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Find the answers to all those questions you were too embarrassed to ask in Sunday School. Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. Hosted by Luke Taylor.
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Satan: Cursed to Rule the World
Genesis 3
Introduction
We hear it all the time- the claim that Satan is the god of the Underworld. That he runs and rules hell. That he has a throne down there and goes around jabbing people with a pitchfork.
But did you know that the Bible says nothing like that? Those ideas are assumptions, superstitions, myths and even lies.
The good news is: The Bible is abundantly clear about where Satan’s dominion lies—and the limits of his power.
The bad news is: Satan’s dominion is right here with you, in the earthly realm.
I’ll show you today, and it goes back to the curse pronounced upon the serpent in Genesis 3.
God said (Genesis 3:14)
cursed are you above all livestock
and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.
Now, what did God mean by that, casting him into the dust? Is that something spiritual or literal? Is this why snakes don’t have arms and legs, or is that just another superstition?
I find this to be weird, and I’d like to explore why it’s in the Bible.
Turn to Genesis 3, and let’s get weird.
[theme music]
The curse on the serpent
Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. This is Luke Taylor, and today we’re going to debunk some of the myths and superstitions about the devil. If you think the devil has an zip code in Hades or that he actually looks like Elizabeth Hurley, you are getting your ideas from the wrong source.
So today, let’s go to the right source.
Genesis 3 opens with these words:
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
And if you know anything about your Bible, you know what’s going to happen next. This is the chapter where the snake tempts Adam and Eve into consuming the forbidden fruit and sin is brought into the world.
I remember reading a Bible trivia quiz one time online. This was like a decade ago. I thought I knew my bible pretty well but I seemed to be getting most of the questions wrong. Turns out, the quiz was made by an atheist who was attempting to make christians look stupid. Here was one of the questions: true or false, the serpent in the Garden of Eden was the devil.
I said true. The quiz says false. It said (not a direct quote) “contrary to popular belief, the Bible never says the serpent was the devil. It simply calls him a serpent throughout the story. Just a talking snake.”
I knew right then the quiz was junk. True, Genesis 3 never calls the serpent the devil.
But Revelation 12:9 says
And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world
The ancient serpent. Revelation connects the dots, as if it wasn’t obvious enough already, that the serpent was the devil. So, don’t worry, that’s not a myth. That’s true. The devil didn’t make Eve do it—but he planted the idea in her head. And so we pick up the story now when God returns to the scene in
Genesis 3:11-15
[God came to Adam and Eve and said] “Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
(VERSE) 14 The Lord God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all livestock
and above all beasts of the field;
on your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.
(VERSE) 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring;
he shall bruise your head,
and you shall bruise his heel.”
The church has typically understood verse 15—those last words there— as being about Jesus and the cross. That the devil thought he was defeating Jesus at the cross, but then Jesus pulled an Uno Reverse Card on him and came back to life and redeemed the world. And that’s where I line up on that as well, so I’m not questioning verse 15.
I want to pick apart verse 14 today:
The Lord God said to the serpent,
Now let me pause there. Was the devil a literal snake, or is this a code word for something else?
The word for “serpent” here is nachash (naw-kosh). This is a deep Hebrew word which has three meanings, depending on which way you use it.
As a noun, it means a snake
As an adjective, it means something bright and shiny
As a verb, it means to deceive or beguile
Now, it’s used in Genesis 3 as a noun, so translating it “serpent” here is appropriate. But I think it’s somewhat a pun and can be understood with all three meanings.
Satan is actually described as a shiny or luminous being in Isaiah 14, so that word fits for him as well. And Satan also deceives Eve in this story; in fact, when Eve says “the serpent deceived me,” it sounds something like, “The nachash naw-shaw.” It’s kind of a pun in the original Hebrew. So this is a deep word. But ultimately, the Bible is indeed trying to make us think of a snake here.
That’s why I am comfortable saying that Satan may have been manifesting as a snake. The devil is a shape-shifter, as we see in II Corinthians 11:14.
Now, there are serpentine angelic beings called seraphim, but Satan is a cherubim, according to Ezekiel 28:14. Cherubim are guardian spirits. Satan was meant to be a guardian over Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. Mankind was given dominion of the earth, and Satan was meant to serve that purpose. But Satan decided he wanted it for himself. So he tricked mankind to steal dominion of the earth from them. (You can get a breakdown of how legalities work in the spiritual realm if you want to go back to episode 87: Spiritual Legal Rights).
And so, when God curses the devil in these words, God also seems to pronounce a curse on snakes in general. I’ll explain why in a moment.
It says:
“Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all livestock
and above all beasts of the field;
What are the livestock and beasts of the field? Well, I’ve covered this on the podcast before, but
look at verse 1 of this chapter again:
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
When we read that, we understand that the serpent here is not a mere snake but a spiritual being. So why would we not also understand the phrase “beasts of the field” to mean spiritual beings as well? And that’s exactly what it means.
As I was saying a few weeks ago, Genesis 1 discusses when God created the world with three tiers—sky, land and sea—and all the physical animals to populate those regions; but it also describes how God created the three spiritual spiritual realms—heaven, earth, and the underworld—and God populated those realms with spiritual beings. There are heavenly realm spirits, earthly realm spirits, and underworld realm spirits. And so that’s how you should understand this phrase in Genesis 3:1—as talking about spiritual beings.
Of all the beasts of the field- of all the spiritual entities God made- Satan was the craftiest. And when he beguiled Eve, God cursed him above all the beasts of the field.
Next it says:
on your belly you shall go,
In other words, no more arms or legs. This implies that when snakes were originally created, that they had arms and legs.
We’ll come back to Satan in a minute, but I can’t resist sharing this because ya’ll know how I love talking about dinosaurs on this podcast. My 7-year-old son asked me a few weeks ago what’s my favorite dinosaur and that really touched my heart because nobody every asks that anymore once you become an adult. So anyway, there’s a Pixar movie from several years back called The Good Dinosaur. I remember watching this movie with a few of our foster kids when it first came out. There is literally a scene in which a snake with arms and legs comes crawling out. Like, we all knew it was a snake when we saw it, but we didn’t understand why it had legs. And the kids asked me about it, so I googled it.
Turns out, the creators of this Pixar movie had seen a study by evolutionary scientists, and these scientists said that you can tell on a snake skeleton where they have little nubs called “vestigial legs.” Therefore, they have concluded that snakes once had legs, and then they mutated and evolved to lose them. And so for this dinosaur movie, the Pixar people decided to depict snakes in their pre-evolutionary forms.
Now, I don’t believe in evolution—I lean toward Young Earth myself—but it’s so fascinating to me that this so-called discovery by the evolutionary scientists backs up what the Bible shows: that snakes at one time had arms and legs, and then lost them.
Now you might say: but Luke, why would God curse all snakes when they didn’t actually have anything to do with the devil here? The devil is just manifesting like a snake. Real snakes didn’t do anything wrong..
I would say that it’s kind of like when Jesus cursed the fig tree. There’s this fig tree that isn’t bearing figs in Matthew 21, and Jesus gets mad about it, and the disciples are like, “It’s not even the season for figs,” but Jesus curses it anyway. Which is weird; maybe we’ll do an episode on that someday. It was an object lesson for us. It stinks for the fig tree, but Jesus was using it to teach us a lesson.
Similarly, it stinks for snakes, but it’s an object lesson for us: every time we see a snake, we can be reminded of Satan. I’m also reminded to turn around and go the other way, because I’m not a snake bro. No offense to Rory, who is a snake bro, if he’s listening today. But snakes, I believe, are an object lesson to us.
Here’s another question you might have, though: what does cursing snakes have to do with cursing Satan? Does Satan have arms and legs anymore? Because if he’s a shapeshifter, he can just bring them back, right?
And this is where we get into the spiritual side of these words. This is one of those code words passages where there’s a physical reality and a spiritual reality going on.
Let me read the rest of the verse:
on your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.
What exactly is God doing to Satan by saying these words? Satan had a status before as a heavenly realm spirit. He had rights or a presence within heaven itself. But now, because of what he did in Genesis 3, he has been cast out of heaven and downgraded to an earthly realm spirit.
So that’s what it means that Satan is going to be in the dust now. He’s going to have to live down on earth now. He lost his status and his place in the heavenly realm. He now has to live in the earthly realm.
Now, this doesn’t mean he can’t visit or be invited to the heavenly realm. We’ll talk about that later. And also, this is distinct from the Underworld realm. Satan doesn’t rule that realm either. In the book of Revelation, Satan is thrown into the Underworld for a thousand years as a punishment. But that hasn’t happened yet. Today, he is confined to the earthly realm.
The Ruler of this World
Scripture bears this out extremely consistently. When we run into Satan after this, his confinement to the “world” is often highlighted. But not just his confinement here; his dominance here.
John 14:30
I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me
See also John 12:31 and 16:11, where Satan is called the Ruler of This World.
There’s also the phrase “God of this World” in II Corinthians 4:4, although that one is a little more ambiguous- it could be taken as referring to God Himself. But I’ll leave that one a maybe.
In Job 1:6-7, Satan appears in God’s divine council room.
It says
6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. 7 The Lord said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.”
So we see here that Satan can make appearances in heaven, but he doesn’t live there. Kind of like I’m an American, but I can visit other countries. Similarly, spirits can go from one realm to another, even if it’s not their domain (or where they have dominion). Satan can visit heaven but he needs a visitor pass. I don’t know if it’s by invitation-only, or if Satan can request an audience with God. I’m not sure how it all works. And I would suspect he needs some kind of spiritual gate or portal to access heaven.
By the way, some have wondered: is Satan himself a member of the Divine Council? This is a fair question because it seems that, yes, there are members of the Divine Council who are not loyal to God, but they have a seat at the table because they are the ruling principality spirit over that region of the world. Is Satan one of those principalities?
I would say no, I don’t think he is, because of how the text describes his activity here. It says “Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them.” By saying “and Satan also” implies that he’s not one of the Sons of God.
Also, when Ezekiel prophesies about Satan in Ezekiel 28 about how he lost his position of authority he once had, it says in
Ezekiel 28:14
You were an anointed guardian cherub.
I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God;
in the midst of the stones of fire you walked.
The stones of fire is a reference to the Divine Council. And it says he walked among them; it doesn’t say he was one of them. So I take this as implication that he wasn’t a member of the Divine Council then or now. However, as an earthly realm spirit, he has seized control over the world. In the temptation of Jesus account in
Luke 4:5-6, it says
5 And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, 6 and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will.”
So right there Satan claims to own the world, essentially, and Jesus doesn’t disagree with that assertion. So we see it again and again that the devil is said to have dominion over the earthly realm. We never see similar language saying that Satan rules over hell or the Underworld. We just see it said that he rules over this one. Here’s one more:
I John 5:19
We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.
See, he doesn’t reign over hell. He reigns over the DMV. This world is his domain.
Satan and Hell
Now, I mentioned before that spiritual beings can seem to travel to other realms, such as traveling from the earthly realm to the heavenly realm. I can’t say I know how it all works, if you need some kind of portal and/or a vehicle in order to do this, like Elijah’s chariot of fire.
So therefore, is it possible for Satan to travel down to the Underworld realm? I’ll say that I think he may have the option to visit if he wants to, but I don’t see any reason to believe he wants to be there. One of the judgments against Satan during the Millennium is that he’s bound in this place called The Abyss in the Underworld in Revelation 20. This is also sometimes translated “the bottomless pit.”
Revelation 20:2-3 in the ESV say
2 And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, 3 and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended.
So I’m not here to make eschatological arguments today, but I’ll mention that this is one reason that I’m premillennial—AKA, that I think the millennium is yet future. Because Satan is clearly an earthly realm spirit right now, and in the Millennium, he is bound in the Underworld realm. The Abyss is in the Underworld. We’ll talk more about the Abyss in a month or so. (I keep teasing future episodes because I have a very clear road map for where I’m going, I’m just trying to give you one piece at a time).
So the Abyss is just one compartment or place in the Underworld. And it’s not somewhere Satan wants to be.
Note also what we learn in Jude, Genesis, and in the Book of Enoch: that there were these heavenly realm beings called the Watchers. They violated the boundary in heaven and earth by coming down to marry women. Jude 6 says they left their proper domain. So they were heavenly realm spirits. They chose to live as earthly realm spirits. And their punishment is that they were confined to the Underworld realm. This is the same trajectory Satan will follow for his rebellion.
I think a lot of people are misled about this because of John Milton’s book Paradise Lost, which includes the famous line: "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven."
But that’s of course a work of fiction. In the Bible itself, it doesn’t say that Satan has anything to do with the Underworld personally.
Now, I do see some evidence that Satan wants to partner with Underworld Realm spirits. We’ve done some episodes on the Gates of Hell that Jesus spoke about, and how occult activities and pagan idolatry is actually opening up spiritual portals that release evil spirits from hell. I think Satan is very much involved with that, even though he’s not an Underworld spirit himself. The Underworld is the chaos realm, and Satan wants to unleash chaos.
I also see some evidence that the Antichrist is an Underworld spirit who partners with Satan to corrupt the world in the End Times, and that’s what I want to talk about next week. The Spirit of Antichrist.
Make sure you’re subscribed so you can get it!
Gatekeeper Spirits
And I want to share a few mailbag submissions before we go, because I think we have time to do that today.
There was one question I got from a listener named Demi. She sent this a month or two ago, and I was waiting until an episode where it felt most relevant to share it. She asked about the “strong man” spirit, which is spoken of in
Mark 3 and Matthew 12, where it says
how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house.
So that’s a good question, and the answer is going to reveal a key spiritual principle that I’d like us to keep in mind for the weeks ahead.
This is in an exorcism or spiritual warfare context; casting demons out of someone. The strong man is like the gatekeeper spirit. He’s the one in charge, and he lets a lot of other spirits into a person.
Now, that might sound a little strange to us because in our world, the gatekeeper is not the owner of the house. The gatekeeper is some guy you pay minimum wage to stand at a kiosk all day with a little hat on. He’s not the owner.
However, in the spiritual realm, the gatekeeper is the authority—the boss—the strong man. And if someone is demonized to the point that they have demons manifesting through them, you want to find out who’s the boss. Because you can cast out the smaller demons but if the strong man is still in charge, he’ll let them right back in, and you won’t have lasting deliverance.
And casting out the strong man is the same process you’d use for casting out any demon: you find out what their legal right is to be there, the person repents or renounces those rights, and then you tell him to go. It might take some time, but that’s what needs to be done.
Janie L had an email:
I understand Satan had to get permission to go ahead and hurt Job. But I didn't know satan can manipulate the elements like lightning, wind, etc?
The reason is that Satan is an earthly realm spirit, and these are things of the earthly realm. And on the earth, that even involves our atmosphere. Ephesians 2:2 calls Satan the prince of the power of the air. Doesn’t mean heaven; it just means in the skies of earth.
So Satan can indeed manipulate weather. I don’t know why sometimes he can and sometimes he can’t. Like, Revelation says that Satan can call down fire from the sky in chapter 13; I don’t know why he couldn’t do that for the prophets of Baal in I Kings 18. It seems that sometimes Satan has permission to manipulate weather and sometimes he doesn’t. So we don’t know. All I can point out is that God did give Satan permission in that Job passage, as you said. But good thing to point out, thank you Janie.
And if anyone wants to get in touch with me, my email is weirdstuffinthebible@gmail.com
Demons in Ephesians 6
And in fact, I’ll share one more message that I have time for. I got this email from a listener named Terry Ray several months back asking about Ephesians 6, because I did several episodes last year talking about the hierarchy of Satan’s Kingdom in Ephesians 6. Terry said:
I remember reading somewhere (probably Enoch) the idea that the Greek daimon are the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim. If that’s the case, where do they fit in the hierarchy you’re describing?
He actually sent that before I did a few episodes discussing this last month, that the demons of the New Testament are spirits of the giants. So here’s the hierarchy in Ephesians 6:
Verse 12 says
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
This verse can look very different depending on which translations you’re using. So I find it more helpful to discuss this from a Greek perspective. In the Greek, we see a few different types of spiritual authority mentioned:
Arche, which are principality spirits- the top dogs.
Exousia or powers, which is a very vague word but just seems to refer to the legal limits of an arche’s authority.
Kosmokrators, which is a word only used right here in Scripture, and means “world dominators.”
And the Pneumatikos, which means the low-level spirits. Spirits of harm and affliction. And this is where I would stick most of the demons. But that doesn’t mean all pneumatikos are demons. And I’m not saying all demons are pneumatikos. As we’ve been discussing, there are spirits of all three realms- Heaven, Earth, and Underworld. God populated these realms with a variety of spiritual beings. I think when we get to heaven and see the Lord’s armies, it will look a lot like Aslan’s army in Narnia, with creatures of various species and sizes. They wouldn’t necessarily look like the army of the elves in the Hobbit where everybody just kinda looks the same. The same with evil spirits. But anyway, demons are probably more toward the bottom of the food chain in the spiritual realm.
So here is how I’d break down Ephesians 6:12 through this framework (speculating): I think arche and exousia refers more to the heavenly realm beings, and kosmokrator and pneumatikos refers more to the earthly realm spiritual beings.
So we don’t have a lot of info on kosmokrators, since they’re only mentioned in one place of Scripture. But based on the name—again, which means literally “world dominators”—we can probably safely conclude that they are earthly realm spirits.
And then demons are also said to be earthly realm beings in the Book of Enoch. The fifteenth chapter, which we studied a few months ago, said this about demons: 8. And now, the giants, who are produced from the spirits and flesh, shall be called evil spirits upon the earth, and on the earth shall be their dwelling. 9. Evil spirits have proceeded from their bodies; because they are born from men, ⌈⌈and⌉⌉ from the holy Watchers is their beginning and primal origin; ⌈they shall be evil spirits on earth, and⌉ evil spirits shall they be called. [10. As for the spirits of heaven, in heaven shall be their dwelling, but as for the spirits of the earth which were born upon the earth, on the earth shall be their dwelling.]
So even there, the book of Enoch is making a distinction between earthly and heavenly realm spirits, saying that demons are bound to the earth. Just like Satan is, who by the way is said to be the “prince of demons” in Mark 3.
Kosmokrators may be the “strong man.” The gatekeepers. But down here on the earthly plane, because they are world dominators. The pneumatikos can create legal pathways for kosmokrator spirits to get control of a person or territory and let more spirits in. Perhaps the mightiest demons, those who are the strong man, become kosmokrators.
Stephen Pattemore, a missionary among animistic tribes in Thailand, says that in his experience, (quote) “demons and evil spirits have a chief spirit who is often the source of sickness and is viewed as in control of the earthly world." That sounds like a world dominator spirit to me.
In closing today, let’s talk about what kind of spirits WE are. If you are in Christ—that means saved—you are a heavenly realm being. Your home—your domain—is in heaven.
Ephesians 2 tells us:
…you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—…But God, being rich in mercy…raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus…
So even though we live in this earthly domain in the physical, we are creatures of heaven in the spiritual.
So don’t let it freak you out that Scripture says Satan rules this world. That might sound like a high privilege on his part, but it’s actually part of his curse, because it’s the best gig he’ll ever get. He can have the world. You’re a being of a higher authority. Satan is under our feet (Romans 16:20).
As Jesus said, what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world yet loses his soul? That’s actually the deal that Satan got. And you got a better one.
So if it’s weird to believe that heaven is better than anything this world has to offer- even ruling over the whole thing- then I hope you’ll be a little more weird today, too. Thanks for listening, God bless you for sticking with me until the end, and we’ll see you next time on Weird Stuff in the Bible.