and clad in the whole armour of God, we shall be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
The binding of Satan is so real that he has no authority or power over the Christian. In Christ the believer is safe and victorious. The ‘wicked one toucheth him not’ ( 1 Jn 5:18). As the prince of darkness, on our Lord’s own testimony, has no authority over Him (Jn 14:50) so he has none over those who are in Christ and who share in His victory over evil. Our Saviour is victorious! He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah (Gen 49:9, Rev 5:5). He divides the spoil with the strong (Isa 55:12). The child born at Bethlehem is ‘the Mighty God’ (Isa 9:6). The Lamb of God who went to the sacrifice, now goes forth ‘conquering and to conquer’ (Rev 6:2).
The Christian cannot rightly view his adversary unless the triumph of Christ is given its proper place. If our faith does not see Christ as all-victorious, we shall know little of victory. Even in the face of demonic power the Christian is to rejoice in the words of Paul, ‘But thanks be unto God who always leadeth us in triumph’ (2 Cor 2: 14 ).
Excerpted from Frederick S. Leahy, Satan Cast Out (Banner of Truth, 1975), 28–32.
FOOTNOTES:
1 Robert Haldane, Romans (Banner of Truth, 1958), Romans 16:20.
2 ‘Satan: In Power or Dethroned?’ in Calvin Theological Journal, Vol. 6, No. 2.
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