Page 90 - Foundations

There is a popular teaching being spread at this hour that asserts that Satan did not fall into sin, but
that he was created evil by God. I find this to be a very disturbing teaching, for it maligns the
character of Yahweh. This teaching denies that the passage above from Ezekiel is referring to Satan,
yet those who hold to this view have the testimony of the apostle Paul to overcome. He clearly speaks
of the devil becoming conceited and falling into condemnation. The testimony of Ezekiel is surely
true. Of this anointed cherub who covers, the prophet states, “You were blameless in your ways from
the day you were created, until unrighteousness was found in you.”

Sadly, some men with valuable insights into other truths hidden to many, have embraced this aberrant
view of Satan, suggesting that he was created evil from the beginning. Among these men are J.
Preston Eby and Bill Britton, both of whom are men who have published teachings that have been
of much encouragement and insight to myself and others. Yet, even as the apostle Peter fell into error
in one area that elicited the public reproof of the apostle Paul, we must be ever vigilant to test all that
we hear, even when it comes from men who bear an obvious anointing of God and are appointed as
ministers by His Son.

Common to the teachings of these men who promote the idea that Satan was created evil from the
beginning is a misapprehension of a few select Scriptures that they all cite.

John 8:44
You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer
from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. Whenever he
speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature; for he is a liar, and the father of lies.

The phrase “He was a murderer from the beginning” is used as support of the teaching that Satan was
created as an evil being. In an earlier chapter I spoke of the danger of wrongly identifying beginnings
in the Bible. What those making this claim about Satan being created evil have done is to wrongly
identify what the phrase “from the beginning” is referring to. Christ is NOT referring to Satan’s
beginning, but to murder’s beginning. This can be seen as one compares this expression to the parallel
statement where it is declared that Satan “is a liar, and the father of lies.”

Yahshua is using the example of a father to demonstrate Satan’s relationship to lying. A father is the
source of the offspring that emanate from within him. A father is the beginning and source of the
generations that follow him. Implicit within the idea of fatherhood is origination and beginnings.