The church’s battle with Satan did not end with the Book of Revelation. Satan continued to work both within the church and from without. He sowed seeds of corruption, heresy, strife, and schism in the visible church. He instigated waves of persecution against the visible church across the centuries.

Satan presided over the rise of prelacy, as the clergy sought to enlarge their powers and domains as bish­ops, archbishops, patriarchs, and popes. Satan fostered the growth of superstition regarding the sacraments, including baptismal regeneration, transubstantiation, and the substitution of the mass in the place of the Lord’s Supper. Satan encouraged the introduction of pagan practices into Christian worship, such as use of the vestments of the pagan Roman priesthood, or the worship of pictures, crucifixes, statues, and relics of the saints. Satan inspired many to embrace false teaching about the Trinity, the natures and person of Christ, or the canon of Holy Scripture, not to mention false ideas about the life to come, such as “purgatory” and “limbo.” The corruption of the visible church and the rise of the false church were, in significant measure, the work of Satan.

As the once-flourishing churches of the Middle East and North Africa became increasingly corrupt and weak, Satan launched a counterattack, inspiring the visions and sayings of a false prophet named Moham­mad, rousing the tribes of Arabia to follow him as an army in a campaign to plant the religion of Islam across the map of the ancient world by force. The Christian church was crushed to the ground in many places. Today, after a long period of slumber, Islam, particu­larly in its radical elements, has been roused again by Satan to spread its darkness into new lands and to fos­ter a new reign of terror throughout the world.

Working through the civil authorities, Satan has launched waves of persecution against the church from ancient times through the Reformation, the Great Awakening, times of revivals, and throughout the twentieth century, in which more Christians died for their faith than in all previous centuries combined.

Noteworthy as the work of Satan are the rise of Hitler’s “National Socialism” in Germany, which targeted Jews and Christians for destruction, and the long reign of terror conducted against Christianity in Russia, East­ern Europe, and China by atheistic Marxism or “Inter­national Socialism.” Yet, the times of severe persecution have often been the church’s most blessed times. Ter­tullian rightly compared the church to a mowed field. “The more frequently it is cut, the more it grows,” he said. Church history confirms that the blood of the martyrs has been the seed of the church.

Views of Satan⤒🔗

Views of Satan have varied over the centuries. The Ancient and Medieval Church often developed excessive and somewhat fanciful views of Satan, and increas­ingly encouraged the office of exorcist. Origen, the church’s first systematic theologian, said Lucifer (Isa. 14:12–15) was the Satan who had revolted and fallen from heaven because of pride, but was still offered mercy by God. Augustine agreed that Satan was Lucifer, but rejected Origen’s fanciful idea that Satan could be reconciled with God. Augustine believed that demons incite people to crimes and wickedness, possess considerable knowledge, and are able to attack people. Thomas Aquinas believed that Satan, who is the cause of all sin, was once the highest angel who, through pride, fell immediately after creation, seducing those who followed him to become his subjects.

Martin Luther attributed much to the devils, though he reacted to the excesses of the Medieval Church. He particularly spoke out against the office of exorcist, which had been established early on in the history of Christianity and reached a crescendo in the late Middle Ages. Luther said that, unlike Christ and the apostles, “we cannot of ourselves expel the evil spirits, nor must we even attempt it” (Leahy, Satan Cast Out, p. 113). Luther did believe, however, that demons infest “woods, water, swamps, and deserted places,” and that they are continually “plotting against our life and welfare” (Table Talk, 172). Nevertheless, the Word, believed on and prayed over, is sufficiency to withstand Satan. “The devil hates the Word of God more than any other thing,” Luther wrote (Luther’s Works, comment on Psalm 94:6). In “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” he wrote,

We tremble not, we fear no ill;
They shall not overpow’r us.
This world’s prince may still,
Scowl fierce as he will,
He can harm us none,
He’s judged; the deed is done;
One little word can fell him.Lutheran Worship, no. 298

John Calvin refuted those “who babble of devils as nothing else than evil emotions” by pointing to texts that prove the existence of Satan and the devils. He asserted that Scripture’s teachings about Satan and his demons ought to arouse us “to take precaution against their stratagems” (Institutes, 1.14.13-19), especially by outfitting ourselves with faith, prayer, and all the other pieces of the armor of God that Paul expounds in Ephesians 6:10-18. Like Luther, however, Calvin spoke out against the Roman Catholic excesses concerning demon activity; he avoided the superstitions of the day and yet viewed demon possession as a present reality.

The Puritans particularly emphasized how Satan imitates the work of the Holy Spirit. Reflecting on the Great Awakening in the 1740s, Jonathan Edwards wrote, “There are many false spirits, exceeding busy with men, who often transform themselves into angels of light, and do in many (remarkable) ways, with great subtlety and power, mimic the operations of the Spirit of God” (Religious Affections, p. 69).

Demon activity does not cohere with the modern worldview, and so has been marginalized, or, in many cases, denied. Following the naturalism of the nine­teenth and twentieth centuries, liberal and neo-ortho­dox Christianity rejected Satan’s literal existence as primitive superstition. One such skeptic, Rudolf Bult­mann, wrote, “It is impossible to use electric light and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical dis­coveries, and at the same time to believe in the New Tes­tament world of demons and spirits.” Today, science and technology underscore the dominating ideology that only the “natural world” exists. “Can a modern believe that God controls lightning and thunder if a meteorologist can use satellite pictures and computer modeling to predict the storm a week ahead of time?” asks David Powlison (Power Encounters, p. 23).

Even churchgoing people have exorcised the devil from their working vocabulary. According to a recent study, 76% of Anglicans deny the reality of Satan. Many theologians and psychologists have reinterpreted the biblical accounts of demon possession to fit their own theological and psychological theories. Ironically, these denials of the biblical devil by churchmen and theologians have been accompanied by an explosion of new interest in witchcraft, astrology, paganism, and Satanism. Today covens of witches, frolicking bands of pagans, and congregations of “the church of Satan” flourish in cities of Europe and North America. Some authors suggest that there are 500 identifiable satanic groups in the United States alone and 10,000 world­wide members. These numbers are hard to establish since most of these groups lack official headquarters and organizations, and do not publish their statistics. We do know, however, that Satanism is openly prac­ticed today as a legal religion in North America.

Modern Satanism was introduced into the United States by Aleister Crowley (b. 1875), who was reared in a godly home in England, where he was introduced to occult ideas and techniques by a well-known occultist, Eliphas Levi. Crowley’s teaching that Satan was mightier than God, combined with his bizarre religious and sexual rituals often performed while under the influence of drugs, influenced another Eng­lishman, Gerald Gardner. A self-proclaimed witch, Gardner’s books helped establish rituals of modern witchcraft founded upon the Mother Goddess. Gard­ner, and later Anton LaVey (b. 1930), who founded the Church of Satan in 1966, popularized the image of Baphomet, the honored god, as a symbol of witchcraft and Satanism. “God is dead and Satan lives” has become a password for rituals in many of LaVey’s local grottoes or “congregations.” Since the 1970s, numerous groups have split off of LaVey’s church and formed other satanic groups.

Situated between those who deny Satan and those who worship him, many Pentecostals and charismat­ics have increasingly emphasized the reality of Satan and the importance of spiritual warfare. They often fall into the error of encouraging an unhealthy interest in the devils. They find a demon behind every problem they face; personal responsibility gives way to demonic influence. Deeds of the flesh become demons to be exor­cised. All of this promotes an increasingly popular occultic spirituality. Superstitious remedies, such as spiritual mapping and exorcism rituals, become more popular than the scriptural response of confession of sin, repentance, and new obedience to Christ.

In the last few years many people have become more aware of Satan and his devils. Christian and sec­ular bookstores are filled with books on angels and demons. Popular writers, like M. Scott Peck, are openly becoming converts to belief in the devil’s reality. Today is an opportune time for Word-centered evangelicals to promote a biblically balanced view of Satan and demons that avoids both denial and obsession.