According to the Jehovah's Witnesses, where does the Devil come from?

Q. "According to the Jehovah's Witnesses, where does the Devil come from?"

A. ALL of the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses are based on and found within the Holy Scriptures. The question therefore should more accurately be "According to the Holy Scriptures, where does the Devil come from?".

We who are Jehovah's Witnesses DO NOT believe that there are MANY ways to "interpret" the Scriptures, rather, being that the Holy Scriptures are inspired by God THE Almighty Himself (2 Timothy 3:16, 17) via His Holy Spirit which operated on the minds and hearts of the imperfect men He used to write the Scriptures (1 Thess 2:13), we who are Jehovah's Witnesses firmly believe that there is but only ONE WAY to "interpret" the Scriptures and that "one way" is to allow the Holy Scriptures to "interpret" themselves and not resort to philosophical arguments to evade its clear statements of truth. We simply let the Bible provide its own explanation instead of giving our theories as to its significance (1 Cor. 2:13). Indications as to the meaning of certain terms or doctrine are usually found in other parts of the Bible.

The fact is, contrary to popular but highly erroneous belief, God did not create the Devil. ‘Yet if God created everyone,’ a person may say, ‘he must have created the Devil. Who else could have? Where did the Devil come from?’

The Bible explains that God created many, many spirit persons similar to himself. In the Bible, these spirits are called angels. Also, they are called “sons of God.” (Job 38:7; Psalm 104:4; Hebrews 1:7, 13, 14) God created them ALL perfect. Not one of them was a devil, or a satan. The word “devil” means slanderer and the word “satan” means opposer.

The time came, however, when one of these spirit sons of God made himself the Devil, that is, a hateful liar who speaks bad things about another. He also made himself Satan, that is, an opposer of God. He was not created that way, but later became that kind of person.

To illustrate: A thief is not born a thief. He may have come from a good family, having honest parents and law-abiding brothers and sisters. But his own desire for what money can buy is what may have caused him to become a thief.

How, then, did one of God’s spirit sons make himself Satan the Devil?

The angel that became the Devil was present when God created the earth and later the first human couple, Adam and Eve (Job 38:4, 7). So he would have heard God tell Adam and Eve to have children, fill the earth and subdue it (Genesis 1:27, 28). He knew that after a while the whole earth would be filled with righteous people worshiping God. That was God’s purpose. However, this angel thought a great deal of his own beauty and intelligence and wanted to receive for himself the worship that would be given to God (Ezekiel 28:13-15; Matthew 4:10).

Instead of putting this wrong desire out of his mind, he kept thinking about it. This led to his taking action to obtain the honor and importance he desired. What did he do?—James 1:14, 15.

The rebellious angel used a lowly serpent to speak to the first woman, Eve. He did this much as a skilled person can make it seem as if a nearby animal or a dummy figure is talking. But it was really this rebellious angel, the one called in the Bible at Revelation 12:9 “the original serpent,” who was speaking to Eve. At Genesis 3:1-5, he said that God was not telling her the truth, and was holding back from her knowledge that she should have. This was a hateful lie and it made him a devil. He thus also became an opposer of God, or a Satan.

As you can see, it is wrong to think of the Devil as a creature with horns and a pitchfork who oversees some underground place of torment. He is really a very powerful, but wicked, angel.

Blessings.

~ NOTE: I am a dedicated and baptized member of the unified worldwide Christian Congregation of JEHOVAH'S Witnesses.