Reference: Evil
Hastings
EVIL is an older form of the word 'ill'; used, both as substantive and adjective, to tr various synonyms and ranging in meaning from physical unfitness to moral wickedness. The former is archaic, but occurs in Ge 28:8 (Authorized Version margin), Ex 21:8 (Authorized Version margin), Jer 24:3 (AV), and Mt 7:18, though the two last passages are not without an ethical tinge. But the word almost invariably connotes what is either morally corrupt (see Sin) or injurious to life and happiness.
1. In the OT the two meanings are at first scarcely differentiated. Whatever comes to man from without is, to begin with, attributed simply to God (Am 3:6; La 3:38; Eze 14:9; Isa 45:7). Destruction is wrought by His angels (Ex 12:23; 2Sa 24:16; Ps 78:49). Moral temptations come from Him (2Sa 24:1; 1Ki 22:23), though there is a tendency to embody them in beings which, though belonging to the host of heaven, are spoken of as evil or lying spirits (1Sa 16:14; Jg 9:23; 1Ki 22:22). The serpent of the Fall narrative cannot be pressed to mean more than a symbol of temptation, though the form which the temptation takes suggests hostility to the will of God external to the spirit of the woman (2Co 11:3, cf. Ge 3:1-3). Then later we have the figure of the Adversary or Satan, who, though still dependent on the will of God, is nevertheless so identified with evil that he is represented as taking the initiative in seduction (Zec 3:1; 1Ch 21:1, but cf. 2Sa 24:1). This marks the growth of the sense of God's holiness (De 32:4 etc.), the purity which cannot behold evil (Hab 1:13); and correspondingly sharpens the problem. Heathen gods are now identified with demons opposed to the God of Israel (De 32:17; Ps 106:37; cf. 1Co 10:20). This tendency, increased perhaps by Persian influence, becomes dominant in apocryphal literature (2Pe 2:4 and Jude 1:6 are based on the Book of Enoch), where the fallen angels are a kingdom at war with the Kingdom of God.
2. In the NT moral evil is never ascribed to God (Jas 1:13), being essentially hostile to His mind and will (Ro 1:18-21; 5:10; 1Jo 1:5-7; 2:16,29; 3:4,9); but to the Evil One (Mt 6:13; 13:19; 1Jo 5:19), an active and personal being identical with the Devil (Mt 13:39; Joh 8:44) or Satan (Mt 4:10; Mr 4:15; Lu 22:31; Joh 13:27), who with his angels (Mt 25:41) is cast down from heaven (Re 12:9, cf. Lu 10:18), goes to and fro in the earth as the universal adversary (1Pe 5:8; Eph 4:27; 6:11; Jas 4:7), and will be finally imprisoned with his ministering spirits (Re 20:2,10, cf. Mt 25:41). Pain and suffering are ascribed sometimes to God (Re 3:19; 1Th 3:3; Heb 12:5-11), inasmuch as all things work together for good to those that love Him (Ro 8:28); sometimes to Satan (Lu 13:16; 2Co 12:7) and the demons (Mt 8:28 etc.), who are suffered to hurt the earth for a season (Re 9:1-11; 12:12).
The speculative question of the origin of evil is not resolved in Holy Scripture, being one of those things of which we are not competent judges (see Butler's Analogy, i. 7, cf. 1Co 13:12). Pain is justified by the redemption of the body (Ro 8:18-25; 1Pe 4:13), punishment by the peaceable fruits of righteousness (Heb 12:7-11), and the permission of moral evil by the victory of the Cross (Joh 12:31; Ro 8:37-39; Col 2:15; 1Co 15:24-28). Accept the facts and look to the end is the teaching of the Bible as a guide to practical religion (Jas 5:11). Beyond this we enter the region of that high theology which comprehensive thinkers like Aquinas or Calvin have not shrunk from formulating, but which, so far as it is dealt with in the NT, appears rather as a by-product of evangelical thought, than as the direct purpose of revelation (as, e.g., in Ro 9, where God's elective choice is stated only as the logical presupposition of grace). St. Paul is content to throw the responsibility for the moral facts of the universe upon God (Ro 9:19-24; cf. Job 33:12; Ec 5:2; Isa 29:16), who, however, is not defined as capricious and arbitrary power, but revealed as the Father, who loves the creatures of His hand, and has foreordained all things to a perfect consummation in Christ the Beloved (Eph 1:3-14 etc.).
J. G. Simpson.
See Verses Found in Dictionary
Then Jesus told him, "Begone, Satan! it is written, You must worship the Lord your God, and serve him alone."
and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.'
a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a rotten tree cannot bear sound fruit.
When he reached the opposite side, the country of the Gadarenes, he was met by two demoniacs who ran out of the tombs; they were so violent that nobody could pass along the road there.
When anyone hears the word of the Realm and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart; that is the man who is sown 'on the road.'
the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are angels.
Then he will say to those on the left, 'Begone from me, you accursed ones, to the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels!
Then he will say to those on the left, 'Begone from me, you accursed ones, to the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels!
As for those 'on the road,' when the seed is sown there ??as soon as they hear it, Satan at once comes and carries off the word sown within them.
He said to them, "Yes, I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.
And this woman, a daughter of Abraham, bound by Satan for all these eighteen years, was she not to be freed from her bondage on the sabbath?"
Simon, Simon, Satan has claimed the right to sift you all like wheat,
You belong to your father the devil, and you want to do what your father desires; he was a slayer of men from the very beginning, and he has no place in the truth because there is no truth in him: when he tells a lie, he is expressing his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Now is this world to be judged; now the Prince of this world will be expelled.
and when he took the bread, at that moment Satan entered him. Then Jesus told him, "Be quick with what you have to do."
But God's anger is revealed from heaven against all the impiety and wickedness of those who hinder the Truth by their wickedness. For whatever is to be known of God is plain to them; God himself has made it plain ??20 for ever since the world was created, his invisible nature, his everlasting power and divine being, have been quite perceptible in what he has made. So they have no excuse.
Though they knew God, they have not glorified him as God nor given thanks to him; they have turned to futile speculations till their ignorant minds grew dark.
If we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son when we were enemies, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.
Present suffering, I hold, is a mere nothing compared to the glory that we are to have revealed. Even the creation waits with eager longing for the sons of God to be revealed. read more. For creation was not rendered futile by its own choice, but by the will of Him who thus made it subject, the hope being that creation as well as man would one day be freed from its thraldom to decay and gain the glorious freedom of the children of God. To this day, we know, the entire creation sighs and throbs with pain; and not only so, but even we ourselves, who have the Spirit as a foretaste of the future, even we sigh to ourselves as we wait for the redemption of the body that means our full sonship. We were saved with this hope in view. Now when an object of hope is seen, there is no further need to hope. Who ever hopes for what he sees already? But if we hope for something that we do not see, we wait for it patiently.
We know also that those who love God, those who have been called in terms of his purpose, have his aid and interest in everything.
No, in all this we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am certain neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, neither the present nor the future, read more. no powers of the Height or of the Depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to part us from God's love in Christ Jesus our Lord.
"Then," you will retort, "why does he go on finding fault? Who can oppose his will?" But who are you, my man, to speak back to God? Is something a man has moulded to ask him who has moulded it, "Why did you make me like this?" read more. What! has the potter no right over the clay? Has he no right to make out of the same lump one vessel for a noble purpose and another for a menial? What if God, though desirous to display his anger and show his might, has tolerated most patiently the objects of his anger, ripe and ready to be destroyed? What if he means to show the wealth that lies in his glory for the objects of his mercy, whom he has made ready beforehand to receive glory ??24 that is, for us whom he has called from among the Gentiles as well as the Jews?
No, what I imply is that anything people sacrifice is sacrificed to daemons, not to God. And I do not want you to participate in daemons!
At present we only see the baffling reflections in a mirror, but then it will be face to face; at present I am learning bit by bit, but then I shall understand, as all along I have myself been understood.
but I am afraid of your thoughts getting seduced from a single devotion to Christ, just as the serpent beguiled Eve with his cunning.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who in Christ has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly sphere! He chose us in him ere the world was founded, to be consecrated and unblemished in his sight, read more. destining us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ. Such was the purpose of his will, redounding to the praise of his glorious grace bestowed on us in the Beloved, in whom we enjoy our redemption, the forgiveness of our trespasses, by the blood he shed. So richly has God lavished his grace upon us! He has granted us complete insight and understanding of the open secret of his will, showing us how it was the purpose of his design so to order it in the fulness of the ages that all things in heaven and earth alike should be gathered up in Christ ??11 in the Christ in whom we have had our heritage allotted us (as was decreed in the design of him who carries out everything according to the counsel of his will),
to make us redound to the praise of his glory by being the first to put our hope in Christ. You also have heard the message of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, and in him you also by your faith have been stamped with the seal of the long-promised holy Spirit read more. which is the pledge and instalment of our common heritage, that we may obtain our divine possession and so redound to the praise of his glory.
give the devil no chance.
put on God's armour so as to be able to stand against the stratagems of the devil.
when he cut away the angelic Rulers and Powers from us, exposing them to all the world and triumphing over them in the cross.
And have you forgotten the word of appeal that reasons with you as sons? ??My son, never make light of the Lord's discipline, never faint under his reproofs; for the Lord disciplines the man he loves, and scourges every son he receives. read more. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons; for where is the son who is not disciplined by his father?
It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons; for where is the son who is not disciplined by his father? Discipline is the portion of all; if you get no discipline, then you are not sons but bastards.
Discipline is the portion of all; if you get no discipline, then you are not sons but bastards. Why, we had fathers of our flesh to discipline us, and we yielded to them! Shall we not far more submit to the Father of our spirits, and so live?
Why, we had fathers of our flesh to discipline us, and we yielded to them! Shall we not far more submit to the Father of our spirits, and so live? For while their discipline was only for a time, and inflicted at their pleasure, he disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his own holiness.
For while their discipline was only for a time, and inflicted at their pleasure, he disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his own holiness. Discipline always seems for the time to be a thing of pain, not of joy; but those who are trained by it reap the fruit of it afterwards in the peace of an upright life.
Discipline always seems for the time to be a thing of pain, not of joy; but those who are trained by it reap the fruit of it afterwards in the peace of an upright life.
Let no one who is tried by temptation say, 'My temptation comes from God'; God is incapable of being tempted by evil and he tempts no one.
Well then, submit yourselves to God; resist the devil, and he will fly from you:
See, we call the stedfast happy; you have heard of the stedfastness of Job, and you have seen the end of the Lord with him, seen that the Lord is very compassionate and pitiful.
Keep cool, keep awake. Your enemy the devil prowls like a roaring lion, looking out for someone to devour.
For if God did not spare angels who had sinned, but committing them to pits of the nether gloom in Tartarus, reserved them under punishment for doom:
while the angels who abandoned their own domain, instead of preserving their proper rank, are reserved by him within the nether gloom, in chains eternal, for the doom of the great Day ??7 just as Sodom and Gomorra and the adjacent cities, which similarly glutted themselves with vice and sensual perversity, are exhibited as a warning of the everlasting fire they are sentenced to suffer.
I reprove and discipline those whom I love; so be in warm earnest and repent.
The fifth angel blew, and I saw a Star which had dropped from heaven to earth; he was given the key of the pit of the abyss, and he opened the pit of the abyss, and smoke poured out of the pit, like the smoke of a huge furnace, till the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the pit. read more. And out of the smoke came locusts on the earth; they were granted power like the power wielded by scorpions on earth, but they were told not to harm the grass on earth nor any green thing nor any tree, only such human beings as had not the seal of God upon their foreheads; these they were allowed, not to kill but to torture, for five months ??and their torture was like the torture of a scorpion when it stings a man. In those days men will seek death, but they will not find it: they will long to die, but death flies from them. The appearance of the locusts resembled horses armed for battle; on their heads were sort of crowns like gold; their faces were like human faces, their hair like women's hair, and their teeth like lions' fangs; they had scales like iron coats of mail; the whirring of their wings was like the noise of many chariots rushing to battle; their tails and their stings were like scorpions', and their power of hurting men for five months lay in their tails; they had a king over them, the angel of the abyss ??his Hebrew name is Abaddon, but in Greek he is called Apollyon.
So the huge dragon was thrown down ??that old serpent called the Devil and Satan, the seducer of the whole world ??thrown down to the earth, and his angels thrown down along with him.
Rejoice for this, O heavens and ye that dwell in them! But woe to earth and sea! The devil has descended to you in fierce anger, knowing that his time is short."
he gripped the dragon, that old serpent (who is the devil and Satan), and bound him for a thousand years,
and their seducer, the devil, was flung into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the Beast and the false Prophet also lie, to be tortured day and night for ever and ever.