If Satan is not a person, how do Christadelphians explain what "satan" was in the case of Job?
score:1
This is a bit of a straw man question. It's founded on the statement "the Christadelphian view that Satan is not a person" backed up by repeating the text of another question from a non-christadelphian as fact... and not the answers to that question from Christadelphians themselves.
Many satans (adversaries) not one
I am Christadelphian, and I'm not going to repeat the answers to the linked question here, except to answer the more specific question about the satan in Job. I think it's more accurate to say the Christadelphian view that Satan is not a single person. We don't believe there is a being that has existed from the time of the garden of Eden until now, that is referred to as "Satan" i.e. the Satan. The original idea of the Hebrew word is "an adversary" or "to be avesarial", and so in that sense we would say there have been many adversaries to many people throughout history.
Peter was an adversary to Christ in the moment he tried to stop him going up to Jerusalem. Moments before this incident, Christ praised Peter for his faith. To be a satan (adversary) to someone can be a mild single point in time verbal objection not understanding the consequences (as in Peter's case), or a more long term stronger ongoing physical persecution. Context is key in interpreting scripture.
Who is Job's adversary?
The question of who the satan (adversary) to Job was in that moment is an open question within the Christadelphian community. You will hear many suggestions varying from and angel of Yahweh, a jealous israelite, to Elihu, and many other things in between. The simple fact is we just don't know for sure, I don't personally have a strong view on the identity of the adversary.
Our general approach in these situations is that if it was really important that we knew exactly who the satan was to Job, then we would have been told... or it would be obvious to work out. Having said that it's this kind of thing that Christadelphians love to argue about (I mean "discuss"). There is a risk here to over emphasis small details (arguing over the exact identity of the adversary) and miss the bigger picture of the message God is trying to convey to us. The old adage, "strain at a Gnat and swallow a Camel" is perhaps an appropriate phrase. I think the focus in scripture seems to be more on Jobs response to the persecution, and his three well intentioned but misguided friends, than the satan that was used as a tool to start it off.
Personally I would say it's the same with what happened in the garden and the satan (adversary there). Our response to fallen nature and the trials of life is surely more important than the exact nature of serpent who was (I believe) an unwitting adversary to Adam and Eve, used by God to bring us into a situation where we have to use our free will to demonstrate love and obedience to God in our lives. We can blame others for our actions (as Adam and Eve did) or we can take responsibility for our failings and do our best to develop God's character in us as his sons and daughters... part of his family.
More post
- 📝 Who, in the Roman Catholic Church has declared that Matthew 16:18 teaches empowerment of the Magesterium with inerrancy regarding faith and morals?
- 📝 How does Christ define a Christian?
- 📝 Why did John the Baptist not follow Jesus?
- 📝 Is there any historical record of Elizabeth the First's reaction to John Knox's tract on 'the monstruous regimen'?
- 📝 Do Protestant catechisms teach that man is created by and for God, and God always draws man to himself?
- 📝 Did Luther have any disagreements with the teachings of Augustine of Hippo?
- 📝 Is 'Non-Catholic Non-Orthodox Modern Western Denomination' an ok definition of Protestant?
- 📝 Where do we find the Sacrament of Holy Orders in the Bible?
- 📝 What is the Protestant view of communal living?
- 📝 What do Christians mean by "Jesus took our illnesses upon himself on the cross" and why?
- 📝 Are parents responsible/accountable for the sins of their children?
- 📝 There is more to know than that which is written
- 📝 Who was the first person condemned to death by a Christian bishop?
- 📝 How do Christian Scientists respond to the "poison that nobody knows is poisonous" argument?
- 📝 Is the LDS's view of Trinity/Godhead considered monotheistic or polytheistic?
- 📝 Did Chesterton ever explain why he did not formally become a Catholic until long after he had starting thinking and writing for Catholics?
- 📝 Is God's name Yahweh or Jehovah?
- 📝 Jesus' quotation of Septuagint - Greek or Aramaic?
- 📝 Roman Catholic and being Baptized for a second time in a Coptic church
- 📝 Why did God create a new covenant?
- 📝 Election, Gods Sovereignty and Is Cain Saved?
- 📝 Have different Popes ever contradicted each other?
- 📝 What are the traditional reasons ascribed to why God saw it fit that Jesus be born of a virgin?
- 📝 Is there any historical evedence of more apostles being called that were not mentioned in the Bible?
- 📝 From a Catholic perspective, why does Wisdom merely "infer" the things to come?
- 📝 What are Christian theologeans referring to when they talk about "God's glory"?
- 📝 Interpreting Acts 2:38 together with John 1:12
- 📝 How did Satan get into Eden?
- 📝 I'm a practicing Roman Catholic, but considering attending a Greek Orthodox church instead of our local RC church. Will I be welcomed?
- 📝 What does "he finds his truth" mean in Pope Benedict's Caritas in Veritate?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 If Satan is not a person, how do Christadelphians explain what "satan" was in the case of Job?
- 📝 How can the Son not know what the Father knows?
- 📝 What is the Biblical Basis for a Good person going to hell simply for not believing?
- 📝 How do opponents of Penal Substitution explain God's declaration that He "will not leave the guilty unpunished"?
- 📝 How do Evangelicals explain when Paul writes "I, not the Lord"?
- 📝 Troubled people showing interest in reading the Bible: how to explain to them that faith is a lifestyle and not an "ATM"?
- 📝 What traditions hold that Satan is not actually a person?
- 📝 How do non-Trinitarians who do not believe Jesus is God Almighty explain how Jesus can effect atonement for all of humanity?
- 📝 How do Catholics explain the apparent inconsistency between Mary's not experiencing labor pain and Rev 12:1-6?
- 📝 How do those who believe in a pre-tribulation rapture explain that not everyone who remains will believe?
- 📝 What is the basis for the Christadelphian belief that Satan is not a personal being?
- 📝 If Satan is not omnipresent and supposedly wanders around like a roaring lion, how can he tempt and interact with all humans?
- 📝 How do deniers of Jesus' divinity explain that the angel at Revelation 22:9 did not include Jesus in the list of beings that can be worshipped?
- 📝 What does it mean / how do you know / how would you explain "God is working" or "God is at work"?
- 📝 How do Orthodox Christians explain that the Father and the Son are not two different Gods?
- 📝 How do Cessationists explain Spirit-inspired prophecies whose contents were not recorded in the final canon of scripture?
- 📝 How do 'soul sleep' adherents explain Mark 12:27, "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living."?
- 📝 How do those who understand Noah's Flood to be a global flood explain what the carnivorous animals ate after disembarking?
- 📝 How does Calvinism explain how an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent creator could NOT have a plan for universal salvation?
- 📝 What did Papias mean when he wrote how Mark did not write "in order" about what Jesus said or did?
- 📝 What options does a person of Church of England religion have if they are not sure if they were baptized in infancy, and can't prove it either way?
- 📝 How do Southern Baptists who believe in the immortality of the soul explain what death means in scripture
- 📝 If Satan is not a fallen angel, created by God, then where did he come from? How was he created?
- 📝 If the Ten Commandments say “thou shalt not kill” how can a Christian fight in a war?
- 📝 How is Jesus not lying in John 7?
- 📝 How could Jesus be born during the reign of Herod, and when Quirinius was governor of Syria, if those periods were not contemporary?
- 📝 How should I understand the emphasis on "begotten, not made" in the Nicene Creed?
- 📝 What does it mean that Satan is "god of this world"?
- 📝 What did Jesus mean by "this generation will certainly not pass away.." in Matthew 24:34?
- 📝 What is the basis for not believing sola scriptura?