“They who are called devils (demons; fallen powers) attempt…to seduce men from God who made them, and from Christ His first-begotten.” Justin Martyr, 2nd century A.D., Apology 58. (Crucial Questions About Spiritual Warfare, Clinton E. Arnold, p. 40)
“The devils put forward Marcion of Pontus (a Gnostic teacher), who (teaches) men to deny God is the maker of all things in heaven and on earth, and that the Christ predicted by the prophets is His Son and preaches another god…and likewise another son.” Justin Martyr, 2nd century A.D., Apology 58
The small but vastly important book, “Christ and the Powers,” by Hendrik Berkhof, unleashed a wave of studies on “the powers” spoken of in the New Testament. It profoundly influenced William Stringfellow, Jacques Ellul, Marva Dawn, Walter Wink, G.B. Caird, and many others.
In Chapter 5, “The Church and the Powers,” Berkhof writes:
“…it is given to the church as a privilege—and therefore as a duty—to take toward the Powers, restrained as they are by God, a definite stance. This stance is grounded in the fact that, by virtue of their fellowship with the Lord of all Powers, believers have been enabled to see through their anti-Christian dimension…. This involves especially the discerning of the Powers which hold the hearts and actions of men under their sway.” “When Paul lists (1 Corinthians 12:8-10) the various gifts of the Spirit bestowed upon the church, he names among them ‘discernment of spirits..a special gift of the Spirit, which not everyone possesses, at least not in the same measure…. The Spirit distributes the gifts in a special way to each person, as He wills. p. 47-48
GB Caird was Dean Ireland’s Professor of Exegesis of Holy Scripture at Oxford. In his book “Principalities and Powers,” he expands upon the extent of the Powers’ hold over the hearts and actions of men:
“There can be little doubt that ‘principalities and powers’ included powers of state… and…the whole natural order, under…demonic reign…”. Domination includes “the pagan world order….” p. 16
Evil Powers are bound up with ”the enigmatic fact of sin, whereby not only men have turned from God but the invisible side of the cosmos functions in diametric opposition to its divinely fixed purpose….”The nature of the Powers is “to keep us from love.” In fact, “they have become gods (Galatians 4:8), behaving as though they were the ultimate ground of being, and demanding from men an appropriate worship. This is the demonic reversal which has taken place on the invisible side of creation…. They stand as a roadblock between the Creator and His creation.” (Berkhof, p. 30)
In our own time, evil Powers dominate the minds of Luciferian Western and American Globalists, pedophile rings, wicked government leaders on the national level and all who become trapped in occultism through the modern pagan world order that controls their hearts and actions:
“What if this is all demonic?”
“The words hit me like a shock to my system. As soon as the realization occurred, the demons…turned on me. Immediately it was as if Hell was standing in my room. Demons were laughing at Mme, jeering at me, intimidating me. They (had) presented as blue-grey aliens, large and small bird beings, Nordic-looking humans…But now, they were grotesque monsters, closing in on me from all sides.” (Freedom From Darkness: A Roadmap of Deliverance From Spiritual Bondage and the Occult, Teresa Yanaros, Prologue)
“See to it no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human traditions, according to the stoicheia (powers; elemental spirits) and not according to Christ.…” (Colossian 2)
The modern pagan and occult world order separates men from God and includes but is not limited to:
Perennial Philosophy, Naturalism, Darwinism, atheism, environmentalism; postmodernism; Teilhard’s pantheist evolutionary conception; population reduction schemes; Gaia, modern ideologies, Secular Humanism; Transhumanism; the Singularity; Evolutionary Materialism; cosmic pantheism; the New World Order concept; Green Religion; higher and lower Biblical criticism; Biblical deconstruction; demystification of the Bible; evolutionary theism; Illumined Masonry; the Third Eye; nihilism; Satanism; death wishing, reincarnation, evolution, karma, yoga, transcendental meditation; centering prayer; mindfulness meditation; spiritism; human sacrifice; occultism, Enneagram; ancient and modern Mystery Religions; Luciferianism; monism; the Void; serpent power; Ouroboros; chaos magic; extraterrestrials, Space Brothers, Hathor of the UFO of God; Baphomet; Gnosticism; Death of God theology; Progressivism; Leftism; Communism, Socialism, and the scientific neutrality principle:
“The origin of the neutrality principle is the Garden of Eden. Its father is the Evil One who tempted Eve to approach the question of eating from the forbidden tree in a neutral, unbiased fashion. He slyly suggested she adopt a neutral position in order to decide who was right, God or the snake. Like modernists of our own age Eve doubted and therefore rejected God’s Word as authoritative and conclusive. As a true neutralist, she determined for herself which choice to take.” Gen. 3:4-6. (Modernist Christians in a Man-Centered Universe: Scientific Neutrality and Biblical Deconstruction, Linda Kimball)
Then there is:
“A Course in Miracles, Alchemy, American Indian Quest, Ancient Mythology, Arkashic Record, Aryuvedic Medicine, Astrology, Bahai’i Unity, Buddhism, Buddhist/Christian Dialogue, Chakras, Channeling, Christian Monastic Mysticism, Crystals, Divination, Dream work, Druidism, Eastern Meditation, Eckankar (soul travel), Ecofeminism, Enneagram, EST, Feng Shui, Gnosticism (ancient and modern), Goddess worship, Hare Krishna, Hermeticism, Higher Self, Hinduism, Holism, Human Potential Movement, Hypnosis, I Ching, Iridology, Jungian Transpersonal Psychology, Kabbalah, Karma, Mandalas, Mantras, Mind-altering drugs, Parapsychology, Past Life Regressions, Reiki, Re-incarnation, Religious syncretism, Rolfing, Sacred Technologies, Santeria, Scientology, Shamanism, Sufism, T’ai Chi, Tantrism, Tarot Cards, Teilhardism, Therapeutic Touch, Tikkun, Transcendental Meditation, Ufology, Urantia Book, Visualization, Wicca, Yoga, Zen.” (One or Two? Dr. Peter Jones, pp. 40-41)
The Crucifixion is the one-time event that not only exposed and made manifest the enmity of evil Powers toward the Lord of Glory but was their definitive defeat when the Crucified Christ rose from the dead and unmasked them, revealing that they were not gods and goddesses but created creatures…fallen angels:
“He disarmed the principalities and powers, who had made themselves the gods of the world, and made a public example of them, triumphing over them thereby. “Colossians 2: 13-15
Berkhof makes clear that only when the Powers are unmasked by the faithful church in the name and power of the Crucified Risen Christ will they lose their dominion over men’s souls. p. 48
Tragically, the church for the most part, has lost sight of the supernatural above, thus it avoids any talk about angels and demons here below. Long ago Francis Schaefer foresaw the advent of this situation. A suffocating fog of naturalism (of the pagan world system), said Schaeffer, has already settled over the church and our homeland, blinding it and cutting it off from the supernatural above so that we would only search for answers here below.
Until and unless the church regains its discernment, the Powers will remain masked as Nordics, Space Brothers, UFOs, Hathor, and more, leaving them free to seduce men and women from the God who created them and lead their souls off to Hell.
updated2025@LindaKimball
Yes indeed. It was due to one evil fallen power, Satan, which caused Man’s fallen nature, beginning with Adam and Eve. That same evil fallen power, accompanied by many fallen angels with their powers, gave rise to many other evil manifestations of itself – the Powers and Principalities which also work evil.
God The Father Willed to raise up man’s fallen nature with, by, and through, raising up His only begotten Son Jesus Christ on this Earth. The evil fallen powers devise many untruths and evils to prevent Truth and Goodness from succeeding. That’s what separates the wheat from the chaff, the good guys from the bad guys.
Those who are beguiled by Satan are led away from God’s merciful forgiveness to commit sin and evil and to suffer the same eternal banishment that will befall evil powers.
The unrepentent, and unsaved, are those who act like hoodlums, those who who defy righteous and proper law and order, both God’s and man’s.