For the past couple weeks I've been reading Ed Murphy's The Handbook For Spiritual Warfare. Towards the beginning of the book he spends some time looking at spiritual worldviews. He points out that we have a tendency, especially in Western theology, to acknowledge both the spiritual and physical worlds but deny the middle ground where they interact. The result is that while we believe in angels, demons and all the rest we tend not to see that world as having much of an impact on our day to day lives.
I really think he's got a point. We've lost something both in our theology and in practice. The Life that God has for us is fiercely opposed and if we're to find it we're going to have to recover the middle ground between the physical and spiritual worlds where the two interact.
As I've thought about this, I've been rethinking the story of Balaam in Numbers. In case you need a refresher the basic gist of it is this: Israel's enemies hire Balaam to curse Israel. Balaam is on his way to do the job when his donkey stops dead in its tracks. He beats the donkey but it won't move. Then God opens the donkey's mouth and it tells Balaam that there's an angel that's going to kill him if he takes one more step, that God is not about to let him curse His people.
It's a great story. Normally when we hear it our reaction is something like, "that's pretty neat that God made the donkey talk!" And while that is pretty cool, the question I keep asking myself is why did God make the donkey talk? If we live in a world where the physical and spiritual don't meet and mix, where spiritual warfare is the exception not the rule, where curses don't matter, then what possible difference would it make if Balaam went on his mission and cursed Israel?
The implication of the story is that what Balaam did or did not do mattered. He was a man gifted with being able to interact in the spiritual world and the choices he made about how to use that gift had huge ramafications in both the spiritual and physical worlds.
We might be uncomfortable with it in our scientific, "enlightened" era but that is still the reality today. Angels, demons, curses and blessings not only exist they impact our lives in ways we're not even aware of. We are not just physical beings, we are spiritual beings and those two aspects of ourselves are not all that separate. Spiritual warfare is not an option, we live in a spiritual war whether we acknowledge it or not.
There are a lot of heavy implications here and I'm all too aware of how the enemy loves to exploit them for fear. I want to make it clear that while this stuff is true, God's love it truer. The point of recovering the spiritual middle ground isn't fear, it's to wake us up so we can fight the battle and step even deeper into the Life God has for us.
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2 comments:
I remember being really impressed with this when reading "This Present Darkness" and "Piercing the Darkness" years ago. It really brought it home in a way I hadn't thought of before. I need to remember all of this more often; we are truly in a war for our hearts, minds, emotions, spirits and it is so easy to forget that.
Thanks Ben, for the focus on the intersecting of the spiritual and the physical.
I remember C.S. Lewis writing in the Preface of The Screwtape Letters:
"There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils (demons). One is to disbelieve in 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 materialistn or a magician with the same delight."
Thanks for making me aware of the middle ground!
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