Question:  Dear Greg,

            Should a Christian hate Satan?  Does God hate Satan?  Could Satan repent and be forgiven?  If God is called the Eternal, does this mean that he is the ONLY being that has eternal life?

M.G.

Answer:  Dear M.G.,

            Hate—a strong word, and it is probably important to define it.  In one sense, yes, Christians should hate all that Satan stands for, all that he is and all that he has done.  He is perverted, corrupt, a liar and deceptive—causing untold evil during the history of mankind.

            Hate, on the other hand, can refer to a cancer-like emotion that eats away at our soul and destroys us.  Hate is the very antithesis of God’s love, which is the best one word definition of the heart and soul of God as he reveals himself to us.  It is safe to say that hate does not characterize the lives of those in whom Jesus lives a new life. 

            The Bible leads us to understand that Lucifer and the angels who followed him made an irrevocable decision to be what they are and that that decision was unlike the dynamic of choice that humans face.

Eternal as a reference to God means far more than simply existing in eternity past, eternity present and eternity future.  The Eternal God carries the concept of Creator, giving physical and eternal life to those whom he chooses.  For example, those who accept Jesus Christ are given eternal life but they are not like God.  God is uncreated, without beginning and without end.  Only God the Father, God the Son and God and Holy Spirit are without beginning or end, alpha and omega, who was, is, and is to come.

            In Christ,

            Greg Albrecht