Let us review the forces marshalled against us,--their _nature_, their _mode of assault_, and _the arena of the contest_.
1. The Asian Christians had to "stand against _the wiles_ [_schemes_, or _methods_[155]] _of the devil_."
Unquestionably, the New Testament assumes the personality of Satan. This belief runs counter to modern thought, governed as it is by the tendency to depersonalize existence. The conception of evil spirits given us in the Bible is treated as an obsolete superstition; and the name of the Evil One with multitudes serves only to point a profane or careless jest. To Jesus Christ, it is very certain, Satan was no figure of speech; but a thinking and active being, of whose presence and influence He saw tokens everywhere in this evil world (comp. ii. 2). If the Lord Jesus "speaks what He knows, and testifies what He has seen" concerning the mysteries of the other world, there can be no question of the existence of a personal devil. If in any matter He was bound, as a teacher of spiritual truth, to disavow Jewish superstition, surely Christ was so bound in this matter. Yet instead of repudiating the current belief in Satan and the demons, He earnestly accepts it; and it entered into His own deepest experiences. In the visible forms of sin Jesus saw the shadow of His great antagonist. "From the Evil One" He taught His disciples to pray that they might be delivered. The victims of disease and madness whom He healed, were so many captives rescued from the malignant power of Satan. And when Jesus went to meet His death, He viewed it as the supreme conflict with the usurper and oppressor who claimed to be "the prince of this world."[156]
Satan is the consummate form of depraved and untruthful intellect. We read of his "thoughts," his "schemes," his subtlety and deceit and impostures;[157] of his slanders against God and man,[158] from which, indeed, the name devil (_diabolus_) is given him. Falsehood and hatred are his chief qualities. Hence Jesus called him "the manslayer" and "the father of falsehood" (John viii. 44). He was the first sinner, and the fountain of sin (1 John iii. 8). All who do unrighteousness or hate their brethren are, so far, his offspring (1 John iii. 10). With a realm so wide, Satan might well be called not only "the prince," but the very "god of this world" (2 Cor. iv. 4). Plausibly he said to Jesus, in showing Him the kingdoms of the world, at the time when Tiberius Caesar occupied the imperial throne: "All this authority and glory are delivered unto me. To whomsoever I will, I give it." His power is exercised with an intelligence perhaps as great as any can be that is morally corrupt; but it is limited on all sides. In dealing with Jesus Christ he showed conspicuous ignorance.
Chief amongst the wiles of the devil at this time was the "scheme of error," the cunningly woven net of the Gnostical delusion, in which the apostle feared that the Asian Churches would be entangled. Satan's empire is ruled with a settled policy, and his warfare carried on with a system of strategy which takes advantage of every opening for attack.[159] The manifold combinations of error, the various arts of seduction and temptation, the ten thousand forms of the deceit of unrighteousness constitute "the wiles of the devil."
Such is the gigantic opponent with whom Christ and the Church have been in conflict through all ages. But Satan does not stand alone. In verse 12 there is called up before us an imposing array of spiritual powers. They are "the angels of the devil," whom Jesus set in contrast with the angels of God that surround and serve the Son of man (Matt. xxv. 41). These unhappy beings are, again, identified with the "demons," or "unclean spirits," having Satan for their "prince," whom our Lord expelled wherever He found them infesting the bodies of men.[160] They are represented in the New Testament as fallen beings, expelled from a "principality" and "habitation of their own" (Jude 6) which they once enjoyed, and reserved for the dreadful punishment which Christ calls "the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." They are here entitled _principalities_ and _powers_ (or _dominions_), after the same style as the angels of God, to whose ranks, as we are almost compelled to suppose, these apostates once belonged.