Saul - Apostle Paul had a devil?

[votivesoul]

Originally Posted by Pressing-On

I've been thinking about this verse in I John 3. I am not certain it is saying, "subject to the wiles of the devil", but rather, if you do these things you are "imitating" or "resembling" the devil.

Like you said above, it startles us to suddenly find that our flesh is horrible WITHOUT the devil.

I believe that Saul/Paul was acting as he thought he should - defending the Law of Moses against heresy, and I don't believe that had anything to do with the devil.

I'd like to discuss this more.

I am happy to discuss.

Let's take a look at the verse from 1 John 3 in context:

New International Version

1See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

4Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. 5But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. 6No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

7Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. 8The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. 9No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. 10This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.

Paul, misled and in the flesh, thinking "The Way" of Christ was a heretical sect, was persecuting the Lord Jesus by attacking His people (i.e. making havoc of the Church). He was, as Christ said, kicking against the pricks.

I think we can say that Paul, as Saul, was in sin, in that, he was persecuting his own people, the Jews. And the Torah clearly indicates that Israel was not to begrudge each other; see here:

18 “‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. (NIV)

The church at the time was completely Jewish, except for some Grecian widows (possibly Hellenized Jews, not actual Greeks).

So, if we read 1 John 3:1-10 in light of these facts, we may say that Saul was "of the devil". He was breaking the law, namely Leviticus 19:18, by persecuting fellow Jews who believed Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah.

But, being "of the devil" does not mean devil possession, as in the way we see possessed people in the Gospels. Saul didn't cry out, foam at the mouth, wail or mourn or ask Jesus to not "torment him before the time".

So, he wasn't possessed in the Gospel sense of the idea. But he was of the devil, in the 1 John 3:8 sense of the idea, by continuing in sin as a law breaker/transgressor of the Torah commandment in Leviticus 19:18. This was his "kicking against".

So what does it mean to be "of the devil"?

The Greek phrase is ek tou diabolou. Ek is a preposition denoting source of origin or emanantion, meaning "from" or "out of". Tou is one of 24 definite articles in Greek. In this case, it's the Genitive Masculine Singular. Masculine simply means it agrees with the noun diabolou, which has been assigned a masculine gender (as many languages so assign). Singular also refers to diabolou in that the noun is in the singular form, as opposed to there being a plurality, i.e. if plural, it would read something like "The one who does what is sinful is of the [devils]" implying multiple devils in question as opposed the one, true Devil.

Apart from that, what concerns us most is the fact that tou is in the Genitive case. Genitive is another way of saying the possessive case. It expresses ownership or derivation. So, to say one who does what is sinful is "of the devil" might literally indicate the following:

The one who does what is sinful does so from or out of the fact that they are owned or derive their motivation to sin from the Devil.

This doesn't mean that a person is Hollywood The Exorcist possessed, or even that they are demonized as the Gospel accounts demonstrate.

Rather, it indicates and confirms the following Scripture:

Ephesians 2:2 (NIV)

2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.

Saul of Tarsus, like all un-regenerated people, are subject to being taken by the Devil according to his will (2 Timothy 2:26).

In this way, what the Lord Jesus said to the Jews in John 8:44 applies to Saul, pre-conversion:

Ye are of your father the devil...

The Greek text for "of you" is ek tou, an identical construction to the one in 1 John 3:8. Jesus went on to accuse them of not being "of God", as seen here:

John 8:47 (KJV),

47 He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.

Again, a parallel to 1 John 3 (indicating same authorship). There are only two choices. Either one is "of God", i.e. ek tou Theou, or one is ek tou diabolou. There is no Biblical middleground.

Saul, pre-conversion, was "of the devil". But again, this doesn't mean "full of the devil". His conversion doesn't feature any of the Gospel hallmarks associated with demonization, any more than a heathen who comes to Christ is possessed in the Gospel sense of the word, even if they are owned or motivated to sin, by the Devil.