Everything about Devil In Christianity totally explained
In mainstream
Christianity, the
Devil is named
Satan, sometimes
Lucifer. He is a
fallen angel who rebelled against
God. He is often identified as the serpent in the
Garden of Eden, whose persuasions led to
original sin and the need for
Jesus Christ's redemption. He is also identified as the Accuser of
Job, the tempter of the
Gospels, and the
dragon in the
Book of Revelation, though the bible using many different names and showing no actual co-relation. Traditionally, Christians have understood the Devil to be the author of lies and promoter of
evil. While arguably not evil himself as in accordance to the Book of Job he acts under the word of God rather than on free will.
Liberal Protestant denominations, however, often view the devil metaphorically. Much of the popular history of the Devil isn't biblical; instead, it's a post-medieval Christian reading of the scriptures influenced by medieval and pre-medieval Christian popular mythology.
Characteristics of the Devil
Teachings about the Devil vary, depending on the local folklore. Still, the characteristics present in the Bible are present in each depiction.
The Devil as rebel
According to the gospels of Matthew (chapter 4) and Luke (chapter 4), the Devil tempted Jesus at the beginning of his ministry. After Jesus fasted forty days in the wilderness, the Devil approached Jesus with offers of stones turned to bread, rulership over the kingdoms of the Earth (but with subservience to the Devil himself), and spectacular protection from physical harm. Satan uses the Scripture of the Old Testament to solidify his arguments. This would indicate Satan's full knowledge of all of Scripture, and a use of that knowledge to tempt and deceive man (Mat 4). Jesus refused all three temptations, rebuking Satan with His own knowledge of Scripture (Mat 4).
Christianity holds several different views on Christ's role in defeating Satan. Some emphasize Christ's death and resurrection as sealing Satan's fate, so that the Devil is already defeated though not banished. Others emphasize the Devil's final judgment when Christ returns, at which time the terror and deceit of Satan will have no more effect on the world. This is because mankind will face final judgment, and the earth will be purged or cleansed with fire. Satan will be bound to the
lake of fire (Rev 20) with the Beast, the false prophet, and all those whose names are not in the
Book of Life. There will no longer be any way for Satan to have an impact on mankind.
The Devil possessing mortals
The Devil, as well as his demons, are portrayed as able to possess and control humans. The Roman Catholic Church occasionally performs
exorcisms, and some evangelicals do so regularly.
The Devil and black magic
Since the Middle Ages, the Devil has been described as granting spells and magic powers to sorcerers and witches. The Bible refers to the Devil and to sorcerers but never depicts them as related.
History of the Devil in Christianity
The Devil in the Old Testament
In some Christians' views, the Devil's first appearance in the Old Testament is as the serpent in the Garden of Eden that appears in the story of
Adam and Eve eating the fruit (traditionally idenitified as an apple) of the
Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. In God's rebuke to the serpent, he tells it "And I'll put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it'll bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." (Genesis 3:14-15)
Christian scriptures identify the serpent with the Devil. The deuterocanonical
Book of Wisdom says, "But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world, and they who are in his possession experience it." (Wisdom 2:24) Satan is only explicitly identified once with the serpent in Eden, in Revelation 12:9: "This great dragon--the ancient serpent called the Devil, or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world--was thrown down to the earth with all his angels." However, when this passage refers to Satan as "serpent" it may be referring to Leviathan or the other mythical sea monsters mentioned in Isaiah and other parts of the Tanakh.
When identified with the term, "
Satan" (from Hebrew, meaning "Adversary"), the Devil also appears in the heavenly court to challenge Job, with God's permission. This seems to be Satan's primary role - to challenge humans and to test their faiths. Elsewhere, the term is even used to describe humans playing the role of adversary or prosecuter.
Some Christian concepts of the Devil include
Lucifer, which traditionally gives a name to the Devil. The name, Lucifer, is translated from the Latin, meaning loosely, "Light Giver" (analogous to the Greek,
Phosphorus) and is also used symbolically to mean the "Morning Star", (for example Venus), which held some significant meanings for Babylonians as mentioned in Isaiah 14:12.
In
Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Satan is one of humanity's three enemies, along with sin and death (in some other forms of
Christianity the other two enemies of mankind are "the world", and self (or the
flesh), which is to be taken as man's natural tendency to
sin).
The Devil in the New Testament
The Devil figures much more prominently in the
New Testament and in
Christian theology generally. The New Testament records numerous accounts of the Devil working against God and his plan.
In all three
synoptic gospels, ( and ), Jesus' critics accuse him of gaining his power to cast out demons from Baalzebub, the chief demon (often identified with Satan in mainstream Christendom). In response, Jesus says that a house divided against iself will fall, and that one can't enter a strong man's house without first tying him up.
There are numerous incidences of demonic possession in the New Testament. Jesus encounters those who are possessed and exorcises (or casts out) the evil spirit(s). The work of possession, though not explained in depth by the New Testament, is illustrated to have levels of severity. A person may have one demon or multiple demons inhabiting their body. Jesus encountered a man filled with numerous demons in Mark 5:1-20. Addressing the demons, Jesus asked for their name. They replied "Legion, for we're many." Mary Magdalene is recorded to have been delivered from seven demons which tormented her (Mark 16:9). Mainstream Christianity typically links these demons with the figure of Satan, as associated fallen angels who operate under his leadership.
The Devil in Traditional Christianity
In
John Milton's epic poem
Paradise Lost, the theme is further developed — Satan is believed to have been an
archangel who turned against
God before the creation of man. Prophecies in
Isaiah 14 and
Ezekiel 28 are thought by some to be referring metaphorically to Satan, rather than to the king of Babylon. Babylon in Revelation is a symbol for an evil world, one of which Satan would be head in the Tribulational period of the end times. According to this view, Satan waged war against God, his Creator, and was banished from
Heaven because of this.
According to most
Christian eschatology, Satan will wage a final war against
Jesus, before being cast into Hell for "aeonios." The
Unification Church, a sect that deviates from mainstream Christianity, teaches that Satan will be restored in the
last days and become a good angel again . A few early Church Fathers are known to have prayed for Satan's eventual repentance ; it wasn't generally believed that this would happen. On the other hand, Dispensationalists teach that Jesus returns to earth before the
Tribulational period to reclaim the righteous, dead and living, to meet Him in the air (known as the
Rapture . Many Fundamentalists believe that immediately following this, the Tribulational period will occur as prophesied in the book of Daniel, while others (especially
Seventh-day Adventists) believe that immediately following Jesus' Second Coming, Satan will be bound on this Earth for a thousand years, after which he'll be “loosed for a little season” —this is when the battle of
Armageddon (the final confrontation between good and evil) will be waged—and Satan and his followers will be destroyed once and for all, the Earth will be cleansed of all evil and there will be “a new Heaven and a new Earth” where sin will reign no more.
In the New Testament,
Letter of Jude (Jude 1:9) the
Archangel Michael is described arguing with the Devil over the body of
Moses. This dispute is shown in the painting by
Guido Reni called "St. Michael the Archangel" showing Satan being crushed underfoot.
Other views
Gnostics
In various
Gnostic sects, Satan was praised as the giver of knowledge, sometimes with references to
Lucifer, “the light-bringer.” Some claimed that the being imagined as God by
Christians and
Jews was in fact Satan, as a world as imperfect as ours couldn't be created by a perfect God. Non-Gnostic Christians typically explain the world's imperfection as the result of
the Fall.
Middle Ages
Particularly in the medieval period, Satan was often depicted as having horns and a goat's hindquarters. He has also been depicted as carrying a pitchfork, and with a forked tail. None of these images seem to be based on Biblical materials, as Satan's physical appearance is never described in the bible, Qur'an or any other religious text. Rather, this image is apparently based on pagan
horned gods, such as
Pan and
Dionysus, common to many
mythologies . Pan in particular looks very much like the images of the medieval Satan. Some images are based on
Baphomet, which is portrayed in Eliphas Lévi's 1854 Dogme et rituel de la haute magie (English translation Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual)
Levi
. Even some Satanists use Baphomet as the image of Satan in Satanic worship.
Neo-pagans and others allege that this image was chosen specifically to discredit the
Horned God of ancient paganism to convert people to the Christian faith.
The
medieval Cathars identified the devil with the
demiurge of older
gnostic and
Neoplatonic tradition. Earlier sects believed the
Old Testament Yahweh was, in fact, the devil, based partially on ethical interpretations of the
Bible and partially on the beliefs of earlier gnostic sects (such as the
Valentinians) who regarded the god of the Old Testament as evil or as an imperfect Demiurge. Early
Gnostics called the Demiurge
Yao, the
Aramaic cognate to the
Tetragrammaton, YHWH (Yahweh). Moreover, modern research into
Ugaritic texts revealed that the names of the Jewish god were the same as earlier gods worshipped in the same region; Yahweh is cognate to Ugaritic
Yaw who was the Semitic deity of chaos, evil, and world domination.
Latter Day Saints
Latter Day Saints believe that
Satan is "literally a spirit son of God", being called "
Lucifer", "
Son of the morning" or even "Perdition" in the
pre-mortal realms. Though popular tradition slates him as an eternally evil being, the devil was originally a very righteous personage: an angel who was "in authority and in the presence of God". In the pre-earth life, God had a wealth of spirit children who hadn't yet passed through mortality and been tested. There was a council organized in heaven which included (naturally) both Satan and Jesus among many other noble spirit children at which
God the Father presided.
Jesus Christ proposed that the Father's "will be done" - thereby ensuring that
choice and agency would be given to all men and that He personally would
atone for the
sins and misdoings of all. Jesus would thus act as the between the Father and all mankind. Satan described a much different plan wherein every one of God's children (who at that time hadn't yet received
mortal bodies) should be
forced to obey a set of commandments in order that they might be coerced into gaining salvation from
spiritual death.
Part of Satan's condition to his plan was that instead of the
glory being given to the Father, it would be reserved for himself; the supposedly positive notion of this was that no-one could fail and there would be guaranteed
redemption for every person. God the Father of course accepted Jesus'
plan of salvation instead of Satan's, not only on the basis that it was obviously selfish and vainglorious but that it would destroy the real purpose of receiving mortal bodies - to be tested in an imperfect and temporal world. In his anger, Satan drew away an entire third of the
hosts of heaven to stand against those who were in support of the plan that Jesus Christ had put forth.
"Because our Heavenly Father chose Jesus Christ to be our Saviour, Satan became angry and rebelled. There was war in heaven. Satan and his followers fought against Jesus and his followers. In this great rebellion, Satan and all the spirits who followed him were sent away from the presence of God and cast down from heaven. One-third of the spirits in heaven were punished for following Satan: they were denied the right to receive mortal bodies." (Gospel Principles, p. 19)
There was an actual
war in heaven in which Satan and his supporters were vanquished and cast out of heaven - eventually to take residence upon the earth. They, from that time forth to this very day, serve as the devil and his legion of angels, tempting all earthly beings that are within their power and possessing the bodies of those that have given themselves over to the wiles of
evil.
Because Satan and those cast down with him don't have physical bodies, they're actually able to co-inhabit the bodies of living humans and animals and control them
typically to the degree that they're allowed by the being (there are extreme exceptions to this - viz. Joseph Smith - History 1:15-16 - see also Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, p. 104-105). Normally, Satan and his angels only have as much power as they're permitted to have by the one being tempted, and each time one gives into temptation, it's akin to another small chain being tied around the victim - anchoring him to his will. During the latter days (beginning around the inception of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) Satan would begin to rage in the hearts of the children of men, seeing that it would be close to the
second coming of
the Lord; because of this, Satan and the powers of darkness would have a startling hold upon the
earth before the Savior comes again and in many cases even the very elect would be deceived. When Jesus returns to earth to reclaim his right to the kingdom, Satan will be dismissed from the earth and "bound". Largely, this will be because the period of the millennium will permit the righteousness of the people of God to be so great that Satan will simply have no ability to control their hearts.
Nearing the end of the period of one thousand years, the hearts of people living on the earth (even in the presence of Jesus Himself) would begin to turn to evil once again and soon the final battle (the battle of
Gog and Magog) would commence with all the hosts of heaven and earth splitting to choose their final side either under Satan or God's legion of hosts. The final battle will end with all of the forces of evil being defeated and imprisoned until the time of the
final judgment, which will place every single living being in one of the three kingdoms of God - the celestial, terrestrial, and telestial. Those who fought with Satan would all be cast into
outer darkness which is also known as the "
lake of fire" or the "
second death". Satan himself will be "stripped of his
spirit body, and thrust out of the organized universe as a helpless, naked intelligence."
alsoand Thus, in the end, instead of even retaining his spirit body which he received by being a spirit son of God, he'll actually die a literal spiritual death and be reduced to an "intelligence" (which he, along with every other being that originally existed, was before they received spirit bodies)..
Jehovah's Witnesses
Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Satan was created as an angel that rebelled against God Jehovah. Satan was created a perfect spirit creature, but he became "Satan the Devil" when he acted on his desire to turn
Adam and Eve away from worship of Jehovah to himself. They don't regard "
Lucifer" as his original name, but as descriptive designation applied to the "king of Babylon." The rendering
Lucifer is derived from the Latin
Vulgate.
By use of the serpent in the
Garden of Eden, Satan seduced Eve by implying that God's rulership was selfish and unjust. "Is it really so that God said
you must not eat from every tree of the garden?" Eve's reply was that only one tree had been prohibited from their use on penalty of death. Satan challenged this: "You positively won't die. For God knows that in the very day of your eating from it your eyes are bound to be opened and you're bound to be like God, knowing good and bad or right from wrong". So, Satan's approach was a dual deception: First, that God was withholding good from them and second that he was lying in the process.
Eve succumbed to this deception along with Adam, who allowed himself to become complicit in the matter. Jehovah cast them out of The Garden of Eden where they did indeed begin their descent into death and imperfection. The Bible shows that the majority of their offspring followed them in this course.
Now humanity is caught between Satan and God falling to either side to prove which is right; whether mankind will fall to self-worship—thus falling under Satan's influence—or remain true to their Creator.
Jehovah's Witnesses believe that Satan is the ruler or governor of this world, citing references at ; ; .
Christadelphians
Christadelphians are almost unique amongst Christian groups for stating as an article of faith that
Satan doesn't exist in a personal form. They reject the idea of fallen Angels. They believe that the word 'satan' simply refers to any 'adversary' and figuratively refers to human sin and temptation. Christadelphians share these beliefs with the
Church of the Blessed Hope.
As a sympathetic character
The
epic poem by
John Milton,
Paradise Lost, has a stylized depiction of the devil that influenced
C. S. Lewis (
The Screwtape Letters and
Space Trilogy), and the
J. R. R. Tolkien characters
Morgoth and
Sauron. Satan acts much like a
protagonist of the first half of the story, styling himself as an ambitious underdog rebelling against
Heaven. He becomes less sympathetic in the second half as the snake that tempts
Adam and Eve in the
Garden of Eden.
Both
Faust and
The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus feature the demon known as
Mephistopheles, (also spelled Mephistophilius), who is summoned by Faust to sell his soul for a limited number of years of pleasure. Mephistopheles often shows regret and remorse for rebelling against God. In one famous scene from
Faustus, Mephistopheles tells Faust that he can't leave
Hell. When Faust tells him that he seems to be free of Hell at that moment, the devil responds with "
Why this is hell, nor am I out of it./ Think’st thou that I, who saw the face of God,/And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,/ Am not tormented with ten thousand hells/ In being deprived of everlasting bliss?" Rather than glorifying the Devil, he's shown as a sad figure.
Views of higher criticism
Scholars who analyze the Bible and Christian tradition from a
historical perspective regard current Christian views of the Devil as combining beliefs from various times and places. They generally see the serpent in the Garden of Eden, Lucifer, and Satan as unrelated entities, the serpent merely a snake, Lucifer a mortal king, and Satan an angel in Yahweh's court. According to this perspective, Jews adopted the idea of a "prince of darkness" from
Zoroastrianism while in captivity in Babylon. This concept was then read into Old Testament texts. The Devil as an evil being on a cosmic scale doesn't appear in the Bible until the New Testament. This concept then continued to develop as Christianity itself grew and developed.
A similar approach has been taken by the Christadelphians, the only Christian denomination to formally reject the existence of a personal Satan as an article of faith.
(16) Their belief is that 'Satan' ('adversary') is simply a personification of sin and evil.
(17)
Names of the Devil in Christianity
Old and New Testament names
Originally, only the epithet of "the satan" ("the adversary") was used to denote the character in the Hebrew deity's court that later became known as "the Devil." (The term "satan" was also used to designate human enemies of the Hebrews that
Yahweh raised against them.) The article was lost and this title became a proper name:
Satan. There is no unambiguous reference to the Devil in the Torah, the Prophets, or the Writings.
--"And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and ha-satan standing at his right hand to resist him." This reading has since been erroneously interpreted by some to mean Satan, "the Devil", but such isn't the case. The
Hebrew Bible views ha-satan as an angel ministering to the desires of God, acting as Chief Prosecutor.
- Azazel: "And Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats, one lot for the LORD and the other lot for Azazel." Also,
Satan: "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven." See also
The Tempter: --"And when the tempter came to him." Also,
In,,, and openly in there's an implied connection between Satan and Beelzebub (originally a Semitic deity called Baal, and referred to as Baal-zebul, meaning lord of princes) Beelzebub (lit. Lord of the Flies) has now come to be analogous to Satan.
The Wicked One: --"Then cometh the wicked one.", . This title suggests that Satan is one who is wicked himself. Abrahamic religions generally regarded sin as a physical manifestation of opposition to God, and therefore evil; dissent only comes from the topic of 'where does sin come from?'
In and Satan is called Prince of this World (Rex Mundi); this became a nickname for him.
In the Devil is referred as Belial. "What agreement does Christ have with Belial?" Also, in the Old Testament, rebellious people and nonbelievers are sometimes called 'sons of Belial'. See also
In the Devil is called "the god of this world"
--"Your Adversary the devil." By adversary is meant one who takes a stand against another. In the Christian worldview, Satan is the adversary of both God and the believers.
The Devil, diabolos: This name is ascribed to Satan at least 33 times in the Christian scriptures and indicates that Satan is an accuser or slanderer (Rev. 12:9).
The Dragon or The Old Serpent: These epithets are used extensively in the Book of Revelation.
There are some who erroneously claim that the word 'devil' is from 'd'evil' -'of evil.' Some also believe that because the word 'evil' itself is 'live' spelt backward, the word originated through the nature of evil being "against living things," or the antithesis of life itself. Both claims are false, as the words are etymologically derived from pre-existing languages.
Further development
When the Bible was translated into Latin (the Vulgate), the name Lucifer appeared as a translation of "Morning Star", or the planet Venus, in Isaiah 14:12. Isaiah 14:1-23 is a passage largely concerned with the plight of Babylon, and its king is referred to as "morning star, son of the dawn". This is because the Babylonian king was considered to be of godly status and of symbolic divine parentage (Bel and Ishtar, associated with the planet Venus).
While this information is available to scholars today via translated Babylonian cuneiform text taken from clay tablets, it wasn't as readily available at the time of the Latin translation of the Bible. Thus, early Christian tradition interpreted the passage as a reference to the moment Satan was thrown from Heaven. Lucifer became another name for Satan and has remained so due to Christian dogma and popular tradition.
The Hebrew Bible word which was later translated to "Lucifer" in English is הילל (transliterated HYLL). Though this word, Heilel, has come to be translated as "morning-star" from the Septuagint's translation of the Scriptures, the letter ה in Hebrew often indicates singularity, much as the English "the," in which case the translation would be ה "the" ילל "yell," or "the wailing yell."
Later, for unknown reasons, Christian demonologists appeared to designate "Satan", "Lucifer", and "Beelzebub" as different entities, each with a different rank in the hellish hierarchy. One hypothesis is that this might have been an attempt to establish a hellish trinity with the same person, akin to the Christian Trinity of Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, but most demonologists don't carry this view.
In Christian tradition
Christian tradition differs from that of Christian demonology in that Satan, Lucifer, Leviathan and Beelzebub all are names that refer to "the Devil", and Prince of this World, The Beast and Dragon (and rarely Serpent or The Old Serpent) use to be elliptic forms to refer to him. The Enemy, The Evil One and The Tempter are other elliptic forms to name the Devil. Belial is held by many to be another name for the Devil. Christian demonology, in contrast, doesn't have several nicknames for Satan.
It should be noted that the name Mephistopheles is used by some people to refer to the Devil, but it's a mere folkloric custom, and has nothing to do with Christian demonology and Christian tradition. Prince of Darkness and Lord of Darkness are also folkloric names, although they tend to be incorporated to Christian tradition.
Disputes
Is the Devil in Hell?
The belief that Satan is in Hell has its roots in Christian literature rather than in the Bible. The Bible states that he still roams heaven and earth. It also states that Satan appeared with other angels "before the Lord," presumably in heaven. When God asked Satan where he'd been, Satan replied, "From roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it". declares, "Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour".
Passages such as these suggest that Satan isn't in Hell, and likely prowls the earth seeking to destroy the lives of human beings.
How could an angel commit sin and rebel against God?
Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologiae, said:
"An angel or any other rational creature considered in his own nature, can sin; and to whatever creature it belongs not to sin, such creature has it as a gift of grace, and not from the condition of nature. The reason of this is, because sinning is nothing else than a deviation from that rectitude which an act ought to have; whether we speak of sin in nature, art, or morals. That act alone, the rule of which is the very virtue of the agent, can never fall short of rectitude. Were the craftsman's hand the rule itself engraving, he couldn't engrave the wood otherwise than rightly; but if the rightness of engraving be judged by another rule, then the engraving may be right or faulty."
In fiction and popular culture
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