Satan Is A Created Being

By Bobby Cohoon

In its most basic form the question is did God create a righteous spiritual being who fell from righteousness and became known as the epitome of evil, Satan. There is ample evidence to satisfy this question from the pages of the Holy Scriptures. Any deviation from the Holy Scriptures would be to follow the ideas of man in all their fallibilities. With that said I will now proceed with my first affirmative:

“Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God” (Psalms 90:2). Only God is eternal. Genesis 1:1 affirms this by saying “In the beginning God created….” While everything waited to be created, God already was. John wrote “In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1). God already was before anything else came to be. The apostle Paul wrote of God’s “eternal power and Godhead...” (Romans 1:20). Isaiah called God “the everlasting God, the LORD” (Isaiah 40:28).

God pre-exists EVERYTHING. Only God is from everlasting to everlasting! Science can create life in a test tube (and, only then using the building blocks already created by God), yet God is the life that has no beginning or end. The writer of Hebrews wrote “And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands” (Hebrews 1:10). Of those works the writer of Hebrews wrote “They shall perish; but thou remainest” (Hebrews 1:11). It was written of Melchizedek, King of Salem and a type of Christ, “Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life” (Hebrews 7:3). Only God is eternal. Only God has neither beginning nor ending of days.

Moving on, there are some important questions that have to be answered to satisfy the first affirmative of this debate. First, I will look at the creations of God. John 1:3 states that “All things were made by him.” Everything WAS created by God. John follows up this statement with the following: “without him was not any thing made that was made” (John1:3b). God preexist all things in His eternal state, and God made all things. According to this verse not one thing was made that God did not create. In writing to the Colossians Paul affirmed what John wrote by saying “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth” (Colossians 1:16). Paul took the mystery out of just what was created. He told us that everything, be they spiritual beings in Heaven or things on the earth, they were created by God: “visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him” (Colossians 1:17b). God created it all: the whole shebang. Not the tiniest of atoms were created without the Word of God.

So far we have noted that God preexist all things as he is eternal. And, all things, be they on earth or in Heaven, were created by Him. We now turn to the nature of his creations.

God can create only GOOD. When God looked out over all he had created it was recorded that “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). In writing to Timothy, the apostle Paul said, “For every creature of God is good” (1 Timothy 4:4). God can only make good. He is righteous. He can not create “bad.” His nature is such that he cannot create “evil”: “there is no iniquity with the LORD our God” (1Chronicles 19:7).

Does Satan exist? From Genesis to Revelation and all points in between Satan exists. Genesis 3:1 introduces us to Satan: “Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made.” Revelation 20:2 tells us who that serpent in the garden was: “And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan.” First Chronicles 21:1 tells us “Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.” And, one must not forget that it was Satan who was the major antagonist in the book of Job: “So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown” (Job 2:7). Scripture gives us more than ample evidence of the existence of Satan.

We now turn to the question of whether Satan was a spiritual being. Turning back to the book of Job we read “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them” (Job 1:6). This shows us that Satan had access to God in Heaven. Other than a spiritual being no one has that “type” of access. Luke recorded “Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot….” (Luke 22:3). How could one that was not spirit enter into another? Revelation 12:7: “And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels.” Other than a spiritual being how could one fight a war in Heaven? We learn that Satan, the Devil, was cast out of Heaven: “the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him” (Revelation 12:9). If Satan were not a spiritual being he would not have been in Heaven. All scripture points to Satan being a spiritual being, not a fleshy being such as is man. To interpret anything more is to go beyond the bounds of the written Word.

Having proven that God created all things, and that by his nature all he can do is “good,” we turned then to the fact that Satan exist, proving that if he exist he was created by God, as all things were. We examined the fact that Satan is a spiritual being, and now turn our attention to the question of whether he was created a righteous being. In comparing the King of Tyre to Satan Ezekiel wrote “Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee” (Ezekiel 28: 15). Satan was created in a state of righteousness. Jude 1:6 tells us that many of those created in a righteous spiritual state left that righteous position: “And those angels not having kept their first place, but having deserted their dwelling-place, He has kept in everlasting chains under darkness for the judgment of a great Day.” Satan was created in a righteous state which he abandoned. Satan exists. He was created by God. Thus, he was created in a state of righteousness.

In Genesis 3:1-14 we learn of Satan in an already fallen state. Would he tempt man if he had not already fallen? The same already fallen Satan played a starring role throughout the book of Job. The Prophet Isaiah writes of Satan “How you are fallen from the heavens, O shining star, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations!” (Isaiah 14:12). In Revelation 20:10 it is said that Satan deceived the people. Would one of righteousness deceive others? No! He fell from that righteous state in which he was created.

God is all that is from everlasting to everlasting. God created all. And, by his nature God can create nothing that is not GOOD. Satan not being a “un-cause” was a created spiritual being. Thus, Satan was created by God, and created in a righteous state. From this righteous state Satan fell. Falling from this righteous state prompted Jesus to say the following in reference to Satan: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” (John 8:44). John, in his first epistle, wrote “All unrighteousness is sin” (1 John 5:17). Satan introduced unrighteousness into the perfect world that God had created. By doing so he became the epitome of all that is evil.

I humbly submit this first affirmative. The Holy Scriptures back up this affirmative. To suggest that God did not create a spiritually righteous being that fell from that state of righteousness and became the epitome of evil would be to go beyond the Word of God and adhere to the ideas of men and false teachers. &

The Order of Melchizedek

By Bob Myhan

When it was stated, in Psalm 110:4, that Jesus would be “a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek,” it simply meant that the priesthood of Jesus would be greater than that of Aaron and his sons. They were made priests “according to the law of a fleshly commandment.” But Jesus was made both priest and king “according to the power of an endless life.“ Melchizedek typified this.

However, with Melchizedek “an endless life” was figurative, while with Jesus it was literal. Melchizedek was not literally without mother for Jesus was not. Melchizedek was not literally without genealogy for Jesus was not. Melchizedek only figuratively remains a priest forever in that his death is not recorded. But Jesus literally remains a priest forever because no one will inherit His priesthood from Him. &