The Finger of God – Waging War
The Finger of God – Waging War.
And Jesus told them, ‘If it is through the Holy Spirit, the finger of God, that I cast out demonic spirits, if it is actually God’s finger that I am pointing at those demons, then the Kingdom of God has swept over you unawares, and the reign of God has already come upon you.” (Matthew 12:28; Luke 11:20).
God leaves His fingerprints everywhere, because that finger of His is always working. God has a finger? Yes, it is now time to bring the Holy Spirit into the conversation. Scripture and Christian thinking ever since the early church supports the idea that the finger of God is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. God’s finger represents the power of the Holy Spirit, and in fact is the working member of the Godhead that demonstrates God’s power and accomplishes His will.
It’s easy to think about the Holy Spirit as like the wind or a breath, since spirit, wind and breath are the same word in Hebrew, “ruach.” God’s Spirit is often thought of as Divine Energy or Life Force as well, since He serves in that capacity in the world. But it stretches the imagination a bit to think of the Holy Spirit as the finger of God’s right hand. A finger is tactile, an actual physical object that we can imagine. The wind, breath and energy, though, are formless, without shape. We can hold onto a finger, but of course we can’t grasp the wind or a breath. To feel the wind in our hair or a breath on our face is a completely different experience than being tangibly touched by a finger. But as we will see, we can be inspired by, or literally inspirited by, the finger of God as well as a divine wind or life force. Don’t we all have a desire to be “touched” by the Spirit?
Pharaoh and the gods of Egypt. The Finger of God was waging war long before He pushed Jesus into the wilderness for His temptation against the devil. The Holy Spirit has been on the front lines of spiritual warfare ever since, to this day. Here in Exodus, we find ourselves in the Palace of Pharaoh with Moses and Aron trying to convince the Pharaoh to let the Israelites leave Egypt. To this point, Yahweh has already promised the Israelites that “with a strong hand” He would rescue them from Egyptian slavery. But the Pharaoh is stubborn and won’t let them go. So Yahweh started His war against Pharaoh and his gods by turning their precious Nile River into blood, thereby destroying their drinking water, irrigation and their fishing trade. Seven days later, Yahweh struck Egypt with an invasion of frogs. Scripture says that the frogs literally “covered the land” of Egypt (Ex. 8:6). Pharaoh’s heart was hardened once again, so Moses and Aaron inflicted the land of Egypt with a plague of gnats, or perhaps lice. At this point Pharaoh’s magicians and sorcerers finally admitted “This is the finger of God! (Ex. 8:19). In other words, these miraculous plagues are truly the handiwork of God, an act of their powerful Lord. The finger of God, a symbol of the tremendous power of God.
We can’t overlook how important Aaron’s simple walking stick was in Israel’s history before they were even out of Egypt. When Moses and Aaron were starting to press Pharaoh to let God’s people go, Aaron’s staff was central to the eventual exodus of the enslaved people. It was Aaron’s staff that struck the Nile River and made the water turn to blood (Ex. 7:19). It was also Aaron’s rod that stretched out over the waters of Egypt and caused a massive influx of frogs to come from the River to cover the land (Ex. 8:5). And it was Aaron’s rod too that struck the “dust of the land”, the ground, so that every speck of dust became lice, or gnats, that settled on all of Egypt’s people and animals. Before these plagues even happened, though, Aaron’s rod figured in a major victory over Egypt’s sorcerers and magicians. In this piece of drama, Pharaoh wanted Moses and Aaron to perform a miracle, so Aaron took his rod and threw it on the floor next to Pharaoh. Aaron’s rod immediately became a snake. The sorcerers were brought onto the scene, and through their enchantments were also able to turn their rods into snakes. But to show who’s boss, Aaron’s serpent quickly swallowed up all the magicians’ snakes (Ex. 7:12). Pharaoh’s sorcerers may have successfully figured out how to inflict a temporary paralysis to their pet cobras, but it didn’t matter. Aaron’s snake ate them all anyway. Aaron’s God is clearly superior to Pharaoh’s gods, as the upcoming plagues and wonders revealed.
Jesus Pushed Into Temptation. The Gospel of Mark doesn’t mince words. “The Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness.” (Mark 1:12). The Holy Spirit didn’t passively encourage Jesus to go into the wilderness. The Spirit didn’t lead Jesus by the hand into temptation. The fact is, the finger of God pointed to the wilderness. The Holy Spirit drove Jesus, He thrust Him into the wilderness to face off with the devil. The temptations were forced onto Jesus. He was pushed, and He didn’t have much of a choice. The temptations were difficult experiences directed by God. And this was immediately after a spiritual mountain top experience, the baptism of Christ. The wilderness temptations came right after God Himself spoke from heaven, confirming the eternal Sonship of Jesus and God’s everlasting love for His Son. Sometimes God brings us head first into difficult situations right after a spiritual high point. He wants to test our progress in the Faith. He wants us to learn from experience. He wants us to toughen up and become stubbornly dependent on God. As it happens, the Spirit doesn’t have to push us into predicaments very often. We are are so adept at getting ourselves into difficult situations, we don’t need the Lord’s help. The timing of the temptations was important. It must have been crucial to God that Jesus face this enemy and defeat him before His public ministry began. Jesus was thus given the opportunity to qualify Himself as the Messiah before He swings into action.
Divided Loyalties. What was the devil trying to do with these temptations? Did he have an ultimate goal in confronting Jesus with these moments of testing? Was there an overarching purpose to the devil’s temptations? Yes, there was one dominant goal. The devil wanted to drive a wedge between the Father and the Son. The Greek word for devil is diablo, which means “slanderer.” Diablo comes from two different Greek words which taken together means, “tear apart.” And that’s what the devil wanted to do, tear apart the eternally intimate relationship between the Father and the Son. The devil wanted to test the loyalty of Jesus to God. Each of the three temptations were meant to have Jesus question His trust in God, to move independently of the will of the Father. Each temptation was to try to create some self-doubt in Jesus’ mind about His status with the Father… “If you are the Son of God…” In turning the stones into bread, the devil subtly wanted Jesus to doubt His dependence on God to care for Him. The devil wanted Jesus to grow impatient and question if God was going to provide food. In the second temptation, the devil wanted Jesus to question His security in God. Jesus was meant to wonder if God could protect Him. The devil wanted Jesus to doubt God’s protection and thus do something to test God, to find out if He is faithful. The third temptation was the devil’s attempt to get Jesus to doubt God’s control over the world. Is the Father truly the King? Maybe I should take that power if God is not up to it. All three temptations were meant to separate, even a little bit, the intimacy between God and His Son. If the devil could get Jesus to become disloyal to the Father and to act independently of Him, then the devil had it made. But there was no wavering of loyalty, no compromise of their divine love. The devil knew a secret, but it didn’t do him any good. “The secret of the whole world of humanity is the love between the Father and the Son. That is at the root of it all. Upon the love between the Son and the Father hangs the whole universe. What it can mean exactly, you know, I cannot tell you.” (George MacDonald, Knowing the Risen Lord).
Submission to the Father. Jesus submitted to God’s push into the wilderness because He needed to set the record straight with the devil. Jesus needed to show the devil right from the start who the boss was. Jesus needed to undo the fall of Adam. The devil is a fool. He figured that if he could defeat Adam, he could succeed against Jesus as well. But the devil didn’t realize that Jesus was the New Adam, the only one who could undo the Fall and face off with the devil and win. Jesus defeated the tempter and his schemes, and now can offer the eternal life bungled by Adam. Jesus can now offer the hope of salvation that was lost in the doom of Adam’s sin. Jesus also wanted to show His followers an example of how we can stand victoriously against temptation. And He wanted to reveal a warning to us that we will indeed face spiritual warfare with the devil and his forces. Finally, Jesus needed to face temptation as a human experience, something common to personhood. He needed to prove His humanity by going through temptation, and He needed to prove His divinity by passing the test.
The Spiritual Armor of Jesus. Being filled with the Holy Spirit after His baptism, there is no doubt that Jesus was wearing his spiritual armor in the wilderness. He spent His forty days in prayer and fasting. He knew He was about to wrestle against the primary spiritual force of darkness. He knew He would have to stand against the wiles of the devil, against the crafty power of wickedness. So Jesus made sure He was wearing the belt of truth and the breastplate of righteousness. He wore the Good News of peace on His feet. He held up His shield of faith and trust in God to put out the devil’s fiery darts. Jesus wore the helmet of salvation to protect His mind during the ordeal. And, most conspicuously, Jesus wielded the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. For every fiery dart, Jesus responded with a razor-sharp word from Scripture. For this intense battle with the devil, Jesus wore the full armor of God and was saturated in prayer. Jesus had received His battle plans. He was ready to stand firm against the subtle but deadly strategies of the Adversary.
Character Description of the Devil. Does this look like the sort of person you would find trustworthy? Would you want to befriend or even become a casual acquaintance of this sort of person? Is this the sort of person you would ever invite into your life even to a minimum degree? The right answer is NO… He wants to assume the throne of the Most High God; he hates the truth; he wants to take life out of people and replace it with death; he accuses the innocent and slanders the godly; he tells nothing but lies; he loves to thwart the purposes of God and hinder the gospel; he loves to antagonize the followers of Jesus; he is poised to tempt those in their weak moments; he is always prowling for those who are vulnerable; he is a master of disguise; he counterfeits that which is good and perverts what is pure; he spawns evil through those who are fooled into following him; he would deceive the whole world if he could; he loves to mar and deface that which is beautiful; he loves to be smooth and alluring and convincing in his temptations; he overflows with ambition and pride; he wants to embrace all the glory due to God and desires for all to worship him alone; he will be accountable to no one but himself; he is the original trickster, sneaky, and plays dirty; he knows now that Jesus came into the world to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8), and works extra hard to bring as many as he can down with him to his eternal doom.
Titles in Scripture for the Devil. One look at these titles and names given to the devil, and there can be no question about why he is slated for eternal damnation: the Father of Lies (John 8:44); the Adversary, Satan (1 Peter 5:8 and over 50 times in NT); the Ruler of Darkness (Eph 6:12); the Accuser of the Brethren (Rev. 12:10); the Enemy (Matt. 13:39, Luke 10:18-19); the Slanderer, the Devil (given 38 times in NT); Ruler of the power of the air (Eph. 2:2); the King of Death (Heb. 2:14); Prince of this world (John 12:31); the Lord of the Flies, Beelzebub (Matt. 12:24); the Great Dragon (Rev. 12:9); the Ancient Serpent (Rev. 12:9, 2 Cor. 11:3); the Angel of the Bottomless Pit (Rev. 9:11); the Tempter (Matt.4:3); the false Angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14); the Roaring Lion (1 Peter 5:8); the Ruler of Demons (Matt. 12:24); the Evil One (Matt. 6:13); the Murderer (John 8:44); the Daystar and Son of the Morning, Lucifer (Isaiah 14:2); the Shining One, Lucifer (Isaiah 14:2); the Worthless One, Belial (Deut. 13:14, 1 Sam. 2:12, Ps. 18:4, Ps. 41:8); the Deceiver of the whole world (Rev. 12:9); the Destroyer, Apollyon (Rev. 9:11, Ps. 17:4, 1 Cor. 10:10)).
The Strong Man. In Luke 11:21, immediately after Jesus cast out the demons by the finger of God, the Enemy is described by Jesus as the “strong man.” In His mini-parable, Jesus tells us about this strong man who is guarding his house fully armed, and this strong man is at peace with his safety and protection. But then a stronger man shows up and overwhelms him, taking all the man’s armor in the process. So in this context, “we have a mere finger of God going against a full armed strong man, and the finger wins! God’s finger is more powerful than the devil! I’ll take my odds with Jesus!” (Carolyn Moore). We need to constantly remind ourselves when in spiritual warfare, that “He who is in you, the Holy Spirit, is far stronger than he who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4).
Spiritual Warfare. Finally, grow strong in the Lord, with the strength of his power. Put on the full armor of God so as to be able to resist the devil’s tactics. For it is not against human enemies that we have to struggle, but against the principalities and the ruling forces who are masters of the darkness in this world, the spirits of evil in the heavens. That is why you must take up all God’s armor, or you will not be able to put up any resistance on the evil day, or stand your ground even though you exert yourselves to the full. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, praying always with all prayer and supplications in the Spirit…” (Ephesians 6:10-13, NJB).
Believers in Christ are asked to join an army as well. We are called to put on God’s armor, the spiritual armor of Yahweh, to engage in battle with the spiritual forces of wickedness. In the Hebrew Bible, we often see Yahweh gather His angelic warriors to serve Him in warfare against the enemies. It seems that sometimes the warfare was more spiritual, and other times the battles were with physical enemies. Sometimes there is a mysterious interplay between the unseen and seen worlds. Oftentimes Yahweh fought along with the believers in the battle, like with David and Goliath. Other times Yahweh and His army fought instead of the believers, asking the believers to simply watch the battle as Yahweh and his warriors do all the fighting. Who knows what spiritual warfare looks like now. Who knows what role the LORD’s host plays in everyday life. I have a feeling we have no idea the battles that are waged that we know nothing about. The fact is we can’t be aware of what is happening in the unseen world. What would we see if Yahweh opened our eyes to see like Elisha’s servant (2 Kings 6:15-17)? We can certainly thank Yahweh-sabaoth that He fights our battles for us when we are blissfully unaware. One thing we do know… When we put on God’s armor, we are joining the angel army in some meaningful way, to an extent that we can’t be sure of. Thank you, Yahweh-sabaoth, that you remain the valiant Commander of the Angel Armies. Thank you that you still are the victorious King of the heavenly troops that continue to defend us in the unseen battles that occur around us. And thank you Holy Spirit, who will be at our side through any battles we might experience. The powerful finger of God is on our side!
The Temptation of Us. Anyone who meets a temptation or a testing challenge head on and manages to stick it out is mighty fortunate. For such persons are loyally in love with God, the reward is life and more life.” (James 1:12).
In the modern era, temptation often comes knocking on our door through technology, through screens that are so accessible. It is just true that when we go on a screen, we open the door to multiple temptations. It is a sad fact that it is easy for a screen to stimulate a desire to be angry with this person, to lust after that person, to be entertained into oblivion. For a God-fearing person, there are constant questions to consider as we welcome technology into our lives… What do we choose to welcome into our hearts? Who do we decide to entertain in our homes through the internet? Do we have guests on our screens that shouldn’t be here? What type of desire do we flirt with via technology? With television and internet, it’s too easy to tempt fate. Attractive desires can be powerfully seductive. We can often be hungry fish circling a bait that is alluring. It is easy to be hungry and have a weak moment, tempted to take the bait. The tempter is only too happy to dangle the bait after we have developed an appetite. We need to outsmart the smartphone and anything else the tempter puts out as bait as he sits above us in the boat, ready to reel us in. We need to be self-aware of our weak moments. Sometimes, one hook is all it takes.
Final Word of Caution. Do not dabble in the occult, in the ways of the Evil One! It is a trap that brings you nothing but spiritual harm and eventual disaster. The Lord Yahweh warned us of all this long ago: “When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations and detestable acts of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who engages in child sacrifice, or one who practices witchcraft, or is a fortune-teller, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who casts spells, or a medium, psychic or a spiritist, or one who calls up the spirits of the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord.” (Deuteronomy 18:9-12). It’s no wonder that any Israelite who practiced any of those detestable practices were immediately executed.