spiritual warfare
Definition
Spiritual warfare is the New Testament designation for the ongoing battle of believers and angels against superhuman spiritual forces (Eph. 6:12: “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities”). The concept encompasses both the personal dimension (the individual believer as bearer of the panoplia tou theou) and the cosmic dimension (the heavenly battle between angels and principalities, Dan. 10:13; Rev. 12:7-9). In this corpus George Warnock is the most systematic exponent, while Watchman Nee lays the anthropological and positional foundation through his analysis of Satan’s strategy and the defensive nature of the Christian struggle.
Uses per Author
George Warnock
Warnock places spiritual warfare at the center of his ecclesiology: the church is an army, armed with God’s complete armor (panoplia), called to resist the enemy and stand firm until Christ returns. The heavenly battle in Rev. 12 — Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon — is for Warnock the cosmic correlate of the earthly spiritual battle:
“The birth of the manchild provokes a war in heaven: Michael and his angels fight against the dragon (Rev. 12:7). This is the ultimate spiritual warfare — the battle for the completion of God’s plan with His sons. The dragon is cast out; Satan falls as lightning.”
(Who Are You?, Chapter 6)
Warnock also emphasizes the heavenly armies that accompany salvation history: the stars that fought at Megiddo (Judg. 5:20), the angel who struck 185,000 Assyrians (2Kgs. 19:35), the heavenly hosts that accompany Christ at His return (Rev. 19:14).
Watchman Nee & Witness Lee
In The Spiritual Man (SM) Nee lays the anthropological foundation for spiritual warfare through his analysis of Satan’s tactic: from outside in (body → soul → spirit). Spiritual warfare is for Nee not primarily an external but an internal reality — the battleground is the human spirit:
“All of Satan’s work is carried out from outside in; all of God’s work from inside out. This teaches us how to discern what comes from God and what comes from Satan. It is also the reason that the guarding of our spirit is the core of spiritual warfare.”
(The Spiritual Man, Part I, Chapter 3)
Nee underscores the necessity of discernment when facing supernatural phenomena: not everything is to be resisted, but nothing is to be accepted uncritically — Scripture is the criterion:
“The believer must carefully examine every supernatural phenomenon according to the principles revealed in the Bible before deciding to accept or reject it.”
(The Spiritual Man, Second Preface)
In Sit, Walk, Stand (SWS) Nee deepens his analysis with a positional and defensive dimension. Satan’s primary strategy, according to Nee, is not temptation to sin but position withdrawal: undermining the believer’s rest in his position in Christ:
“Satan’s primary aim is not to make us sin, but simply to make it easy for us by removing us from the ground of perfect triumph upon which the Lord has placed us. Whether through the head or the heart, through our reasoning or our feelings, he undermines our rest in Christ or our walk in the Spirit.”
(Sit, Walk, Stand, Chapter 3)
From this follows Nee’s central thesis regarding the nature of the struggle: spiritual warfare is fundamentally defensive — aimed not at obtaining but at maintaining an already-won victory:
“In Christ we are conquerors — yes, ‘more than conquerors’ (Rom. 8:37). In Him, therefore, we take our stand. Today we fight not for victory; we fight from victory. We do not fight in order to win, but because in Christ we have already won. When you fight to obtain victory, you have already lost the battle.”
(Sit, Walk, Stand, Chapter 3; cf. Rom. 8:37)
This two-throne model — the throne of Christ (Eph. 1:20-21: “far above all rule and authority”) set against the principalities and powers occupying the heavenly realms (Eph. 6:12) — determines the ecclesiological stakes: “Two thrones are at war. God lays claim to the earth for His dominion, and Satan attempts to usurp God’s authority. The church is called to drive Satan from his current domain and to establish Christ as Head over all.” (Sit, Walk, Stand, Chapter 3) The ta-wang incident, in which Nee established the real demonic presence in a Chinese idol, illustrates his conviction that spiritual warfare is not abstract: every evangelistic breakthrough is the occupation of contested territory.
Cees Noordzij
Noordzij places spiritual warfare in the framework of the salvational-historical battle between the dragon and the sons of God. Every generation that takes God’s sonship calling seriously encounters the organized resistance of principalities and powers:
“Satan fears and hates the birth of God’s sons. Pharaoh, Herod, the armies of 1948 — these are the faces of the same dragon that pursued the birthing woman (Rev. 12:4-5). Spiritual warfare is not an abstraction but the concrete resistance against God’s plan.”
(Moses and the Way to Sonship, Chapter 8)