PERSONALITY OF THE DEVIL by John Norton Loughborough

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 3, 1881

PERSONALITY OF THE DEVIL.

By John Norton Loughborough

[Thoughts suggested by the perusal of a lecture of Robert Roberts of Birmingham, England, in a series of letters to a friend in Somerset, by Eld. J. N. Loughborough of Southampton. Published by request.]

LETTER FIRST.

My Dear Friend J.: In compliance with your request, I have carefully and prayerfully read the fifth of Mr. Robert's series of twelve printed lectures, and will now give you some of my thoughts on the subject. I have not only read his lectures once, but a second and third time, and I understand him to fairly take the position that the devil is not a personal being, but only sin as it exists in the hearts of men.

It seems to me he tries too hard to confound the common view of the devil with that held by Pagans without presenting proof of the same. He says:—

"In most systems of theology, the devil is placed in juxtaposition with God. As the one is presented for worship, as the source and embodiment of all good, so the other is held up for detestation and dread, as the instigator and promoter of all evil. The one is regarded in the light of the good God, and the other as the bad God. It is the polytheism of Paganism reduced to the smallest dimensions compatible with its existence."

The above is the introduction of his lecture, and it seems to me is a very unfortunate thrust for himself. It passes with me as his assertion, merely, without proof. It would be more convincing had he given us a quotation (if such could be found) from the writings of some religious system of theology which sets forth the devil as a god. What Pagans have taught and what Protestant Christians teach on this subject I do not consider the same, and why should we assume that the one is the same as the other.

We who believe in the existence of a personal devil do not claim that he is a diety in any sense, but that he is a fallen being of a higher grade than man, who uses his faculties and powers to war against truth and right. Neither do we claim that all evil deeds performed, at the present time, are directly and immediately from the devil. There are presented in the Scriptures three sources from which temptations to evil arise; from the lusts of the human heart, from the world without, and from the devil.

Mr. R. proceeds to state,—

"Satan is looked upon as the great bad agent, as God is looked upon as the great good agent, and the moral universe is the battle-field on which they measure strength in what would appear to be a somewhat unequal encounter."

What believer in the Protestant idea of the devil ever taught, either in print or otherwise, that God is "measuring strength" with the devil? The Scriptures clearly set forth, as in the case of Job, that the devil can go no farther than permitted, and that finally he is to be completely overthrown, for Christ is to "destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil." Heb. 2:14.

Again he says:—

"Common belief assigns something like omniscience to the evil being thus described; he is regarded as universally at work, alike active in England and America, and all other parts of the globe at the same time, and exerting his seductiveness in millions of hearts at once."

Contrary to the above view we believe the Bible statement that the devil "walketh about," as a roaring lion, "seeking whom he may devour." If he were omniscient, all things would be open before him, as in the case of God, and his "seeking," which implies a lack of knowledge, and a dependence upon his researches for a knowledge, of those he could lead astray, would be unnecessary. Of the omniscient God we read, "All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do." As to how Satan is working in various parts of the world at the same time, we read of "the devil and his angels." He may have his legions of angels in various parts of the world at the same time carrying out his purposes, equally called the work of the devil. In special cases they have their councils with "the devil," "the father" of lies.

After stating very positively that there is no personal devil, Mr. R. says,—

"We are not unaware that apparent countenance is given to the doctrine in the Scriptures. . . . The apparent sanction accorded by the Scriptures to the idea of a personal, supernatural devil is no sanction at all, but arises from a misconstruction under educational bias of certain allusions to other agencies altogether."

Having thus denied the existence of a personal devil, although admitting that the Scriptures seem to show us what such a being, he passes on to show us what this devil is. We quote,—

"'The wages of sin is death.' (Rom. 6:23.) 'Sin entered into the world, and death by sin.' (Rom. 5:12.) This is an eternal principle; death and sin are inseparable. 'God only hath immortality' (1 Tim. 6:17); and he bestows it on the principle of obedience. Disobedience, which is sin, He will not tolerate; in every case he visits it with death. Therefore the angels which kept not their first estate, were cast down to hell (the grave) and reserved under chains of darkness (the bonds of death) (Jude 6; 2 Pet. 2:2-4); therefore Adam was sentenced to return to the ground (Gen. 3:19); therefore Moses was prohibited from entering the promised land, and condemned to die (Deut. 32:48, 52); and therefore Uzzah was slain for harmlessly (humanly speaking) saving the ark from a fall (2 Sam. 6:6, 7). . . . With God is the fountain of life. (Ps. 36:9.) No one can steal a march upon him, so as to retain life and power in rebellion. 'In His hand is the life of every living thing' (Job 12:10), and He cuts away the life that would be lifted audaciously in antagonism to Heaven; he consigns to death all disobedience and sin." p. 153.

I have quoted the above in which he claims the angels that sinned were cast into "the grave." I fear, to carry his point, he has drawn a hasty conclusion. While I admit that all willful transgressors against God are to be visited with death, is it certain that the sinning angels are now dead? It is of considerable importance to know where these sinning angels were cast. Is the assertion warranted that they were cast immediately into death and the grave because death comes by sin? The Bible testimony is not that they are dead, but that they are "reserved unto judgment," intimating surely that they are not yet judged.

He says of the angels, "Cast down to hell (the grave)" as though it were a foregone conclusion that the word hell in this text meant the grave.

The word rendered hell in the New Testament, meaning the grave, is hades. The word rendered hell, referring to the place of the future punishment of the wicked, is gehenna. The word rendered hell in 2 Peter 2:4 is neither hades nor gehenna, but tartaroo-o. Is it so certain that tartaroo-o means the grave that Mr. R. can assert it without fear of criticism. Let us look.

The word tartaroo-o used by St. Peter is a verb signifying to thrust down to tartarus. As this case in Peter's epistle is the only instance of the use of the word in the Scriptures, and as this does not clearly define the place, we will inquire for the meaning of the term tartarus when used as a noun. The Greek Lexicon of Liddell and Scott says, "Tartaroo-o, to hurl or cast into tartarus, N. T. Tartarus, a dark abyss, as deep below hades, as the earth is below heaven. Later, Tartarus was either the nether-world, generally, like hades or the regions of the damned as opposed to the Elysian fields."

Parkhurst, in his Lexicon, says, "In order to know what was the precise intention of the apostle by this expression, we must inquire what is the accurate import of the term tartarus. Now it appears a passage of Lucian that by tartarus was meant in a physical sense the verge or bounds of this material system, for he says, 'Thou formedst the universe from its confused and chaotic state, and after separating and dispersing the circumfused chaos, which, as in one common sepulchre, the whole world lay buried, thou drovest it to the confines of outer tartarus.' Tartarus, then, in its proper physical sense, is the condensed, solid, and immovable darkness which surrounds the material universe. And thus tartarus will import that God cast the apostate angels out of his presence into that blackness of darkness where they will be forever excluded from the light of his countenance."

Lange's Commentary says, "Tartarosas (a participle) is another term peculiar to Peter, and not found in the seventy. Grotius justly remarks that it denotes, in classic Greek, to cast down into tartarus, not to condemn to tartarus. Nor does tartarus (the noun) occur either in the New Testament or in the seventy. The Greeks conceived it to be the lowest regions of the earth, full of darkness and cold, not a region in the air, as Grotius, quoting Plutarch, supposes."

Dr. Bloomfield says: "The tartarus being a part of hades in which criminals were supposed to be confined until the day of Judgment. Now they are not represented as being in actual torments, but only adjudged to them, and in the meantime committed to security of chains of darkness; i. e., to places where utter darkness holds them as it were enchained."

Dr. Gill says: "'Cast them down to hell.' They were hurled out of heaven, from whence they fell as lightning, into the lowest, or inferior places, as the Syriac version renders it, either into the air, as in Eph. 2:2, or into the earth, or into the deep, the abyss, the bottomless pit, where they are detained as in a prison."

Dr. Whitby says: "'Casting them down to hell.' Tartarus, saith Phavorinus, is the sub-terrestrial air where the sun comes not. It signifies also, saith Suidas, the place in the clouds or in the air; hence in Homer, tartarus was the dark air."

It is not intimated in one of these writers that the tartarus of St. Peter is the grave, but it seems to me after carefully examining all the various writers on this subject that tartarus is the name used by the Spirit of God for the great abyss of space into which Satan and his angels were cast after their rebellion, before the creation of man. The chains of darkness must signify a condition of hopeless despair, for literal chains cannot be made out of darkness.

Mr. R. says: "An immortal rebel is an impossibility." True, "For the wages of sin is death." God will at last put down all rebellion, and make an end of sin. Satan is not an immortal rebel, for he is to be destroyed with his works.

His next statement I am not prepared to endorse without modification. He says, "No one can retain life and power in rebellion." Some men have lived to a great age in sin and rebellion against God; the wise man, Solomon, says, "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." Eccl. 8:11. Job inquires, "Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty in power. Their seed is established in their sight with them, and their offspring before their eyes. Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them." Job 21:7-9. If this is true of man, why may not the devil, - a fallen angel, of a higher grade of being than man [though not immortal], endowed with a greater life force, perhaps sufficient to save him from decay for thousands of years, - why may he not live until destroyed at last in the lake of fire?