Reflection on "God at war"

Resume of the book      

The conflict between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan is well examined through fundamental lenses of biblical themes in this book. Especially, the concept of transforming the evil into goodness eventually, while interpreted as God’s providence, is contested by logical assumptions. For example, it is rationally demonstrated that God created angels as beings that can exercise their freewill. This argument aligns itself with the assertion that devils cause catastrophe not because they work as secret agents for God but because they will it.

In other ways, the author talks about the spiritual realm between God and human beings. Boyd adds that many angels and demons, depicted as many lesser gods mythologized in Old Testament, serve for their masters as the owner of autonomy in the quasi-democratic atmosphere. It can also be interpreted that devils can become fully tricked by angels in order to temporarily serve God even if they tried to serve Satan with their voluntary heart. Therefore, although the story of Job in OT seems to support Augustine’s interpretation, it seemed that the author provided a slight re-examination of Augustine’s approach.

In addition to that, the approaches generated from between monotheistic and polytheistic are manifested as the established concept accepted through the times of OT. The supernatural events written in the book of exodus are conflicts between God and polytheistic gods commonly accepted among primitive people near the Israel.

Apart from all these miraculous events, one more thing the author advocates is God’s creation story based on the perspective of spiritual warfare. It is interpreted that God created humans to engage them to execute spiritual warfare so that He can restore the earth. The perspective of viewing the creation account in Genesis, especially the creation of human being, as the restoration God planned to achieve, provides the reader with the possibility that all the accounts of OT can be translated through the prism of spiritual warfare.

As proclaimed through the prophetic message by God in the beginning of Genesis, Jesus was sent in God’s timing to wage war against the darkness. If the conflict between the darkness and God was demonstrated on the macro level, the advent of Jesus teaches us the kingdom of God on the micro level. And the conflict between Jesus and demons seemed to be so vivid and real.

However, it is very likely that many Christians remains in the state where they are saved and they accept Jesus as the personal savior. Becoming the spiritual warrior and accepting Jesus as the top commander of spiritual warfare on which God desperately would like to bring as many Christians as possible to which some find to be an undesirable state.

Ironically, early church Christians and apostles took it for granted that they were engaged with spiritual warfare. Rather than developing intelligible approaches to problem of evil or something disastrous, they seemed to expect something bad to happen, for they proactively engaged themselves for the expansion of kingdom of God against the kingdom of darkness.

It is very likely that congregations and leaders at early churches obtained the better awareness of eschatology instinctively. ‘Already but not yet’ is not theological fad in which Christians use their intelligence to acquire the depth of understanding but the decree where Christians should fight against the darkness to snatch the detained in ‘not yet’ realm into ‘already’ domain.

At this point, the author emphasizes the meaning of Jesus’ crucifixion on the cross and His resurrection as the most powerful weapon to destroy Satan’s kingdom. In other words, the scriptures written in the Bible strengthens our faith with the conviction that Jesus defeated Satan primarily and all Christians need to engage themselves with the continuous work against remaining enemies.

Furthermore, the apocalyptic scriptures in the Bible empower us, for they were fulfilled in His timing and the destiny of Satan will be achieved as written in scriptures. Based on the characteristic of scriptural words, it is not worth overestimating Satan and all the demons. However, if biblical scriptures are examined deeply under the perspective of enlightenment and post-modern approaches, Christians can be convinced to underestimate the power of Satan instead. Christians should neither overestimate nor underestimate Satan. In terms of this, the words of God are regarded as a both the remedy and weapon.

Finally, it is strongly suggested that all the Christians should engage themselves with spiritual warfare. To fight and to resist against the kingdom of darkness is depicted as the task Christians actively and proactively should take on.

 

Strength and weakness of the book

                The warfare perspective provides us with the correct understanding of the characteristic of God in terms of systematic theology. Although the warfare perspective is not sufficient for us to acquire the full awareness of who God is, it seems that this perspective at least creates room to be able to be more accepting of the characteristic of God and spiritual beings. But, this approach only brings the reader to the parameter around the perfect acknowledgement of God. Therefore, if all kinds of perspectives are inherently imperfect in acknowledging God fully, the war perspective should be one of them.

                For example, when Jesus was asked by the Pharisees “who is blamed for the illness?” he responded to the crowd by saying “he was born this way to glorify God.” It is believed that this occasion shows us the weakness of human being, which is the proclivity to manifest the cause and the effect, that is deeply rooted inside in us. Even if there is the cause from God’s side, some of the causes cannot be validated intelligibly from our side.

Despite the fact that a lot of researches on ancient documents have helped us to gain more understanding, this doesn’t change the fact that God can have no relation to evil and the dualism is not the healthy view to examine the conflict between God and Satan. In addition, it seems reasonable that the acknowledgement of warfare perspective should leave us with the obvious ignorance. Honestly, the deeper our knowledge of God grows, the deeper our ignorance of God grows.

                In my estimation, although the author has a flexible susceptibility in understanding the issue of spiritual warfare and the supernatural, it seems that all the approaches have been achieved from the perspective of a reformed Christian. However, if “God at war” was written with a Pentecostal colour, then the approach and contents of the book may have been painted radically different.

                Ultimately, the supremacy of Jesus and the fulfillment of biblical scriptures are the most powerful source that all Christians should use as a foundation of their faith. It is undeniable that the kingdom of Satan will be replaced by the kingdom of God in His time due to the fulfillment of apocalyptic prophets. On the other hand, it seems that this intelligence-attached approach does not teach finely regarding how the individual Christian should be prepared, as one imperative entity who can considerably dedicate oneself to the creation of spiritual dynamics.

                When it comes to the story of the exodus from Egypt into the Promised Land, some books of the Bible recorded different lengths of time for the period in which the Israelite people were held captive as slaves. Genesis 15:13 and while Act 7:6 say four hundred years, Exodus says four hundred and thirty years. What is more, Act 13 says four hundred year and fifty years.

Based on the intellectual comparison of all these, it is possibly assumed that whether how early Moses was changed or not could be quasi-decisive factor in terms of spiritual warfare. Although God’s covenantal commitment is the primary factor, it seemed the effort that Moses had to put in into the war to mold him into becoming the God’s container is often overlooked. In essence, Moses had to fight against all that had influenced thus far like his education and experiences in the palace of Egypt. Presumably, the internal war against his mind inhabited by demons seems to consume more time than it was expected.

                At this point, it is suggested that we, as Christians, have sparse inhabitation of demons right inside of our mind. Furthermore, it is very likely that our mind is endless battle field which is where the acquisition of holiness and fruits of Holy Spirit should be achieved. If the supremacy of Jesus and intellectual depth of biblical scripture are determinable factor for the warfare, it should be emphasized that Christians, as spiritual warriors, need to obtain the holiness, fruits of Holy Spirit and repentance through the daily discipline. It is very likely that holiness and fruits of Holy Spirit are, even if not considered determinable factor from God’s side, quasi-determinable factor which may seem to be ignored in this book.

                In this context, it seems that the author was not fully convincing in his interpretation and his perspective of spiritual warfare. And if accompanied with more actual experiences about the inhabitation of demon in minds of Christians in details, this book would be very abundant. Furthermore, there is a need for a more in-depth description on how demons desperately try to resist in order to keep their territories to not to be replaced by God’s kingdom. And sometimes some of the emotions and thoughts we accept in our minds on a daily basis does not originate form ourselves but come from demonic spirits.

When embraced undetected and undiscerned, demons start implanting their foothold and enlarge their territory. If our minds, sparsely or abundant, are inhabited by demons, these areas should be conquered by the Holy Spirit. And this internal war seems to be tougher than the way most people think it should be. When these mechanisms are examined clearly, it seems that all Christians can defend themselves from considering the spiritual warfare as romanticized experiences, which are to be highly recommended.

Obviously, only reading the records of Jesus’ exorcism ministry and dispelling demons does not help anymore when actually having experiences in seeing Satanic epilepsy and healing of the blind which I have seen on the spot. It is believed that although the author successfully did in demythologizing demons through many volumes of intellectual works, still, there seem some elements which cause readers to take the spiritual war as romanticized steps.

Realistically, those who have lots of experience in destroying many territories inside of their minds are qualified to become real spiritual warriors. It is highly likely that they can change the world either locally or internationally, for they actually change their internal world. Even if they fail to change physical territory into God’s kingdom, they would have at least made an impact to a lesser degree.

But, if some Christians are determined to change unreached areas such as 10/40 windows spiritually while failing to dispel demons which have long inhabited in their mind, their efforts will be total nonsense. Unfortunately, many Christians seem to be highly deceived. If our mind is viewed under the spiritual microscope aided by the issue of holiness, fruits of repentance and Holy Spirit and fight against sin, the contents in this book could effectively enable us to become well-prepared spiritual soldiers.

When various responsibilities from the perspective of human beings are examined, this book could be well-balanced but the book seemed to fail in emphasizing the human responsibilities. There is definitely a danger in emphasizing of human responsibilities have lots of possibilities to lead Christians to become more legalistic but there was only emphasis on God’s fulfillment of prophetic messages.

Satan should be neither overestimated nor underestimated. As a whole, it seems that this book provides me with many insights enabling Christians not to overestimate the enemy. But, when it comes to the other side of mental preparation, this book seems to show weakness in equipping Christians not to underestimate.