Neither give place to the devil (Eph 4.27).
Not everyone who wants to come into the church and get busy as a part of it should be welcomed with open arms. One, in particular, should be sent packing whenever he comes around. That is Paul’s counsel by the Spirit in Ephesians 4.27. The foul intruder is the devil.
A Real Devil
Some argue that “the devil” is a figurative personification of evil in Scripture or that the biblical writers believed he was a personal being because of the backward superstitions of their time. Neither is true.
The first proposal falls flat before many examples of Satan’s speaking and acting in both the Old and New Testaments which cannot be accounted for as an impersonal force of evil. A force did not quote Scripture and negotiate with the Christ in His wilderness temptations.
The second proposal is clearly a case of flagrant resistance to the biblical worldview of a supernatural realm with angels and demons and miracles. It is a remnant of the Enlightenment which attempts to “demythologize” Scripture. This should be seen for what it is—sophisticated unbelief which is, at bottom, atheistic and antichristian.
The irony is that skepticism about the devil makes us even more vulnerable to his infernal designs. As it has been said, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn’t exist.”
A Real Problem
The devil in the church is a real problem because of his identity, his nature, and his activity. He is the archenemy of God and His people. He is a perfectly malevolent spirit, bad to the bone, without one shred of virtue, and determined to wreak havoc at all costs. He is a “murderer from the beginning” and “a liar, and the father of it” (John 8.44). The term Paul uses here is διαβόλῳ, “one who engages in slander, . . . title of the principal transcendent evil being the adversary/devil.”1 Violent and deceitful, Satan would be the ruin of the church except God prevent it.
The thing is that every church member has some affinity with the devil. Before conversion we all were under his powerful sway (1 John 5.19, “the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one,” NKJV), members of his dark kingdom, and bound to carry out his wishes though we may not have realized it (Col 1.13, God the Father “hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son”; cf. Eph 2.1-3). Even as real Christians we have remaining sin, nothing less than the remnant of satanic soul corruption. We are still vulnerable to enlistment as the devil’s verbal assassins. Jesus said to His true disciple Peter, “Get thee behind me, Satan” (Matt 16.23). Real Christians do sometimes “give place to the devil;” hence, the warning. With Paul, true pastors faithfully alert the brethren to this danger and exhort them to perpetual vigilance against it.
Our experience sadly illustrates and confirms the biblical teaching. Every mature local church can recall incidents of members under satanic influence. Some have shown uncharacteristic ill-will toward those they had formerly vowed to love, and at least seemed to love for a time. In other cases the symptom was losing doctrinal discernment and embracing some heresy, apostate Christendom, or just giving up any pretense of faith. The ones we thought we knew so well became strangely impervious to biblical teaching and exhortation. They preferred formal exclusion with censure from the church than to practically reaffirm sincere love to the brethren and hearty belief of the true gospel. Clearly, such people “give place to the devil.”
A Real Solution
To “give place” is an idiomatic expression that means “to make room” for him, to welcome him, to listen to him and yield to his influence.2 The sense has been paraphrased: “Don’t give the devil a chance,” “do not give the devil an opportunity to work,” “nor give the devil a foothold.” A principled resistance to the devil is an important part of the spiritual solution.
It could possibly be understood as a general warning, but more likely it is connected in sense to the previous verse, like this:
“Be angry, and do not sin”: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil (Eph 4.26-27 NKJV).
Taken that way, it has special reference to unrighteous anger in the church, specifically, to slanderous, false accusations. Going back one verse more, it says, “Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another” (v. 25). Malicious talk against a local church as a whole is quintessentially satanic. It is just what we expect from the primeval liar and murderer who hates the church and knows the power of words to divide and dispirit us in our holy worship and service.
Therefore, vague accusations without scriptural support and plain evidence from a church member who is not committed by godly example and persistent loving ministry among us3 are not only sad and unhelpful. They are the devil’s stench in the church. In God’s name, brethren, show him the door! Ω
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1 Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., & Bauer, W. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (3rd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
2 Webster’s 1828 Dictionary.
3 A committed Christian, in general, remains in the church and works toward its reformation and spiritual renewal. 2LCF 26.13: “No church members, upon any offence taken by them, having performed their duty required of them towards the person they are offended at, ought to disturb any church-order, or absent themselves from the assemblies of the church, or administration of any ordinances, upon the account of such offence at any of their fellow members, but to wait upon Christ, in the further proceeding of the church.”