The study of angels leads naturally to the investigation of Satan and evil spirits. In such an examination, we need to exercise caution lest we presume popular and/or literary conceptions of such beings to be the same as the biblical doctrine.

I. BIBLICAL AND INTERTESTAMENTAL TEACHINGS#

A. THE OLD TESTAMENT#

1. The Term “Satan”

a. Etymology

The Hebrew verb satan means “to opppose” or “to be or act as an adversary”. Edward Langton has found it to be “a pur Semitic word in early use among the Israelites”.

b. The Common Noun

The noun satan is used in the Old Testament to refer to human adversaries.

Philistine commanders were supicious that David would be their “adversary” in battle with King Saul’s arm (1 Sam. 29:4b), and David later found that “the sons of Zeruiah” were acting as his “adversaries” in wanting Shimei to be put to death (2 Sam. 19:22b).

When he was about to build the temple, Solomon thought that he had no “adversary” (1 Kings 5:4), but later his adversaries were Hadad the Edomite and Rezon of Zobah (1 Kings 11:14a, 23a).

Even the “angel of Yahweh” could be an “adversary” to Baalam and his donkey (Num. 22:22)

c. The Proper Noun

One may be swprised to discover that satan as a proper Hebrew noun for a suprahuman being is used in only four passages in the Old Testament.

Two of these passages are in Job (1:6-12, 2:1-7). There the article “the” is used before “Satan,” but Satan is manifestly personal as “the adversary.” In Job nothing is written about the Satan as a fallen angel, and there is no concept that the Satan is chief of a kingdom of evil spirits. Rather, he is “one of the angel-ministers of Yahweh” who accuses Job before God and brings natural evils upon him. Even so there is “an element in the character of Satan which is contrary to the will of God,” for seemingly Satan “would be pleased ifhe could prove that God’s confidence injobwas misplaced.”

In Zech. 3:1-2 the article “the” also appears before “Satan,” which is not yet fully a proper name. The Satan is said to have accused Joshua the high priest, and Yahweh’s response is one ofrebuke for the Satan’s harshness toward Jerusalem.

In 1 Chr. 21:1 Satan-without the article and probably a proper name-is said to have “incited David to take a census oflsrael” (NIV). His accusatory role has been turned into that of tempter, and David confesses that his census-taking was a sin (21:8).

It should be noted that the word “Satan” was not used in Genesis 3 and that Satan and the serpent are identified in Christian theology chiefly because they are identified in Rev. 12:9 and 20:2.

2. Other Possible Names for Satan and Possible Passages in Which He Is Mentioned

a. “Sons of God” (Gen. 6:1-4)

This text refers to the marriage of “the sons of God” and “the daughters of men” and to their progeny as physical giants or heroes (v.4) but spiritually wicked (v.5). Although other interpretations have been given to this passage, two major interpretations have prevailed during the centuries-long effort to understand these verses.

One of these interpretations take “the sons of God” as a term for angels and hence concludes taht angels married human women and had offspring. Normally, this interpretation assumes that the angels referred to in Gen. 6:1-4 were evil or wicked angels, who had a corrupting influence on their wives and children. Intertestamental Jewish writings seemingly connected this text with fallen angels so that it became a proof-text for the whole concept of fallen angels.

This interpretation has a long history and claims the support of Philo, Josephus, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose, Lactanius, Wilhelm Gesenius (1786-1842), G.H.A. Ewald, Franz Delitzsch (1813-90), August Dillmann (1823-94), Henry Alford (1810-71), Samuel Rolles Driver (1846-1914), John Skinner (1851-1925), A.C. Gaebelein, Edward Langton, Gerhard von Rad, Gwynne Henton Davies, and Bruce Vawter.

The other major interpretation understands “the sons of God” to have been Sethite men and “the daughters of men” to have been Cainite women, and consequently these were human marriages having no direct reference to angels, fallen angels, or Satan

Its exponents have included Julius Africanus, Ephrem the Syrian, Theodoret of Cyrus, John Chrysostom, Augustine of Hippo, Cyril of Alexandria, Jerome, Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, John Calvin, Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg (1802-69), G.F. Oehler, J.F.K. Keil, Johann Peter Lange (1802-82), William Henry Green (1825-1900), Benajah Harvey Carroll (1843-1914), Cyrus Ingerson Scofield (1843-1921), William Henry Griffith Thomas (1861-1924), and Herbert Carl Leupold (11892-?)

b. “Morning Star” (Isa. 14:12-20)

This passage consitutes a portion of an extended taunt against the king of Babylon (14:3-23). The morning “star” (NIV) or “star of the morning” (NASV) or “day star” (ASV, RSV, JB) is said to “have fallen from heaven” and to “have been cast down to the earth”. This one “once laid low the nations” and “made kingdoms tremble” but then sought to make himself like God. Consequently, because he has “destroyed” his “land” and “killed” his “people”, he has been “brought down to the grave” and has been “cast out” of his own “tomb”.

Although the context strongly inclines one to conclude that all these words were intended by the author to refer to the king of Babylon, this text has often been taken by Christians as a reference to Satan. The KJV rendering of “morning star” as “Lucifer”, a Latin derivative meaning “light-bearer”, with the implication that the term can be taken as a proper name, has helped to fuel such an interpretation. As a result not a few sermons on Satan have been preached from this text, when numerous undisputed texts were readily available.

The interpretation of the “morning star” as a dear reference to Satan seems to be traceable to Tertullian and Gregory the Great in the patristic age, with its augmentation due largely to the Inferno of Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) and John Milton’s Paradise Lost. But John Calvin was very specific in his rejection of the Satanic interpretation, holding rather that the text alluded to a human tyrant.

The prevailing pattern among modern commentators on Isaiah (Albert Barnes, 1798-1870, Franz Delitzsch, Conrad Orelli, 1846-1912, Thomas Kelly Cheyne, 1841-1915, John Skinner, George Adam Smith, Owen Charles Whitehouse, 1849-1916, George Buchanan Gray, 1865-1922, H. C. Leupold, Edward J. Young, Page Hutto Kelley, 1925-97, Otto Kaiser, 1924-, John D. W. Watts, 1921-) has been to interpret the taunt to refer to the king of Babylon and not to mention or deal with Satan.

c. Guardian Cherub in Eden Expelled from the Mount of God and Destroyed (Ezek. 28:11-19)

This passage constitues a lament concerning the king of Tyre, following prophecies against and another lament for Tyre (Ezek. 26:1-28:10). The one addressed in the lament is said to have been created by God and to have been in the Garden of Eden, adorned with precious stones and “anointed as a guardian cherub”. But because of his pride and dishonest and violence-ridden trade, he has been driven from “the mount of God”, “consumed” with fire, “reduced” to “ashes”, and brought to “a horrible end” so that he “will be no more”.

The overwhelming majority of modern commentators on Ezekiel have interpreted the passage to refer to the king of Tyre, have often taken the paradise elements as protayal of the king, and have made no mention of Satan in their comments on the passage. Certain recent interpreters (Taylor, Carley, Wevers, Craigie) have stressed the parallels between Adam and the king of Tyre and their typifying the whole human story.

On the contrary, American Dispensationalist commentators have had their own hermeneutic of Ezek. 28:11-19. A.C. Gaebelein and Henry Allan Ironside (1876-1951) understood the passage to refer to Satan, who is “the power behind the throne of the Tyrian king” (Gaebelein) and who “can hardly be distinguished” from the king of Tyre (Ironside). Slightly different were the views of Frederick Charles Jennings (1847-1948), Charles Lee Feinberg, and Paul P. Enns (1937-).

  • For Jennings, the king of Babylon was “a representative” of Lucifer, the true name of him who was later called Satan.

  • According to Feinberg, Ezekiel saw behind the king of Tyre “the motivating force and personality who was impelling him in his opposition to God”, namely, Satan

  • For Enns, Satan “is the real power behind the king of Tyre”

F.B. Huey, Jr. (1925-) has clearly identified the four hermeneutical options:

  1. The “literal history” of Satan’s fall

  2. The king of Tyre as “a satanic person”

  3. The king or kingdom of Tyre under judgment, couched in the language of the familiar paradis story

  4. The fall of the king or kingdom of Tyre as parallel to the fall of Adam (and Eve)

3. Demonic Beings

Does the Old Testament have a doctine of demonic beings or evil spirits? Edward Langton has answered in the negative respecting a formulated doctrine, but he has concluded that in certain Old Testament passages “supernatural evil beings are referred to or described which, when examined, are found to correspond to demons among other [esp. Egyptian, Arabic, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian] peoples”.

In summary, the Old Testament has a concept of “Satan”, expressed in three passages, as one of the angel-ministers of Yahweh who tests and tempts human beings. It contains three other texts which some, despite very strong evidence to the contrary, wish to see as referring to Satan. It has in the process of formation some ideas concerning demons. The Old Testament contains no unambiguous accounts either of Satan’s creation or of Satan’s sin or fall.

B. JEWISH INTERTESTAMENTAL WRITINGS AND CONCEPTS#

1. Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha

Prominent and somewhat developed in this literature is the concept of fallen angels, whose fall was connected with and elaborated from Gen. 6: 1-4 (1 Enoch 6-8). Another account has God sending angels or watchers to the earth to instruct mankind (Jubilees 4: 15-22). The devil and his angels were said to have been cast out of heaven after they had refused to worship Adam as Michael had urged them to do (Life of Adam and Eve, 12-17). Accordingly God sent good angels to capture many of the rebel angels and to imprison them in the valleys of the earth for seventy generations until the final judgment (1 Enoch 10:4-17).

Asmodaeus, an evil demon, killed the seven husbands of Sarah, and she had to be loosed from him (Tobit 3:8, 17). Demons were descended from the giants who ruled over humankind after their deaths (1 Enoch 15:8-9). 29 The devil out ofrevenge for his own expul- sion tempted Eve (Life of Adam and Eve, 12:1; 13:1-2; 16:1-4), using the serpent as his vessel (Apocalypse of Moses, 16:5). “God made not death,” but “by the envy of the devil death entered into the world” (Wisd. of Sol. 1:13; 2:24) - presumably an allusion to the seduction of Eve through the serpent.

There is no clear conception until late in the period that Satan is the chief of all evil spirits and demons. Those exercising leadership over such beings included Semjaza (1 Enoch 6:3; 9:7; 10:11; 69:2), Azazel (1 Enoch 8:1-2; 9:6; 10:4-8; 13:1-2; Apoca- lypse of Abraham 13, 14, 20, 22, 23, 29, 31), Mastema (Jubilees 10:8, 11; 11:5, 11), Beliar (Jubilees 1:20; 15:33; Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs), 31 and Satanail (2 Enoch 29:4-5). Satan also is seen to have rulership over evil spirits, including other Satans (Jubilees 10:11 - over the one-tenth of the evil spirits not imprisoned; 1 Enoch 40:7; 53:3; 54:6; Martyrdom of Isaiah 2:2, 4; Assumption of Moses 10:1).

Human beings are tempted through seven spirits, who are the personified lusts of human beings, but humans may either yield or resist (Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs). 32 An evil impulse in humans is affirmed (2 [4] Esdras 4:30; 7:48). The fallen angels after long imprisonment will be destroyed at the lastjudgment (1 Enoch 19:1); seemingly this will also happen to the evil spirits (1 Enoch 16:1; 2 Enoch 7:1-5).

2. Rabbinic Literature

Langton has found two different accounts of the origin of Satan in rabbinic writings

  • One describes Satan’s being created by God along with Eve on the sixth day of creation - this view closely connects Satan and the fall of humankind

  • The other sees Sammael (that is, Satan) as a fallen angel who is ruler over all other Satans

Satan’s fall was explanined as caused by angelic jealousy and envy, for the angels had opposed the creation of human beings and had been outdone by Adam’s successful naminf of the animals. Sammael and accompanying angels came to the earth and chose and took possession of the serpent as their instrument for the tempting of Eve. Furthermore, the serpent’s jealousy was activated by the knowledge as to how the angels were serving the human creatures

Satan’s threefold role as “accuser, seducer, and destroyer” is made manifest in comments on the trial of Abraham as to the offering of Isaac. The evil impulse in human is seen as derived from creation and the occasion or opportunity for Satan’s tempting, but in one text Satan is identified with the impulse. Satan serves as the angel of death, and his own final destruction is anticipated.

3. Dead Sea Scrolls

In the literature from Qumran, God is said to have assigned to created man two spirits, one of truth and the other of perversion, one of light and the other of darkness, who seek opposite effects in the lives of human beings until the evil spirit will be finally destroyed.

C. THE NEW TESTAMENT#

1. Terms

The three terms most frequently used in the New Testament for the predominating evil spirit are:

  • ho diabolos - “the devil” meaning literally a slanderer or false accuser, used 37 times

  • Satan or ho satan - “Satan” literally “the adversary”, used 35 times

  • Beelzebub, probablly literally “the lord of flies”, used seven times, all of which are in the Synoptic Gospels

2. Synoptic Gospels

In the Synoptics Satan, or the devil, is considered to be the prince or chief of evil spirits in a kingdom of evil, not merely an evil spirit operating alone. He is first mentioned in connection with the wilderness temptations of Jesus, where he was in the role of tempter.

William Robinson regarded the wilderness usage as the most significant usage of the concept of Satan in the New Testament, contending that according to such texts Satan is unquestionably real and personal. Satan, “the evil one”, or the devil is mentioned in the parables of the soils and of the tares (Mark 4:15 and par.; Matt. 13:38-39 and par.), in Jesus’ teaching about oaths (Matt. 5:37), and probably in the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:13). Satan/Beelzebub is said mistakenly to be the one casting out demons (Mark. 3:22 and par.).

Satan’s influence on Peter’s messianic understanding seems to be the import of Mark 8:33 and par. In response to the report of the seventy-two Jesus declared: “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18), and he healed a Jewish woman “whom Satan bound for eighteen years” (Luke 13:16). In the context of the last judgment, Jesus referred to “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41b). “Satan entered into Judas” Iscariot for his work of betrayal (Luke 22:3), but Jesus prayed for Simon Peter to counter Satan’s testing of him (Luke 22:31-32).

3. Gospel of John

The term “the devil” is used twice in the Fourth Gospel, when Jesus declared unbelieving Jews to have “the devil” as their “father” (8:44) and when the Evangelist reported the devil’s having prompted Judas to betray Jesus (13:2). The single occurrence of “Satan” pertains to the Satanic entry of Judas when he took the bread at the Last Supper (13:27). Three times the phrase “the ruler of this world” or its shortened form appears: such a ruler “is coming” (14:30), “stands condemned” (16:11), and will “be cast out” (12:31).

4. Acts of the Apostles

The Acts contains four references to Satan or the devil:

  • Peter interrogated Ananias about his Satan-led lying to the Holy Spirit (5:3)

  • In addressing Cornelius and company, referred to Jesus’ healing of those “oppressed by the devil” (10:38)

  • Paul, in speaking to Elymas the magician at Paphos, addressed him as “son of the devil” (13:10)

  • While addressing Herod Agrippa II, Paul referred to the Gentiles as turning “from the power of Satan to God” (26:18)

5. Pauline Epistles

Paul made reference to “Satan” in a variety of contexts:

  • Apostolic travel (1 Thess. 2:18)

  • Aexual incontinence (1 Cor. 7:5)

  • Forgiveness among believers (2 Cor. 2:11)

  • False apostles (2 Cor. 11:14)

  • Paul’s own “thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor. 12:7)

  • God’s victory over Satan (Rom. 16:20)

  • Excommunication (1 Cor. 5:5; 1 Tim. 1:19b, 20)

  • The sins of younger widows (1 Tim. 5:15)

  • The “counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders” (NIV) which will accompany the coming of “the lawless one” (2 Thess. 2:9).

There are four references to “the devil,” as the apostle dealt with anger (Eph. 4:27), resistance to the devil’s “schemes” (Eph. 6:11 ), lack of qualifications for bishops (1 Tim. 3:6), and correction of opponents (2 Tim. 2:26).

Other terms used by the apostle include “the tempter” (1 Thess. 3:5), “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4), “Belia!” (2 Cor. 6:15), “the prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2b), “the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2c), and “the evil one” (Eph. 6:16).

Paul identified idol feasts with the worship of “demons” (1 Cor. 10:14, 20-21) and referred to “principalities,” “powers,” “world rulers of this present darkness,” “spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12).

6. General Epistles

The devil must be resisted by believers (Jas. 4:7b), for he “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking some one to devour” (1 Pet. 5:8b).

Jesus partook of human nature that through his death, he might destroy the devil, who has a death-grip on human beings, and deliver from bondage all those have been lifelong slaves to the fear of death (Heb. 2:14-15)

The angels who sinned were cast into Tartarus and bound in its “gloomy dungeons” (NIV), where they will remain until the last judgment (2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6).

Jude 9 employs the story of the archangel Michael’s “disputing with the devil about the body of Moses”, which had been told in the noncanonical Assumption of Moses.

7. Johannine Epistles

Four times “the devil” is mentioned in 1 John, and five times “the evil one” The one who practices sin, does not practice righteousness, and does not love the Christian brethren belongs to “the children of the devil”.

It was the work of the devil, who had a long record of sinning, that the Son of God came to destroy (3:8, 10).

Cain the murderer was “of the evil one” (3:12), but Christian have “overcome the evil one” (2:13b, 14b), and he cannot harm them (5:18), even though the entire world is under the evil one’s control (5:19)

8. Apocalypse

Four of the seven letters to the churches contain references to “Satan” or “the devil.”

  1. The term “a synagogue of Satan” (2:9; 3:9) may have been a reference to intensive Jewish hostility toward Christians at Smyrna

  2. “Satan’s throne” (RSV) or dwelling-place (2:13) was possibly an allusion to Pergamum as the eastern seat of Caesar-worship, even as the forthcoming imprisonment of Christians was said to be the devil’s doing (2:10)

  3. Presumably the prophetess Jezebel was claiming to teach “the deep things of (the) Satan” (2:24).

The locusts released by the trumpet sound of the fifth angel have as their king Abaddon (Hebrew) or Apollyon (Greek) (9:11), meaning “destruction” or “destroyer.”

Unrepentant humankind does not cease worshipping “demons” and idols (9:20), “the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack” the two witnesses, “overpower and kill them” (11: 7, NIV); and “demonic spirits” coming from the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet help the earth’s kings to prepare for battle (16:14, RSV).

The “dragon” who seeks unsuccessfully to destroy the newborn male child of “the woman” is attacked and defeated in heavenly warfare by Michael and his angels and cast down to earth, only to renew his pursuit of the woman’s child (ch. 12). He is also called “the deceiver of the whole world” (12:9) and “the accuser of our brothers” (12:10b, NIV).

Babylon “has become a dwelling place of demons” (18:2, RSV). Finally, Satan(= “the dragon” = the “ancient serpent” = “the devil”) (12:9; 20:2) will be bound for a thousand years, loosed again briefly, defeated, and cast “into the lake of fire and brimstone” for eternal torment (20:1-10, RSV).

Question

One question remains concerning all these materials: the question of sources. Did and, if so, to what extent did the Israelites, later Jews, and early Christians borrow their concepts of demons or evil spirits and of a chief of all such, Satan or the devil, from non-Hebrew sources?

  • Bernard Jacob Bamberger (1904-80) was favorable to Canaanite origins.

  • Not a few modem scholars have stressed the heavy influence of Persian/Zoroastrian concepts on postexilic Jews and on the New Testament.

  • Others such as Gustav Friedrich Oehler, Heinrich Ewald, Paul Heinisch (1878-1956), William Lawrence Hendricks, and Jeffrey Burton Russell (1934-) have concluded that the concepts had essentially a Hebrew origin. Langton offered a composite answer.

The concept of demons or evil spirits was held by Arab, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Greek peoples and need not be seen as distinctively Hebrew, but the concept of Satan, despite some parallel ideas among the Persians, seems to have been essentially Jewish with Yahwistic monotheism keeping in check dualistic tendencies.

II. THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE#

A. CHURCH FATHERS#

The patristic authors more specifically than the New Testament attributed to the devil false teaching, or heresy.

  • According to Irenaeus, the devil and his associates were spoiled and bound by the strong man, Jesus, who in recapitulation abolished death and perfected human beings after the image of God

  • For Tertullian, the “shows” (circus, theatre, wrestling, gladiatorial games) and cosmetics were instituted by or for the sake of the devil

  • Unlike the other fathers, Origen posited both the fall of rebellious eternal spirits prior to the creation of the material universe and the final restoration of the devil.

Probably the most significant patristic teaching pertaining to Satan was the interpretation of Jesus’ death and resurrection as the payment of a ransom to Satan for the release of humankind.

B. DUALISTIC SECTS#

Satan was usually quite prominent in the teachings of the dualistic movements that flourished between the ninth and the thirteenth centuries. Most of these movements consisted of two branches:

  • The strict dualist, who reckoned Satan to be of indepedent origin and not the creature of God

  • The monarchians, who regarded Satan as the creature or elder Son of God, sometimes called Satanael, or “God’s Satan”.

These included the Paulicians and Thonraki in Armenia and Syria, the Bogomils and Patarenes in Bulgaria, Bosnia, and Hum, and the Cathars in Lombardy, Languedoc, and Provence.

C. MARTIN LUTHER#

Luther, “a thorough-going believer in the existence and activity of the Devil and demons,” presented his “doctrine about the devil on the authority of the Holy Scriptures and in continuity with ecclesiastical tradition.”

  • Luther retained “most of the crude beliefs” common to the Middle Ages and also drew upon his personal experience with the devil in writing about the devil.

  • Luther, according to Paul Althaus, “takes the devil much more seriously than the Middle Ages”; in Reinhold Seeberg’s assessment “Luther added, so to speak, a hellish majesty to the devil.”

Human beings are either in the power of the devil or in God’s power, and only the Holy Spirit can take them from the devil to God. Yet the devil for Luther is still “God’s devil.” Christians must exercise faith and use the Word of God against the devil.

John Calvin’s doctrine of Satan was confined to the biblical teaching and devoid of medieval piety and beliefs.

D. JOHN MILTON#

How closely did Milton draw his Satan according to the Old Testament or the New Testament, and how much did he draw outside the biblical parameters? Scholars continue to deal with that issue.

  • One recently argued that Milton’s Satan had “absorbed” many of the qualities of the mythological Prometheus, including his “aspiration towards new and higher levels of existence” so that we are prone to admire Satan and “his vehement condemnation of civilization.”

  • Another has contended that the “heavenly cycle” or “war in heaven” section of Paradise Lost (1-6, 9) was taken directly from Rev. 12:4, 7-9 and that Milton took the Augustinian view of the binding of Satan for the duration of world history.

E. F.D.E. SCHLEIERMACHER#

Schleiermacher, the father of Liberal Protestant theology, stood at the fountain head of modern doubt about and objection to the Christian doctrine of Satan and evil spirits.

  • First, he raised questions about the how and why of Satan.

How could Satan as a good angel have fallen? How could fallen Satan, if he retained his full natural powers and thus knew the futility of conflict with God, be evil at the same time? If, on the other hand, he lost some of his intelligence, why would he be so dangerous for human beings? Why did other angels follow Satan?

  • Second, Jesus and the apostles did not expound any “new” doctrine or correct any existing doctrine about Satan.

Indeed the New Testament references to Satan were based on Jewish intertestamental writings, not on the Old Testament, and thus Jesus accommodated to such beliefs. The concept of Satan came not by divine revelation, is not connected with the way of salvation, and must not be made a condition of faith in Christ. The Jews actually fused three quite dissimilar ideas about Satan: servant of God in the court of heaven, fall of some of the angels, and the angel of death.

  • Third, since questions about the devil are not essentially soteriological there being no reference to Satan in Rom. 1-8 or J as. 1: 13-14, the topic does not belong to Christian dogmatics but to cosmology and astronomy.

Moreover, ideas about the devil may also have a legitimate place in poetry and hymnology.

  • Fourth, Schleiermacher had some practical considerations.

Demon possession is explicable as an effort to personalize the cause of our evil emotions. Human beings are prone to deny their guilt and to blame the devil, and belief in Satan will rob Christians of the joy of their inheritance in God’s kingdom.

F. DISPENSATIONALISM#

At a time when many Protestants were indifferent toward or had completely rejeceted any belief in Satan, Dispensationalist theologians were giving emphasis to Satan and demons.

G. LUNDENSIAN THEOLOGY#

In Sweden, the Lutheran theological movement associated with the University of Lund, which was characterized by a renewal of emphasis on divine love (agape), in the work of Gustav Aulen asserted that the “classical view” of the saving works of Christ had been that of his victory over sin, death, and Satan and that it ought to be brought to the forefront of twentieth-century theology.

III. CONTEMPORARY VALIDATION AND INTERPRETATION#

Does a doctrine of Satan and evil spirits have a legitimate and proper place in Christian theology in the twenty-first century? If so, what is that place and how can it be established in the face of continuing objections to and deviant understandings of the subjects?

A. AVOIDANCE OF DEPERSONALIZATION#

  1. There is a need to avoid the depersonalization of Satan by reduction of the Satanic to the manifold lusts of humankind, as has been done by the San Francisco-based Church of Satan, founded by Howard Anton Szandor LaVey (1930-97) in 1996.

The basic affirmations made in its The Satanic Bible refer to human lusts and man’s animal nature. Accordingly, Satanism “is a religion of the flesh, the mundane, the carnal - all of which are ruled by Satan”.

  1. There is also the need to avoid the complete depersonalization of Satan and evil spirits by the identification of these with “powerful [evil] social forces and structures” as Paul J. Tilich did in his Systematic Theology

It should by no means be denied that Satan and his forces work in, make use of, or gain control of social structures, for that seems to have been taught in the Apocalypse (Rev. 13); but Satan and evil spirits should not be completely identified as the structures and forces of human society.

B. AVOIDANCE OF NON-CREATION BY GOD#

  1. There is the need to avoid the conclusion that Satan and his associates derived from nothingness or chaos and hence were not created by God, as Karl Barth seems to have taught. It reopens the centuries-old danger of dualism that has “bedeviled” the doctrine of Satan.

According to Barth, “nothingness” (das Nichtige) is a “stubborn” and “alien”, “opposition and resitance to God’s world dominion”. God has set Himself against nothingness, but nothingness is no “demonic monster”.

  1. There is the need to avoid not only the implied or covert dualism of Barth but also the clearly stated and defended dualism - or “triadism” - of Edwin Lewis (1881-1959). Lewis’ theodicy should be seen as no more viable than ancient Zoroastrianism or Manicheeism.

In The Creator and the Adversary, Lewis - a Methodist theologian - insisted on the independent origin of the “Adversary”. Lewis sacrified both God’s creatorship of all and God’s certain sovereignty over all by extending the reality of Satan to the independent existence and self-contained agency of Satan.

C. RECOGNITION OF THE AUTHORITATIVE TESTIMONY OF JESUS#

Present-day Christians need to come to proper conclusions as to the relation of belief in Satan and evil spirits to the teaching and activity of Jesus.

  1. Some would, as Schleiermacher did, interpret Jesus’ references to Satan or the devil in his teaching as a deliberate accommodation to prevailing Jewish beliefs on the part of Jesus.

What this means is that Jesus did not really believe in the reality and activity of the devil and evil spirits but, knowing that many Jews did so believe, merely acquiesced in and gave lip service to such beliefs even if he could not affirm them.

Langton, rejecting such a view, saw in it “a very grave reflection” on Jesus’ “character as a teacher”. A century ago, James Petigru Boyce argued against such accommodation of Jesus on Satan by citing his hard sayings and his opposition to scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees.

  1. Others would, as did Langton, interpret Jesus’ teaching about Satan as part of the limitation of knowledge that inhered in his self-emptying to become human.

According tot this view, Jesus was unaware of any problems about the reality of Satan and evil spirits because he was a real human being set in a given historical context.

Langton’s embracing of the fallibility of Jesus’ teaching in one important area opens the door to other possible fallible teachings and is not compatible with a high view of the authority inherent in the teching of Jesus

  1. Yet others would and do accept the reality of the existence and work of Satan and evil spirits as taught by Jesus and the apostles.

That very acceptance is basic to the fourth and final contemporary consideration.

D. EMPHASIS UPON SATAN VIS-À-VIS THE CHRISTIAN LIFE#

One of the pressing needs of the present is for Christians to correlate their formal beliefs and understandings about Satan with their actual living out of the Christian life. It should be recalled that the major thrust of the references in the New Testament epistles - Pauline, Johnnine, and General - is toward the Christian life. Christians are responsible for resisting and overcoming Satan in their lives, their churches, and their societies in a way that they are not responsible for resolving every possible question about Satan’s origin or his future activity.

Lutheran theologians have been aggressive in reasserting the importance of Satan for contemporary Christianity.

  • Gustav Aulen made a case for the centrality of the Christ as Victor motif for the doctrine of the saving work of Christ, and basic to that motif is the defeat of the devil by Christ through his death and resurrection.

  • James Gus Kallas, Jr. (1928-) has sought to overcome the effects of Bultmanian demythologization and to focus upon Satan in the ministry of Jesus.

More assistance needs to be given to devout and not-so-devout believers in waging the warfare of the Christian life (Eph. 6:10-18) in the consciousness that Christ is the Victor and the Holy Spirit is the Paraclete.