Is Satan a spirit?

In passing let us learn from this not to do ourselves what even Michael shrank from doing. How often we may hear people speak of Satan in a very light and mocking way, and we may have done it ourselves. Let us not do it again. Satan is a spirit being, who once held a leading place, if not the leading place, in the angelic hierarchy. Though fallen, he still wields immense power, which we cannot afford to despise. Yet, under the sheltering power of our Lord we need not fear him.

In dreadful contrast with these worshiping servants, these "sons of God," we see one utterly unlike them in moral character, though having a spirit-nature like themselves. Indeed he was once morally like them, the very chief of them all (Ezek. 28) — the "covering cherub" that shadowed the throne of Jehovah. But "how hast thou fallen, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" Dazzled with his own glory, wilfully forgetting the creature-place which he must ever keep, he has fallen into pride ("the condemnation of the devil"), by which he became the bitter, eternal enemy of all that is good, and of God Himself.

SATAN is a pure Hebrew word, meaning Adversary. It is an ordinary word to designate a person, who stands in opposition. In Scripture it is specially used to designate the fallen spiritual being, commonly called the Devil. In, this latter sense we give this sketch of his being, character, and activities.

IT IS REMARKABLE that while our Lord will deal personally with men, it is an angel, a spirit being, who will deal with the great spirit being, who is the originator of all the evil. He is described in a fourfold way so as to identify him without a doubt. As Satan he is the adversary. As the devil he is the accuser. He is the old serpent of the opening book of the Bible, and the dragon of the closing book. All through the ages his aim has been to "deceive the nations," as Revelation 20:3 shows us. How effectively he has done so all history bears witness, and coming days will show even more disastrously.

A name by which THE DEVIL, the great enemy of God and man, is designated. The name may be said to be the same in Hebrew, Greek, and English, and signifies 'adversary,' as the word is rendered in several places where other adversaries are alluded to: cf. Num. 22:22; 1 Kings 11:14, 23, 25. It was Satan who at the outset deceived Eve, for it is clear that the dragon, the old serpent, the devil, and Satan all represent the same evil spirit. Rev. 20:2. Satan was the great adversary of God's people in O.T. times, 1 Chr. 21:1; the tempter of the Lord Jesus, who treated him as Satan; and is the tempter and adversary of the saints and of all mankind now. He endeavours to neutralise the effect of the gospel; catches away the good seed sown in the heart (Matt. 13), and blinds the minds of the unbelieving lest the light of the gospel of Christ's glory should shine to them. His efforts are frustrated by God or none would be saved.

The very personality of Satan is, as everybody is aware, denied in many quarters in the present day. The only people with whom we have to do just now, however, who deny this, are the followers of Dr. Thomas. With these men, self-consistently enough, the devil is simply a personification of sin, which, however, may be represented apparently by a variety of living agents, in order to get rid of the distasteful idea of separate personality and yet meet the texts in which personality is too manifest to be denied. I may be allowed, without being thought to wander too far from the subject before us, to look briefly at this point. Now, we read of one in the book of Job who, when "the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, - came also among them" He is expressly called Satan, and is a true "devil" according to the meaning of that word "a false accuser." These "sons of God" are spoken of by Jehovah in the same book as present when He laid the foundations of the earth (xxxviii. 7), and therefore are certainly not men but angels. Among these angels then the accuser comes, as one of them: surely not a man among angels, and hardly a personification of sin. From the presence of the Lord he goes forth to exercise manifest superhuman power against Job within divinely ordained limits. He is here clearly an angelic, yet a fallen and evil being. In the book of Revelation we have a being figured as a "dragon," and explained to be "that old serpent, which is the devil and Satan" (xx. 2). "That old serpent" of course refers to Eden, and tells us who was the real tempter hid under the form of the irrational creature. Here too the words of the Lord apply: "He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own; for he is a liar, and the father of it" (John viii. 44). As a tempter we accordingly again find him assailing the Lord in the wilderness, One in whom there was no indwelling sin to seduce or personify; and there too he is called the devil and Satan, and appears as one who claims the kingdoms of the world as his. And he departing from Him for a season, the Lord speaks of his return in a way which suits this claim of his: "the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me;" and of His own cross as that which was his judgment, and would ensure his casting out (John xiv. 30, xvi. 11, xii. 31). In all which we travel back once more to Eden, and find fulfilling the words to the old serpent, "He shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." We find his being and power so recognized among the Jews that the Pharisees impute the Lord's casting out of devils to Beelzebub the prince of the devils; and the Lord rebukes them by asking, "Can Satan cast out Satan?" and, recognizing the fact of his having a kingdom, asks in that case how it shall stand? The devils He casts out, know Him in turn, call Him the Holy One of God and Son of God, and beseech Him not to torment them before the time. Everywhere in the Gospels the power of Satan is a thing as manifest as malignant. A woman cannot lift up herself for eighteen years, and it is Satan that has bound her. He puts into Judas' heart to betray the Lord; and in the apparent zeal for Himself of another disciple Christ discerns Satan also. He sows the tares in the parable, and these springing up are the children of the wicked one. Among the signs that follow those who believe is this, that they cast out devils. In the Acts the workings of the same malignant spirit are as manifest. Satan fills Ananias' heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and keep back part of the price of his land. Cases of possession are still noticed, and as a common thing. Paul speaks of being sent to "turn men from the power of Satan unto God." In the Epistles he is the constant adversary of the people of God, whether openly as a roaring lion, or transformed into an angel of light. He is the spirit that works in the children of disobedience; the god of this world who blinds the minds of those that believe not. If resisted he flees, but the shield of faith is that by which alone the fiery darts of the wicked one are quenched. "Shortly," we are reminded, according to the first promise, "God will bruise Satan under your feet." All this is but part of the testimony of the word of God as to the reality and power of man's old enemy. If words mean anything they assure us of his true personality, with that of numberless evil spirits, "his angels," possessed of superhuman power, which is used to obtain dominion over men's souls and even bodies, and from which nothing but divine power can deliver. I need not pursue this further now. But we shall have to consider some common mistakes as to Satan which it is of great importance to rectify", in order to have clearly before us the Scripture view.

Satan was a fallen angel, but still he was an angel, and when “the sons of God” came, Satan was there too. So that it is evident, from the Book of Revelation more particularly, that Satan will not lose that access to the presence of God until we are actually in heaven. It has not come to pass yet. People have an extraordinary idea in their heads that whatever access Satan had before that time, he lost it—either when our Lord was born, or when our Lord died—but there is nothing of this in the Epistle to the Ephesians, where, on the contrary, it is expressly stated that our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against wicked spirits in the heavenlies. We are not like the Israelites fighting against Canaanites. Our Canaanite is a spiritual enemy in heavenly places, that is, Satan and his host of demons or angels.

From the presence of the Lord he goes forth to exercise manifest superhuman power against Job within divinely ordained limits. He is here clearly an angelic, yet a fallen and evil being.

All this is but part of the testimony of the word of God as to the reality and power of man's old enemy. If words mean anything they assure us of his true personality, with that of numberless evil spirits, "his angels," possessed of superhuman power, which is used to obtain dominion over men's souls and even bodies, and from which nothing but divine power can deliver. I need not pursue this further now. But we shall have to consider some common mistakes as to Satan which it is of great importance to rectify, in order to have clearly before us the Scripture view.

They form a spiritual race, for Psalm 104:4, quoted in Hebrews 1:7, says: “Who makes His angels spirits, and His ministers a flaming fire.”

Though angels are spirits it does not follow that they are incorporeal, for Scripture speaks of a spiritual body. In the resurrection the saints will have spiritual bodies. We mention this simply to show that there is such a thing, a body not subject to the limitations of our earthly condition. Angels often appeared in bodily form. We do not assert that they are corporeal. We merely point out that they are not of necessity incorporeal.