Satan

Is the “bottomless pit’? in Revelation 9:11, hell, and does this passage teach that Satan is king of hell?

Under the name of Abaddon, Satan is spoken of as king of the demons who are to be set loose during the tribulation to torment unbelievers on the earth. But the “bottomless pit’’ or abyss is not hell in the sense of the lake of fire, or of the place of the final punishment of Satan and the ungodly; it is the equivalent of space merely. In the lake of fire Satan is tormented day and night forever (Rev. 20:10). It may very well be that a large element in his torment is his dethronement.

Was the “‘dragon”’ in Revelation 12:4, Herod?

This passage pictures, not Herod waiting to devour the “man-child,’ but the dragon (Satan) himself behind Herod, who began waiting from the time of his curse (Gen. 3:15) to “devour her child” who should “‘bruise his head.”

What was the character of the serpent before the Fall?

We get no idea from the appearance of the serpent under the curse of the appearance of the serpent before the curse. Ruskin points out that from the traces of beauty remaining — ‘‘a serpent cannot make an ungraceful movement,” etc. — we may well believe its pristine loveliness to have been marvelous. That a beast should speak is no marvel. Comparatively stupid creatures, as the parrot, learn to speak. It should be no wonder that the most subtle of all the beasts should speak. Unfallen, the serpent was a fit instrument for Satan’s use. The old pictures representing a writhing snake at Eve’s ear are absurd. In the serpent Satan first appeared “as an angel of light’ (2 Cor. 11:14).