The Lord's Prayer: Aspiration, Part II
Matthew 6.13b
Introduction
She was possessed by a demon…at least that’s what she said. When I was pastoring in rural Kentucky a woman called me and told me just that. She then asked me to come pray with her. I was a 23-year-old pastor, fresh out of Bible College; I had no idea what to do. So I made 2 phone calls. I called my dad and I called Pastor Kevin. With their advice in hand, I went to visit this self-diagnosed demon-possessed woman.
In The Screwtape Letters CS Lewis warns that there are 2 extremes to which humans can fall prey when thinking about demons:
“There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”
Some are prone to fear there’s a demon behind every rock and if there’s trouble, it’s the devil. This was true of most of pre-modernity. It’s also prevalent in more Pentecostal or charismatic theology. Our propensity though, and the modern and postmodern world with us, is to act as if the devil and his demons don’t exist. The Lord Jesus Christ disallows either of these errors with this phrase in the Lord’s Prayer: but deliver us from evil. How should we think about the devil? How should we pray in light of spiritual warfare? Let’s work backward beginning with evil and moving to deliverance.
The Evil One
We mentioned last week that the last petition of the Lord’s Prayer is our aspiration, and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. These 2 phrases cannot be divorced. They’re one petition with different applications. Jesus is using a form of communication that was popular in the Hebrew writings like Psalms and Proverbs called parallelism. Jesus prays and lead us not into temptation and then he restates the idea with a different emphasis, but deliver us from evil. Not all temptation comes from the devil; some comes from the world or our flesh. But Scripture does also call Satan the tempter. Augustine said lead us not into temptation is a prayer to protect us from the evil inside us and deliver us from evil is for protection from the evil outside us, from malignant forces in the world, especially our enemies who wish to do us harm.
Our greatest enemy is the devil himself. The Greek word that the ESV translates as evil is the adjective τοῦ πονηροῦ. That word is actually a masculine singular adjective. It’s a substantival adjective, like the English phrase, “only the good die young.” The implication is only the good people die young.
And πονηροῦ is masculine singular so a better translation is probably deliver us from the evil one. The CSB, NIV, and NKJV all translate the word evil one. John 17.15 uses the same substantival adjective: I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one (πονηροῦ). And so does 2 Thessalonians 3.3: But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one (πονηροῦ). Now I don’t think the ESV is compromised theologically here because the evil one does perpetuate evil and so when we’re praying deliver us from the evil one we are logically praying deliver us from evil. That being said evil one is more grammatically accurate.
Jesus is teaching us to pray about spiritual warfare. Christ doesn’t subscribe to the modern notion that the devil doesn’t exist. He commands us to pray deliver us from the evil one. On the other hand, Jesus also doesn’t give the evil one too much credence. The Bible doesn’t teach eternal dualism between good and evil; God and the devil are not equal enemies in an eternal battle. The evil one is a rebellious creature.
And so Christ gives him just as much ink as the rest of the petitions. Notice the balance: Jesus prays deliver us from the evil one, but it carries just as much weight as give us this day our daily bread and lead us not into temptation. It’s just as important to pray about the evil one as it is for bread, temptation, etc. Jesus acknowledges the war against the enemy, but he only gets one line.
The Deliverer
But Jesus isn’t merely affirming the existence of the devil, he’s praying for deliverance; deliver us from the evil one. Jesus is, in essence, praying for God to keep his promise. When Adam sinned in the garden, YHWH came running like the father in the parable of the prodigal son and promised to crush the serpent’s head (Gen 3.15). The book of Revelation says when Christ returns he will finally sleigh the evil dragon. Satan will lose all influence over the world when he’s thrown into the lake of fire prepared for him. As we pray deliver us from the evil one we’re petitioning God to keep that promise.
But Jesus isn’t only praying for the not yet, he knows that he’s come to inaugurate the already. He did so when he was victorious over the devil with his temptation in the wilderness. We’ve seen this over and over again in the Gospel of Mark as Christ exorcised demons. Jesus taught that he came to bind the strong man and plunder his house. Through his death and resurrection Jesus Christ defeated the evil one at his own game. Satan brought death into the world through the temptation with the tree. On the tree Jesus defeated death and through his resurrection, death no longer has dominion over him.
Theologically we talk about what Christ accomplished on the cross through theories of the atonement. Each of these theories speaks to a true aspect of the cross. For instance, the moral influence theory emphasizes the righteousness of Jesus. His death on the cross teaches us to be self-sacrificial. That’s certainly not all the cross is about, but we learn from Christ’s self-denial. The heart of the atonement is what we call penal substitution. Christ on the cross is our substitute who paid the penalty for our sin. Because Jesus paid our debt, we have the forgiveness of sin.
The theory emphasized in: deliver us from the evil one is called Christus Victor. On the cross Christ won the victory over Satan, sin, and death. As John Owen entitled his famous book on limited atonement, “the death of death in the death of Christ.” Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, the dominion of darkness has been overthrown! Jesus died but he will never die again. Like Jacob wrestled with God, Jesus wrestled with death for three days and won.
It’s fair to ask, if Christ has delivered us from the evil one then why do we still battle sin? Why do people still die? Why does the devil still roam like a roaring lion seeking to devour (1 Pet 5.8)? The answer of course is the inaugurated nature of the kingdom of Christ. Jesus has already defeated Satan, but he has not yet finally defeated Satan.
It’s like WWII. The allies invaded Normandy on June 6, 1944. This effectively ended the power of the axis. This was the point in the war where Europe changed from axis territory with pockets of allies to ally territory with pockets of axis. The war was over though a few battles continued. The war didn’t officially end until May 8, 1945 with the unconditional surrender of the axis powers.
The death and resurrection of Christ is like D-day. Easter is the day when the world changed from the domain of darkness with pockets of God’s people to the Kingdom of his beloved Son with pockets of rebellion. The 2nd coming of Christ is like the official end of WWII. Right now we’re like at Christmas 1944. The war is effectively over. Christ has invaded the strong man’s house and plundered his goods, Satan is bound from deceiving the nations. The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever (Rev 11.15).
Even though by Christmas 1944 the war was won, the battle stilled raged at points and soldiers had to persevere. This is why Christ taught us to pray deliver us from the evil one. If you’re not a follower of Jesus, this is a call for you to pray for eternal deliverance. Repent of your sin and trust in Christ and he will deliver you from the domain of darkness.
For us church, the prayer of deliverance from the evil one is a prayer to protect us from the wiles of the devil. Luther said we pray that “our Father in heaven would deliver us from every evil that threatens body and soul, property and reputation, and finally when our last hour comes, grant us a blessed end and graciously take us from this world of sorrow to himself in heaven.” Satan is not omnipotent but he is a tempter, he is the accuser, and he is evil. He has come to steal, kill, and destroy.
We are at war with his powers and principalities and our weapons are prayer, the Word, bread, and wine. The means of grace are the artilleries that God has blessed us with to fight the evil one. And so even as we come to the Eucharist, we’re acting out our prayer; deliver us from the evil one. We’re laughing in the face of the devil and feasting over the demise of his kingdom. The bread and the wine are a demonstrable damnation of the devil.
Conclusion
So, there I went to the women who said she was possessed. I shared the gospel with her. I told her that if she repented of her sin and trusted in Christ, she would be indwelt with the Holy Spirit. And then I prayed with her that she would turn from her sin and trust in Christ. I don’t know if she ever did. But I do know that the devil and his demons are real. We are engaged in spiritual warfare and we have to pray from deliverance from the evil one. I also know that in the most important sense, we’ve already been delivered from the evil one and his doom is sure. The devil may be a roaring lion seeking to devour, but he’s also bound and bruised. And when Christ’s kingdom comes and his will is done on earth as it is in heaven, finally and fully, Jesus will deliver us from the evil one.