THE TEMPTER AND THE TEMPTED: or The Personality of Satan.
By G. T. Wilson
1. He who is now called Satan, adversary, was once called Lucifer, a being of perfection and highest order in heaven. He was created perfect, but little by little perverted his wisdom and might, and became the leader of the great controversy between good and evil. Isa. 14:12-17; Eze. 28:12-19; Hosea 4:1; Jer. 25:31; Eph. 2:1-3; 6:11, 12. 2. Satan, or Lucifer, as he was then called, wanted to be above the Son of God; Christ must not have authority over him, so he started the controversy in heaven, but was cast out, taking with him about one-third of the angels of heaven, who with him had rebelled against God and His holy law. This made them sinners. Rev. 12:4, 7-9; Isa. 14:12-14. “I will be like the Most High.” These were the words of Satan. He would not bow to Christ. This is further shown by the way Satan acted toward Christ in the temptation in the mountain, when he tried to get Christ to fall down and worship him. Matt. 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-8. His desire was still to be like the Most High. See also 2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6. 3. Satan was once in the truth, but did not abide there. John 8:44. With him murder and lying began. 1 John 3:8. Had Satan no personality, he could not be called a liar and murderer, as he is in the text in John 8:44. Pride separated his soul from God, and caused his casting out of heaven. Said Christ, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” Luke 10:18. 4. Satan carried the Saviour bodily to a pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem, and tried to get Him to cast Himself from that dizzy height, because of his malicious desire to destroy the Son of God. He next took Christ to an exceeding high mountain, and there he showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory in a moment of time, and promised them to Him if He would worship him. How could he have done all this if he had not been a person? Matt. 4:1-11; Luke 4:1-13. He found no answering chord in Christ to his temptations. John 14:30. Christ was tempted, but not overcome. He knew no sin. He never yielded to Satan. 5. Satan is called the prince of devils or demons, and Christ recognized that Satan had a kingdom. Though a fallen angel, he is still a being of great power and glory, and all his perverted wisdom he uses to pervert the truth of God, His law, and His Gospel. With these perversions he corrupts all his subjects, and turns them against God. Matt. 12:24, 26; Rev. 12:9-12; 2 Cor. 11:3, 12-15; 4:4. 6. He goes about seeking, like a hungry lion, whom he may devour. He at times brings storms and fire and thieves to destroy our property. He often meets with the people of God when they meet, and does all he can to destroy souls by catching the Word out of their hearts. Job 1:6-12; 2:1-7; 1 Peter 5:8; Luke 22:31; Rev. 12:12; Matt. 13:19; Mark 4:15. 8. Satan is back of every false interpretation of prophecy, as when he spoke through Peter to tell Christ that He should not be delivered into the hands of sinners and put to death at Jerusalem. It was Satan who put these words in Peter’s mouth; that is why Christ used the form of rebuke He did. Matt. 16:16, 17, 21-23. 9. Those who are under the power and control of Satan are called his children. John 8:44. Satan “is the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.” Eph. 2:1-3. He is “the god of this world.” 2 Cor. 4:4. He deceiveth the whole world. Rev. 12:9. 11. Those who accept Christ and His glorious kingdom of light, leave the black banner of Satan, and his kingdom of darkness, and are subjects of the kingdom of God’s dear Son. Col. 1:12-19. 12. Satan loves war, and he is gathering the kings of this world, and their hosts, for the battle of the great day of God. Rev. 16:13, 14. 13. If persons came into the apostolic church and still practised as the subjects of Satan’s dominion, they were to be delivered over to Satan again; for they would not be subject to Christ. The object was to let the individual see where he stood, so that he would recover himself out of Satan’s snare, repent, and turn to the Lord, and by dying to his fleshly lusts, become alive to Christ, and a subject of His kingdom. 1 Cor. 5:1-13; 2 Cor. 2:1-11; 7:8-12. In this way they carried out the advice of Christ to His disciples. Matt. 18:15-18. In 1 Cor. 5:5 a case is mentioned where a man was cast out of the church of Corinth, that he might see that the church of God did not sanction his vile course. This act led to his repentance and reformation, and he was forgiven by the church, and by Paul, and so recovered from Satan’s snare. 14. Alexander, the coppersmith, left the faith, and Paul says he delivered him over to Satan, that he might learn not to blaspheme. That is, he was cast out of the church, and deprived of the sanction of the church authority, by which he was upheld when in the church, to speak against the doctrines which his brethren held. He would learn that he stood outside, and this would teach him that he could not further oppose Paul and the brethren under church sanction. 1 Tim. 1:19, 20; 2 Tim. 2:16-18; 4:14, 15. 15. In James 1:14, 15 we read: “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” Lust is a perversion of the natural powers and faculties5that our Creator bestowed upon man; but by yielding to Satan’s suggestions in Eden, our first parents were overcome, and perverted in their natures, so that since that time the human race have been easily led into sinful indulgences. See 1 John 2:15, 16; Gen. 3:1-15. Christ was tempted, but He had no devil in Him. To be tempted, therefore, does not make a man a devil; but if he yields to the temptation, he becomes subject to Satan’s control so long as he continues in that sinful practise. Rom. 6:16. 16. God tells us: “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you.” James 4:7. “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way of escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” “Lest Satan should get an advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices.” “Greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.” “Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.” God grant us grace to labor with such gentleness for the souls who have fallen into Satan’s snares, “that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.” 2 Tim. 2:24-26.