Satan in the Biblical Theological Perspective

Introduction

In modern film and television, the figure of Satan is often portrayed in a way that is entertaining and comical. For example, in the great film by the Coen Brothers, O Brother Where Art Thou, the main character, Everett McGill, describes the devil as being red, covered in scales, and having a bifurcated tail. Other portrayals of the evil one in popular culture represent him as having the horns of a goat on his head and carrying a pitchfork. These owe much to medieval literary characterizations taken, for example, from Dante’s Inferno. Such descriptions of Satan fall short of the biblical story of the enemy of our souls. Through this article I wish to clarify who the devil is by attending to the major metaphors for him in the Bible. Even more importantly, I hope clearly to show how Christ has acted in human history to defeat him.

I think the best strategy for understanding our foe is by looking at his major activities in the Bible. In what follows, I shall describe him under three headings: deceiver, accuser, and destroyer. The word pictures we find in Scripture enhance even further our understanding of the ways in which the devil seeks our undoing.

Deceiver

From the very beginning of the Bible, the work of the devil is described in terms of his deceptive work. We first encounter this figure in the form of a serpent in Genesis 3 in the familiar scene of the serpent communicating with Eve in the garden of Eden. We see his deceptive work under several ploys. First of all, he distorts God’s Word by misstating God’s prohibition regarding fruit (Genesis 3:1). Secondly, he outright denies the consequences that God attached to disobedience to God (Genesis 3:4). Next, he utilizes the desires of the flesh against human beings in his work of deception (Genesis 3:6). He further projects onto the human couple his own greatest desire: to be like God, to be worshiped (Genesis 3:5; cf. Matthew 4:9). Knowing that the knowledge of good and evil will not confer godlike status but will bring misery, the serpent ensnares humanity into a life of misery.

Satan still utilizes these same deceptive strategies. He often will make God seem cruel by overstating or misstating what God’s commands are for human persons. He still denies outright the consequences that God has pronounced upon sin. He utilizes the flesh as well as the world to deceive us; namely, “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16). Jesus put it best when He exposed the devil’s ways: “When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44, KJV). By the end of the Bible, Satan is described as the one “who leads the whole world astray” (Revelation 12:9, NIV). At the end of that book, his role as deceiver is mentioned even as his final sentence is carried out and he is cast into the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:10).

Accuser

Satan is also the accuser, bringing a disdainful focus on the sins, frailties, and failures of humanity. This is the word-picture of the prosecuting attorney in a court of law. The very name or title “Satan” literally means the one who accuses. We find this role manifested most clearly in the early chapters of the Book of Job. Along with the angels, Satan is granted an audience with God. God draws his attention to righteous Job, but the accuser claims that Job only serves God because of his material blessings. His accusation is that Job will curse God if his wealth is taken from him (Job 1:6-11). Upon being given permission, Satan brings great economic calamity, as well as the death of his children, upon Job, yet Job praises the Lord anyhow (Job 1:12-22). Next the accuser increases his pressure on Job by striking him with a horrible disfiguring disease (Job 1:4-7), and estrangement from his wife (Job 1:9). Even in the face of his fathomless grief and physical agony the reader is told: “In all this, Job did not sin in what he said” (Job 1:10, NIV). The following chapters ennoble human literature by detailing Job’s complaints, his friends’ bad advice, and God’s speech to Job. Job is humbled by God’s words and then must pray for God to forgive his friends for their bad advice. Remarkably, God affirms Job has spoken truth about the Lord (Job 42:8), and restores his wealth, gives him a new family, and his health is restored so he can live a long life (Job 42:12-15). The accusation of the evil one against Job failed.

Zechariah the prophet presents Satan as the accuser of God’s representative, the Messiah, described under the phrase “Joshua, the High Priest.” Upon hearing his accusation, the Lord rebukes Satan, describing him as a burning stick snatched out of a fire, and, thus, under one interpretation, foreshadowing his defeat by the Messiah one day (Zechariah 3:1-2).

By the end of the Bible, the accuser is portrayed as a fierce dragon. Revelation 12 describes his ferocious attack on “the woman” who may represent Mary but more expansively represents the Lord’s church. John describes the dragon’s accusing work against the church thus: “For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down” (Revelation 12:10, NIV). We have seen he is a deceiver and an accuser. The purpose of these activities become clear in his role as destroyer.

Destroyer

The most sinister of all biblical portrayals of the devil in Scripture is as destroyer. In a sense, both his work of deception and his work of accusation are aimed at producing this final result: our destruction. Here the metaphors in Scripture multiply. The devil is bent on the destruction of humans, arguably because they are created in God’s image. Because we are in God’s image, the anger and rage the evil one has toward God is unleashed on God’s image, mankind. His hatred for us seems to have no bounds.

In a debate with the religious leaders of his day over their parentage, Jesus teaches a valuable lesson about the devil. While the leaders of his time claimed to be children of Abraham, to puff up their claim to piety and privilege before God, Jesus says this: “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him” (John 8:44, NIV). This foreshadows the accusations that the religious establishment would make against Jesus so as to destroy Him and His claim to be the Messiah. Jesus makes clear that it is a far more ancient foe at work behind the scenes in this process.

Jesus continues to undo the destructive work of the devil when He sends 72 disciples on a tour of preaching, healing, and casting out demons. When they return with their exciting stories of victory, Jesus responds by pulling back the curtain on both the enemy’s original fall and his eventual defeat: “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18). He fell once, and he will fall again.

Later Jesus, exploring His identity as the Good Shepherd, describes the work of the enemy of humanity under the metaphor of the thief. “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10, NIV).

The destroyer also uses human agents in his destructive work. Much of the violence of humanity may be attributed to his agency. He has held the power of death (Hebrews 2:14) and is described as a ferocious lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8). Christians endure persecution and imprisonment at his hand (Revelation 2:10). There is thus a tension between the now of the suffering church and the not yet of the devil’s ultimate demise.

Christ Defeats the Devil

The great author C. S. Lewis once quipped that the devil is happy if humans become, on the one extreme, obsessed over him, or, on the other extreme, if they deny his existence completely. In his Screwtape Letters, Lewis does a masterful job of exposing the deceptive, accusatory, and destructive schemes of our ancient foe. The enemy of Satan, not named explicitly in the novel, is known by Christians who study the Scriptures. That enemy of our enemy is Jesus Christ.

When Jesus faces the tempter in the wilderness, He uses the Word of God to subvert the devil’s Scripture-twisting. The devil tempts Jesus with the flesh, with fame, and with fortune, all to no avail. Jesus defeats the tempter with a decisive rebuke (Matthew 4:1-11).

Jesus tells His disciples how they will one day defeat the devil. “I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpion and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:19-20). While some churches, for instance in Appalachia, have taken these words in a hyper-literal fashion, they miss the larger point. The same foe who led humanity into the fall, is day by day being defeated by Christ’s faithful disciples, namely, the church. We are to be snatching people from the fire (Jude 1:23) as we bring them to the victor, Christ. It was to defeat the devil that Jesus took on our flesh and blood in the incarnation. By His death and subsequent resurrection, He broke “the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil” and thus set us free from his enslavement (Hebrews 2:14-15, NIV).

Jesus came to undo the damage inflicted on earth by Satan. For each of the titles of the devil, Christ is the antidote. When the devil is the author of deception, Jesus embodies and proclaims truth. When the devil is the accuser of Christians, Jesus is our defense attorney and, by the power of the cross and the resurrection, destroys the writ of accusation against us (Colossians 2:13-15). Jesus declares us righteous (2 Corinthians 5:21), though we are undeserving of His gift of righteousness, he makes the accuser’s accusation null and void. When the devil comes to steal, kill, and destroy, Jesus comes to restore, to give life, and to remake. The original curse that was pronounced on Satan foreshadowed the victory of the Messiah over his wicked schemes. In cursing the serpent, the Lord long ago made this promise: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel” (Genesis 3:15, NIV). Christ was wounded on the cross, but crushed the skull of the serpent by rising from the dead (1 Peter 3:19-21). While we must still do spiritual battle with him (Ephesians 6:10-18), and he continues his evil works, he is ultimately defeated. As James tells us, if we submit to God, and resist the devil, he will flee from us (James 4:7).

This same enemy will one day, at the final judgment, be cast into “the lake of burning sulfur,” and there “be tormented day and night forever” (Revelation 20:10). The reign of deception, accusation, and destruction carried out by this fallen angel, who refused to worship our Lord and Creator, will finally be over. Glory be to God!