Can the devil take people captive at will, or will he flee when resisted?

‘At his will’ does not mean ‘whenever he likes’. The Greek is eis to ekeinou thelēma, literally ‘for his will’ or ‘to do his will’. It describes what the captives were held for, not a power of the devil to capture anyone at any moment. Barnes takes it to mean that these people had been ensnared so that they did the devil’s will. Ellicott notes that Paul uses two different pronouns, autou (‘by him’) and ekeinou (‘his’), and takes the second to mean God: they escape from the devil’s snare, where he held them captive, to do God’s will. On either reading the verse says nothing about the devil taking people captive at his pleasure.

The passages also speak of different people. In 2 Timothy Paul means “those that oppose themselves” to the truth (2:25). They are not resisting the devil; they have walked into his trap. They need God to give them repentance, so that they may ‘come to their senses’ (Greek ananēphō, to become sober again) and get free. James is speaking to believers, and his promise comes with a condition: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). Peter says the same: the devil prowls like a lion, but believers are to resist him “stedfast in the faith” (1 Peter 5:8–9).

So the passages fit together. The devil holds captive those who do not resist him, while those who submit to God and resist him find that he flees. Both passages warn against the devil, and both look to God as the one who sets people free.

The devil’s power is limited

Elsewhere too Scripture presents the devil as dangerous but limited. In Job he can act only within bounds God sets (Job 1:12; 2:6), and Paul promises that God will not let believers be tempted beyond what they can bear (1 Corinthians 10:13).

Commentators are divided over whether ‘his will’ in 2 Timothy 2:26 is the devil’s or God’s. The answer above does not depend on which is right.