Saturday, June 9, 2012

Jennings' Satan: III: His Dignity by Creation


CHAPTER III.

HIS DIGNITY BY CREATION.

Contents.
The Devil and the Archangel--The Prince of this world--The Devil’s lies
are superhuman--Where is Satan’s Throne--Saul a type of the Devil--
Retains his kingdom of the world to this day--Other names: “Prince of
the powers of the air”; “Prince of the Demons”; “God of this age.”

In full harmony with all that we saw in our last Chapter, we have the clearest and most explicit Scriptures for the transcendent dignity of our Subject, by his creation.

Let us look at what the Spirit of God writes by the Apostle Jude: “likewise also these dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.” We must not pass this without a little consideration, for it throws its light on what follows.

The “dreamers” to whom reference is made are the men who have “crept in unawares” (v. 4) to Christian communion; have there assumed a place of teaching, and undeterred by such examples as the deaths in the wilderness (v. 5), the angels who had sinned (v. 6), and Sodom and Gomorrha (v. 7), still walked in the same path of assured judgment; for first “they defile the flesh”; secondly, they “despise lordship or dominion”; thirdly, they “speak evil of dignities or glories.”

In this three-fold evil may be recognized one of those references (apparently undesigned on the part of the human writer at least, and which thus brings out the divine authorship all the more clearly) to man’s tripartite being, each of which carries with it the responsibilities of a certain relationship.

“Defiling the flesh” is clearly personal: affects themselves in their bodies. They subvert (and mark this carefully) the divinely intended order of their beings, by which the spirit was enthroned as ruler; this government is deposed, and their bodies are used solely for the gratification of low sensual desires of varying character.

“Despising lordships” is the same equally rebellious way in which they bear themselves to the governments of earth, and with which they are in relation by their soul; here too they subvert the divine order. Finally “speaking evil of glories” ascends with the same pride, into the higher sphere of the spirit; and the word “glories” or dignities suggests a closer connection with what is divine.

They, in every sphere, in every relationship, subvert God’s order of government, and particularly have no reverence for those who have been divinely invested with personal dignity, or official authority; and are thus (and again carefully mark it) above them.

Now as a contrast--a striking contrast to these--look at the highest of the elect Angels. “Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him, a railing accusation, but said “The Lord rebuke thee.” There is such a glory--such a dignity conferred on him who is here called the Devil, that even the highest of the holy angels--the only one who is ever called archangel in scripture--recognizing that dignity, owns that he is in some way higher even than himself, for none but the Lord can rebuke him. The rebuking implies official superiority. It is quite becoming for a superior to rebuke an inferior; a parent rebukes his children; a ruler those beneath him; an elder may rebuke one younger; but the reverse is altogether out of order and unbecoming. If the archangel then were higher than the Devil, and could thus have rebuked him, it would not have been necessary to have appealed to the Lord to do so.

The evil men of whom Jude writes had no reverence for authority higher than themselves anywhere, either in earth or heaven; whereas in contrast to these, the highest angel reverenced an official authority or glory above himself, even in one so far morally below him as the Devil (one must always distinguish between moral condition and official dignity); a glory of which even his present condition has not as yet deprived him.

In view of this let me ask are all these foolish and repulsive pictures, all the unworthy or slurring thoughts that we have received and harboured as to the Devil, are they consistent with truth? Do they come from God or are they pleasing to Him? Surely not; nor is it perhaps the least clear evidence of the exceeding “subtlety” of our enemy that he himself has been the author of these very falsehoods as of all others; for if he can thus bring men, and especially the Lord’s people to despise him, they will be the less watchful, the less prayerful, feel less the need of being on their guard against him; of absolute dependence on the one single Arm that is stronger than his; and his control of them, quite unsuspected, will be the easier and more complete. In warfare nothing is of greater value than strategy, and well may our great enemy prove himself, in this, the greatest of strategists.

Nor do we honour Him who came “to destroy the works of the devil,” if we recognize His opponent to be any other, or less, than our verse in Jude proclaims him to be; the highest of all created Intelligences!

But to continue: in John xii. 30 and again in chap. xiv. 30 the Lord Jesus speaks of one as “the prince of this world”*[Not “age” in these cases], who can be none other than the same personage. It is not permitted us to suppose for one moment that this title gives a false, or exaggerated impression of his dignity. You and I are walking through a world, of which none other than the Son of God tells us that Satan is still its Prince. The silly parody, such as we have seen the popular conception to be, has nothing very “princely” in it surely.

The Lord does not indeed call him King, which is a title of absolute supremacy, as Peter says “the King as supreme,” but “Prince,” carrying with it, I conceive, a responsibility to recognize One still above him.

I shall seek to show later how he became Prince of this world; and why so recognized even by the Lord Jesus Himself, but the only purpose I have in referring to these Scriptures now, is to emphasize the simple fact of Satan’s dignity by creation.

In further complete harmony with this, turn to Luke iv. 5-6.
“And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.”

Now there is nothing to show that this is a false or extravagant claim, or that he could not do as he proposes, nor does the Lord find any fault with him on this ground, nor does He answer by telling him that he has not the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them; but in quite another way.

We must ever remember that the Devil never lies exactly as man does. What he does he ever does superhumanly; and we must be further careful to remember that because a thing is superhuman, it does not follow that it is divine; it may be Satanic or demoniacal or angelic. There is a lie in the statement he made to our Lord; but it is not what we might naturally think it. It is recognized even amongst men, that, as Tennyson says,

A lie that is half a truth, is ever the blackest of lies,
A lie that is all a lie may be met and fought with outright,
But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight.

And so the Devil so wraps his lies round with an external covering of truth that, swallowing the truth, the lie may go with it; as bitter pills are coated with sugar that they may be the more acceptable.

One more scripture gives further strength to this. In the Lord’s letter to the church in Pergamos He says: “I know where thou dwellest, where Satan’s THRONE (Greek thronos) is; and this compels us to recognize first that Satan still has a throne; secondly that this throne is on earth, for Pergamos was nowhere else; and lastly that this idea of a throne is alone consistent with great, and, in its sphere, supreme dignity; although without denying a Throne outside that sphere that may still be superior.

Now that he holds that position in this day by divine right, we may well question; but that he does hold it we must not question. You will bear in mind too, that the overruling government of God so ordered the events of earth--or at least one particular portion of it--as to cause them to picture for us similar events in the far wider sphere of the unseen and spiritual world. I do not know what words I can use to impress my readers with the importance of this, for a right apprehension of our subject. We have the most direct and clearest ground for asserting it with regard to the inspired history of Israel–“All these things,” says the Apostle “happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come”; and he transfers from a literal to a spiritual sphere these recorded events, when, for instance, he says “that rock was Christ.”

I therefore confidently believe that we shall find profound teaching in this divinely given history that shall be most helpful to the clear understanding of our subject.

    Thus you remember that God permitted Israel to choose their first King, and they chose Saul; as to whom we are told that “from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people.” Why are we told this? Have we exhausted its significance when we picture to ourselves the towering height of that human king? I am sure not; but rather would the Spirit of God, provide a perfect figure or type of him, who, exactly in the same way, towered over his fellows: in other words was, as the other Scriptures we have glanced at show, the most exalted of all created spiritual intelligences.

But Saul disobeys, or, to use language that shall suggest the parallel I desire to keep before us--“iniquity was found in him”; see Ezek. xxviii. 15; and he was set aside from his kingly office: the kingdom was rent from him (I Sam. xv. 27, 28), and then God anointed another king of His own choice: A shepherd king, David! Now no one questions David being a type of the beloved Son of God; why should not Saul afford us also a type of His opponent? He surely does.

But--and this is the point that must be carefully noted and weighed--Saul retains the throne of Israel, and is still recognized as the king, long after he is divinely rejected; the sentence is pronounced, but judgment is not at once executed, whilst David, the now true king, is “hunted like a partridge upon the mountains, or finds his refuge in the cave of Adullam!” God does not at once intervene by power, and take the dignities of the kingdom from Saul--although he has lost all title to them--and put them in David’s hand: the power is Saul’s-- the title is David’s. The latter is king de jure, the former de facto.
Do you not see the marvelous and clear analogy?

Satan too, whilst he may have forfeited all title to the throne of the earth--we shall consider this more carefully directly--still cleaves as did Saul, to its power and dignity; claims, as did Saul, all the power of its government; whilst the true David, to whom all belongs in title, is as it were, in the cave of Adullam, where a few “discontented” ones, those who are not satisfied with such a condition of things--have found their way to Him, and own Him, even in the day of His rejection, as rightful Lord of all. Therefore whilst Satan is the prince of this world at the present time, we are led by the analogy of the inspired history, as by every clear Scripture, to regard Him as its usurping prince: a prince in power, but not in title.

Yet whilst now a usurper, as Saul was, still since he was, also as Saul, divinely anointed as king, the dignity of that anointing still lingers on him, so that Michael recognized that dignity--not speaking evil, but reverently (even as David spoke of Saul ever as “the LORD’S anointed”) and saying “the Lord rebuke thee.”

Nor are his royal dignities exhausted by the title of “prince of this world”; he is also called “the prince of the power of the air,” that is, he is the recognized chief of all those spirit-beings who shared his sin, and are under him in his government of the earth, filling its atmosphere which is their natural habitation. Strange and wonder-inducing word! Are we indeed surrounded on all sides by unseen spirit personalities? Is the very air we breathe permeated and defiled with their presence? Was it due peradventure to this, their continued presence in it, that God refrained from calling the work of that second day, “good”? Do the claims of modern spiritualists, as of ancient witchcraft, receive this degree of clear confirmation from Scripture? Yes, surely yes, to every question: little as the consequences of such an answer may be realized by us.

Again we have a parallel title to the last in “prince of the devils” (Matt. xii. 24), assuming that Beelzebub is one of the names by which Satan was called by the Jews, as v. 26 would clearly justify. He casts out demons “by Beelzebub the prince of the devils,” they charged. “If Satan casts out Satan” the Lord answers: so Satan is surely the “prince of the devils.” [Jennings substitutes demons for devils here.]

The word “Demon” bears with it to our ears an idea of such utter repulsiveness, such moral uncleanness as to obscure or eclipse entirely any official dignity or personal glory by creation that might still attach to one so called. But as the Devil or Satan is called both Prince of the Powers of the Air, and Prince of the Demons, and these latter are as clearly spirits (see Matt. viii. 16, and Matt. xvii. 18, with Mark ix. 25) as the former; there would appear no good or sound reason for distinguishing between them.*[As does Pember in Earth’s earliest ages; but his argument is not convincing.]  We conclude that the Demons are but the Principalities and Powers who own Satan as Prince, only under another name; and one which by no means carried with it at all times its present low and repulsive idea.

But royalty is a civil dignity--a political glory--has he no spiritual or religious dignity? Indeed, yes, but we cannot admit that this is his by creation; but rather by his own inordinate pride and presumption than by any divine apportionment at all, or at any time. In 2 Cor. iv, he is called “the god of this world.” In this present system of things looked at morally and away from God, he so arranges not merely the politics of earth, or its immoralities, but its religion--for this is necessarily the force of this title “god” as in contrast with “prince”--as to suit his own ends.

He so weaves the course of this age: its religious forms, ceremonies, external decencies, respectabilities, and conventionalities as to form a thick veil, that entirely hides “the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus,” which consists in righteous mercy to penitent sinners only. This veil is not formed by evil-living, depravity, or any form of what passes as evil amongst men; but by cold formality, heartless decency, proud self-complacency, highly esteemed external respectability, and we must add church-membership--all without Christ. It is the most fatal of all delusions, the thickest of all veils, and the most common. It is the way that because it is religious, respectable, decent, “seems right unto a man but the end thereof is death”; for there is no Christ, no Lamb of God, no Blood of Atonement in it.

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