What did Jesus say about Satan?

But to all this their minds were blinded, and He questions why they did not understand. He Himself gives the answer: “Because you are not able to listen to My word” (v. 43). Basic, callous unbelief rendered them impervious to the plain, pointed declarations of His lips. They had given themselves up to the blinding power of the devil; and He pronounces upon them the awful truth that they are of their father, the devil, willfully determined to engage in the lusts that have ensnared their father (v. 44). We cannot at all say that every unsaved person is a child of the devil, though all are children of Adam and children of wrath (Eph. 2:3). A child of the devil is rather one who has, by hardening himself against what he knows to be true, given himself up to the service of Satan. Not that he would admit this, but his own pride and deceit are prominent. Two things are here said of the devil. First, he was a murderer from the beginning; not from the time of his creation, but from the time of his attempt to “be like the most High” (Isa. 14:14). His murderous spirit is seen in his temptation of Eve: he was determined to accomplish her destruction. Secondly, he abode not in the truth, for the truth is not in him: he is a liar, and the father of it. Terrible designation! Of course it was by falsehood that he deceived Eve. Only Satan and antichrist are in scripture directly called liars, as well as these to whom the Lord speaks (v. 55); though the term is used to describe the general character of the inhabitants of Crete (Titus 1:12-13). One must be soberly careful in his use of this term.

Notice that, throughout the New Testament, if the flesh is opposed to the Spirit, and the world to the Father, the devil is the constant enemy of Christ, and the perversion of the Word and the denial of the Person of Christ are his special work. As Christ is the truth and the true Witness, Satan is "a liar, and the father of it" (John 8:44). The tempter of Christ in the wilderness, he enters into Judas for the betrayal at a later time. He it is who "deceiveth the whole world" (Rev. 12:9), and who is cast into the bottomless pit to deceive the nations no more until a thousand years are fulfilled. At the end of this time, being let loose, he again goes out as of old to deceive, and is then cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:3, 8, 10).

Children of the Devil. — And now the time came for Him to speak with unmistakable clearness. Come from God, and sent by Him, He had authority to do that. "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe Me not. Which of you convinces Me of sin? If I say the truth, why do ye not believe Me? He that is of God hears God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God" (44-47). Plain speaking indeed! The occasion called for it. Children of the devil they were. God's words, which Christ spoke, who is God, they would not have. The truth they refused, and sought His death. Their ways and their purposes marked out their father. But this grave statement, let us remember, is never made in the Word of any of the human race, till they have shown by their ways who and what they really are. Further, let us remark, we have here a short account of the devil by Him, who is the Word, who was with God, was God, and was in the beginning with God. It is, it must be, therefore, a true one.

The accusation had been made before by them (9:34) when it was passed over by the Lord, but now, after the repeated manifestations of His power, after their hatred culminated in seeking His life, the awful blasphemy is to be rebuked by Him. Cowards they were, as it is seen that they did not dare to bring the accusation to His face. How could they dare to stand before Him? So He reads again their very thoughts, a miracle in itself, which should have startled them. His answer to their Satanic thoughts consists in two very logical arguments. "Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not subsist. And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself, how then shall his kingdom subsist?" (verses 25-26). This is very clear. Satan casting out Satan would mean a division in his awful domain, which would mean its complete ruin and overthrow. It is, therefore, inconceivable that the Devil could furnish the power to destroy his own kingdom which he controls. The passage is full of meaning aside from the argument it contains. He who knoweth all things in perfect knowledge tells us that Satan is a person and a king, for he has a kingdom over which he rules. The demons are in his kingdom, one with the head in thought and purpose. (The translation "devils" is not correct. There is one devil, but the fallen angels are demons.) How little we know of his awful power, of his kingdom and the agencies at his command to destroy body and soul. We need not know it all, it is sufficient to know that he is an enemy overcome, his kingdom is spoiled by the victor, by Him who has annulled him, who has the power of death, that is the Devil.

The compassionate Saviour stooped to reason with His evil critics. He asked them how Satan could possibly cast out Satan, and pointed out that a kingdom divided against itself must needs come to desolation, and that a house divided against itself cannot stand. The true position was this — Satan as the strong one had long kept his captives in peace; now a Stronger had come, with power to overcome him, and divide the spoils. For this let us praise our God. The Stronger than Satan is manifestly the victorious Son of God. He has met the enemy in his last stronghold — death, and has vanquished him, putting away sin the while; there is not a single child of Adam but may be set free from the thraldom of Satan forthwith by appealing to the Saviour's grace. Sin-distressed souls need not concern themselves with the ways and criticism of contentious religionists; the Saviour is their true resource; let them cast themselves on Him.

So we find a little answering to this, that our Lord alludes to Satan's fall from heaven in the gospel of Luke; and I notice it because some have thence supposed that Satan had been expelled from the heavens long ago. It is in Rev. 10, when the disciples return to the Lord, full of joy because the devils even were subject to them. The answer is that He "beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven." Now a person might set the words in the evangelist against the fall of Satan that is described in the Apocalypse as still future. But evidently this would be a misuse of scripture. We may always rest assured that the Bible agrees with itself. It is ignorance and unbelief to set one part of God's word against another. To an unbiassed mind, I think it is certain that the fall of Satan in the prophecy is described as a prospective event, which is to take place three years and a half (however that may be taken) before the destruction of the beast and the binding of Satan himself. Consequently it is a fall that in St. John's time at least was yet future. The immediate effect was to be a dreadful persecution against the woman and her seed. Again, I have endeavoured to set forth a variety of considerations, from which it is clear to me that before this event the church must have been taken to heaven. Such the reader will remember has been the uniform deduction I have drawn all through our former chapters (Rev. 4-6); so that the fall of Satan, intimated here, must be an event subsequent to the removal of the glorified saints to heaven. What then does the Lord Jesus Christ mean when He says, "I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven?" When He sees and hears the effects of the disciples' service in His name, then the vision of Satan's catastrophe passes before His eyes, and the full consequences of His power are hailed in the then earnest of it. He looks on to the final crisis and the downfall of the Evil One, when the disciples announced so notable a sample of "the powers of the world to come." It was the first great blow struck by men at Satan's power; and therefore He anticipates the end from the beginning, and, so to speak, in a sort of musing, contemplative vision, He beheld the adversary fall from the highest scene of his usurpation.

226 But it is said we do not see that yet. Do you think that all the oppression and wars and wickedness and horrors, which now mark the history of the earth, would go on if everything were put under Him? It is Satan, and not Christ, who is now the prince and god of this world. It is strange how many people fancy that the cross put an end to that; it was exactly the contrary. The cross was the one grand demonstration - and there never was such a demonstration before - that Satan is the prince and god of this world. "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me," said our Saviour. Until Christ had been rejected, Satan was never called the prince of this world. Before that, Jehovah was on the earth, and in the temple was the Shekinah of glory. But when at last He came into this world in the Person of Christ, and the world rejected Him, then from that time Satan is the prince of this world. And it is after this that the apostle says, "In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not." When the Lord comes again, He will be the Prince of the world; but till He comes again, Satan is that prince.

When it was a question, at a later day, of His servant Peter, who, prompted by Satan, had fallen into human thoughts, and would have dissuaded his Master from the cross, He does say, "Get thee behind me." For certainly Christ did not want Peter to go away from Him and be lost, which would have been its effect. "Get thee [not hence, but] behind me," He says. He rebuked His follower, yea, was ashamed of him; and He desired that Peter should be ashamed of himself. "Get thee behind me, Satan," was thus appropriate language then. Satan was the source of the thought couched in Peter's words.

Now for more information are we indebted to Luke, as he proceeds to tell us, first, of the address to Peter which drew forth that Apostle's rash boast of unswerving fidelity to Him (vers. 31-34), and then of the directions for the whole company in consequence of the changed condition in which they would soon find themselves (vers. 35-38). Speaking first to Peter, the Lord revealed both the desire (or, request) of Satan about them all, and also the fact that He had already made supplication on His servant Peter's behalf. Thus the wish of Satan was laid bare to them; the failure, too, of Peter foretold and his need in consequence. As yet Peter knew neither his danger nor his need. Before he knew either the Lord made supplication for him, a foreshadowing to us of that present service of the Lord as High-priest which He carries on for us. A foreshadowing we say, because till He had died He did not enter on His priesthood. Peter did fall, but his faith failed not, as the Lord had asked for him. And his fall fitted him when restored to strengthen his brethren, so completely was the devil outwitted. He had demanded to have them all that he might sift them as wheat. He did not get them. Peter indeed was led away through rushing into temptation; but the Lord's intercession was heard on his behalf. "To have you," the Lord had said, i.e., all of them. "I have prayed for thee," i.e., Peter; for, as his over-confidence in boasting must receive a check, to teach him his weakness, his faith, when alive to his sin, would be in danger of giving way. But would Peter really fall? Ere the morning came he had thrice denied all knowledge of his Master.

In declaring the parable of the wheat and the tares the Lord left nothing to the imagination of His disciples, or ours; every detail of it is explained. The sower is the Son of man. The field is the world. The good seed are the children of the kingdom. The tares are the children of the devil. The enemy is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age. The reapers are the angels. The tares are to be gathered into bundles to be burned. The righteous shall shine forth as the Sun in the kingdom of their Father.