Hope of Israel Ministries (Ecclesia of YEHOVAH):

Satan, the Personal Devil

by Anthony Buzzard

A contemporary of John Thomas, the founder of Christadelphianism, produced a controversial work in 1842 entitled The Devil: A Biblical Exposition of the Truth Concerning That Old Serpent, the Devil and Satan, and a Refutation of the Beliefs Obtaining in the World Regarding Sin and its Source. A critic of this book described it as "a labored attempt to dispose of the existence of the Devil, adding one more proof of the awful fact."

Clearly there is a matter of the greatest importance at stake here. It is tragic that there should still be doubt and division amongst students of the Bible about what the Scriptures mean by the Satan, the Adversary, the Devil, the Serpent, the Tempter.

Alan Eyre's informative book, The Protesters, traces the fascinating history of those who through the centuries have shared the "unorthodox" beliefs of the Christadelphians and groups such as the Church of God of the Abrahamic Faith. These tenets include the firm belief in the future millennial reign of the Messiah on earth, in the mortal soul, the sleep of the dead, in one God the Father, the rejection of the Trinity, and the refusal to take part in war. It is however very remarkable that Eyre was able to find only two references to the extraordinary belief that Satan in the Bible refers to the evil in human nature, and not to a personal being.

It is a fact that the believer in the non-personality of Satan must hold that belief against practically all of his brethren who share with him a rejection of traditional dogmas. The works of Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, spokesmen for the Church in the second century, show no Trinitarianism in the later, Chalcedonian sense (though they do not retain belief in the fully human Messiah of the New Testament); they contain no belief in the survival of the soul in heaven after death, nor in an eternal hell-fire of conscious suffering; they are also strongly pre-millenarian. The notion that Satan is not a personal being, however, is utterly foreign to their writings. This would mean that Irenaeus, the "grand pupil" of John the Apostle, through Polycarp, had gone badly astray on this major point: the proper understanding of Satan. Is such a proposition credible?

It will be our purpose to show that it is not only most unlikely on any reasonable view of the history of doctrine; but, more important, the non-personal Devil idea is based on an unjustifiable treatment of Scripture. It is a dangerous mistake, divisive in its effects, and liable to cast doubt on the credibility of its exponents as responsible teachers of the Bible. It is an error, however, which can be corrected, provided there is a willingness to lay aside tradition and examine the matter carefully, if necessary over an extended period of time.

There is no doubt that the popular medieval Devil, with pitchfork and stoking the fires of hell, is a caricature of the scriptural Devil. We must, however, guard against the natural tendency to jump from one extreme to another and attempt to do away with the personal Devil of the Bible. If that personal Devil exists, nothing will please him more than to have his existence denied by those exponents of Scripture who have seen through the mistaken teachings of "orthodoxy."

To say that the Trinity, in the popular sense, is not in the Bible is in fact only to say what numerous scholars admit. To proclaim the future millennial reign of the Messiah is to echo the opinions of the first 250 years of Christianity and of many noted theologians of all ages. To deny the immortality of the soul is to align oneself with scores of scriptural experts from all denominations. To deny that the Satan (i.e. Satan as a proper name) is an external being in Scripture, is, however, virtually unknown in the history of exegesis. Such a situation demands an explanation which will fit the facts of history as well as the facts of the Bible.

I have examined in detail scores of tracts written by Christadelphians and discussed the question at great length with their leading exponents. One very important fact emerges from these studies: the exponents of "non-personality" constantly blur the difference between a satan and the Satan. On this unfortunate blunder, the whole misunderstanding about the meaning of the word "Satan" is built. No one will deny that there are occurrences in the Old Testament of the term "satan" where a human adversary is intended, just as in the New Testament diabolos (devil) can occasionally refer to human accusers (1 Timothy 3:11). The question we are facing is what is meant by the Satan or the Devil in Job and Zechariah and some sixty times in the New Testament (not to mention numerous other references to the Satan under a different title: i.e. the Serpent, Revelation 12:9; 20:2, or Belial, 2 Corinthians 6:15).

When Matthew introduces the terms "Kingdom of God" and "Kingdom of Heaven," he assumes that his readers are familiar with these phrases. When he speaks of "the Devil" (Matthew 4:5) and "the Tempter" (v. 3), he uses a title well recognized by his readers. He nowhere speaks of a tempter or an accuser. If we realize the importance of the definite article "the" here, our subject can be clarified without further difficulty. The celebrated New Testament Greek authority, Dr. A. T. Robertson, states:

"The [definite] article is never meaningless in Greek...The article is associated with gesture and aids in pointing out like an index finger... Whenever the Greek article occurs, the object is certainly definite." [1]

Thus "a savior" may be one of many saviors, but "the Savior" means the one and only Savior. An "ecclesia" is an assembly of people gathered for many different reasons (Acts 19:32, 39, 41). But no one would consider confusing this with the Church, meaning the totality of true believers. Similarly, the Satan, the Devil, the Tempter is that well-known Satan not requiring definition, because the writer knows that his readers understand who is meant. Will anyone deny that "a book" carries a very different meaning from "the book"?

It will be instructive to see how Christadelphian literature confuses the issue from the start:

"The word Satan...simply means an adversary, as will be evident to the least instructed from the following instances of its use: 'The LORD stirred up an adversary (a 'satan') unto Solomon, Hadad the Edomite' (1 Kings 11:14). 'Lest in battle he (David) be an adversary to us' (1 Samuel 29:4)...

"There are New Testament instances, such as where Jesus addresses Peter as 'Satan,' when he opposes Christ's submission to death (Matt. 16:23); where Pergamos, the headquarters of the enemies of truth is described as Satan's seat (Rev. 2:13). Now if Satan means adversary we will read the Scriptures intelligently if we read adversary wherever we read Satan." [2]

Unfortunately, however, Mr. Roberts has misled us by introducing the quotation from Revelation 2:13 without any indication of the fact that the text says that "the Satan" (not "a satan") has his seat or throne there. [3] The Satan is very different from the indefinite adversaries ("satans") cited from the Old Testament.

The fundamental error is now established and the argument proceeds on the false premise: "The trial of Jesus is usually cited in opposition to our conclusions. The great feature of the narrative relied upon is the application of the word 'devil' to the tempter: but this proves nothing. If Judas could be a devil, and yet be a man, why may the tempter of Jesus not have been a man? His being called 'devil' proves nothing" (Ibid., p, 19).

What we are not allowed to see is that the tempter of the Messiah is not called a devil; he is called the Devil (Matthew 4:5, 8, etc.), that is, the one and only Devil we all know. The Christadelphian argument continues with the basic error entrenched: "'Devil' proves that it was one who busied himself to subvert Jesus from the path of obedience. Who it was it is impossible to say because we are not informed" (p. 19).

The average reader of the book of Job and of the temptation accounts in Matthew and Luke will find it very difficult to believe that the Satan who acted as the Tempter was an unknown human being, as Christadelphians propose. John Thomas and his followers, despite their invaluable work of biblical exposition on other subjects, have regrettably distorted the Scripture by doing away with the definite article. This we dare not do. The Satan, the adversary, is the external personality who tempted the Messiah and Job. A tragic mistake was made by Roberts when he wrote, "Why may not the tempter of Jesus have been a man? His being called 'devil' proves nothing." He was not, however, called 'devil,' but the Devil. Roberts has effaced the word "the" from the text, and by implication from the sixty or more occurrences of the Satan and the Devil throughout the New Testament.

When a group of Bible students arrive at the same conclusion but cannot agree amongst themselves on the arguments upon which the conclusion is built, there is usually cause for suspicion that the conclusion is faulty. They are accepting the creed because it has been dictated to them by their leader. They have very probably always believed the tenets of the group. They have not personally examined the arguments in detail, very often because they have had so little exposure to contrary points of view and have never been challenged. They may accept the excellent truths taught by their founder and in their enthusiasm swallow an error as part of "the package." We are all prone to make this mistake. YEHOVAH God requires of us a passionate desire to know the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:10); we must stand personally responsible before Him for everything we teach as "the oracles of God."

The Christadelphians are unable to agree about the identity of the Tempter of the Messiah. Most contemporary Christadelphians insist that the Messiah was talking to himself in the wilderness. Apart from the difficulty which this raises about the sinlessness of our lord, it is arbitrary in the extreme to say that when Matthew reports that "the Tempter came up to Jesus and spoke" (Matthew 4:3), he meant that the Messiah's own mind produced twisted versions of the Scriptures. Matthew ends the description of the temptation by saying that "the Devil departed and angels came up to him to minister to him" (Matthew 4:11).

On what principle of interpretation can we justify taking the words "came up to him" in two totally different senses in the same paragraph? Where in Scripture does human nature come up to a person and speak, and hold an extended conversation? It is most unnatural to think that the Messiah invited himself to fall down before himself and worship himself! If the departure of Satan means the cessation of human nature's temptation of the Messiah, why may not the arrival of the angels be no more than the comfort of the spirit of YEHOVAH God within him?! Can anyone fail to see that the treatment of Scripture which the Christadelphians propose in this passage involves the overthrow of the plain meaning of language?

Some Christadelphians in the past were rightly indignant that anyone could suggest that the Messiah was tempted in the wilderness by his own mind. One Christadelphian wrote:

"Some think that the devil in the case of the temptation was Christ's own inclination; but this is untenable in view of the statement that 'when the devil had ended all the temptations, he departed from him for a season.' It is also untenable in view of the harmony that existed between the mind of Christ and the will of the Father (John 8:29). It might be added also that it is untenable because a tempter or devil, i.e. one who attempts to seduce to evil, is invariably a sinner (Matt. 18:7, RSV) whether it is oneself or another...

"[This is] illustrated also in Mark 4:19: 'The lusts of other things entering in choke the word.' Lusts, then, that 'enter in' and 'draw away' (James 1:14), being not legitimate desires...are forbidden and therefore sin. Jesus was not thus 'drawn away' or inclined from the right and consequently could not have been the devil or 'satan' in the case. The devil was obviously a sinner who aimed to divert Jesus from the path of obedience and wrested the Scriptures (Ps. 91:11-12) in the attempt.

"So that those who believe that Jesus himself was the 'devil' and Satan [i.e. fellow Christadelphians] make him a sinner, their protestations notwithstanding." [4]

It is remarkable that the numerous attempts of the Christadelphians to explain away the personal Devil nearly always avoid a detailed analysis of Matthew 4, the temptation story. It should be obvious to any reader of the passage (it has been clear to millions of readers over the ages!) that an external person tempted the Messiah; and that external person was called the Tempter, the Devil, the Satan. The use of the article means only that it is "the Devil we all know about." (To suggest, as some Christadelphians do, that it was the High Priest is a desperate evasion!) Scripture likewise speaks of "the Jesus" (with the definite article in Greek), that is, "the Jesus we all know." If the Devil is well-known in Matthew's mind, we must go to the Old Testament, the intertestamental Jewish literature, and to the rest of the early Christian literature of the New Testament to find out what was meant by the personal name "Satan."

There is not a single reference in the Old Testament to Satan as an internal tempter. The Serpent in Genesis was clearly not Eve's human nature! It was an external personality who spoke and reasoned with refined subtlety (cp. Revelation 12:9; 20:2). Likewise "satans" of the Old Testament (without the definite article "the") who provided opposition were invariably external persons. It is therefore amazing that anyone would propose that the Devil of Matthew 4 (where the term occurs for the first time in the New Testament) is an internal "person," i.e. the Messiah's human nature. The suggestion imposes an alien idea upon Scripture. Moreover, the "spiritualizing" method of exegesis necessary to obscure the fact that a real person came up to the Messiah and spoke to him will, if applied elsewhere, render the whole biblical account meaningless. This very technique has been successfully used by the churches to do away with the millennial Kingdom of the Coming Age.

It is proper that we establish our understanding of biblical terms both from the evidence of Scripture as a whole and from sources current at the time of the Messiah. We have ample evidence, for example, of "the Kingdom of God" referring to the future Messianic reign. We know from Matthew 4 that "the Devil" cannot be human nature; no such idea is to be found in the Old Testament. Nor can the Devil be an unknown human being. The presence of the definite article, which the Christadelphians have been keen to drop, forbids us to understand the Satan as an unknown person. The fact that Matthew introduces the Satan as well known to his readers shows that we must connect him with the external Satan of Job, Zechariah 3, and 1 Chronicles 21:1 (where Hebrew scholars take the reference to be a proper name).

It would be hard indeed to think that the Satan who appears amongst the sons of God (whom the book of Job identifies as angels: Job 38:7) and can "walk around on the earth" (Job 1:7), call down fire from heaven, generate whirlwinds and inflict Job with boils, was a human being. Was the Satan appearing opposite the angel of the LORD a man? (Zechariah 3). Where in these passages is there the faintest hint that the Satan means human nature? And in the New Testament, on what principle shall we say that the "prince of this world," "the father of lies," "the original Serpent," "the god of this age," "the roaring lion going around to destroy Christians," "the one who shoots darts at us" is internal human nature?

The idea that these are personifications and not a person is an invention created by liberal Protestants of the 19th century, who rejected the supernatural and whose philosophy did not allow them to admit a spiritual personality in opposition to God. But man is in opposition to God. Why not a fallen angel? It is the teaching of the New Testament that Satan is an angel of darkness. Paul describes him as transformed into an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). A word study on the verb Paul used ("metaschematizetai") will show that Satan changes his outward appearance to masquerade as an angel of light. He is by inward nature an angel, but he changes himself into an angel of light by an external transformation. Only an angel can become an angel of light by this means. Paul states the belief, common to his contemporaries, that Satan is an angel, albeit a fallen one.

The Christadelphian treatment of the temptation accounts is all the more bewildering in view of the fair principles of exegesis they use elsewhere. The fact is that they arrive at Matthew 4 having decided that there cannot be a supernatural Devil. It is then impossible that he should be found there. To avoid him, they must embark on a method of interpretation which distorts the biblical text. This will be illustrated from The Mystery of Iniquity Explained: Biblical Exposition of the Devil by Lyman Booth (1929). [5]

The author lets us know at the outset the technique he proposes to employ, with his comment on Mark 1:13: "Jesus was in the wilderness forty days being tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild animals, and the angels were ministering to him." The "wild animals," Booth tells us, "represent the animal feelings in man's nature" (p. 174). He then suggests as a method of interpretation that "no passage of Scripture can be interpreted partly literally and partly spiritually. If it is to be literally understood, it must be literally understood throughout; if it is to be spiritually understood, it must be spiritually understood throughout" (p. 183).

However, he undermines his own good principle by admitting that the Messiah was literally in the wilderness though the temptations were figurative (p. 184). (By "figurative" he presumably means that the temptations did not involve an external person.) The Messiah's appetite created an "impulse" within him (p. 185). "The self-principle, the desire principle in the Christ when he felt hungry suggested at once what was a truth, surely, seeing thou art the Son of God 'command that these stones be made bread.' This state of mind was the Devil that tempted Christ" (p. 187).

Booth goes on to speak of the "falsely accusing principle, figuratively represented by the Devil" (p. 189). "Hence the whole passage is merely a figurative description of the result of the mental examination of the prevalent worldly system...The Devil leaves him that is, these states of mind cease to trouble him; he had gained the victory, and angels, i.e. messengers came and ministered unto him" (p. 190). "Hence the better view of the trials is that which regards them as mental scenes...The whole account of the trial of our Lord admits of an easy, clear and conclusive explanation when viewed figuratively as a picture of the thoughts that passed through his mind in the survey of this great struggle" (p. 191). He then goes on to speak of the "absurdity connected with the belief in the Devil; the atheistical tendency of such a belief in a devil...If there is a God there cannot be a devil" (p. 195).

We must note that the method of interpretation proposed by Booth himself is abandoned. He admits that the Messiah was literally in the wilderness and that angels came to him and ministered to him. These facts he dare not treat figuratively.

The question that must be asked is: Why should the phrase "came up to him" (Matthew 4:3) mean the onset of thoughts within him, when exactly the same phrase "came up to him" (v. 11) means a literal approach of angels? The method used by Booth is bewildering and arbitrary. In the single sentence "the Devil left him and angels came up to him" (v. 11), the first half of the sentence is taken figuratively to mean the end of temptation in the mind of the Messiah, and the second half is literally true! This is in contradiction to Booth's own principle of consistency, quoted above.

The proper and commonsense method is surely to compare the phrase "came up to him" in 4:3 with Matthew's use of the same phrase elsewhere, and then with the use of the same words in the New Testament as a whole. (In deciphering poor handwriting, we look for other occurrences of an obscure letter to see how it fits in different contexts.) In Matthew 8:2 a leper "came up to him"; in 8:5 a centurion "came up to him"; in 8:19 a scribe "came up to him"; and in 24:3 the disciples "came up to him." In Acts 22:27 "the commander came up to" Paul and spoke. The words in the original text in all these cases and scores of others throughout the New Testament are exactly the words used of the approach of the Satan to the Messiah.

In no case in the Bible are these words used of thoughts arising in the mind. This will suffice to show that the "figurative" view of "came up to him" in Matthew 4:3 has no parallel anywhere in Scripture. No lexicon known to me will allow a figurative meaning for the phrase in question. The theory that no one approached the Messiah in the wilderness temptation is a private one, which has simply been imported by ascribing to words meanings which they cannot bear. This involves a revolution in language which if applied elsewhere will effectively overthrow every fact stated in the New Testament.

We must examine briefly the passage in Jude 9 which describes Satan in conflict with the archangel Michael. The ordinary reader has no difficulty in understanding that the archangel Michael is the archangel Michael. Not so the Christadelphians. Booth embarks on a complex explanation which is all the more misleading because of the confidence with which it is presented. To explain Jude 9, he refers us to Zechariah 3, where he says Satan is Tatnai. Tatnai (Tattenai) opposed the rebuilding of the Temple in the days of Joshua the high priest. Booth says,

"Referring to this event [in Zechariah 3] Jude says: 'Yet Michael, the Archangel, when contending with the Devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, and dared not bring against him a railing accusation, but said "The LORD rebuke thee."' Here Tatnai is represented as 'the devil' because he falsely accused the Jews...The 'body of Moses' is merely the Jewish church, and the disputation regarding the body is the disputation regarding the building of the Temple for the Mosaic system of worship. Thus the passage in Jude which has been the cause of much perplexity becomes easily intelligible...As Michael, the chief messenger, did not rebuke Satan, but said 'The LORD rebuke thee,' so it was in the case of Joshua" (p. 101­102).

On page 76 he states boldly, "It is evident that Michael, the chief messenger, and also the false-accuser (Satan) were individual HUMAN BEINGS" (capitals his).

A less intelligible explanation would be hard to imagine. It is evident, says Booth, that Michael, the archangel, is a human being. Is it evident that the angel Gabriel is a human being? It is evident to Booth that Joshua in Zechariah 3 is Michael, the archangel, in Jude 9! Booth has not noted that in Zechariah, the LORD said "the LORD rebuke you." In Jude, Michael the archangel uttered the same words. Will this mean then that the LORD is Michael and Joshua?! There is no good evidence for equating the two passages, much less for equating the high priest Joshua with the archangel Michael!

To propose that Michael the archangel is Joshua the high priest is unprecedented. 1 Thessalonians 4:16 provides the only other occurrence of the word "archangel," and no one suggests that he is a human being! If we consult contemporary Jewish writings (Jude himself quotes from the book of Enoch), we find a reference to the dispute over the body of Moses which means Moses' body -- in the Targum of Jonathan on Deuteronomy 34:6, and a reference in the church father, Origen, to the Ascension of Moses in which the story of a dispute over his body occurs.

The event was clearly well known to Jude's readers and needed no explanation. The mention of Satan in opposition to an archangel is further proof of Satan's reality as a supernatural being, and this is confirmed beyond any doubt by Revelation 12:7 where a war occurs in heaven between Michael and his angels and Satan and his angels. To explain these passages away, in an effort to suppress the scriptural evidence for Satan as an angelic being, is strongly discouraged by Revelation 22:19 which warns us not to "take away from the words of the book of this prophecy."

Surely a method of interpretation which entails equating the archangel Michael with Joshua is self-condemned. The desperation involved in the Christadeiphian treatment of Jude 9 should point to the weakness of their whole theory about Satan.

It is customary for Christadelphians to dismiss the New Testament demon terminology as mere terms bearing no relation to the idea behind them. Thus, it is said, we talk of "lunacy" without necessarily believing in the power of the moon to produce madness. A moment's thought will reveal that the use of the word "lunacy" is in no way a parallel to the elaborate use of demon terminology in the New Testament. The New Testament records speak of demons entering and leaving their victims. They carefully differentiate between disease and demon possession (Mark 1:32; 6:13; Luke 6:18). The same outward disease may be attributed to natural causes in one case and to demon possession in another (compare Matthew 4:24 with 17:15, and 12:22 with Mark 7:32). As Smith's Bible Dictionary (1893) says,

"Can it be supposed that [the Messiah] would sanction, and the Evangelists be permitted to record forever, an idea in itself false, which has constantly been the very stronghold of superstition? Nor was the language used such as can be paralleled with mere conventional expression. There is no harm in our `speaking of certain forms of madness as lunacy, not thereby implying that we believe the moon to have, or to have had, any influence on them...but if we begin to describe the cure of such as the moon's ceasing to afflict them, or if a physician were solemnly to address the moon, bidding it to abstain from injuring his patient, there would be here a passing over to quite a different region...

"There would be that gulf between our thoughts and words in which the essence of a lie consists. Now Christ does everywhere speak such language as this' (Trench, On Miracles). In the face of this mass of evidence it seems difficult to conceive how the theory [of accommodation to the language of the time] can be reconciled with anything like truth of Scripture. We may fairly say that it would never have been maintained, except on the supposition that demoniacal possession was in itself a thing absolutely incredible, and against all actual experience."

In Mark 9:20 Mark deliberately writes that it was the demon who saw the Messiah coming. The demon is given personality with a masculine participle: "When the spirit saw him..."

The believer in no personal Satan is invited to reread the passages of Scripture referring to Satan, the Devil, the Tempter, etc., allowing the word angel to mean angel, and "come up to" to mean what it says. It will be found that there is a united scriptural testimony to an external, evil invisible being and his demons. Ultimately the arguments used to suppress the facts about Satan will equally obscure the evidence of the true God. Both are clearly presented in Scripture. Only the prolonged holding of a traditional view to the contrary will make the scriptural doctrine of Satan difficult. The Church of God cannot afford to be uncertain on an issue as fundamental as this.

Footnotes:

[1] A Grammar of the Greek New Testament, p. 756.

[2] Robert Roberts, The Evil One, p. 12.

[3] In Greek "tou satana" and "o satanas"

[4] The "Devil" and "Satan" Scripturally Considered, by E.J.R.M., p. 14-15.

[5] The source is Church of God Abrahamic Faith (Church of God General Conference) but the reasoning is also Christadelphian.

 -- Edited by John D. Keyser.