Your Adversary, the Devil: Part 2*
1 Peter 5:8
What is Satan and Where Did He Come From?
Considering Satan's Origins
By Dave Redick

Although Satan is called by the Bible at one point, "the god of this world," and although he seems to have the audacity to take on God Almighty, he is not deity. It is very important that we understand this.

No, I haven’t left the Lord and started preaching Satan. I’m reading text from a website called, "Kids and Teens for Satan."(1) I do it so that you can be reminded of the spiritual struggle that goes on for our souls even as I speak. I do not agree with the content. Neither do I endorse it in any way. As I read on, I think the intent of the website will be clear. It continues…

I’ll stop there. Reading this thing is giving me the creeps!!

Last Lord’s Day I brought you a message called, "No One Believes in Me Anymore." It was a sermon about the existence of Satan. I want to continue our look at our adversary, Satan, this morning by considering two questions: What is Satan and where did he come from?

It is very important that we realize that:

1. Satan is Not Deity.

Although Satan is called by the Bible at one point, "the god of this world," and although he seems to have the audacity to take on God Almighty, he is not deity. It is very important that we understand this. The "god of this world" statement in 2 Corinthians 4:4 is only a figure of speech that means that Satan is worshipped and obeyed by the majority of inhabitants of this world. It is akin to the statement in Philippians 3:19 that says, "whose god is their appetite." Appetites aren’t deity. Neither is Satan. The expression simply means that people put their own desires before other things.

Satan is not deity. Deity is omnipotent, that is, all powerful. The God of heaven is called "God Almighty" in seven places in the Bible.(2) Genesis 17:1 says, "I am God Almighty, walk before Me and be blameless." Job 42:2 tells us that the God of heaven can "do all things" and that no purpose of His can be thwarted. Satan is never referred to that way, nor is he ever assigned that much power by Scripture. On the contrary, according to Revelation 20:2, Satan can be "bound." In fact, Revelation 20:10 tells us that he will ultimately be thrown in to the Lake of Fire against his wishes. Satan is not omnipotent so he is not deity.

Deity is eternal. Romans 16:26 refers to God the Father as "the eternal God."(3) Revelation 1:8 says that He is the One who "is and who was and who is to come." God the Father was not created but rather, He "created all things" according to Revelation 4:11. If God created everything, then at some point He must have created Satan. (We’ll have more to say about that later.) Thus, Satan isn’t deity because he isn’t eternal. He had a beginning.

Deity is also omnipresent that is, all places at once. David, the psalmist, said in Psalm 139 that there is no place anywhere that you can go that God is not there already.(4) Revelation 12:7-9 speaks of a time when Satan was thrown out of heaven and down to earth. That could not happen to a being that is everywhere at once. Satan doesn’t possess the characteristic of omnipresence. He isn’t deity.

Deity is omniscient, that is, all-knowing. Job 37:16 says that God is perfect in knowledge. Psalm 147:5 says that His understanding is infinite. By contrast, there are things that Satan doesn’t know. I think of the two demon possessed men who came out of the tombs of Gadara to meet Jesus. They said to Him, as recorded in Matthew 8:29, "What do we have to do with You, Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?" If Satan were all knowing, they could have gotten the answer to their question by asking him. They would have known what why Jesus was there.

Omnipotence, eternality, omnipresence, and omniscience are all characteristics of deity. God has all of them. Satan has none of them. Satan is not deity.

2. Satan is a Created Being.

We have seen that Satan is not eternal. Thus we can only conclude that he has a Creator. There was a time in the past when Satan didn’t exist and only God did. Therefore, God must have created him.

Paul, speaking of the deity of God the Son, made this statement in Colossians 1:16: "For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-- all things have been created by Him and for Him." "All things" would certainly include Satan.

Of course that raises a curious question: In ten passages of the New Testament, Satan is called "the evil one." So was Satan created evil? And if so, can it be charged that God, in creating Satan, created evil? To the contrary, I believe the Bible teaches us that:

3. Satan was Created as Good.

That statement has the potential to be controversial, but I believe it's true. Let me tell you why. 

In the Genesis 1 account of the creation of the world, it says in verse 31, that at the conclusion of the sixth day of creation, "God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good."

In the very next verse, Genesis 2:1, the Bible says, "Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, along with all their hosts." No creating was done after the sixth day. The very next verse, Genesis 2:2 says, "[God] rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.’ Things were complete and things were, as we already read, "very good." Thus, if God created all things during the first six days and ceased creating on the seventh day, the only conclusion open to us is that God created Satan at some point during the first six days and he (Satan) was created as "good." Whatever Satan may be now, at his creation, he was good.

If God didn’t create Satan as evil, then it is only reasonable to conclude that at some point after he was created, Satan became evil.

Though the Bible does not say it directly in any specific passage that can be surely attributed to Satan, I believe it is reasonable to conclude that:

4. Satan is probably an Angel Who Rebelled Against God.

No single passage declares this. Nevertheless, there are some compelling reasons to reach this conclusion.

It appears to me that angels existed prior to the creation of the earth, created perhaps, very early on the very first day of the six day creation. I say this because Job 38:4-7 speaks of certain beings called the "Sons of God" rejoicing when God laid the foundations of the earth. That passage says,

Surely "the sons of God" mentioned here are not humans, because humans were not created until the sixth day, Adam having been the "first man."(5)

Since we have already seen that God pronounced everything in his creation as being "very good" at the end of day six, my assumption is that the angels were created "good."

Good, yes, but not perfect – and not without the freedom of choice. Angels are capable of sin, just as humans are.

In Job 4:18, Eliphaz, one of Job’s dubious "comforters" made this statement: "He [God] puts no trust even in His servants;

And against His angels He charges error." If we read that in its context, Eliphaz was making the point that though Job insisted that he was innocent, not even God’s angels could make such a claim because God charges them with error or "folly" as the KJV puts it. If angels can be charged with "error" or "folly," then they’re not perfect. At least some of them have sinned.

That angels have sinned is verified in 2 Peter 2:4, where Peter declared that, "…God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment…." At least some angels, at some point in the past, sinned, and were cast out of heaven and into hell ["Tartarus" – used only here] to wait for judgment.

How might angels have sinned so as to be cast into Tartarus? Jude 6 says that, "…angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day."

Apparently there were, at some time in the past, certain angels that sinned by not keeping their proper "domain." The Greek word there is arkay, a word that implies a position of rank or power. They abandoned their rank or position. The Today’s English Version says they "did not stay within the limits of their proper authority…." What do we call it today when someone steps beyond his or her rank to challenge the authority above them? We call it insurrection or sedition. We call it revolt or mutiny. At some point in the past, certain angels revolted against the authority over them. They rebelled against God.

Looking elsewhere now, in Matthew 12:24, the Pharisees called the devil the "ruler of the demons." Jesus tells us in Matthew 25:41 that among those who will be cast into the Lake of Fire are "the devil and his angels." These angels (or demons) along with their ruler, Satan, are cast into the Lake of Fire because of their sin against God. The fair conclusion is that Satan is the leader of a group of angels (now called demons) who rebelled against God, were cast out of heaven, and will ultimately spend eternity in the Lake of Fire. It is probably reasonable to conclude that Satan was the leader of this rebellion since he was and continues to be the leader of those angels (demons) who oppose God.

According to 1 John 3:4, sin occurs when God’s law is broken. What law did these sinning angels break? Not the Law of Moses, because we find Satan at work opposing God in Genesis 3, long before Moses received the Law. And not the law of Christ,(6) for the same reason. So what law did these angels break? Apparently it was whatever law that God gave them that established their proper rank and order. There may have been more to it than that, but that’s all we know.

When did this rebellion of angels take place? There is no passage that says specifically. I seems reasonable to me that it happened after the six day creation (remember, at that point everything was still "good") but before the fall of man that is described in Genesis 3.

Whatever and whenever we conclude, we know that Satan is a created being. He is not deity. He possesses neither omnipotence, omnipresence, or omniscience. He is probably an angel who rebelled against God, perhaps who even led a rebellion against God and was thrown out of heaven.

I’ll make one final point in this message, then we’ll close until we can take this subject up again.

I say that because angels cannot die. Jesus said so in Luke 20:34-36:

Angels are immortal, according to these verses. If Satan is a fallen angel, and I have shown you why it is reasonable to believe that, then he, too, is immortal.

Note that I said "immortal." I did not say "eternal." God is eternal. He has neither beginning nor end. Satan, like the angels, had a beginning – thus we use the word "immortal" and not "eternal."

Perhaps you have puzzled over those sobering words in Revelation 20:10: "And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever."

This verse could not be true if, at some point, Satan would go out of existence. But as I said, Satan is immortal. He cannot die.

Sometimes people ask why hell must be eternal. Why would a God of love create a place of eternal punishment? At least a part of the answer is that Satan and his angels are eternal creatures. They have sinned against God in grave manner. They cannot die. Thus, their punishment is eternal.

I’ll have more to say on this subject in the near future, Lord willing.

While our adversary, the devil, is not as powerful as God is (remember, he isn’t deity) he is certainly far more powerful than we are. It appears that he was created as an angel of God. Angels are powerful beings. Not only is he powerful as a created angel, but he commands other fallen angels who are also very strong. And they are immortal. That means that they have been around since their creation and they’ve had plenty of time to learn how to overcome human beings. There is absolutely no way that you or I could ever stand against them without God’s help.

Thankfully we have that help. The apostle John put it this way in 1 John 4:4: "…Greater is He who is in you [God] than he who is in the world [Satan]."

If you’re going to stand, therefore, you’re going to need to live close to God. That is what we in this church are all about. We want to live close to God and we want to encourage others to do the same. We believe the message of the Bible. We believe its warnings and its provisions. We believe that it is senseless to say we believe these things and then live like the don't exist or they aren't true. We believe that our greatest enemy today is this being called Satan and we know we need God’s help to stand against him.

If you came here today looking only for light-hearted entertainment and a good time, you probably came to the wrong place. With issues as serious as our powerful adversary, it just doesn’t make sense to spend our time playing church. So we’re dead serious here. If you’d like to join us in the serious pursuit of God and the salvation He offers, and are willing to pledge your life to Jesus Christ, we’d love to have you join us.

Footnotes: Use your "back" button to return to your place.

1. http://www.angelfire.com/empire/serpentis666/Kids.html
2. Genesis 17:1; 28:3; 35:11; 43:14; 48:3; Exodus 6:3; Ezekiel 10:5
3. Also Deuteronomy 33:27
4. Psalm 139:7-12
5. 1 Corinthians 15:45
6. 1 Corinthians 9:21; Galatians 6:2

*Links to all sermons in this series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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