The Satan & Demons
Notes
Transcript
Spiritual Beings
Spiritual Beings
Today we are going to finish up this detailed study of spiritual beings. We have been making our way through a Bible Project study of the Elohim in the Bible. In the first week we learned that “Elohim” is the Hebrew word for “Spiritual Beings.” The word “Elohim” was also used as a name for God, in a similar manner to the way you call your mom and dad “mom” and “dad” instead of using their actual names.
God is the Elohim of Elohim, the ruler above all of the other spiritual beings. He is also a spiritual being himself. Not only is God THE Elohim, He is also AN elohim. After looking at what a spiritual being is, we talked about God’s spiritual workers. The biblical authors viewed the spiritual world very similar to the way they experienced the physical world where there were rulers who had a whole host of servants and workers.
Some of God’s workers that are mentioned in the bible are the Divine Council, who’s purpose in the spiritual realm is similar to that of the humans in the physical realm. The Divine Council rule with God in the spiritual realm. They are God’s heavenly staff team. They are referenced often throughout the bible with several different titles, such as “the holy ones,” “the sons of God,” “the council of the holy ones,” “hosts,” and more.
Often, they would send out messengers to give comfort or provision to people, perform wonders or acts of deliverance, or even give messages on God’s behalf. We call these messengers “Angels.” Even though popular belief suggests angels glow, have halo’s, and float around with their wings, they are actually largely indistinguishable from an ordinary human. Many people in scripture encountered angels without even knowing it. Paul even warns us that one reason to be kind to strangers is because you may be entertaining angels without even knowing it.
One of God’s spiritual beings that do have wings are the Cherubim. Cherubim also get an inaccurate depiction in the modern imagination. Instead of being chubby babies, they are actually described as having very different and hard to imagine appearances. The only thing they consistently have in common is that they have wings, otherwise they sound more like hybrid animal mashups, where their bodies seem to be comprised of different animals and even humans. They are the secret service of heaven, guarding the holy spaces where the heavenly and earthly realms intersect.
Last time, we talked about the Angel of the Lord. The Angel of the Lord is super interesting, very confusing, and highly mysterious. When you are reading a passage where this angel appears, you are constantly left wondering who this character actually is. Is it an angel? Is it God? Is this someone else entirely? The ambiguity intentionally leaves you curious about the Angel of the Lord, and the disciples would often reference these passages and stories when referring to Jesus. I love the way that the bible project summarizes the mystery of the Angel of the Lord…
“The angel of Yahweh is God appearing as human, while Jesus is God become Human.”
Today we are going to talk about the rebellious and evil spiritual beings. We are going to study “The Satan and Demons.” As much as I love the Bible Project videos and how well they break down a subject to be easy to understand, this is a topic that has a ton of information to digest. Even more so, if it isn’t a topic you study on a regular basis.
One thing that makes studying spiritual evil in scripture both fascinating and complex is the way that the biblical authors portray the subject in their writing. They never come out and describe the nature of evil directly. For example, we learn about the deception and downfall of Adam and Eve through an odd story about a snake convincing them to eat fruit. In that story, the author doesn’t tell us exactly who the snake is, why he can talk, why he is tricking them, or even why the two believed the creature instead of God to begin with.
That is how the bible is written. We are given elusive and difficult to understand stories and images to show us how evil manifests itself in and through human behavior. To better understand spiritual evil, it is important to be somewhat familiar with the rebellious spiritual characters that we encounter in these stories. One of the most well known is Satan…
THE SATAN
THE SATAN
Who is Satan? Today, most people think of Satan as the opposite of God. If God is good, then Satan is bad. A red, human-like creature with horns has become the iconic image of evil. Is this accurate? Let’s start with the name, “Satan.”
This evil opposing rebel has become known as “Satan” or “the devil.” In fact, the gospels even call him both names in different descriptions of the same story. After Jesus’ baptism, He retreated to the wilderness and encountered this rebel spiritual being…
1 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil.
12 The Spirit then compelled Jesus to go into the wilderness, 13 where he was tempted by Satan for forty days. He was out among the wild animals, and angels took care of him.
In the original Greek, the words are...
tou diabolos (the devil)
tou Satana (the Satan)
Neither are proper names, rather they are titles. That’s why they both have the word “the” in front of them. In English, the word “devil” is a transliteration of the Greek word “diabolos.” The meaning of the word is “slanderous, accusing falsely.”
The word “Satan” is a transliteration of a Greek transliteration of a Hebrew word. In other words, it comes from the Hebrew word “ha-satan” which means “one who stands against, or an adversary.”
In Jesus’ time, these two words were interchangeable in Jewish literature, which is why the two different words were different in the Gospel accounts. Fun fact, in the old Greek translation of the book of Job, the Greek word “diabolos” was used to translate the Hebrew word “ha-satan.”
The adversary had other depictions throughout scripture. Revelation 12:9 gives him a slew of depictions all at once…
9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
He is depicted as a sea dragon, a dangerous desert creature, and a Molech (a spirit-king of the grave). If you have ever thought of becoming a lawyer, you may want to reconsider because the Satan has also been depicted as an accusing lawyer in the divine court!
The first time we see an evil dragon creature who wants to undermine God’s authority and creation is in the creation story in Genesis with the shrewd snake. In this story, the snake is figuratively and literally a part of two worlds. Keep in mind that at this moment, the garden that Adam and Eve live in is the place where God’s heavenly presence overlaps with Earth. They live together in the garden with the hybrid-animal spiritual beings called Cherubim! All of the throne room stories, visions, and descriptions point us to this Garden! When a talking snake appears in the story, he fits right in. Not only does the snake talk, but he appears to have knowledge of God’s decisions and purposes…
5 “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.”
Also, notice that when God curses the snake, he says something puzzling…
14 Then the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all animals, domestic and wild. You will crawl on your belly, groveling in the dust as long as you live.
It should make you think, “wait… isn’t that what snakes already do?” Maybe we can write it off and say, “well this must be why snakes crawl on the ground.” OR like all stories in the bible that make your ears perk up, maybe we are supposed to see something worth digging into. Maybe the snake that approached the humans wasn’t on the ground. Maybe this was a snake that could talk, comprehend divine ideas, walk, and possibly even fly.
Why fly? That’s not in this story. Remember Isaiah’s vision?
1 It was in the year King Uzziah died that I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple. 2 Attending him were mighty seraphim, each having six wings. With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. 3 They were calling out to each other, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies! The whole earth is filled with his glory!”
We’ve mentioned the seraphim in this study before. They are some of the winged cherubim that guard the holy spaces. Instead of calling them cherubim, Isaiah calls them seraphim. All modern English translations leave this word untranslated, which is strange, because it is a normal Hebrew word. It isn’t a mysterious name or otherworldly being that get’s it’s own identity. It is the Hebrew word for “venomous snakes.”
Can you imagine a venomous snake with wings! I hope the only snakes with wings are cherubim, because if I ever see a snake flying around you will never see me out of the house again! Isaiah later uses this snake imagery to describe the ruler of Babylon.
29 Rejoice not, O Philistia, all of you, that the rod that struck you is broken, for from the serpent’s root will come forth an adder, and its fruit will be a flying fiery serpent.
This passage is in the same section as Isaiah’s accusation against the ruler of Babylon, which refers to both the human king of Babylon and the spiritual power that lurks behind Babylon.
Ezekiel accuses the leader of Tyre of acting like an ancient spiritual rebel in Chapter 28 of Ezekiel. He likens the king of Tyre to an ancient spiritual rebel who inhabited Eden…
Ezekiel 28:12–13 (NIV)
12 “Son of man, take up a lament concerning the king of Tyre and say to him: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: “ ‘You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. 13 You were in Eden, the garden of God...
14 You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones.
16 In the abundance of your trade you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned; so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God, and I destroyed you, O guardian cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. 17 Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I exposed you before kings, to feast their eyes on you.
Wow! Does that describe the rebel cherub in the garden or what?!? The Satan. The Adversary. Satan isn’t his name, it’s what he does. The slanderer, the adversary, the snake! What is the significance of the snake? We’ve already discussed his connection to the cherubim, but there is another interesting connection.
Jesus consistently conveyed one of God’s important traits, which is that “the last will be first and the first will be last.” There are many examples throughout scripture of God doing this very thing in people’s lives.
In the creation story we can see that God has been consistent on the matter from the beginning. On day six, God created living creatures. He made the domesticated animals, the wild animals, and the wild beasts. Lastly, He made humans. Then He told the humans to rule over all of it with Him.
The theme of the late-comer’s elevation and the early-comer’s jealousy and anger is replayed throughout scripture. Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his older brothers. In the creation story, we can see this theme played out with the humans and the snake. We could infer that the snake resented coming under the authority of the human creatures whose origins were in the dirt.
So the snake rebelled and seduced the humans into rebellion. Genesis 3 portrays the fall of humanity as well as the fall of the spiritual rebel. After the garden, this spiritual rebel is almost never directly described, however his presence is hinted at when people face moral tests.
One of my favorites is in the very next story with Cain and Abel. Cain is tempted to murder his brother and a hungry animal is preparing to attack him. At least, that is how the bible describes “sin.” This evil is present in moments of sinful desire and it plays the same animal-like role as the snake in the garden.
7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”
In the Gospels, the satan is Jesus’ primary enemy. After Jesus’ baptism, Satan put Him to the same test of temptation. However, Jesus overcame the temptation and would not be dragged into this rebellion. He was also confronted by human participants in this rebellion, but He viewed these confrontations as a battle against the power of darkness.
What are the powers of darkness? Let’s talk about demons…
DEMONS
DEMONS
The story of demons begins in chapter 6 of Genesis. Before reading that story, it is important to remember one of the groups of spiritual beings who we have already discussed, the Divine Council. We talked about some of the names these spiritual beings are called, such as “the sons of Elohim,” “the host of heaven,” and “the sons of God” to name a few.
Demons begin their story with a similar rebellion and fall to the humans and the Satan. In fact, their story is almost word for word the same as the description of Eve’s deception. Let’s quickly look at Eve’s story…
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
Let’s compare her bad decision to that of the sons of God…
Genesis 6:2 (ESV)
2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.
They saw that it was good and they took. The same Hebrew words were used to tie the stories together. Saw it’s good and took. The result of this rebellious union is what scripture calls “Nephilim.” The Nephilim are giant warriors from ancient times. These giant warriors were very violent and very tall kings. They spread death and terror throughout the ancient world. They are even portrayed in extra-biblical mythology.
This brief story of the Nephilim is the introduction to the story of the flood. God’s divine justice was not only God’s response to human wickedness, but also His attempt to purify the land from the violence and innocent blood shed by the Nephilim.
Unfortunately for post-flood humanity, that isn’t the end of the Nephilim. These Nephilim went by many names, and one of these names is used in the Bible to refer to the “spirits of dead warrior kings”. Speaking of names, one of Noah’s great grandson’s was named Nimrod. Nimrod is called a “mighty warrior,” which is the same word used to describe the offspring of the sons of God and the human women. Nimrod goes on to build Babylon and other cities.
In short, we are meant to see the rebel spiritual beings behind the founding of Babylon. These shadowy, evil, rebellious spirits of dead warrior kings continue to make an appearance throughout human history in an attempt to deceive the nations into worshiping them. A good example is in Exodus...
12 On that night I will pass through the land of Egypt and strike down every firstborn son and firstborn male animal in the land of Egypt. I will execute judgment against all the gods of Egypt, for I am the Lord!
The word “demon” appears twice in the OT to refer to this group of spiritual rebels. Here is one…
37 They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons.
The Hebrew word that we translate to demon is “shade.” In English, we know shades as evil spirits. Jesus regularly confronted evil spiritual beings who terrorized people physically and mentally.
23 Jesus traveled throughout the region of Galilee, teaching in the synagogues and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom. And he healed every kind of disease and illness. 24 News about him spread as far as Syria, and people soon began bringing to him all who were sick. And whatever their sickness or disease, or if they were demon possessed or epileptic or paralyzed—he healed them all.
One of the most common titles for these evil spirits is “impure spirits.”
23 Just then a man in their synagogue who was possessed by an impure spirit cried out, 24 “What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!” 25 “Be quiet!” said Jesus sternly. “Come out of him!” 26 The impure spirit shook the man violently and came out of him with a shriek.
This spiritual rebel is called “impure” because these spirits are associated with the dead warrior kings. According to biblical Jewish thought, the bodies of the dead are ritually impure. Therefore, if a spiritual being is part of the remnant of the dead warrior-giants, they are, by definition, ritually impure.
One of the impure spirits Jesus faces has a very clear connection to these dead warrior-giants…
2 When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an impure spirit came from the tombs to meet him.
Not only is this man tormented by spirits of the dead warrior-giants, but they also have him living in the tombs.
8 For Jesus had said to him, “Come out of this man, you impure spirit!” 9 Then Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” “My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.”
The spiritual rebel, who is both an individual and a group, terrorizes him in a graveyard, and he is named after a Roman battalion! The connection to the dead warrior-giants is clear in this story. This story gives us a picture of Jesus facing off with a battalion of these rebellious spiritual beings who are warrior-giants, the battlefield is even in a ritually impure location, and Jesus is still victorious over them.
Jesus’ death and resurrection is the climax of this spiritual war. It is how He overcomes the powers of evil that have been rebelling against God since the beginning. It is how He sets us free from captivity by these powers.
I hope this series has been enlightening and interesting. I know listening to someone present tons of data can be boring, but the subject matter is endlessly fascinating. For me, the largest contributor to fear is the lack of knowledge. Fearing the unknown, if you will. My hope and prayer is that this study provides some of that knowledge in a way that God can use to drive out fear.
If you have further interest in this study, let me know and I can get you the study notes and the videos from the Bible Project so that you can study this in your own way and in your own time so that it will all make a little more sense.