An Evil Heart

There is another case where the sinful action of the human heart is described as the inspiration of "Satan" (Acts 5:3). Ananias and Sapphira went into the presence of the apostles with a lie on their lips; Peter said, "Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, and to keep back part of the price of the land?" The meaning of Satan filling the heart crops out in the next sentence but one; "Why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart?" (verse 4); also in Peter's address to Sapphira who came in three hours after Ananias. Peter said unto her, "How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the spirit of the Lord?" (verse 9). But supposing we had not been thus informed that the lie of Ananias was due to a compact with his wife, from selfish motives, to misrepresent the extent of their property, we should have had no difficulty in understanding that Satan filling the heart was the impulse of the flesh, which is the great Satan or Adversary, moving him to the particular line of action which evoked Peter's rebuke.

As we have seen, James defines sin as the outcome of a man's own lust. Hence, the action of lust in the mind is the action of the New Testament Satan, or Adversary. All sin proceeds from the desires of the flesh. This is declared in various forms of speech in the Scriptures, and agrees with the experience of every man.

Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies . . . (Matt. 15 :19).

The carnal mind is enmity against God: it is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be (Rom. 8:7).
Now the works of flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like (Gal. 5:19, 21).
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life . . . is of the world (1 John 2 :16).

The Enemies of God

The great Satan, or adversary, then, which every man has to fear, and which is ever inclining him to a course opposed to wisdom and godliness, is the tendency of the mere animal instincts to act on their own account. This "Satan" may, of course, take an external form, as when Paul says of the persecuting enemies of the truth "God shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly" (Rom. 16:20; or, of his escape at his first trial, "I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion" (2 Tim. 4:17). Of the same lion-power, Peter says, "Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist, stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world" (1 Pet. 5:8, 9). This devil-adversary, who sought by the stress of persecution to turn the brethren from the faith, was the constituted authority of the time, of whom also Jesus said, "The devil shall cast some of you into prison" (Rev. 2:10), but he exhorts them to fear none of the things that should come upon them. These statements are manifestly inapplicable to the popular devil. They apply only to the various forms (official and otherwise) of Satanism which originate in the underlying perversity of human nature. This untutored tendency of the flesh is the root of all the Satanism which must be vigilantly repressed. If a man surrender to the flesh he surrenders to Satan; he walks in the way of death. "If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live" (Rom. 8:13). The object of the gospel being sent to the Gentiles by Paul was "to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Saran unto God". Ignorance, or darkness, is the great power of the adversary lurking within us: for where a man is ignorant of God's will, the flesh has a controlling power with him. "The Gentiles are alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them" (Eph. 4:18). Enlightenment, through the hearing of the Word, creates a new man within, who, in process of time, kills the old man "who is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts" (Eph. 4:22).

Introduce the active, plotting, intelligent fiend of popular theology, and the whole picture is changed and involved in bewildering confusion. But he cannot be introduced. Our experience forbids us believing in the existence of such a being: for look at the fact; men are prone to evil in proportion to the relative strength of the animal nature. Some men are naturally amiable, intellectual, benevolent, and sincere. Others, again, are naturally coarse, low, and brutal, through the power of ignorance and an inferior organization. Jesus recognizes this fact in the parable of the sower. The seed fell into different kinds of soil. One is styled "good ground". In this, the seed grew well, and brought forth much fruit. In his explanation of the parable, Jesus defines the good ground to be "the honest and good heart" (Luke 8:15). This is in exact accord with experience. Only a certain class of mind is influenced by the word of truth: The soil is better, both as to quality and culture.

These general explanations will cover all the other instances in which the word "Satan" is used in the New Testament. All will be found capable of solution by reading "Satan" as the adversary, and having regard to the circumstances under which the word is used. Sometimes "Satan" will be found a person, sometimes the authorities, sometimes the flesh, in fact, whatever acts the part of an adversary is, Scripturally, "Satan"; but "Satan" is never the superhuman power of popular belief.

Sin Personified

Christ, through death, destroyed the Bible devil. He certainly did not destroy the popular devil in his death, for that devil is supposed to be still at large; but in his own person, as a representative man, he extinguished the power of sin by surrendering to its full consequences, and then escaping by resurrection, through the power of his holiness, to live for evermore. This is described as "God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh" (Rom. 8:3). Sin in the flesh, then, is the devil destroyed by Jesus in his death. This is the devil having the power of death, as the following testimonies show:

By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin (Rom. 5:12).

By man came death (1 Cor. 15:21).

The wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23).

Sin hath reigned unto death (Rom. 5:21). Sin bringeth forth death (Jas. 1:15).

The sting of death is sin (1 Cor. 15:56).

Having regard to the fact that death was divinely decreed in the garden of Eden, in consequence of Adam's transgression, it is easy to understand the language which recognizes and personifies transgression, or sin, as the power or cause of death. The foregoing statements express the literal truth metonymically. Actually, death, as the consequence of sin, is produced, caused, or inflicted by God, but since sin or transgression is the fact or principle that moves God to inflict it, sin is put forward as the first cause in the matter. This is intelligible: but what has a personal devil to do with it? He is excluded. There is no place for him. And if he is forced into the arrangement, the result is to change the moral situation, alter the scheme of salvation, and produce confusion: for if the power of death lies with a personal power of evil, separate from, and independent of man, and not in man's own sinfulness, then the operations of Christ are transferred from the arena of moral conflict to that of physical strife, and the whole scheme of divine interposition through him is degraded to a level with the Pagan mythologies, in which gods, good and bad, are represented to be in murderous physical hostility for the accomplishment of their several ends. God is thus brought down from His position of supremacy, and placed on a footing with the forces of His own creation.

Next Page
"The Flesh and The Spirit"
"The Principle of Personification"
"That Old Serpent"