Real Evil
Personal Matters
If exposing evil means uncovering the difference between appearance and reality I must first get my own life in order. I have always been able to make comments that no-one, even Donna, can gauge whether I am serious or otherwise. This once handy survival mechanism in a family that was a little crazy has nothing to do with being “light in the Lord” (Eph 5:8). Of this evil I am repenting.
To know the true reality of evil is a burden usually too heavy for human beings to bear. This explains why, against the testimony of history and its treatment of minorities, we keep being told that Islam is a “peaceful religion”. In the wisdom of God however the violence of Islamic State and our Western blindness’s create a rare opportunity to discern the intense spiritual character of evil. “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Eph 6:12). What is the Spirit saying to the safety first mentality of the sanitised Western Church to which we belong?
The Essence of Evil
As the “very good” original creation reflected God’s will (Gen 1:31; Ps 25:7-8; Rev 4:11), the evil which daily confronts us has its origin in the misused will of spirits and humans. To make an evil choice is to attempt to be your own inventor; to be something other than your Creator made you to be (Gen 3:6). As parasitic on God’s goodness evil seeks to destroy the image of God in humanity and substitute an image after its liking (Gen 1:26-28; 9:6). The average Aussie following after the image of the successful consumer is not essentially different from the jihadist worshipping a god who promises paradise to martyrs. Despite the distinctions we make between “goodies” and “baddies”, “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). At the root of all evil is our capacity to be deceived.
Deceiving and Deceived
Jesus said to the self-convinced Bible quoting Pharisees, ““You are of your father the devil….He was a murderer from the beginning….for he is a liar and the father of lies.”” (John 8:44-45 cf. 9:34). It was Satan who “deceived Eve by his cunning” (2 Cor 11:3) and “Cain…was of the evil one” (1 John 3:11). As the “father” of evil the devil is driven to substitute his own likeness for the image of God, he is “the deceiver of the whole world” (Rev 12:11). Deception is simply making things look different from what they actually are; “Evil, be thou my good.” (Milton’s Satan) There is something original and ultimate about the deception involved in the propagation of wickedness.
At its foundation evil is a form of untruthful worship involving false mental and material images of God; ““You shall not make for yourself…an image, or any likeness…” (Ex 20:4-6; Rom 1:23, 25). Paul’s prognosis on the human race is not optimistic, “evil people…will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.” (2 Tim 3:13). At the end of Revelation the climactic sins for which people are thrown into the lake of fire are not rape or murder, but being “liars….and everyone who loves and practices falsehood” (21:8; 22:15). The Church rarely treats the deceptive power of evil with full seriousness?
Real Church
One of the most frightening prophecies in the New Testament concerns the antichrist, “the man of lawlessness…takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.” (2 Thess 2:3-4). With the coming of Christ God’s temple is the Church (1 Cor 3:16). Satan will deceptively enthrone himself in a church that has come under the power of “a strong delusion” sent by the Lord himself (v.11)! Being aware that the largest church in our city was planted by a man who later professed atheism and knowing the leader of one of the largest churches in Melbourne is an advocate of gay rights, it is clear that the mystery of iniquity is amongst us. “Fake it until you make It.” was the counsel given by the youth pastor of a famous WA congregation to a struggling young Christian. The evil spirits are not deceived by the happy, clappy, bouncy triumphalism of the Western Church. Knowing what we are really like under the surface they see something of their own false image in our many efforts to be other than we truly are. What will it take to move us to confess the folly of our “wish dreams” (Bonhoeffer) and come clean with God and our brothers and sisters about our many spiritual disappointments? Only Jesus can help us.
Real Jesus
Christ’s words, “he who has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9) testify to his self-awareness that through his unity with God appearance and reality are one (John 10:30). Only of Jesus can it be said, “What you see is what you get.” (John 14:11). He is “the image of the invisible God….the true God and eternal life” (Col 1:15; 1 John 5:20). Christ’s purity made him an object of hatred for demons and evil men (John 3:19). Yet there is an image of Jesus that is vastly popular. The Koran extols him as Isa, the Word of God and worker of miracles, advocates of social justice love his treatment of the marginalised, who is not attracted to his great compassion and unconditional forgiveness (Mark 9:36; Luke 23:34)? Superficial admiration for an iconic Christ is itself riddled with deception.
To have “compassion” is to have one’s guts tied in a knot, to go to the cross, bear our guilt and forgive his crucifiers was a task that agonisingly stretched Jesus’ humanity to a new maturity (Heb 5:7-9). His hour of forsakenness obliterated Jesus’ consciousness of his own Sonship (Mark 15:34). Here we see exposed fully and finally the reality of evil, what evil means to God himself is completely unveiled in Christ as he bears evil for God’s glory. Only in this place of limitless suffering, weakness and despair do we see God as he is and not a G/god as we want him/it to be. Who desires to be conformed to this broken image (Rom 8:28-29)?
Conclusion
Jesus prophesied a violent end for Peter, “when you are old…they will take you where you do not want to go” (John 21:18-19). In order for Christ’s power to be perfected in weakness Paul must “despair of life itself” (2 Cor 1:8; 12:9). In a prophecy most appropriate to the current situation in the Middle East believers are told, “if anyone is to be slain with the sword, with the sword must he be slain” (Rev 13:10). Only when I gaze upon the agonies of Christ crucified, and on the endless list of those who have blamelessly suffered for him down to the present do I sense something of the reality of evil. Sensing its horror and the triumph of Christ in weakness I am finally able to allow evil, according to the will of God, to wreak whatever destruction to my body he so ordains (Rev 13:7). To know the reality of evil you must bear it in Jesus’ name and for his glory. Only in this place can I be that transparent vessel through whom the truth of Christ shines clearly for the saving of others (2 Cor 4:2; 11:10).