toldailytopic: Satan: literal or figurative?

Nathon Detroit

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The TheologyOnline.com TOPIC OF THE DAY for February 23rd, 2012 10:16 AM


toldailytopic: Satan: literal or figurative?



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Nathon Detroit

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Satan is literal. He was placed in the garden with Adam and Eve as a protector. Satan (having freewill) turned from God and fell into rebellion.

And while Satan maybe the symbol for evil he is not the "king of evil" nor does he have any special standing or power in hell. Satan does not torture or manage the people who end up in hell.
 

Rusha

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IMO, Satan is figurative ... and representative of free will.
 

elohiym

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Satan is literal.

Does he have a body, or is he disembodied?

He was placed in the garden with Adam and Eve as a protector.

The Bible doesn't say that anywhere.

Satan (having freewill) turned from God and fell into rebellion.

The Bible doesn't say that either. In fact, Jesus stated explicitly that the devil was a murderer from the beginning.

John 8:44 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 speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
 

PureX

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This is one of those questions the answer to which just becomes more and more complicated the further into it you try to go. And I'm not interested in chasing it down into that hole at the moment. All I can say is that "satan" is a cultural character. He is literal in the sense that he is a common literary device. He is cultural in that he is a universally understood symbol for the concept and experience of temptation. And since I don't feel like fighting with anyone, or having the label "heathen!" burned into my forehead by the super-Christians, today, I won't actually say that satan and superman hang side-by-side in the same locker in the storage room of our imaginations.
 

Sherman

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toldailytopic: Satan: literal or figurative?



Literal. He is an angel that rebelled against God and nothing more. He would like to think he is something special, but he isn't. People get the idea that Satan is a king from the Lament for the King of Tyre in Ezekiel 28:11-19. Satan would like to be a king. That was probably his aim when he rebelled.

Satan is like a liberal, he rebelled against the authority of God and all that He represents and wanted to put his own self desires first. Satan was the first individual that cried Me, Me, Mine, Mine. It doesn't make him special. It makes him foolish. I think of Satan as being like a mouse that made an obscene gesture at an eagle. It wasn't the smart thing to do.
 

vegascowboy

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I believe in a literal Satan.

I do not believe, however, that Satan is responsible for the bad things that happen to us in our lives.

He does not make people die of cancer.

He does not cause car crashes.

He is not the author of our trials and misfortunes.
 

elohiym

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I believe in a literal Satan.

Is Satan literally the father of some people then?

I do not believe, however, that Satan is responsible for the bad things that happen to us in our lives.

Then what is the purpose of satan?

He does not make people die of cancer.

He does not cause car crashes.

He is not the author of our trials and misfortunes.

You don't believe it's a bet between God and Satan, like in the book of Job?
 

vegascowboy

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Is Satan literally the father of some people then?



Then what is the purpose of satan?



You don't believe it's a bet between God and Satan, like in the book of Job?

Satan has a "purpose" against those in the Body of Christ...

That purpose is to confuse honest Christians about where in the Holy Scriptures to find the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He wants to prevent honest men and women from rightly dividing the truth.

He wants souls to reject the Gospel message and the Grace of God. He wants people to feel hopeless and that they must do great works in order to earn their salvation instead of accepting God's free gift.

He does not give people lung disease.

He does not give people flat tires.
 

Nathon Detroit

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The Bible doesn't say that either.
In a often overlooked passage God uses the King of Tyre as an example to describe how Satan was actually created as a protector in the Garden. It was Satan who took opportunity (via pride) to disobey God and therefore fell (we learn in Revelation that about one third of the angels fell with him).

Ezekiel 28:11 Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 12 “Son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre, and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: “You were the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. 13 You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was your covering: The sardius, topaz, and diamond, Beryl, onyx, and jasper, Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold. The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes Was prepared for you on the day you were created. 14 “You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; You were on the holy mountain of God; You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones. 15 You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, Till iniquity was found in you. 16 “By the abundance of your trading You became filled with violence within, And you sinned; Therefore I cast you as a profane thing Out of the mountain of God; And I destroyed you, O covering cherub, From the midst of the fiery stones. 17 “Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor; I cast you to the ground, I laid you before kings, That they might gaze at you. 18 “You defiled your sanctuaries By the multitude of your iniquities, By the iniquity of your trading; Therefore I brought fire from your midst; It devoured you, And I turned you to ashes upon the earth In the sight of all who saw you.​

Therefore we know that Satan was created as a "anointed cherub who covers" and it was Satan who fell (God didn't create him evil) "You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor".

The case is now closed! There could never be a more clear description of how Satan was actually created as a protector who fell and turned evil.

MORE EVIDENCE:
To drive home the point even further, we also know that after creation God said everything was "good" (at this point Satan was still good).

Genesis 1:31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day. 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished.

At creation everything in heaven and on earth were good! (even Satan).

Yet Satan fell by tempting Eve to sin.... notice what God tells Lucifer regarding what Lucifer did in the garden...

Genesis 3:14 So the LORD God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, You are cursed more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you shall go, And you shall eat dust All the days of your life.​

Because you have done this, You are cursed"
Because you have done this"


God cursed Satan because what he did in the garden, God did not create Satan as a evil being.

Furthermore...
Would a perfect father put a poisonous snake in the crib with his new born baby? Of course not! God put Satan in the garden as a protector! Yet Satan fell. Satan used his own freewill to disobey God and thus the history of mankind begins with a bang!

God sums it up like this....

Matthew 7:9 “Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 “Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11 “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!
 

elohiym

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Satan has a "purpose" against those in the Body of Christ...

Aren't demons subject to those in the Body of Christ? Don't we cast out demons?

That purpose is to confuse honest Christians about where in the Holy Scriptures to find the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He wants to prevent honest men and women from rightly dividing the truth.

Then his purpose is against those not in the Body of Christ because those in the Body have rightly divided and have found and believed the gospel.

He wants souls to reject the Gospel message and the Grace of God. He wants people to feel hopeless and that they must do great works in order to earn their salvation instead of accepting God's free gift.

Again, then his purpose is not against the Body, but against those who are not in the Body. Those in the Body have already accepted the gospel message and don't feel hopeless and don't think they must do great works in order to earn their salvation.

He does not give people lung disease.

He does not give people flat tires.

Then how do you explain the story of Job? It has to be figurative of satan doesn't really do those things, meaning that the satan of job is figurative.

Also, when Jesus healed a man he told the man to "sin no more lest a worse thing happen" to him, meaning Jesus directly attributed that man's sinfulness to his disease. What do you make of that?
 

Dena

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Figurative.

If he were literal he would merely be a tool used by God, not the lord and master of all evil.
 
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