PERSONALITY OF THE DEVIL by John Norton Loughborough

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 10, 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 SECOND.

My dear Friend J.: As Mr. R. claims that death came into our world by sin so sin is the devil that “has the power of death,” I read with peculiar interest to learn his explanation of the origin of sin, and how man was led to sin. I find on page 155 of his lectures:—

“The natural serpent ‘more subtle than any BEAST OF THE FIELD, which the Lord God has made’ (Gen. 3:1) and endowed with the gift of speech (no doubt especially conferred with a view to the part it had to perform in putting our first parents to the test) reasoned upon the prohibition which God had put upon ‘the tree in the midst of the garden,’ and concluding, from all he saw and heard, that death would not be the result of eating, he said, ‘Ye shall not surely die;’ etc.

Here the position is fairly taken that the leading of Adam and Eve into sin was accomplished by a “natural serpent,” with no outside influence brought to bear upon him, and as the case is stated it would appear with no intention on his part to deceive, but simply reasoning upon “what he saw and heard.”

He says of this,—

“It was necessary to try the faithfulness of Adam and Eve. How otherwise could they be put to trial? It would never occur to their childlike and inexperienced minds to disobey. The suggestion had to come from without, and could only emanate from some of the living forms by which they were surrounded. It was impossible that the Elohim should be the agent of the temptation.”

It seems from Mr. R.’s language we are to understand that a literal serpent—a talking serpent—was created by God, and by him endowed with the gift of speech on purpose to tempt mother Eve. Seeing a defect in his own position he says,—

“The difficulty about the serpent speaking is more easily surmounted than that created by the theory of Satanic possession. If a dumb ass speaking with man’s voice forbade the madness of Balaam (2 Pet. 2:16), why not a serpent be enabled to utter its thoughts when it was necessary to try the faithfulness of Adam and Eve?”

But let us look a moment. In the case of Balaam’s ass speaking are we to conclude that this ass was one that God had created with the power of speech so that he might play his part in this test of Balaam’s loyalty? It would have to be so, to be a parallel to Mr. R.’s explanation of the serpent’s talking to Eve. Instead of this we read of the presence of a holy angel of God to resist Balaam, and the whole record gives the impression that this was not natural to the ass, but was produced by other power than his own. So also in the case of the serpent, there was more than the innocent workings of the mind of a serpent, “reasoning on what he heard and saw.” Let us look at the text Mr. R. quotes from St. Paul to prove that this was only a literal serpent: “I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.” 2 Cor. 11:3. “The serpent beguiled Eve.” To beguile is to delude or deceive by artifice. It is not a mode of expression to represent so harmless a work as our friend calls the reasoning of the serpent from “what he saw and heard.” Beguiling indicates a deep sealed purpose and determination to deceive and lead away from the right path. This meaning of the word is strengthened by the very use St. Paul makes of it to the Corinthians, for those he mentions were going about with a fixed purpose to deceive and draw the brethren away from Christ.

If this deception of Eve was simply the thoughts originating in the brain of the serpent, with no other power brought to bear upon him, then we must conclude that sin in our world, with all the misery and death resulting therefrom, originated in the brain of a serpent, a literal, veritable, talking serpent. If it is true that God created serpents and endowed them, by creation, with the power of speech, where shall we look for specimens of such serpents?

To claim that God made this serpent speak on that one occasion as the angel did the ass of Balaam, would make the beguiling of Eve originate with the Lord instead of in the serpent alone, as Mr. R. claims. This also would seem to make God directly the author of sin. I cannot see that Mr. R.’s position that the talking serpent was made on purpose to deceive Eve, puts the subject in any better light.

With the idea that the devil and his angels, who had revolted, “kept not their first estate,” had been “cast down to tartarus”—the region of space surrounding our earth—and that stung to wrath by thus being thrust from Heaven they should seek to mar God’s work, all is plain. In deceiving Adam and Eve they were showing their wrath—“beguiling” them into sin. That the devil should use the subtle serpent as his medium, causing it to speak, is no more marvelous than that a holy angel could cause a voice to proceed from the mouth of the dumb ass, and neither of these is very marvelous from beings of higher power than man when we reflect that even some men by the power of ventriloquism can cause voices to appear to proceed from objects both animate and inanimate. This is all in harmony with those Scriptures which connect the devil and the serpent, not only in the deception of Eve, but of the whole world.

After claiming that sin was introduced by the serpent, he says, “The result was, he was made to go upon his belly.” That is true of the literal serpent as the medium of the temptation, but what about the rest of the sentence, “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” Gen. 3:15. Is this all fulfilled in the warfare of men on snakes, and in the fact that some in their warfare get bitten by the venomous serpents? Does it not rather anticipate the time of which St. Paul speaks in Rom. 16:20: “And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.” It undoubtedly refers to the fact that Christ, the seed of the woman (Gal. 4:4), shall at last overthrow the devil and all his works.

On page 156, after quoting from St. Peter, and the book of Jude on the fall of angels, he says:—

“It does not tell of angels being expelled from Heaven to engage in marauding expeditions against human interests and divine authority, wherever their caprice might lead them; but of disobedient angels not necessarily in Heaven, being degraded from their position, and confined in the grave against a time of judgment.”

He claims that these angels are a race of beings that existed on this earth prior to the days of Adam, and says that there is no evidence that they were cast out of Heaven. His position on this subject we deny. They “left their own habitation,” and were “cast down to tartarus,” which, as we have before shown, is the region immediately surrounding this earth, and Rev. 12 seems to speak of a time when angels were “cast out of Heaven.” In Ezekiel, chapter twenty-eight, we have an account of what is there called the “anointed cherub”—beautiful angel—who had been in the garden of God, who aspired to “be like the Most High,” in whom iniquity was found, and who was cast out of “the midst of the stones of fire.”

We know of no pre-Adamic race, and know of no necessity for twisting the plain reading of the Bible, and saying that there had been a race of beings on earth when God says, he “made the earth” “it was without form,” and that having brought it into form, he created man to till the ground. As far as the Bible record is concerned, there is not an intimation that there had ever been a race of beings on the earth previous to the time of Adam. It seems to me a mere fancy. Mr. Roberts, however, seeks proof in the fact that after the creation of Adam and Eve God told them to “be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.” He tells us that the word replenish signifies to refill, which he claims is proof that the earth had once been filled with inhabitants, that it was then reduced into a chaotic state to free it from those inhabitants, and that it was now to be “filled again” by Adam’s posterity. This is quite a large theory to build upon one word—replenish, and we will see if that word really affords the least support to such a theory. He says the meaning of the word replenish is to “fill again.” If we look at the English dictionaries no more force is given to that definition than to the one that makes it mean to “fill completely.” As it is the Bible use of the word we have to do with, we will inquire after its meaning. In this case, like his claim that the angels that sinned and were cast to tartarus are now in the grave and dead, all turns upon the true import of a word.

The Hebrew word translated replenish, in Gen. 1:28, is mahleh or mahlah. Gesenius says, “The primary idea seems to be that of abundance, overflow. (a) To fill up or out an empty space with one’s own bulk or abundance. Gen. 1:22, 28; 9:1. Fill out the shields, that is, with your own bodies. Jer. 51:11. (b) To fill a place with anything. Eze. 8:7; 28:16.” He speaks at much length concerning the signification of this word, but nothing to show that it signifies filling the second time.

This word is used with the Hebrew Scriptures about 240 times, and signifies to fill full or to fulfill. It is rendered replenish in Gen. 1:28; 9:1; Isa. 2:6; Eze. 26:2; 27:25; Jer. 31:25; six cases in all. In none of these is there necessarily conveyed any other meaning than that of filling, though in some of these cases as in that of Noah we know from the connection that the thing to be filled had been filled once before. Here are a few examples out of the many which show that the word simply signifies to fill: Gen. 29:27, fulfill her week; Gen. 44:1, fill the men’s sacks with food; Eze. 9:7, fill the courts with the slain; Eze. 10:2, fill thine hand with coals; Eze. 24:4, fill it with the choice bones; Ex. 1:7, the land was filled with them; 1 Kings 18:33, fill four barrels with water; 2 Kings 3:17, that valley shall be filled with water; verse 20, the country was filled with water; 1 Kings 18:35, he filled the trench also with water.

This Hebrew word does not necessarily signify anything but to fill, as any one may see who will examine the Lexicon of Gesenius or a good Hebrew concordance. Those, therefore, who attempt to prove from God’s command to Adam to fill the earth with his descendants, that the earth had been previously filled with a different race whom God had destroyed, build up an argument that has no foundation in fact, for the word replenish in Gen. 1:28 might with the strictest propriety be rendered fill, as the lexicon shows, and as its almost invariable usage in the Hebrew concordance attests.

On the testimony in Rev. 12, which speaks of the devil and his angels as being cast out of Heaven, Mr. R. says, “The book of Revelation speaks of things to come, and deals in symbols.” It is true that this book deals in symbols, but must we conclude from this that there is nothing literal in it? Because St. John was promised a view of “things to come,” must we necessarily conclude that there is no reference made to the past? In the first part of chapter twelve, we read of the birth of the man child who is to rule all nations with a rod of iron, and who was caught up to God and his throne. In chapter nineteen we read of the one who is to rule the nations with a rod of iron and “his name is called the Word of God.” We see, then, that this man child is Christ, and that we are carried back to the time of his birth, thence through his persecutions by the Roman power, to his ascension “to God and his throne.” With the idea that everything mentioned in the book must be after John’s time, the birth, trial, and ascension of Christ would be placed after A. D. 96, the date of this Revelation.

In Revelation, chapter twelve, we have the dragon as a symbol of Pagan Rome. This power warred against Christ, and against the church—symbolized here by a woman. This power is defeated in its efforts to exterminate the church of God. As our Saviour said of that tribulation, “For the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.” Matt. 24:22. While the dragon symbolizes Pagan Rome, the spirit which stirred that power to its acts of terrible persecution upon the people of God was the devil himself. When the power of Pagan Rome was broken, it was really a defeat of the purpose of the devil to overthrow the church of Jesus Christ. There is nothing strange that, as St. John beholds in vision the defeat of Satan’s purposes in the acts of Pagan Rome, the Lord should carry him back to Satan’s expulsion from Heaven by Christ and the good angels. If the good angels had driven the fallen ones out of Heaven, it is no marvel that Christ should defeat the efforts of Satan, through the power of Rome, to overthrow God’s people. Thus we see how it is that this dragon is called, “That old serpent, called the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.”

On page 158, Mr. R. says:—

“It has to be remarked that in the divine dealings with the Jewish nation, there is an absence of everything giving countenance to the idea of a personal devil. In all God’s expostulations with the Jews through his prophets, the appeal is to the people themselves. Their stiff-necked disposition is charged with all the waywardness and wickedness that prevailed. There is no recognition of diabolical agency or occult influence.”

Let us compare a few facts with this statement. Moses was a prophet to the Jews, for the Lord, in making a promise through him concerning a very laudable attempt to approach the definiteness of the Greek.

Paul next uses the expression, done away, in verse 11: “If that which is done away was glorious.” Here he evidently refers to the same thing. Then he says, verse 13, that Moses put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not look to the end of that which is abolished. What is abolished? That which was covered by the vail. Was that the law? No. The vail was not thrown over the tables of stone which Moses held in his hands, but over his face, to hide the glory of his countenance. Paul adds in the next verse that this vail is taken away in Christ.

The Jew is still looking at the vailed glory of the former dispensation. But when he receives the illuminating Spirit of Christ, and sees the surpassing excellence of the ministration of the Spirit, Moses’ vail and Moses’ glory alike disappear, and he beholds only the exceeding glory of the present.

But is not the law called the ministration of death? and has not that given place to the gospel or the ministration of the Spirit? The law is brought in only by allusion, in the language, “written and engraved on stones.” That dispensation is called the ministration of death, because under it the death penalty was visited without mercy upon every open violation of the moral law. And the ministration is said to be written and engraven in stones, because it was a ministration of that which was engraven in stones. Strictly speaking, we know that there was no ministration engraven in the stones; only the ten commandments were there; but connected with those commandments, under the former dispensation, there was a ministration or service ordained by Moses.

This is one of those elliptical modes of expression so common in the writings of Paul. For instance, he says of those who partake unworthily of the Lord’s supper, that they eat and drink damnation to themselves. 1 Cor. 11:29. Not that they literally do that, but the sin they commit in so doing will lead to that. Again he says, “Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves; for they watch for your souls as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy and not with grief; for that is unprofitable for you.” Heb. 13:17. What was to be unprofitable? Not simply to have those who bore rule over them give up their account with grief; but it would be unprofitable for them to take such a course as to cause those who watch for their souls to give up their account of them with grief. So Paul says, elliptically, the ministration written and engraven in stones, instead of the ministration connected with that which was written and engraven in stones.

Dr. Bloomfield considers this verse (2 Cor. 3:7) elliptical. In his Greek Testament with English notes, he says on this passage: “I have, in Recens. Synop., shown that the sense of the verse is this: ‘If the ministry or office of promulgating a covenant which, in the letter (when written on tables of stone), brought nothing but death with it, was glorious,’” etc.

The word “ministration” is the same as is rendered “ministry” in the first verse of the following chapter: “Therefore seeing we have received this ministry.” It means the service of a minister. It is certain, therefore, that the language of Paul in verse 7 is elliptical; for there was nothing pertaining to the service of a minister engraved on the tables; but there was a law there in reference to which a minister could perform service; and the ministry connected with it was, under that dispensation, glorious, “so that,” says Paul, “the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold,” what? The tables in Moses’ hands? No; but, “the face of Moses,” the minister who performed the service.

In all this we find no abolition of the law. The law is that to which the ministry of both dispensations relates. Under the former dispensation, this law was written on tables of stone, and the ministry then connected with it was a ministration of death. Under the latter, the same law is written in the heart of the believer, Jer. 31:31-33; Heb. 8:10; and the ministration connected with it is one of mercy. Paul, in 2 Cor. 3, contrasts these ministrations. The dispensation of Moses gives place to that of Christ. The glory of the former is done away by the glory of the latter. But God’s great moral rule of right, the constitution of his government then as now, and now as then, goes through all dispensations and all time, unchanged and unchangeable.

U. S.