The following excerpt is taken from What Every Christian Should Know About Satan. Order your copy in print, Kindle, or Audible versions here.

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The subtlety of the father of lies is rooted in his character as the master of a million faces. And these faces are beautifully bathed in light. The grotesque images of the evil one as a fiery red beast with horns, a pointy tail, and a pitchfork come to us, not from Scripture, but from Middle-Age caricatures. 

The medieval church believed firmly in the reality of Satan. It understood that the evil one was a fallen angel whose head swelled with pride. So, the church proposed attacking Satan at his point of weakness – his arrogance – and he would flee. As R. C. Sproul puts it, “What better way to attack Satan’s pride than to depict him as a cloven-hoofed court jester in a red suit?” Unfortunately, later generations, including ours, maintain these distortions as if they are intended to be the real thing.

The evil one’s beautiful disguises and silver tongue are intended to woo people into sin. The serpent in the garden did not frighten Eve. He charmed her. Thousands of years later, the apostle Paul points back to that fateful day. 

Paul has spent a year and a half in Corinth, planting a church and establishing its doctrinal roots. Then, after moving on in his itinerant role as the apostle to the Gentiles, a band of “super apostles” slips into the church and gains a following. Evidently, they claim spiritual gifts that exceed Paul’s, especially prophetic gifts. But Paul warns the Corinthians that these self-proclaimed “super apostles” are nothing more than false apostles who preach “another Jesus … a different spirit … a different gospel” (2 Cor. 11:4).

Paul further cautions against the sly tactics of these prophets, reminding the Corinthians that Satan masquerades as an angel of light. Therefore, says Paul, it’s no wonder that his servants – the “super apostles” – disguise themselves as ministers of righteousness (2 Cor. 11:14-15).

The best lies aren’t whoppers. They’re plausible fictions laced with truth. And Satan is the master bartender serving up lethal cocktails.

One-of-a-kind liar

What does it mean that Satan is the father of lies? Consider the following:

First, Satan is the original liar. We have no record of lies in Scripture prior to the evil one’s activities. We’re not told how Satan fell into sin, but at some point after his creation, he bristled at God’s sovereign governance. He likely employed lies and deception to entice other created spirit beings to revolt with him. And no sooner does God pronounce his creation “very good indeed” (Gen. 1:31) than Satan swoops in to ruin everything. 

Augustine summarizes it well:

It is not every one who tells a lie that is the father of his lie. For if thou hast got a lie from another, and uttered it, thou indeed has lied in giving utterance to the lie; but thou art not the father of that lie, because thou hast got it from another. But the devil was a liar of himself. He begat his own falsehood; he heard it from no one. As God the Father begat as His Son the Truth, so the devil, having fallen, begat falsehood as his son.

Lectures on the Gospel According to St. John

Second, Satan is a liar by nature. Lies reveal his fallen being. As Jesus makes clear, Satan cannot tell the truth “because there is no truth in him” (John 8:44). His willing distortions of reality spring from a rebellious heart that hates the truth. His animosity toward Jesus, at least in part, is aimed at the one who not only knows the truth and tells the truth, but is the truth (John 14:6). 

Jesus goes on to say that when the evil one tells a lie, “he speaks from his own nature” (John 8:44). The New International Version renders it this way: “When he lies, he speaks his native language.” Literally, the text reads, “he speaks out of his own [nature or essential characteristics].”

Satan is known to fill people’s hearts to lie (Acts 5:3). When we lie, we borrow from him. Yet, when he lies, “the model of it is of his own framing, the motives to it are from himself,” according to Matthew Henry.

Third, all lies link back to Satan. Every liar is the evil one’s child and shares his fate in the lake of fire (Rev. 21:8). Every lie spreads his contagion. The serpent’s falsehoods so infected humanity from the beginning that every person is a carrier, and every person is a victim. 

Like mutated cells, our lies may have their own unique features, but they trace back to the host. The chief financial officer who cooks the books is only doing what Satan entices Jesus to do – turn stones into bread. The charlatan who engages in parlor tricks to fleece his flock is just mimicking Satan’s plan for Jesus – take a swan dive off the pinnacle of the temple and amaze the crowds with an angelic rescue. And the celebrity who jettisons all morality in exchange for fleeting fame is only reading from the evil one’s script when he offers Jesus a short cut to the kingdom. There truly is nothing new under the sun (Eccles. 1:9), including our manufactured lies built on a chassis of the evil one’s design.

This is not to say Satan has the power to beget spiritual children in the same way God does. Truly, the evil one is powerful. He blinds unbelievers to the truth of the gospel and holds them captive to do his will (2 Cor. 4:4; 2 Tim. 2:26). But all unbelievers are willing slaves in his kingdom. All those who reject the revelation of God stand before him one day without excuse (Rom. 1:20). They cannot say the devil made them do it.

So, it is Christ who must invade Satan’s kingdom, bind the strong man, and plunder his goods (Matt. 12:28-29). As the gospel is preached, the Holy Spirit regenerates sinners – making them spiritually alive – and the Father adopts them into his family, thus making them new creatures in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17).

Instead of the devil being the source of sin in some deterministic sense, he is the source of sin in a more general sense as the first sinner, according to Rodney Whitacre: “And he is father in terms of providing a type of being; that is, he provides the pattern of sin. So there is a spiritual relationship, a unity of mind, in that sinners … imitate the devil.”

Put another way, calling the devil the father of lies suggests he originated lying. Further, when Jesus says the devil does not stand in the truth, he hints at a falling away from the truth – all of which points to the mystery of the Fall. 

Satan is an enemy of truth, which makes him an enemy of Christ. As Matthew Henry observes, the evil one is a deserter from the truth: “he abode not in the truth, did not continue in the purity and rectitude of his nature wherein he was created, but left his first state; when he degenerated from goodness, he departed from truth, for his apostasy was founded in a lie.”

Satan is the source and founder of every lie, not only the lies he tells, but the lies we spread as his spokespersons. While all humans bear the image of God, our lies bear the image of the evil one. So, what are followers of Jesus to do?

We are exhorted to love the truth and to tell the truth. Paul urged the Ephesians, “Therefore, putting away lying, speak the truth, each one to his neighbor, because we are members of one another” (Eph. 4:25).

This is no different than the LORD of Armies’ message to the Israelites: “These are the things you must do: Speak truth to one another; make true and sound decisions within your city gates. Do not plot evil in your hearts against your neighbor, and do not love perjury, for I hate all this” (Zech. 8:16-17).

As Peter Bolt writes, “Lies hurt and anger people. Rather than allowing anger to fester and give the devil opportunity to undo the work of Christ, truth-telling on the same day will thwart the devil’s work.”

Summary

Key takeaways about the father of lies:

(1) Jesus refers to Satan as a murderer and a liar in the same context (John 8:42-47). This exposes the truth that Satan is a liar with a murderous intent. He targets the first humans in an effort to kill them. Then sin and death take the stage. The beginning of which Jesus speaks – “he was a murderer from the beginning” – likely is a reference to Satan’s first appearance on the stage of human history: his temptation of Eve in the garden. 

(2) In the first recorded human encounter with the father of lies (Gen. 3), Satan employs a number of sinister tactics: (a) he comes disguised – a hideous dragon veiled in beauty and eloquence; (b) he catches Eve alone, as he often catches us; (c) he casts doubt on God’s word and human confidence in God; (d) he caters to falsehood, mixing it with truth; and (e) he caricatures the truth.

(3) Tempting Jesus in the wilderness, Satan misapplies Old Testament passages like Psalm 91 in an effort to short-circuit Christ’s mission to earth. Jesus’ purpose in the Incarnation is not to entertain audiences, or reign as a puppet king under the authority of the god of this age. No, Jesus comes to earth to die, and to rise again, in order to redeem sinful and fallen people. An angelic rescue from a death-defying plunge from the temple would no more convince hardened unbelievers of Christ’s deity than would his later resurrection from the dead. 

(4) As Satan demonstrates in the garden of Eden, and through the “super apostles” in Corinth, the best lies aren’t whoppers. They’re plausible fictions laced with truth. Satan is the master bartender serving up lethal cocktails.

(5) The subtlety of the father of lies is rooted in his character as the master of a million faces. And these faces are beautifully bathed in light. The grotesque images of the evil one as a fiery red beast with horns, a pointy tail, and a pitchfork come to us, not from Scripture, but from Middle-Age caricatures. 

(6) What does it mean that Satan is the father of lies? First, Satan is the original liar; we have no record of lies in Scripture prior to the evil one’s activities. Second, Satan is a liar by nature; when he lies, he speaks his native language. Third, all lies link back to Satan; every liar is the evil one’s child.

(7) What are followers of Jesus to do about the father of lies? We are exhorted to love the truth and tell the truth. As the LORD of Armies instructs the Israelites: “These are the things you must do: Speak truth to one another; make true and sound decisions within your city gates. Do not plot evil in your hearts against your neighbor, and do not love perjury, for I hate all this” (Zech. 8:16-17).

Next: Satan: Murderer