Luke 11:21-22 (NIV) “When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him, he takes away the armor in which the man trusted and divides up the spoils.”
Jesus continues to teach those who accused Him of being able to cast out demons only because He Himself was possessed by the king of the demons. Jesus had already challenged that idea successfully, effectively showing where His ability did not come from. Now He moves on to show how He was able to do what He did.
The key point in this paragraph is that, even though satan is strong and has the ability to lock a person up in sin and bondage, and even to possess them and take their freedom and autonomy away, Jesus is stronger than satan. He is, in fact, strong enough to attack satan where he lives, to overpower him, and to take away every defense in which he trusts. Then He is able to take away his spoils, the people that he had taken captive.
This is key for Christians, as much now as at any time in the past. Today, thanks in large part to poplar novels, movies, and television shows, most people, even many Christians, see satan as an unbeatable foe that must be feared. Borrowing from Gnosticism and Greek philosophy, many Christians see satan as the opposing force of evil to God’s goodness, and equal to God in strength, but in the opposite direction. They see him as a fearsome enemy that, if he can be defeated at all, can only be beaten with great expenditure of power, and likely great loss.
But the reality is that satan is a created being, as far below God and His power as an ant is below human beings. Even though an ant is amazingly strong, and can lift many times its own body weight, it is so small that, when attacked by a human being, it has no adequate defenses, but ends up squashed on the pavement. Jesus never had any problems defeating satan and withstanding his temptations in the wilderness. Instead, He said no to every one of them, and when He commanded satan to leave Him alone, satan had no choice but to slink away without a word. And Jesus had the same authority and power over demons as over satan himself. Even when He approached the man possessed by a whole legion of demons (Luke 8:27ff), the demons didn’t fight against Him, but fell immediately to begging for their very existence before He cast them out into a nearby herd of pigs.
A corollary of this fact of Jesus’ superiority to satan is that anyone in whom Jesus lives is also more powerful than satan, and never has to run from him or his forces, no matter how many, no matter how fiercely they roar. Neither Peter nor Paul ever fought against demons; they simply commanded them to go, and they left without a word. And that same authority is available today to all of those who belong to Jesus.
Father, our thinking in this area really has been tainted by movies and television shows, making us fearful, and driving the truth of these verses out of our minds and hearts. Help us to think in kingdom ways about these things, too. Help me to be a strong warrior whenever I have to stand against temptations, against demons, against evil in any of its forms. Help me to trust not in my own strength, but in the truth that the one who is in me, Jesus, is far greater than the one who is in the world (1 John 4:4). Amen.