Where is Satan in the Old Testament?

Note from the Editor: One of the main reasons we as an organization are so concerned about disease is because of the questions it poses about God. If God is who we say he is (i.e., all good and all powerful), why is there so much disease in the world? The answer we like the most points to Satan as the root cause of much disease and suffering. We find this answer to be biblically compelling and logically valid. (See here, here and here.) But what do we do with the numerous scripture passages that attribute suffering to God’s judgment or his mysterious will? (See here and here.) Another related question is, if Satan is behind much of the evil and suffering in the Bible, why is he almost invisible in the Old Testament? Below is an interesting take on the subject from Brad and Dorothee Cole.

Palmyra: Temple of Baal - Stijn Nieuwendijk/Flickr

From Old to New

By Brad and Dorothee Cole

Our brief survey of the Old Testament revealed a deeply rebellious time in which God’s chosen people were only occasionally interested in following the true God and were more often attracted to the cruel gods of the other nations—deities that demanded human (even child) sacrifice, and in which the worship experience involved temple prostitutes, fertility cult worship, extreme cruelty, and snake veneration. In this context, what we see in the Old Testament is God shielding the people from the full revelation of a great Adversary:

The nations surrounding Israel were polytheistic, worshiping many gods. In a polytheistic culture, the good things are attributed to the good gods, bad things to the evil ones. And those evil deities could be so volatile that humans were constantly brewing up incantations and magic rituals to placate them. . . . The great danger for Israel lay in the temptation to worship Satan as another god. So rather than just forbidding magic and incantation, God went a step further and claimed full responsibility for both good and evil. . . . As a result, throughout most of its pages, the Old Testament portrays God as the active agent in all things. God is the one who causes everything. Satan simply drops from sight until the very end of the Old Testament. . . . Indeed, only three passages in the entire Old Testament are explicit in their reference to the “Satan” who was God’s great adversary, and all three passages were either written or canonized toward the end of the Old Testament period (Alden Thompson, Servant God [Loma Linda, CA: Loma Linda University Press]).

Out of mercy, God veiled Satan and met the people where they were. He did not open up to them the potential dangers of worshiping His antagonist, but instead made Himself out to be the only viable divine power who would either bless them if they were faithful or curse and bring ruin to them if they were unfaithful. “If you obey the LORD your God . . . he will make you greater than any other nation on earth. . . . But if you disobey the LORD your God ... all these evil things will happen to you: The LORD will curse your towns and your fields” (Deuteronomy 28:1, 15-16).

Much of the book of Deuteronomy is filled with blessings and curses—all at the hands of God. In most of the Old Testament, God does both, including bringing punishment down to the third and fourth generation for the sins of the parents (Exodus 20). “I create both light and darkness; I bring both blessing and disaster. I, the LORD, do all these things” (Isaiah 45:7).

There is, however, a progressive unfolding of reality throughout the Old Testament. For example, in Ezekiel 18 God makes it very clear that, despite the words in the Ten Commandments, He does not punish the children for the sins of the parents. It isn’t until the New Testament, however, that everything is fully turned on its head. The promise for obedience in the New Testament is not blessing in this life, but rather persecution (Matthew 5). Those who are stoned in the New Testament are not the rule breakers, but rather those who are faithful to God. And, most important for our discussion, the Devil is the roaring lion who destroys in the New Testament, not God.

In the Old Testament, God is usually dealing with immature people just as parents deal with immature children—with rewards for good behavior and punishment for bad. Through Jesus, God calls His people to grow up. With maturity comes a greater understanding of our complex universe and the God who created it all.

This material was excerpted from Brad and Dorothee’s Bible study, Truth, Love and Freedom Bible Study Guide.

Drs. Brad and Dorothee Cole work as neurologists at the Loma Linda VA hospital and teach neuroscience and neurology education at Loma Linda University (LLU).  Brad and Dorothee also edited Servant God, a multi-authored book about God’s character. 

Numbers 16: The Destroying Angel and Korah's Rebellion

The Red Creek in the Nahal Vardit, at the Arava, Israel. Photo Credit: Flickr/chany crystal

By Brad and Dorothee Cole 

One of the most troubling stories in the Old Testament is Korah's rebellion where the earth opened up to swallow those who rebelled against God (Numbers 16:31, 32). The Bible says that after this a fire came out “from the Lord” (vs. 35) and destroyed 250 men. 

There are many who can’t take the Old Testament seriously because of the vengeful picture of God that seems to come through. Some are driven to atheism – “if God is like that, he isn’t worthy of my worship and admiration.”

The single most liberating belief for us is the core conviction that God is exactly like Jesus. Or, said in another way, Jesus was God in human form. Jesus never killed anyone and repeatedly said, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” Jesus died while forgiving his enemies and encouraged us to treat our enemies the same way. As we seek to understand stories like this, the character of God as revealed by Jesus must take supremacy; as soon as God begins to look like a flame-throwing, bone-crunching deity we should consider the possibility that we haven’t understood the story correctly.

First, it’s helpful to establish how serious this rebellion was. Moses asked Korah to bring only his 250 followers, yet “the entire community” (vs. 19) came to rebel against Moses and Aaron. Even after the earth opened up and others were destroyed by fire, the people were not intimidated away from their rebellion against God. The mutiny persisted since, “The next day the whole community complained against Moses and Aaron…” (vs. 41). This was a full-out revolt and it seemed that there was no one left who supported Moses. God was about to lose his people entirely.

Many times in the Old Testament God is described as actively doing what he instead allowed to occur. This is an important principle if we are to understand the Old Testament correctly. Please read this article if you need some evidence to support that position.

Is this story yet another example of this recurring theme? It is fascinating to read Paul describe in 1 Corinthians 10:10 that the people in Korah’s rebellion were “killed by the destroying angel.”

Who is the “destroying angel” that Paul is referring to?

An important principle of interpreting the Old Testament is to understand the relative absence of Satan. He is only named three times in comparison to abundant references in the New Testament including the final book of the Bible which is entirely about the “war in heaven” and Satan’s attempts to deceive those on earth.

We need to put Satan back into the Old Testament. God veiled Satan in the Old Testament partly because he didn’t want people to worship him as another god. But the first thing that Jesus did when he began his ministry was to expose Satan in the wilderness temptation. Jesus’ mission concluded with the complete defeat of the Serpent, “Now is the critical moment of the world; now the ruler of this world will be exposed” (John 12:31).

The New Testament understanding moves away from attributing violence to God and shifts the blame to Satan. Jesus never uses violence. The book of Revelation portrays God as the suffering victim of violence (the “violently slaughtered Lamb”) while Satan is labeled as the “Destroyer”. This is a message that had to be slowly unfolded to us. In Jesus, God was able to finally reveal, expose and defeat the one who uses the methods of coercion and violence.

Why would Satan do what Moses warned about?

One difficult question to consider, however, is why Satan would do what Moses warned about when he said that the earth would open up and swallow those who followed Korah. As a parallel story, Elijah commanded fire down to destroy his enemies. Following that lead, the disciples asked Jesus to do the same. Of course, Jesus strongly rebuked them and said that they did not know what spirit that sort of request came from. Could we say that it is not Christ-like to ask for our enemies to be swallowed up by the earth or destroyed by fire? We should only do what we see Jesus doing. We aren’t followers of Moses or Elijah. The Psalmist might bless the action of dashing babies against rocks and say, “I hate my enemies with a total hatred” (Psalm 139), but we don’t see Jesus doing that.

Did the story of Korah help or hurt God’s reputation? Are more people today drawn to God because of the traditional understanding of this story, or are more people pushed into atheism with the thought that God acts in that way? Perhaps it wasn’t entirely foolish for Satan to act in this way.

This is an abbreviated version of a blog entry by Brad and Dorothee on their website, godscharacter.com. You can read the original post here: http://godscharacter.com/index.php/bible-study/numbers/numbers-16

Drs. Brad and Dorothee Cole work as neurologists at the Loma Linda VA hospital and teach neuroscience and neurology education at Loma Linda University (LLU).  Brad and Dorothee also edited Servant God, a multi-authored book about God’s character. 

The Only How-To Article You'll Ever Need

Here at the RWI we talk a lot about destroying the works of the devil. You could say it's a strange obsession of ours. And you'd be right. But we're okay with that because Jesus talked a lot about it, too. The New Testament tells us in no uncertain terms that Jesus has come and whose reign He is here to end.

The acts of love Jesus performs throughout the Gospels, He's clear to show, are also acts of rebellion against the one He calls "the Prince of this World" (John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11). When He heals a crippled woman on the Sabbath, He paints the picture of what's actually going on like this " . . . should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?" (Luke 13:16, added emphasis).

There are numerous lists in the Bible of the signs of the Kingdom of Heaven as it comes, and the prior rule is abolished. But what does it look like for us, today? And, more importantly, how is it accomplished?

We were hoping you'd ask.

Greg Boyd's Warfare Worldview, Lecture II

In this video of Greg Boyd's second lecture at the 2013 Ralph D. Winter Lectureship on Friday, April 26, Greg wraps up his teaching about the Warfare Worldview in the Old Testament and then moves on into the New Testament. Video shot and edited by Kevin Renel.

Greg Boyd Ralph D. Winter Lectureship 4-26-2013

The views expressed in this lecture are those of Greg Boyd, not necessarily of The Roberta Winter Institute.