Seventh-day Adventists consider Satan to be a personal being, a fallen angel, who was called Lucifer ( Isa. 14:12–14 ), and who occupied the exalted position of covering cherub ( Eze. 28:14 ). Pride in the beauty and wisdom with which the Creator had originally endowed him led to his fall ( Eze. 28:12 , 17 ). He seduced one third of the angelic host ( Rev. 12:4 ), with whom he was cast out of heaven ( Rev. 12:8 , 9 ; cf. 2 Peter 2:4 ; Jude 6 ).
Entering Eden under the guise of a serpent, he seduced man into sin ( Gen. 3:1–6 ), thus bringing sin and death upon the entire human race ( Rom. 5:12 ; cf. Rom. 3:23 ). His work ever since has been to ensnare, deceive, beguile, and seduce the human family ( 2 Cor. 11:3 , 14 ; 2 Tim. 2:26 ; 1 Peter 5:8 ; Rev. 12:9 ; etc.).
He is variously called the devil ( Matt. 4:10 , 11 ; Rev. 12:9 ), Beelzebub ( Matt. 12:24 ), Belial ( 2 Cor. 6:15 ), the tempter ( Matt. 4:3 ), the adversary ( 1 Peter 5:8 ), “the prince of this world” ( John 14:30 ), etc.
Satan is the leader of all the fallen angels ( Rev. 12:4 , 7 ; cf. 2 Peter 2:4 ).
According to Revelation 20 , Satan will be confined to the depopulated earth for 1,000 years following the second advent of Christ ( see Millennium ). At the close of the millennium Satan will be released from his confinement as the wicked dead are brought to life. He will immediately deceive them, as formerly, and lead them to make one last effort to overthrow the government of God by attacking the Holy City, which will have descended from heaven at the close of the 1,000 years. Fire falls from heaven, and destroys Satan and all who have been allied with him ( see Hell ).
The angels who accepted Satan’s leadership and were expelled from heaven along with him have been engaged from that time to the present in carrying out the commands of the great deceiver. They continually endeavor to inflict suffering and death upon mankind. These evil angels have the power to impersonate the dead and in so doing deceive the living relatives and friends of the dead into believing that those who have passed away are not actually dead, but are enjoying a higher form of existence. This ability of Satan and his angels to impersonate the dead, coupled with the unscriptural belief in the natural immortality of the soul, has given birth to spiritism.
Early Seventh-day Adventist literature is, for the most part, conspicuously silent with respect to Satan. An editorial note by James White ( Review and Herald 7:61, Oct. 16, 1855) stresses that Satan is a real, personal being. Uriah Smith ( ibid. 18:125, Sept. 17, 1861) wrote at greater length about Satan as a personal being. He also spoke of the evil angels as working to ensnare the unwary, and of the angels of God resisting them. See also Evil, Origin of ; Fall, The ; Jacob’s Trouble, Time of ; Michael, the Archangel ; Miracles .