The Amazing New Testament: Principalities and Powers

I’m fond, as you probably are, of Paul’s eloquence at the end of Romans 8: “Nothing can separate us from the love of God.” But among the challengers, that dreaded pair of curious P words that would drive a wedge between us and that love of God? “Principalities and powers.” They rear their heads throughout Scripture – and in our world.

What are these powers? And are they real? Scripture clearly understands there are two plots unfolding in the world, and in your life, one obvious, visible, tangible, and the other invisible, sneaky, dangerous. There are unseen forces surging around us, their great power being derived from their being unnoticed, or simply not believed or understood. The Bible, perhaps surprisingly, rarely speaks of sins, but talks often of sin. It’s not that you mess up. You’re in a mess. You are a mess. The world is a mess. You and I find ourselves “under the power of sin” (Romans 3:9). Indeed, “We contend not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of darkness” (Ephesians 6:12).

Sounds scary. But the whole point of the Gospel, the most fabulous outcome of Christ’s mission, is that “He has disarmed the principalities and powers” (Colossians 1:16). The message isn’t that God kindly writes off your sin. Salvation is being set free from the vise grip of these malevolent powers. And only a very mighty God can set us free. On your own, you can grit your teeth and try harder to do good, but you wind up like my dog Abby who got tangled up in an old rusty barbed wire fence that had fallen into a bed of leaves out in the woods. Her struggle only lacerated her flesh all the more. Her rescue was in my hands, and I could not rescue her until I persuaded her just to be still, to breathe, not to struggle. God mercifully extricates us from the bondage of sin and death, the principalities and powers.

But are there really such powers? Indeed there are. There are big picture woes in the world, like racism, or materialism, or anxiety, or oppression, which are larger than the sum total of individual actions by individuals. Whole institutions, governments and cultures become corrupt, and you can’t just opt out. You’re stuck. You’re enmeshed. The negative, hostile forces are invisible, yet omnipresent. Political ideology is pure and simple idolatry and evil. You see a given politician or voter, but both are swept up in something far larger than themselves. Your son takes drugs; you ask Why? forgetting that he swims in an addictive, self-medicating culture. You can fend off anxiety, taking it personally when really it’s the air we breathe in our society. Yes, we contribute our little part to the troubles of the world; but we are more victims than perpetrators, and we can’t muster the power to escape the barbed wire of slavery to sin and death.

The real quagmire is that the principalities and powers masquerade as good. Political ideology, or buying stuff, or the party life, all that Madison Avenue trots out before us, all appear to be the good life, our real salvation. Evil even has the uncanny impudence to coopt God’s good and pervert it. God’s law, “more precious than gold, sweeter than honey” (Psalm 19) is twisted into a sledge hammer that shames you, your puffs up your pride, or belittles others; we chafe “under the power of the law” (Romans 6:15), needing salvation from the mis-application of what God intended as gracious gift.

Some caution is in order. Some Christians know and think a lot about spiritual warfare, and are always  on alert to the wiles of the devil – the personification, the “leader” (if you will) of the principalities and powers. Awareness of the powers is essential. Obsession, however, is toxic for the soul – and dangerous. To think you’ve spotted the devil here, and there, and over there too, is unhealthy. Thomas Merton shrewdly reminded us that what the devil wants above all else is attention. And credit. We chalk a difficult neighbor or an annoying spouse or drinking too much to the devil – and the devils smiles the smile of looking effective without having lifted a finger.

Jesus came to take on not just Herod or Pilate, but the Principalities and Powers, Herod and Pilate being only their manifestations. He made Herod look impotent when the Magi rode their camels right past him in Jerusalem to bring their gifts to Bethlehem. Demons, the henchmen of the powers, trembled in fear before him. Jesus made crusty, tough Pontius Pilate look like a weakling.

Jesus’ way with the powers, love, humility, courage and mercy, enables us to laugh with him at the powers, unmasked as phonies, not helpful but only harmful. He birthed a church, not one more institution trying to grab power, but an alternative, a visible clue to the world of who won the contest in the invisible plot for rights to the world.