Satan’s Person, Work, Place and Destiny / Part 3

Satan –His Person, Work, Place and Destiny
Part 3:His Place And Destiny

In parts 1 and 2 of this Series we looked at Satan’s person and his work. In this last part we will consider his place and his destiny.

In The Heavenlies
Misconceptions about the Devil abound: he is sometimes assumed to be in hell, other times on the earth, but never in heaven. He is also assumed to be king of hell, rather than a prisoner as he will be. If, as is commonly wrongly done, we regard hell as the lake of fire, he is not now there and will not be for more than a thousand years (Rev. 20:1-3,10). By his original creation, Satan apparently had free access to every part of the universe, including the Throne of God (Job 1-2), and he will have until he is cast out (Rev. 20:1-3). Passages of Scripture that sound as though he were already cast out (Isa. 14:12; Lk. 10:18; Jn. 12:31) are simply prophetic of the still future event.

Natural questions still arise: why could God not cast out the enemy at any time? And why is he not restrained from further evil and mischief? Because, men by sin acquired a nature in common with Satan, and if God were to judge Satan, He would also have to judge mankind! In His infinite wisdom, God provided the Cross of the Lord Jesus, where the sins of all who believe were judged, and laid the basis for the casting out of Satan along with all those who still voluntarily follow him. But for now, God “is patient ... not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9 NIV).

The War In Heaven
Satan’s “place” now certainly includes the heavens, and it will, until after we have been taken to heaven. Then there is warfare and he is cast out (Rev. 12:7-9). Heaven cannot contain both justified sinners and him who has forever accused them, the name “devil” meaning “accuser.” The names by which he is known do not belong to different personalities; in Revelation 12:9 and 20:2, he is called the “Dragon,” “Serpent,” “Devil” and “Satan.”

Even though the war succeeds in casting him down to the earth, his aims will be exactly the same – seeking to maintain his sway over earth and to remain the god of this world. But then, “the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with His powerful angels” (2 Th. 1:7), the Devil’s place on earth is lost to him, and he is bound and cast into the Abyss for 1000 years (Rev. 20:1-3). The Abyss will be the prison of the Devil and his host of angels. The word “abyss” speaks of the profound depth, of its being the farthest distance away from God.

Satan Loosed From Prison
During the 1000 years, his kingdom will be replaced by that of the rightful king, the Son of Man. In His kingdom there will be no cruelty, no shameful evils (even those done in secret), and no strife; all in it will be harmony and beauty. But Satan has one more service to perform before he is consigned to his permanent home in the lake of fire. He shall test mankind one more time.

The 1000 years of imprisonment will have produced in Satan no penitence or humbling, and the 1000 years of perfect government will not have served to give mankind a new heart or new birth. Satan will succeed once more in deceiving the nations of the earth, man’s enmity against God will manifest itself, the people will again welcome Satan’s lies, and finally, Christ’s “great white throne” will be set up (Rev. 20:11). There Christ’s judgment will take place, and Satan and all the impenitent sinners will share in the awful sentence pronounced, namely, eternal existence in “the lake of fire” (Rev. 20:10,15).

The Lake Of Fire
All of nature is a book of parables. Natural fire stands for something not literal, in order to bring our minds, in a way not otherwise possible, to the truth of that unseen world. That truth is not weakened in the slightest degree by the recognition that we are dealing with symbols rather than mere natural phenomena.

This “fire” is “eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Mt. 25:41) and not for men. Thus the fire is not of the ordinary character since it is especially prepared for spirits. The “fire” in the lake of fire speaks of the awful wrath that God never intended to visit on men, but was borne by His beloved Son during those dark three hours on the cross, so that we could escape it.

Why is it called a “lake”? A lake often has no outlet. Evil is there unchanged, but it is limited, confined. The Devil does not reign there, but is down in a lower depth of suffering than any other creature. All the moral sewage of this earth is gathered together there, a necessary witness to God’s holy nature.

In the lake of fire, Satan will be an eternal witness to the power and holiness of God, his knee will bow and his tongue will join in the universal confession that “Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:10-11).

Eternity Of Final Retribution
When God created man, He “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Gen. 2:7) and communicated a faculty that no beast ever had; man was given a spirit with powers of reasoning, and became, as no beast is, a morally responsible creature. Being responsible, he has to give an account for what he does. But when does this accounting take place? Obviously, not in this life!

“God will bring every deed into judgment” (Eccl. 12:14), and “a man reaps what he sows ... to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction” (Gal. 6:7-8). Retribution will be meted according to the knowledge he has. The person who knows and does what God does not want “will be beaten with many blows, but the man who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few stripes” (Lk. 12:47-48). The fact that punishment may be limited does not mean that it is not eternal – there may be an eternity of time without an infinity of degree.

Note that the one beaten with few stripes is not beaten because of what he did not know but because of what he did – that is, because of things done contrary to his conscience that were worthy of stripes. And in the lake of fire the degree in which the suffering is felt will correspond exactly with the degree of light rejected and love refused. The “fire” (symbol of the wrath of God) will not have the same effect of suffering on all.

Hence, in the lake of fire, Satan, once the highest creature of all, shall be the lowest, most miserable of all. It is quite reasonable then, that if we reject the tender love of the Savior, we must have our part with Satan, whose independent nature we thus manifest.

The Son Of God Manifested
The one sharp, clear dividing line in judging between men, will be their relationship to the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ: “He who has the Son of God has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 Jn. 5:12). And we are further told that “he who believes ... has eternal life and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (Jn. 5:24). Thus, wherever there is a human heart away from God, there is the Devil’s work.

“The Son of God appeared ... to destroy the Devil’s work” (1 Jn. 3:8). He began on the cross and went back to heaven where He “must remain ... until the time comes for God to restore everything” (Acts 3:21). That time will begin when we are “caught up ... to meet the Lord in the air” (1 Th. 4:13-17), followed later by His coming to earth to establish His kingdom. Our being caught up to be with Him is the only event that believers should be waiting for.

END NOTE
*Jennings, F. C., “Satan,” The Serious Christian, vol. 13, pp. 170-254, Loizeaux Publishers, 1975. Abridged and edited by Alan H. Crosby.

By F. C. Jennings

Look for a new Series to begin next month.