I was driving to work this morning and happened upon a Christian radio station where a preacher (I’m unsure who) was expositing a passage of Scripture. Unlike so many radio preachers who play fast and loose with God’s word, this preacher was carefully unpacking the passage and making relevant applications. As the preacher moved toward application, he asked his listeners to think of a difficult work associate. Then he commented, “I grant that maybe your coworker is just being a jerk. But maybe Satan is using that person to get at you. But even if Satan is behind your coworker’s actions, the Bible affirms that God will still use this difficult situation for your good.”

Is this right? Could it be Satan and God at the same time?

Yes, this is right. The preacher was on point. By asking whether it can be Satan and God at the same time, we have just bumped up against a crucial piece of Christian theology that every Christian needs to know about. Despite popular opinion, theology is not esoteric; it impacts life in many ways.

There are multiple instances in the Bible where Satan (or an evil spirit) acts with malicious intent toward a human, but where the Bible indicates that God is working behind the scenes — even moving events toward the fulfillment of his purposes (which are always good and wise). Here are a few examples.

  • Job 1-2: “The Satan” attacked Job’s family, possessions, and finally his health, but he had to get permission from God to do it.

  • Zechariah 3:1-2: The Satan accused a high priest named Joshua (not the Joshua who succeeded Moses — a much later Joshua) and consequently received a rebuke by God.

  • 2 Samuel 24:1 with 1 Chronicles 21:1: In the first of these two passages (2 Sam 24:1), God’s anger burned against Israel; the passage says that God incited David to take a . In the second (1 Chron 21:1), the Chronicler (who knew and had access to 2 Samuel) recounted the same incident but claimed that Satan incited David.

  • 1 Kings 22:19-23: Micaiah sees a vision of a “lying spirit” getting permission from God to put falsehoods into the mouths of evil king Ahab’s prophets to entice the king to go into a battle — a battle that would culminate in Ahab’s death.

  • Matthew 4:1: God’s Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness in order to be tempted by the devil. (Greek grammarians call this an infinitive of purpose).

  • Luke 22:31-32: Satan insistently asked to sift Peter like wheat (along with his fellow disciples — the “you” is plural in Greek in v. 31). Notice that Satan had to obtain God’s permission to do so.

  • 1 Corinthians 5:5 and 1 Timothy 1:20: Unrepentant sinning believers get “handed over to Satan” by church leaders (under God’s authority) so that recalcitrant persons might repent and return.

  • 2 Corinthians 12:7: Paul was given (by God — this is what grammarians call a divine passive) a thorn in the flesh, an angel of Satan to beat him, to keep him from exalting himself. (See my for detailed explanation.)

If it seems unusual to you that God would sometimes carry forth his good purposes through an action of Satan, consider that parents sometimes act in analogous ways while training older children. Good parents will at times allow a teenaged son or daughter to continue to play on a sports team led by an overbearing coach. Imagine that said coach regularly acts inappropriately, says and does things that are really hard for the teenaged athletes, and sometimes pushes the players beyond acceptable boundaries so that the team will succeed. All this notwithstanding (and obviously excluding certain abusive scenarios), parents sometimes will allow a son or daughter to continue on a team led by such a coach, while at the same time training their teenager how to endure injustice, respond in a Christlike manner, discern what is good and reject what is bad, speak up when needed and be silent when not, and toughen up in preparation for harder things ahead in life.

God never does anything evil. The Bible insists upon the holiness and goodness of God. But in relation to Satan, the scriptural pattern seems to be that God allows Satan a limited amount of permission to do things that God plans to turn in a different direction — resulting in God’s own glory and our best good in the long run. But God has purposes (many we will never know) that he seeks to actualize in our lives. Satan tries to undermine God’s purposes, but he will not ultimately succeed. Our sovereign-over-everything God uses the devil’s attacks to teach us endurance, Christlikeness, discernment and trust in his long-term purposes.

God and Satan are not equals. God is over all. Accordingly, God can use even Satan’s attacks to further God’s own purposes — purposes God actuates to highlight his glory and transform us into the humble and holy people he intends for us to become.

This and other resources are available at .

Notes

“This morning,” as in the morning I originally wrote this blog post.

I drew my Scripture list from Sydney H. T. Page, “Satan: God’s Servant.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 50 (2007): 449–65.

For more on Job 1-2, see Christopher Ash, (Crossway, 2021), 21-30 and Kenneth Berding, (Lexham, 2023), 71-82.