The Layman Foundations of the Faith
Deliver us from evil
Robert P. Mills, Posted Tuesday, Jul 1, 2003
Suggested Scripture Readings: Psalm 23; Matthew 6:13; John 17:10-15; Ephesians 6:10-18 |
“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). |