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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As a general observation, Satan does not appear to murder directly, although he could – with God’s permission. Rather, the evil one carries out his murderous pursuits through various agents. We might say the evil one commits murder by proxy. 

A few examples: When God permits Satan to test Job, the evil one uses the Sabeans and Chaldeans to kill Job’s stock, as well as some of Job’s servants (Job 1:15, 17). Satan then employs fire from heaven and a great whirlwind to kill more of Job’s servants and all of his children (Job 1:16, 18-19). He incites David to take a census of Israel, resulting in the deaths of many people (2 Sam. 24; 1 Chron. 21). He uses Roman and Jewish authorities, along with a back-stabbing apostle, to bring about the death of Jesus (Luke 22:3; John 13:2, 27). And he fills the hearts of Ananias and Sapphira to lie against the Holy Spirit, resulting in their deaths (Acts 5:1-11). 

And there’s more.

Consider a sampling of the recorded murders in Scripture and look for the evil one’s long shadow behind them:

• Cain kills Abel out of envy (Gen. 4:8).

• Lamech kills a young man out of pride and revenge (Gen. 4:23).

• Simeon and Levi kill Hamor and Shechem for revenge (Gen. 34:26).

• Moses kills an Egyptian out of a false sense of justice (Exod. 2:12).

• Joab kills Abner to eliminate competition (2 Sam. 3:27).

• David has Uriah killed to conceal the king’s adultery with Bathsheba (2 Sam. 12:9).

• Zimri kills Elah to steal his throne (1 Kings 16:10).

• Jezebel has Naboth killed to steal his land for Ahab (1 Kings 21:13).

• Servants kill Joash to avenge his cruelty (2 Kings 12:20-21).

• Ishmael kills Gedaliah as an act of anarchy (2 Kings 25:25).

• Israelites kill Zechariah the high priest because they can’t stand his righteous preaching (2 Chron. 24:20-21).

• Nebuchadnezzar kills Zedekiah’s sons to punish him for rebellion (Jer. 39:6).

• Herod kills Bethlehem’s babies in an effort to kill Jesus (Matt. 2:16).

• Herodias has John the Baptist killed for speaking out against her adultery (Mark 6:25, 27).

• The Jewish elders kill Stephen for telling them the truth (Acts 7:58-59).

• Rebels in Pergamos kill Antipas because of his faithful testimony (Rev. 2:13).

• And the Antichrist kills two miracle-working witnesses – although they come back to life (Rev. 11:7).

The vortex line of these murders – the center of swirling Satanic and human violence – is a cross at the base of a hill called “Skull Place” outside Jerusalem, where two thousand years ago the Son of Man comes to earth to die, and the murderer from the beginning is all too eager to accommodate.

But who, exactly, murders the Savior of the world? Here, the plot thickens. Satan does not directly murder Jesus, but he has plenty of help – and divine permission. According to Scripture, the Jews murder Jesus (Acts 5:30; 1 Thess. 2:15). So do Judas (Mark 14:10-11), Pilate (Matt. 27:24-26), and Roman soldiers (Matt. 27:27-31). As sinners, you and I murder Jesus as well (Isa. 53:4-9). Yet, none of this occurs outside of God’s sovereign decrees. The Father is pleased to crush Jesus severely (Isa. 53:10). Jesus gladly lays down his life (John 10:18; Heb. 12:2). And the Spirit raises him on the third day (Rom. 8:11). 

The most heinous crime ever committed – the murder of God – becomes a glorious triumph: “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ” (2 Cor. 5:21 NLT).

Three Greek words

Let’s close this chapter with a look at three Greek words translated “murderer” in the New Testament. The first word, phoneus, is found six times and refers to homicide. In the parable of the wedding banquet, Jesus tells of an enraged king who sends out his troops to kill the murderers of his servants (Matt. 22:7). When the people of Malta see a venomous snake strike the apostle Paul, they assume he is a murderer who has failed to escape “Justice” (Dikee, the Greek goddess of justice; Acts 28:4). And twice in the Book of Revelation, Jesus includes murderers among those cast out of his presence (Rev. 21:8; 22:15). 

Second, the apostle Paul applies the Greek androphonos to place murderers (or manslayers) among the “lawless and rebellious,” for whom the law is intended (1 Tim. 1:9). 

Third, the apostle John uses the word anthropoktonos twice in 1 John 3:15: “Everyone who hates his brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.” In context, John equates those who hate with those who commit murder, linking this passage to Jesus’ words of warning that murder begins in the heart (Matt. 5:21-22).

Jesus is the only other person in the New Testament to use anthropoktonos, and he does so in the very passage we’ve been studying:

You [Jews who oppose Jesus] are of your father the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44, emphasis added).

This Greek word – anthropoktonos – is similar to the other two in that it denotes a manslayer, or one who engages in homicide. Taken together, all three Greek words define individuals who knowingly, deliberately, and with premeditation take the lives of others. 

In the case of Satan, his murder in the garden of Eden is more heinous than the rest and more widespread in its consequences, for the evil one murdered Adam – and thus he murdered the entire human race. While humans may receive God’s forgiveness for murder – because Christ was murdered on the cross in our place – there is no clemency for Satan’s murderous act. He is cast into the lake of fire, which God created for his everlasting torment (Matt. 25:41.)

Yes, Satan is a murderer from the very beginning. And yet, Christians need not fear him, for Jesus has placed our lives in the Father’s hands (John 10:28-29), and he will raise us up on the last day (John 6:37-40, 44). 

As followers of Jesus, we experience all three kinds of death – death of spirit, soul, and body – but the murder of Jesus ensures that all three deaths are reversed. He has made us spiritually alive through regeneration. He is making us alive in our souls as he conforms us to his image through sanctification. And one day, he raises us from the dead in glorification, clothing us in the immortality Adam and Eve lost to a lying murderer one fateful day long ago.

Summary

Key takeaways about Satan, the murderer:

(1) Jesus refers to Satan as “a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44). Certainly, God did not create Satan this way. Nevertheless, at some point – either prior to God’s creation of the world or shortly thereafter – Satan rebelled and then became a murderer. Through his successful temptation of the first humans, Satan robbed Adam and Eve of life. In a very real sense, Satan murdered the human race, for he enticed Adam and Eve to sin, thus bringing death into the world. 

(2) At the very moment Adam and Eve partake of the forbidden tree, they believe they’re  entering a more divine state of knowledge. But instead, they receive a sentence of death – a shocking reversal of fortune. Their eyes are opened, as the serpent promised, but not in the way they expected. 

(3) When the Bible says we are made in the image of God, it means, at least in some respects, we are a trinity. That is, we each possess a body, soul, and spirit. But we also die in three stages as a consequence of sin. We die physically one day as our bodies cease functioning. Our souls are in a state of death as sin impairs our thoughts, emotions, and wills. And, worst of all, our spirits – the innermost parts of us made as God’s dwelling places – are dead in sin, desperately needing the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit.

(4) The three-fold deaths of Adam and Eve constitute the darkest of tragedies, except for one distant light: the promised seed of woman in Genesis 3:15. This coming redeemer crushes the head of Satan and completely reverses the effects of the Fall – not only in believing sinners, but in the fallen cosmos as well (2 Pet. 3:10-13; Rev. 21-22). 

(5) God’s work of redemption, completed in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, turns spiritual death into spiritual life; makes the darkened mind the mind of Christ; and guarantees the future glorification of the corruptible earthly body. Even the curse of this sinful and fallen world is reversed one day in creation of the new heavens and new earth.

(6) Satan does not appear to murder directly, although he could – with God’s permission. Rather, the evil one carries out his murderous pursuits through various agents. We might say the evil one commits murder by proxy. This includes the death of Jesus, for which Satan employs religious leaders, Judas, Pilate, and Roman soldiers. Even you and I, as sinners, are complicit in the crucifixion. Yet, none of this occurs outside of God’s sovereign decrees. The Father is pleased to crush Jesus severely (Isa. 53:10). Jesus gladly lays down his life (John 10:18; Heb. 12:2). And the Holy Spirit raises him from the dead (Rom. 8:11). 

(7) The most heinous crime ever committed – the murder of God – becomes a glorious triumph: “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ” (2 Cor. 5:21 NLT). As followers of Jesus, we experience all three kinds of death – death of spirit, soul, and body – but the murder of Jesus ensures that all three deaths are reversed.

Next: Satan: Tempter