Yin and yang, friend or foe. The devil is not a 50/50 split with God that we make him out to be. God is 100 percent and the devil is actually a dot in the circle of what God created. Angels were created by God and he is a fallen angel. Which by default means he was created by God. We can already put him on the sublayer of supremacy because a creation can NEVER be as or more powerful than the creator.
Hebrews 2:7 says that humans are a little lower than angels. The human body has physical limitations that angels do not have. Despite him being fallen, his hardware (intellect) is still an angel but his software (God’s purpose) has been corrupted. The best analogy I can give for this is a computer; the hardware (physical makeup) has the ability to run efficiently but the software (programming) has been corrupted. Corrupted code causes glitchy and inconsistent outputs; it can’t run on the intent of the original design without a master reset.
"His power doesn’t come from his position; it comes from his conniving thievery and longevity within time."
The Stolen Title
So where does his “power” come from? Genesis 1 God gave dominion of the earth to mankind. Adam and Eve listened to the serpent and disobeyed God’s command, they handed over the dominion of the earth to Satan. Romans 6:16 talks about us being slaves to what we obey. When we obeyed the enemy, we signed over our rights and ownership and became a slave to him.
In the natural order of things, because God is the King the enemy is now the prince over the earth (John 12:31). We see his rule on display when he tried to tempt Jesus in the wilderness. Luke 4:6 the enemy was able to show off what he had control over. He told Jesus “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”. His power doesn’t come from his position, it comes from his conniving thievery and longevity within time.
The Master Profiler
How does time play a part in his strategy? Depending on your stance of creation, humans have been on earth from 6000-200000 years and because angels are immortal, what we interpret as power because of our limited years is really pattern recognition on his part. Satan has been able to observe humans for A LONG TIME. He is a master profiler. He has research and experience on his side. He knows when to present the opportunities to fall because he has empirical data. This is why God warned Cain in Genesis 4, “…If you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.” The key here is what the Lord said to him at the end. We have the power to rule over it. We don’t have to give the keys back to the enemy like Adam and Eve did. If we resist the devil, he will flee.
The Posing Lion
Scripture tells us indirectly this exact thing in 1 Peter 5:8: “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” We see two things here:
- The Prowl: I know we have all seen those videos of how the lion watches their prey, learns their movements, and does everything in its power to make the first strike the most impactful hit. The enemy does the same exact thing because of his time stalking humanity.
- The Pose: He is not God but does try to copy God. God is known as the Lion of Judah. That title comes with power, strength, protection, and trust. The enemy takes an action of the lion and tries to assert that strength for capture. We see the metaphor plainly in the verse: “like a roaring lion”—he is not a lion, but he is posing. Once again: created trying to be the creator.
Male lions hunt, but the reasoning is not out of desperation but necessity. Outside of protecting the pride, they step in to assist with kills on bigger animals. The most known thing about lions is male maturity—trying to attack the leader to become the dominant in the pride. If successful, the reign is taken, but when unsuccessful, disownment from the pride is a must and the young male is left to fend for himself.
Isn’t that the same thing that happened to the enemy? He tried to take top rank and lost, so now he is prowling, seeking someone to devour because he is starving. Same hardware, but malfunctioned software.
Our Only Defense
That is why the Word is our only true defense. We are outclassed in this match with the enemy. We are biological, he is spiritual. We are decades old, he is eons old. Our pattern recognition is not reliable and supported as strong as the enemies is but the bible says we overcome the enemy by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony. Our victory isn’t found in our own ‘hardware,’ but in the authority of the One who created the ‘hardware’.