When did Satan appear in the bible ?

[Hendrik]

I am a 73-year-old former Calvinist fundamentalist and now admittedly an atheist, Following exposure to the YouTube videos provided by Dr. James Tabor and Professor Bart Ehrman of the University of North Carolina I have regained a thirst for studying the bible, One fact that has always puzzled me is the story of the interaction between Pharoah and Moses. It wasn't Satan who hardened Pharoah's heart, it was God. Satan was nowhere in sight. Could it be that Satan, a fallen angel, fell from heaven at a later date?

 

[miamited]

Hi journeyman

I'm curious, how do you deal with the deaths of Annanias and Saphira? How do you handle the immediate destruction of Aaron's sons? How do you deal with God causing the deaths of all the firstborn in Egypt? What do you tell your students about God telling Moses and those who stood with him to go through and slaughter even their own brothers in the wilderness when they made the golden calf?

Friend, listen or not, God can kill us and He has shown that He isn't above doing that for His purposes to be gained.

God bless.
Ted

 

[journeymanisnothing]

Hi journeyman

I'm curious, how do you deal with the deaths of Annanias and Saphira?

What I see is two people who said they loved God, but lied to him.

I didn't know those people.

Maybe they wanted a new wing of the aynagogue named after them because of their half hearted gift to God.

Maybe they wanted to impress Peter and buy their way into the decision making board. Hey, one guy wanted to pay a brother big money to lay whammie on him so he could do miracles.

I'm not their Judge. But are you going to ignore the common sense teaching of the Bible and ask why God killed blah blah?

Why don't you look at what I wrote.

How do you handle the immediate destruction of Aaron's sons?

Very simple. Look at the text,

Nadab and Abihu...offered strange fire before the LORD...the LORD spake, saying, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me,

We are priests of God drawing near by sincere prayers and incense is the prayers of the righteous, like our Savior showed,

he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears Heb.5:7

Aarons' sons' offered prayers that somehow betrayed the priest office and offended God that brought judgement on them.

and before all the people I will be glorified. And Aaron held his peace.
Lev.10:1-3

So God will be glorified in everyones sight. By believers in pure white, who sincerely offered and by Nadab and Abihu and the rest of the unbelievers.

How do you deal with God causing the deaths of all the firstborn in Egypt? What do you tell your students about God telling Moses and those who stood with him to go through and slaughter even their own brothers in the wilderness when they made the golden calf?

Friend, listen or not, God can kill us and He has shown that He isn't above doing that for His purposes to be gained.

God bless.
Ted

I'm tired. God bless you Ted.

 

[journeymanisnothing]

Hi again journeyman

However, let me be quick to point out that God is now in the days of His patience.

God has always been slow to anger. Ted, look at Jesus. Would you put up with the kind of disrespect he was shown? How about if you were the Father and your son was atracked for no good reason...like Jesus was?/b] What would you do???

So, all we've ever seen from God is His patience because that's what God is doing right now. He is waiting patiently for the number of those who will be saved to come in.

I'm going to say yipeee because I agree! He waited in the days of Noah. Nobody repented.
He sent Jonah to Nineveh. They repented.
But here's the point. He did this and gave men the choice so that,

thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. Psa.51:5

One of the things that I have long learned about God is that His purposes can be different from one time to another. In the old covenant, God's purpose is to raise up the nation of Israel to do His bidding and write His testimony and kill His Son.

No. It was to be a testimony by doing his bidding and then be hated and killed by the self righteous and remain faithful in the face of adversity, showing kindness to those spilling their blood. Just like the One they say they believe in did.

In doing that, yes, God brought death, destruction and calamity on the enemies of Israel and even upon Israel itself. But all of that was for the purpose of God making Himself known to mankind through the work of the Israelites to write down all the things that God has done to bring about His salvation unto mankind.

I know. They're still waiting for him. They'rewaiting for him to come and teach Torah and defeat the enemies of God and his people. They don't know he already did this. Neither do some christians.

Paul alludes to this when he answers rhetorically, "What value is there in being a Jew? I tell you much in every way. Chief among them is that they were entrusted with the very oracles of God." That's why God called Abraham and raised up a nation of people through him. It was to be a nation of people who were to do His bidding upon the earth to bring about His salvation. The Israelites, while they were always stiff-necked and not particularly faithful to God in keeping His laws and commands, did accomplish all that God raised them up to do in the world. I believe this is what Jesus was referring to when he cried out to God, "It is finished!" The work of man's salvation was, at that very moment, being finished with the death of His Son at the hands of His people.

They were God's people. They are still known, by believers, as God's people. They wrote down all the testimony of God and today we call that testimony the old testament. It wasn't until after God's great plan of salvation was finally, after 1400 years, put in place when Jesus was crucified on that cross. God then sat back and began His days of patiently waiting, now that the testimony had been written and Jesus had been crucified, for those who will believe to come to fruition.

So, God's purpose changed from His work of raising up the Israelites to be His people that they might bring in God's great plan of salvation, to now being one of patiently waiting. That's what the new covenant writings are all about and it's why we call it the NEW covenant. God made clear to his people through His prophets that there was going to be a new covenant and it wasn't going to be like the old covenant.

God bless,
Ted

Abraham testified by faith in Gods' promise. Moses testified of faith in Gods' promise to forgive the repentant as we have forgiven because he wants us to be like him.

Paul is teaching there's a big advantage through know the oracles Moses laid down. It's goid to know by the law we're better than no one else. Everyone needs our Lords mercy. That's all. It just becomes a snare when we start inagining we're better than others. We're not justified by law but mercy.

Jesus was sinned against. If God hadn't given his word about teaching gentiles, those people who soit on him would have been smoked.

Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels?
But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thusit must be? Mt.26:53-54

Do you see this?

 

[Randy]

I am a 73-year-old former Calvinist fundamentalist and now admittedly an atheist, Following exposure to the YouTube videos provided by Dr. James Tabor and Professor Bart Ehrman of the University of North Carolina I have regained a thirst for studying the bible, One fact that has always puzzled me is the story of the interaction between Pharoah and Moses. It wasn't Satan who hardened Pharoah's heart, it was God. Satan was nowhere in sight. Could it be that Satan, a fallen angel, fell from heaven at a later date?

Well I read you are not a Christain. Bart claimed to once being a born again Christain. So I asked Him, via email, "how can one have the Spirit of Christ in them and not know Jesus lives?" No reply was given.

Are you asking as one who believes that Satan is real? Apparently despite all the testimony of the Christ you reject Him, and I assume the cause is unbelief. So how can we convince you in regard to the tempter who leads the whole world astray when appearances in the garden are so near as clear.

 

[for_his_glory]

Anything beyond mans reasoning becomes speculation and leads into misinterpretations which creates a total lack of knowledge. Just because we cannot use our five senses to determine if something is real or not does not mean that something does not exist. Take air for instance, we can’t use our five senses to prove that air exist, but we know it is there because without it we would not be alive. We cannot see the wind, but we know the evidence of wind moving by the physical effects it produces.

I want to introduce evidence of something else we cannot see, but to those who do believe know that things not seen can be very real. The reason I use this scripture in Hosea is to show what happens to people that reject truth. We can so easily be beguiled by others if we ourselves have no knowledge, but just take things as face value because of what we are hearing.

Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me, seeing that thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.

Since the beginning of Gods creation of the heavens and earth in Genesis chapter one there has been an adversary that separates us from God through deceit, temptations and lies. This adversary has many names which include: Lucifer (could be a dual referent to Isaiah 14:12, but no mention in scripture as to, or even if God gave him a name), Satan, Devil, Beelzebub, Belial, Adversary, Dragon, Serpent and I’m sure a few others, but the important thing is who this being is and what purpose did he have and still has in heaven and earth. How did he come into existence in the first place and why was he not destroyed for his evil! Let us go and search the word of God for the answers.

God is a Spirit without form and the Lord made his angels spirits without form also. From these two scriptures below in John and Psalms we see that the inhabitants of heaven are not flesh and blood, but spirits created by God that cannot be destroyed by physical death, thus the term spiritual death that separates us from God. This is why Satan could never be physically destroyed.

John 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

Psalms 104:4 who maketh his angels spirits; his ministers a flaming fire:

In the Roman language Lucifer was the name given to the morning star Venus. The morning star appears in the sky just before dawn. In the Hebrew text the expression used to describe the Babylonian king before his death is Helal, son of Shahar, which can be translated as Day star, son of the Dawn. Jerome had mistranslated the Hebraic metaphor Day star, son of the Dawn, as Lucifer, and over the centuries a metamorphosis took place from the Latin in that of interpreting Lucifer into a fallen angel now named Satan. In the original Hebrew day star, son of the dawn is used, but not for that of Satan, but for the king of Babylon. Isaiah is using this metaphor for a bright light, though not the greatest light (Jesus) to illustrate the apparent power of the Babylonian king which then faded.

The name Satan comes from a Hebrew word sah-TAHN which means adversary as in signifying an enemy, and an accuser, father of lies.

Satan was created perfect in all his ways with beauty, wisdom and freewill. God placed him as one of the two guardian cherubs covering the atonement cover of the ark in the tabernacle of God in heaven. He was entrusted with many possessions and found much favor in the Lord, Ezekiel 28:14, 15. The physical Tabernacle or Sanctuary in Jerusalem was patterned after the heavenly Tabernacle of God in heaven, Hebrews 9:1-5, 23,24; Exodus 25:17-22; 1 Kings 6:19-28. These scriptures describe the cherubim in the earthly Temple patterned after the heavenly. Ezekiel 28:12-15 identifies an angelic being who is called the anointed cherub who covers and he was on the holy mountain of God. We can only assume that Lucifer/Satan was one of the cherubs by the description in those scripture.

God created the earth and saw that it was good and he took Lucifer from Gods Holy Mountain and set him over the Garden of Eden as a covering cherub to watch over and enjoy all that was of God. As Lucifer was set in the garden iniquity was soon found in him as he defiled Gods sanctuary through pride in his own beauty and deceit as he wanted all that was of Gods here on earth to be his own as he tried to make his throne above the angels and be God.

Because iniquity was found in him God cast him and those angels who chose to follow him out of his holy mountain and cast them all down to earth to be trampled of all nations. The only reference in scripture that denotes there being one third of the angels falling with Satan is in Revelation 12:9.
(Ref: Read Ezekiel Chapter 28 Prince of Tyrus – another dual referent)

 

[Zeth4500]

sure- god did it, indirectly. who created satan? well the creator of all obviously did
god challenges us
and the devil tempts us- thats how i see it, and damnit sometimes the pieces in the puzzle god uses to challenge my character is tempting me to do some things that god would probably not support entirely.

 

[port4]

Just because you don't see Satan does not mean he is not there .

Why would Satan harden Pharaoh's heart if he could ?

Welcome to the forum !

Satan was there in the very beginning. God bless!