A.10 THE PERSONALITY OF SATAN.

THE PERSONALITY OF SATAN.
No Bible student would dream of defending all the grotesque representations of Satan, in poetry, prose and picture, with which Christendom has so long been afflicted. Our inquiry just now is as to the personality of the great adversary, for it is being gravely asserted in some quarters that he is not a living being at all, and that the whole mass of Scripture teaching concerning him must be read allegorically, as applying to a mere principle of evil. Certainly, if Satan is indeed a personality, he must be credited with a masterpiece of ingenuity in so far as he has succeeded in persuading his victims that he has no existence at all! A good preparation, surely, for a great victory!
In this short article we shall deal principally with our Lord's relations with Satan during His sojourn upon earth. First, let us consider the forty days' experience which followed the Saviour's baptism. Both Matthew and Luke state with the gravest details that He was tempted in the wilderness by the devil; Mark also alludes to the fact, but passingly. The very words of the adversary are given, including his quotation of Scripture; and his actions are described in setting our Lord upon the pinnacle of the temple, and in showing Him from a mountain-top all the Kingdoms of the world and the glory of them in a moment of time. If these are not the motions of a PERSON, then we know not how to read a single passage in the book of God.
If the story of the temptation in the wilderness is not sober fact, then surely nothing can be safely credited in the entire Bible. Another thing: if the temptations came not from a person distinct from our Lord Himself, then they must have proceeded, like many of our own sinful promptings, from some evil principle in His own heart! Such an alternative is too horrible for words, for it deprives us at one stroke of our Saviour! The tempted One was in that case only a man like ourselves plagued with a sinful nature, and consequently quite incompetent to make atonement for others. Let us not deceive ourselves. The query as to the personality of Satan is a blow at the Son of God, as indeed is every mischievous doctrine that was ever presented to the minds of men.
To proceed. The Pharisees once wickedly suggested that in the performance of His miracles, the Saviour was operating in collusion with Satan. This He rebutted by showing the absurdity of Satan casting out Satan, and to this He added a parable wherein He likened the foe to a strong man, and Himself to a stronger vanquishing him (Matthew 12:22-30). Moreover, before He entered the garden of Gethsemane on that last night, He said to His disciples: "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me" (John 14:30). Surely such words can have no other meaning than that the Saviour was meeting a personal foe!
The future of Satan is so graphically described in the Apocalypse that it should suffice of itself to satisfy every honest mind that a person is intended. In Revelation 12:1-17 we behold him cast out of the heavens into the earth (in the midst of the Antichristian period); and in Revelation 20:1-15 we see him, first shut up in the bottomless pit for 1,000 years; then, the reign of the Son of Man nearing its end, he is released for a little season; next, provoking a revolt against earth's rightful King, he is deprived of his liberty for ever by being cast into the lake of fire. If any reader can see nothing more in such detailed statements than the extirpation of an evil principle; it is to be feared he is beyond the reach of both Scripture and reason. Could an evil principle be "tormented day and night for ever and ever"? (Revelation 20:10).
It will thus be perceived that the denial of the personality of Satan is no light matter. By it the Son of God stands dishonoured in reference to the period of His temptation; and moreover, by it the Bible is discredited throughout. For none can dispute that from Genesis to Revelation the ways and words of the great adversary are recorded, the opening chapters of the book of Job going the length of reporting verbatim two conversations between him and the Creator. It would be necessary to tear the whole Bible to pieces in order to get rid of the doctrine of Satan, the great antagonist of both God and man.