Who is Satan? – The Devil Explained



The devil the bane of human existence. The personification of evil, appearing in some from in almost every human religion and thought. The problem of evil is a touchstone of any religion. From our direct confrontation with evil results suffering, and thus endless questions about the meaning of life.

That is why all religions have to give a proper answer regarding the origin, nature and end of evil. The general pattern in Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism is to consider evil as the effect of spiritual ignorance. But in many ancient religions, pantheistic religions and Judaeo-Christian religions evil has a face.

Anthropologists say that the story of religion starts with animism – the concept that all people, animals, plants, water, air, the world and the heaviness are all spiritual beings. Anthropologists state that this was a means for man to interpret and understand the meaning of life and the world around them.

These Ancients also often believed in evil spirts, often people who could not find rest in the afterlife spirit and that disturbing the natural order of things brought pain and was the cause of evil and pain in the world.

This system of belief still exists in some parts of the world, notably Africa, and it led naturally to the pantheism found in ancient societies like Greece and Rome. And it also led naturally to the eastern spiritualist religions as well. In eastern religions the concepts of animism lead naturally to the concept that physical

Matter was bad and the spiritual was good. In these religions pain is caused by attachment to the harsh physical world and to truly gain power and perfection is to escape physical existence. Meanwhile this animistic thought lead to the concept that beings were the cause for all the pain and destruction in the world.

In many ancient religions such as the religions of the Aztecs, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans evil was explained through the imperfections of the gods and by gods of chaos and destruction who manifested evil. In many of these ancient religions good and evil were at war with each other and this

Led to dualistic religions such as Zoroastrianism where good (Ahura Mazda) and Evil (Angra Mainyu) oppose each other. Angra Mainyu – meaning evil spirit attempts to undermine god’s creation by creating death and tempting mankind to sin. Anthropologists often state that these religions owe Zoroastrianism for the concepts of heaven

And hell and Satan, but naturally Christians, Jews and Muslims would not accept this view. This brings us to the Judeo- Christian religions Jews, Chrisitans and Muslims explain evil entering the world through the creation account but all of them view the devil very differently.

Devil comes from the Greek word diabolos, “slanderer,” or “accuser” which is a translation of the Hebrew word Satan. Judism has an unclear view of the devil and view in judism vary from just being a metaphor to being an opposer to God.

Some Jews even think of satan as being an agent of Gods or even someone who acts as a courtroom prosecutor. The word satan appears numerous times in the Hebrew bible, but often it is unclear whether it is an evil spirit or an agent of god.

Forinstance in 2 Samuel 24:1 god tells David to have a census and 1 Chronicles 21:1 says that god did it. In the book of Job Satan speaks to god concerning Job and seems to be acting as ‘devils advocate’ no pun intended.

But it is clear that satan is an evil force in other passages like 1 king 22 and in the book of samual in the from of a evil spirt harassing saul. In Christianity satan is more clearly a fallen angel and an opposer to God.

The new testament interprets passages of the old and identifies the snake in the garden as being the devil. Romans (16:20) and revelation (Rev. 12:9; 20:2). Satan acts as an antagonist to Jesus, attempting to tempt him in the wilderness and unlimitly leading to Jesus death by insiting Judis to betray him.

But in this instance satan is acting according to Gods plan possibly without knowing it. The Devil in the end times will attempt one last rebellion but will usimitly fail. The devil is sometimes called Lucifer, particularly when describing him as an angel before his

Fall, although the reference in Isaiah 14:12 to Lucifer, or the Son of the Morning, is a reference to a Babylonian king. The new testament allows for this though, as it often adds second meanings to passages outside of their original context forinstace Psalm 22 which is originally about king David,

Is interpreted to be about Jesus in the new testament. In Islam the devil is often known as Iblis. Iblis also likely comes from the same root as the word devil, but Muslim scholars often link it to an Arabic word meaning ‘without hope’.

Iblis is mentioned in the Quranic narrative about the creation of humanity. When God created Adam, he ordered the angels to prostrate themselves before him. All did, but Iblis refused and claimed to be superior to Adam out of pride.[Quran 7:12] Therefore, pride but also envy became a sign of “unbelief” in Islam.

Thereafter Iblis was condemned to hell, but God granted him a request to lead humanity astray, knowing the righteous will resist Iblis’ attempts to misguide them. To summrise devils appear in many religions in the from of evil spirits or evil in general Some religions use the devil as a metaphor for evil

Some religions believe evil is caused by the physical world and our attachment to it Judaism has varied ideas about the devil, but usually identify him as an evil spirit or a metaphor Christianity and Islam both believe that Satan is a fallen angel or angelic creature who was guilty of pride.

In Christianity the angel wanted to be as great as God In Islam the angelic Jinn wanted to be greater than man What are your thinking on the topic of satan?

#Satan #Devil #Explained

Why did Satan quote Psalm 91 to Jesus?



If you read your whole Old Testament, you never see a demon being cast out of anyone. Ever. How in the world when Jesus shows up and he starts doing that? Did people automatically in their heads think: “Well, this is what the Messiah is supposed to do! This is a sign of Messiahship.”

Where does that come from? Psalm 91. Which, you know, in recent days, you’ve heard this quoted a lot: “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty… he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence.

He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge… You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day,    nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness.” In the corona environment, this passage gets quoted a lot.  

And unfortunately, in some cases deeply out of context to suggest that well, you know, Christians can do whatever they want here because God will protect us and we won’t get sick and. Okay, that is not what the passage is about. The passage is much cooler than that. It’s more sinister too.  

Psalm 91 is a psalm that was discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls in a jar with four other Psalms that are not in the Hebrew Bible. There are extra Psalms among the dead sea scrolls, we have 150 in the Hebrew Bible,   

But this one that is in the Hebrew Bible, obviously, was put in this jar with four other ones. All four of those other ones are exorcism Psalm. So well, why would they lump Psalm 91 in there? That doesn’t look like an exorcism to me,

I’m, you read the whole thing and there’s no like casting devils out or anything like that. Well, if you read it in Hebrew, and you were a literate Israelite, you would know that words like pestilence (Deber). Okay,  there’s pestilence there. Deber down here, Qeteb (destruction), “the arrow that flies by day.” Okay, right here.

This whole motif of the arrow flying by day and the tear of the night. Right here; Pahad. These are names and titles and epithets of Canaanite deities, all of them.   To an Israelite, a Canaanite deity was a demonic, a sinister and evil spirit,  you know, a power of darkness. That’s why Psalm 91 was lumped into that

Because this is a prayer of protection and thwarting of powers of darkness   in ancient Jewish thought. What else is interesting is this psalm in the Hebrew Bible,   you notice there’s no superscription. There’s a psalm of whoever. In the Septuagint, it’s a psalm of David. Okay, also in the Septuagint, there are certain different wordings,

The Septuagint would have been based on a Hebrew text. Is a translation of Hebrew, that don’t always align with a traditional Hebrew text. But in the Septuagint, where it’s a psalm of David, there are a couple of psalms that use specific words for the Psalms, and the hymns and the,  

I want to use the word spell, because that’s what it means, or can mean, of David and Solomon. Okay, that in the poetry, the literature, they produced,   some of that stuff uses vocabulary that you will find in exorcistic material   in the Second Temple period. And so this answers an important question.   

And here’s the question. And maybe you’ve wondered this. If you read your whole Old Testament, you never see a demon being cast out of anyone. Ever. There’s actually only two references in English Bibles to demons;   Shedim is usually translated demon, which isn’t the greatest translation,  

But we’ll run with it for the sake of the illustration, Deuteronomy 32. And then there’s a Psalm.   Okay, but you never see a demon or a hostile evil spirit cast out of anyone.   How in the world, when Jesus shows up, and he starts doing that, did people

Automatically in their heads think: “well, this is what the Messiah is supposed to do! This is a sign of Messiahship.” Where does that come from? It comes from what I just described. It comes from certain Psalms   being associated with David, and a few with Solomon. In the Second Temple Period  

There was the belief that David and Solomon had power over evil spirits. And so if the Messiah is a descendant, he is The David, The Son of David, he should be able to do that too.   So this is something that we wouldn’t get because we’re not living in the culture.  

And we’re not familiar with how Psalm 91 in particular was viewed.   But when Jesus shows up and starts doing this, the bells and whistles are going off in people’s heads. This is an important thing he does to convince them that he’s the Messiah. And Isn’t it odd that Satan would choose Psalm 91  

To quote to Jesus, in a temptation, and he quotes the part, down here, “he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.” So what’s really going on here is Satan is fishing for information.

He’s got Jesus in front of him, he knows who he is, he knows why he’s there.  His silly Kingdom of God stuff, okay. But he doesn’t know what the plan is. So he’s there to tempt Jesus. Try to shortcut the thing. And you know, the last one is the worst because it’s idolatry.

It’s just kind of a terrible attempt. But this one’s interesting because let’s say that Jesus looks at Satan and says, “Yeah, that’s a good quotation. Yep. Yep,  you know, that’s a, that’s an exorcistic psalm. And I’m the son of David,    and I’m supposed to be able to cast out demons.

And if that’s true, then the rest of the stuff in the song must be true too. So go ahead, it’ll take me up to the top here, I’m going to throw myself off.”   What happens? Okay, let’s say the angels catch him. What is Satan learned? He can’t kill him,  

So we’ll take killing the Messiah off the strategy plan.   But Jesus knows, that’s exactly what needs to happen. “So I’m not going to demonstrate   anything for you. You’re not going to learn anything in this conversation.”   He just tells him that you hit the road, “you shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”

And that could be a reference to himself. But it could also be another way of saying;   “You shall not try to convince me to let God show you the hand that he’s going to play.”   He has to die. He must die. Again, it’s an interesting tit for tat conversation

between these two. And again, my take on it is that Satan actually was fishing for information. It’s not a worthless conversation. And the fact that he quotes Psalm 91 I find really interesting because of its nature. You know, the servant (Israel) out in the wilderness. I mean, let’s think of Jesus

Now as the representative of the corporate nation.   Did Israel in the Old Testament pass the test of being God’s servant? Well, yes, and no.   You know, they get to the promised land? Sure, after they fail, and then they wander   around for 40 years. So there’s that checkered past. They don’t really complete the conquest.  

They ask for a king to replace God as the one who fights for them.   And then three kings later they go off and start worshipping other gods and end up in exile. So probably no, they really don’t pass the test of being God’s representative son and his servant, but Jesus does.  

He passes the test. And now it’s Game on. His ministry begins.

#Satan #quote #Psalm #Jesus