Issued: 09/24/22

PLEASE NOTE:  All bracketed material may be authorial comments, attempts at proper syntax, or minimal rewordings of Scripture for the sake of clarity and continuity.  These emendations will not be italicized.  The “/” will be used to signify “and/or.”

   In differentiating between Yahweh of hosts [later Jesus] and Yahweh the Most High God, lower case letters have been used when discussing the former; upper case letters are reserved for the One and Only Highest God.  Since Jesus was at pains to differentiate himself from God the Father, we have followed his lead here.

   The term neo-Christians will be used to differentiate between false Christians and Jesus’ true followers.

The Dynamic between Jesus and Satan

   Scripture shows us different forms of interaction­—or lack thereof—between Jesus and Satan.  In the New Testament we are told of Jesus’ temptation by Satan (Luke 4:1-12), after which Satan left Jesus alone for a time (Luke 4:13).  Scripture does not record any other personal interactions between them; but Satan seems to have kept needling Jesus through men, as Matthew 16:23, John 8:44 and Hebrews 12:3 suggest.  There is of course the very active role Satan played in Judas’ betrayal of Jesus (Luke 22:3; John 13:2).    

   Luke 22:31 tells of Satan asking permission to “thresh” Peter, but we are not told who was being asked.  It cannot have been the Most High God since He cannot be tempted nor tempts any one (James 1:13); yet someone divinely empowered to do so must have given his consent:  On the strength of Job 1:12 and 2:6 that could only have been Yahweh of hosts, who was by then Jesus of Nazareth.  So did Satan ask Jesus to let him put Peter through the wringer?  It would seem so, given the Most High’s faith-testing standards (Hebrews 12:6-8) and the need to hold Peter accountable for his denial of Jesus (Jeremiah 46:28; Matthew 26:34).

   The Old Testament is not as clearly-cut.  The difficulty there is that Yahweh the Most High and His Redeemer Son, Yahweh of hosts, share the same name (Isaiah 44:6), as Exodus 23:20-21 attests.  Thus in Job 1 and 2, the Yahweh dialoguing with Satan is Yahweh of hosts, not the Most High God.  How do we know this?  Again because it is impossible to tempt the Most High God (James 1:13); plus being All-knowing, He would have seen through Satan’s malevolence.  Yet Yahweh of hosts, though all-powerful but not all-knowing (Mark 13:32; Acts 1:7; Revelation 1:1,8), could be persuaded into testing Job’s loyalty—not once, but twice (2:6)­—though admitting to errors in judgment (Job 2:3).  Maybe from such instances Jesus learned that dealing with Satan required resisting his baiting (Luke 4:9-12; James 4:7).¹

   Back to Exodus 7:3-4.  Yahweh of hosts told Moses, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart and Pharaoh will not listen to you.”  Asking Pharaoh to let God’s people go makes no sense unless Pharaoh had the free will to decide.  Though this has been used to besmirch the Old Testament God, the correct interpretation is that Yahweh of hosts allowed Satan to make Pharaoh dig his heels in—the face-saving MO all rulers display when their absolute sovereignty is challenged (Exodus 5:2-18, 10:10-11, 14:5-8)].  Also in typical human fashion, Pharaoh compromised when the going was rough and went back to his ways when things returned to normal (Exodus 8:15, 9:34).  Satan’s contribution to Pharaoh’s authoritarian mindset was to make it adamantine and hypocritical.

   It follows, then, that Yahweh of hosts “hardened” Pharaoh’s heart in the sense that he—as is the norm with his Father­—assumed responsibility for Satan’s influence on Pharaoh’s actions.  Needless to say had Pharaoh not been predisposed to be unyielding, he might have chosen to let the Israelites go and spared Egypt the ten plagues.  But the Israelites were vital to Egypt’s economy, a cheap labor force which on top of everything was self-sustaining (Exodus 1:7); so following the policies of his forbears (Exodus 1:10-16), Pharaoh made things harder for the Israelites (Exodus 5:4-13).

   Where was the dynamic between Jesus and Satan in the above?  In his dialogues with Moses, we know Yahweh to be Yahweh of hosts:  No man has ever heard the Most High’s voice (John 5:37); and this Yahweh was in the habit of talking to Moses not in visions or dreams, but face to face (Numbers 7:89, 12:7-8).  In terms of Pharaoh, it is of note that the historical ruler’s name is never given, which is Scripture’s modality when inferring the true power behind any temporal ruler:  Satan (Luke 4:6).  We have seen this in dissertations about Satan being referenced as the King of Babylon (Isaiah 14:4-20) and the King of Tyre (Ezekiel 28:12-19).

   So it is no rocket science that Ezekiel’s Pharaoh, King of Egypt—depicted as the great dragon (Ezekiel 29:3) that Revelation 12:9 tells us is Satan—and Exodus’ Pharaoh are one and the same entity:  Not the man on the throne, but the power behind him.  This is why the man Moses was confronting remained unnamed:  He was not the subject of Moses’ demand, Satan was; all the more clear since Moses is Scripture’s most complete embodiment of Jesus:  Lawgiver, Liberator, Savior, Judge, and Mediator/Spokesperson between God and men—attributes implied in Deuteronomy 18:15.  What Exodus foreshadows is Satan’s refusal to free mankind under his rule, held in bondage through fear of death (Hebrews 2:14-15), and its liberation under Jesus’ leadership.

   A second pairing of Jesus and Satan takes place in the context of who controls who.  As we see in Job 1 and 2, Satan can do nothing against Job personally until Yahweh of hosts has given his consent—with the proviso that Satan cannot take Job’s life.  Likewise in Exodus 12:23, “For Yahweh will pass through to strike the Egyptians; and when he sees the blood on the lintel, and on the two doorposts, Yahweh will pass over the door, and will not allow the destroyer to come in to your houses to strike you,” Moses is telling the Israelites that Yahweh of hosts will check façade markings, but that Satan will do the actual killing of all the first-born of non-compliers.

   Sounds extreme, but we can see glimmers of Christian doctrine.  The obedient will be spared; the disobedient chose their fate; a lamb’s blood is required for the remission of sins (John 1:29; 1Corinthians 5:7; Revelation 13:8); a Passover had to precede the liberation of God’s nation, a freedom that in Jesus is spiritual (John 8:32) and powerful (Romans 6:14; James 4:7).  Even putting the blood on the lintel evokes the human forehead, where first-fruits from Jerusalem and end-times are sealed (Ezekiel 9:4; Revelation 7:3) in order to be spared ordeals.  By the same token, the Red Sea crossing foreshadows the relocation of the redeemed from earth to Heaven following the final plagues, the second coming of Christ and Judgment Day (Matthew 19:28; 1Corinthians 6:2-3; Revelation 20:4).

   From Exodus we move on to 1Chronicles 21.  In his ego-tripping David decides to take a census, which Scripture tells us was at Satan’s instigation (21:1).  Now 2Samuel 24:1-4 tells us that in his anger against Israel, Yahweh of hosts “incited” David to perform the census, which would seem to contradict 1Chronicles 21:1, only that the two complement each other:  Yahweh of hosts allows Satan to incite David to take a census, which again shows Satan can do nothing unless given the go-ahead.  Yahweh’s displeasure is due to David’s vanity, forgetting to credit Yahweh for all his accomplishments.  It was the same mindset that tripped Nebuchadnezzar centuries later (Daniel 4:29-31, 5:18-21); as is in fact Satan’s mindset channeled through earthly empires given to him (Luke 4:6).  We only need to connect the dots in Ezekiel 31 and 32 to see that allusions to Satan as Pharaoh King of Egypt (31:2), Assyria as the tallest and most beautiful cedar tree in the Garden of Eden (31:3,8-9,15-16), and the dragon amidst the seas (32:2) are interspersed with prophecies about Armageddon and Satan’s downfall.

   Even when pressed upon to forget such folly (1Chronicles 21:3-6), David persists until Yahweh demands some penalty:  No transgression is ever left unpunished (Jeremiah 46:28).  David is given choices that would have spared Israel had he chosen to face the consequences for his actions (21:11-13); but though symbolic of Jesus, David was unwilling to suffer in lieu of his people, so like all earthly rulers, he passed the buck.  Yahweh withdrew his protection from Israel, whereupon Satan unleashed a plague that killed 70,000 men (21:14).

   [Before malicious tongues start wagging, this is not a violation of Ezekiel 18:20:  It is a consequence of what we have referred to as “potentiality.”  Paul suggests this notion in Hebrews 7:9-10; and we see evidence of it in mankind suffering for Adam’s transgression and benefitting from Jesus’ sacrifice (Romans 5:12,17; 1 Corinthians 15:21-22).  It is implicit in God’s promise to Abraham not in terms of ethnicity but faith (Genesis 17:5); as well as in the necessity to suffer as Jesus did for us (Matthew 16:24; Romans 8:17; 1Corinthians 12:26-27; Ephesians 5:23,31-32).  With God, nobody gets a free pass.

   In short all beholden to a leader will share collectively—for good or bad—the consequences of that leader’s actions; if a minion of Satan, damnation; if a follower of Jesus, redemption.  And let us stress that David was given a choice to spare his people’s suffering; yet in typical human fashion, he threw them under the bus].

   As with the Exodus extermination, we find the same dynamics between Yahweh of hosts and Satan:  “And he [Yahweh of hosts] sent an angel [Satan] to Jerusalem to destroy it.  As [Satan] was about to destroy, Yahweh [of hosts] saw, and he relented of the disaster, and said to the destroying angel, ‘It is enough; now stay your hand.’  The angel of Yahweh was standing by the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite”; which David buys, and builds an altar upon which he burns sacrifices and peace offerings to Yahweh that are consumed by fire from heaven.  Then “Yahweh [of hosts] commanded the angel [Satan]; and he [Satan] put up his sword again into its sheath” (1Chronicles 21:15-27).

   How do we know that the sword-wielding angel is Satan?  From Ezekiel 21:10-19 and Revelation 6:8:  Satan’s hand-held sword is empowered to kill people; whereas Jesus’ weapon is the Holy Spirit’s sword, the word of God, issuing from his mouth (Matthew 10:34; Ephesians 6:17; Hebrews 4:12; Revelation 1:16).  While it is true that the word of God in a symbolic way slays the souls of Satan’s minions (Revelation 19:11-18↔especifically verse 15), it never draws blood like Satan’s counterpart.  In order to differentiate between righteous and unrighteous, the former must wield only spiritual ordnance, never striking back even if attacked (Zachariah 4:6; Matthew 5:39; Ephesians 6:13-17; James 5:6; 1Peter 2:20-23).  Stand your ground and “three-strikes-you’re-out” laws may be popular killer zaps, yet wholly un-Christian notions.  Jesus asks for the reverse:  Conquer evil with good (Proverbs 15:1; Romans 12:21); forgive wrongdoers seventy seven times (Matthew 18:21-22); and leave their comeuppance to God (Romans 12:19; 1Peter 2:23).  In order to have the moral high ground over blood-shedders, the righteous must succumb like Abel to their Cain du jour.

In the Beginning

   So after having created Yahweh of hosts, the Most High God told him to take care of business in His absence:  You will be head honcho over My domain; comply with My laws; and until I return to rule over My people at some future time, everything will be done as you decide.  None of this is spelled out in Scripture but suggested by Genesis 41:40,44,55.

   Yahweh of hosts then went on to create angels and everything on earth (John 1:3,10; Colossians 1:16), including Satan.  As seems to be his MO, Yahweh of hosts surrounded himself with personnel to keep things moving:  As God of Israel, Patriarchs and Prophets; during his earthly ministry as Jesus, Apostles; and in Heaven a quorum of what Daniel 4:17 calls “watchers,” who we know to be angels (Daniel 4:15)—if not the seven spirits standing before the Most High’s throne (Revelation 1:4, 8:2) perhaps a septet modeled after them.  Michael was certainly one of those:  He booted Satan out of Heaven while Jesus was on earth (Luke 10:18; Revelation 12:7-9); advocated for Moses’ admission into the heavenly host (Zechariah 3:1-7; Jude 1:9);² and was second in command while Yahweh of hosts fought against empires ruled by Satan (Daniel 10:20-21).

   Whether Satan with his peerless CV (Ezekiel 28:12) was one of those seven is unknown, but he had assigned duties until he blew it (Ezekiel 28:14-15).  When next we see him in relation to Yahweh of hosts is in Job 1 and 2, where he is depicted as some sort of world surveyor (Job 1:7, 2:2); and in Zechariah 3:1 as the self-appointed, indefatigable accuser of men (Revelation 12:10).  What we are not told is whether Yahweh of hosts was presiding over Moses’ judgment, since Michael was the defending advocate (Jude 1:9); yet as the Father’s appointed Judge of all flesh (John 5:22), we must assume he was.

   At one point between creation and burgeoning megalomania, Satan, believing himself to be the greatest, decided to usurp Yahweh of hosts’ big honcho role and institute regime change with himself as ruler (Isaiah 14:13-14; Ezekiel 28:16-17).  When this took place in the context of time is not known.  What we do know is that having scored a victory with Eve, she and Adam’s were banished from the Garden of Eden into the order of things familiar to us—which needless to say is not the original conception.  We must further assume that with man’s disobedience there came a split in human governance:  Yahweh of hosts would remain as the Most High’s proxy, but Satan would be given limited control over a realm of lackeys sharing his inclinations.  Hence the two stewards alluded to in Isaiah 22:15-24, where Shebna, or Satan, would be deposed following Jesus’ resurrection (Matthew 28:18; Revelation 1:18, 5:1-5).

Regime Shift…

   Revelation 12:9 and Luke 10:18 pinpoint the time when Satan was evicted from Heaven:  “The great dragon was thrown down, the old serpent, he who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world.  He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him”; and event witnessed by Jesus on earth:  “I saw Satan having fallen like lightning from heaven.”  Prior to this Jesus had warned about Satan’s coming:  “The ruler of this world is coming, and he has no hold on me” (John 14:30).  The Apostles followed suit:   “The ruler of the power of the air…now at work among those who are disobedient” (Ephesians 2:2); “your adversary, the devil, walks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour” (1Peter 5:8); “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1John 5:19); and, “woe to the earth and to the sea, because the devil has gone down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has but a short time” (Revelation 12:12).

    What had changed?  On the merits of his sacrifice to free mankind from Satan’s rule, Jesus had been given plenipotentiary powers in heaven and earth, even over Satan’s empire of death (Matthew 28:18; Revelation 1:18, 5:1-5).  Shebna had been deposed and his authority transferred to Eliakim [Hebrew for “God sets up”], or Jesus, the Steward holding the keys to all doors in God’s domain (Isaiah 22:20-22).³  Though we are told that Satan swept down his angelic cadre upon banishment (Revelation 12:4,9), we know the latter fell into a bottomless pit of undisclosed location, and there imprisoned in darkness until Judgment Day (Isaiah 24:21-22; Jude 1:6). ⁴  Satan, however, was free to roam the world in his quest to devour souls (1Peter 5:8); wage war against the saints (Revelation 12:17); and torment his human minions after the sounding of the fifth trumpet (Revelation 9:1-11).  It should be noted that in being given the key to open the bottomless pit, he stands outside of it (9:1); and being told not to kill but to torment evildoers for five months (9:5), he is limited as to how long he can act.⁵ However, as was the case with Job, no specific torments are outlined:  The manner and extent of the suffering to be inflicted is left to Satan’s designs.

…and Worldwide Consequences

   Following Yahweh of hosts’ incarnation as Jesus (Isaiah 35:4, 52:6; Ezekiel 34:11), the time allotted to Israel to make peace with God came to a close.  It is to be noted that Jesus’ ministry focused exclusively on the Jews, a last ditch effort at reconciliation (Matthew 15:26; John 15:22); but since failure was foreknown, a time had been allotted in God’s agenda for Gentiles to be inducted into the fold (Luke 21:24; Ephesians 2:11-16).  Paul was recruited for that specific purpose (Acts 9:15-16, 10:34-35; Galatians 2:7), but like Jesus before him, he preached to Jews until realizing it would avail naught (Acts 18:6).  Peter, however, kept ministering to Jews (Galatians 2:7).

   Though the Old Testament Yahweh of hosts and the New Testament Jesus were one and the same entity, their ruling styles changed post-Jesus’ resurrection.  In the Old Testament Yahweh of hosts was always pleading his case and practically begging Israel to turn back from its evil ways (Isaiah 46:3, 49:15, 65:2; Ezekiel 33:11)—as Jesus himself later attested (Matthew 23:37); but with re-instituted Jesus at the helm the gloves came off:  He would rule over the nations with an iron scepter and shatter them like pottery (Psalms 2:9; Revelation 2:27, 12:5).

   Now, this “iron scepter” may very well a figure of speech signifying harsh rule; but since heavenly beings are never the de facto dispensers of human suffering, why not a symbol for Satan?  He is unyielding like iron; the destroyer of nations (Isaiah 14:6); the tormentor of men (Job 2:7; Luke 13:16; Revelation 6:8, 9:11); the driving force behind entities persecuting and killing the saints (Revelation 12:17, 13:2,7).  It is to be noted that some higher-up unleashes the four horsemen carrying out Satan’s genocidal agenda (Revelation 6:1); and this is done by handing each rider his respective weapon of mass destruction (Revelation 6:2,4,7).  Although the propagator of famine is not shown being given his pair of scales, he is counted amongst Yahweh of hosts’ agents of destruction prophesied by Jeremiah 24:10, 34:17 and Ezekiel 5:12; which means that a possible interpretation of Psalms 2:9 is that Satan is the iron rod that Jesus wields to demolish the present order of things, while Satan’s human minions constitute the wrecking crew.

   We have mentioned how Satan asked to do a number on Peter (Luke 22:31).  Unlike the firewall of privileges that Satan extends to his ruling elites of all ages, God does not practice nepotism or favoritism:  To Him every creature ranks the same, be it Son, angels (Revelation 19:10), or human beings (Deuteronomy 10:17; Romans 2:11).  This is why Jesus had to suffer at Satan’s hands through Pilate (John 18:11, 19:11).  Peter, who had been imprisoned and flogged (Acts 5:17-18, 40), was very much aware that there might be unrighteous tormentors, but that the suffering inflicted on the righteous took place because God permitted it (1Peter 3:16-17).  And Paul, who had a personal synergy with Jesus but had much to answer for all the Christian blood he had helped shed, understood the welts from floggings on his body originated with Jesus (Galatians 6:17).

   Again no transgression was left unpunished (Jeremiah 46:28), if in truth the extent of punishment was commensurate with what the sufferer could endure (1Corinthians 10:13).  But Satan knew of God’s determination to scourge every one of His children (Proverbs 3:11-12), a system that continued with Jesus (Revelation 3:19); and because of this uncompromising stance, Satan found his “in.”  By egging on men to transgress, divine punishment was inevitable; and if he could not get back at Father and Son for denying him power, he could lash back at them by hurting those they loved and by despoiling their Creation.

   Several factors made Satan’s work easier.  Since no one is good—by his own admission, not Jesus himself (Mark 10:18), there will always be sinners transgressing some point of divine law, which by definition means breaking all of it (James 2:10).  We are not talking about Mosaic Law but Jesus’ doctrine, wherein failure to do what one knows is right constitutes sin (James 4:17), just as doubting anything negates one’s faith (Romans 14:22-23).  Let us make things personal:  Jesus was not into family values, yet we prioritize family over others, which make us guilty of showing partiality, a mindset contrary to God’s (Deuteronomy 10:17; Luke 6:32) and undermining His objective:  That we fully share His sense of values (Leviticus 20:7; Hebrews 12:10; 1Peter 1:15).  Jesus exalted those who severed familial loyalties in pursuit of his goals (Luke 14:26), a stated given defining his ministry (Matthew 10:35).  Similarly, our focus on life enjoyment is far from the penitent outlook God expects from us (Isaiah 22:12-14); for how sincere can our repentance be by partaking of worldly desires (James 4:3-4; 1Peter 1:14-18), or more to the point, by partying when the brothers worldwide we are constrained to love as ourselves (Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 22:39; Galatians 5:14) are steeped in misery and suffering?

   But most significant of all, “because sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the human heart is fully set to do evil” (Ecclesiastes 8:11).  Comeuppance for transgressions is never immediate.  If a person acts un-righteously in ignorance, he is not technically guilty until knowing the difference (Romans 5:13); hence the objective behind preaching (Ezekiel 3:17-21; John 15:22).  That was the role of Old Testament Prophets:  To warn the people of consequences to befall if persisting in alienating God; and the reason behind taking the Gospel to the Gentiles, for the entire world could not be destroyed until all nationalities and races were warned (Matthew 24:14) about an outcome predetermined and programmed before time was.

Hierarchies

   In summary, we have the following chain of command:

1) “The Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever He will, and sets up over it the lowest of men” (Daniel 4:17); though “lowest” need not mean in terms of social status but moral deficiency; or as Isaiah 22:15-19 and Luke 4:6 state, not necessarily men but definitely Satan; or even possibly “lowest” in reference to Jesus’ re-empowerment after his ascension to Heaven (Psalms 2:8, 18:43-48, 110:1; Revelation 5:1-5).  As the Yahweh of hosts of the Old Testament, Jesus shared the Most High’s power, but he gave it all up when he became human (Philippians 2:5-11), thus counting himself amongst the lowest (i.e., powerless) of the low. 

2) “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth” (Matthew 28:18), the transfer of absolute power from Shebna [Satan] to Eliakim [Jesus] prophesied in Isaiah 22:20-24, with Jesus in total control over Satan (Revelation 1:18, 3:7).  Thus if Satan’s execrable powers-that-be continue to mow down humanity to this day, it is because Jesus lets Satan have their back.

3) “And the devil said to him, ‘To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please’” (Luke 4:6).  Typical of Satan, a boast which is half-true and half-lie:  Certainly he has been given control over earthly nations (1John 5:19), but while he may favor the most abject individuals for ruling positions, he puts them there with Heaven’s consent—the point behind Daniel 4:29-31 and 5:18-21.

Problem of Free Will and its Solution

   Thus in this scheme of things, God foreknew the course of history from Creation to end-times.  Free will presented a problem:  Given choices, angels and human beings need not remain on the same page; yet free will was necessary in order for angels and human beings to learn from experience that in a perfect order ensuring goals like liberty, equality, brotherhood and the pursuit of happiness, a perfect God with the power to make them happen must be in command; not fallible men drafting declarations or fighting revolutions concocted to favor the few over the many irrespective of solemn oaths and promises to the contrary.

   This is the reason why next time around free will shall no longer be the stumbling block it was to present-order angels and human beings, who had a choice to part ways with God or remain in Him.  Now that we have all seen where that split has led to, some of us are willing to reconcile with God by forfeiting free will, so that in obedience to Him we become one (Ephesians 4:6) just as Jesus is one with Him (John 10:30).  Those who are perfectly happy growing roots in the cemetery Satan has turned the world into can enjoy their time under the sun until it is turned off and Jesus returns (Matthew 24:29-31), holding on to their free will as they run for the caves (Isaiah 2:19; Revelation 6:15).

   And how do we know there will not be free will in the Kingdom to come?  “For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land.  I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols.  I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow My decrees and be careful to keep My laws.  Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be My people, and I will be your God” (Ezekiel 36:24-28).

The Way of the World

   When Satan set his sights on regime change, his objective was unequivocal:  I will set a throne where I will be like the Most High (Isaiah 14:13-14); not me and my followers; not so that I can repay men for their trust in me; but so that I can do as I please laying low the nations, bulldozing people into jails, and destroying the earth (Isaiah 14:12,17,20).  He was not acting against type, was he, being a homicide and a liar from the beginning (John 8:44)?  And why was he successful?  Because there was no precedent to compare against, no Power Point presentation showing how a regime outside God’s perfect one must devolve.  Which brings us to the simpler answer of why God allows human suffering:  So that people learn in the flesh what it means to be afoul of Him.  Are we not fond of saying that experience is the best teacher?

   Yet although God’s final objective has been stated:  “For I know the plans that I have for you…for well-being, and not for calamity, in order to give you a future and a hope’” (Jeremiah 29:11), the unrighteous hedge their bets on Satan, given that his ruling style, imitated by politicians of all stripes, resonates with base groups—pun intended.  And what is God’s response to that?  Fine with Me:  You made your bed, lie on it.

   Still word had to be sent so that saner minds might avoid the slippery slope; and Word came (John 1:1,14)—literally and figuratively—in the person of God’s Spokesman, Jesus.  It was he who personalized the Satan of the Old Testament; he who pointed out the synergy between Satan and his un-spiritual minions (John 8:44); he who established the link between disease and causative agent (Luke 13:16↔Acts 10:38); he who made it clear there was no love lost between them (John 14:30).  And it was he who commissioned the Apostles to present evil not as a philosophical concept but as an actual entity, “the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now active in those who are disobedient” (Ephesians 2:2); “the god of this world has blinded the minds of those who do not believe to keep them from seeing the light of the glorious gospel of the Messiah” (2Corinthians 4:4); the adversary “prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour” (1Peter 5:8); the evil one given leeway over the entire world, his realm of death, deploying his “fiery darts” of deceptions and doctrinal errors (Ephesians 6:16; Hebrews 2:14; 1John 5:19).

    Jesus made us aware of Satan’s—to borrow Carl Sagan’s spot on description—demon-haunted world; but Satan could always count on erudite men to pooh-pooh the notion of personalized evil.  To paraphrase the guileful Keyser Söze in 1995’s The Usual Suspects, Satan’s greatest trick was convincing the world he did not exist.  Forget the Biblical profiling:  Pre-dating social media, Satan was “influencer” (Genesis 3:4-5; 1Kings 22:20-22); liar and homicide (John 8:44); promoter of false worships; would-be usurper of divine attributes (Isaiah 14:13-14); “hardener” of minds and hearts (Exodus 7:3,13, 8:15, 9:34; Ephesians 2:2; 2Timothy 2:26 ); and of course the sword-wielder of mayhem and death (Exodus 12:23; 1Chronicles 21:1,15; Isaiah 14:16-20; Ezekiel 21:10-15,19,25-26; Hebrews 2:14; Revelation 6:8, 9:1-11, 20:7-10).  Forget Jesus:  Certainly enlightened degree-holders unfettered by faith and religion know better than an illiterate, itinerant carpenter whose existence cannot be proven empirically?  And forget the divine gravitas of Scripture, inspired by Truth Itself (2Peter 1:20-21).  What scientific evidence backs it up?

    The eternal conundrum:  Do we walk by faith, sight unseen, or by the visuals of a reality Scripture suggests is a contrivance?  If by the latter God is hip with that:  Glut on the visuals; the show will go on until I bring the curtain down on it.  But I will make provisions for those who believe in Me against all odds; and to them I will reveal a “hidden” wisdom that not even the James Webb Space Telescope can penetrate, inaccessible to all who disparage faith (Deuteronomy 29:29; Isaiah 29:10-12; Jeremiah 33:3; Mark 4:11-12; 1Corinthians 2:10,12-13).  And since you find Satan’s kingdom much more desirable than My Son’s, I will allow Satan to display such prodigies and wondrous signs that you will swallow his bait hook, line, and sinker (Matthew 24:24; 1Thessalonians 1:8-9; 2Thessalonians 2:11-13; Revelation 17:17).

   None of this would be possible without Satan’s ace in the proverbial hole:  Like-minded men.  Thus in our next chapter we will discuss forms of human endeavor that help him maximize global genocide.

 ¹ Was this one of the errors in judgment that led to the suffering which taught him obedience? (Hebrews 5:8).

² Pay attention to verses 6-7:  Michael is the “angel of Yahweh” telling Moses [referenced as Joshua, which is Jesus’ Hebrew name] that Yahweh of hosts, not Michael himself, had spelled directives for Moses to follow.  Neither Joshua the warrior nor Moses the man was ever high priest (verse 2); so that the priesthood being indirectly referenced was Jesus’ according to the order of Melchizedek (Hebrews 7:21-28, 8:1-5,11-14).

  The link to Jesus is unquestionable:  In terms of name, which he shared with Joshua, who introduced Israel into the promised land; and in symbolic terms with Moses, who exhorted God’s people to listen to Jesus (Deuteronomy 18:15)—just as Pharaoh instructed Egyptians to heed Joseph’s commands (Genesis 41:55).

   Joseph himself prefigured aspects of Jesus’ life:  He was betrayed by his brothers out of envy (Genesis 37:11; Mark 15:10); was 30 years old when he started his ministry (Genesis 41:16; Luke 3:23); and was empowered by a ruler superior to him in authority and reverence (Genesis 41:40; John 7:16,14:28).

³ Eliakim’s identity is established by the correspondence between Isaiah 22:23 and Revelation 3:7.

⁴ A subterranean place is not necessarily the answer, since upon death, the human soul goes back to God, flesh rots, and bones remain behind (2Kings 13:21; Ecclesiastes 12:7; Ezekiel 37:1-14; Acts 2:29).  In both the Hebrew Sheol and the Greek Hades, supposedly underground, the souls of righteous and unrighteous lived in perpetual darkness as conscious entities:  Neither paradise nor resurrection was programmed for them.  Solomon clearly states that death is an unconscious state (Ecclesiastes 9:5-6), which is why the Bible uses the world “sleep” when the body “exhales” the soul and people die (Genesis 35:18,29,33; Isaiah 26:19; Daniel 12:2; Luke 8:52-55; John 5:25; 1Thessalonians 4:13-16; Revelation 6:9-11)—the reverse process of Genesis 2:7.

    Satan’s angelic host do not fit these parameters; and though their living in unremitting darkness sounds more like Sheol or Hades, Satan is not among them.  In fact the distinction that Revelation 6:8 makes between Death [Satan] and Hades [his angels] tells us that their designations are mutually exclusive.  Whereas in Green mythology, Hades, brother to Zeus and Poseidon, was the lord of the underworld and lived there, Scripture tells us that lord Satan is alive and well and living in the world of men, not in darkened dungeons.

  Satan is Death because he kills his own people and lays waste to his empire (Isaiah 14:20); all of his loyal subjects are slated for the bonfire; and to the bitter end he will make sure they all go down with him (Revelation 20:7-10).

⁵ See Joel 2:1-11 for prophecies announcing these events.