'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).

Hebrews 2:14 declares that the Devil is he who has the power of death,

and Jude reveals the attitude of Michael the archangel, saying, 'Yet Michael

the archangel, when contending with the Devil he disputed about the body of

Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord

rebuke thee' (Jude 9).

Satan is called 'the wicked one' (Matt. 13:19), and the threefold

record of Matthew 13:19, Mark 4:15 and Luke 8:12 links the three titles, 'the

wicked one', 'Satan' and 'the Devil' as the titles of one person.  The whole

world is depicted as lying in or under the dominion of en to ponero, 'the

wicked one' (1 John 5:19), and this spirit now works in the children of

disobedience (Eph. 2:2).  We read in one passage that the Devil was a

'murderer from the beginning' and in another that 'Cain was of that wicked

one, and slew his brother' (1 John 3:12).  When the Devil is intended under

the title Satan, both the Hebrew and the Greek employ the article 'the',

indicating his personality and pre -eminence.  Other titles that indicate his

character are Abaddon or Apollyon, 'destruction' and 'death' (Rev. 9:11); and

he is not simply a murderer, but anthropoktonos, 'a man -slayer' (John 8:44).

He is called both 'the god of this age' and 'the prince of this world' (2

Cor. 4:4; John 12:31) and for a fuller examination of 2 Corinthians 4:4 the

reader is referred to the article under the heading Hid, Hide, Hidden2.

While it must be admitted that the origin of evil is a mystery, yet

when we read, 'the devil sinneth from the beginning' (1 John 3:8), we are

certainly led to the fountain head.  Pride is associated with this sin (1

Tim. 3:6).

How Sin Itself Originated

'We have seen that sin originated with Satan, and that the thought of

pride in the breast of that mighty angel, was the cause, which led to

the first overt act, which ultimately proved to be his ruin.  But what

was the occasion that first provoked the exercise of this evil?  Do the

Scriptures reveal anything on the subject which might lead us to infer

what it was?  I cannot but think that they do: and I will now,

therefore, proceed to give my reasons for so thinking.

'It seems to me from a careful perusal of the Scriptures, that there

are grounds for inferring (although one would not venture to affirm it

as an absolute fact, because there is no positive statement in the Word

to that effect) that the occasion which provoked the exercise of this

evil in Satan, was the revelation that the Second Person in the Divine

Trinity should take into His Godhead a nature 'a little lower than the

angels', and that 'all the angels of God' should 'worship Him' as such:

as they were afterwards expressly commanded to do, and that Satan's

pride revolted at the thought of having to bow down to Him in this

form.  But whether it were this particular revelation which was the

occasion of this evil or not, it seems to me almost to amount to a

moral certainty, that it must have arisen from some dissatisfaction

occasioned by some act or utterance of, or with reference to, the

Christ of God, which provoked that dark thought of pride, which at