08. Satan
SATAN Why do you believe Satan to be a real being? For the same reason that I believe God to be a real being. The Word of God mentions Satan by name sixty-six times, and calls him the Devil thirty-four times. In every one of these one hundred mentions of him he is shown to be a personal being with personal attributes. Then, too, he is often mentioned in the Bible in places where his name is not used. But wherever he is mentioned in Scripture, whether with his name or without it, he is shown to be a mighty person who seeks to turn men away from the worship of the true God. Is it important for us to know about Satan?
It surely is of great importance that we should know who Satan is, and the Scriptures have not left us in the dark concerning him. It is quite the fashion nowadays to dispose of Satan as a bugaboo of the dark ages and to make him the butt of joke and ridicule. This casual attitude towards Satan is doubtless quite in keeping with his own plans, as the enemy of God and man; for if we can be deluded into thinking of him only as something unreal or unworthy of serious thought, it will leave us unarmed against his snares.
Satan is a person. There is not a single impersonal reference to him in the whole Bible. Personal names, personal pronouns, personal acts, personal planning and plotting, personal reasoning and scheming are all attributed to him and show him to be an actual person as truly as God is a person, as truly as men are persons. Satan is not merely an evil influence or an evil principle.
Satan is a person of great dignity (Judges 8, 9). Originally created perfect, he fell from his high estate through pride. Doubtless he is the spiritual king of Tyre described in Ezekiel’s prophecy (compare Ezekiel 28:11-17 with John 8:44 and 1 Timothy 3:6). Unlike the fallen angels of Judges 6, he is not under restraint but “as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
Satan is not in hell. Though that awful place is especially for him and his angels (Matthew 25:41), and he will certainly be cast at last into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10), his residence during the present age is chiefly in the heavenly realms where he has access to God’s presence and accuses the saints before Him day and night (Job 1:6-12; Revelation 12:10). His ejection from heaven, described in Revelation 12:9, is yet future. The Lord Jesus spoke of the same event prophetically in Luke 10:18, and John 12:31. When Satan finally reaches hell it will be to suffer eternal torment He will be “cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Revelation 20:10).
Meanwhile, Satan is now a ruler—the ruler of the host of wicked spirits in the heavenly realms, the prince of the power of the air, the prince of this world and the god of this age (Ephesians 2:2; Ephesians 6:12; John 12:31; John 14:30; 2 Corinthians 4:4).
What is the meaning ofRevelation 12:1-6;Revelation 12:13-17? The woman is Israel, “of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came” (Romans 9:5). The sun is Christ in His character as the glory of Israel (Mai. 4:2). The moon is the Church, shining with the reflected glory of the absent Sun. She is under the woman’s feet as indicating Israel’s prior position chronologically, and perhaps to remind us that “salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22). The dragon is Satan, and the seven heads and the horns and crowns speak of his position as the prince of this world, the god of this age, and the prince of the power of the air (John 12:31; John 14:30; 2 Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 2:2; compare Revelation 13:1-4). The Man Child, of course, is Christ (compare verse 5 with Psalms 2:7-9). But it is the complete Christ, including “the Church, which is his body, the fullness (or completion) of him” (Ephesians 1:22-23). He is the Head, and the church is the body. The Head and body united constitute the “one man” of Galatians 3:28, R.V.; the “perfect man” of Ephesians 4:13; and the “man child” of Revelation 12:5. The Man Child is now in process of birth, and the sufferings of Israel through the centuries of the present age have been labor-pains which must continue until the Church, “the fullness of the Gentiles, be come in” (Romans 11:25). When the church is fully gathered out (Acts 15:14), then, the body of Christ having been completed, the Man Child fully born, it will immediately be “caught up unto God” (Revelation 12:5; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18). It is this completion that Satan seeks to prevent. He is ever threatening the Man Child and would devour Him and His body if that were possible, which of course it is not, for greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world (1 John 4:4). As soon as the Church is completed and caught up to meet the Lord, Israel will come under the special protection of God. The Great Tribulation which will constitute the latter half of the seven years of Daniel’s seventieth week, enduring 1260 days or “a time, and times, and half a time” (one year, plus two years, plus half-a-year, making three and-a-half years), will be preeminently “the time of Jacob’s trouble, but he shall be saved out of it” (Jeremiah 30:7; Revelation 12:6; Revelation 12:14). Will you kindly explain1 Corinthians 5:5? In this verse the Apostle Paul commands the Corinthian Church to deliver one of its members who was guilty of uncleanness—”to deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” The command is put into another form in verse 13: ‘Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.” There are at least two other instances in Scripture where children of God were given into Satan’s hands temporarily. Job was thus “delivered unto Satan.” This was God’s response to Satan’s taunting challenge (Job 1:9-12; Job 2:4-6). Evidently it was in order to show that God is able to sustain His people through any trial. The demonstration was complete, and the record of it has been of great help and comfort to God’s people through the ages. Likewise Peter was given over to Satan for sifting as wheat, but he was warned of it and assured of his Advocate’s prayer in his behalf—”that thy faith fail not” (Luke 22:31-32). And, indeed, our Lord Himself was dius turned over to Satan—driven by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted (Mark 1:12-13). It is good to note that the sinning Corinthian Christian was evidently brought to penitence by his experience with Satan and restored to the fellowship of the Church. This is indicated by the aposde’s message in 2 Corinthians 2:6-11. Is the Devil in Heaven?
Satan is the prince of the power of the air, the prince of this world and the god of this age (Ephesians 2:2; John 12:31; 2 Corinthians 4:4). His casting out of heaven is yet future, our Lord’s words in Luke 10:18 being predictive, and he still has access to God as the “accuser of the brethren” (Revelation 12:10). His final doom will be to be cast into the lake of fire, which is hell, but that is yet to be. See Revelation 20:10.
What is “the power of the air” of which Satan in the prince (Ephesians 2:2)? The Revised Version reads, “the prince of the powers of the air,” and these powers are defined in Ephesians 6:12, R.V., as “the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” The powers of the air are the hosts of wicked spirits in the service of Satan. These are his spiritual agents, and in addition to these, he has human agents who “are false aposdes, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works” (2 Corinthians 11:13-15). Is there any Scripture to indicate that Satan is now without a body? Did he not have a body in Heaven before he fell?
Satan is probably the personage addressed as the spiritual King of Tyre in Ezekiel 28:11-19, and his description there indicates that originally he had a body which was beautiful almost beyond imagination. Whether he now has a body is not revealed in Scripture so far as I know. But he seems to have the power to appear in various forms. Who Is Lucifer?
Lucifer is one of Satan’s names. It appears but once in Scripture and even there the Revisers have changed it to “day star.” (Read the whole passage, Isaiah 14:12-20.) Who is Beelzebub? This is a name applied by our Lord to Satan as the prince of the demons (Matthew 10:25; Matthew 12:24; Matthew 12:27; Mark 3:22; Luke 11:15-19). A similar name, “Baal-zebub,” is applied to the god of Ekron in 2 Kings 1:2-16. Who is Belial?
It is a name applied to Satan in 2 Corinthians 6:15. The word signifies “worthlessness” or “wickedness” or “baseness.” It occurs sixteen times in the Authorized Version of the Old Testament, but the Revisers have changed it every time to read, “wicked,” “base,” eta Who is “the angel of the bottomless pit” ofRevelation 9:11?
He is Satan, and he is named here in Hebrew Abaddon, and in Greek Apollyon, both of which mean “destroyer.”
I understand that when the Millennial Kingdom is here, the thousand-year reign of Christ and His glorified saints, Satan will be bound. Is that correct?
Yes, that is correct Revelation 20:1-3 is perfectly clear on this point: “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled.” When speaking of Satan, I have heard it said that he tempts us where we are weakest. If that is so, he must be all-knowing. Do you know of any text in the Bible that gives us light on this subject?
No. I am glad to believe, as I do believe, that although Satan is supernatural and superhuman, he is not all-knowing which would be omniscient. If he were not limited, then it could not be said: “Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.” I thank God that Satan cannot tempt us in any way without God’s permission, and that with every temptation God Himself makes the means of escape (1 Corinthians 10:13). Has Satan foreknowledge? If not, how did he know Jesus was the Son of God when it had been revealed to no one at the time? When our Lord Jesus was born His divine Sonship was proclaimed by angels and shepherds and the wise men from the east. It surely could have been no secret, and Satan needed no foreknowledge to know that Jesus was the Son of God. Surely Satan was deeply concerned in the events around Bethlehem at the time. Though men might have forgotten the significance of these events, he remembered them. Does Satan have equal power with God?
It is never true that Satan has “equal power with God.” Unquestionably God has delegated great power into Satan’s hands, but it is always limited, and it is never in any sense equal to the power of God.