What interest had the Devil in defeating himself?

Question

According to Christian theologians, the Devil has always done his utmost to gain possession of the souls of men. At the time he entered into Judas, persuading him to betray Christ, he knew that if Christ was betrayed he would be crucified, and that he would make an atonement for all believers, and that, as a result, he, the Devil, would lose all the souls that Christ gained.

What interest had the Devil in defeating himself? If he could have prevented the betrayal, then Christ would not have been crucified. No atonement would have been made, and the whole world would have gone to hell. The success of the Devil would have been complete. But, according to this story, the Devil outwitted himself.

Answer 1

Why even consider believing such illogic dished out by the Church?

The entire Devil idea comes from Persia. The story is illogical because it is attempting to combine several very different theologies. Prior to Persia invading Babylon, the underworld was ruled by Nergal. Prior to Nergal was the Queen, Ereshkigal. Men had to compete even for the underworld, and steal it from women. Everyone went to the underworld when they died. There was no heaven or hell. Heaven was just a place in the sky where the sky gods lived. No one escaped death, however, so the Queen of the Underworld would send her minions to bring back any soul that attempted to escape (see Inanna's Descent). Death will have her due. It wasn't a place of damnation, it was just a place after this life.

By the time the Church took over, the Persian idea of dualities, heaven/hell, good/evil/ God/devil, etc, had taken hold in the minds of the people.

So, for the devil to entice Judas into betraying Jesus, was a mixture of religions, just as the rest of the Bible is. Originally, death wasn't a bad-guy, so to speak; death was just the ruler of the underworld, the person who made the rules and made sure people followed the rules. It was death who argued for people to be kind to each other, because to do otherwise would mean they'd eat dust in the underworld, instead of feasting. Judas saved Jesus from hell, so is Judas truly a bad-guy? Seems to me, Judas was doing life a favor.

Answer 2

The Devil is the father of all lies. He has to lie. He can tell all the truth in the world, but it won't be the whole truth. There will always be a seed of deception.

But consider this. Think about all the mileage that the devil could get from the events that followed the betrayal. He got all kinds of people to lie about Jesus. Then he could plant all kinds of seeds of doubt about the resurrection.

You could make the same argument about the garden of Eden. If the Devil had never tempted Eve, then Adam and Even could never have followed the commandment about multiplying and replenishing the earth, and Christ would never have even been born.

The fact of the matter is, the devil doesn't know the outcome of all things the way that God does. The devil is very cunning, but not omniscent. He can make mistakes, and I'm sure more than once he's wanted to kick himself. And then probably devised a way to take it out on the children of men. But the devil, while very smart, is also a very frustrated, miserable being, and has been since he was cast out in the pre-existence.

Answer 3

No one ever said the Devil was smart, though what an interesting question! Obviously he screwed up, but isn't that the moral of the story? The Devil did it because he was trying to out-wit God and Jesus; too bad they could see him coming a mile away and used his actions to cleanse mankind in the end.

However, had Satan NOT asked Judas to betray Jesus (did Satan really do the asking?), Christ's death would ultimately still have happened, as that tiny glitch would surely not have stopped God's plans.

Answer 4

The problem with this line of reasoning is that only God knew that Jesus would become man's salvation through his death. At the time, almost everyone believed Jesus would accomplish this by leading a revolution against the Romans and liberating Judea. Thus, the devil thought he would be foiling God's plans by killing Jesus, which was what God had intended all along. The devil was outwitted by God, not himself.

Answer 5

I think you missed out so many points. Prophets in the old testament already said that the lord would be betrayed and crucified.In fact, Thats the reason why god came to earth in human form(jesus),to die for our sin. Reality is that the devil was playing right into what god knew he would do. Jesus already knew he was going to be betrayed, He said that so many times to his followers when judas was around,but the disciples didnt understand. Satan cant defeat himself, Only god can.And he did that through the death of christ.

Answer 6

God is truth

Devil is the opposite. The devil does not know the truth so he himself is fooled by not knowing. Just by acting accordingly at that moment with lies to get his way. The devil believes a lie and fools us into the same.

Only the one who knows the truth can see what is to happen in the future. This is why we are blind to the future. We know not the difference between the truth and the lie.

Answer 7

We are looking at this through the past tense. We know what happened, but before the crucifixion no one knew. Of course, it was mentioned as far back as Genesis, but until Satan had the chance to tempt Jesus, how was anyone to know? S

Satan's goal, like someone above mentioned, is to attack God through us. He knows he can't beat God, but he also knows he Can beat us. His goal is to take as many of us with him to the lake of fire as he can.

To prove Satan is a created being; why does he do this? Because he hates God, and us. God values us more than he does his highest angel. This of course is what drives him to making our lives so miserable. If people would just stop and think about this, it would all make sense. How can we be subject to this and the questions that we pose to each other, and supposedly imaginary God, if we just happened into existence? Children of single-celled organisms shouldn't be thinking this way, to say nothing of being the only creatures on earth who do.

Take care.

Answer 8

Jesus was in a killing spree back in those times; not exactly or only because of The betrayal.
The new testament shows already that Jesus was going to get killed before the betrayal; only and simply because he was claiming that he was the "son of God". The devil could not have outwitted himself; or Jesus.

Answer 9

Judas never betrayed Jesus (there is no such thing as a christ). In fact Judas was a favourite of Jesus and helped him in his intention to be caught by the Romans. The other thing is that there is no such person as the devil. That is pure nonsense. It is even sillier than the "son of god" thing. Hell? No such place.

Answer 10

Devil, just like everyone of us plays his part in the play. But we have a Choice and Devil - he has a purpose, which is to always be there and arouse temptation for human - a necessary element of a Choice.