This article is based on a talk given by Jon the freelance theologian in June 2010. It is best read in conjunction with the article on evil, posted on freelance theology in February 2010.

The talk began with a rough “timeline” of what is often taught in churches about satan. An adapted version is shown here: (more…)

Question 106 – from LM, USA

Where in the bible is Lucifer referred to the angel of Music?

There is no Biblical reference to Lucifer as the ‘angel of music’. Other articles on freelance theology have covered the development of various beliefs about the devil, although the origin of this particular idea seems to be obscure.

Certainly the popular idea that Lucifer was a prominent angel in the heavenly court, who then rebelled and was cast out of Heaven, has been embellished over the centuries. It is certainly possible that one of these additions to the basic story is that Lucifer was the director of music. This could be because of the many Biblical references to angels singing worship to God. In Job chapter 38, verse 7 the ‘morning stars’ or are identified with ‘sons of God (often translated as ‘angels’).

‘Lucifer’ is actually the Latin for ‘lightbringer’ and was a word used for Venus, the Morning Star, which often shone out shortly before dawn. When Isaiah ironically used the Hebrew term ‘daystar’ to describe the ambitious King of Babylon in Isaiah chapter 14, this was then translated as ‘Lucifer’ in the Latin translation of the Bible (the Vulgate). There has been a long history of associating Isaiah’s ‘Lucifer’, who is ‘cast down from heaven’, with Satan’s ‘fall from Heaven’ that Jesus claimed to have seen in Luke chapter 10, verse 18. If the singing angels in Job are all ‘morning stars’ it follows that Satan/Lucifer is the morning star, i.e. the leader.

The stories that have grown around the troubling character of Satan in Christian theology are varied and complex. While there are many who would still adhere to a belief in a literal personal being called Satan, this mythological belief system has been heavily criticised for lacking a Biblical basis. It’s popularity owes more to the pre-modern superstitious world that Christianity grew up in and eventually outgrew.

It is interesting though that Satan’s involvement with music is also ingrained in popular culture. The devil is said to ‘have all the best tunes’, although this comment can actually be traced to the founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth, who firmly believed in appropriating the ‘devil’s tunes’ and setting Christian evangelistic hymns to them. Of course, it would be facetious to add that anyone who really believes that the devil has the best tunes only needs to listen to some ‘death metal’ to be disabused of that notion fairly quickly!

Thanks for your question, LM.

Question from BG, USA

The two primary accounts of the Devil before the Fall that I have been able to find are in Isaiah 14 and Ezekial 28. In John Gill’s commentary on Ezekiel 28, he equates The King of Tyrus (or the Prince of Tyre) as being a form of Antichrist and compares him with the Catholic Pope. Matthew Henry believes Ezekiel 28 is a kind of ‘allegory’ for the devil. My translation of the Bible actually uses the word ‘Lucifer’ in Isaiah 14, but other translations do not. In neither chapter is any reference to the Devil even made outside of that one word, Lucifer, which only appears in the translation that I use and none other that I’ve seen. One could also legitimately suggest all Isaiah is referring to is the fall of Nebuchadnezzar. So the main question is why are those two chapters even used to explain the pre-fall existence of the Devil when the Devil isn’t otherwise mentioned but an actual human King? I realise that I am questioning a common interpretation of scripture, but it’s hard to understand ‘how’ one could come up with these interpretations. Any help in this area would be appreciated.

The ‘career of Satan’ is a term used to describe the theological development of a belief in a literal devil, or adversary. In A Theology of the Dark Side [published by Paternoster Press in 2002], British scholar Nigel G. Wright notes that the ‘Satan syndrome’ seeks to explain evil in terms of a personal entity. “The powers of negation and death at loose in the world are never quite overcome by Yahweh… This sense of a powerful adversary to God’s creation become sharpened and honed in the New Testament. It exists in the world as an objective reality, as the devil, or Satan, or the ‘prince of this world’.” [Wright, op. cit. p.2]

The simplest explanation for the reason these Old Testament references to earthly kings are linked with Satan’s downfall is that the story of Lucifer, an angel of light, overstepping his authority, and being cast out of Heaven as a result, is a very potent myth. There is no doubt that in the gospel accounts, Jesus referred to Satan as an objective reality during his earthly ministry. Given this it was natural for early Christian theologians to try and find previous references to Satan in the Old Testament, just as they sought to find references to Jesus Christ. Sometimes these are fairly obvious, other times a certain amount of flexibility and imagination is used in interpreting the older texts as references to Satan.

The reason the reference in Isaiah chapter 14, verse 12, is often seen as a reference to Satan’s fall, is because it is echoed by Jesus in Luke chapter 10, verse 18. When the disciples Jesus sent out in chapter 11, verse 1, returned to him they told him that “even the demons submit to your name” (verse 17). Jesus replies “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (verse 18). It is fairly easy to see the logical connection between Jesus’ description of Satan’s fall, and the reference in Isaiah. Babylon is frequently associated with opposition to God’s divine rule, e.g. in Revelation, and regularly in later Christian thought, so putting the ‘King of Babylon’ and Satan together makes some sense.

A different interpretation of Jesus’ words is that, instead of referring to a prehistoric angelic fall from grace, Jesus saw Satan overcome by the actions of the disciples on their ministry tours. If Satan was popularly believed to be the “ruler of the Kingdom of the air” (as Paul refers to him in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 2), then it may be that Jesus was referring to the disciples’ victory over Satan causing him to fall from his place of dominion (i.e. the air/‘heaven’), not to an event in the far distant past.

The idea of a prehistoric fall of individual angels from among the angelic host is widely held even today in many churches. However, it does seem to be based on an interpretation of key Biblical passages that enables the interpreter to read certain things back into the text.

Matthew Henry’s comment linking the oracle against the King of Tyre in Ezekiel chapter 28 with Satan’s downfall, shows how much this story of an angelic fall has permeated the consciousness of Christian tradition. There is no reason from the text to believe that this is allegorically referring to Satan. The definite Old Testament mention of Satan, as a personal being, in the prologue to Job does not reflect the idea of a fallen angel cast out of heaven (see Job chapters 1 and 2). Here Satan is an ‘accuser’, but still a being with access to the Heavenly court. It is worth pointing out, as well, that Satan is listed alongside the angels (chapter 1, verse 6, and chapter 2, verse 1) as a separate and distinct entity.

In Jewish interpretation the ‘serpent’ of Eden is identified with humanity’s lower nature, with Adam and Eve succumbing to ‘base desires’. It is only in Christian thought that the serpent is routinely identified with Satan (see Wright, op. cit. p.56), mainly because in Revelation chapter 20, verse 2, Satan is described as “that great serpent”.

The serpent or snake was symbolic of chaos in ancient Middle Eastern theology, so it may be that the serpent’s appearance in the Genesis story alludes to the idea that God brought order out of chaos. Sin and evil are therefore the lingering effects of chaos that somehow impinge on God’s world. But it remains easier for human beings, as personal beings, to envision a personal Enemy, and it would seem that many people find that Enemy written about in the Old Testament, mainly because they have gone looking for him.

Thanks for your question BG.

Question from MF, USA

Why don’t we pray for the devil to convert? He’s a creature just like us, a sinner just like us. If we could prevail on him to rethink his life’s course, it might take a huge weight off the rest of us. I can’t see how including the devil in our daily prayers wouldn’t be a good idea. After all, we are supposed to love our enemies.

This idea has been put forward before; in its earliest form by one of the first Christian apologists, called Origen (c.185-254AD). Among many innovative ideas, Origen proposed that Christ’s death was sufficient to renew all things. Therefore at the final restoration (‘apokatastasis’ in Greek), even the devil would be restored to an original, good state. Not surprisingly Origen’s proto-universalism led to him being regarded as a heretic by later thinkers. But the restoration of the devil is a theme often picked up in Christian thought, so nineteen centuries after Origen, Frederick Buechner wrote: “If there is suffering life in Hell, then there must also be hope in Hell, because where there is life there is the Lord and giver of life… It seems there is no depth to which [God] will not sink. Maybe not even Old Scratch will be able to hold out against him forever.” [Wishful Thinking, Mowbray 1994, p43]

However, such sentimentality overlooks some crucial aspect of what exactly ‘the devil’ is. Firstly, the presupposition in MF’s question is that ‘the devil’ is a creature “just like” human beings. That is never attested to in Scripture or Christian theological tradition. The longstanding idea that the devil is an angel gone awry; a rebellious creature who ‘fell from grace’ in a cosmic war before creation, is an indicator that whatever ‘the devil’ is, it is not the same sort of creature as human beings.

A second point to make is brought out clearly by British theologian Nigel G. Wright in his book, ‘A Theology of the Dark Side’. Without repeating too much of what Wright writes, he points out that the mythological ‘pre-mundane’ Fall of Satan has very little Biblical evidence to back it up. However the danger of creating a ‘back-story’ for the devil is that in doing so such a thing is given a certain amount of legitimacy. Wright argues that “The use of personal language about the devil is problematic. It personalises the devil and therefore gives him a dignity he does not deserve. To refer to the devil as ‘he’ or ‘him’ confers upon the devil a form of language that strictly speaking refers to persons who are made in the image of God… Nothing in the Bible suggests the devil was made in the image of God. This is exclusively referred to human beings. Not even the angels are described as being in God’s image.” [op cit. Paternoster Press, 2002, p.28]

If Satan is not a person, that does leave the question of what ‘the devil’ is and how it crept into God’s good and ordered creation. There are a number of theories concerning this, ranging from ‘a discreative force’, through to the ‘nothingness’ that God spoke into intruding onto existence and disrupting it. Whether Wright is wholly correct in wanting to totally depersonalise Satan is debatable, but he does make the clear point: evil, whether located in ‘Satan’ or not, has no legitimate right to exist. It is the duty of Christians to oppose the things that run contrary to God’s intentions, while battling to save those things that are definitely redeemable!

Thanks for your question MF.

Question from GT, United Kingdom: “What is Hell?”

Hell is the alternative destination for human beings after death. Biblical descriptions are varied. In the Old Testament the Hebrew word used for Hell is ‘Sheol’, literally the Grave or the Pit. There isn’t much description to it and is seems that everybody ends up there awaiting final judgement.

In the New Testament, Jesus refers to ‘Gehenna’, thought to be a permanently smouldering rubbish dump outside Jerusalem, also to ‘Hell fire’ and a place of ‘wailing and gnashing of teeth’ (Matthew 8 v12) where ‘the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched’ (Mark 9 v48, quoting Isaiah 66 v24).

In the book of Revelation the final destination of the devil, the Beast, the false prophets and unrepentant sinners is a Lake of Fire, described as ‘the second death’ (Revelation chapters 20 & 21). Contrast this to Jesus’ promise to the thief on the cross of a feast with him in paradise (Luke 23 v 43), or his description of a place ‘prepared for you’ (John 14 v2) or Revelation’s New Jerusalem – a city of gold – and you can see that the threat of Hell is always juxtaposed with the promise of Heaven.

Modern writers describe Hell as separation from God, either as total alone-ness or as a continuing existence not unlike our world (see for example The Great Divorce by CS Lewis). The medieval imagery of demons roasting sinners on griddles has fallen out of favour in all but the most fundamentalist Christian circles. Hell is not the abode of Satan, but the self-willed prison of any and every rebel against God, including Satan.

The problem is that, according to Christian belief, everything in this universe depends on God for its existence. The person who rejects God therefore pushes away from the very thing that causes them to exist in the first place. Oblivion/non-existence beckons, causing Frederick Buechner to describe the situation like this: “Maybe Hell is the limit. In their flight from love, God stops them just this side of extinguishing themselves utterly. Thus the bottomless pit is not really bottomless. Hell is the bottom beyond which God in his terrible mercy will not let them go.” (Wishful Thinking, p43)