2-3 Satan And The Devil
Sometimes the original words of the Bible text are left
untranslated (“Mammon”, in Mt. 6:24, is an Aramaic example of this). ‘Satan’
is an untranslated Hebrew word which means ‘adversary’, while ‘Devil’
is a translation of the Greek word ‘diabolos’, meaning a liar, an enemy
or false accuser. ‘Satan’ has been transferred from the Hebrew untranslated,
just like ‘Sabaoth’ (James 5:4), ‘Armageddon’ (Rev. 16:16) and ‘Hallelujah’
(Rev. 19:1-6). If we are to believe that Satan and the Devil are some
being outside of us which is responsible for sin, then whenever we come
across these words in the Bible, we have to make them refer to this evil
person. The Biblical usage of these words shows that they can be used
as ordinary nouns, describing ordinary people. This fact makes it impossible
to reason that the words Devil and Satan as used in the Bible do in themselves
refer to a great wicked person or being outside of us.
J.H. Walton comments upon the word "Satan": "We would
have to conclude... that there was little of a sinister nature" in
the word originally. The negative associations of the word were what he
calls "a secondary development" as a "technical usage".
They arose in the interpretations of men rather than from the Bible text
itself. He continues: "Based on the use of "Satan" in the
OT, we would have to conclude that Israel had little knowledge of a being
named Satan or of a chief of demons, the Devil, during the OT period"
(1). This of course highlights the fact that the popular idea of the Devil
grew over time, and requires to be 'read back' into Old Testament texts.
The Old Testament of itself simply doesn't state any doctrine of Satan
as a personal being. How come they would be left in ignorance about this
matter, if such a being exists and God presumably wishes to inform us
about him and save us from him? How much effort did God make to save His
people from a personal Satan, if throughout the entire Old Testament He
never tells them of him? It should be noted that nearly all the Old Testament
instances of the word "satan" refer to an adversary to people
rather than to God. The picture of "Satan" opposing God hardly
has a Biblical foundation.
George Lamsa grew up in a remote part of Kurdistan which spoke a language
similar to the Aramaic of Jesus' times, and which had survived virtually
unchanged. He moved to America and became an academic, writing over 20
books of Biblical and linguistic research. Significantly, he came to the
conclusion that the idea of a personal Satan was unknown to the Biblical
writers, and that Western Christians have built their concept of it on
a serious misreading of Biblical passages, failing to understand the original
meaning of the word "Satan" and the associated idioms which
went with it. Consider a few of his conclusions in this area: "Satan"
is very common in Aramaic and Arabic speech. At times a father may call
his own son "Satan" without any malicious intent. Moreover,
an ingenious man is also called "Satan" (Arabic shitan)"
(2). "Easterners in their conversations often say, "He has been
a Satan to me", which means that he has caused me to err or mislead
me" (3).
The Word ‘Satan’ In The Bible
1
Kings 11:14 records that “The Lord raised up an adversary (same Hebrew
word elsewhere translated “Satan”) against Solomon, Hadad the Edomite”.
“And God raised up another adversary (another Satan)...Rezon ...he was
an adversary (a Satan) of Israel” (1 Kings 11:23,25). This does not
mean that God stirred up a supernatural person or an angel to be a
Satan/adversary to Solomon; He stirred up ordinary men. A related word
occurs in Gen. 25:21- a well was named 'Sitnah', שטנה , because the
well had been a place of contention / opposition. Mt. 16:22,23 provides
another example. Peter had been trying to dissuade Jesus from going up
to Jerusalem to die on the cross. Jesus turned and said unto Peter: “Get behind me, Satan...you are not mindful of the things
of God, but the things of men”. Thus Peter was called a Satan. The record
is crystal clear that Christ was not talking to an angel or a monster
when he spoke those words; he was talking to Peter.
Because the word ‘Satan’ just means an adversary, a
good person, even God Himself, can be termed a ‘Satan’. The word ‘Satan’
does not therefore necessarily refer to sin. The sinful connotations which
the word ‘Satan’ has are partly due to the fact that our own sinful nature
is our biggest ‘Satan’ or adversary, and also due to the use of the word
in the language of the world to refer to something associated with sin.
God Himself can be a Satan to us by means of bringing trials into our
lives, or by standing in the way of a wrong course of action we may be
embarking on. But the fact that God can be called a ‘Satan’ does not mean
that He Himself is sinful. The wicked Balaam was opposed by an Angel of
God, who stood in the walled path as an adversary, or Satan to
him, so that his donkey couldn't pass by (Num. 22:22). This shows that
a good being can act as a Satan to a person. Interestingly, the Septuagint
translates this with the word endiaballein, 'to set something
across one's path'; a diabolos is a person who performs this
act. The same idea repeats in the New Testament, where Peter is described
by Jesus as a stumbling block across His path to the cross, and thus Peter
is a 'Satan' (Mt. 16:23).
The books of Samuel and Chronicles are parallel accounts
of the same incidents, as the four gospels are records of the same events
but using different language. 2 Sam. 24:1 records: “The Lord...moved David
against Israel” in order to make him take a census of Israel. The parallel
account in 1 Chron. 21:1 says that “Satan stood up against Israel, and
moved David” to take the census. In one passage God does the ‘moving’,
in the other Satan does it. The only conclusion is that God acted as a
‘Satan’ or adversary to David. He did the same to Job by bringing trials
into his life, so that Job said about God: “With the strength of Your
hand You oppose me” (Job 30:21); ‘You are acting as a Satan against me’,
was what Job was basically saying. Or again, speaking of God: “I must
appeal for mercy to my accuser (Satan)” (Job 9:15 NRSV). The Greek Septuagint
translation of the Old Testament uses the Greek word diabolos
to translate the Hebrew 'Satan'. Hence Devil and Satan are effectively
parallel in meaning. Thus we read in the Septuagint of David being an
adversary [Heb. Satan, Gk. diabolos] in 1 Sam. 29:4;
the sons of Zeruiah (2 Sam. 19:22), Hadad, Rezon and other opponents to
Solomon (1 Kings 5:4; 11:14,23,25). We face a simple choice- if we believe
that every reference to 'Satan' or 'Devil' refers to an evil cosmic being,
then we have to assume that these people weren't people at all, and that
even good men like David were evil. The far more natural reading of these
passages is surely that 'Satan' is simply a word meaning 'adversary',
and can be applied to people [good and bad], and even God Himself- it
carries no pejorative, sinister meaning as a word. The idea is sometimes
used to describe our greatest adversary, i.e. our own sin, and at times
for whole systems or empires which stand opposed to the people of God
and personify sinfulness and evil. But it seems obvious that it is a bizarre
approach to Bible reading to insist that whenever we meet these words
'Satan' and 'Devil', we are to understand them as references to a personal,
supernatural being.
When reviewing the references to ha-Satan ("the adversary")
in the Old Testament, it's significant that a number of them occur in
the context of the life of David. There was an incident where David behaved
deceitfully with the Philistines with whom he once lived, and he is described
as being "a Satan" to them (1 Sam. 29:4). That's another example
of where the word 'Satan' doesn't necessarily have an evil connotation-
a good man can be an adversary, just as Peter was (Mt. 16:21-23) and God
Himself can be (2 Sam. 22:4). But we find that David and his dynasty were
afflicted with Satans, adversaries, from then on. The word is used about
human beings who were adversarial to them in 2 Sam. 19:22; 1 Kings 5:4,18;
11:14-22,25; Ps. 109:6,20 (Heb. "They say, "Appoint a wicked man
against him, let an accuser [Satan]
stand on his right hand"". David's enemies are called ישטנוני [a
related word to 'satan'] in Ps. 38:20; likewise שטן in Ps. 71:13; and
שטנוני in Ps. 109:4. These are all related words to 'satan'. Note that
it is stated that God stirred up men to be 'Satans'
to David and Solomon- whatever view we take of 'Satan', clearly it or
he is under the direct control of God and not in free opposition to Him.
The Word ‘Devil’ In The Bible
The word ‘Devil’ too is an ordinary word rather than
a proper name. However, unlike ‘Satan’, it is always used in a bad sense.
Jesus said, “Did I not choose you, the twelve (disciples), and one of
you is a Devil? He spoke of Judas Iscariot...” (Jn. 6:70) who was an ordinary,
mortal man. He was not speaking of a personal being with horns, or a so-called
‘spirit being’. The word ‘Devil’ here simply refers to a wicked man. 1
Tim. 3:11 provides another example. The wives of church elders were not
to be ‘slanderers’; the original Greek word here is ‘diabolos’, which
is the same word translated ‘Devil’ elsewhere. Thus Paul warns Titus that
the aged women in the ecclesia should not be ‘slanderers’ or ‘Devils’
(Tit. 2:3). And likewise he told Timothy (2 Tim. 3:1,3) that “In the last
days...men will be...slanderers (Devils)”. This does not mean that
human beings will turn into superhuman beings, but that they will be increasingly
wicked. It ought to be quite clear from all this that the words ‘Devil’
and ‘Satan’ do not refer to a fallen angel or a sinful being outside of
us.
Sin, Satan And The Devil
In
the New Testament, the words ‘Satan’ and ‘Devil’ are sometimes used
figuratively to describe the natural sinful tendencies within us which
we spoke of in the previous section. I emphasize 'sometimes'. For there
are many occurences of the words where they simply refer to a person
playing an adverserial role. But it is human sin and dysfunction which
is our great Satan / adversary, and so it's appropriate that these
things at times are going to be described as the great ‘Satan’ or
adversary. Our lusts are deceitful (Eph. 4:22), and so the Devil or
‘deceiver’ is an appropriate way of describing them. They are
personified, and as such they can be spoken of as ‘the Devil’ - our
enemy, a slanderer of the truth. This is what our natural ‘man’ is like
- the ‘very Devil’. The connection between the Devil and our evil
desires - sin within us - is made explicit in several passages: “Since
the children (ourselves) have flesh and blood, he (Jesus) too shared in
their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the
power of death - that is, the Devil” (Heb. 2:14 NIV). The Devil is here
described as being responsible for death. But “the wages of sin is
death” (Rom. 6:23). Therefore sin and the Devil must be parallel.
Similarly James 1:14 says that our evil desires tempt us, leading us to
sin and therefore to death; but Heb. 2:14 says that the Devil brings
death. The same verse says that Jesus had our nature in order to
destroy the Devil. Contrast this with Rom. 8:3: “God ... by sending his
own Son in the likeness of sinful man (that is, in our human nature)
... condemned sin in sinful man ”. This shows that the Devil and the
sinful tendencies that are naturally within human nature are
effectively the same. It is vitally important to understand that Jesus
was tempted just like us. Misunderstanding the doctrine of the Devil
means that we cannot correctly appreciate the nature and work of Jesus.
It was only because Jesus had our human nature - the ‘Devil’ within him
- that we can have the hope of salvation (Heb. 2:14-18; 4:15). By
overcoming the desires of his own nature Jesus was able to destroy the
Devil on the cross (Heb. 2:14). If the Devil is a personal being, then he should no longer
exist. Heb. 9:26 says that Christ appeared “to put away sin by the sacrifice
of himself”. Heb. 2:14 matches this with the statement that through his
death Christ destroyed the Devil in himself. By His death Jesus in prospect
destroyed “the body of sin” (Rom. 6:6), i.e. human nature with its potential
to sin in our very bodies.
“He who sins is of the Devil” (1 Jn. 3:8), because sin
is the result of giving way to our own natural, evil desires (James 1:14,15),
which the Bible calls ‘the Devil’. “For this purpose the Son of God was
manifested, that he might destroy the works of the Devil” (1 Jn. 3:8).
If we are correct in saying that the Devil is our evil desires, then the
works of our evil desires, i.e. what they result in, are our sins. This
is confirmed by 1 Jn. 3:5: “He (Jesus) was manifested to take
away our sins”. This confirms that “our sins” and “the works of the Devil”
are the same. Acts 5:3 provides another example of this connection between
the Devil and our sins. Peter says to Ananias: “Why has Satan filled your
heart?” Then in verse 4 Peter says “Why have you conceived this thing
in your heart?” Conceiving something bad within our heart is the same
as Satan filling our heart. If we ourselves conceive something, e.g. a
sinful plan, then it begins inside us. Note
that when Peter speaks of how Ananias has "conceived this thing in your
heart" he's alluding to the LXX of Esther 7:5, where the wicked Haman
is described as one "whose heart hath filled him" to abuse God's people
(see RV). Note in passing that the LXX of Esther 7:4 speaks of Haman as
ho diabolos [with the definite article]- a mere man is called
"the satan". It's been suggested that 'Satan filling the heart' was a
common phrase used in the first century to excuse human sin; and Peter
is deconstructing it by using the phrase and then defining more
precisely what it refers to- conceiving sin in our heart, our own heart
filling itself with sin.
Is. 59:13 defines lying
as “conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood”.
If a woman conceives a child, it doesn’t exist outside of her; it begins
inside her. James 1:14,15 use the same figure in describing how our desires conceive and bring forth sin, which brings forth death. Ps. 109:6
parallels a sinful person with a ‘Satan’: “Set a wicked man over him:
and let an accuser (Satan) stand at his right hand”, i.e. in power over
him (cp. Ps. 110:1).
It makes an interesting exercise to read through the letter of James
and note how frequently we are warned about our internal thought
processes; to control them and have them influenced by the Lord is the
essence of following Him. James 2:4 would be an obvious example- when
we see a well dressed believer, we are not to judge him "within
yourself" as a judge who has evil thoughts, an unjust judge (see R.V.).
We shouldn't deceive ourselves within ourselves (James 1:22), our mind
is not to immediately forget the truths we encounter in God's word
(James 1:25)... There is no mention of an external source of sin such
as the commonly held view of Satan. Paul speaks of both Jew and Gentile
as being "under the power of sin" (Rom. 3:9 RSV)- which in itself
suggests that he saw "sin" personified as a power. If sin is indeed
personified by the Bible writers- what real objection can there be to
the idea of this personification being at times referred to as 'satan',
the adversary? It has been argued that Paul was well aware of the
concept of dualism which the Jews had picked up in Babylonian
captivity, i.e. the idea that there is a 'Satan' god opposed to the
true God; but he reapplies those terms to the conflict he so often
describes between flesh and spirit, which goes on within the human mind
(4).
All through the Old Testament there is the same basic
message - that the human heart is the source of disobedience to God. The
Proverbs especially stress the need to give serious attention to the state
of the heart. The human mind is the arena of spiritual conflict. David
speaks of how “transgression” speaks deep in the heart of the wicked,
inciting them to sin (Ps. 36:1 NRSV). The New Testament develops this
idea further by calling the unspiritual element in the “heart of man”
our enemy / adversary / opponent. The English pop star Cliff Richard expressed
this connection between the Devil and the human mind in one of his well
known songs: "She's a Devil woman, with evil on her mind". I’d
describe the ‘Devil’ as the ‘echo’ which I observe going on in my mind,
and I’m sure you’ve had the same experience. “I believe in God”, we think,
and there comes back an echo ‘Yes, but… is He really out there?
Maybe this is just living out the expectations of my upbringing…?’. Or,
“OK, I should be generous to that cause. OK, I’ll give them some money”.
And the echo comes back: ‘Yes but what if they aren’t sincere? Can you
really afford it? You need to be careful with your money…’. It’s this
‘echo’ that is the Biblical ‘Devil’.
Karl
Barth, the Einstein of 20th century theology, returned to Germany in
1946 and lectured about core Christian doctrine in the ruins of the
University of Bonn. The memory of the Nazi trauma, the holocaust, the
awareness of sin and evil, was clearly uppermost in his mind as he
spoke. His lectures were transcribed, in a somewhat raw verbatim form,
and then translated into English, purposefully unpolished and unedited-
and Dogmatics In Outline became one of the most reprinted
standard theological texts for the next 60 years. Barth spoke in the
shattered lecture hall of how whenever we desire to perform good and
resist sin, "there will always be a movement of defiance, not least
deep within ourselves. If we summarise all that opposes, that 'satans',
as the power of contradiction, one has an inkling of what Scripture
means by the devil. We ask "Has God really said...?"; "Is God's Word
true?", etc." (5). This internal defiance, principle of contradiction
deep within, is indeed the Biblical 'devil'.
Personification
The response to what I've said could easily be: ‘But it does talk
as if the Devil is a person!’. And that's quite correct; Heb. 2:14 speaks of
“him who holds the power of death - that is, the Devil”. Even a small
amount of Bible reading shows that it often uses personification - speaking
of an abstract idea as if it is a person. Thus Prov. 9:1 speaks of a woman
called ‘Wisdom’ building a house, Prov. 20:1 compares wine to “a mocker”,
and Rom. 6:23 likens sin to a paymaster giving wages of death. Our Devil,
the ‘diabolos’, often represents our evil desires. Very early in Scripture
we meet the idea of the need for internal struggle against sin. "Sin"
is described as "couching at the door, its desire is for you (Moffatt:
"eager to be at you"), but you must master it" (Gen. 4:7).
This in turn is surely alluding to the earlier description of a struggle
between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent- sin (Gen. 3:16).
Yet you cannot have abstract diabolism; the evil desires
that are in a man’s heart cannot exist separately from a man; therefore
‘the Devil’ is personified. Sin is often personified as a ruler (e.g.
Rom. 5:21; 6:6,17; 7:13-14). It is understandable, therefore, that the
‘Devil’ is also personified, seeing that ‘the Devil’ also refers to sin.
In the same way, Paul speaks of us having two beings, as it were, within
our flesh (Rom. 7:15-21): the man of the flesh, ‘the Devil’, fights with
the man of the spirit. Yet it is evident that there are not two literal,
personal beings fighting within us. This sinful tendency of our nature
is personified as “the evil one” (Mt. 6:13 R.V.) - the Biblical Devil.
The same Greek phrase translated “evil one” here is translated as “wicked
person” in 1 Cor. 5:13, showing that when a person gives way to sin, his
“evil one” - he himself - becomes an “evil one”, or a ‘Devil’. Even in
the Old Testament, sin was personified as ‘Belial’ (1 Sam. 2:12
mg.). It really has to be accepted that ‘Devil’ and ‘Satan’ are used to
personify sin, because if we read these words as always meaning a literal
being, then we have serious contradictions. Thus “the Devil” is a lion
(1 Pet. 5:8), a hunter (2 Tim. 2:26) and a snake (Rev. 12:9); it
can’t be all these things. Whatever the Devil is (and we believe it to
essentially refer to human sin), it is personified in various ways. As
J.B. Russell concludes: "The Devil is the personification of the
principle of evil" (6). Evil and sin are never abstract. They
must be understood in terms of the actions and suffering of persons- and
so it's quite appropriate and natural that sin should be personified.
As Ivan says to Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov, "I think
that if the Devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created
him in his own image and likeness" (7).
The Old Testament, along with the New Testament for that matter, personifies
evil and sin. However, Edersheim outlines reasons for believing that as
Rabbinic Judaism developed during the exile in Babylon, this personification
of evil became extended in the Jewish writings to such a point that sin
and evil began to be spoken of as independent beings. And of course, we
can understand why this happened- in order to narrow the gap between Judaism
and the surrounding Babylonian belief in such beings. Edersheim shows
how the Biblical understanding of the yetzer ha'ra, the sinful
inclination within humanity, became understood as an evil personal being
called "the tempter" (8). We've already shown in Section
1-1-1 how the Jews came to be influenced by pagan ideas about Satan
whilst in captivity.
Another
reason why sin and evil are personified is because the total sum of
evil on earth is somehow greater than all its component parts. One
reason for this may be, as M. Scott Peck pointed out in several of his
popular books, that human group morality is strikingly less than
individual morality. Collective evil, e.g. of a lynch mob, reaches a
higher peak than that of the individuals in the mob. Whatever, the
'corporate' nature of evil is not unrealted to the evil or sin within
each individual person, even though it is ultimately greater than that.
And therefore it can be appropriately characterized by personification.
Just as a company, an institution, a Government may have some kind of
'personality' greater than all the individuals within it, so it is with
human sin and evil. We look at the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust and
wonder how individual human sin could be responsible for it... because
the total achievement of evil in it seems far greater than that of all
the evil in people alive in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s put together.
The resolution of this observation is not that an external Devil exists
who orchestrated it. Rather, the sum total of any group of people,
spirit of living and being, is often greater than the sum of the
individual parts. N.T. Wright observed just the same: "Evil is real and
powerful. It is not only 'out there' in other people, but it is present
and active within each of us. What is more, 'evil' is more than the sum
total of all evil impulses and actions. When human beings worship that
which is not God, they give authority to forces of destruction and
malevolence; and those forces gain a power, collectively, that has,
down the centuries of Christian experience, caused wise people to
personify it, to give it the name of Satan", the adversary (9).
Christian psychologists of
recent times have analyzed why sin is personified. They conclude that
giving a mass of right / wrong, yes / no commands would hardly be the
way to bring a person to holistic spiritual development. This was why
there was a ritual of cleansing sin and guilt by blood sacrifice. It
wasn't that the blood of animals could take away sin; nor was it that God needed it. But it was a helpful teaching mechanism for people; that they
might more powerfully see the nature, seriousness and cost of sin. A
visual approach is always helpful, especially bearing in mind that the
majority of God's people over the centuries have been illiterate. And
so this is why sin and evil have been given some level of symbolism in
the Bible, especially personification- for sin supremely is relevant to
persons (10). I think that's why in the ritual of the Day of Atonement,
the scapegoat ran off into the wilderness bearing Israel's sins. As the
bobbing animal was watched by thousands of eyes, thousands of minds
would've reflected that their sins were being cast out. And the same
principle was in the curing of the schizophrenic Legion- the pigs were
made to run into the lake by the Lord Jesus, not because they were
actually possessed by demons in reality, but as an aide memoire to the cured Legion that his illness, all his perceived personalities, were now no more.
Personification
is far more popular in Greek and Hebrew (the main languages in which
the Bible was written) than in English. "In a language [e.g. ancient
Greek] which makes no formal distinction between animate and inanimate
and which has no such convention as the initial capital for a proper
name, where can the line be drawn between an abstract noun and its
personification?" (11). Those who believe in an orthodox Satan figure
need to consider whether the Bible uses personification; and whether
sin is personified; and whether sin is the great human satan /
adversary / enemy. The answer really has to be 'Yes, sir' to those
questions. For as an academic in the field of linguistics has rightly
pointed out, "the personification of sin [is] a prominent feature of
human speech in any language and particularly of Biblical language"
(12). In this case, why should there be any reasonable objection to
what we're suggesting- that 'Satan' in the Bible at times refers to a
personification of sin? G.P. Gilmour, one time chancellor of Canada's
McMaster University, shared this perspective. His reflections bear
quoting: "The devil provides for our minds the idea of a focus or
personification of evil... we are dealing here with the difficult
language not only of metaphor but of personification. Personification
is a necessity of thought and speech, for sophisticated and
unsophisticated thinkers alike; but only the sophisticated stops to ask
himself what he is doing" (13). Dostoevsky very profoundly understood
all this when he created a fictional dialogue between the Devil and
Ivan in The Brothers Karamazov.
Dostoevsky makes the Devil say to Ivan: "You are not someone apart, you
are myself. You are I and nothing more". To which Ivan replies: "You
are the incarnation of myself, but only of one side of me... of my
thoughts and feelings, but only the nastiest and stupidest of them...
You are myself- with a different face. You just say what I am thinking,
you are incapable of saying anything new!" (Part 4, ch. 9). Dostoevsky
was trying in his own way to deconstruct the existence of the Devil as
a supernatural entity.
The personification of sin is
therefore a means of enabling us to grapple with the sin that is within
us; a tool for self-examination and self-mastery. William Barclay came
to this conclusion: "In Paul, sin becomes personalized until sin could
be spelled with a capital letter, and could be thought of as a
malignant, personal power which has man in its grasp" (14). The
practical purpose of personifying sin has been brought out well by
Barry Hodson, who observed that "In every respect, Paul describes the
working of sin in terms which link up with the original serpent... it
is appropriate that [sin] should be personified... we [are to] regard
every temptation as a re-enactment of the temptation of our first
parents. It will greatly help us in our warfare against sin if we can"
(15). As and when temptation enters our minds, we are to see it for
what it is, speak to it, deal with it, resist it, overcome it...
'Devil’ And ‘Satan’ In A Political Context
These
words ‘Devil’ and ‘Satan’ are also used to describe the wicked, sinful
world order in which we live. The social, political and
pseudo-religious hierarchies of mankind can be spoken of in terms of
‘the Devil’, not least because they are structured around human, sinful
desires- the great adversary to God's Spirit. Hence 1 Pet. 4:2,3
parallels living "in the flesh, to the lusts of men" with "working the
will of the Gentiles". The will of the world is the will of the flesh,
and is thus adversarial, 'satanic', to the will of God. The Devil and
Satan in the New Testament often refer to the political and social
power of the Jewish or Roman systems. Thus we read of the Devil
throwing believers into prison (Rev. 2:10), referring to the Roman
authorities imprisoning believers. In this same context we read of the
church in Pergamos being situated where Satan’s throne, was - i.e. the
place of governorship for a Roman colony in Pergamos, where there was
also a group of believers. We cannot say that Satan himself, if he
exists, personally had a throne in Pergamos. The Bible repeatedly
stresses that human political authority, civil authorities etc. are God
given, deriving their power from Him (Rom. 13:1-7; 1 Pet. 2:13-17);
never are they said to derive their authority from 'Satan'. Yet they
can be called 'Satan' in that they are adversarial at times to His
people.
Individual
sin is defined as a transgression against God’s law (1 Jn. 3:4). But
sin expressed collectively as a political and social force opposed to
God is a force more powerful than individuals; it is this collective
power which is sometimes personified as a powerful being called the
Devil. In this sense Iran and other Islamic powers have called the
United States, “the great Satan” - i.e. the great adversary to their
cause, in political and religious terms. This is how the words ‘Devil’
and ‘Satan’ are often used in the Bible. And again I repeat the path of
logic used a few paragraphs above: 1) Is sin personified? Clearly it
is. 2) Is it true that ‘Satan’ can be used just as an noun? Yes, it is.
What real problem, therefore, can there be in accepting that sin is
personified as our enemy/Satan? The world is often personified in
John’s letters and Gospel (see R.V.); what better title for this
personification than ‘Satan’ or ‘the Devil’?
It has been observed, however, by many a thoughtful mind- that the total
evil in the world does so often appear greater than the sum of all the
individual personal sin / evil which there is committed by and latent
within each person. In this context, let's hear Tom Wright again: "All
corporate institutions have a kind of corporate soul, an identity which
is greater than the sum of its parts... industrial companies, governments
or even (God help us) churches, can become so corrupted with evil that
the language of "possession" at a corporate level becomes the
only way to explain the phenomena before us" (16). In the same way
as collective bodies of persons somehow achieve an identity greater than
the sum of the individual contribution of each person, so, I submit, there
appears a corporate evil / sin in our world which is greater than the
sum of what each individual person contributes towards it. But in the
same way as there is no literal 'ghost in the machine', so this phenomena
doesn't mean that there is actually a personal superhuman being called
'Satan'. But it would be fair enough to use the term "the Satan",
the adversary, to describe this globally encompassing corporation of 'sin'
which we observe. For it's not solely our own personal sinfulness which
is our great enemy, but also the kind of corporate sin which exists in
our world. Arthur Koestler's work The Ghost In The Machine
analyzes the progressive self-destructiveness of humanity over history,
and seeks to address the question of how the total evil in the world is
simply so huge (17). He takes the perspective that there is no personal
Satan responsible, but rather the human mind has progressively developed
in evil so that impulses of hate, anger etc. overpower- and progressively
are overpowering- what he calls "cognitive logic"; i.e. we do
what we know is unwise, illogical and wrong.
In conclusion, it is probably true to say that in this subject more than
any other, it is vital to base our understanding upon a balanced view
of the whole Bible, rather than building doctrines on a few verses containing
catch-phrases which appear to refer to the common beliefs concerning the
Devil. It is submitted that the doctrinal position outlined here is the
only way of being able to have a reasonable understanding of all the passages
which refer to the Devil and Satan. I submit it's the key which turns
every lock. Some of the most widely misunderstood passages which are quoted
in support of the popular ideas are considered in Chapter
5.
Notes
(1) J.H. Walton, 'Serpent', in T.D. Alexander and
D.W. Baker, eds, Dictionary Of The Old Testament And Pentateuch (Leicester:
I.V.P., 2003) p. 738.
(2) George Lamsa, New Testament Light (San Francisco: Harper
& Row, 1968) p. 24.
(3) George Lamsa, New Testament Commentary (Philadelphia: A.J.
Holman, 1945) p. 604.
(4) E.P. Sanders, Paul (Oxford: O.U.P., 1996) p. 93.
(5) Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline, translated by G.T. Thomson (London: S.C.M., 1972 ed.) p. 20.
(6) J.B. Russell, Satan: The Early Christian Tradition (New
York: Cornell University Press, 1987) p. 23.
(7) Feodyor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov , translated
by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (New York: Farrar, Strauss and
Giroux, 1990) p. 283.
(8) Alfred Edersheim, The Life And Times Of Jesus The Messiah
(London: Longmans, 1899) Vol. 2, Appendices 13 and 16.
(9) N.T. Wright, The Lord And His Prayer (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1997) p. 71.
(10) See Paul Ricoeur, The Symbolism Of Evil (New York: Harper & Row, 1969) for more on this.
(11) E. Stafford, Worshipping Virtues: Personification And The Divine In Ancient Greece (London: Gerald Duckworth & Co., 2000), p. 9
(12) Graham Jackman, The Language Of The Cross (Lulu, 2008) p. 40.
(13) G.P. Gilmour, The Memoirs Called Gospels (Toronto: Clarke, Irwin & Co., 1959) pp. 113,114.
(14) William Barclay, New Testament Words (London: S.C.M., 1992) p. 124.
(15) Barry Hodson, The Cross Of Christ (Wanganui, New Zealand: Christian Restoration Centre, 2009) p. 24.
(16) N.T. Wright, Evil And The Justice Of God (Downers Grove:
InterVarsity Press, 2006) p. 38.
(17) Arthur Koestler, The Ghost In The Machine (Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1990 ed.).
