2. If the OT is remarkable for its reticence on this subject, we find in the NT the doctrine of Satanic agency very fully developed. It meets us on the threshold. It is one of the most conspicuous elements of NT teaching. Jesus and His disciples distinctly assume the reality of Satan and his kingdom as a mighty power for evil, opposed to the Kingdom of God in the world and in the hearts of men. This is nowhere more noticeable than in the Gospels, and there in the direct teaching of our Lord. At the outset of the Gospel narrative Satan appears as the antagonist of Christ. The story of the Temjjtation, which must have been communi- cated to the disciples from the lips of Jesus Him- self, is related by the three Synoptists. St. Mark ( 1 '^) informs us that Jesus was forty days tempted of Satan, using that word or title as a j)roper name. St. Matthew (ch. 4) and St. Luke (ch. 4), who relate the incident with clear circumstantiality of detail, note three distinct temptations, in which they quote the arguments used by the Tempter and the answers returned by Jesus. They describe the Tempter as 6 5id/3oXos, ' the devil,' using the recognized word for betrayer or malicious accuser. According to St. Matthew's account, Jesus addresses him as ' Satan.' St. Luke concludes the narrative \vith the significant words, ' When the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season,' as if to indicate that the conflict with Satan was renewed and continued throughout our Lord's ministry. St. Matthew tells us that when the devil left Him, angels came and ministered unto Him. Thus the Synoptic Gospels distinctlydescribe the source of the temptation as the direct sugges- tions of a person, and that one who is variously called Satan and ' the devil.'
Again, these same Gospels, as also the Acts of the Apostles, take notice of Christ's works of healing, and especially of those wrought upon persons possessed with demons, as illustrating the nature of His mission, which was to heal ' all that were oppressed of the devil ' (Ac 10^^). St. Luke (22^) no less clearly than St. John (IS^) informs us that Satan entered the heart of Judas and prompted him to betray his Lord.
In the recorded utterances of Jesus, in His ex- press teaching, allusions are clearly made to the power and activity of Satan as a personal being, and the great Adversary of God and man. He attributes the trouble of the woman who had the spirit of infirmity to the malign power of Satan to afflict even the bodies of men (Lk 13^^). Thus, so
far from discouraging the popular belief which ascribed to Satan and his angels power over soul and body, Jesus distinctly acknowledged it. Ac- cused by the Pharisees, representatives of those to whose speculations in angelology and demonology that popular belief has been traced, of casting out demons through Beelzebub the prince of demons, Jesus, so far from controverting or throwing doubt upon the current opinions of the time, repels the charge by the argument that if Satan should cast out Satan, he would only be defeating his own ends and destroying his own work. Then He proceeds to say, ' But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you' (Mt 12^'*, cf. Lk 1P°), illustrating His argument by the similitude of the sti-ong man and the Stronger than he, imjilying that Satan is the strong man who would enslave mankind, but that Jesus Himself is the Stronger than he, who has appeared for the de- liverance of the victims of Satanic power. That Jesus should thus have argued in controversy with the Pharisees has its own significance. We cannot explain it away on the principle of accommodation. Jesus could and did rebuke the spirit of Pharisaic traditionalism which led them to introduce all manner of mischievous subtleties, making void the Law by their unauthorized traditions, but never once did He even cast suspicion upon this part of the doctrine of the Pharisees. He accepted it without question.
Again, when the Seventy expressed their joy at the success of their mission, and exclaimed, ' Lord, even the demons are subject unto us,' Jesus replied, ' I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven,' and went on to say, ' Behold, I give you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy ' (Lk 10^'"^^). Passing over such pas- sages as those in the Sermon on the Mount, ' What- soever is more than these cometh of evil ' or ' the evil one ' (Mt 5^^) ; 'Deliver us from evil ' or 'the evil one' (6'^), which have been explained, and even, as in the RV, translated as referring to the personal Author of Evil, we find Jesiis in His dis- courses and in warnings addressed to His disciples making distinct allusion to Satan as the great adversary whom they have cause to fear. In the parables of the Sower and the Tares, the Evil One, variously termed ' the devil,' ' Satan,' ' the enemy,' ' the wicked one,' is described as seeking to frustrate the work of Christ by catching away the good seed sown in the heart (Mt 13^", Mk 4^5, Lk 8'^) ; or by sowing tares among the wheat (Mt J338. 3S)j^ i\^Q tares denoting the children of ' the wicked one' as the enemy that sowed them is 'the devil.' Here we see clearly illustrated the New Testament doctrine of the irreconcilable antagonism between the Kingdom of Christ and that of Satan.