Servants of Satan in the Church?

Overlooked teaching from St. Paul on false teachers

One reason I urge people to read the Bible and keep reading the Bible is that often at the upteenth time of reading a passage, one will notice something important one did not notice before.

That happened to me Monday quite by accident. (But I know it’s God’s providence.)  I was preparing a Bible study on the tactics of the Devil.  The activity of Satan is a neglected theme of Lent even though it is prominent in the Gospel readings for the season.  And Beelzebub has been on quite a PR campaign lately, which has provoked one man in my study group to the point of asking me to respond.  So I thought a quick Bible study on the subject would be good.

So, of course, I will include St. Paul teaching that “Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.” (2 Corinth. 11:14) That is a verse familiar to us hard core Christians.  But after I looked it up and read it for, yes, the upteenth time, I noticed something I had forgotten or not noticed at all before.  It is also something that is rarely taught in the church.   

Satan’s tactic of disguising himself as our angelic benefactor, as important as that is, was not Paul’s main point in the passage.  As part of a larger section defending his credentials as an Apostle, he was addressing the problem of false apostles, false teachers who pretend to be authoritative:

For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds. (2 Corinth. 11:13-15, NASB 95)

“Such men” are defined in verse 12 and, more importantly for our purposes, verse 4:

For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.

Note that Paul is not railing against those men over small points of doctrine on which faithful Christians can disagree, such as modes of baptism, details of observing the liturgical year, fasting and diet, etc.  Paul instead teaches elsewhere (e. g. Romans 14) that differences of opinion on such matters should be respected without rancor and with consideration.  No, Paul is instead rather worked up about those who preach “another Jesus” or “a different gospel,” in other words those teachers who deny or disfigure the basics of The Faith.

(And note also that Paul, and this post, is addressing false teachers.  His hard words and mine here do not apply to learners.  Heck, most of us Christians were little heretics for a time as we were learning.  I know I was.)

So St. Paul, in 2nd Corinthians 11:13-15, clearly teaches two things about false teachers who deny or distort the basics of The Faith. First, they disguise themselves as faithful Christian teachers, “as servants of righteousness,” much like Satan disguises himself as our benefactor.  Second, these false teachers are “his servants.” Yes, Satan’s servants.  Paul said it; I didn’t.  They might not all know it — most of them probably do not — but they are servants of Satan.

No wonder this is not taught much in the church.  You all think I’m harsh!

Well, I am actually.  So I will make a further interpretation.  Totalitarian ideologies such as Nazism, Marxism, and, yes, Critical Theory are “different” gospels, false gospels, albeit secular ones.  But even if they are not, they are so evil and idolatrous with such profound and awful consequences in history and today that they are not secondary issues on which Christians can agree to disagree.  St. Paul’s condemnation therefore also covers those who teach Critical Theory and/or its variants in the church, even if it is dressed up in pseudo-pious clothing such as Liberation Theology or “social justice.”

The reader may already see that the application of this passage is a matter most churches would rather avoid.  St. Paul’s main purpose was a defense of his apostleship.  And, yes, the teaching of the Apostles and the accompanying authority of Scripture are among the basics of The Faith we dare not discard or distort for the sake of supposed unity.

But there is another application, one so obvious that Paul did not see the need to deal more directly with it here.  No matter how winsome and loving and righteous they may appear — and St. Paul teaches they will usually so appear — false teachers are servants of Satan.  At the risk of stating the unpleasant obvious, servants of Satan should not be allowed to teach or lead in the church.  If one allows them to do so, one is allowing “the smoke of Satan” into the church, as Pope Paul VI warned, and more than just smoke.

So one should not put up with false teachers in the church any more than one should put up with demons in the pulpit.

The details of how one should deal with false teachers in the church is beyond the scope of one article and will differ depending on the situation.  For example, in some situations it may be feasible to drive them out.  I am thankful that is the case in my church.  In other situations, there may be little choice but to leave a church.  Again, I will not and should not deal with more detailed application here.

But certainly we should not be like the Corinthians of St. Paul’s day and mainline churches of today who tolerate and receive false teachers “beautifully.”  2nd John among other scriptures makes that quite clear.

As you surely know, I could rant quite a bit more on this if I did not exercise at least some Anglican restraint.  But for now it suffices to say that most churches in the West have not taken 2 Corinthians 11:13-15 to heart, much less applied it in recent years, nay decades.  These have thereby allowed “doctrines of demons” (1 Timothy 4:1) and the Devil himself to infiltrate the church.  Most mainline churches are so infiltrated they are practically churches of Satan already.

One would think Satan would be satisfied with that.  But he is never satisfied.  He is always ever hungry and roaring with anger because he knows his time is short. (1 Peter 5:8; Rev. 12:12)  Like the totalitarians that serve him, he lusts for control of all the things, including all the churches.

So those churches that remain faithful must also remain vigilant against Satan and against the servants of Satan, his false teachers, whose deceptions echo those of the Deceiver himself.

I confess that I neglected 2nd Corinthians 11:13-15 and its teaching.  I am without excuse.  More importantly, most of the church in the West has neglected it.  The resulting loss is already incalculable.

It is past time that neglect comes to an end.