The purpose of the “Bible 101” series is to introduce some of the core Old Testament subjects that are necessary for understanding God’s overall purpose and plan. Although God has operated through different dispensations at different points in history, the topics in “Bible 101” demonstrate the cohesive, focused plan of God throughout Scripture.
Previously we have considered the uniqueness of the Bible, the uniqueness of the nation of Israel, and start of the kingly line in Israel, and the culmination of the kingly line in Jesus Christ. Today’s topic is the enemy - Satan.
Establishing a Context for Satan's Actions in Scripture
As we saw in the first post of this series, the Bible is a Jewish book, not an Gentile book. Although there are many components to the narrative as it unfolds - including portions addressed directly to Gentiles, and the purpose and history of the Church - Scripture is primarily the story of a kingdom; contrary to how some read Scripture, the Church is a relatively small part of that story. Approximately 75% of the Bible is about the nation of Israel, and approximately 25% about the Church. That does not mean that 75% of the Bible is irrelevant for the Church, however! II Timothy 3:16-17 says (emphasis added):
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
So Scripture reveals to everyone who reads it - Jew or Gentile - the story of a physical, earthly kingdom that God is building. For more on this kingdom, and how it is different from the spiritual kingdom God is also building, and how those two kingdoms will one day be reconciled to one another, see the article on "A Tale of Two Kingdoms."
What we're focused on today is the Enemy of the Kingdom slithering throughout the background the story.
Who Is Satan?
When someone says the name “Satan” or “The Devil,” what normally comes to mind? Even for a well-versed student of the Bible, we all probably have the notion of a figure wearing red with a goatee, horns, and a bifurcated tail, with a pitchfork in hand and a maniacal cackle as he torments people in hell. That, however, is pure fiction given to us by movies and cartoons.
In reality, Satan was formerly one of the cherubim, and apparently of great power and beauty. In Ezekiel 28: 12-19 the Lord addressed the King of Tyrus, but clearly the Lord is also addressing something (or rather someone) beyond simply this human king:
12 Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. 13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. 14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. 15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. 16 By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. 17 Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee. 18 Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. 19 All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.
This shows us what Satan was before he became the great enemy of God. For comparison and additional details, let's now look at Isaiah 14:12-17, where we discover the nature of Satan's iniquity, and his name (Lucifer) prior to his fall:
12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! 13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. 15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit 16 They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; 17 That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?
Finally, to confirm the identity and details, we can add Luke 10:18:
18 And [Jesus] said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.
The Bible goes on to describe Satan as a serpent (Genesis 3), a leviathan (Job 41 and Isaiah 27), and a dragon (Revelation 12, 13, 16 and 20). Revelation 12:9, Revelation 20:2, a nd Isaiah 27:1 are particularly helpful in confirming Satan's identity. But these fearsome descriptions do not mean that Satan has lost his ability to be beautiful and charming. Paul warns us in II Corinthians 11:14
...Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
This makes Satan a especially dangerous foe. The best deceptions are the ones that don't appear to be deceptions at all, and the best lies are the ones that are mostly truth. That leads us directly into considering what Satan is doing as he slithers around in the background of the story.
Satan's Motives
As we saw above, Lucifer was created as a beautiful part of God's creation; he was not created as the "bad guy," but rather it was by his own free will that he became consumed with pride and attempted to overthrow God. This is critical to understanding (as much as we are capable through the revelation given in God's word) the motives of Satan. We can identify four motives (in order):
Motive 1: Take God’s Place
Motive 2: Corrupt what God loves
Motive 3: Prove God’s word untrue
Motive 4: Destroy the One who would destroy him
Satan's original (and perpetual) motive is to take God's place. He failed to take the literal throne, and so in Scripture we see him establishing a false throne for himself through deception. But a false throne will only get him so far, which is where the second motive emerges. His pride and subsequent hatred of God, along with his utter failure to go toe-to-toe with the Almighty, means he is eager to corrupt what God loves. It is the classic movie villain move: if I can't hurt the hero directly, then I will hurt the hero indirectly by hurting the ones the hero loves. Although Satan succeeds, the effect is limited by the promises made in God's word, which brings in the third motive: prove God's word untrue. If Satan could prevent even one promise of God from coming to pass - if even the smallest promise goes unfulfilled - then he wins. God would no longer be trustworthy, His word would no longer be true, and the very character and nature of God would be compromised. When that fails, Satan has only one move left: destroying the One who would destroy him. It is a desperate, foolhardy, last ditch effort to survive impending doom.
The Methods of Satan
How does Satan go about trying to accomplish his motives? Sometimes he resorts to power and violence, but more often he resorts to subtlety and deception. Overt displays are more easily detected than covert ones, and Satan is a master of covert operation. Let's look at two examples revealed in Scripture, starting with Genesis. In 2:16-17 God gives a clear command:
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
There is no room for doubt or misinterpretation here. The direction and consequence, the cause and effect, could not be any more plain. Now look at what Satan does in Genesis 3:1-5 (emphasis added):
1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? 2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: 3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. 4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
Look at what that wicked, subtle rascal did. First, he questioned God's word - did God really say that? As Eve takes the bait and engages the serpent in conversation, she Eve adds to God's word. Go back and look at 2:16-17. God never said anything about touching the fruit. While it may be good practice (you can't eat something you never touch) Eve claims this is what God said - look at 3:3 again. With the hook firmly set, now Satan contradicts God directly, and slanders His holy name by implying that God is withholding something good from Eve. Genesis 3:6 shows Eve succumb to pride and fall into sin, much like Satan himself.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
Adam falls too, of course, but it is worth noting that Adam's fall was under different circumstances. The wily old serpent did not confront and deceive Adam - it seems he specifically targeted Eve. I don't mean to imply that Adam does not bear any burden of guilt here - if anything, he bears a greater burden of guilt because he was not deceived, and because it seems he was not present to defend Eve against the wiles of the Devil. The point is simply to let the Bible say what is says, and not to assume something just because that's the way we saw it in vacation Bible school as children.
While Satan did not confront the first Adam directly, he does confront the second Adam in Matthew 4:1-11. And while his methods are much the same, we should also notice how he steps up his game to accommodate a far greater opponent than Adam or Eve. Scripture says (emphasis added):
1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. 2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. 3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. 4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. 5 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, 6 And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. 7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. 8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; 9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. 10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. 11 Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
Look now at how that old rascal attempts to provoke the Lord Jesus Christ. Twice he challenges Him to prove His deity by tending to His physical needs. The second attempt (verse 6) is especially noteworthy. It shows that Satan knows Scripture, and that he can rend it from its context as part of his schemes. When all else fails, Satan legitimately offers the world (II Corinthians 4:4). He offers everything that Jesus wants - His rightful kingdom - everything that is rightfully His (it's His creation!) in exchange for a compromise. Notice too how every time Jesus counters Satan with Scripture. And what was the result? Not only did the second Adam succeed where the first Adam failed, but "the devil leaveth him." The Lord demonstrates what He exhorts in James 4:7:
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Our own willpower, our own wisdom, our own strength, and our own methods will fall before the might of the subtle serpent every time. Count on it. The one thing he cannot abide - the one weapon we can wield that he cannot withstand - is God's word!
The Serpent Seeks the Seed
Let's close out today's topic and this series on The Bible 101 by looking at an overall timeline of events in Scripture, noticing how Satan's four motives are found along the way.
We know from the passages in Ezekiel and Isaiah that in eternity past Satan rebelled against God, attempting to take God's place. Contrary to what we may have seen in movies and cartoons, however, he is not in hell right now supervising the tormet of souls. Quite the opposite: he is free to roam (I Peter 5:8-9), and the last place he wants to go is the place of torment designed especially for him (Matthew 25:41). The chart below begins with the temptation in the Garden of Eden.
CORRUPTING THE HUMAN RACE (SUCCESS)
Although Satan's attempt to overthrow God in eternity past failed, the temptation and corruption of the human race in the Garden of Eden succeeded. God's beloved creation whom He had created for fellowship had fallen into sin. And that should have been the end of the story...but God is not thwarted. He makes the first promise of a coming Savior in Genesis 3:15 when He says:
And I will put enmity between [Satan] and the woman, and between [Satan's] seed and her seed; it shall bruise [Satan's] head, and [Satan] shalt bruise his heel.
Two interesting things to note about this promise:
Naturally the seed comes through a man, not through a woman. For God to note the seed coming through a woman is the first indication of the Savior's virgin birth.
A wound to the heel is oddly specific, and yet crucifixion is the one means of execution that guarantees one bruised heel. The victim's feet are nailed one atop the other through the ankle, putting all of the body weight on one heel. In order to draw a breath, the victim must then push up on that one heel over and over again, until he is so weak from blood loss and exhaustion that he can no longer push up to draw breath, thereby suffocating and dying. When He was crucified, the Lord Jesus does not suffocate, however: when His work on the cross was finished, He gave up the ghost (John 19:30). Nobody did anything to Jesus against His will! He was calling the shots even as He was being executed (John 10:17-18).
PREVENTING THE SEED (FAILURE)
The success of Satan corrupting what God loves had now lost its permanency, and Satan's doom had been spelled. While he still wishes to drag as many people as possible down into eternal destruction with him, and experiences success through his deceptions and the now-inherently wicked heart of mankind, his primary motive for thousands of years was to prevent the promised seed from coming. If the promised seed never arrives, then the promise cannot be fulfilled, all of mankind remains in a corrupted state, and Satan lives to fight another day. And so we see many events throughout Scripture that threaten the arrival of the promised seed, which undoubtedly have Satan lurking behind-the-scenes.
Cain murders Abel in Genesis 4
The corruption through the union of the Sons of God and the Daughters of Men in Genesis 6
Slavery in Egypt (which usually ends in assimilation) in Exodus 1
Murder of the newborn Hebrew males in Egypt in Exodus 1
Giants in the land in Numbers 13 through the II Samuel 21 (not only a threat to the Jews, but also another attempt at the corrupt union from Genesis 6)
Saul tries to kill David (the line of the Messiah) starting in I Samuel 19 through the end of Saul's life
Haman tries to kill all the Jews in the book of Esther
Herod tries to kill the children in Matthew 2 (another attempt similar to Pharaoh's in Exodus 1)
CORRUPTING THE SEED (FAILURE)
Though his attempted were many and varied, the promised seed arrived right on time, and so Satan tries to destroy the Savior first by corrupting Him. As we have already seen in Matthew 4:1-11, Satan tempts Jesus in the wilderness and fails.
DESTROYING THE SEED (SUCCESS, but NOT REALLY)
When he cannot corrupt the Savior, then he must attempt. to destroy the One who would destroy him. Satan has a direct hand in the crucifixion through Judas (Luke 22:3) and it would appear for three days that Satan had succeeded. What he did not count on was the resurrection. It would seem that although Satan knows Scripture, as clearly evidenced by the events in Matthew 4:1-11, that does not guarantee that he understands all Scripture. Had he understood the prophecies about Christ in their entirety, he likely would have tried to prevent the crucifixion! What a bitter irony for the great enemy of God and man to have participated in bringing about his own doom!
WAGING WAR (FAILURE)
We now find ourselves in present history. For over two thousand years, Satan has stewed over his failures. He could not take God’s place, he could not permanently corrupt what God loves, he has been unable to prove God’s word untrue, and he could not destroy the One who would destroy him. All that is left to him is to lash out in rage, waging war against God's people, attempting to keep the lost in deception, bringing misery and suffering to all, and making last desperate attempts to achieve his goals. He has spent the better part of those two thousand years attempting to wipe Israel off the face of the earth and attempting to hinder, undermine, corrupt, and deceive the Church. But Scripture also reveals to us what Satan will do in the final scenes of human history:
He cannot take God's place, so he will will counterfeit God using the Antichrist to act as a false messiah (Daniel 9:27)
He, through the Antichrist, will attempt to destroy Israel once and for all (Revelation 12:13-17)
He, through the Antichrist, will wage war on Jerusalem at the Battle of Armageddon (Zechariah 12:1-3)
He will marshal one final force to attempt to overthrow Christ at the end of the Millennial Reign (Revelation 20)
In the end, God keeps every promise. Satan's failure is complete, and he suffers the fate prescribed for him in Genesis 3:15 so long ago. Revelation 20:7-10 provides the account of Satan's fate:
And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog, and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them. And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
What Does This Mean for Us?
Satan is never the focal point of Scripture, and he should not be a point of focus for us either. However, he is revealed in Scripture, and all Scripture is profitable (II Timothy 3:16), so understanding this adversary does yield benefit for us in our study of God's word and the our practical day-to-day walk with the Lord. Here are some practical take-aways as we close:
The only way to defeat Satan is with God's word. He will not flee from you; seriously, do you think the one who has been face-to-face with God, the one who even the archangel Michael will not take on alone (Jude 1:9), is threatened by you? But he will flee from the one thing he has been unable to defeat - God's word!
The only victory Satan can achieve is the battle for individual souls. God has provided a means to gain victory over the clutches of sin and death, but each individual must choose to accept what God has said regarding salvation. Satan works to keep the deception active for each lost soul; the only way the deception can be defeated is with God's word! Minister the word of God to the lost and pray that they wold recieve it, thereby freeing them from the Devil's deception and the delusions of their own wicked hearts.
Though salvation is secured for any and all who trust Christ as Savior, Satan still works to hinder, undermine, corrupt, and deceive. When you face dificulties, when your labor for the Lord seems futile, when you are tempted to sin, tempted to comrpomise, tempted to doubt, then know that it is all part of the Devil's wicked schemes. Cling to God's word!
The words of I Peter 5:6-11 are a fitting conclusion to this topic:
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