Satan is a Servant and Son of God: A Tool for Testing and Refinement
Paul MacDonald RN MA Dipl
The subordination of Satan to God is most explicit in the prologue of the book of Job.
God hands over Job to Satan by inviting him into Job’s affairs. He extolls Job’s uprightness but the devil contests it, arguing that Job only seems to be upright because God shields him from wrongdoing. Thereby, Satan admits he cannot breach the protective wall God puts around Job.
God then gives the devil permission to afflict Job. However, he sets a limit to this: the devil cannot take Job’s life.
This shows Satan's subordination to God. It shows he cannot act independently without God’s say-so. Moreover, his affliction of Job was part and parcel of God’s plan and ultimately to Job’s benefit. Although Job initially lost all his wealth and children, the Lord restored them all. “Indeed, the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.” (Job 42:10).
Job himself acknowledges that his affliction led him into more intimate knowledge of God than ever before. He tells God afterwards: “I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. Therefore, I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:5-6).
God’s Emissary
It is Satan who afflicts Job: “Satan went out from the presence of the LORD, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.” (Job 2:7).
Nevertheless, the scriptures lay the responsibility squarely on God’s shoulders, indicating that Satan only does what God prompts him to do: “All (Job’s) brothers, all his sisters, and all those who had been his acquaintances before, came to him and ate food with him in his house; and they consoled him and comforted him for all the adversity that the LORD had brought upon him.” (Job 42:11).
Even more significant is the fact that God himself accepts full responsibility for being the cause of Job’s affliction, even though it was Satan he used to bring it about. He said to Satan: “(Job) still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason.” (Job 2:3).
The idea of God using evil for his purposes is presented in other cases in scripture: “A distressing spirit from the LORD troubled (Saul). (1 Sam 16:14). In the case of Ahab, Micah gives us with a fascinating revelation whereby God sent an evil spirit to confuse his prophets and destroy him.
“I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by, on his right hand and on his left. And the LORD said, ‘Who will persuade Ahab to go up, that he may fall at Ramoth Gilead?’ So one spoke in this manner, and another spoke in that manner. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the LORD, and said, ‘I will persuade him.’
The LORD said to him, ‘In what way?’ So he said, ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And the LORD said, ‘You shall persuade him, and also prevail. Go out and do so.’ Therefore look! The LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours, and the LORD has declared disaster against you.” (1 Kings 22:19-23).
Heirs of salvation
As a matter of fact, Satan has a God-given demonic ministry with ministers. Satan's ministry contributes to God’s plan by subjecting the heirs of salvation to testing designed by God to purify their faith in him.
Paul MacDonald RN MA Dipl ©
