Apostolic Realities: The Principalities and Powers of the Air
By Art Katz
An understanding of the principalities and the powers of the air is foundational to all true seeing. There is a realm of invisible, angelic beings brooding over this earth, profoundly influencing the conduct of individuals and nations. They are the rulers of this present world. It is extraordinary how naïve, ignorant, or indifferent the church is toward these powers, despite the fact that this theme is absolutely foundational to the whole calling of the church!
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.[1]
God’s people are called to be engaged in a struggle that has been going on for thousands of years. It is a cosmic conflict between the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of God. If we think that the subject of demons is only the issue of personal deliverance, we have missed the greater importance. The focus on deliverance has fixed the understanding of believers at that level, and thereby robbed them of the greater and truer understanding of the conflict, namely, the contention for the actual dominion or possession of creation and the nations. Perhaps the strategy of the powers is to have us occupied at the level of personal deliverance rather than combat in the cosmic sense. There is a final defeat that needs to be inflicted upon them by virtue of the church being the church in the true apostolic sense.
If our church life is essentially a place where people come to attend services as an isolated conglomeration of individuals, then it is not equipped for this struggle. Unless there is corporate unity: one heart, one mind and one spirit, we cannot participate in this struggle. This is why the powers will do anything to divide fellowships of believers. They want to keep the church from becoming the corporate expression of the life of God that can wrestle against them.
The Fall
This cosmic struggle has gone on since the beginning of time. The powers were created by God for His own purposes. They rebelled against their Creator, and one third of them followed their prince[2] and have become a fallen angelic order. These fallen angels still maintain their governmental places in the heavenlies. God had created this governmental realm to sustain creation, but the powers function today in opposition to what was divinely and originally assigned them. They behave as though they were the ultimate ground and reason for being.
The powers are characteristically cynical and unbelieving, profoundly egotistical and vain. Though God says they will meet defeat, they act with a presumption and arrogance contrary to what God says concerning their fate and destiny.
But you [Satan] said in your heart, “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.”[3]
To which God answers, “Nevertheless you will be thrust down to Sheol, to the recesses of the pit.”[4] This angelic host has the same proud character of Satan himself, and will suffer the same eternal fate in the lake of fire.
Though they were intended as a benevolent influence, they have taken to themselves their own purposes. Satan seeks to be deified, to be “as God,” and to turn the loyalties and attention of men to himself. He has sought to establish his own values contrary to God’s, and thus turn men away from God. In other words, the powers have used their governmental place for themselves, and have become the gods of this world.
You say, “Just how influential are these powers?” They were sufficiently influential to crucify the Messiah of Israel:
Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory; the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.[5]
The powers operate through earthly authorities. They expressed their rule and wisdom through Pontius Pilate and through the Jewish Sanhedrin. In other words, they expressed themselves through the very best of civil and religious government. Roman law and Jewish religion conspired together to crucify the Son of God. They acted out of the wisdom of the powers, a wisdom that employs force, intimidation and threat of death. The crucifixion of Jesus was a hidden wisdom in the intention of God. In being slain from the foundations of the world, God foresaw and ordained that His Son would come and die, but it was a hidden wisdom that the powers could not understand.
The Cosmic Setting
Not many of us think in cosmic terms. We have some interest in our own nation and its geographical location, but cosmic is beyond all of these categories, yet it includes them all. The apostolic view is the cosmic view, which sees the all-encompassing setting of the redemptive work of God in creation as described in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians:
To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him.[6]
God has an eternal purpose that ought to revolutionize our entire perspective about the faith. He has a purpose that is solely and exclusively for the satisfaction of His own heart. Moreover, this purpose is so important to God that He created all things in order that this purpose might be carried out, and that an entity we call the church would be the agent to administer and fulfill this purpose.
It is a grotesque distortion to imagine that the church has been established by God to pander to the needs of mankind by establishing programs and services they consider important for themselves. Until the church takes to itself the eternal purpose of God, and looks to the fulfilling of it, it never will have a true foundation in God. Once it has embraced the purpose of God, it will be freed from the necessity to have programs, or to do anything else to justify its existence by meeting the needs that are everywhere about it.
God created all things in order that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might be made known to the powers. This is the eternal purpose of God for the church. Those who ignore the eternal purpose of God, who do not give themselves to that purpose as their first and foremost purpose for being, are not the church in the truest sense of that word. The church that is indifferent to the eternal purpose of God, even though it is impressive in every other way, is not the church in any apostolic and prophetic sense, which is to say, not in any authentic sense.
In order to be the church that is the church in truth, we must embrace the eternal purpose of God, even though we might not see any immediate or practical benefit for doing so. In fact, we will find that God’s purpose does not in any way serve our purposes. His purpose is a mystery that has to do with a demonstration to be made to the powers of the air. The church that is willing to make this demonstration is thereby making known the manifold wisdom of God. This is in itself the wisdom of God.
In this context, the biblical meaning of wisdom is the moral values of God. The wisdom, or mentality, of this world is predicated upon self-interest and practicality. It says, “What is the benefit for me if I do this? What is in it for me? How is my self-interest secure?” But the wisdom of God is altogether sacrificial. It does not rest on the benefit that one receives for oneself, but on the benefit that God receives for Himself. Without that all-embracing dynamic, we will be doomed to a spiritual egotism, and will view things in a way that only affects us and our interests.
Self-interest, even in things we would call spiritual, is a power that needs to be broken. We will know when that power no longer has a grip on us to the degree we joyfully embrace a purpose greater than and other than ourselves, namely, the eternal purpose of God. The wisdom of the world will say, “That is nonsense. You cannot do that. It is irrational and contradictory to nature itself. Self-interest and survival are the very fundamental principles of life. God helps those who help themselves. Have your happiness, now, in this life; that is what life is all about.”
If you willingly embrace a purpose that has nothing to do with your own benefit, making that your foremost reason for being, you are demonstrating the wisdom of God. This wisdom was perfectly demonstrated at the cross by the Son of Man Himself! In behalf of another, He gave up any interest in His own life and satisfaction. In other words, the ability to lay down one’s life, to not consider that life dear, is the wisdom of God. It is a wisdom predicated on weakness and foolishness. One wisdom lives for itself, its own preservation and its own advantage. God’s wisdom lives for the will of another; it is a selfless wisdom. Jesus never initiated anything out of Himself for His own purposes, but lived entirely for the gratification of His Father.
The powers influence mankind to respond in ways that enhance their own self-interest. This can be just as prevalent in the ministerial world, where many attend Bible School in order to become credentialized, thereby establishing their future ministry. The ministry is seen as a career in which their security is established. As long as we are affected or ruled by self-interest, we have nothing with which to defeat the powers.
“Come down and we will believe you,” said the crowd to Jesus. If He had come down, thereby seeking His self-interest and the preservation of His life, He would have contradicted the wisdom of God. Remaining impaled on the cross unto death was a demonstration of the wisdom of God that defeated the powers.
[1] Ephesians 6:12
[2] Known as Satan or the Devil
[3] Isaiah 14:13-14
[4] Ibid., v.15
[5] 1 Corinthians 2:6-8
[6] Ephesians 3:8-12
This article is excerpted from the book, Apostolic Foundations, by Art Katz.
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