The Devil’s Advocate (Part 2)
Here is part 2 in a series by Olatunde Howard on the topic of angels, demons, God and Satan as portrayed in pop-culture, particularly in movies. Click HERE for part 1!
This conversation started as an email discussion Olatunde and I were having about the reality of the spiritual and what some of the best depictions of spiritual realities are in Hollywood.
Please share your thoughts, questions or feedback in the comments section below! And if you would like to read more from Olatunde on this or similar subjects be sure to check out his book “The Mind of Christ” …which sports an excellent cover designed by yours truly! 
JM
———————
The 3 things the film “The Devil’s Advocate” gets right when it comes to portraying satan. Continued from PART 1…
2. The Devil is subtle! – The reason he could argue so effectively in his accusation during the final scene was the subtlety of his temptations– two temptations in particular.
There was the temptation where Satan tells the successful young attorney to go home to his suffering wife Mary Ann (played by Charlize Theron) because she needed him, and that the case they were working on could wait.
Satan is actually telling him the right thing to do…but with the wrong motivation.
He is playing on Kevin’s vanity. Here’s how the scene played out:
John Milton: It’s your wife, man. She’s sick, she needs you… she’s got to come first. Ah, wait a minute, wait a minute. You mean the possibility of leaving this case has never even entered you mind?
Kevin Lomax: You know what scares me? I quit the case, she gets better… and I hate her for it. I don’t want to resent her, John, I’ve got a winner here. I’ve got to nail this… down, do it fast, and put it behind me. Just get it done. Then – then. – put all my energy into her.
John Milton: [pauses, looks at Kevin, then gives the final line] I stand corrected.
Words don’t do justice to how powerfully this scene depicts the insidious subtlety of Satan’s actions! [Rewatch the scene if you haven’t seen it in a while!] Notice these words from Satan: “Wait a minute. You mean the possibility of leaving this case never even entered your mind?”
This is an accusation. Here the devil is removing all responsibility from himself and placing it all on Kevin’s vanity, as if amazed!
The truth is Satan knew Kevin was vain, and purposely played on his vanity as well as the distraction of his vanity in relation to loving his wife, as we will see later.
We usually think of the devil telling us to sin, and of course he does. Yet even when he does, he’ll hide the evil in something good, or justifiable. But more than telling us to do something bad, he suggests doing something good with bad motivations, assumptions, or reasons.
Notice, for instance, in Genesis chapter 3, Satan never actually said, “Disobey God,” to Eve.
He suggested that God’s goodness may be in question, and that He may not mean what He says. He directly contradicts God, saying that she “would not surely die” if the ate the forbidden fruit. But he insinuates that God may want her to rebel against the command as her first act of independence, making herself like God by an act that is independent like His actions are.
And in the temptation of Jesus, depicted in Matthew 4, Mark 1, and Luke 4, Satan offered Jesus the world that Jesus came to receive, if only Jesus would worship Him. In other words, everything Satan tempted Jesus to do was in some way good:
- supernaturally satisfy His hunger as The Son of God
- prove God’s favor by letting the angels rescue Him when he falls from the temple
- receive the world that Adam gave to Satan, which is what Jesus came to do.
There is a scene in the movie, “The Green Mile” that illustrates the insidiousness of Satan in the way I am talking about. In that film, a killer named Wild Bill uses the love of two sisters to kill them. He tells each of them that if they scream, he will kill the other. Thus, by their love for each other, he killed them both. The devil can actually use our love for God (or our idea of this love) to deceive us. He can use our good intentions as the very source of his deceptions.
For example, I knew a woman who sincerely loved the Lord and who wanted desperately to serve him. By prayer and devotion to God, she came to see through the Spirit’s conviction that she was very self-absorbed, a trait the devil had been preying upon in her life. She realized that life was not all about her.
So what did she do? She attempted to help someone she felt less deserving than her, someone who didn’t really appreciate the sacrifice of what she was doing. But she was bothered by this very much, and it caused great conflict in her heart. Looking at her situation from the outside, and how she portrayed the heroism of her role in the undeserving girl’s life, it was clear that she was being prideful in her lesson on humility!
In other words, she was still very self-absorbed in her act of service to the friend in need, and thus she was being deceived by the subtly of the enemy! She didn’t see the temptation because it was hidden in a good act, the very act of serving the seemingly unworthy girl.
What she did to correct this was similar to Kevin shooting himself in the head at the end of the movie. She admitted her guilt, but tried to kill her self-absorbed “self” instead of trusting that Jesus died in her place because she was so self-absorbed.
You see, the act of trusting in Christ is the first selfless act a person can do, and this act silences the accusations of Satan!
The other subtle temptation in The Devil’s Advocate is where Satan actually tells Kevin to accept defeat, because he, the devil himself (though speaking as the attorney John Milton) has also had to accept defeats. It happens at the climax of the movie, where his identity as Satan is revealed:
Kevin Lomax: What are you?
John Milton: Aww, I have so many names.
Kevin Lomax: Satan?
John Milton: Call me Dad.
Kevin Lomax: Mary Anne, she knew it. She knew it, so you destroyed her.
John Milton: You blaming me for Mary Anne? Oh, I hope you’re kidding. Come on, Mary Anne in New York? You could have saved her anytime you wanted. All she wanted was love. Hey, you were too…busy. Face it, you started lookin’ to better-deal her the minute you got here.
Kevin Lomax: You don’t know that, you don’t know what we had.
John Milton: Hey, I’m on your side!
Kevin Lomax: You’re a liar! [starts to leave]
John Milton: Wait, Kevin, there’s nothing out there for you. Don’t be such a… chump– stop deluding yourself! I told you to take care of your wife. I told you the world would understand. What did you do? [imitates Kevin’s voice] “You know what scares me, John? I leave the case, she gets better– then I hate her for it.” Remember?
Kevin Lomax: It was a test! Your test!
John Milton: Who told you to pull out all the stops on Mr. Gettys?
Kevin Lomax: You set me up!
John Milton: And Moyez, the direction you took. Popes, Swamis, snake handlers—all feeding from the same trough. Whose ideas were those?
Kevin Lomax: It’s entrapment! You set me up!
John Milton: And Cullen! Knowing he was guilty! Seeing those pictures! What did you do? You put that lying b*tch on the stand [laughs]
Kevin Lomax: You PLAYED me!
John Milton: What did I say to you? WHAT WERE MY WORDS TO YOU? Maybe it was your time to lose. You didn’t think so.
Kevin Lomax: Lose? I don’t lose– I win! I win! I’m a lawyer, that’s my job, that’s what I do!
John Milton: I rest my case. Vanity is definitely my favorite sin. Self-love, the all-natural opiate. It’s not like you didn’t care for Mary Ann, Kevin. You were just a little more involved with someone else: yourself.
After being the tempter, Satan becomes the accuser. Throughout the movie he made suggestions with sinful assumptions, yet left the decisions ultimately up to Kevin. Throughout, Milton made suggestions of adultery through situations with other women and Kevin. He never told Kevin to commit adultery. He simply presented the opportunities. Milton also gave Kevin successes through supernatural intuitions, which were in connection to Kevin’s decisions to go to the bathroom and listen in on the jury.
Do you see the pattern, or cooperation between Kevin and Satan? Satan presents situations and assumptions, indirectly, but Kevin makes the decisions based upon these assumptions and situations from Satan.
Satan’s direct suggestions to Kevin are for Kevin to do the right thing–take care of Mary Ann, accept defeat– but with Kevin’s vanity in mind the whole time.
Through indirect suggestions, assumptions and situations that led to sin, and through direct statements to Kevin to do the right thing, Satan removes all responsibility for Kevin’s activities, and can thus accuse Kevin successfully!
[To be continued…]
Categories: Arts and Culture, Biblical Theology, Blog, Theological issues
Hi and thank you for this insightful article :).
What i found interesting is that the depiction of Satan here also parallels some common behavior/psychological disorders … Here is an article highlighting several good books on the topic. http://withoutempathy.blogspot.com/
We all have sinful attitudes and negative character traits that I believe have their roots in negative spiritual forces and manifested/displayed as the sum of our childhood experiences that we had no control over. The problem comes in, when we are not aware of these characteristics in others or ourselves… Similarly, there is a big difference in someone who recognizes this behavior in themselves and seeks to change it, and someone who doesn’t care at all, but seeks to perpetuate it.
Also, I had a question about this particular phrase from your article that I hear a lot but never fully grasp as far as practical implication:
“You see, the act of trusting in Christ is the first selfless act a person can do, and this act silences the accusations of Satan!”
I am specifically referring to the part about ‘trusting in Christ’ I also hear the phrase “accept God’s grace, you can’t ‘do’ anything but accept it’. I don’t mean the act of accepting Christ as savior, I mean the walking it out practically.
To be honest, I’ve spent a great deal of my life ‘trying’ so hard to just ‘accept’ God’s grace. So contradictory and frustrating. What other option is there? Accepting or trusting something requires an action it seems to me. If i am to live out my life continually in ‘grace’ it still requires me to ‘do’ something. The problem is ‘what’?! I can say the words, ” i am trusting GOd with this” and mean it, but then what? I have talked with lots of people who struggle with the ‘working out’ of this. Some say, “it is a mystery how God reveals things to us and all we need to is walk in the spirit and allow him to work..”. Ok, amidst walking in the spirit i have a barrage of daily activities and other sinful people like me that i interact with. Over the years I have begun to look at other spiritual disciplines to see if there were any similarities or answers to this question… I have found similarities at the essence of each, but the semantics/actual working out is somewhat different. What I have pulled from them all as far as practical application, is a moment by moment, self, spiritual, or God, awareness. Focusing on truth, spending time in meditation, prayer, or quiet reflection of spiritual truths , inner voice, or higher self. -(again the semantics/source of this varies somewhat depending on the discipline).
I guess this diverges from the topic somewhat, so if i need to move this elsewhere I will be glad to. I would appreciate your feedback/opinion on the topic of ‘trusting in Christ’ from a Christian perspective in so far as living it out practically in our society.
Many thanks!
by BJJCHICK on Jan 12, 2012 at 4:58 pm
ahhh, and to add one more thing to the above comment, I have come to one conclusion about it all. I think being in the ‘balance’ of all things is an important part of living out spirituality in a practical world… I am still exploring this, and learning a lot….mostly by trial and error, by learning from mistakes then making efforts to understand them and how to change it. Some difficult lessons I have repeated until I finally got tired of this elective abuse and made changes… It always humbles me to look back upon my repeated stupidity lol. 🙂
by BJJCHICK on Jan 12, 2012 at 5:22 pm
ahh, sorry to keep ‘spit bath’ posting…. things keep coming to mind 🙂
I don’t know if you have seen the 1944 film ‘Gaslight’, but it is an allegory for the subtly of evil, much like “the devil’s advocate’.
The psychological term ‘gas lighting’ was coined from the play “gas light”. In the play/film a gas light was used to subtly trick the ‘victim’ that she was ‘going crazy’, when in reality her husband was the deceiver and accuser.
Here is a great article on this subject you might find interesting: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/power-in-relationships/200905/are-you-being-gaslighted
by BJJCHICK on Jan 12, 2012 at 6:55 pm
To BJJCHICK,
Thank you so very much for reading and responding. Feedback means alot to me.
The key is to stick with the exact quote from my article, exactly as you copied it:
“You see, the act of trusting in Christ is the first selfless act a person can do, and this act silences the accusations of Satan!”
Now you said,
“I am specifically referring to the part about ‘trusting in Christ’ I also hear the phrase ‘accept God’s grace, you can’t ‘do’ anything but accept it’. I don’t mean the act of accepting Christ as savior, I mean the walking it out practically.”
You focused on the words “trusting Christ,” but not the words “the ACT of trusting Christ.”
In scripture, trusting God, or believing in God, is NEVER simply and only mental assent. It is ALWAYS practical, involving not just the mind, but the emotions, volition, and actions. Hebrews chapter 11 fully demonstrates this. By faith you find the saints of old performing certain actions:
By faith Abel OFFERED God a better sacrifice than Cain did.
By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear BUILT an ark to save his family.
By faith Abraham, when called TO GO TO A PLACE he would later receive as his inheritance, OBEYED AND WENT, even though he did not know where he was going.
This is what Paul said in Galatians 5:6–“The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”
And this is what the Lord Jesus said about love,
“If you love me, you will obey what I command.”
“Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.” (John 14:15, 21)
Finally, this is how the Apostle John defines our love for Christ:
1 John 5:3 “This is love for God: to obey his commands.”
2 John 1:6 ” And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.”
So this is biblical, practical faith:
Faith expresses itself in love, and love expresses itself in obedience.
Therefore, faith expresses itself in obedience. If you truly believe in, trust, and have faith in Jesus, you will obey him. According to scripture, those who say that believe in or love Jesus, but don’t obey Him, are deceiving themselves, or lying to themselves and others, if they are telling others they love Jesus.
Respond when you get this.
(I haven’t gotten a chance to look at the links you posted. I plan to. I wanted to responded to your thoughts about trusting God first.)
by Olatunde on Jan 12, 2012 at 10:00 pm
TO Olatunde,
Thank you very much for the thoughtful response. You are right, I overlooked a small but very important word from your quote! Thank you for pointing that out 🙂
I agree with what you have written. I grew up in a very legalistic church background, so I have issues with some interpretations of what being faithful, and actively loving Jesus looks like. I have been searching for answers to these things for some years now, and I believe that God has and will continue reveal His truths to me.
Thank you so much for your insights and response. I appreciate your depth of thought and sincerity. Let me know what you think of the links when you have a chance. 🙂
by BJJCHICK on Jan 13, 2012 at 5:37 am
BJJ,
You’re very welcome!
The “Without Empathy” article is wonderful and remarkable! Thank you very much for sharing it.
First I see Satan and the demons as supreme psycho/sociopaths–the very definitions!
Second, I am a Corrections Officer, working with inmates as I write. THEY ARE EXACTLY LIKE WHAT THIS ARTICLE EXPOSES! EXACTLY! We read a book in the academy that specifically dealt with inmate maniplation. It said exactly what this article is saying. Inmates consider the traits that normal society esteems highly to be weaknesses: trustworthiness, good will, innocence.
So we learned as officers to do three things:
1. Be competent as professionals, meaning to know our jobs. Inmates take advantage of ignorance.
2. Don’t be gullible. Always verify any and every thing they tell you.
3. Be friendly but not familiar. That means don’t let our guards down or give personal information. We are polite, but not chummy.
The charm, the sneakiness, the tactical thinking, is all a part of inmate psychology. On one hand, they are not the criminal masterminds usually portrayed on TV and movies. Far from it. On the other, they are very intuitive, very good readers of people, like the article says. But they always get caught because of arrogance, or the extreme shortsightedness of selfishness.
I’ve seen God and Satan in the jail.
In college, I wanted to be a psychology major. But in my first couple of classes, I felt like we were just studying the nature of sin. All of the questions being asked seemed clearly answered in scripture to me. Not that psychology is useless. I remember the last (or one of the last) lines in the movie “Girl Interrupted,” where the main character says that “psychological disorders” are exaggerations, problems found in everyday people and relationships taken to their extreme, to their logical conclusion.
These are thoughts provoked by the article.
Thank you again for sharing it. I can’t wait to read it with my wife!
by Olatunde on Jan 13, 2012 at 3:15 pm
Thanks for your feedback, I’m glad you enjoyed the article! Bless you for dealing with these type of people every day!! I only thought this type of behavior was for ‘murderers’, however I have encountered these types of “successful sociopaths”, who wreak emotional havoc in others lives as a sort of game. Sadly, one was a church leader… I totally agree with your comment ”
“Not that psychology is useless. I remember the last (or one of the last) lines in the movie “Girl Interrupted,” where the main character says that “psychological disorders” are exaggerations, problems found in everyday people and relationships taken to their extreme, to their logical conclusion.” When any thing is taken to the extreme…emotions, behaviors, religion, politics, it seems to create ‘discord’ within ourselves and society.
I wish I had majored in psychology… It is something I have studied in some way my entire life. I was a music major then went on to be a missionary, which was an incredible experience in many ways. I am now starting into the ‘hypnotherapy’ field and again I find many parallels in this method of healing and Christianity. Forgiveness is a big part of what I do with folks in hypnosis (well, depending on the issue), but it is done at a subconscious level (where emotions, habits, long term memory reside), so I’ve found that when a person truly forgives others and themselves at that level, it brings deep healing for all involved.
Thank you again for your feedback and insights. I look forward to reading more of your articles, and I hope your wife will enjoy the links too. 🙂
by BJJCHICK on Jan 13, 2012 at 5:21 pm
[…] God and Satan as portrayed in pop-culture, particularly in movies. Click HERE for part 1 and HERE for part […]
by Disciple Dojo – JMSmith.org » The Devil’s Advocate (Conclusion) on Jan 15, 2012 at 7:34 pm