Satan Reconstructed

Part 5, Devil

In Revelation 12 a great war in heaven is described:

Then war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels also fought, but he could not prevail, and there was no place for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was thrown out—the ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the one who deceives the whole world. He was thrown to earth, and his angels with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say,

The salvation and the power
and the kingdom of our God
and the authority of his Christ
have now come,
because the accuser of our brothers and sisters,
who accuses them
before our God day and night,
has been thrown down.

In the New Testament Satan is called diabolos, or Devil. Diabolos means accuser. The meaning is similar to that of a prosecuting attorney. The diabolos brings an accusation. We see this role in various stories in the Old Testament, the book of Job especially. In that story the Devil brings an accusation about the nature of Job’s righteousness and fidelity. Another example is Zechariah 3.1: “Then he showed me the high priest Joshua standing before the angel of the Lord, with Satan standing at his right side to accuse him.”

In Revelation 12 the activity of the diabolos is plain. The Devil is “the accuser,” the one who accuses the faithful before the throne of God, very much like what we see in Job, day and night.

The good news is that the Voice of Accusation has been thrown out of heaven. As Paul writes in Romans, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. When we get to the Courtroom of Heaven no one will be standing at the table of the prosecuting attorney. We will face no accusation. Instead of facing an Accuser we will be provided an Advocate. The Son of God will stand beside us as a defense attorney. As it says in Hebrews:

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens—Jesus the Son of God—let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.

So that’s the good news. No Devil in heaven. The bad news is that, as Revelation 12 continues, the Devil continues to hunt us here upon earth:

When the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who had given birth to the male child... the dragon was furious with the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep the commands of God and hold firmly to the testimony about Jesus.

The Voice of Accusation still pursues us. And for the most part, we do the Devil’s work. We point the finger of accusation at each other. Tragically, much of this accusation comes from Christians. Like the Devil in Revelation 12, we accuse the world before the throne of God day and night. We stand with stones in our hands, like the crowd in John 8 who brought accusation against the woman caught in the act of adultery. The church is the diabolos.

Even more insidiously, we’ve internalized the Voice of Accusation. We accuse ourselves. I’m reminded here of Brené Brown’s work on shame. Shame is the diabolos in your mind, that voice saying “I am bad.”

The point here, as we conclude with our fourth and final name for our Enemy, is that spiritual warfare is doing battle against the Voice of Accusation. That battle involves dropping the stones in our hands. It manifests in a church who refuses to do the Devil’s work. And much closer to home, it means beating back that Voice in your head as you exorcise the demons of shame.