In the New Testament there is not one single writer who does not speak of Satan and his work, not so much in the way of insisting on his existence, as, taking this for granted, building thereon exhortations and warnings. St. Peter bids us " Be sober, be vigilant ; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." St. Jude looks back to the fall of the angels. They were not always devils, they were created good ; they " kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation." St. James, the most practical of New Testament writers, bids us " Eesist the devil, and he will * Archbishop Trench.
48 THE GREAT TEXTS OF THE BIBLE
flee from you," just as he tells us, " Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you." The one is as real and personal a being as the other. St. Paul, the philosopher of the New Testament, tells us that our real conflict is not with flesh and blood, not with fallen human nature in ourselves or in society around us, but " against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." Behind the flesh, stirring up its unruly appetites; behind the world, organising it in independence of God, or spreading out its fascinations to bewilder and beguile us, the Apostle recognises the prince of this world. St. John, the theologian, declares the object of the Incarnation, "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil " ; and he goes on to distinguish between the children of God and the children of the devil by their moral likeness and affinity to the source from which they derive their spiritual character. " He that committeth sin," he declares, " is of the devil."
What is most remarkable is that it is in the pages of the Gospels and from the lips of Jesus Christ Himself that we are told most about the evil one, that we have the fullest and clearest teaching on this subject. This doctrine is taught in the parables, those earthly stories with a heavenly, spiritual meaning. In the very first parable, that of the Sower, the first reason assigned why the seed sown brings forth no fruit is because the birds of the air, which our Lord explains to represent the devil and his angels, snatch away the seed. In the parable of the Tares sown among the wheat, it is said, " An enemy hath done this " ; the devil seeks, if he cannot destroy the truth, to pervert it. Many of our Lord's miracles and works of mercy were the putting forth of Divine power to free those who had fallen under the influence of evil spirits, to restore them to their own self-control and self-possession. He tells His disciples the effect of the setting up of His Kingdom. " I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." Speaking of His coming Passion, our Lord says, "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me." He shall try Me at every point, but he shall find My will unswerving in its allegiance to My Father. Our Lord describes the character of the devil: he was a murderer from the
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beginning, and a liar, murdering souls by the seduction of his lies.
IT If the Gospels trustworthily reflect His mind, nothing else than the conception of a personal will underlies the way in which Jesus uniformly spoke of the Evil One. To Him it was a will actively antagonistic to the will of the Father and His own will ; one which rules and disposes, desires and purposes, and which as a will can touch the wills of men. Towards this will His attitude is one of uncompromising and irreconcilable hostility, and is incomparably summed up in the apostolic words, He partook of human nature " that he might bring to nought him that had the power of death, that is, the devil." To His eye the Ministry was a war against Satan come down to conflict in all his lightning splendour; but He was conscious of having authority, and of capacity to bestow authority, " over all the power of the enemy," a term (roD £%^poD) which is itself evidence of the conception of a personal will. This " prince of this world " is to be dethroned ; and Christ Himself, " if lifted up from the earth," is to draw all men to Himself. So Christ moves through the Ministry as the stronger than the strong man fully armed, to establish the Kingdom of heaven. The resoluteness of this attitude is heightened by His facing from first to last the fact that this " bringing to nought " the devil is to be effected at supreme cost to Himself — " through death " — and a season of apparent triumph of " the power of darkness." But He stands as one who has counted the cost, and whose purpose towards the hostile will is irrevocably fixed.^
3, It may relieve some minds if we tell ourselves with regard to this that it is not necessary to believe in the bodily appearance of Satan to our Lord. Indeed the belief in such is largely due to the impression on the imagination of the efforts of painting and poetry to reproduce this scene, and is in no wise required by the narrative itself. Yet we must not allow such needful reminders to weaken our appreciation of the power which Jesus encountered in His loneliness. To Jesus, evil was a force and an intention outside of man, though it had its allies within him. It was a power bigger than man himself could breed ; which hungered for the souls of men, and could finally have them for its own with the same absoluteness as He, the Son of God and Saviour of the world, longed to make them His. " Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have you, that he