By Nosa Olotu

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, 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. 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.

False accuser
Moving slightly away from the above view point, some would argue that in order to understand what the devil and Satan are requires a thorough Bible study, both Old and New Testaments. The word for ‘devil’ is strictly New Testament and is the Greek, ‘diabolos’ meaning a ‘false accuser’ or ‘slanderer’ while ‘satan’ is a Hebrew word meaning ‘an enemy’.

The first false accusation was made against God by the serpent in Eden. From that time the Bible uses the symbol of the serpent as the slanderer of God and men. Thus, we find in Revelation “that Old Serpent, the devil and Satan” and both Jesus and John the Baptist refer to the Pharisees as a “generation of vipers”.
Many theories, more based on pagan mythology than on Biblical revelation, have grown up to portray satan, (the capital ‘S’ is not in the original), as a sort of god of evil, a fallen angel whose domain is hell.
All these ideas are inconsistent with the Bible. We find in Deuteronomy 4:35:” the Lord Himself is God; there is none other beside Him.” Another god is not possible.

The angels of God do not sin and do not die. We have the words of Jesus that his people will finally be like the angels, dying no more. Satan is never found in hell in the Bible. He, or rather it, is destroyed in a lake of fire along with death and hell.

Peter was satan
Jesus Christ defines satan for us. When his apostle Peter tried to dissuade him from going to Jerusalem the last time Jesus said to him in Matthew 16:23,”Get behind me, Satan! You are an offence to me: for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.” Yes it is true! Jesus called Peter ‘Satan’ because he was trying to stop Jesus from doing the will of his Father. Peter was thinking the way mortal men think – protect yourself at all cost. He was tempting Jesus to sin.

When we are more mindful of the things of men rather than the those of God we are satan and the devil too. The attitude, the spirit, which is so common in society, to go the way of men rather than the way of God is also styled the devil and satan in the Bible. Look at the drama of Jesus’ temptations. All three were about considering the way man would naturally go compared to the way God required.

Jesus chose his Father’s way even to his death on the cross. So we are told about his death in Hebrews 2:14, “Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared in the same; that through death he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil.” An odd way to destroy a fallen angel isn’t it?

The devil is very human. He began with the first humans and he will end with the last of Adam’s mortal descendants.