III. To love truth and righteousness is to hate their contraries.—Hatred of evil is distinct from any hatred of those who do evil, and who are objects of sincere sorrow, and have claims on Christian charity. The easy tolerance of moral evil is one of the most alarming features of our day. Only when the struggle with evil is a matter of personal experience do we hate it, and enter even remotely into the apostle’s stern language about its agents and its champions.—H. P. Liddon.
The Enemies of Believers.
I. The enemies referred to are here described as numerous.—1. They are here spoken of in the plural number, as they are also in other passages: “The angels which kept not their first estate.” “The devil and his angels.” The names here employed are collective, and imply numbers. We read of a single person being possessed with many devils. 2. Hence the whole world has been filled with their worship and studded with their temples. 3. Hence the strength of the temptations with which each one is tried. 4. Hence the intensity of human wickedness. 5. Hence the need of watchfulness.
II. The enemies here spoken of are represented as being in a kind of subordination the one to the other—there are “principalities.”—1. There may be remains among them of that diversity of rank which originally existed. 2. It may be a submission called for by difference of intellectual and innate power. 3. It may be made conducive to the more successful waging of the war in which they are engaged—giving unity of aim, of plan, of co-operation. They leave no point neglected; turn all their strength to account. All unity is not of God.
III. The enemies here described are singly and as detached mighty for evil.—They are “powers.” 1. Power intellectual. 2. Power physical. 3. Power directed. 4. Collective power.
IV. The apostle characterises these adversaries as the rulers of the darkness of this world.—1. Here a limitation of Satan’s dominion is expressed.—“Rulers of the darkness of this world”—of the hiding and blinding errors which abound—of those deceived and misled. 2. It is as the prince of darkness that he contends, using falsehood and the wicked as his instruments.
V. The enemies are spiritual in their nature.—1. They are intelligent and crafty. 2. Invisible. 3. Active and unwearied.
VI. They are wicked spirits.—1. They are in themselves wicked. 2. They would make others wicked. 3. They employ the most wicked means.
Lessons.—1. Watch. 2. Pray. 3. Resist. 4. Stand fast.—Stewart.
Evil Angels.