The podcast with John Walton brought up some interesting thoughts about who Satan is in both Job and Genesis. I came across this blog that goes into the subject a bit further, and thought it did a good job of looking at Satan or Lucifer in the Old Testament. I am a fuzzy on what that means in looking at Satan in the New Testament, and fuzzy on what that means to us in looking at Satan in our everyday life today. Anyway, a good read, and I would be interested in who Satan is to you, and if you agree with this writer.
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In not sure if this is the appropriate way to tie into this convo, but I hit many of these points in a thread a while back that’s now locked. But I can regurgitate all of it in here.
But I definitely don’t think Satan is Lucifer since Lucifer is just a weird translation for morning star which is better rendered Venus. Lucifer is strictly a KJV mistranslation in my opinion and it was a poem about the fall of a man and refers to to morning star as a man several times. To tie it to a fallen angel even with the eden references just does not seem to fit systematically throughout scripture as a whole.
In the Torah the only fallen angels are the enochian ones at best, and in the New Testament Satan is never actually in hell being punished but roams earth. Satan was not sent to hades ( the grave ) to be punished, then escaped and came to earth to destroy and then gets locked up and eventually judged and cast into hell ( the lake of fire) and destroyed along with the body and souls of the wicked.
So it makes sense that Satan is not the character in question concerning Lucifer.
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It seems John Milton had more to,do with our folk theology of Satan than the Bible at times. The question of whether the devil is our own sinful nature or is a independent entity external to our selves is something I wonder. Many passages support a creature and demons as creatures independent of ourselves, (created by God?) but many passages also could be seen as a figurative representation of our inner sin nature.
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From my studies I have taken the view that the Satan/Devil is a fallen entity that is a trouble maker but not out of God’s control and will be destroyed one day along with all the other fallen entities along with the wicked and be cast into the Lake of Fire and be destroyed forever. the Satan seems to be the top dog (maybe even the leader of them if we wish to keep with tradition) of these fallen entities that have a sense of hostility towards humanity for some reason, either out of jealously for God’s love for humanity or some reason that is beyond our understanding, but regardless, the Satan and his goons hate humanity and are trying to unweave God’s creation. That’s my take on it. The Devil of the OT is not the same person as in the NT but the nature’s are the same though.
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I quite agree that the passage from which the name “Lucifer” is taken has nothing to do with the devil but is about a human king. But a name is just a name and its only function is to label so you can talk about it, and in this case Lucifer is the label for the angel before he became the adversary. And yes, as indicated in Revelation 12, I think the snake in the garden was an arch-angel, leader of a third of the angels in heaven. And I think he was just doing his job to create challenges for living things so that they would learn and grow. But as necessary as challenges are, sometimes those challenged fail, and then nobody looks very kindly upon the source of the challenge. Thus we have the snake named “adversary” (Satan) in the Garden of Eden.
I think he is portrayed with goat-like features because he is ultimately a scapegoat – assigned to this role of personification of evil to make it easier for us to choose between good and evil. But I think the angels are more in the nature of tools, like a computer AIs, than persons with authentic free will – a product of design that will never be more than what God made them to be. So I don’t believe there is any reason for sympathy or concern regarding this thing being destroyed in the end. Or is it murder to dispose of an old computer?
An interesting question i thik is. Why did Satan rebel? Sure he wanted to be God(his creator) but what made him to go from the most loyal and beautiful of all the angelic beigns to the exact opposite of what he was meant to be ?And i think this relates to the original sin. So did “sin” created at that moment when he said he will ascend on the throne of God or sin had existed all this time along and just entered satan?
And my answer is that he didn’t rebel. No such thing happened. And I think the problem with the idea of a rebellion is worse than you think. We are not talking about a being who grows up like we did from a microscopic egg having to learn everything we know and do, but a being who was simply made by God to be as He is, knowing and doing what God made him to know and do. If a being like that rebels then its creator is a bumbling inept failure. So I simply do not believe that any such thing ever happened and we do not see this happening in the Bible either. Instead we see him being assigned to this position of adversary by God Himself as result of Adam and Eve blaming him for their own mistake.
That instantly takes away the free will of him then. So you are false. We are not robots and angels are not as well. . And how we dont see a rebelion? Revelation speaks of a war in heaven. I dont think it was a peaceful gathering
So if thats true God could have avoided to literally create evil but he chose to create it ? So God IS responsible for all the evil ? I refuse to believe that and it is not what the bible tells us
No. I made the difference between us and the angels very clear. We grow from a microscopic egg. Angels do not. We have to learn everything. Angels do not. We are a product of self-organization and choices. Angels are not. Only the angels are created to be and do what God made them to be and do. By growth, learning, and choices, we are participants in our own creation and we keep on learning to become more than we were all the time. That is why we are made in the image of God and the angels are not. For we are infinite potentiality to reflect God’s infinite actuality, and thus capable an eternal parent-child relationship where there is no end to what God gives us and no end to we we can receive and learn from Him. At least that is what we are supposed to be, for there are bad self-destructive habits by which we can refuse to learn. And that is when we are like how Jesus described many as the walking dead.
So unlike the angels, we are not robots, but children. And it is children who can rebel, choosing death rather than life, becoming other than God desires. The war in heaven spoken of in Revelation is after the birth of Christ. Again the purpose is to make our choices clear – which side of this conflict do we want to be on?
God did not create evil. God only created the possibility of evil by creating life with this capability for free will. The explanation for evil in the Bible is given in Genesis 2-3. This idea of evil coming from a war in heaven is from other texts and other religions like Zoroastrianism.
It didnt came from a war. But by saying that Satan wasnt able to “do otherwise” and was going to sin anyway is like telling that God could have destroyed satan or even better not create him at all but he still chose to do it.
But I didn’t say any such thing. The sin was Adam and Eve’s NOT the angel’s. The mistake was ours. Lucifer was just doing his job, and we chose to blame our mistake on him. But power and responsibility go hand in hand. So we cannot assign responsibility for our sins to another without giving him power over us. Thus God assigned Lucifer to a new role, that of adversary – says so right there in Genesis 3.
Of course God can destroy Satan anytime and God will when His providence of salvation is complete. But until then Satan serves a purpose as I have already explained numerous times.
So God created evil and we chose it? Thats what im understanding. God creates Satan(evil) so we can be tested
Incorrect. God created life with free will, and we used that free will to choose death over life.
The truth is that we created Satan by passing the blame for our mistake to him.
Yeah but also created Satan which has not free will and was destined ro be our tester correct? Is something that im not getting here?
God created the angels to help in creation and the creation of life requires challenges because life only develops and grows by overcoming challenges. This is the essence of evolution.
We created an adversary (Satan) when we chose to blame our mistakes on this angel.
So why would Satan be destroyed if its not his fault?It doesnt make sense
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Why destroy our old computers when it is not their fault? It is a nonsensical question.
God gave Lucifer the role of personification of evil because we assigned him the blame, thus giving him power over us. In this way Lucifer contributes to God’s providence and it includes the destruction of evil. Is not the Bible very clear that God has the right to destroy as He chooses. And in this case we are talking not about His children but mere tool.
It makes perfect sense to me.
Well from my small minded perspective it just doesnt seem right. Its like im keeping a hostage for money and when the money cones i kill him anyway. And since God made him with not free will did God made him to tempt Jesus at the desert?
And do you think going to heaven or hell is a matter of how good you are? Do think good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell? Is that what you think?
Satan’s role went from providing challenges for living things to learn and grow, to that of tempter – a subtle difference. But like I explained this was a result of what Adam and Eve did. God then did what was required for our redemption. The responsibility for evil and Satan is ours. So you might as well say that mankind made Satan tempt Jesus in the desert. And in any case. the the lines of free will are not so clear cut. Even a computer AI can behave like it has free will after interacting with humans all the time. It is not real free will but it looks similar – you can say this apparent free will is really just a manifestation of our own free will.