The Hebrew Bible, which Christians call the “Old Testament,” presents Satan as a member of God’s heavenly council who works according to God’s bidding. In the New Testament, by contrast, Satan appears as God’s archenemy. He seeks to destroy humanity and is the adversary of Jesus, through whom God intends to deliver humanity from evil.
From “The Satan” to “Satan”
Satan is a title or role in the Old Testament, not a proper name. In the New Testament, however, this Hebrew term becomes the name of a spiritual being whose title in Greek is “The Devil.” Unlike the Hebrew word “satan,” the word “devil” always connotes evil. As an adjective it can, in fact, be translated simply “evil,” though it is usually rendered “slanderous,” “defamatory,” or a similarly antagonistic term. The interchanging of these two titles provides part of an explanation for the New Testament’s development of Satan’s character as a thoroughly evil enemy of goodness and God’s chief antagonist.
Was He Humanity’s Deceiver?
God and Satan’s relationship in the New Testament can seem like a cosmic deadlock of good and evil. However, the New Testament does not envision the battle between good and evil as eternal. Rather, the end of evil, along with Satan as its representative, is considered inevitable.
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The New Testament book of Revelation uses reptilian apocalyptic imagery to depict Satan, and he is identified as the “deceiver of the world.” Other passages in the New Testament allude to the serpent in the Garden of Eden as being a deceiver. By piecing these themes together, Christians came to associate Satan with the snake. While this association is not strictly biblical, the idea of Satan as humanity’s deceiver is. Satan is also called a “murderer,” “liar,” “accuser,” and simply “the enemy,” in addition to his more grandiose descriptions such as king of darkness, ruler of the present age, and vanguard of death.
Was He Humanity’s Tempter?
Satan has the ability to move human beings to compromise with evil. The most prominent example in the New Testament is when Satan is said to “enter” Judas Iscariot, one of Jesus’s disciples, to incite him to betray Jesus into the hands of Temple guards to be tried for blasphemy. There are other examples of this kind of activity being attributed to Satan’s deceptive power. The New Testament epistles, written to early communities of believers in Jesus’s message, also warn against Satan’s wiles as a tempter.
The Synoptic Gospels famously tell the story of Jesus being tempted by Satan in the Judean Wilderness before he begins his public ministry. Paradoxically, though he is later involved in the plot to kill Jesus, Satan’s designs are thwarted not by Jesus’s escape but by Jesus’s determination to follow through with with the crucifixion. The crucifixion is seen throughout the New Testament as a victory over Satan and the dark forces he represents.
Does Satan Act Directly?
Whereas God is viewed as the unmediated creator of the world, Satan requires agents, who are typically human, to carry out his designs. Other impersonal, abstract forces—like greed, jealousy, ambition, pride, lust, etc.—can come to bear on human beings in order to move them to behave badly. But Satan is understood as having the ability to harness and accentuate these forces. At times, circumstances that might otherwise be attributed to happenstance are interpreted as the work of Satan when they are understood as harming human beings or impeding Jesus’s mission or that of the early Jesus movement.
Does Satan Do Anything Good?
Satan does not do anything good for goodness’s sake in the New Testament. However, sometimes there is hope that his activity will produce a positive outcome. For example, in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians the Apostle Paul attributes a certain unnamed affliction he suffered to the hand of Satan, but expresses hope that God would nevertheless use it to demonstrate God’s power through weakness, thereby reflecting the message of the crucifixion. In other places, Satan is presented as participating in the reform of wayward members of the early Jesus movement. His activity is not seen as desirable, but it is nevertheless expected to spur the return of the wayward persons to the community.
Does Satan Have a Backstory in the New Testament?
The New Testament does not explain Satan’s background. While a description of his defeat by Michael the Archangel and his expulsion from heaven can be found in the book of Revelation, the context does not make clear when this could have taken place. Further, the passage implies that final victory over Satan is accomplished through the crucifixion of Jesus rather than an angelic battle. Satan is also said to have been bound for a thousand years, thrown into “the abyss” (often associated with hell), and then subsequently released.
The genre of Revelation, called apocalyptic, uses highly imaginary descriptions of cinema-like visionary experiences from the perspective of the luminary to “reveal” an other-worldly or spiritual perspective of earthly events. The combinations of images do not fit together coherently when interpreted literally or historically.
Though his origin is unclear, Satan’s final demise, along with the end of evil itself, is a source of hope throughout the New Testament.
