Satan

Therefore we start our thinking about Satan with the incontrovertible fact that he was out of God, the Father, and through Jesus Christ, the Lord. He originated in God, and was created in Christ. His beginning is not often mentioned, but the few occasions show quite clearly that he was created a sinner and a liar. His titles indicate his character and accord with the statements in John 8:44 and 1 John 3:8, that he is an adversary and a serpent, crafty and deceptive, a trier of faith, the god of this eon, the spirit now operating in the sons of stubbornness. Thus it was that he began. The myth of Satan’s fall has no real support in Scripture, although certain passages are used in this connection, principally Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14:3-20. That these contradict the clear statements, that he was a sinner and a liar from the beginning, has not troubled overmuch the champions of orthodoxy. As they seem to lend strength to a theory which is needed to support current theology, they are taken for granted. Only a cursory examination is given them on the subject of Satan. These Scriptures have been considered carefully in “Evil, its Origin, Purpose and End,” so no more will be said of them here.
We will now consider those Scriptures that clearly set forth Satan’s origin. That he began, as he has continued, an adversary, a sinner, a man-killer and a liar, is clear from John 8:44 and 1 John 3:8. God created him an adversary and a sinner. From the moment of his creation he opposed God. His purpose of existence was to wreck and ruin God’s handiwork. From the beginning it was impossible for him to do right, for he is a sinner, neither could he at any time be believed, for he is a liar, and the truth is not in him. His activities from the start are described by such words as craftiness, deluding, stratagems, deceiving. From the beginning he has been a particular hater of man, and opposed him to the extent of slaying him. It is hard for many to believe that Satan came forth from God an adversary and a sinner. The reason for this unbelief seems plausible enough. It is an attempt to relieve God of any direct connection with evil and sin, and this appears to be necessary to the majority. It seems commendable, for He is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. The creation of a sinner to wreck and ruin his handiwork seems contrary to what God should do. When, however, we see that God has a purpose, which He is working out during the eons, and that evil and sin are an essential part of the process leading to the consummation, then we perceive that our lame attempts at relieving God of part of His creation are the result of unbelief. We see that God is greater than all our thoughts.

It is vital to realize that the purpose of Satan’s existence is to oppose God. Every conceivable method of opposition is available to him. To this he is devoted, and for this he was created. God required him for this express purpose. He needed a foil by which to exhibit the superiority of His attributes. He needed an opponent, and it was necessary that, in power and dignity and craftiness, he should be a match for all others of God’s creatures. He must rank very high in the hierarcy of the universe, so that through his masterful opposition God will be enabled to make a public display of the supremacy of the divine power and wisdom and love. Satan is not at all similar to the popular conception that caricatures his disposition and character. He is a dignitary, probably next only to Christ in power and authority. Many of the sovereignties and authorities among the celestials have evidently heeded his lies and are subject to his baleful influence. Michael, the chief messenger, assented to his superior station and declared that only the Lord Himself had sufficient authority to rebuke him.
We are attempting to put the matter in its true perspective, not to laud Satan. We wish to extol the excellencies of the God Who created him, and Who, through him as the Adversary, will display the exceeding superiority of His own wisdom and power in annulling all that the Adversary does.

God requires a powerful Adversary during the eons to oppose His will and His plans, so that His superior strength and wisdom can be displayed. As all creation is out of God, it follows that this opponent must be supplied by God Himself. A creature cannot arise of its own volition, and apart from God’s intention, to oppose Him. And as God clearly states that he was a sinner and a liar and a man-killer from the beginning, we can be certain that God formed him thus. These three words describe Satan as he is, at all times during the eons. He is not guilty of the sins to which the flesh is prone. His sin consists in opposing God. He does this by every stratagem, deception and seduction of which a creature, made for this purpose, is capable. He is the ideal opponent of God, crafty and powerful. God did not sin in creating him thus, for he performs perfectly the function for which God made him, namely, that of chief Adversary. God made him in order to play an essential part in His eonian plans. God made him an Adversary, and because of this he is necessarily a sinner. His chief weapon is deception, and by this means he misrepresents God. This is his principal activity. He does the reverse of what Christ, the Son of God, does. Christ is the Image of the invisible God, and, as such, reveals the perfections of His Father. In Christ and in the Scriptures we learn of the true God. Satan, with the help of the spirits and demons which form a part of his jurisdiction, turns the spirits of men away from a knowledge of God, presenting to their minds, by means of the myths and errors he promulgates, a false and spurious god. He blinds the apprehensions of the unbelieving, so that the illumination of the evangel of the glory of Christ does not irradiate them. Satan works on the intellect. He is concerned with the mental processes of the unbelieving. He is taken up with the flesh and its failings only insofar as these affect the mind. Satan blinds the mind, and darkens the thoughts of those who do not believe. He operates in the spirits of humanity, and the purpose of his deceptive work is to cover over the message concerning the glories of Christ. He is the enemy of our spirits, the adversary of our faith. Faith in God’s word is the basic force which delivers us from the deceptions and stratagems of the Adversary.
The fact that Satan operates in men’s spirits, and affects their thought-processes, is almost lost to orthodoxy. The popular idea seems to be that he is responsible for the corruptions of the flesh. These, however, spring, from man himself and are the works of a dying, mortal body. The mind of man, to which the word of God is directed and by which the truth is apprehended, is that part in him against which Satan is particularly arrayed. The ideal occupation of the mind of man is believing the declarations of God. When not thus engaged, our minds are open to the insinuations of the Adversary, and these are always contrary to the truth. True saints are as liable to Satan’s activities as the unbelieving men of the world. The latter, the sons of stubbornness, are entirely subject to his authority, for he is the spirit operating in them. We, however, have God’s spirit. It might be thought that we were beyond his power. That would be the case if we were always true to God’s Word. When we are not, Satan has access to our spirits and deceives us. But God uses this experience also for our good. God’s spirit operates in us through His Word, and the medium through which it becomes operative in us is faith. A conviction concerning the verities enshrined in the declarations of God is the ideal protection and inviolable armor against the crafty schemes of Satan.

Satan’s stratagems are directed against the truth. A wise apprehension and application of truth is a prime necessity for the saint who would stand in spite of Satan’s moves against him. With our minds we apprehend the wide range of doctrine which is summed up in the simple and sound expression — truth. Satan’s chief aim is to keep the saints from the truth, substituting the multifarious perversions which are current today. These doctrines, which he has carefully worked out to displace the simple and homogeneous truth, are often stamped with respectability and righteousness, and may be, in fact often are, founded on the Bible. Humanity cannot be blamed altogether for the gross errors into which it has drifted in thinking about God, for a spirit, too crafty and powerful for man’s inexperience and ignorance, blinds his mind and operates within him, so that the resultant thoughts about God are inevitably warped and false. The only hope for a sane and satisfactory realization of God is to be found in His Word.
Mankind is divided into great religious groups, with elaborate rituals and comprehensive creeds. These groups are split into many smaller sections, each with its varying dogmas. These multitudinous beliefs are the work of the Adversary, and are most effective in blinding men’s minds to the glories of God as revealed in Christ, and in depriving God of the worship and love which is the response He gets from those who know Him. In place of the true God, Satan has deceived the nations into accepting a gross caricature, irreverent and blasphemous. The god of the nations, in whatever religious faction he is worshipped, is a false deity, conceived in the mind of the Adversary and accepted by his blinded, entrapped servants as the true God.

Satan operates most effectively where there is unbelief. Faith in God’s Word is the perfect antidote to his insinuations and lies. A conviction as to the truth of the declarations of God leave no opening to the Adversary. He tries the faith of God’s chosen in a thousand different ways. His stratagems are manifold. He has a certain authority, under God, over the circumstances of the believer, and through these he tests his reliance on God’s Word. His chief aim in his operations against Job was not merely to trouble him by depriving him of his possessions and afflicting his flesh. These were stratagem directed against Job’s worshipful spirit and were planned to be the means of turning him against God He showed himself the Adversary of God in endeavoring to deprive Him of the worship, and blessing of one of His creatures. Job appears to have been a solitary figure in his integrity towards God. Satan had his way with the rest of mankind, but this one man and his family God had hedged around with protective circumstances. These, with His direct permission, were altered by the Adversary with the object of disturbing Job’s faith in God. And this is always Satan’s objective. That is why God’s chosen one’s have ever been his target. Today the ecclesia is the especial concern of his stratagems. Later on it will be the faithful Jews who witness for the truth prior to the kingdom.
Satan seems to have an unchallenged right to try the saints. Our Lord said to Peter, “Satan claims you men, to sift you as grain.” Satan was performing the role for which he was created. He claimed the disciples to test their faith. His right to do so was not refuted by the Lord. Instead He prayed for them that their faith should not be defaulting. Behind the scenes, in those tremendous events occurring around the death of Christ, Satan was operating. Never before had he such an opportunity to display his power and craftiness in opposing God. But the wisdom of God exceeds all that Satan can do. He transforms these deep and deadly designs into a magnificent manifestation of His love and power, which will be effective for the salvation of the entire race.
And so it was with Peter and those with him. These men were claimed by Satan so that their unbelief and weakness might be exposed. His aim was to sift them by means of circumstances, so that the fleshly impotence and lusts might stand out stark and clear as his crafty work proceeded. He used the events surrounding the trial and death of Christ to try their faith. We can see Satan at work in prompting the maid and the two men to question Peter regarding Jesus, and so test his fidelity at a time of extreme peril both to the Lord and to His disciples. And not one of the men stood the test, for they all forsook their Lord and fled, Peter disowned Him with vehement words. But their faith did not completely default, and later they were restored, benefitted by their experiences at the hands of Satan. We can see how clearly our Lord was aware of the details of Satan’s plans, for He foretold the sifting, and that Peter would thrice be abjuring acquaintance with Him. The Lord did not save Peter from the sifting, for He saw that, painful and humiliating as it was, it contributed to the process of training him for his public duties after His resurrection, as well as later during the eons of the eons.

The sixth of Ephesians introduces Satan as a strategist opposing the saints with crafty schemes, intended to unsettle and dislodge them from their spiritual allotment. He operates with the sovereignties and the authorities, with the world-mights of this darkness and with the spiritual forces of wickedness among the celestials. An array of power and might that would make our spirits quail were it not that the might of the strength of our Lord is greater than the combined power of these foes. Thus it is that we are exhorted to be invigorated in Him.
It seems that Satan has won over to his authority the leaders among the celestials, and that these mighty ones who rule and administer the heavenly society are subject to him. Satan himself and the powerful chiefs of heaven are ranged against the ecclesia. Not only they, but other subsidiary forces at present at work among the celestials, leading them away from God and blinding their minds to His love and wisdom, are also opposed to us. The third class who oppose us are the spiritual powers that operate among the nations, blinding their minds to the truth and substituting the destructive errors and myths which constitute this darkness. The celestials and the spirits that occupy the air around us and operate in the world today are opposed to us. Why, we ask, is there this absorbing interest in the ecclesia by the chiefs among the celestials, and why are they against us? Is it not that we are chosen to displace them in the future? Satan has a place in heaven now. It would seem that the majority of the celestials are influenced by him and his hosts. And he will have his way as God’s Adversary until Michael expels him from heaven with his messengers. Then our work will begin and we will transform the transitory evil done by the Adversary into permanent good. The spiritual forces of wickedness, which at present operate among the celestials, will be no longer allowed to carry on their wicked work. We will go among our widespread subjects, leading them all to a knowledge of God through His Son. There is no doubt that our future is well known to those who oppose us, and their chief duty now is to keep from the saints the knowledge of their superlative allotment among the celestials. Should we begin to grasp something of its greatness, they will attempt to unsettle and dislodge us from our conviction as to the glory of our future.
The powers against us are tremendous and the facilities at their command are great. They do not operate against our spirits directly, for we are rescued out of the jurisdiction of darkness and are not subject to the spirit now operating in the majority of humanity. Our spirits should be subject to God’s spirit, operating through His Word. It is true that some are withdrawing from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and the teachings of demons, but these are deserting God’s revelation and substituting doctrines which do not bear the scrutiny of our spirits, and which cannot stand the searching keenness of the Word of God. With such the sixth of Ephesians is not concerned. They are in Satan’s trap and do his will. There is no conflict. Satan’s stratagems are not concerned with them. It is those, however, who do believe, and who have learned the truths of Ephesians, to whom he is actively opposed. These have grasped some of the secrets of God and have entered into fellowship with the Father in His grand eonian operations. These then are subject to Satan’s opposition and the attacks of his subordinate spirits.
We can understand why Satan himself is opposed to us, for he is the Adversary of God and therefore our’s also, for we are vitally linked to God’s glory. We may lose sight of this fact, but it is evident that Satan does not. He is aware, better than the saints, of the high honors to which they are called. He is not alone however, and it is of interest to discover why these other powers should concern themselves with the saints. First the sovereignties and authorities. Those are the highest rulers among the celestials. They are mentioned in such a manner in Ephesians that we must assume that they are the greatest of God’s creatures, whom He has placed in positions of the highest authority and power. They are at the peak of God’s creation. They govern and administer the heavens, imposing their will on the celestials. It is evident that if they are opposed to God’s saints, their rule is leading their subjects away from God. Their rule is not a good one. Their subjects must be ignorant of God. They are influenced by Satan and are acting in accordance with his character and so are opposing God and blinding the eyes of others to His glories.
We have been accustomed to assume in the past that heaven is the place where God’s will is done, where only good has a place. The truth is that heaven also awaits deliverance. The majority of its inhabitants are ignorant of God, having been deluded by Satan, his messengers and those who rule over them. The vast domains of heaven are peopled with myriads of intelligent creatures, potential worshipers of the Deity, but who are kept in darkness as to His glories. Their salvation awaits our coming. We will be unveiled to them in resurrection glory, and shall open up to them the treasures of grace with which we will captivate their hearts and win their affections for God. The sovereignties and authorities must know of our future glorious mission and that we will be nullifying their present work by means of the blessings which we will dispense, so that they are now opposing us, lest we should have a present realization of these future honors. They are themselves even now learning God’s wisdom through us. They observe weak and ignoble mortals, yet such God chooses to displace these mighty monarchs of the empyrean.
This then is the wonder of our future which should captivate our hearts and fill our minds. We are to proclaim Christ among the celestials. What saint has not longed to lead others into the enjoyment of God’s love, eager to make Him known and yet frustrated by weakness, lack of opportunity or adverse circumstances? Let us be encouraged that these desires will without question be fulfilled when during two long eons we shall make the wonders of God known by personal word and presence, and will dispense blessing among the celestials. Then shall we be offering to God the divine service for which we had been chosen long eons before in Christ and for which we had been wisely prepared by God by our present experiences.
Knowing these high honors to which we are called, and that we shall displace the present rulers of the celestials, superseding them in their work of administering the heavenly realms, we can appreciate why they now oppose us. They are aware of our future, and, while they are able, they attempt to keep us from the present enjoyment, in spirit, of our allotment among the celestials.

The revelations Paul received regarding the third heaven (2 Cor.12:2) were of such stupendous grandeur, and the effect they had on his mind was so powerful, that they would have unfitted him for his normal relationships and ordinary living. So absorbed would he have been by the transcendent glories of the future that the present would have receded into insignificance, and the trivial, humdrum, vain things of this life would have been so much beneath him that he would have been unfitted for his service for the Lord. For this reason he was given a splinter in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, that he might be buffeting him, lest he should be lifted up. It is evident that a realization of our future power and glory has the effect, apart from accompanying humiliating experiences, of lifting up and unfitting for service. The buffeting which Paul experienced through Satan was an essential element in fitting him as a suitable servant through whom Christ would operate powerfully. Paul’s spirit needed the chastening and humiliating effect of painful experience to become a counteracting force to exhilarating and uplifting revelations which he had received. Satan’s operation, though evil, was eventuating in good, and was of God in that it produced in Paul that infirmity in which the power of Christ is perfected. Most of us have such a feeble apprehension and grasp of the future glory and power that this operation of Satan is little needed. It is evident, however, that those who are enlightened, and who have been given by God the spirit of wisdom and revelation for the realization of Christ, need the buffeting of Satan to fit them for service and to keep them low and dependent on the power of Christ.

Satan is at present in heaven. His headquarters are in the air above us and from there he operates the vast schemes of opposition which he is putting into effect as the Adversary of God. He heads the myriad host who oppose God. He it is whose fate is singled out for special and particular mention in the Unveiling. His messengers and the demons and the multitude of the heavenly host which he drags with him to the earth, at the time of the great battle in heaven, do not receive a mention in connection with God’s judgment. It is the Adversary who is bound during the thousand years, and later it is he who, with the wild beast and the false prophet, is tormented for the eons of the eons. We are not told the fate of his messengers or the demons who serve him. It seems evident that once Satan’s authority is withdrawn, all opposition from the spiritual forces ceases. The dependance of the subordinates of Satan on him is such that his absence deprives them of all power to oppose. It may be that those within his jurisdiction are those in the subterranean region mentioned in Philippians 2:10 who will bow the knee in the name of Jesus, acclaiming Him as Lord for the glory of God, the Father. At the consummation there will be no subterranean region, for it receives no mention in connection with the reconciliation of the universe in Colossians. With the dissolution of this present earth at the time of the great White Throne, the abyss and the subterranean region are abolished. The new earth has no sea and no sinister, mysterious region beneath it. During the wicked eons the abyss is the prison of the locusts which are released under the fifth trumpet, and later the Adversary is imprisoned therein for the most part of the thousand years. It would seem, too, that the abyss is the prison of demons, for they entreat the Lord not to be sending them there. The wild beast, after his death blow, ascends out of the abyss. It appears that those who dwell in the region beneath the earth bow the knee to God at the conclusion of the millennial eon before this part of the universe is dispensed with.
Those who at present come within Satan’s jurisdiction, his messengers, the demons, the spiritual forces of wickedness among the celestials, the sovereignties and the authorities all in fact who work his will now and serve him in opposing God and the truth, will be subject to our sovereignty. They will not suffer the extreme judgment accorded to their leader, but will be judged by us. We will have the joy of leading these erstwhile slaves of Satan back to God.

It is necessary to emphasize that Satan is a spirit and is consequently concerned with the spirits of mankind. He influences their flesh only in so far as this has any effect on the spirit. With Job his object was not merely to inflict suffering, but through his sufferings to affect his relation to God. He is an enemy of faith, which is an attitude of mind and spirit, His stratagems are directed against our faith. His craftiness is directed against our spirit. He aims at corrupting the simplicity of our confidence in God and His Word. There is no doubt that he can influence our physical well-being as he did with both Paul and Job. In these operations of his, however, our attention should be directed to the spiritual objectives, not on the physical suffering entailed. Faith is the vital force which acts as a bond between God and mankind. No other means of contacting God exists today. God does not give visions or impart dreams. He does not send direct communications. God has spoken in His Word and faith makes His Word effective in our spirits. The activity of believing God is the highest form of “doing,” of which man is capable. Faith is the rejuvenating force which daily transforms us into worshiping slaves of God. The Adversary’s objective, therefore, is the destruction of faith in God’s Word. His crafty methods can be seen in his approach to Eve in the beginning, and later in his trial of our Lord during the forty days in the wilderness. In his stratagems he employs falsehoods, deceptive half-truths and injections of doubt. He plants the virus of distrust in the mind by means of his lies and insinuations, which, taking root, generate unbelief. He approached Eve with an obvious lie, “Then God says you are not to be eating from any tree of the garden!” God had not said this, in fact He had said, “From every tree of the garden you are to freely eat.” The doubt however was cast into Eve’s mind and she does not immediately respond that this is not what God had said. The Serpent, having clouded her mind, then uses more open methods and directly challenges God’s declaration. Eve quoted God as saying that death would result from the eating of the forbidden fruit. The Serpent is saying, “Not to die shall you be dying.” Together with this evident lie he states the truth in saying that unclosed shall be their eyes and they would become as God, knowing good and evil. Unaided man does not seem capable of resisting Satan’s lies. Flesh was disposed in those days, as now, to unbelief.
One of Satan’s stratagems is to mix error with some truth, so making the error more specious and at the same time destroying the truth. This is apparent in the many false doctrines prevailing today. Some element of truth is most probably in each, but is nullified by much error. The potency of error lies in the admixture of truth. In our attempts to serve those who are entrapped in these false ideas it is wise to ascertain that grain of truth which they have and endeavor from that to convince them of the error of the accretions which find no support from the Scriptures. It is evident that, apart from the operation of Satan, the demons and other spiritual forces, error would defeat itself. During the thousand years, when these influences are withdrawn, the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. Mankind will learn unhindered from the priest-nation Israel. Now, however, the forces opposed to the truth are so vast and powerful that it is a miracle of God’s sustaining power that any should perceive the truth and should stand by it.

Satan’s authority extends now to almost all humanity. He it is who now operates in the sons of stubbornness, and as all, except those to whom God has been merciful, are locked up in stubbornness, it is evident that the spirit of the Adversary now dominates the spirits of humanity. He it is who sways the human spirit, so that men antagonize and oppose the truth.
Very few among men seem to have any realization of God; most have gone after myths and strange doctrines which darken the mind and lead away from God. The truth, which is the vast body of doctrine relating to God, is the most vital and important matter in the universe. In relation to truth all else is of secondary importance. Satan is aware, better than we are, of the significance of truth, for it is to this that he is opposed and it is to this that he blinds men’s minds. He is not concerned so much with what men do as with what they think and believe. He it is who in the beginning blinded Eve’s mind by his lies and deceptions, and ever since then he has been carrying on the same work in the minds of humanity.
Those who have been blessed by God with some realization of Himself and have learned the secret revelations of Paul, alone are capable of realizing the dense darkness which covers the world and professing believers. It is the latter with whom we should be most concerned, for the world is thoughtless and dead as regards spiritual matters. Among these there must be many whom God has called, members of the body of Christ, who will be snatched up when He shouts. And many of these beloved ones are dupes of Satan, caught alive by him for that one’s will. Strange, indeed, it seems that having the spirit of God and of Christ they are yet opposed to the truth, antagonizing it with vehemence and hate. These are subject to the authority of the Adversary. It is apparent that Satan’s power is very great at present, and even the saints are not protected from his stratagems. It is these deluded saints whom we most pity. What they need is the truth. We must expect, when endeavoring to teach and train these opposers, that the opposition will be violent, illogical, faithless and soulish, but we must not wrestle with these and let our words degenerate into a wordy battle which will harm both contestants, and achieve no victory. We should see the Adversary back of this opposition and counter his stratagems with the panoply provided in Ephesians six. It is particularly those who have learned the truth who must look for this opposition from Satan, and expect the Adversary to move against them. He will work through normal circumstances and our immediate associates. His objective is to distract our minds and engage our spirits with matters unrelated to the truth. He aims at dislodging us from our spiritual, celestial allotment. “Be invigorated in the Lord and in the might of His strength. Put on the panoply of God to enable you to stand up to the stratagems of the Adversary, for it is not ours to wrestle with blood and flesh, but with the sovereignties, with the authorities, with the world mights of this darkness, with the spiritual forces of wickedness among the celestials.”