“Rulers of Darkness and Powers in the Spiritual World “ (Ephesians 6:12)

 What is God Like? – How Can We Know for Sure? – Part 7

 By Richard Allen – August 4, 2025

As we have discussed in the previous six blogs of this series, after the Fall of Adam and Eve and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden, mankind quickly went astray, losing all knowledge of a Holy God. But even worse, “we lost all desire to know or commune with the God who made us!”  Romans 1 paints a scary picture of man’s condition after the Fall:

“Therefore, God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator, who is forever praised. Amen.  Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.  Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them” (Romans 1:24-32).

What an “indictment” against fallen man! Notice that Paul states three times that “God gave them over,” and He lists what he gave them over to: “Sinful Desires, Shameful Lusts and a Depraved Mind!”  God gave mankind up to their own fallen natures, and we daily prove Romans Chapter 1 to be an accurate description of our “disease.” But there is another component of our struggle – Satan and the fallen angels who followed his rebellion – were working to “blind, deceive and poison” our minds with sin. Paul, writing to the Church at Ephesus, talks about other forces at work to keep mankind in debauchery:

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience – among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Ephesians 2:1-3).

Could it be that God’s “giving us over” as Paul taught the Romans, meant that as a race, mankind was subject to the “prince of the power of the air,” that is the devil and his minions? I can hear someone asking: “But I thought that Satan was defeated by the cross and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.” That is correct, but Satan’s defeat presents us with two truths: 1.) He was cast out of heaven after the war that the Apostle John records in Revelation 12:

“Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God” (Revelation 12:7-10). 

We’re no longer under the condemnation and accusation of Satan. Christ’s payment at the cross cancels all our debt. The passage above makes it clear that this is a victory the Church already enjoys, as Paul tells us in Romans 8:33-34 where he asks:

“Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died – more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us” (Romans 8:33-34).

There is a second truth which we need to know: 2.) Satan has been cast out of God’s heaven, now limited to being “The Prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2). This truth also confronts us with several questions: “Even after being cast down, did not Satan still have access to heavenly realms?” And: “Do Satan and his fallen angels exercise dominion over fallen mankind since the Fall of Adam and Eve?” These are both good questions and need answering. While Scripture doesn’t give us every detail, we learn Satan’s history from several passages. After the Fall of Adam and Eve, he exercised sway over this fallen world and its systems for a time. There certainly appears to be a hierarchy among Satan and the fallen angels, principalities and powers in “heavenly realms.” And we learn from the Book of Job that Satan initially had access to God’s presence. Job Chapter 1 records the dialogue between God and Satan:

“Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. The Lord said to Satan, ‘From where have you come?’ Satan answered the Lord and said, ‘From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.’  And the Lord said to Satan, ‘Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?’ ” (Job 1:6-8).

There is a lot to be learned from this passage. The “sons of God” are obviously angels – which are God’s holy angels, and those that are fallen. Again, Satan himself had access to God’s immediate presence, along with other angels. It’s also obvious from this passage that God Himself was in control, He questions Satan: “From where have you come?” And Satan’s answer: “From going to and fro on the earth,” makes it clear that Satan had access to the world and its kingdoms. Satan actually boasted to Jesus Christ during his 40-Day Temptation, after showing him all the kingdoms of this world, stating:

 ^“And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, ‘To you I will give all this authority    and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will ’ ” (Luke 4:4-5). 

In some sense, Satan even at that late hour, had dominion over the kingdoms of this world. What does he mean? Scripture teaches us that by virtue of “man’s sin” all of creation has become ruined, having the sentence of death and decay placed upon it. 

“All of creation waits with eager longing for God to reveal his children. For creation was condemned to lose its purpose, not of its own will, but because God willed it to be so. Yet there was the hope that creation itself would one day be set free from its slavery to decay and would share the glorious freedom of the children of God” (Romans 8:20-21).

As a result of the Fall, Satan and his horde of fallen angels set up domain – both on the fallen earth and in “spiritual realms.”  After fallen angels had relations with “daughters of men” in Genesis 6:1-4, God ‘s anger peaked because of these “angels who did not abide within “their own domain but abandoned their proper dwelling” (Jude 6). So, God destroyed the world that was. But even after the flood, the sons of Noah continued their disobedience, not spreading over the whole world, and not being fruitful and multiplying – as God commanded.  Genesis 11 explains man’s continued sin and rebellion after the flood, so God confused their languages and disbursed them, all 70 countries named in Genesis 10 around the world. This is where Scripture gets quite interesting.  In this fallen world it appears that Satan had a “hierarchy” of fallen angels, and each of these angels, superior in rank, were assigned to each country or kingdom.  In Daniel Chapter 10 we read of a confrontation between one of Satan’s chief angelic beings – referred to as the “Prince of the kingdom of Persia” – who had withstood the angel sent by God to deliver a message to Daniel. So serious was this resistance, God’s holy angel had to enlist another Chief Prince, the Archangel Michael to defeat him:

“Then he said to me, ‘Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia’ ” (Daniel 10:12-13). 

It’s ironic that this Archangel Michael who helped Daniel’s messenger (i.e. angel) was the same angel who defeated Satan and his horde of fallen angels in Revelation 12. And while Satan has been cast down from “accusing the brethren” (i.e. Christians) since the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, it is clear that Satan and his fallen angels still exert power in this world. Listen to the Apostle Paul’s admonition to Christians regarding these forces:

^“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand” (Ephesians 6:10-13).

This passage, and many others like it make it clear that the Believer is not subject to Satan’s power or dominion.  1 John 4:4 states: “Greater is He who is in you, than he that is in the world.”  But we are in a struggle with them, that is, the rulers, “authorities and powers of this dark world, spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” In closing, let me ask the question we’ll answer in our next Blog: “If Satan and his angelic powers still hold such sway in this fallen world – especially over unbelievers, what did God have to accomplish to bring men and women to once again know Him, and seek Him while He may be found?” But maybe a better question would be: “What did Jesus do to these forces of evil in our world and in heavenly realms to make it possible for fallen men and women to once again “Know God?”

Soli Deo Gloria!