I have been wondering if the Bible contains any passage where the creation of satan is mentioned??? The Isaiah passage about lucifer which many denote as satan in context is actually referring to nebuchadnezzar and babylonian rulers. The passage in Ezekiel is referring to king or prince of Tyre. The serpent in Genesis is often said to be satan possessing the serpent or taking on a form of a serpent. The word for satan- ha’satan is not used here though. All the passages where satan is used mean adversary. All the ones where devil is used mean accuser. I know in passages like Matthew 25 where the devil and his angels is used, many take that to refer to the head fallen angel satan and his followers, same in Revelation. None of these passages show satan created, rebelling against God in heaven and being cast out with other fallen angels. Also, who is being referred to when the statement is made, * you are like your father the devil who was a murderer from the beginning*??

I don’t think it does, Robert. Personally, I think the Isaiah and Ezekiel passages can very credibly be taken as double entendre’, but other than that, no. The devil is the adversary, the accuser, the father (source) of lies. Satan (the satan) also means adversary or accuser, I’m told. I confess I haven’t looked it up, though. So if what you’re asking is, “Is there a literal personal devil, or is he just an anthropomorphic personification?”, then I guess you just have to come to your own conclusions.

Me, I’m not entirely certain. I don’t know that it matters to us, to how we live. There’s always the battle with the adversary within ourselves to be waged. We have to trust in our defender, our savior from sin, to win that battle. We don’t have the strength to do that. THIS is, to me, the battle we face. Whether or not there is a literal personal devil and demons, the casting out of demons appears to have positive effects on many people. Is it the casting down of their internal demons, or the casting out of literal spiritual entities? I don’t know. If it works for them, I’m not sure it matters. It may be a way of thinking about matters that, while perhaps juvenile, is yet freeing. Or it may be a more or less accurate picture of what is in fact happening in the spiritual world.

I see no reason there should NOT be a literal devil and his minions. We do live in a spiritual world, though all we SEE is the (less real–ask a quantum physicist) world of matter. The things that we see are not made of things that are visible. Not even theoretically visible, like tiny atoms, quarks, etc., but literally NOT visible, because if you look at them, they are no longer the things they were, but, as it were, declinations of those things. If there is a spiritual world at all, there very well could be spiritual beings (angelic and demonic even) of whom we know very little. Just because our word “angel” means messenger, that doesn’t mean the messengers of whom we speak could NOT be spiritual as well as material beings. Certainly human beings can be messengers. It doesn’t necessarily follow that spiritual beings cannot be among the messengers. Just because it COULD refer to mundane beings, doesn’t mean it must ALWAYS refer to mundane beings.

As you seem to be interested in this sort of thing, you might try doing a search here. Searches are, alas, somewhat difficult and chancy and I don’t know exactly where to point you, but there has been a lot of discussion on this topic and you may find some interesting conversations to peruse.

Blessings, Cindy

Hi Cindy- Thank you so much for such a detailed,well thought-out,mature response!!! I agree with you pretty much all the way through. i have spent many hours since joining the forum perusing past threads as you suggested lol pretty exhaustive but so worthwhile I wanted to raise the topic in this way just to get others thoughts as i had not noticed anyone mention satans origin previously.

I have thought many times about sending you a PM because i enjoyed so many of your comments on here i have read but didn’t know if you still were around. I should have just done so anyways- right catherine?? haha So glad to hear from you Cindy and hope to see you post again more frequently!!!

Peace- Robert

Thanks, Robert You’re too kind.

I’ve been on again off again lately with the forum and the FB groups. I enjoy this group a lot when I’m here, though. I’m glad maybe I had something helpful to say. It’s an interesting topic. I’m glad you brought it up.

Blessings, Cindy

It is my understanding Robert that the term ha-satan refers more to a force like chaos rather than a personalized being, which seems to have changed in meaning after time passed. I haven’t researched it though, but that is my impression after what I have read.

As I have mentioned before Jesus spoke many times directly either to Satan or about Satan or spoke to demons plus Paul and James and Peter warned us about Satan, so the idea that he is personification of evil does not make sense to me.

We are never given the origin of Satan only that he just appears in Job and the garden of Eden so there are two camps which are either he is a fallen angel or that God created him as a tester and Satan went beyond the bounds of testing and became an adversary. Either way he appears to be fallen in some way and even without Isa 14 or Eze 28, it still would appear the reason would have been pride. BTW in Isa 14, I think it would be Nimrod it may be referring to.

I’m not worried about Satan because as a NT believer I believe we are given authority over him and In Jesus name I command him to be disabled and just be on my merry way.

I think we all need to guard against the adversary within. Whether or not that has something to do with ‘satan,’ I don’t know. I would imagine there could at least be a double application, though. Jesus spoke to Satan, yet did He do that in a metaphorical way, because that would be understandable to the people He spoke to? Or was He speaking to an actual personal, discrete being? I can’t say for sure. I confess that I lean toward Satan being an individual as well as the “beast nature” we all inherit from our forebears, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find that I was mistaken about the former.

yet did He do that in a metaphorical way, because that would be understandable to the people He spoke to? Or was He speaking to an actual personal, discrete being? I can’t say for sure

Why would the people Jesus spoke to not understand illnesses? Satan was not really revealed in the OT so suddenly using him plus demons would actually be confusing to a Jewish audience IMO. Also the demons spoke back to Jesus. Also in Jude we have Satan contending for Moses body in the desert against Michael the Archangel. We have the Prince of Persia (Satan) delaying Gabriel for several days from delivering a message to Daniel.
Satan inflicted physical damage to Job. Anyway he seems real to me particularly as some evil in the world seems to be beyond the extent to which even man is capable of.

The Jewish people of Jesus time had actually assimilated some of the pagan culture around them. I’ve read that the whole demon thing (which as you say, does NOT appear in the OT) came from Middle-Eastern and African nations. So it’s not unthinkable that Jesus could have been speaking metaphorically. Even today, some associate certain forms of mental illness with demonization. As for the demons speaking back to him, you have a point there. It is one of the reasons I remain agnostic on the matter. Nevertheless, this could also be a manifestation of mental illness in people who did in fact believe they could be demonized. Israel wasn’t an island. Many Jews were not pure in their religion during Jesus’s time. There was a lot of incursion of foreign cultures from their hundreds of years under Greek domination, and more from the Roman overlords. Plus, contributions from all the cultures that surrounded them. In OT days, it wasn’t dissimilar, as you see when you read the Law and the Prophets. Religious incursion from surrounding cultures was a constant challenge. So yes, I do think it’s kind of up in the air. Were there–are there cases of demonization, or was it all mental illness? I don’t know. If casting out demons works as a therapy, then it works. There could be actual demons, or it could be a way for the people to visualize and change unhealthy mental patterns.

There could be actual demons, or it could be a way for the people to visualize and change unhealthy mental patterns.

OK but I’m not trying to be a smart aleck but how do we know that Jesus isn’t a metaphor for goodness? Why stop at Satan? Jesus and Satan spoke with each other during Jesus temptation, maybe it’s a metaphor for the fight between good and evil?

Hi Steve- We talked about this some before I know. Cindy makes some excellent points!!! If you go to the website www.realdevil.info you will find a lot of info on what i have been talking about as well as Cindy. Cindys point about the Jewish view of satan and demons being highly influenced by babylonian,persian and greek cultures is right on!!! Jesus met people where they were in their belief systems. The same word for rebuke is used to describe Jesus calming the wind and waves as well as casting out or silencing demons. I am not clear about the talking back, although it may be they are speaking from knowledge they had or had heard of. As far as Jesus temptation in the wilderness, satan was being personified to represent, like Cindy said, the inner adversary we all have in ourselves. Jesus was battling the 3 temptations listed in 1 John. Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and boastful pride of life. Jesus resisted and overcame eventually putting to death the adversarial human nature/satan. He had to be God in flesh to accomplish this. Also on amazon, look up reviews of the book- Who’s the Devil Jesus Knew by james brayshaw. It will lay out a lil more of what i have been saying. We have emotional and deep rooted ties to an understanding of satan as a personal being, so very hard to even question it. I find real validity in what I have come to accept which is why i share it. Let me know what you think, as well as anyone else, when you look up the references i have suggested. Happy Thanksgiving!!!

We have emotional and deep rooted ties to an understanding of satan as a personal being, so very hard to even question it.

I don’t believe Satan exists other then scripture in many different places and authors addresses him as an actual entity, I have no ties or emotionalism about it.

In case you survive Satan and the apocalypse and Thanksgiving rolls around, this might be useful info :

Steve, it’s not a big deal, imo. If you believe in a personal Satan and in personal demons, you very well may be right. Like I said, I’m on the fence here. I simply don’t think scripture provides us with enough information to make a definitive determination. As for the historical Jesus, that’s not in question. I realize a handful of loudly shouting atheists insist Jesus never lived, but serious, sober historians (whether they believe Him to be the resurrected Son of God or not) know that’s silly.

Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness, however, I definitely believe was just like the temptations you and I face. I remember when I was young, hearing someone say what I’ve just said, and I thought, “Oh no! That would be too hard.” I didn’t want to believe it, because I knew how difficult it is to resist temptations that come from within us (or that at least seem to come from within us.) Resisting a Satan you can see and speak with, I thought, would be much easier than resisting that inner voice that tempts us. Jesus came, according to Paul, in flesh like ours, to destroy sin in the flesh. He was in every way tempted, just as we are. I don’t believe that Jesus spoke face to face with the prince of darkness. I think He was tempted just as we are tempted. If a personal devil spoke to Him, it was the same voice we hear–concealed and devious and difficult to resist. I’ve never experienced it, but I think that if someone (whom I knew to be the devil) spoke to me, tempting me to do things, I would refuse to do anything he suggested–because I would know he was the devil. That (I think) would be very easy. In order for Jesus to be tempted just as we are tempted, He would have to face the hard temptations, just like we do.

Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness, however, I definitely believe was just like the temptations you and I face. I remember when I was young, hearing someone say what I’ve just said, and I thought, “Oh no! That would be too hard.” I didn’t want to believe it, because I knew how difficult it is to resist temptations that come from within us (or that at least seem to come from within us.) Resisting a Satan you can see and speak with, I thought, would be much easier than resisting that inner voice that tempts us. Jesus came, according to Paul, in flesh like ours, to destroy sin in the flesh. He was in every way tempted, just as we are. I don’t believe that Jesus spoke face to face with the prince of darkness.

If Satan is real I think what would please him very much would be if we didn’t believe he existed because then he could do what he does without real resistance. Jesus called him a “murderer from the beginning” and in Hebrews , Paul I believe said Satan has the power of death. So these are not inconsequential descriptions and if he is real he is an entity to be aware of. Also Satan offered Jesus the kingdoms of the world and he said they were delivered to him which could have happened when Adam fell, and Jesus never challenged him about that. If he is real we do have authority over him if we exercise it, and if he is not real then a lot more of scripture is metaphorical then I thought.

Whether or not Satan is a personal being, Satan is certainly real. If Satan is the evil that dwells in our animal nature, then Satan is real. If Satan is a fallen angelic being, then Satan is real. Either way, Satan is to be resisted and opposed and conquered. I fail to see that it matters whether we know buckets about Satan, so long as we deal with Satan according to scripture. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

He may be an entity. He may be the evil within us. Perhaps he is both. It doesn’t matter whether I agree with you, or whether you agree with me. It only matters that we obey our Father and live from the faith of Christ. We can do this, believing either way concerning Satan.

Hi, Robert. I checked the Wiki link at Satan. It has some interesting biblical references in the article. Especially look at the Judaism and Christianity sub-headings.