7. The evil angels, their deeds and their eternal punishment.
With the question why God did not send a Savior to the fallen angels as well as to the fallen men, we enter a mysterious area. Quenstedt gives reasons of probability (probabiles rationes), among which probably the best known is that the devil fell without seduction, man by seduction.1526) But we have to be careful that we do not touch the free mercy with which God has taken care of men. A question that is often discussed is how the devil's intelligence (vis intelligendi, intellectus) is to be assessed, since the Scripture on the one hand says that he is very cunning (Gen. 3:1 ff.; 2 Cor. 11:3; Eph. 6:11), and on the other hand reports the great foolishness of him, that he is responsible for the death of Christ, by which he is thrown out of his kingdom. Christ expressly says before His death passage and for the interpretation of it: "Now the prince of this world will be cast out," έκβληΰήσεται
1523) Luke 1:26; 2:9; 28:5 ff; Acts 1:10 ff.
1524) Cf. Baier on these passages, II. 128.
1525) Cf. Quenstedt I, 686 sqq, especially the Antithesis Scholasticorum et Pontificiorum. Further, Günther, Symbolik 4, p. 266 f. It should be noted that the expression προακυνεΐν is used both to designate civil reverence, the cultus civilis, and to designate the cultus divinus in Scripture. From this homonym the papists seek to capitalize for their veneratio et invocatio angelorum. The papacy proves its pagan nature also in this.
1526) Svstema I. 829.
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εξω, Jn. 12:31. We also have to accept that the prophecies of the Old Testament from Gen. 3:15 to Is. 53 and beyond together with the consequences for him (the devil) were not unknown. A probable explanation we have in the assumption that the devil's hatred against everything that is God and God's was so great that it blinded the mind. The will directed toward evil put the mind out of action.1527) We have an analogue for this in the human enmity against the gospel, which has its primary seat in the love of evil (John 3:19-20) and directs the mind, that is, puts it out of action. Every contradiction against the divine truth, including the contradiction against the satisfactio vicaria and the inspiration of the Scriptures (verbal inspiration), can be clearly proven as lack of understanding.
This brings us to the operations (operationes) of the evil angels. For our instruction and warning, the Scriptures describe these operations very clearly and in detail. The actions of the evil angels are directed to harm the body of the man (Luke 13:11, 16) as well as the earthly goods (Job 1:12 ff.; Matt 8:31-32), but especially the soul (1 Petr 5:8-9). The whole status of unbelief (status incredulitatis) — in the Gentile world and within the outer Christianity — is an effect of the devil (Eph. 2:1-2). All who do not believe the gospel of Christ think and do what the devil wants because they are in his power, εξουαία (Acts 26:18; Col. 1:13). Also, that they do not know this, indeed, deny the existence of the devil, is an effect of the devil. It is scriptural terminology to call the status of all those who do not believe that Christ's blood alone makes us clean from all sin obsessio spiritualis. If we want to reserve this expression for special cases and persons, namely for an increased effect of the devil, which we perceive in individual persons (Judas) and at special times,1528), we must not deny that every
1527) Cf. on this point also Pd. II, 81.
1528) In addition to Judas, each time the pope as the man of sin and the child of perdition in his function as the κατ' εξοχήν who sits down in the temple of God as a god and pretends to be God (2 Thess. 2). The French Revolution at the end of the 18th century, which is often cited as an example of the heightened obsessio spiritualis, is matched by recent events (the activities of the Communists and many Socialists, also
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unbeliever is completely in the power of Satan until God's grace and power delivers him from the authority of darkness and transfers him to the kingdom of His dear Son (Col. 1:13). Spiritual possession does not abolish personal responsibility (Matt. 25:41); neither does it abolish free will, conceived as freedom from compulsion, because the unbeliever willingly does not want the gospel and gladly does evil. Spiritual obsession is to be distinguished from bodily obsession (obsessio corporalis). This can also come upon children of God (Mark 5:6, 18:19; Luke 8:28, 38:39,1529) ) and is present when the devil, under God's permission, takes possession of a man not merely in effect but also in essence (κατ' ουσίαν) in such a way that the man becomes a reasonless and will-less instrument of the evil spirit. The human personality is suspended in its activity, and the devil in his own person (αυτοπροσώπως) is the acting subject.1530) The bodily possession cancels the personal responsibility.1531)
The Scriptures describe the activity of the evil angels against the church. According to Matt. 16:18, the πύλαι αδου stand in continual battle against the church, and it is only through Christ that it is preserved against the onslaught of the infernal power. Behind everything that harms the church stand the evil spirits. Their work is the carelessness of the hearers of the Word of God (Luke 8:12) as well as the falsification of the divine doctrine that Christ wants to have taught purely in His church (Matt. 13:25: "While the people slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went away"; 1 Tim. 4:1 ff: δώασκαλίαι δαιμόνιων). In particular, the papacy is seen as a masterpiece of the devil within the
of the deliberately untruthful statesmen and their accomplices, the newspaper editors during and after the World War). As examples of the increased obsessio spiritualis also such representatives of the "science" are considered rightly, who storm as furiously against the Christian church and the Word of God. [See C.D. I, p. 509, fn# 18]
1529) Cf. also Nösgen on these passages in Zöckler's commentary.
1530) Cf. on obsessio spiritnalis and corporalis the quotations in Baier-Walther II, 136 ff.; furthermore, on bodily possession, in what it consists, on whom it comes, its signs of recognition and its treatment Walther, Pastorale, p. 293 ff.
1531) Fecht therefore points out (in Walther, Pastorale, p. 295) "that the possessed, if he is faithful, is to be reproached in light hours that the blasphemous speeches and the like foamed out by Satan through him in the paroxysm would not be imputed to him".
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Church described (2 Thess. 2). We do not have the biblical judgment on false doctrine as long as we do not consider it to be the work of the devil. We also have to consider the persecutions and oppressions of the church on the part of the state and individual societies in the state as an effect of the evil spirits.1532)
Just as the devil constantly disputes the church, he is also an enemy of the divine order of the state and the family. He seduces David to take a census (1 Chron. 22:1) and Ahab to wage war against the Syrians (1 Kings 22:21, 22). He brings about marriage prohibitions (1 Tim. 4:1, 2) and tempts spouses to infidelity (1 Cor. 7:5). Scripture also tells us that God uses the evil angels not only to punish the wicked who have not accepted the love of truth (2 Thess. 2:11, 12), but also to chastise the pious, as we see in the example of Job (Job 1:7 ff.) and the apostle Paul (2 Cor. 12:7).
The punishment of the evil angels is their eternal torment in the hellish fire (Matt. 25:41). We can leave unanswered the question how this fire is constituted (whether material or immaterial).1533) The same applies to the question of how fire can affect spirits, because the fact of the effect is certain. Whoever denies the eternal punishment of the evil angels and the men who are finally [finaliter] seduced by them, must consequently also deny the eternal salvation (Matt. 25:46) and thus the whole Christian religion (1 Cor. 15:19). To think of the eternal fire as a purification fire or also as a destruction fire, as for godless men, so also for the evil angels, contradicts the Scriptures. Again, let it be remembered that all that Scripture says about the evil angels and their eternal rebuke is in the service of divine mercy. It has the purpose of reminding men of the necessity of repentance and faith in Him who with His blood bought men not for hell but for heaven.
1532) We are also thinking of the fight we had to wage against the legislation of individual states for our Christian congregational schools. Despite the decision of the United States Supreme Court in our favor, hostility is stirring anew (presently again in Oregon and Iowans).
1533) For more on this, see Vol. III, 613 f., under the section "Eternal damnation.
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