Satan and His Kingdom 49 body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing judg ment, but said, The Lord rebuke thee” (Jude 9). He is also called the “god of this age” (2 Cor. 4 :4 , margin), for men obey and worship him, even unconsciously, when they do not obey and worship the Creator. The fallen archangel is moreover described as the “prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2 :2 ) , meaning wicked spir itual powers dwelling in the aerial heavens, for it seems the “Satanic confederation has its seat in the atmospheric heaven —in the spaces above and around our world” (Seiss). That the “prince of the power of the air” has power (when per mission is granted) to wield the forces of the air we see in the history of Job; for at his bidding lightning fell from heaven to consume the flocks of the faithful servant of God, and he caused a wind to blow Job’s house down and kill his children. In relation to his attacks upon the children of men the prince of this world is called the “tempter” (1 Thess. 3 :5 ) , because it is his fiendish delight to tempt others from loyal obedience to God. And he is named “the devil” (1 Tim. 3:6, 7)—a word never used in the plural, and always, and only, of Satan himself. “The Hebrew name Satan occurs in the New Testament thirty-five times interchangeably with the Greek Diabolos, which is also used thirty-five times. The word Diabolos signifies “separator and slanderer” (Black- stone), or “malignant accuser.” Satan is the great separator, and he separates by slandering. He separated the race of man from God in Eden, and ever since he has been separating men from each other, with hatred, malice, envy and jealousy. He is especially named the “accuser of the brethren” (Rev. 12:10), and we find him also described as “the great dragon,” the “old serpent,” and the “deceiver of the whole inhabited earth.” That the adversary still has the world under his rule, is un mistakably shown in his attack upon the Lord Jesus in the wilderness. The Lord was led, under the constraint of the
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