Why Christians Rebuke Evil in the Name of Jesus

It was the early ’90s when I was first introduced to the idea of rebuking the Enemy in the name of Jesus. My sister and I had just finished watching the horror movie Candyman, and I was scared out of my mind.

I cried when the movie was over, terrified to be alone, and I was certain that the man on the screen was out to get me. For days, the Candyman lingered in my thoughts, making it impossible to focus. I was lost in my fears until I shared them with my Aunt Judy, a God-fearing woman. As she listened to me and saw my tears, she reminded me that I did not have to be afraid. “All you have to do,” she said with a confident calm, “is rebuke the Enemy, and he will flee from you.”

I needed to hear that because, in my young mind, Candyman was not just an enemy from a movie but the Enemy. The next time thoughts of him entered my mind, I took a deep breath, gathering my small courage, and with eyes closed and fists clinched, shouted out loud, “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus!”

Peeking out of one eye, I felt calm for the first time since I’d watched the movie. My childish conception of evil may have been a little confused, but the peace and deliverance from the sense of foreboding evil that the name of the Savior brought me was deep and real.

Evil takes a different form when we become adults, a subtler and cleverer shape. Talk of the Devil is relegated to charismatics, and those who speak of Satan are often dismissed as unreformed, uneducated, or holdovers from the naive hellfire-and-brimstone version of Christianity that we moderns work hard to forget.

Maybe people in developing countries, where witchcraft is vibrant and corruption prevails, are seeing manifestations of evil, we might allow. But that doesn’t happen here. Not in America. Here, when we think of evil, we’re more likely to think of those across political and ideological divides. We might well rebuke them, but that has little to do with Jesus.

Yet the Bible is clear about the reality of evil and the importance of rebuke. God regularly exercises this power, from the cursing of Satan in Genesis (3:14–15) to the rebuke of Satan in Peter (Matt. 16:23) and the chastening of believers who do not repent (Rev. 3:19). In the Old Testament, we see God cursing operatives of the Enemy and reproving kings who do evil (Mal. 1:3; Ps. 11:5; Isa. 59:18; Jer. 22). In the New Testament, Jesus scolds religious leaders who act with evil intent (Matt. 23). Scripture assumes that evil is real, that it is the enemy of God, and that it is overcome by the name of Christ.

As believers, we still have the authority to rebuke in order to resist Satan and the evil of this world. Scriptural rebuke is not a personal power to be manipulated for our own purposes and rivalries. It is a weapon of spiritual warfare in God’s plan to “destroy the devil’s work” (1 John 3:8), a sign of the intolerability of evil in the presence of a holy God.

Perhaps this is why Sonya Massey’s last instinct, before being fatally shot by a police officer in her Illinois home last month, was to rebuke evil in the name of Jesus.

Massey was reportedly having a mental health crisis when she asked police to come to her home to look for a possible prowler. We don’t know exactly what was going through her mind in her final exchange with the officer who shot her. But we do know that in extremis, in a moment of great fear, she understood that evil is defeated by the name of Jesus (Luke 10:17). She understood the truth that when we resist the Enemy, he will flee (James 4:7).

I don’t think, as some have speculated, that Sonya believed the officer who killed her was literally a demon. But because he had the audacity to authenticate his threat to shoot her in the face, there is no doubt that evil was present. As believers, “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” (Eph. 6:12)—and these are the enemies Sonya was right to rebuke in her final moments.

She called on the only name that could save her. And while her life was not spared on this side, because of her faith in Jesus, we can be confident she has attained the eternal life for which we long.

Sonya’s story is a reminder of the necessity of rebuking evil—of refusing to be so “sophisticated” that we imagine ourselves not in need of God’s help in the face of the Enemy. With every generation, we yearn for the coming of Christ who will wipe every tear and finally destroy the advancing darkness of this world (1 Cor. 15:24–26; Heb. 2:14–15; Rev. 21:4). But until that time, it is our duty to rebuke the evil around us. The tactics of the enemy are not to be placated or normalized. They are to be bound and defeated.

For this reason, we must rebuke the evils of racism and sexism—not because we simply dislike them, but because they work against the equality of believers (Gal. 3:28) and the goodness of God. We must rebuke political idolatry and apathy to violence not because they are a threat to us, but because they are a threat to the power and peace of God. Our calling, as followers of Jesus, is to hate the evil that Jesus hated and to love the truth Jesus loved. While the Enemy is not always clear to us, and evil isn’t always easy to discern, God will overcome the Enemy once and for all.

The timing of that final victory is unknown, but God’s promise is sure. I pray that the church can find courage to hate evil as we cling to what is good (Rom. 12:9). The power to rebuke the Enemy is a privilege we cannot take lightly, a reiteration of the victory of Christ. The one who overcame death on the cross is the same one who overcame my childhood fears—and the same one who heard and loved Sonya Massey as she cried out for his help. In him, God has already triumphed over evil. In him, we can embrace the power of spiritual rebuke with confidence that, one day, evil will surely end.

Nicole Massie Martin is chief impact officer at Christianity Today.