Is Satan a real being or a term to identify any enemy or concept opposing God?

com7fy8 · Jun 26, 2020

sparow said:
Jesus calls Peter Satan

In Greek, "Satan" means accuser, and in Hebrew it means an opponent. And ones say this means Satan is "the enemy".

Names in non-English languages can be constructed from regular vocabulary words, in order to tell you something about the person you are calling by that name.

So - - when Jesus called Peter "Enemy", that was because Peter was trying to take Jesus a bad way. But Jesus also called Peter a better name, which has lasted.

But Satan the invisible evil one has not changed from being what his name, "Enemy", means.

And we see how he personally had a conversation with Jesus, while Jesus was in the wilderness in order to be tested. I do not think you can have a conversation with a metaphor.

So, why do people want to think Satan is not a personal being? There can be motives for what we are ready to believe.

Also, Paul speaks of how his "thorn in the flesh" was "a messenger of Satan" > 2 Corinthians 12:7-15. It came from the Enemy. The Enemy has ability to do personal things against us, because the Enemy is a personal being.

However > in Romans 16:20 > our Apostle Paul says people will soon bruise Satan. This tends to be what you can do to a personal being. I do not believe you can bruise a metaphor.

Blade · Jun 26, 2020

"and the Lord said, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat:"

"But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren."

Satan is always using what we do what was say against us. Can be hard to understand. We tend to only go by what we see hear and feel. But it was Satan Christ was talking to. What was said before all this?

"Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." The holy Spirit told Peter this.

Don't you ever wonder how that thought just popped up in your head? You were not even thinking that. Let Christ so to speak ..the word be the filter. Bind those thoughts. Anyway

Yes it was Satan.. I think we could agree JESUS walking this earth.. Satan would not leave that job for anyone else buy himself. For he was the one that tempted Christ

DebbieJ · Jun 26, 2020

Satan pestered the Lord many times, trying to prevent him from being crucified.

Here's a compilation:

1)“If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
2)“If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down."
3) “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
4) “Far be it from You, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to You!”

Satan even used Peter as a puppet to annoy the Lord. The Lord knew it was Satan. Just look at the behavior pattern. It tells you it comes from the same person.

DamianWarS · Jun 26, 2020

sparow said:
Matthew 16:23 (NKJV)
23 But He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men."

Jesus calls Peter Satan and it is interesting why:

Matthew 16:21-22 (NKJV)
21 From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.
22 Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, "Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!"

This doesn't mean there is not an Archangel called Satan. My position is similar to Judaism where Satan is a metaphoric title implying evil. The verses above are straight talk and not parable but clearly Peter is not an Archangel.

The translators present Satan as a person; but is it true?

Satan is not a Greek word, it's a Hebrew word. When a Greek text uses a Hebrew word there is just cause to translate it as it is presented and then we can unpack the meaning of the word through study. Satan in Hebrew means accuser or adversary. The idea of the personification of these concepts is repeated in Rev 12:10 saying "...the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down". Satan means accuser so although this text doesn't use Hebrew it uses its greek counterparts of Satan and in a more concrete way (although within allegory) but we may infer Satan in this verse.

16:23 could be translated as "get behind me adversary..." but if they did so they would be also interpreting it not just translating it. Jesus may have been saying it reference to a spirit of Satan not of Peter himself (whether specific or non-specific)

We see the wrong way to do translating in this context by looking in Isaiah 14:16 when we see the word "Lucifer" used as a proper noun. Lucifer is Latin, it's not Greek, it's not Hebrew and at some point some translations chose not to translate this word and use the Latin translated word instead thereby elevating it to a different level then the original text. Lucifer today is actually a misnomer for Satan not his proper name. It's a good translation in Latin but it's irresponsible in any other language.

But that's not what's happening in Mat 16:23. The translations are not elevating the word nor are they lowering it as this is how Matthew presents it using the Hebrew word (If it were Greek it would be devil)

But perhaps then all uses of the word "Satan" should be translated as "adversary". Well all Hebrew names are Hebrew words. From Adam (ground, earth), Abraham (Father of a multitude), David (Beloved) right down to Jesus (Yahweh is salvation) even YHWH itself (meaning "HE IS" from "I AM"). These are not abstract words like how we have names today and we have to look up their meaning. They were regular Hebrew words used all the time. This is why the naming of a person from God is so important.

Satan is used without question as a name such as what we see in Job but it's also translated as a noun too in lots of places such as 1 Kings 5:4 "But now the LORD my God has given me rest on every side, and there is no adversary or disaster." Adversary here is "satan". We can identify when it is a noun and when it is a proper noun by the Hebrew "satan" (noun) and "has-satan" (noun with article or lit. "the adversary") so Hebrew let's us know which way it should be understood.

In Greek we know it's a name by also the grammar. The Greek word is "satana" and in context it is used in the Vocative case meaning it is used to identify a person (or name of something) and it's a proper noun and would be the directly equivalent of "has-satan" in Hebrew. Matthew keeps the "satan" part but changes the grammar to still identify it as a proper noun. So the correct translation in english is "Satan" with a capital "S" as proper nouns go in English. If Jesus meant it in a more abstract sense then it doesn't make the translation bad, the translation is still good we just have to figure out the meaning in deeper study, but naturally speaking he is referring to some sort of being of action (that has the ability to get behind something) called "Satan"

sparow · Jun 27, 2020

Dkh587 said:
The concept of Satan being an actual being, is confirmed by Christ:

John 8:44

He goes all the way back to the beginning and references the Serpent, who was the first liar, making him the father of lies:

Genesis 3:4

1 John 3:8

there is an actual being in the Law & Prophets called “the Satan”, which is who appears in Job.

Job 1:6

The sons of God are members of the divine council of God in heaven.

They are divine beings, and appear before God’s throne - Satan showed up with them 1 day, as recorded above.

When quoting Jesus unless Jesus has called the twelve apostle to one side and is speaking privately to them, Jesus is always speaking in parables; He has said so and prophesy requires it.

Whether Satan is actually a being is what is being tested; Judaism says Satan is not an actual being; an actual being could be called Satan, but not exclusively. One difficulty is in the Biblical Hebrew language there is no neutral gender, only male and female; so even the idea of Satan is assigned male gender, so Satan is often called "he".

sparow · Jun 27, 2020

Broken Fence said:
Ezekiel 28:14-16 he is a very real spirit do not under estimate him. I have meet him, he does not care about you or any human. He will try everything he can to destroy your faith. God bless.

My purpose is to convince myself one way or the other; so far I haven't seen any new information. The are evil spirits and anyone or all can be called Satan.

from memory Ezek 28 does not use the term Satan; if it did it would be the House of Israel that the name would be applied to. The book of Ezekiel records a vision Ezekiel had, a prophesy that he was instructed to take to the House of Israel; in the early verses of chapter 28, Ezekiel sees four men each with four heads, I do not know what the significance of four is, but each set of four heads had four faces, one was the face of a man, one was the face of a lion, one was the face of an ox and the fourth face was the face of an eagle; these four faces were on the standards or signs that the tribes of Israel camped behind when camped around the tent Sanctuary in the wilderness.

We all experience Satan; but is Satan the dark side within ourselves?

sparow · Jun 27, 2020

ChetSinger said:
This is just food for thought, but Judaic beliefs of today are not the same as they were 2,000 years ago; some significant changes were made in the 2nd century after the second Roman war and the final theological break between Jews and Christians. For example, there was a Jewish godhead during the 2nd temple period that was considered orthodox at that time. Now it's considered heresy.

So a contemporary rabbi will probably not share all of the same beliefs as the rabbis who taught the apostles.

Yes but Judaism today still uses the same Bible they used 2000 years ago and they are familiar with Jewish semantics; most other people will be using non-Jewish semantics.

One consideration should be, "What difference would it make," it involves what we have to overcome.

sparow · Jun 27, 2020

Tom 1 said:
I think it's debatable. Satan, the accuser, in Job is just a plot device in a philosophical exposition, which is in the form of a story. Biblical language can be both elegant and subtle, Genesis 4:7 appears to refer to sin as an entity - 'it' desires to have you, and James says that we are tempted by our own desires which then give birth to sin; does this actually mean sin is a thing that a) is trying to trap us or b) is created by us giving into temptation? I think the meanings here are figurative representations of human behaviour. Then there are passages like those in Rev 20 - the ancient dragon, the serpent/Satan. How much of revelations was written to make sense to the original audience, and how much can be usefully re-interpreted for today's church? On the other hand Peter wrote about Satan walking the earth like a lion roaming the desert, and Jesus says he saw 'Satan fall like lighting from heaven'. As it generally seems to be accepted that heaven is not a physical place, that image seems to straddle metaphor and allusion to something we can only really guess at. Peter was steeped in Jewish tradition, and elaborate metaphors are part of that.

Agree. Symbolic language tricks most people up; Jesus always spoke in parables; could both concepts be true; I think not for when we go to Rev the leader fighting against the New Jerusalem is Gog.

sparow · Jun 27, 2020

bling said:
We sometimes talk about: "Going through Hell" or something being "Hell", not meaning literally hell, but to describe something extremely bad, so maybe Jesus is not using satan as the literal being but describing Peter as being like satan?

Did you know that a hell is a six foot hole in the ground and before refrigerators were used for cold storage and of course graves. When hell appears in Bible translations better rendering would be grave, tomb or rubbish tip.

Broken Fence · Jun 27, 2020

sparow said:
My purpose is to convince myself one way or the other; so far I haven't seen any new information. The are evil spirits and anyone or all can be called Satan.

from memory Ezek 28 does not use the term Satan; if it did it would be the House of Israel that the name would be applied to. The book of Ezekiel records a vision Ezekiel had, a prophesy that he was instructed to take to the House of Israel; in the early verses of chapter 28, Ezekiel sees four men each with four heads, I do not know what the significance of four is, but each set of four heads had four faces, one was the face of a man, one was the face of a lion, one was the face of an ox and the fourth face was the face of an eagle; these four faces were on the standards or signs that the tribes of Israel camped behind when camped around the tent Sanctuary in the wilderness.

We all experience Satan; but is Satan the dark side within ourselves?

No Satan is a real being. The accuser of the brethern.

sparow · Jun 27, 2020

eleos1954 said:
Satan is a fallen angel and is an angelic being. Angels are a different kind of being and have supernatural powers and the ability to influence human beings in many different ways.

I don't believe this is the case .... I think Jesus recognized satan was influencing Peter and Peter was unaware he was being used by satan ... and Jesus knew this ... and Jesus rebuked him (satan) not calling Peter satan.

Peter, unknowingly, was interfering with the flow of prophesy, trying to alter the algorithm

sparow · Jun 27, 2020

public hermit said:
As has been pointed out, by those that can handle nuance, whether or not Satan is an actual being is debatable. The scriptures indicate in a number of places that Satan is a being and I find no reason to assume, out of hand, that such is not possible.

On the one hand, the term "satan" can be used to simply mean "an adversary." On the other, if used with a definite article (ha-satan/the satan) then it refers to a being.

At any rate, I would say it's pretty clear from the passage you mention that Jesus is calling Peter an adversary, because Peter's suggestion was opposed to the will of God.

I don't doubt that there is a kingpin who led one third of the angels who were thrown out of heaven, or the it (he) has been called Satan, but not exclusively or as a proper name.

Scott Husted · Jun 27, 2020

sparow said:
Matthew 16:23 (NKJV)
23 But He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men."

Jesus calls Peter Satan and it is interesting why:

Matthew 16:21-22 (NKJV)
21 From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.
22 Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, "Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!"

This doesn't mean there is not an Archangel called Satan. My position is similar to Judaism where Satan is a metaphoric title implying evil. The verses above are straight talk and not parable but clearly Peter is not an Archangel.

The translators present Satan as a person; but is it true?

In some ways it is a moot point outside of what he represents in relationship to the process that plays out in us.

2Sa 24:1 And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.

1Ch 21:1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.

Num 22:22 And God's anger was kindled because he went: and the angel of the LORD stood in the way for an adversary against him. Now he was riding upon his ass, and his two servants were with him.

sparow · Jun 27, 2020

DebbieJ said:
Satan pestered the Lord many times, trying to prevent him from being crucified.

Here's a compilation:

1)“If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
2)“If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down."
3) “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
4) “Far be it from You, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to You!”

Satan even used Peter as a puppet to annoy the Lord. The Lord knew it was Satan. Just look at the behavior pattern. It tells you it comes from the same person.

Some people take the scriptures literally, but you are quoting a parable where the details are fiction, but there is a lesson in it when in context.

sparow · Jun 27, 2020

DamianWarS said:
Satan is not a Greek word, it's a Hebrew word. When a Greek text uses a Hebrew word there is just cause to translate it as it is presented and then we can unpack the meaning of the word through study. Satan in Hebrew means accuser or adversary. The idea of the personification of these concepts is repeated in Rev 12:10 saying "...the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down". Satan means accuser so although this text doesn't use Hebrew it uses its greek counterparts of Satan and in a more concrete way (although within allegory) but we may infer Satan in this verse.

16:23 could be translated as "get behind me adversary..." but if they did so they would be also interpreting it not just translating it. Jesus may have been saying it reference to a spirit of Satan not of Peter himself (whether specific or non-specific)

We see the wrong way to do translating in this context by looking in Isaiah 14:16 when we see the word "Lucifer" used as a proper noun. Lucifer is Latin, it's not Greek, it's not Hebrew and at some point some translations chose not to translate this word and use the Latin translated word instead thereby elevating it to a different level then the original text. Lucifer today is actually a misnomer for Satan not his proper name. It's a good translation in Latin but it's irresponsible in any other language.

But that's not what's happening in Mat 16:23. The translations are not elevating the word nor are they lowering it as this is how Matthew presents it using the Hebrew word (If it were Greek it would be devil)

But perhaps then all uses of the word "Satan" should be translated as "adversary". Well all Hebrew names are Hebrew words. From Adam (ground, earth), Abraham (Father of a multitude), David (Beloved) right down to Jesus (Yahweh is salvation) even YHWH itself (meaning "HE IS" from "I AM"). These are not abstract words like how we have names today and we have to look up their meaning. They were regular Hebrew words used all the time. This is why the naming of a person from God is so important.

Satan is used without question as a name such as what we see in Job but it's also translated as a noun too in lots of places such as 1 Kings 5:4 "But now the LORD my God has given me rest on every side, and there is no adversary or disaster." Adversary here is "satan". We can identify when it is a noun and when it is a proper noun by the Hebrew "satan" (noun) and "has-satan" (noun with article or lit. "the adversary") so Hebrew let's us know which way it should be understood.

In Greek we know it's a name by also the grammar. The Greek word is "satana" and in context it is used in the Vocative case meaning it is used to identify a person (or name of something) and it's a proper noun and would be the directly equivalent of "has-satan" in Hebrew. Matthew keeps the "satan" part but changes the grammar to still identify it as a proper noun. So the correct translation in english is "Satan" with a capital "S" as proper nouns go in English. If Jesus meant it in a more abstract sense then it doesn't make the translation bad, the translation is still good we just have to figure out the meaning in deeper study, but naturally speaking he is referring to some sort of being of action (that has the ability to get behind something) called "Satan"

Of the Bibles that I have access to only the KJV and the NKJV use the word "lucifer", which means lucifer is the KJV's interpretation of "morning star.

sparow · Jun 27, 2020

Broken Fence said:
No Satan is a real being. The accuser of the brethern.

I do not doubt that there is a real adversary but not aways a being or uniquely labelled Satan.

DamianWarS · Jun 27, 2020

sparow said:
Of the Bibles that I have access to only the KJV and the NKJV use the word "lucifer", which means lucifer is the KJV's interpretation of "morning star.

It is the Latin translation of the hebrew word "helel" which is often translated as morning star (essentially venus). In Latin this is a good translation. Somewhere along the way, prior to the KJV it because an identiy to Satan. It's not necessarily their fault and it was established prior to them, it still is an interpretation over translation

eleos1954 · Jun 27, 2020

sparow said:
Peter, unknowingly, was interfering with the flow of prophesy, trying to alter the algorithm

perhaps so ... perhaps not .....

Matthew 16:23
But Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan! You (satan) are a stumbling block to Me. For you (satan) do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."

Reason I don't think so ...

"For you (satan) do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."

That broad generalized statement wouldn't apply to Peter as a whole ... but it certainly would apply to satan overall as a whole.

Not a big deal either way ... is just my take on it. ;o)

DebbieJ · Jun 27, 2020

sparow said:
Some people take the scriptures literally, but you are quoting a parable where the details are fiction, but there is a lesson in it when in context.

It if it's alright with you, may I ask what Christian sect or religion you belong to? Or, maybe you could just direct me to a link. Do you also adhere to the statement of faith of this forum? There are many Christian sects here with differing beliefs and I just want to have a better orientation before I proceed.

Thanks.

Maria Billingsley · Jun 27, 2020

sparow said:
Matthew 16:23 (NKJV)
23 But He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men."

Jesus calls Peter Satan and it is interesting why:

Matthew 16:21-22 (NKJV)
21 From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.
22 Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, "Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!"

This doesn't mean there is not an Archangel called Satan. My position is similar to Judaism where Satan is a metaphoric title implying evil. The verses above are straight talk and not parable but clearly Peter is not an Archangel.

The translators present Satan as a person; but is it true?

In the beginning Satan was allowed to live in the garden of Eden for one purpose, to deceive. He took the form of a serpent. Moving on to Job, he seems to take the form of a celestial being, like the angels and converses with God. Satan can do nothing unless God sanctions it for the purpose of testing us. He can be an angel of light or an angel of darkness. Satan as a "being" is not how he interacts with humanity. He interacts through deception which leads us to sin.
Be blessed

Is Satan a real being or a term to identify any enemy or concept opposing God?

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