William Blake, Satan Smiting Job with Sore Boils, about 1826. Public domain.
Job 1 and 2 · Doctrine · Featured Study
Satan
Scripture names the adversary of God's people in both Testaments, and the New Testament reads the cross as his defeat.
The accuser who stands before the LORD in Job is bound with a great chain in Revelation 20 and thrown into the lake of fire.
One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them. “Where have you come from?” said the LORD to Satan. “From roaming through the earth,” he replied, “and walking back and forth in it.”
- First taught
- Genesis 3:1 “Now the serpent was more crafty than any…”
- Fullest statement
- Revelation 20:1 to 10 “…who is the devil and Satan, and bound…”
The accuser who stands before the LORD in Job is bound with a great chain in Revelation 20 and thrown into the lake of fire.
Summary
Scripture presents Satan as a real spirit who opposes God and accuses His people, and it tells his end from the promise of Genesis 3:15 to Revelation 20:10.
- Revelation 12:9 and 20:2 name the serpent of Genesis 3 the devil and Satan.
- In Job 1 and 2 and in Zechariah 3 he accuses a servant of God before the LORD, and he acts against Job only within the leave the LORD gives.
- His works are named with their texts: he tempts, accuses, deceives and devours.
- Christ disarmed the powers and authorities at the cross (Colossians 2:15).
The Adversary Before the LORD
Scripture shows Satan as a person who wills, speaks and is judged.
One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them. “Where have you come from?” said the LORD to Satan. “From roaming through the earth,” he replied, “and walking back and forth in it.”The LORD questions Satan first, so the account sets him under the LORD's authority from his first line.
He quotes Scripture to Jesus in Matthew 4:6, and Jesus calls him a murderer from the beginning and the father of lies (John 8:44).
Scripture gives him many other titles, from the serpent of Genesis 3:1 to the dragon of Revelation 12:9, and The Names of Satan sets out each one with its text.
He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.The verse carries four of his names at the moment of his binding: the dragon, the ancient serpent, the devil and Satan.
He quotes Scripture to Jesus in Matthew 4:6, and Jesus calls him a murderer from the beginning and the father of lies (John 8:44).
Scripture gives him many other titles, from the serpent of Genesis 3:1 to the dragon of Revelation 12:9, and The Names of Satan sets out each one with its text.
He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.The verse carries four of his names at the moment of his binding: the dragon, the ancient serpent, the devil and Satan.
The Hebrew and Greek wordssatan, H7854, and diabolos, G1228
In Job 1:6 and in Zechariah 3:1 to 2 the Hebrew writes the noun with the article, ha-satan. James Strong defines the word as an opponent, and with the article prefixed Satan, the arch-enemy of good. In Zechariah 3:1 the noun stands beside its own verb, le-sitno, to accuse him.
The New Testament's word is diabolos, which Strong defines as a traducer and which English Bibles render devil. Its first use in canonical order is Matthew 4:1.
A created spiritColossians 1:16
Paul writes that all things in heaven and on earth were created in Christ, thrones and rulers and authorities among them (Colossians 1:16). Origen, in On First Principles, reads the adversary among the created powers and argues that he was not made evil by nature.
Serpent to Dragon Across the Canon
He appears as serpent, accuser, tempter, prince and dragon, and the canon follows him to his binding and his end.
The 10 texts in canon order.
1The crafty beast of the field
- Genesis 3:1 to 5
- the first lie, you will not surely die
- Genesis 3:15
- the woman's seed will crush his head
- Job 1:9 to 12
- strikes Job within the LORD's leave
- Zechariah 3:1 to 4
- rebuked by the LORD
- Matthew 4:1 to 11
- answered by Jesus with what is written
- John 12:31
- to be cast out
- Colossians 2:15
- Christ triumphs over them at the cross
- Revelation 12:9
- thrown to the earth with his angels
- Revelation 20:2 to 3
- sealed in the Abyss for a thousand years
10The end
- Revelation 20:10
- with the beast and the false prophet, forever
A timeline of ten rows from Genesis 3:1 to Revelation 20:10, each with its reference.
The powers disarmed, The dragon hurled down, The dragon bound, The end
The Accuser in Job and Zechariah
Twice in Job and once in Zechariah Satan stands in the LORD's presence against a servant of God.
Job 1 and 2 tell two scenes in the LORD's court. In each Satan questions whether Job's faith is real, and in each the LORD sets the bound of what he may do.
Satan answered the LORD, “Does Job fear God for nothing? Have You not placed a hedge on every side around him and his household and all that he owns? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out Your hand and strike all that he has, and he will surely curse You to Your face.” “Very well,” said the LORD to Satan. “Everything he has is in your hands, but you must not lay a hand on the man himself.” Then Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.The first trial reaches Job's goods and his children and stops short of his body.
“Skin for skin!” Satan replied. “A man will give up all he owns in exchange for his life. But stretch out Your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse You to Your face.” “Very well,” said the LORD to Satan. “He is in your hands, but you must spare his life.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and infected Job with terrible boils from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.The second trial reaches his body and stops short of his life.
Joshua stands in filthy garments and says nothing in his own defense, and the LORD answers for him. His iniquity is removed and he is clothed in splendid robes (Zechariah 3:3 to 4).
Then the angel showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, with Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the LORD said to Satan: “The LORD rebukes you, Satan! Indeed, the LORD, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebukes you! Is not this man a firebrand snatched from the fire?”The LORD grounds His rebuke in His own choice of Jerusalem, and He gives it twice in one verse.
His Methods, and How They Are Met
Four works of the adversary, each with its text, and the resistance Scripture asks of believers.
HE TEMPTS
He sets a doubt about God's word before the woman, and he tempts Jesus in the wilderness.
HE ACCUSES
He accuses the brothers before God day and night until he is thrown down.
HE DECEIVES
He masquerades as an angel of light, so that his lies come dressed as the truth.
HE DEVOURS
He prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
He deceives, He devours
Paul, Peter and James each answer them. Paul writes that the church knows his schemes (2 Corinthians 2:11), and Peter tells believers to resist him, standing firm in the faith (1 Peter 5:9).
Put on the full armor of God, so that you can make your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this world’s darkness, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.Paul names the enemy who stands behind every human opponent the church meets.
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.James sets submission to God before resistance, and he promises the outcome.
Can a believer be oppressed?They Shall Expel Demons (1998)
Derek Prince, in They Shall Expel Demons (1998), taught that a believer can carry demonic oppression in an area of soul or body not yet surrendered to God. He taught that it never reaches the regenerate spirit, and that the resistance James commands is its ordinary remedy.
Two teachers on his ways and his worksBasil of Caesarea and Origen
“That the devil wanders over all the earth under heaven and ranges about like a mad dog, seeking whom he may devour, we learn from the story of Job.”
Basil of Caesarea · On Renunciation of the World 2 · on 1 Peter 5:8Patristic
“Insofar as we commit sins, we have not yet put off the generation of the devil, even if we are thought to believe in Jesus. Everyone who is not of the devil does not commit sin.”
Origen of Alexandria · Commentary on John 20.103-4 · on 1 John 3:8Patristic
What Scripture Leaves Unsaid
Job, Zechariah and 2 Peter name the accuser and the angels who sinned and leave their beginnings untold.
How did he come among the sons of God?Job 1:6 to 7
The chapter gives him no origin and no rank, and his roaming through the earth in Job 1:7 has no further account.
Was Job told?Job 1 and 2
Job is never told of the scenes in heaven, and the book names Satan for the last time in Job 2:7.
When did the angels sin?2 Peter 2:4
Peter writes that God did not spare the angels when they sinned (2 Peter 2:4), and Scripture gives no date for their sin.
A Defeated Enemy Awaiting His Sentence
The New Testament reads the cross as the blow promised in Genesis 3:15, and Revelation 20 tells the end that follows it.
Guido Reni, Archangel Michael Defeats Satan, about 1636, oil on canvas, Santa Maria della Concezione, Rome. Published before 1930, public domain by date, via Wikimedia Commons.
Reni painted Michael with his foot on Satan's head and a chain in his hand, the war in heaven of Revelation 12:7 to 9.
And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”God speaks the first promise of the adversary's defeat to the serpent himself, in the garden, before He sentences the woman and the man.
Paul, the letter to the Hebrews and John each read the death or the coming of Christ as that blow, and Paul sets it at the cross (Colossians 2:15).
After the cross the sentence remains to be carried out, and Revelation 12:12 says the devil has come down in great fury because he knows his time is short. Jesus saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven (Luke 10:18), and Revelation 20 tells his binding and his end.
Now since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity, so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.Hebrews ties the incarnation to the victory, for the Son took on a body in order to die.
The one who practices sin is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the very start. This is why the Son of God was revealed, to destroy the works of the devil.John ties the coming of Christ to the undoing of sin, and he tells God's children apart by their conduct (1 John 3:10).
And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, into which the beast and the false prophet had already been thrown. There they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.Revelation closes the account of the adversary with a judgment that has no end.
1 John 3:8, Revelation 20:10
Is the Satan of Job the Devil?
Two readings of the accuser in Job and Zechariah, each with a holder and the answer it meets, and the question of where he came from.
One adversary from Eden to the lake of fire1 quotation, 2 paragraphs
Gregory the Great, in his Morals on the Book of Job, asked why the LORD asks Satan alone where he has come from. He answered that God's not knowing is His condemning, and he set it beside Luke 13:27, where the master of the house says he does not know where the evildoers are from.
“Job, in being thus maligned of Satan, was a type of Christ. He had permission to bruise his heel, to touch his bone and his flesh; yea, and his life also; because by dying he was to do what Job could not do, to destroy him that had the power of death.”
John Wesley · Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament · on Job 2:6Evangelical
Rashi of Troyes answers the reading that the Satan of Job is the devil of Revelation. In his eleventh-century commentary on Job he reads Job 1:12 and Job 2:6 as the bounds the LORD sets on an officer of His court.
An officer of the heavenly court2 paragraphs
In the same commentary Rashi reads the day of Job 1:6 as Rosh Hashanah, when God commanded the Adversary to bring the merit and the guilt of all creatures. In his commentary on Zechariah he names the charge against Joshua (Zechariah 3:1), that his sons had married foreign wives, as Ezra 10:18 records.
Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, in their Commentary Critical and Explanatory on Zechariah 3:1, answer it by reading the rebuke of the accuser forward to Revelation 12:10, where the accuser of the brothers is thrown down.
Where he came from: Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 282 paragraphs
Origen, in On First Principles, read the lament over the king of Babylon (Isaiah 14:12 to 15) as the fall of one who had been in heaven. He read the lament over the prince of Tyre (Ezekiel 28:12 to 17) the same way and set Luke 10:18 beside them.
Matthew Henry, in his Commentary on the Whole Bible, read Isaiah 14 as the fall of the king and called the angelic reading a mere allusion. Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, in their Commentary Critical and Explanatory, read the day star as a title that belongs to Christ and that Antichrist will take. The Origin of Evil sets out each reading with its holders.
Books to Read Next
Three works on the adversary, from the sixth century to the twentieth.
Morals on the Book of Job
Gregory the Great · about 595
Gregory reads Job verse by verse in three senses, the historical, the allegorical and the moral, and he reads Satan's questions and the LORD's permissions in Job 1 under each.
Read volume 1 (1844) at the Internet ArchivePowers of Evil: A Biblical Study of Satan and Demons
Sydney H. T. Page · 1995
Page's study of 295 pages sets out what the Bible teaches on the devil and on the demons.
In print: find it wherever books are sold.
They Shall Expel Demons
Derek Prince · 1998
Prince's book, in four parts, asks what demons are and whether Christians ever need deliverance from them, and teaches how to recognize and expel them.
In print: find it wherever books are sold.
The God of Peace Will Crush Satan
Paul ends his letter to Rome with the blow of Genesis 3:15 given to the church as a promise.
The serpent who questioned God's word in Eden is the one whom the Son of God came to destroy. In Romans 16:19, the verse before the promise, Paul asks believers to be wise about what is good and innocent about what is evil.
The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.The promised defeat and the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ stand together in one verse.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- Miqra according to the Masorah, the Hebrew text of Job 1:6 and Zechariah 3:1 to 2.
- James Strong, The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (1890), entries H7854 and G1228.
- Rashi on Job, in The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, tr. A. J. Rosenberg.
- Rashi on Zechariah, in The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, tr. A. J. Rosenberg.
- Gregory the Great, Morals on the Book of Job (Oxford, 1844)
- Derek Prince, They Shall Expel Demons (1998)
- Origen, On First Principles, tr. Frederick Crombie (Ante-Nicene Fathers 4, 1885), Book 1, chapter 5.
- Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1710), on Isaiah 14.
- Sydney H. T. Page, Powers of Evil: A Biblical Study of Satan and Demons (1995)
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