Punishing the ungodly: Ps. 78:49—“He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, Wrath and indignation, and trouble, A band of angels of evil”; 1 K. 22:23—“Jehovah hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets; and Jehovah hath spoken evil concerning thee.” In Luke 22:31, Satan's sifting accomplishes the opposite of the sifter's intention, and the same as the Master's winnowing (Maclaren).
Chastening the good: see Job, chapters 1 and 2; 1 Cor. 5:5—“deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus”; cf. 1 Tim. 1:20—“Hymenæus and Alexander; whom I delivered onto Satan, that they might be taught not to blaspheme.” This delivering to Satan for the destruction of the flesh seems to have involved four things: (1) excommunication from the church; (2) authoritative infliction of bodily disease or death; (3) loss of all protection from good angels, who minister only to saints; (4) subjection to the buffetings and tormentings of the great accuser. Gould, in Am. Com. on 1 Cor. 5:5, regards “delivering to Satan” as merely putting a man out of the church by excommunication. This of itself was equivalent to banishing him into “the world,” of which Satan was the ruler.
Evil spirits illustrate the nature and fate of moral evil: see Mat 8:29—“art thou come hither to torment us before the time?” 25:41—“eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels”; 2 Thess. 2:8—“then shall be revealed the lawless one”; James 2:19—“the demons also believe, and shudder”; Rev. 12:9, 12—“the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world ... the devil is gone down unto you, having great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time”; 20:10—“cast into the lake of fire ... tormented day and night for ever and ever.”
It is an interesting question whether Scripture recognizes any special connection of evil spirits with the systems of idolatry, witchcraft, and spiritualism which burden the world. 1 Cor. 10:20—“the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God”; 2 Thess. 2:9—“the working of Satan with all power and signs of lying wonders”—would seem to favor an affirmative answer. But 1 Cor. 8:4—“concerning therefore the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that no idol is anything in the world”—seems to favor a negative answer. This last may, however, mean that “the beings whom the idols are designed to represent have no existence, although it is afterwards shown (10:20) that there are other beings connected with false worship” (Ann. Par. Bible, in loco). “Heathenism is the reign of the devil”(Meyer), and while the heathen think themselves to be sacrificing to Jupiter or Venus, they are really “sacrificing to demons,” and are thus furthering the plans of a malignant spirit who uses these forms of false religion as a means of enslaving their souls. In like manner, the network of influences which support the papacy, spiritualism, modern unbelief, is difficult of explanation, unless we believe in a superhuman intelligence which organizes these forces against God. In these, as well as in heathen religions, there are facts inexplicable upon merely natural principles of disease and delusion.
Nevius, Demon-Possession, 294—“Paul teaches that the gods mentioned under different names are imaginary and non-existent; but that, behind and in connection with these gods, there are demons who make use of idolatry to draw men away from God; and it is to these that the heathen are unconsciously rendering obedience and service.... It is most reasonable to believe that the sufferings of people bewitched were caused by the devil, not by the so-called witches. Let us substitute ‘devilcraft’ for ‘witchcraft.’... Had the courts in Salem proceeded on the Scriptural presumption that the testimony of those under the control of evil spirits would, in the nature of the case, be false, such a thing as the Salem tragedy would never have been known.”
A survey of the Scripture testimony with regard to the employments of evil spirits leads to the following general conclusions:
First,—the power of evil spirits over men is not independent of the human will. This power cannot be exercised without at least the original [pg 458] consent of the human will, and may be resisted and shaken off through prayer and faith in God.
Luke 22:31, 40—“Satan asked to have you, that he might sift you as wheat.... Pray that ye enter not into temptation”; Eph. 6:11—“Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil”; 16—“the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one”; James 4:7—“resist the devil, and he will flee from you”; 1 Pet. 5:9—“whom withstand stedfast in your faith.” The coals are already in the human heart, in the shape of corrupt inclinations; Satan only blows them into flame. The double source of sin is illustrated in Acts 5:3, 4—“Why hath Satan filled thy heart?... How is it that thou hast conceived this thing in thine heart?” The Satanic impulse could have been resisted, and “after it was” suggested, it was still “in his own power,” as was the land that he had sold (Maclaren).
The soul is a castle into which even the king of evil spirits cannot enter without receiving permission from within. Bp. Wordsworth: “The devil may tempt us to fall, but he cannot make us fall; he may persuade us to cast ourselves down, but he cannot cast us down.” E. G. Robinson: “It is left to us whether the devil shall get control of us. We pack off on the devil's shoulders much of our own wrong doing, just as Adam had the impertinence to tell God that the woman did the mischief.” Both God and Satan stand at the door and knock, but neither heaven nor hell can come in unless we will. “We cannot prevent the birds from flying over our heads, but we can prevent them from making their nests in our hair.” Mat 12:43-45—“The unclean spirit, when he is gone out of a man”—suggests that the man who gets rid of one vice but does not occupy his mind with better things is ready to be repossessed. “Seven other spirits more evil than himself”implies that some demons are more wicked than others and so are harder to cast out (Mark 9:29). The Jews had cast out idolatry, but other and worse sins had taken possession of them.
Hudson, Law of Psychic Phenomena, 129—“The hypnotic subject cannot be controlled so far as to make him do what he knows to be wrong, unless he himself voluntarily assents.” A. S. Hart: “Unless one is willing to be hypnotized, no one can put him under the influence. The more intelligent one is, the more susceptible. Hypnotism requires the subject to do two-thirds of the work, while the instructor does only one-third—that of telling the subject what to do. It is not an inherent influence, nor a gift, but can be learned by any one who can read. It is impossible to compel a person to do wrong while under the influence, for the subject retains a consciousness of the difference between right and wrong.”