Justin Appel

'I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.'
Luke 10:17

Dear Friends,

Today's gospel lesson follows the sending out of the seventy, in the context of Christ's journey to Jerusalem from Galilee. Jesus sent these people out in twos 'into every town and place where he himself was about to come' (v. 17) where they were to heal the sick and proclaim 'the kingdom of God has come near you' (v. 9).

Now that the seventy returned to Jesus, they said 'Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!' (v. 17).

This passage may cause us to ponder who this 'Satan' and 'demonic powers' might be, particularly since he was coming to grief even as Jesus made his way through the mountains towards Jerusalem, where his work of death and resurrection would occur.

Thankfully, there are many passages, particularly in the New Testament, that clarify this question, as well as shed light on the existence of other evil angelic powers:

How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, Day Star, son of Dawn!
Isaiah 14:12

And the angels which did not keep their own position but left their proper dwelling have been kept by him in eternal chains in the nether gloom until the judgment of the great day.
Jude 6

[T]he devil and satan, the deceiver of the world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
Revelation 12:9

He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
John 8:44

For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Ephesians 4:12

Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.
1 Pet 5.8

Together with our gospel lesson, these passages indicate that Jesus, in his incarnation, death and resurrection, destroyed Satan, who is a personification of evil. This is why, in some renditions of the Lord's Prayer, the text reads 'and deliver us from the evil one'. We can pray this prayer as believers 'in Christ', asking God to protect us, not just from a malevolent spiritual power, but from the very impulse or temptation to turn away from God, and from all of the manifestations of that 'satanic' power. Indeed, one might say that the goal of our spiritual lives is to find victory over the deceitful and lustrous temptations to turn away from God that beset us every day.

Yours in Christ,
Justin