This is part 8 of a series; The Selves is part 1.

Today, thanks to various pagan mythologies which were borrowed into Christianity and later made into a bunch of books and movies, we imagine a great battle between Angels and Demons, a great controversy where God and Satan battle for men’s souls. And to judge by the state of the world, it’s a battle Satan is winning.

But that’s simply not what the Bible says. There is no horned, red, trident-carrying devil in scripture. He simply doesn’t exist. There is no frothing-at-the-mouth tyrant ruling over the tortured souls in hell in the Bible, either. Everything you’ve been taught about the spirit world was wrong.

We’ve been taught that Satan and God are bitter enemies, utterly unable to be in the same room without being at each other’s throats; and there is no question that the devil is our enemy but not at all in the same way you’ve been told.

Satan is brilliant, the wisest creature God ever made (Ezekiel 28:3-5, 12). So it stands to reason that any “war” he fights, he must think he has a chance of winning, right? But the devil the world believes in has absolutely no chance to win the battle they think he’s fighting. And the real devil knows that!

I mean, come on, the devil has read Revelation. He knows how this ends. Why would he still fight, knowing he has no hope? I mean, it’s so obvious I remember asking that question when I was like 10 years old!

To continue fighting on against God, he obviously believes he does have hope – and no one with any sense at all would fight his own creator in a fair fight! So let’s try for a moment to set aside everything you think you know about the devil’s war, and just listen to what it says, like everyone should have done in the first place.

THE DEVIL’S WAR

The Bible is the REASON we speak of a being called a devil, or another called Jesus; without the Bible, we would have no knowledge at all about either one of them. So we must look to the Bible alone for the facts about their relationship and for some reason, no one does that!

We have a record of exactly 4 meetings between the Lord or Jesus and Satan, not counting demon possessed people. The temptation of Jesus in Matthew 4; the Eden incident in Genesis 3; and two separate meetings in Job 1 and 2.

In every one of these passages, both parties are, if not cordial, at least civil to each other. Not once in the Bible does the devil openly disobey a direct command of God, nor even say a single disrespectful word to God!

So you need to rethink everything you’ve been told about their relationship, because this is the devil you don’t know!

Job 1:6 Now it happened on the day when God’s sons came to present themselves before Yahweh, that Satan also came among them. Yahweh said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Then Satan answered Yahweh, and said, “From going back and forth in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.”

This is far more chatty than we are led to expect from these two, isn’t it? And note that Satan was, at the time of Job – roughly 3,500 years ago – apparently welcome in heaven, contrary to what you’re led to believe by Christian mythology!

Job 1:8-11 Yahweh said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant, Job? For there is none like him in the earth, a blameless and an upright man, one who fears God, and turns away from evil.” Then Satan answered Yahweh, and said, “Does Job fear God for nothing? Haven’t you made a hedge around him, and around his house, and around all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. But put forth your hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will renounce you to your face.”

The Lord brings up a point of contention between them, saying “have you thought about Job?” Obviously, this is a continuation of an older argument, and the Lord is adding a new piece of evidence to the discussion – the righteousness of Job.

But note the absence of insults, yo-mama jokes, and thundering. It’s simply… talking. This is not what you learned in Sunday school!

Regardless, we learn more about the substance of the debate between them from Satan himself, who inspired one of Job’s not-very-helpful frenemies, saying…

Job 4:17-18 (GWV) Can any mortal be righteous to God? Can any human being be pure to his maker? You see, God doesn’t trust his own servants, and he accuses his angels of making mistakes.

You see that this is literally the doctrine of antichrist, being articulated directly from the original being who thought it up. Satan contends that mortal man, made of flesh, cannot be righteous enough to please God. That not even the angels are good enough for Him!

Which is why in the first chapter of Job, the Lord pointed out a man who had pleased Him – Job – citing this as proof the devil was wrong. And why, in turn, the devil poked at Job’s motivation saying “well sure, he’s righteous because you’ve paid him to be righteous!”

The Lord conceded that was a fair point, and gave Satan permission to test his hypothesis and see if Job would maintain his righteousness after losing everything he valued. But the Lord made one rule: Satan couldn’t touch Job’s body.

Job 1:12 Yahweh said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power. Only on himself don’t put forth your hand.” So Satan went forth from the presence of Yahweh.

Which brings up a very surprising point: that Satan respects the limits the Lord places on him – you can do this to him but not that. If the devil truly was a rebel, defiantly giving God the finger on a daily basis, would he obey the limits God places on him?

Yeah, yeah, he’s afraid of God, whatever, but rebels don’t obey their masters… that’s why they’re CALLED rebels!! So no matter why he obeys, if he obeys… he’s not a rebel!

Regardless, Satan stole Job’s stuff, killed his family, and Job simply said, “The Lord has given, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” Which gave the Lord another good talking point at the next argument with the devil:

Job 2:3 Yahweh said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? For there is none like him in the earth, a blameless and an upright man, one who fears God, and turns away from evil. He still maintains his integrity, although you incited me against him, to ruin him without cause.”

Point to the Lord! And note that, contrary to what the entire world believes, the Lord did this without cause – not as punishment because of Job’s alleged self-righteousness. But was the devil convinced by his failure to get Job to renounce God?

Job 2:4-6 Satan answered Yahweh, and said, “Skin for skin. Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. But put forth your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will renounce you to your face.” Yahweh said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand. Only spare his life.”

Not retreating from his point that man cannot obey God perfectly, he says that Job will renounce God if he suffers enough. The Lord once again concedes this might be true, and gives Satan a chance to prove it.

Long story short, Job does really well at first, and never does disobey God outright, but begins to lose faith in God’s fairness after awhile. Which was understandable enough, but still disappointing to God. In the end, God intervenes, ends Job’s suffering, tells Job why he should have trusted God all along, which Job sheepishly admits.

Then God rewards him with twice what he had before the trial and praises Job effusively to the miserable comforters who had been condemning him for 30 chapters.

Job 42:7 …Yahweh said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has.”

THE TEMPTATION

And yet despite losing again, clearly, Satan wasn’t convinced because almost 2,000 years later we see these same two beings having the same old argument in Luke 4, at the temptation of Christ. But what was “the temptation”, really?

Not a war, nor even a battle – unless you count a battle of wits. It is certainly a debate, perhaps even an attempt to deceive; but there is no hint of bitterness, anger, or nastiness of any kind. Certainly, this is far from the savagery you’d expect. Because that is not, and has never been, their relationship!

If you’ll note, there are three separate temptations – which, by now, you should know probably correlates with a specific temptation for each of the fractions – one each for the heart, soul, and spirit. Thus the temptation was Satan trying to prove that Jesus couldn’t rule His fractions!

Luke 4:2-3 Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered. And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread.

Jesus hadn’t eaten in 40 days and 40 nights. Dude was HUNGRY! Because he was human! Specifically, his flesh wanted food! A temptation of His flesh! But He told the devil, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.”

John 4:32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”

This is food that anyone who rules their fractions, and lives by every word of God, also has access to – the “hidden manna” of Revelation 2:17. But only if they can rule their flesh! Which Jesus, contrary to Satan’s expectation, managed to do!

Next the devil offered Him the rule over all the kingdoms of the world; think of the GOOD He could do with that power now! Think of the ways His soul could help people, and fulfill the destiny God had already promised Him anyway! Thus, a temptation for His soul!

Luke 4:8 Jesus answered him, “Get behind me Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and you shall serve him only.’”

Finally, Satan suggested that Jesus jump from the temple to prove his point; remember, at this point, Jesus had done no miracles – the water-into-wine thing at Cana being some time in the future still. Which means Jesus still did not have absolute proof He was the son of God. Something His spirit would have craved more powerfully than the flesh craved food!

But Jesus pointed out that “dashing your foot against a stone” (Psalms 91:12), wasn’t the same as deliberately jumping to prove that God will catch you, and refused. Saying, in other words, that this scripture didn’t apply here and passing the temptation for His spirit!

But here’s the big question… did Satan misapply these verses on purpose? Or did he simply not understand the difference? Remember, Satan is SMART (Genesis 3:1, Ezekiel 28:12). Why would he make a gambit with such easy answers, if he knew there was an answer?

He had to think these questions were unanswerable, which means HE DIDN’T KNOW THE ANSWERS JESUS GAVE!

Satan had truly believed that Jesus would not be able to resist these arguments, and would conclusively prove him right, that even Jesus couldn’t live up to God’s demands. Obviously, He didn’t, so the devil – still unconvinced – left Him “for a while” (Luke 4:13).

THE WAR?

Every time the devil and Jesus meet, this is the argument they have: that God is too hard to please. That God asks the impossible of His servants. That He demands perfection, which even the angels can’t live up to.

Satan failed to obey God, and his entire defense is that he failed because God asked the impossible! Satan claims that no being, not even a perfect angel like himself, MUCH LESS a mere human, can ever please God!

And God is fair. And in all fairness, Satan had a point. No angel had been able to live up to God’s expectations. Therefore it was reasonable to argue that it couldn’t be done. And so, from time to time, God pointed out one man or another who had lived up to His expectations.

And in each case, Satan found some reason to claim it wasn’t a fair test, just as he did with Job – for he is the “accuser of the brethren” (Revelation 12:10). And as flimsy as some of these excuses were, they might have been true. And God must be just when He judges (Genesis 18:25).

And so in the end, the only way to settle the argument was for Jesus to say “hold my beer!” and do it Himself, emptying Himself of divinity and becoming a fully human man to prove that it could be done by a mortal man, that “those who dwell in houses of clay” (Job 4:19) – which is to say, bodies of FLESH – could please God!

Proving that it could be done was the only way to settle the question and judge the devil once and for all with an absolutely air-tight case. Which is why, on the last night He spent on this Earth, He said…

John 16:7-11 When he [the holy spirit] has come, he will convict the world about sin, about righteousness, and about judgment; about sin, because they don’t believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to my Father, and you won’t see me any more; about judgment, because the prince of this world has been judged.

You will notice again there are three things here; sin, righteousness, and judgment. As always, one for each of the fractions who had been perfected in Jesus’s self!

He convicted the world of sin, because it did not BELIEVE Him! Not because they didn’t believe He existed, but that He existed in the flesh! That His beast was just like theirs yet without sin! Thus the first condemnation is of the doctrine of antichrist!

And He convicted the world “of righteousness”, because their RIGHTEOUSNESS is wrong (Romans 10:1-3). Their spirit is ill-equipped to be a lamp to their soul, incapable of helping it choose the right WAY even if it wanted to! Which is why they are not capable of knowing TRUTH! (John 3:19-20).

And He convicted the world for their JUDGMENTS, because their souls were judging their selves poorly, being led aside by the lie in their heart or the tradition in their spirit (Isaiah 44:20). Which is why they couldn’t find the straight and narrow WAY! But Jesus proved it could be done!

Thus these condemnations are an indictment against all those who are not yet the WAY, TRUTH, and LIFE! For Jesus was just like us, yet created and became the way – the perfect example of how to judge righteous judgment.

And Jesus became the truth – the perfect conscience, the perfectly objective witness for His soul. And Jesus became the life for all because He convinced His beast to be obedient even unto death – and in so doing, showed us ALL how to find life (1 Thessalonians 5:23).

He had finally proven once and for all that He has asked nothing of us that He hasn’t already done. And in so doing… judged the prince of this world.

…and yet that dark prince STILL believes man cannot obey God! That not even the human Jesus did, because Jesus wasn’t actually human, for Satan believes Jesus did not in fact come in the flesh.

DECEIVED DECEIVER

And yet through all this, at no point in the entire Bible, has the devil openly defied God or Jesus! Today we’ve read the story of every recorded time Jesus and the devil have interacted. In any of this did you see a malevolent war between good and evil?

If that’s really what their relationship was… why would Jesus try and make an ethical, philosophical point to a mortal enemy? Why try to prove to Satan that man CAN obey God, if there was no reasoning with the devil?

The world has spent thousands of years characterizing these encounters as acrimonious battles full of evil intent; and while the devil was certainly not doing what God would have wanted him to do… the devil’s ways were fully justified in his own eyes, and there was no act of rebellion here!

To be sure, God has said many things about him being our enemy (1 Peter 5:8). He most certainly is not on our side but he believes he is! He has always portrayed himself as the savior of mankind, which is why Paul called him a “another Jesus” (which is Hebrew for “Savior”) (2 Corinthians 11:4).

And he doesn’t portray himself this way to deceive us… he portrays himself this way because this is how he sees himself!

Satan believes God too harsh; too unmerciful; he believes that God has forgotten the meaning of love, and that he himself understands the concept in a way no inhuman God could grasp. And it was this concept of “love” that he would have taught Jesus, had He agreed to join his house. The same one the pretend Jesus of all his churches talk about to this day!

The horned devil rabidly hunting human souls isn’t an accurate characterization of our enemy; and if you’re on the lookout for a devil who hates God, you won’t recognize a devil who believes he’s “doing God’s will even better than God told him to do.” One who actually BELIEVES he is an angel of light! (2 Corinthians 11:13-15).

I’m not trying to make excuses for the devil. Surely, he does that well enough on his own. In fact, his very name, “devil” comes from “diabolos”, Greek for “to throw across”, as in “to return an accusation back on the speaker”; thus, “backtalker” might be the best translation.

For when God said Satan could have done better, he said “No! I did my best and no one could ask more than that!”; and God said “no, you didn’t do your best”, and He shot back “oh yeah, well, let’s see YOU do better!”…

So yeah, this is definitely a controversy, and it absolutely defines the universe we live in…

But this isn’t the battle of Good versus Evil that we’ve been taught.

Because the devil isn’t who the world thinks he is.

Continue to Part 9: War In Heaven