Subject yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
The command to submit and the command to resist stand side by side. The order matters: one turns us toward God, the other turns us against His enemy. Commentators ask two questions. What makes submission possible? And why should the devil flee from people as weak as we are?
Grace comes before submission
The word "therefore" ties this call back to grace. Writers note that the sense of His goodness, not sheer effort, is what loosens our grip on our own will.
Grace alone will lead to submission. When we sense the grace and goodness of God, we trust Him. Then the soul gladly gives up its own will and submits to Him. The Christian stops trying to be somebody in the world. Instead he accepts whatever circumstances God arranges.
Submission is described not as bare duty but as the natural result of trusting who God is:
Confidence in God leads the soul to submit itself to Him. It is both a duty and a necessity, but we do it gladly where we trust Him. It is the truth of our relationship with God, and the soul is happy. We do not need a will of our own. God loves us and has a will for us in everything, so we should commit ourselves to Him.
The order, and how it reverses
Submission is not one option beside resistance; it is what makes resistance possible. Reverse the sequence and the whole chain reverses with it.
If we are humble, we will find it easy to submit to God. And as we submit to God, we can resist the devil. All too often things work the other way round with us. We start by submitting to the devil. That breeds in us the pride that marks him, so we end up resisting God. Then God resists us, and a fall is certain, with the shame that follows it.
Writers point to pride as the exact place where we must meet the devil:
But we will not be humble unless we take the first step and submit to God. Our own will must be bowed before it will obey… Pride is the devil's chief weapon, and envy and strife come out of it. We must therefore resist his flattering of our own pride.
Resistance as obedience
Resisting is not a contest of strength. When Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness, Jesus stayed in obedience and answered with the word of God.
The armour should be put on before the battle, not just at the battle. When Satan came to Him with his tricks, the Lord had only to rest in obedience. There was no arguing and no confusion. Those are tricks. But when Satan comes out in the open, then resist him. "Be gone, Satan!" — and then he flees. We do not have to defeat one who is already defeated. We have to defeat his tricks by holding the word in obedience.
Writers add that our temptations follow the same lines, and the same answer exposes them:
As he did with our Lord, the devil may tempt us through natural needs, through religious advancement, or through possessions. But if we meet his temptations with the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, we will see his tricks for what they are. He cannot stand against the grace of the Spirit who lives in us.
Why he flees
The promise is not that you will win the fight but that he will leave. Writers point to who he meets when he comes.
Once we see Satan for what he is, the new man resists him, and he has no strength. Jesus has overcome him for us. We learn here that if we resist him, he will flee. He finds that he has met the Spirit of Christ in us, and away he goes. The trouble is that we do not always resist him. We give in to what he offers, because the will of God is not everything to us. In many things we still like to please ourselves.
One writer takes this to the practical question of when to make a deal and when not to:
But there is an enemy always at work, and we are called to make no deal with him and no compromise, however convincing he looks… He may preach righteousness. He may stir up zeal. But he never truly lifts up the name of Christ… Let us never forget that to faith he is a beaten enemy.
What the retreat opens up
His retreat is not the end of the story. It clears the ground for something better.
Resist the devil and he has to flee. That leaves the soul free to draw near to God, and to find that He is very near to us.
Summary
- Grace starts it. The sense of God's grace and goodness is what makes a person willing to hand over his own will.
- Submission arms it. You cannot resist the devil until your will is given over to God. Do it the other way round and you end in a fall.
- The word does it. Resistance is not argument or strength. It is obedience holding on to the word, as Jesus did in the wilderness.
- Christ finishes it. The devil flees because he meets an enemy who has already beaten him — not our power, but Christ's.
- Nearness crowns it. With the enemy gone, the soul is free to draw near to God and find Him near.