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Devil in Christianity. The Devil (the dragon; on the left) gives to the beast of the sea (on the right) power represented by a sceptre in a detail of panel III.40 of the medieval French Apocalypse Tapestry, produced between 1377 and 1382. In Christianity, the Devil is the personification of evil.
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In the Bible, especially the New Testament, Satan (the Devil) comes to appear as the representative of evil. Enlightenment thinkers endeavoured to push the figure of the Devil out of Christian consciousness as being a product of the fantasy of the Middle Ages. It is precisely in this figure, however, that some aspects of the ways God deals with evil are especially evident. The Devil first appears as an independent figure alongside God in the Hebrew Scriptures. There evil is still brought into a direct relationship with God. Even evil, insofar as it has power and life, is effected by God: “I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe, I am the Lord, who do all these things” (Isaiah 45:7).
In the Book of Job, Satan appears as the partner of God, who on behalf of God puts the righteous one to the test. Only in postbiblical Judaism does the Devil become the adversary of God, the prince of angels, who, created by God and placed at the head of the angelic hosts, entices some of the angels into revolt against God. In punishment for his rebellion, he is cast from heaven together with his mutinous entourage, which were transformed into demons. As ruler over the fallen angels, he continues the struggle against the kingdom of God by seeking to seduce humans into sin, by trying to disrupt God’s plan for salvation, and by appearing before God as a slanderer and accuser of saints, so as to reduce the number of those chosen for the kingdom of God.
Thus, Satan is a creature of God, who has his being and essence from God; he is the partner of God in the drama of the history of salvation; and he is the rival of God, who fights against God’s plan of salvation. Through the influence of the dualistic thinking of Zoroastrian religion during the Babylonian Exile (586–538 bce) in Persia, Satan took on features of a countergod in late Judaism. In the writings of the Qumrān sects (who preserved the Dead Sea Scrolls), Belial, the “angel of darkness” and the “spirit of wickedness,” appears as the adversary of the “prince of luminaries” and the “spirit of truth.” The conclusion of the history of salvation is the eschatological battle of the prince of luminaries against Belial, which ends with judgment upon him, his angels, and people subject to him and ushers in the cessation of “worry, groaning, and wickedness” and the beginning of the rule of “truth.”
In the New Testament the features of an anti-godly power are clearly prominent in the figures of the Devil, Satan, Belial, and Beelzebub—the “enemy.” He is the accuser, the evil one, the tempter, the old snake, the great dragon, the prince of this world, and the god of this world, who seeks to hinder the establishment of God’s dominion through the life and suffering of Jesus Christ. Satan offers to give to Christ the riches of this world if Christ will acknowledge him as supreme lord. Thus, he is the real antagonist of the Messiah–Son of Man, Christ, who is sent by God into the world to destroy the works of Satan.
He is lacking, however, the possibility of incarnation: he is left to rob others in order to procure for himself the appearance of personality and corporeality. As opposed to philanthrōpia, the love of humankind of Christ, who presents himself as an expiatory sacrifice for the sins of humankind out of love for it, Satan appears among early church teachers, such as Basil of Caesarea in the 4th century, as the misanthrōpos, the hater of humanity; vis-à-vis the bringer of heavenly beauty, he is the hater of beauty, the misokalos. With gnosticism (a loose movement of groups that postulated a transcendent god and a lesser, creator god), dualistic features also penetrated the Christian sphere of intuitive vision. In the Letter of Barnabas (early 2nd century), Satan appeared as “the Black One”; according to the 2nd-century apologist Athenagoras, he is “the one entrusted with the administration of matter and its forms of appearance,” “the spirit hovering above matter.” Under the influence of gnosticism and Manichaeism (a syncretistic religion founded by Mani, a 3rd-century Persian prophet), there also followed—based on their dualistic aspects—the demonization of the entire realm of the sexual. This appears as the special temptational sphere of the Devil; in sexual activity, the role of the instrument of diabolic enticement devolves upon woman. Dualistic tendencies remained a permanent undercurrent in the church and determined, to a great extent, the understanding of sin and redemption. Satan remained the prototype of sin as the rebel who does not come to terms with fulfilling his godlikeness in love to his original image and Creator but instead desires equality with God and places love of self over love of God.
Among the early Church Fathers, the idea of Satan as the antagonist of Christ led to a mythical interpretation of the incarnation and disguise in the “form of a servant.” Through this disguise the Son of God makes his heavenly origin unrecognizable to Satan. In some medieval depictions Christ appears as the “bait” cast before Satan, after which Satan grasps because he believes Christ to be an ordinary human being subject to his power. In the Middle Ages a further feature was added: the understanding of the Devil as the “ape of God,” who attempts to imitate God through spurious, malicious creations that he interpolates for, or opposes to, the divine creations.
Dogmatic teachings about the figure of Jesus Christ go back to the faith experiences of the early church, whose faithful recognized the incarnate and resurrected Son of God in the person of Jesus. The disciples’ testimony served as confirmation for them that Jesus really is the exalted Lord and Son of God, who sits at the right hand of the Father a...
Aug 8, 2023 · The short answer: no, not really. In the Hebrew Bible, YHWH’s greatest enemies are not fallen angels commanding armies of demons, nor even the gods of other nations, but, rather, human beings. It isn’t the devil that spreads evil across the face of creation—it is mankind.
Aug 29, 2023 · Learn what the Bible actually says about Satan, or "the devil," and what Christians should know about the enemy of mankind. "Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.
Satan, also known as the Devil, and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an entity in Abrahamic religions that seduces humans into sin or falsehood. In Judaism , Satan is seen as an agent subservient to God , typically regarded as a metaphor for the yetzer hara , or "evil inclination".
Nov 2, 2023 · In Scripture, the term Satan means “adversary.” We know him as the devil. He is a high angelic creature who, before the creation of the human race, rebelled against God and has since battled with human beings and God.
6 days ago · Satan, the prince of evil spirits and adversary of God in the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). Satan is traditionally understood as an angel who rebelled against God and was cast out of heaven before the creation of humankind. He was the catalyst for the fall of humanity.
