Apostolic Realities: The Principalities and Powers Art Katz Table of Contents: Apostolic Realities: The Principalities and Powers Table of Contents: Introduction The Fall The Cosmic Setting The Clash of Two Wisdoms The Cosmic Struggle The World as System The Theocratic Context The Final Defeat The Power of the Cross The Meaning of the Cross The Provision of God in Community The Manifold Wisdom of God The Overcoming of the Saints The Davidic Kingdom The School of Obedience Introduction The theme of the principalities and the powers of the air is foundational to all true seeing. The remarkable thing, though, is that it has to do with something totally invisible. There is a whole realm of invisible, angelic ‘spirit-entities’ who have a profound influence over the conduct and course of individuals and nations. This topic is both difficult and complex in every way. It is difficult because it is unfamiliar to us and complex because it is strenuously opposed by the same powers of darkness. It is extraordinary how naive, ignorant and indifferent the church is toward the powers of darkness, despite the fact that this theme is absolutely foundational to the whole calling of the church! It is a perspective that pertains to the whole of reality and of what God is about. The church has characteristically majored in the minors and has ignored this major theme. All of our activity, therefore, is condemned to a certain kind of futility and fruitlessness. We dissipate our energy away and walk on a horizontal level and in an earthly way. Paul reminds us that we wrestle not against flesh and blood: For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. (Eph. 6:12) This struggle or wrestling is something that is to be entered into by the corporate activity of believers together in Christ. It is ‘our struggle.’ Who are these principalities and powers and the world forces of this darkness in the heavenly places? There is a whole realm of mystery here. The heavenlies that are referred to are not the ones that describe God’s dwelling place. There is a certain order of beings in the very atmosphere who brood over the earth, namely, the rulers or powers of the air. They are the rulers of this present world darkness. They preside in a kind of layer over the earth, and yet influence the conduct of men and the things that take place in the earth. In this verse there are five references to the word, ‘against.’ We need to know that there is a war on, and that it has been on for thousands of years. It is a cosmic conflict between the kingdom of darkness and the Kingdom of God. If we think that the subject of demons is only the issue of personal deliverance, then we have completely missed the greater importance. These principalities and powers would like for us to be totally caught up at that level of individual demon deliverance as if that represents the whole issue. I am not invalidating deliverance for individuals, but it has fixed the understanding of the church at that level and robbed it of the greater and truer understanding of the conflict, namely, the contention for the actual dominion or possession of creation and the nations. It may well be that the stratagem of these powers is to get us to be occupied at the level of personal deliverance rather than to be occupied with combat in the cosmic sense. There is a final defeat that needs to be inflicted upon them which can only come by virtue of the church being the church. If we want to understand the faith and the church, then we must understand it in the context of the conflict with the principalities and powers, or we simply do not understand it at all. If the church has not recognized the presence over their community of this invisible realm of spirit reality and has not addressed that realm and broken its influence over the community where we seek to labor, then they labor in vain. There is an episode in Daniel’s life where he prayed, yet it took three weeks for him to receive an answer. When the angel of the Lord came to Daniel, he told him that from the moment he, Daniel, opened his mouth he was heard, but that the prince of Persia had contended and delayed his coming. So we are not talking about something imaginary, but something very real. Though it is an invisible realm, it has very practical consequences in the earth and with men. As mentioned, this requires the church to be the church. If the church is only an institution where people come to attend services and sit in a kind of audience of isolated individuals, then it is not equipped for this struggle. This struggle requires the church to be the church in the sense that God intended it not what we have made it. Unless the church is a “we”, then it cannot engage in this struggle, and that is why the principalities and powers will do anything to divide the church and divide individuals. They want to keep the church from becoming the corporate expression of the Life of God that can wrestle. We ourselves need to understand that and give ourselves to seeing that the church comes to this kind of reality. It is contrary to our own flesh because it requires time. It will mean the loss of privacy and the opening of ourselves to things that might be embarrassing. We prefer the church in its present configuration. We like to be anonymous and see someone else ‘do it,’ and yet say our “Amen” and “Hallelujah.” We do not want to be required of. If we are going to be the church that brings glory to His name and defeats to the principalities and powers, then we ourselves must struggle against our own flesh and against our own unwillingness. This is an apostolic view of the church as God intended it from the beginning. ‘Apostolic’ is a certain view of reality, a certain mind-set, a perception of things, particularly of the things that are not seen and are invisible. It is a view of the church set in a cosmic context that sees a struggle that has gone on since the beginning of time. There was a rebellion in heaven and one third of the angelic host followed their prince and rebelled against God. That rebellion continues until this day. All things were created by God. Even these principalities and powers are an angelic creation, a ‘spirit order’ that was given initially by God for His own purposes. They have rebelled, however, against their Creator and have therefore become a fallen angelic order. The Fall We have not sufficiently understood the meaning of the Fall. It was not only Adam and Eve, but very creation itself that was affected by the Fall. The Fall was the most significant tragedy, the greatest collapse and the greatest catastrophe in the history of creation and of man. For that Fall brought the entire creation into corruption, including the angelic realm. These fallen angels, under the leadership of Satan, still maintain their governmental places. They were designed and created in the realm over the earth to aid and abet the redemptive work of God in the earth by bringing a certain kind of order through their influence. It was to be a benign influence in accordance with the purposes of God, that men would have an atmosphere hospitable to finding God, to knowing Him and to coming into His salvation. Though they were intended as a benign influence in the aiding of God in His purposes, they have, in their rebellion against the purposes of their Creator, now taken unto themselves their own purposes. Their ruler Satan seeks to be deified and to turn the loyalties and attention of men unto himself and to establish his own values contrary to God’s, and thus turn men away from God. They have taken their governmental place and used it for themselves to become the gods of this world. We can see it, for example, in race and in nation. God created races and nations, but not to become idolatries as things in themselves. This was clearly revealed in the Nazi time when the nation Germany became elevated above God. There were principalities and powers playing upon nationality to bring the worship and attention of men to themselves. The very German theologians, who would not consider this subject, had to experience these powers in the paganism, the violence and the death that characterized Nazi Germany. When those powers broke through, they turned the loyalties of men to themselves, in the name of race and nation. They established a new order that was a perverse, antichrist distortion. Someone has wisely said that Germany lost World War II, but the same powers of darkness that precipitated it remain unchallenged still. The Nazi regime was defeated militarily, but the spirit powers, who expressed themselves through that nation to the virtual destruction of the civilized world, prevail still. The same spirits hover over that nation (and all nations) waiting for the conditions again by which they can come and manifest themselves, even to the turning of a nation to the most satanic purposes. We would be foolish and naive to continue in a willful ignorance of these realities. We have no idea of the influence of the principalities and powers. Nazism took hold, not in some primitive nation, but in the most eminent and prominent civilization of all nations. What is more, it took as little as ten years. They went ‘too far’ and revealed themselves. They were not satisfied merely to exert their influence invisibly, but took captive the whole organ of state. If we fail to understand what the Nazi phenomenon means, we will continue in an ignorance that for us will be tragic, because that is a preview of last days’ antichrist reality. The things that have been veiled and concealed are being unveiled and revealed in open antagonism against God. We are coming to the final showdown between the principalities and powers, who will be seeking complete domination in the final contest at the end of the age, as to who is going to prevail over this cosmos. God has created this governmental realm to sustain creation, but the powers’ function today in opposition to what was Divinely and originally assigned them. They behave as though they were the ultimate ground and reason for being. They gave to themselves a power beyond God’s intention, namely, to be seen as something ultimate. And they have taken the things that God intended as ultimate and made them to be irrelevant, like for example, eternity. They have turned the whole value system the wrong way up. When the apostles came into the world, they turned the world upside-down. They brought back the original and Divine perspective for creation that had been lost, because the whole of creation and nations had come under this demonic order. They were reversing the true values for which God gave the creation. You say, “Just how influential are these spirit powers?” They were sufficiently influential to crucify Christ: Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom, which God predestined before the ages to our glory; the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. (1 Cor. 2:6-8) Paul is not speaking here of Pontius Pilate, or even the Sanhedrin, but the rulers of this age. They are the principalities and powers of the air, who are invisible and super- terrestrial (beyond the earth), and who operate through worldly and earthly authorities that are ignorant of their influence. They expressed their rule through Pontius Pilate and through the Sanhedrin. In other words, they expressed themselves through the very best of religious and civil government. Roman law and authority was considered to be the epitome of civilized law. Much of present day legal jurisprudence is derived from Roman law. The Roman law and Jewish religion, that is to say, the ‘best’ of both worlds, conspired together to crucify the Lord of glory. But they themselves were inspired by the rulers of this age. If the powers had understood the wisdom of God, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But they acted out of their own wisdom, and it is a wisdom that employs force, intimidation and threat of death. The powers are characteristically cynical and unbelieving, profoundly egotistical and vain. Though God says that they will meet defeat, they do not believe it about themselves. They act with a presumption and an arrogance contrary to what God says already is their fate and their destiny. But you (Satan) said in your heart, “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” (Isaiah 14:13-14) And God answers, Nevertheless you will be thrust down to Sheol, to the recesses of the pit. (Isaiah 14:15) That presumption and that arrogance are at the heart of the character of the powers of darkness. The whole fallen angelic realm has the character of Satan himself and will suffer the eternal fate with Satan in the Lake of Fire. They know, but they do not know, so to speak, because had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But it was a hidden wisdom. It was the Lord’s intention. Jesus was slain from the foundations of the world. The Lord already in His marvelous wisdom foresaw and ordained that His Son would come and die, but it was a hidden wisdom that the powers could not see, though they are cunning. We are told to be aware of the wiles of the devil. He is cunning, crafty and very clever. He was once the anointed cherub and angel of light. He has a remarkable brilliance, but it will yet be his undoing, because his character contradicts his gift. That is also the undoing of any of us when our character is not in keeping with our gifting or our calling. The Cosmic Setting Even the word ‘cosmic’ is alien to the consciousness of the church. We do not think in cosmic terms. We think first in personal terms, then local, then national, and maybe with some regard to the world. Cosmic, however, is beyond all of these categories, yet includes them all. It is a cosmic view and I do not even know how to define the word cosmic. It is more than just interplanetary. It is the total setting of the redemptive work of God in creation as described in Ephesians 3:8-12: To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God, who created all things; in order that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him. This is so important in the sight of God that it was not, in His opinion, too extravagant to create all things that this could be performed. We need to understand that. This one thing will revolutionize our entire perspective about God. God has purposes unto Himself that have absolutely nothing to do with the benefits we receive as being the church, or that will even be experienced in the world. There is nothing here about what will happen that will benefit the world. It is solely and exclusively something that satisfies the heart of God. Moreover, it is so important, that He created all things in order that now this thing might be performed through the church. In other words, the whole of creation in God’s sight was to make possible the church. This is turning everything upside-down. The world thinks that it was created for itself. It thinks that it can have its great cities, its commerce, its trade, its culture and all of the things that men celebrate. The world sees the church as a ‘Sunday thing’ that society is willing to allow to exist, as long as it does not bother mankind and the things that are important to them. This is contrary to what God says. The church itself does not see this, but rather sees the church as established to provide men with certain blessings by meeting their needs. That is a grotesque distortion and is not the purpose for which God has established the church. Church is not something that panders to men. It is not something institutional that has been established to requite the interests of men by establishing programs and services. The church at large, even in its best forms, has regretably come to that pitiful condition exactly for the absence of the knowledge of the eternal purpose of God for the church. In fact, until we identify with the eternal purpose of God and look to the fulfilling of it, we never will meet the needs of men. Once we see this, then we begin to realize that our jobs and careers are all secondary, the merest provisions from God, in order to keep body and soul together. Why is the church so itchy and always wanting to find something to do? Why must it always have a program? It needs to justify its existence precisely because it does not see its existence in any other terms but in responding and meeting the things that are immediate and about them. It has not seen what would have given it its security and foundation in God, namely, the taking up of the eternal purpose. It would have freed it from the necessity and the itch to do and to perform. I cannot say enough to register this upon our spirits. If this does not find a place in our hearts and our understanding, then we are crippled in our service for God as well as our knowledge of God. We need to understand the cosmic context of the entire faith itself. We need to understand that there is a drama of a moral and cosmic kind that has had its inception from the beginning and that is moving toward its conclusion. The final thing is to be fulfilled by the church itself. Since the church does not float in the air, but rather has its being on the earth, God created the earth in order that through the church a certain demonstration could be made. In other words, our whole view of creation has got to be related to our whole view of redemption. God did not create all things in order that we could enjoy the benefits of the earth, although it has been given to be enjoyed. His purpose is that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might be demonstrated to the principalities and the powers of the air. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord. This is the eternal purpose of God for creation and for the church. The church that chooses to be ignorant of the eternal purpose of God and does not give itself to that purpose as the first and foremost purpose for its being, is, by that selfsame thing, not the church. The church that is indifferent to the eternal purpose of God, let it be however impressive in every other way, is not the church in any apostolic and prophetic sense, which is to say, in any authentic sense. In order to be the church that is the church in truth, we must embrace the eternal purpose of God, even though we do not see any practical consequence for doing so. It does not in any way serve our purposes. It does not aid mankind. It does not seem to alleviate any present ill in the world. It is altogether a mystery of a demonstration to the principalities and powers of the air. The church that is willing to do this demonstrates thereby the manifold wisdom of God. That is the wisdom of God. The wisdom of this world is predicated upon a self-interest and practicality that says, “What is the benefit for me if I do this? What is in it for me?” But the wisdom of God is altogether sacrificial. It does not rest on the benefit that one receives. It rests on the benefit that God receives. There is no benefit for us, but rather the likelihood of embracing suffering in order that He receives His fulfillment. That is so contrary in every point and particular to the ruling mentality of this world. The wisdom of this world says, “Take care of number one. See to your own self-interest. Be concerned for your own security. You have only got this one life.” There is such a power of self-interest, even in spiritual things, that needs to be broken. The principal thing that God gives to break the orbit of self-centeredness is the subject of the eternal purposes of God. We are out of whack and warped until eternity has come into our hearts and into our consideration for His sake. We will be doomed to a spiritual egotism and a viewing of things in a way that only affects us. That power can only be broken by embracing a purpose greater than us and other than us namely, the eternal purpose of God. And what do the powers of darkness say? “That is nonsense. You cannot do that. That is irrational and contradictory. Nature itself tells you that self- interest and survival are the very principles of life. It is a self-evident truth. You got it in the Declaration of Independence with its pursuit of happiness as being a self-evident truth and an inalienable right: your happiness, now, in this life; that is what it is about.” That is the wisdom of this world. God is waiting, however, for another wisdom to be demonstrated, and everything in the flesh, the world and the devil conspires against it. There is an eternal purpose that has to do with God’s own satisfaction and nothing to do with our own. God says that a people who will willingly embrace a purpose unto themselves that has not to do with their own benefit, and make it their first purpose for being, is the wisdom of God. For that was the wisdom demonstrated at the Cross! It was the giving up for another of anything that pertains to one’s own life and satisfaction. In other words, the ability to lay down one’s life and not to consider that one’s life is dear to oneself is the wisdom of God. It is a wisdom predicated on weakness and foolishness. One wisdom lives for itself, its own preservation and its own advantages, while God’s wisdom lives for another. It is selfless. It is the wisdom of the Son of God, who never initiated anything in Himself and for Himself, but lived entirely for the gratification of His Father. The principalities and powers make men respond to their own self-interest. This can be just as prevalent in the ministerial world. Ministers attend Bible School so that they can be credentialed, thereby establishing their ministry. And then they can go from youth leader to associate pastor to one day becoming the senior pastor and so on. It has the underlying and often unconscious presupposition, “What is in it for me?” As long as we ourselves are affected and ruled by self-interest, we have nothing to say to the principalities and powers of the air. The question then is how can we be free from this enormous power of self-interest that seems to be built right into human nature itself? God broke that power at the Cross. “Come down and we will believe you,” the crowd shouted at Jesus. But He would not. If He had come down, thereby seeking His self-interest and preservation of His life, He would have contradicted the very wisdom of God Himself. Staying on the Cross unto death is an exhibition of another kind of wisdom. Your reason for living is not for yourself, but for another, namely, God and His glory. It takes a power to be released from self-interest and to live for the glory of God, and that power is in the Cross itself.