The Church’s Characterization of Satan in the Past and Now: The Implication for the Place of God in the Affairs of this World

Abstract

This paper is about what the Church in the past believed and taught in respect of the role of the Devil and what the Church today especially the Nigerian Pentecostal Church believes and teaches is the role of the Devil and its implications of the teaching on the role of God in the affairs of this world. The Nigerian Pentecostal ascribes almost every human and world problems to the devil. The devil seems to be responsible for every evil and bad thing that happens to individuals and the world. This paper compares
the Pentecostal understanding of the role of Satan with the teaching of the Bible, the Church from the apostolic age and the mainline Church. Generally, the Pentecostal Church differs in many ways with mainline Churches but recently it is having a lot of influence on the mainline Churches. The Pentecostal representation of the role of the devil is a major shift from historic biblical Church. The Pentecostal representation implies that the devil is almost completely in charge of this world. The writer employs historical and analytical methods for the presentation of this paper.