There’s a man on Instagram whose handle is mrwilliamsprek. Like a lot of people on that platform, he’s built characters to create content, and some of the characters people invent and perform are unique and genuinely hilarious; it’s amazing how much time and effort people put into their creative work. But what Mr. Spreck has done is create two characters in particular: one is Jesus, and the other is the Devil.
You’d think these are figures we all already know well from the Bible and from religious teaching. But this man puts a very humorous spin on both of them. I think it’s hilarious. I’m also positive there are people who are extremely offended by it. Either way, watching some of these videos and sitting with my own faith has gotten me thinking about the character of the Devil.
In a lot of historical renderings - Renaissance art, and plenty of other media since - the Devil is portrayed as a beast: hooves, a tail, a giant red body, horns. The South Park creators made their own version, which is hilarious in its own right, but it’s still basically in keeping with that traditional image. What I’ve always thought, though, is that this isn’t what the Devil looks like at all.
The Devil looks like the character mrwilliamsprek has created. The Devil isn’t ugly. The Devil isn’t mean or angry. The Devil is beautiful, and the devil says wonderful things. The words that come out of the Devil’s mouth are poetry.
There’s a scene in the movie The Devil’s Advocate; if you haven’t seen the movie, you should. Al Pacino plays a Devil-like figure (I honestly can’t remember if he’s meant to be the Devil himself or the Antichrist), and Keanu Reeves is our protagonist. At one point, Keanu’s mother describes to his character having once met the Al Pacino Devil, and she says he knew every word of Scripture, knew it by heart. In other words, he knew the Word of God perfectly.
That’s what I think people miss about the Devil. Lucifer is a fallen angel. Lucifer literally means “the bringer of light” in Latin. Lucifer is not ugly; Lucifer is beautiful. Lucifer knows every word of God, and Lucifer is himself a creation of God, a child of God. Lucifer has just one game in mind: Lucifer wants you to do his will on Earth.
You know how the Lord’s Prayer goes: Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. That’s all God asks of us, I believe: that we do God’s will on Earth. In my belief, that’s exactly what Lucifer wants too: the same thing, just pointed the other direction. Lucifer simply wants you to do his will on Earth instead of God’s.
If you think about it that way, why in the world would Lucifer want to look evil and scary? He doesn’t want that. He wants to look like he has the answers. He wants to look like he is of God and represents God but of course he does not. He is offering you a choice. The choice is to do his will on Earth rather than God’s.
And that’s exactly why Lucifer is so insidious. The choice looks so simple, so easy. But we know it isn’t. It is not simple. We have to wake up every single day with the Lord’s Prayer in mind, and we have to ask ourselves and pray for the knowledge, understanding and courage to do God’s will. Because it is so easy to do Lucifer’s will instead.
That’s the whole point.
A friend pointed me to a passage worth adding here: 2 Corinthians 11:12-15 (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Corinthians%2011%3A12-15&version=NIV), where Paul writes that "Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light." It backs up the core idea above directly — the danger isn't an obviously evil figure, it's one who looks righteous while deceiving people into doing his will instead of God's.