“Ask me no questions about [the Devil],” wrote Karl
Barth, “for I am not an authority on the subject! However, it is
necessary for us to know that the Devil exists.”
Perhaps the greatest theologian of the 20th century, Barth did not
consider extensive knowledge about the Devil to be essential for
Christian faith and life. But because he was so theologically astute, he
also knew that Christians would be in grave peril if they refused to
acknowledge the Devil’s existence.
Barth’s assessment is especially helpful to 21st-century
Christians. Within our Western worldview today, the Devil is easily
dismissed with the crude portrayal of a little man in a red suit wearing
horns and carrying a pitchfork. Evil, if mentioned at all, is reduced to
an impersonal force usually found lurking in boardrooms of multinational
corporations.
In this environment of caricature and reductionism, it is especially
important to remember that Jesus taught his disciples to pray “Deliver
us from evil.” For as we pray this final petition of the Lord’s
Prayer, we are reminded that Jesus knew that evil and the Devil were
very real and very dangerous.
The reality of evil
Nowhere in the Bible do we find a discussion of what philosophers now
call “the problem of evil.” The Bible simply recognizes that
evil exists, in much the same way it recognizes, but does not debate or
attempt to defend, the existence of God.
Thus, as he comes to the end of the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus is not
engaging in abstract speculation. Rather, he is giving his disciples a
practical way of dealing with the situations they will face in their
daily lives.
Although this petition is most familiarly translated “Deliver us
from
evil,” the Greek of Matthew 6:13,
ho poneru,
could equally well be translated “Deliver us from the
evil one.”
In the Gospels, Jesus uses this phrase both to refer to evil in general
and to an evil person or being in particular. For example, Jesus prays
that the Father will protect his disciples from “the evil one”
(John 17:15).
Which of the translations we prefer makes little difference to our
understanding of this petition. Either way, we are taught by our Lord to
pray for deliverance from the objective, and often personal, reality of
evil.
The Evil One
The Evil One is known by two names in Scripture. Sometimes he is called
Satan, from
satan, a Hebrew word that means “an
adversary, one who resists.” Notably in Job 1-2, but also in other
Old Testament texts, this term is applied to a supernatural being.
Coming into Greek as
satanas, the word is used 36 times in the
New Testament.
The New Testament also uses
diabolos, the Devil, to name the
Evil One.
Diabolos originally meant “slanderer, one who is
a false accuser.” The noun derives from the verb
diaballo,
which combines
dia, meaning “between, through,” with
ballo, meaning, “to throw.” The Devil is thus one who
delights in throwing something between us and God.
As William Barclay notes, the ideas underlying
satan and
diabolos
“are not so very different, because it is not so very far a cry
from stating the case against a man to fabricating a case against a man.
The aim of the Evil One is by any means to cause a breach between man
and God, to break the relationship between man and God.”
The Evil One is not the equal and opposite of God, as some dualistic
religions suggest. Rather, Merril Unger describes the Devil as “a
high angelic creature who, before the creation of the human race,
rebelled against the Creator and became the chief antagonist of God and
man.”
Deliver us from evil
While the Evil One is not as powerful as God, his power to disrupt our
relationship with God is more than we can resist in our own strength.
Karl Barth again is helpful at this point:
“The creature is defenseless in the face of this threat. God is
superior to it, but not the creature. Once given entrance, the Devil
performs endless ravages against which we have no other protection than
God’s. Wherever God is absent, wherever he is not master, it is the
other one who dominates. There is no alternative.”
That is why Jesus told his disciples to pray “Deliver us from evil.”
For to pray as Jesus taught is to recognize the truth about the Evil
One, about our heavenly Father and about which of the two is our Master.
Additional
Resources
William Barclay, The Lord’s Prayer (Louisville:
Westminster John Knox Press, 1999); Karl Barth, Prayer
(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985 [French, 1949]); Merril F. Unger, “Satan,”
in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 2nd ed., (Grand
Rapids: Baker, 2001). |