Is a hard thing for many of us to believe in. Satan. The Enemy. Beelzebul. The Prince of Demons. Whatever you want to call him, images that we can see quickly overshadow any reality that we can’t see, making the whole notion seem rather fictitious. Like Vader, or Sauron, or Voldemort, the Wicked Witch of the West, or the guy in red tights with a pointy tail and a pitch fork. They all make the idea of a supernatural evil being seem like ancient mythology, or sci-fi fiction, or religious fake news.
But then, if we’re going to take Jesus seriously at all, we have to reckon with the fact that he took the idea of a singularly evil being quite seriously himself. And that he seems to understand some things about this being that may clash with our fictitious images:
He is the “Prince of this World” (a fav term of Jesus), in contrast to being the “King of this World,” who is, of course, going to be Jesus himself. Good perspective for us, I think.
He is “coming”. That is, even in Jesus’ experience, although the devil was already around, he was also imminently arriving in order to do some particular bit of nastiness (i.e., the Crucifixion). We, too, can therefore sometimes become aware of his coming in advance.
He has no hold over Jesus. He has less power than we might think, even after all of the “prince” talk. Which makes me think that perhaps Jesus’ use of the title was a bit tongue-in-cheek.
The devil’s arrival is an opportunity for Jesus to obey God—right in the midst of the impending nastiness. Which means that perhaps for us—even in the midst of the nastiness—we can let the whole world see our unshakeable love for God. God’s best outweighs the devil’s worst, so we do our best in return.
