INTRODUCTION:
In this new series of teachings, we will focus on studying and understanding one of the mysterious characters in the Bible called SATAN. From the biblical basis, we will try to discover WHO SATAN IS, his history, including his origin, identity, personality, being, real name, how he became Satan, his fall, his works, the strategies he uses to turn people away from God and also his end.
WHO IS SATAN / DEVIL?
If you ask this question, who is Satan or the Devil, you might find different answers in your research, which might be different from what the Bible says about him.
Especially in this study on "UNDERSTANDING WHO SATAN IS", we will use the Bible as a search engine to understand who he is, his history, including his origin, his identity, his personality, his being, his real name, how he became Satan, his fall, his works, the strategies he uses to turn people away from God and also his end.
According to the biblical information we have about "SATAN", this mysterious spiritual being named Satan in the Bible, also known as the Devil and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, if we ask this question to know "WHO IS SATAN / DEVIL?", according to the Bible, it is a spiritual entity that has managed to seduce a multitude of humans and lead them to sin before God by using trickery and lies.
ATTENTION:
Before we begin our study I wanted to first draw your attention to the fact that the Bible in general does not give us many details about Satan, so we do not have much information about his being, his origin, his identity and his real name. As for his presence in the Bible, there are therefore few verses in the Bible that tell us about his origin, his identity, his fall and his works.
HERE ARE SOME BIBLE VERSES THAT TALK ABOUT SATAN / THE DEVIL:
Ezekiel 28:12-19 , Isaiah 14:12-14 , Luke 10, Jude 1:6-9,
Revelation 12:7-17, Matthew 13:3-23, Colossians 2:15 , Luke 4:5-6
WHAT WE WILL LEARN IN THIS FIRST PART:
Using the information the Bible gives us about him.
In the first part of this teaching, I focus my study on understanding WHO SATAN IS?
You will have noticed that often when the Bible talks about Satan, the name SATAN/DEVIL is not directly mentioned to help you identify him in the Scriptures because he is often typified and presented in the form of images and mysterious beings. And in this first part you will discover the 13 descriptions of Satan mentioned in the Bible.
HERE ARE THE 13 DESCRIPTIONS OF SATAN MENTIONED IN THE BIBLE:
Things to know even if the Bible does not give us enough information about him and his identity, it at least attracts our attention by trying to describe him to us in several ways so that we understand WHO IS SATAN / THE DEVIL? to help us identify him and escape his cunning and lies.
I have selected here 13 descriptions of Satan mentioned in the Bible. These different descriptions of this mysterious being that the Bible calls Satan help us identify his presence in the Bible during our Bible study times. For example, you will have noticed that the first time the Bible speaks of Satan, his name is not directly mentioned to make us understand that it is Satan, but he is typified and represented by the serpent, the most cunning animal in the garden, to draw our attention to his cunning.
1. THE FATHER OF LIES:
In the gospel of John 8:44, Jesus says that his Jewish enemies are the children of the devil. The same verse describes the devil as a liar and the father of lies.
(origin, source, founder, root of lies)
2. FALLEN ANGEL:
In Christianity, he is considered a fallen angel who rebelled against God, but God nevertheless grants him the power to temporarily rule over the fallen world and over a multitude of demons and some human beings who are in captivity under his control.
3. THE TEMPTER:
In the New Testament, Satan is called “the tempter”. The one who tempts the children of God by trying to make them disobey the voice of God. He even tried to tempt Jesus Christ our Lord but Christ emerged victorious in the face of his temptations.
( Matthew 4:3 )
4.THE MASTER OF DEMONS {THE LEADER OF DEMONS}
The Bible presents Satan as the “chief of demons” (Matthew 12:24), that is, the one who reigns over the kingdom of darkness. It is because of this position that he is also called the prince of darkness or prince of demons.
5. THE GOD OF THIS AGE:
One of the descriptions of Satan according to the Bible is that of the "god of this age"
(2 Corinthians 4:4). That is to say, it is Satan who is at the top of the government of the nations of the world and who controls and manipulates the political, social, cultural, economic and even religious system of our planet. This is why he says to Jesus in Matthew 4 if you fall down and worship me, I will give you all this because it has been given to me.
We have three powers that govern the world or our planet:
Among these three powers there is the power of man, God himself in the book of Genesis gave man the power to reign and dominate over all creation because MAN is officially established by God to be the manager of the planet.
The second power is the divine power which is the power of God, God is the master of the world because the whole world belongs to him he has absolute power over all creation.
And the third power is the power of Satan, the "prince of the darkness of this world". The Bible calls him the god of this century the one who controls the system that governs nations by bringing corruption and deception.
6. THE EVIL ONE:
"the evil one" (1 John 5:18), he is presented as the father of evil. Sin and evil exist because of him. He had made his choice from heaven to practice evil and to identify himself with evil. He is the origin of sin, because sin has its origin and root in Satan,
he was the first to practice sin and to execute evil voluntarily.
And since he did not want to sin alone, he also influenced other angels to sin with him, who later became his demons. In his wickedness, he did not want it to stop there, he also wanted sin {evil} to reach humanity, he used Adam and Eve to quench his thirst.
It is therefore through Adam and Eve that sin {evil} was able to pierce the world and affect the life of every human being living on earth. Glory to God Jesus Christ came to die to save us from evil.
7. ROARING LION:
He is also called in the Bible "roaring lion" (1 Peter 5:8). He is the false lion, because Jesus Christ is the true lion. He tries to frighten the children of God because he is looking for victims to devour.
8.SATAN:
Etymologically, the word Satan comes from the Hebrew name meaning Enemy, Adversary, Opponent and Accuser. It is mentioned 14 times in the Old Testament and 33 times in the New Testament (in the majority of cases in the New Testament, it is Jesus who mentions it).
In this description of SATAN, he is represented in the Bible as the one who tries to oppose God's plan for the lives of believers, the success of God's work, and the success of God's children. He makes himself the enemy of God and the constant adversary and accuser of God's children.
1 Peter 5:8
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.
WARNING:
God has no adversaries because no one can stand against his authority and power. He is sovereign and full of power and authority. But the Bible says he has enemies and the devil and all who believe his lies are enemies of God, that is why they will go to hell.
9. THE DEVIL:
Etymologically, The devil comes from the Greek Diabolos which means the one who disunites, the one who divides, the evil one, the tempter or the seducer. This name is found only in the New Testament and nowhere in the Old Testament.
This description The devil is the personification or incarnation of evil. for this reason the devil also means the evil one, the tempter or the seducer.
Historically, it should be known that the devil tempted the first man in the garden of Eden and succeeded in keeping him away from God, he tempted Jesus the son of God and he will not be afraid to tempt you. This is why he is called in the scriptures the devil which means the tempter. From the first appearance of Satan in the scriptures, in the book of Genesis, he appears as the devil the tempter the seducer.
MATTHEW 4:1-3
Then was Jesus led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3Then the tempter came and said to him, If you are the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
REVELATION 12:9
And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world: he was cast out to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
10. LUCIFER:
The name Lucifer means "light bearer" or "morning star," which refers to salvation. This name is linked to his origin, that is, to his past before he was transformed into Satan.
The name LUCIFER is a great demonstration of the greatness and value with which he was created and we can also understand from this that in heaven before his fall he occupied a very high strategic position. He was classified in the classification of angels called CHERUB An ARCHANGEL which means leader of the other angels. But he fell and lost his place in heaven because he wanted more. Out of pride, he wanted to defy God by trying to take God's place to make himself God and be worshiped by the other angels.
The man that the Bible describes as Satan loves the name Lucifer very much because it gives him the image of the angel of light or light bearer. A savior and not a destroyer and he continually uses this image to deceive the world. This is why it is written that the angel of Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
2 Corinthians 11:14-15
No wonder; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. No wonder then if his ministers also are transformed into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.
ATTENTION:
The name Lucifer is not mentioned in black and white in the Bible. But we can find descriptions of the meaning of this name in the Bible.
ISAIAH 14:12
How you have fallen from heaven, Lucifer, son of the morning! You are thrown to the ground, you who conquered the nations!
11. THE DRAGON:
The book of Revelation describes the devil as a seven-headed dragon.
Revelation 12:3 describes the vision of a great red dragon with seven heads, ten horns, seven crowns, and a massive tail, an image likely inspired by the vision of the four sea beasts in the book of Daniel.
At the beginning of the Bible, when he first appears, he looks like a small serpent that the Bible calls in the book of Revelation the ancient serpent. What is impressive is that the serpent of Genesis has become a powerful seven-headed dragon in the book of Revelation.
This metamorphosis from a small serpent to a powerful 7-headed dragon is prophetic because Revelation represents the end, that is, in the last days, the devil will increase his power to seek to deceive and destroy as many people as possible.
12. THE SERPENT:
The serpent and the basic image of the devil {Satan} in the Old Testament sometimes called Leviathan, which is a large anaconda-like serpent, it is described in various passages of the Old Testament (Genesis 3:1; 4-5; 13-15, and in Revelation 12:9.
13.BEELZEBUL:
Which means the God of excrement, that is why he loves toilets and he loves to eat excrement. He loves dirty things. He built his kingdom on dirty things.
In Mark 3:22, the scribes accuse Jesus Christ of casting out demons by the power of Beelzebub, the prince of demons. The name also appears in Matthew 12:24,27 and Luke 11:15, 18-19, as well as Matthew 10:25.
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