The Devil And Hell

Devil and end times

1 Peter 5:8-9, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist steadfast in faith –.”

Jesus is called the lion of the tribe of Judea.

Devil = false accusers, arch-enemy, of God, and man.  Calumniate, calumniator, detractor,

Devil in the plural NEVER refers to fallen angels, but to mankind

There is only one Devil, who is also characterized as, “The god and prince of this world; the prince of darkness; the prince of the power of the air; the accuser; Belial; the tempter; an adversary, deceiver; liar; etc.”

Moses regarded the serpent as nothing more than, “The most subtle of all the beasts of the field.”

Devils here meaning, “Hairy ones.”  The Egyptians worshipped the (he-goat,)

Attributed to angels (good or bad) were different ranks, names, and offices.

Persian cult of Zoraster, Two gods,

1 Chronicles 21:1, “Stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.”  

Thus, the dualism of Zoraster suggested the kingdom and royalty of Satan, but the doctrine shaped itself in harmony with the national monotheism (one-God).

Whether or not these conceptions of the Devil and his influence were materially, or spiritually interpreted by Christ himself, it is not possible to say. He may either have accommodated his language to suit the popular mode of realizing the Power of Evil (a supposition which involves nothing unworthy of his sinless character) or (for this is the only other hypothesis compatible with a belief in his divinity) he may have intended to recognize the essential truth of that doctrine of an evil personality which the Jews derived from or, at all events, developed under the inspiration of Zoroastrian ideas.

Early Christians ascribed all evil, physical as well as moral, to the Devil and his demons. Crop failures, sterility, pestilence, disease among the cattle, mental maladies, persecutions of the Christians, individual vices, heresies, astrology, philosophy, and especially the whole body of heathenism, with its mythology and religious worship.

When the practice of baptism had shaped itself into the dogma, that it was “a necessary preliminary to holiness,” exorcism, or “driving out the devil,” became a Christian “art,” exercised on all new-born children. Those who died unbaptized, were (by ruthless logic that frequently marks a barbarous theology) sent to hell; for although potentially Christ’s, the church had not yet rescued them from their satanic master, by the appointed rite, and so the conditions being unfulfilled, the Devil carried off his prey.

At first, Christians saw in the death of Christ, a sacrifice, and in his blood a propitiatory power; but soon after, their thoughts reverted to the other scriptural representation of an actual victory over the Devil, a restoration of the Divine image in man, and the source and condition of holiness.

But Inasmuch as Eve was beguiled into transgression, and fell as it were unwittingly, it did not seem for the honor of Jesus Christ that rational beings, partakers also of God’s own Spirit, should be lost through a trick of the Devil. So, Jesus offered himself to the Devil as a ransom for the souls of men. The Devil thinking, “The man Christ Jesus,” to be of more value than the rest of the human race put together, closed the deal immediately.

Phillip LaSpino  www.seekfirstwisdom.com