What does it mean that Satan is prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:2)?

ἀήρ, the fluid that we breathe, and which surrounds the earth. There are two remarkable references to the air: one, that at the Rapture of the saints the raised dead and the living will be caught up into the clouds, and will meet the Lord in the air, 1 Thess. 4:17, in the same sphere in which the Lord disappeared at His ascension. The other is that Satan is called the prince of the power of the air, Eph. 2:2, doubtless referring to the permeating character of the air, which we not only breathe, but it fills our houses and enters everywhere. When the air is tainted with malaria it permeates everywhere and poisons everything; so Satan has such power that his poisonous spirit morally contaminates everything in the world, of which he is the god.

This applies in an especial way to Satan, for he is no longer a servant of God, one of the usual agents of His will, but a rebel. He can do nothing except by divine permission. As prince of this world, he rules in the hearts of men, individually and corporately, but his domain stops there. He is not prince of the earth, the sea, nor air. "Prince of the power of the air" (Eph. 2:2) does not mean lord of the winds, but one whose evil influence pervades the moral world, as the atmosphere envelops the physical. Where faith realizes the omnipresent supremacy of God over all nature, it can, in its little measure, sleep on the waves amid the tumult of the storm. But only One can say to that storm, "Peace, be still."

Our answer then as to the nature of all miraculous powers of Satan is that they are divine power put forth with divine permission with a divine object, in answer to a Satanic demand for that power. Satan desired to tempt our Lord, and God put all His power at the enemy's disposal to effect his object if possible. The result was the exhibition of the perfections of the sinless Man. The "messenger of Satan" (2 Cor. 12) given to Paul was permitted of God with a purpose of grace, in spite of the malignity of the one who would destroy the usefulness of a servant of the Lord. In regard to every outward form of Satanic activity we can use the words of our Lord, "Thou couldest have no power at all against Me, except it were given thee from above" (John 19:11). In other words, it was not Satan's lightning, but God's that smote Job's property; God's, not Satan's, whirlwind that destroyed his family. Satan had demanded this — "Put forth Thy hand now, and touch all that he hath" (Job 1:11). Job sees only God's hand in his affliction — "The Lord hath taken away" (ver. 21); and God Himself says to Satan, "Thou movedst Me against him, to destroy him without cause" (Job 2:3).

The thought, then, of quickening leads the apostle to bring out the condition from which they were delivered. They were walking according to this world's age; and not only so, but according to the arch-enemy. The title, "Prince of the power of the air," was to set forth his all-permeating influence. As the air surrounds and penetrates everything, so does the devil the realm of nature — "the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience." This was the way they showed that they were under his power — by their disobedience. "Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past." Why is it "we?" Why this change from "you" to "we"? When addressing the Ephesians, who had been Gentiles, he uses the word "ye;" but he includes now in this moral sentence, "dead in trespasses and sins," Jews as well as Gentiles. When God was measuring man by Christ, this was their state — not a single being that was not dead. And there can be no degrees of death. If a man is dead, there is an end of him. So that, although, if you look at men morally, you may draw distinctions, and say, There is a man going farther and faster on the downward way than others, yet, if you look deeper still, these distinctions vanish, and they are all indiscriminately ruined, yea, dead, in the sight of God. So he says, as proving this, "Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the thoughts." No matter who we were, or what, he calls it all "the lusts of our flesh." But some of them might have been philosophers, and some benevolent and moral, some gross people living in open and atrocious wickedness. But take the best of them, and judge them by this: — was it their life-breath and governing motive to do the will of God? Not at all. They might have been gratifying their own kindly nature; but God was not in their thoughts; or it was a kind of bribing God to let them off. For in heathenism there was a tradition that a sacrifice was necessary; but it was corrupted, and degraded, and perverted in all sorts of ways.

Verse 2. "Wherein in time passed ye walked,"etc. They walked in that in which they were already dead. Sin leading irresistibly to death, destruction and misery are in the sinner's ways. The former verse affirmed the universality of the sinful state of man. In the present, we have a picture of the activities of sinful life. "The course of this world" stands opposed in Scripture to "the way of life;" and expresses, in a manner plainly intelligible to faith, the ordinary flow of natural human life, in contradistinction to the way of those who, as partakers of the risen Christ, have ceased to be of the world, though, as strangers and pilgrims, in it still. Reference has been made, in the former chapter, to the present world or age (Kata ton aiona tou kosmou toutou), in connexion with the supremacy which the Spirit claims for Christ, as the appointed Heir of all things (Chap. 1:21). We are now instructed as to the true character of the present world, by a disclosure of the governing energies which regulate its course. That there is corruption in the world through lust, is confessed by all who know the difference between holiness and sin; but the present verse reminds us of a power superior to the human will, and which acts on it tyrannically, though with subtlety, by means of sensible objects or by spiritual hallucinations, in such a manner as to keep it in its natural condition of ignorance and sin. The doctrine of this verse deserves much more attention than it usually receives in the current evangelical teaching of the day.

The first thing to be noticed is the broad statement of the Apostle, that the course of the present world is under the immediate control of a power which is not of God. We have already been reminded, that all power belongs to God; and that in its fulness, it has been assigned to the glorified Man, Christ Jesus. But the certainty of that blessed truth does not alter the fact, that there is, during the absence of the Lord in heaven, another power, who is variously recognized in Scripture as "the prince (John 14:30) of this world," "the god (2 Cor. 4:4)of this world," and, in the passage now before us, as "the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience." We shall find the same power again mentioned, at the close of the Epistle (Chap. 6:10, seq.), under a somewhat different description, as the enemy with whom the Christian has to urge a ceaseless warfare. Here we have to view him as the source and energetic wielder of an all-pervading influence in the world, by means of which the progress of human affairs is governed, though (thanks be to God) in necessary subjection to Him, who is the alone true Governor of the nations. In assigning to him the distinctive title of "prince of the power of the air," it seems evidently intended, that our ideas of his presence and activity should be coextensive with those which we form as to the limits of natural human existence. Where man breathes the spirit of evil works, exerting, without cessation, his baleful influence on the natural heart of man.

Verses 1-3. The Gentiles were by sin morally there where Christ actually and outwardly placed Himself for sin; they were dead in their trespasses and in their sins. There they were walking according to the course of this world, floating with the stream according to the powerful and universal influence of Satan, who penetrates everywhere and reigns over everything, like the air, which is his seat; they were walking according to this spirit which is now working in the children of disobedience, in those who still continue far off from the deliverance wrought by the Lord.

They could do nothing for themselves. Their state was one of spiritual death, and their walk according to the course of this world, the only way they naturally knew. It was also according to the prince of the power of the air for Satan has usurped authority and has so completely corrupted people's minds by sin that they can see nothing else because they are sons of disobedience (v.2): their nature has been formed in that way. Therefore it is natural for even the world's "best" characters to have no living relationship to God. The expression "prince of the power of the air" indicates that the very atmosphere of mankind's existence has been polluted through giving in to Satan, as was true of Adam and Eve. Satan's evil influence has corrupted every area of human life.

In speaking of our former condition the Spirit impresses a line of truth different from that in Romans. There the sinner is viewed as living in his sins — here as dead, "dead in trespasses and in sins." In Romans, I needed to be put to death, and I am shown my death with Christ; in Ephesians I am viewed as dead, and now quickened together with Him. What more striking picture could the Spirit draw of our former state of corruption and helplessness? What can come forth from the dead but corruption? and where can the dead find help but in God Himself? Yet was it an active kind of death; for we "walked according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience." The devil rules all in the world; his influence is all-pervading, and we were once under his power as all others. Another Spirit works in us now through grace. The enemy is called "the prince of the power of the air" here only; and this is quite in accord with the general character of this Epistle, which is occupied with the heavenlies. In 1 Peter he is spoken of as "a roaring lion," and characteristically; for saints are there viewed as strangers and pilgrims passing through the wilderness, and it is in the wilderness we find the lion.

This revelation given here concerning the powers of darkness, the principalities, the rulers of the darkness of this world and the wicked spirits in the heavenly places, is important and demands a closer attention. The Scriptures clearly teach that there is a vast dominion of darkness over which Satan is the head and that, as the god of this present age, he has rulers over this world and a large army of wicked spirits in the heavenlies. He is the prince of the power in the air. The sphere above the earth, the aerial heavens and beyond are tenanted by these wicked spirits, which under the headship of Satan form with principalities and powers, his kingdom. How mighty this being is, what powers are at his disposal, how vast his dominion, how numerous the fallen angels, the wicked spirits which possess the heavenly places, no Saint has ever fully realized, nor can it be all known, till the day comes in which the God of peace shall bruise Satan completely under our feet. Satan has even access into heaven itself The first two chapters of the book of Job acquaint us with this fact. See also 1 Kings 22:19-23.

We take it, therefore, that, as a result of the war in Heaven, the celestial regions are for ever freed from the presence of Satan and wicked spirits against whom our conflict, as Christians, is carried on (Eph. 6:12, R.V.). “The prince of the power of the air” must not be confounded with the title “The prince of this world.” As the former he heads the spiritual powers above, as the latter he heads the temporal powers on earth. The Lord having judged “the host of the high ones that are on high” it only remains to fulfil the second part of the prophetic utterance, “and the kings of the earth upon the earth” (Isa. 24:21).

Our state is set forth in Ephesians 2:1, as "dead in trespasses and sins." The next verse remarkably enough goes on to speak of walking in those trespasses and sins; but that is because the death there spoken of is death towards God. Those who are dead Godward are very much alive to "the course of this world," and "the prince of the power of the air," who operates in the "children of disobedience." To be dead towards God is entirely consistent with being alive towards the world and the devil: indeed the one springs out of the other.