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In our first article, we spoke of how Jesus defeated Satan once and for all and yet how Satan is —still trying to attack the church and individual believers. And this has conferred a dramatic quality of struggle on the Christian life throughout the ages—and of struggle not only against "flesh or blood" (Ephesians 6:15).
It is sad to note, however, that in many places today, this tension has collapsed. Silence has fallen about Satan. The struggle is now only against “flesh and blood,” against evils within human reach, such as social injustice, violence, one’s own character, or one’s own sins. For evils within human reach, of course, a salvation suffices that is equally within human reach. In other words, Christian salvation is not necessary. This reality, called “demythologization,” has exorcised the devil from the world, but in a different way than we read in the New Testament: not by driving him out, but by denying his existence. No one, I imagine, has ever been so delighted at being demythologized as the devil, if it is true that Satan’s greatest cunning is to make people believe he does not exist.
So, our generation shows a…
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