Principalities, powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world

for you, brother, anything

i remember something wonky about the Atonement, but this is the first quote i could find this morning:

There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it. For example, a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy and to leave in the background (though he might still say he believed) the Buddhist teaching on certain other points. (p 178 in my copy)

i think you'll agree this contradicts Jn. 14:6. it sounds like, i dunno... salvation by sincerity?
it reminds me of one of the Narnia books where the boy, Emeth, a Tash worshipper, is accepted by Aslan as having followed him without knowing it.

i want to stress Mere Christianity is a good book, it just has some sad deficiencies. perhaps better to read it when one has been inculcated into basic truths of the faith so one will notice the unorthodox points.

By all means please enlighten me, I see Satan used in scripture as a metaphor for sin, and I think others only see and wrongly interpret the figurative verses with literal applications, so maybe that could be a good start point to correct me? Ill try and explain how I see things and maybe you can point out(nicely) where I'm going wrong

This is a perfect example for the differences on how we think, You say Which you should because Scripture tells us Satan is defeated and Christ is victorious, and then you say the big There is always a but...

To me its a contradiction, to say Satan is defeated but is still in power? It would be exactly like if I said to you Hitler is totally defeated, but he still has power over Europe! Ironically if you said Hitler was literally defeated and is no longer in power and existence, but figuratively he still holds some sway and power there, as there are groups in Europe who follow and worship him and have the same ideals, I would agree with you. And its how I see the bible speaks about Satan.

Mankind's rebellion put them offside with God, it allowed sin and death to enter the world which spread to all. It would make no difference to me if Satan was banished at the garden of Eden.

Totally agree if a metaphoric meaning like scripture uses, disagree if you are saying Satan is literally the God of this world, and going around poking sticks in peoples eyes and blinding them.

I don't even know what low level demon is? Of course it was Satan in the wilderness with the Lord, who would even dispute that. How did Satan incite Peter to say to the person he thought was Messiah, loved and followed not to go to His death? It seems a pretty humanistic response to me! Did Satan also not want the Lord to go to his death?

I think God is sovereign and in control of everything and allows what happens, I think people when they like Peter don't understand why God does things a certain way, maybe in the same sense as Peter erred as it seems the wrong way or opposite way to what we are expecting, so instead credit the state of the world to Satan instead of sin, yet we are also told to submit to all authorities and powers, yet Christians seem to contradict themselves and want to do the opposite.

A question for you, so I can understand your view better, you say God knew what Adam was going to do! does that mean God could have stopped what was going to happen or change what was going to happen if He wanted too?

I bought my son a bike when he was 5. He learned to balance without training wheels. I told him not to go too fast or he would hurt himself. Sure enough, he went too fast and hit something. I did not make that happen just because I bought the bike and warned him. God clearly warned Adam and told him the consequences of disobedience. God did not make Adam choose incorrectly.

Sure, God could have chosen not to create Adam. This is how I see it:

1. God is by nature Father and Father's by nature want children
2. A real relationship can only be based on free choice, not compulsion
3. God created man in His own image, something most people seem to overlook.
4. God presented man with a real choice with real consequences.
5. Adam made the worst decision in human history.
6. God solved the problem by sending Jesus in human form to be the Last Adam
7. Once more, man has a choice.

I asked God why He did not just kill Adam and Eve and start again. I persisted with this question as I was genuinely puzzled. The Lord said to me, "I did. The cross did not only kill Jesus but the whole of the human race. Jesus rose again to be the Founder of a whole new race of people, Christians."

Jesus is the last Adam who did everything that God required of man. We transfer out of the old and into newness of life when we accept Christ. We are still in the world but no longer of the world. If we realised this, we would likely not get so involved in the affairs of the world.

I bought my son a bike when he was 5. He learned to balance without training wheels. I told him not to go too fast or he would hurt himself. Sure enough, he went too fast and hit something. I did not make that happen just because I bought the bike and warned him. God clearly warned Adam and told him the consequences of disobedience. God did not make Adam choose incorrectly.

Sure, God could have chosen not to create Adam. This is how I see it:

1. God is by nature Father and Father's by nature want children
2. A real relationship can only be based on free choice, not compulsion
3. God created man in His own image, something most people seem to overlook.
4. God presented man with a real choice with real consequences.
5. Adam made the worst decision in human history.
6. God solved the problem by sending Jesus in human form to be the Last Adam
7. Once more, man has a choice.

I asked God why He did not just kill Adam and Eve and start again. I persisted with this question as I was genuinely puzzled. The Lord said to me, "I did. The cross did not only kill Jesus but the whole of the human race. Jesus rose again to be the Founder of a whole new race of people, Christians."

Jesus is the last Adam who did everything that God required of man. We transfer out of the old and into newness of life when we accept Christ. We are still in the world but no longer of the world. If we realised this, we would likely not get so involved in the affairs of the world.

2. A real relationship can only be based on free choice, not compulsion

Thanks I enjoyed your post as so many good points, I think a point of slight difference with me would be, God intended for sin to enter the world through Adam, before the first act of creation happened it happened with the forethought of a sinful world, we can see it in animals with isolation and adaptation so many different breeds have come about, they were made with so much DNA information and which made such good use of the fallen world to show forth Gods forethought and creative genius.

All I'm trying to say is when Adam sinned God didn't go "oh Noe" "that's a bit of an oopsie" and then needed to introduce plan B, which is Jesus Christ now has to come and fix everything, but I'm saying before Adam was even created the plan was for Jesus Christ to come fix everything.

Which Is why when you say Is exactly why sin had to enter the world, we need the option to obey or disobey God to know what the sin nature is and for us to hate it, and to choose what is right or wrong, and it makes perfect sense and lines up with Gods nature or character which is not to have us as robots with no ability to choose.

This is why Jesus is rereferred to as the lamb slain before the foundation of the world rev 13

We are also known before the foundation of the world

"For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren" Romans 8:29 and tonnes of other verses

And while I agree Adam chose wrongly as we all would have in his place, I'm just saying it was planned to happen that way, God is in total control He can see the future so if He wanted to He could have made sure there was no serpent in the garden but then to me that would wreck everything if Adam did not choose wrongly and sin.

Im not trying to nitpick but it does make a big difference on other topics like Eph 6:12 or if demons make us sin, or even that Satan is the arch nemesis of God is a joke to me.

For example Gods plan is for the Antichrist to rule the world, but Im sure you would have heard some people say it is Satan's plan, again can Satan really bring to fruition something against Gods plan where God has to say "Dang nab it, its happened again time for plan b to fix everything up"?

You do not know what free will is. You also do not know who Satan is. His name means "Adversary". He incited David to number Israel, he was directly involved in Job's ordeal, he is the accuser of the brethren, he is the "Serpent of Old", he is like a roaring lion and so on. He is the one we are commanded to resist. Ignorance is not bliss. It is dangerous. God's people are still destroyed for lack of knowledge.

Adam, the son of God, was created, and God said it was good but, he came from the dust. Then Eve was formed, and God said it was very good but, she came from Adam's side (I wonder perhaps they were meant to be, together, the perfect 'man'). Then the second Adam, Jesus, the Son of God, came forth from woman, and it was best. I can only suppose this is because the process 'filtered out' the natural man. And I'm just about absolutely positive that there is no natural man, nor woman, that we should listen to without utilizing a filter, considering there's bound to be some residual dust in there, somewhere, to some degree more or less.

Fair points. I would not agree with Lewis on the matter of "inclusion by sincerity", though at the same time, God's mercy is likely somewhat wider than mine. I think that reject of all of a person's writings just because there are some secondary points that are off is the path to closed-mindedness, rather than grace.

is that what i did? i can only apologize, as it was the furthest thing from my intention.

does anyone have perfect theology? i doubt it. thanks be to God we're not saved by perfect theology, but by a Perfect Savior.

Ephesians 6:12
King James Version
12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Are the powers and rulers of the darkness of this world fallen angels serving under Satan? If so, what do they do to influence us or affect us? Is that something we can even quantify or discuss? How do we wrestle against them? Just looking to learn more as this interests me.

Also there's something I don't understand, if they are fallen angels how are they acting on us? Don't we pretty much do all the bad stuff in the world ourselves? Or do they act on us in such a way that it's imperceptible, influencing us somehow? I just don't get it. Maybe it's such a big thing that they do that I don't even notice it since it's always the same. Maybe things are different in heaven and you just feel better! Just thoughts, I don't know if that's true obviously.