This is part of an ongoing series that examines what the Bible actually reveals about Satan. [Check out the full series here]
This article continues discussing the abilities and limitations of creatures like Satan.
How they can (and can’t) communicate
One of the most common things people say about Satan’s influence in their lives is that he’s “whispering” to them. This may include things like:
- “Satan’s accusing me of not being a genuine Christian because I keep getting angry at my kids.”
- “The devil kept telling me to visit that website until I couldn’t fight him anymore.”
- “I don’t want to doubt God, but Satan keeps arguing with me.”
Most people wouldn’t say they actually “hear” him the same way we biologically hear others speak, which involves our brains interpreting the sound waves entering our ears. Instead, these “whispers” are more like unwanted thoughts or emotional influences. To borrow modern terminology, we accuse Satan of communicating telepathically. But is there any biblical support for angelic beings having this ability?
In short, the Bible only shows angelic beings communicating in three ways: audibly, through visions, and in dreams.
Audibly
Whenever the Bible features an angelic being speaking to someone, neither the human we read about nor the author writing about them indicates anything out of the ordinary about the conversation. In other words, the conversation is exactly the same as one between two humans. One may try to argue that this is just how the writers chose to phrase the conversation, but that these conversations do indeed happen through some form of telepathy. However, note that people do, indeed, react when someone else hears from a supernatural being:
I lifted up my eyes and looked, and behold, a man clothed in linen, with a belt of fine gold from Uphaz around his waist. His body was like beryl, his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and the sound of his words like the sound of a multitude. And I, Daniel, alone saw the vision, for the men who were with me did not see the vision, but a great trembling fell upon them, and they fled to hide themselves. So I was left alone and saw this great vision, and no strength was left in me. My radiant appearance was fearfully changed, and I retained no strength. (Daniel 10:5-8, emphasis added)
Daniel had several men around him when this angelic being arrived. However, something about its presence caused the rest of them to flee. We don’t know what caused them to experience such fear, but it may have been because, although they could hear something, they could neither see the angelic being nor understand the words meant for Daniel. The text isn’t clear, but I make this argument because of similar accounts like these:
But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. (Acts 9:1-7)
Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine. (John 12:27-30)
Note that even when God is communicating with people, He does so in a way that people nearby can hear something. The crowd’s reaction is especially noteworthy when we compare it to the description of the angelic being’s voice in Daniel. Although Jesus understood God’s spoken words, those nearby only heard a rumbling sound. Yet notice what the crowd assumed: if an angelic being spoke to someone, those nearby would hear something like thunder even if they couldn’t decipher what was said.
Here’s the point: the Bible only presents angelic beings as communicating to humans through the same means that everyone else communicates. Even when God the Father or Son speaks to humans, they often do so through actual sound, not internal thoughts or impressions. No angelic being throughout the Bible, including Satan, is portrayed as having some sort of telepathic capability that allows them to whisper to us without anyone else hearing. This means that, practically speaking, if Satan ever did whisper to someone, we could technically capture it on a recording device, though perhaps it would sound like a thunderous rumble like in Daniel or what people assumed in John. Otherwise, accusing him of whispering to us because of unwanted thoughts or feelings doesn’t align with how every other angelic creature, and perhaps even God Himself, communicates with people.[1]
Lastly, it’s also worth considering that there seems to be a link between someone seeing an anglic being and understanding them. Nearly every instance of an angelic messenger speaking to a human includes that the person sees them as well. It may be possible for angelic beings to be heard and understood without physically appearing, but it seems most common for them to reveal themselves before speaking.[2] If so, it’s even more unlikely that Satan whispers to us without us seeing him.
Visions
Angelic beings also communicate in visions that take the person outside their current location, perhaps showing them God’s heavenly courtroom (Zechariah 3) or revealing the future (Revelation 4-22). In these visions, the human seems fully capable of speaking and interacting with an angelic being, although the visions seem to occur when the person is isolated, so we don’t know if actual sounds are being made or if it’s all taking place in the person’s mind.[3] Regardless, the Bible portrays visions much differently from when one of God’s messengers speaks to someone audibly.[4]
Dreams
Angels occasionally appear to people in dreams to communicate some kind of message. There is one noteworthy feature that separates dreams from both visions and live communication. Namely, the human being seems unable to interact with the angelic being in their dream. Let’s briefly look at some examples:
- An angel communicates with Joseph several times, but we never see him respond in the dream. Instead, he wakes up and acts upon the message he received (Matthew 1:20, 2:13, 2:19-20, 2:22).
- It’s implied that an angel warns the wise men not to return home (Matthew 2:12).
- Job’s friend has a terrifying dream that is likely the same angelic being[5] testing Job[6] (Job 4:12-21).
Of course, we want to be careful when claiming that just because we don’t see them interact doesn’t mean they don’t. After all, we read a narrative that includes and omits certain things based on why the author records it in the first place. So perhaps Joseph said “Okay” when the angel told him to flee. However, simply based on what God has revealed in the Bible, messages in dreams seem to be a one-way communication.[7]
For our purposes, this is noteworthy simply because of how people respond to dreams. It’s easy for modern-day readers to assume these ancient dreamers were highly superstitious and responded to dreams because they didn’t know any better. Perhaps there are hundreds of unrecorded instances of people responding to dreams that weren’t from God or an angelic being; they just aren’t recorded.
However, perhaps something about these dreams made the dreamer know, without question, that it wasn’t because they had some bad pizza the night before. There seems to be some quality to an angelic appearance that sets it apart from the weirdest or most realistic dreams we’ve ever had. We don’t know how, but every instance shows that the dreamer has no question about what happened.[8]
So, at a practical level, how does this form of communication work? If we’re honest, we simply don’t know because the text is silent. The author seems to assume his audience understands enough about how this works that he doesn’t need to explain how an angel communicated through a dream. One writer compared it to writing information on a CD,[9] where an angelic being inserts a message or appearance into a person’s dream, like we can write data on a disc, but the disc can’t interact back with us.
Ultimately, we must be honest and say that dreams are still largely a mystery, even to modern science. Something about them allowed a unique form of communication when God would relay messages through His messengers. Regardless of the “science” behind angels appearing in dreams, we want to remember that these instances were rare and never seemed to happen after Jesus’s childhood.
A warning on communication
In researching and writing this book, I have become increasingly aware of people’s fascination with dreams, visions, and personal visits from angelic beings. This isn’t a new problem. Even in the early church, false teachers knew people were drawn to these mysterious messengers from God:
Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind… (Colossians 2:18)
In this, Paul doesn’t tell his audience how to distinguish between true and false visions, nor the proper way to interact with angels. If we read the New Testament and try to free ourselves from our fascination with the supernatural, it seems increasingly apparent that as the gospel spread and the apostles’ writings became more widely available, God increasingly stopped communicating through supernatural methods. This brief section isn’t a sufficient place to fully address the debate on whether certain gifts are still active in the church today. However, this is the right place to warn readers about what may be tempting when confronted with who Satan is and isn’t.
I’ll say it plainly: Satan isn’t going to appear to you physically, speak to you audibly, give you a vision, or implant a message in your dreams. This section has addressed the capacity for angelic beings to do such a thing to debunk the godlike power of communication we often assign to Satan. However, we want to understand his communication capacity in light of everything else we know about his limitations and his greater goal, which we’ll see in chapter XX. Compare it to the president of the United States: Sure, the current president could visit your house, do a video call, or send you a personal email. But just because they have the ability doesn’t mean there’s any chance they will sacrifice time, effort, and other opportunities unless it lines up with their personal or professional duties. Unfortunately, we often think very little of Satan’s intelligence and bigger goals if we think he’d waste his time tempting individual sinners to sin.
Why does it seem like Satan puts thoughts in my head?
We’ve looked at all the ways we’ve seen angelic beings communicate throughout biblical history. If no one had ever grown up in a modern church setting where they’ve heard that Satan puts thoughts in our heads or whispers into our minds, no one reading the Bible would have a reason to think that he’s the source of sinful thoughts. Like so many things we assume about him, this idea is a product of tradition.
So how do we explain those thoughts? We’ll discuss this more in Chapter XX, but the short answer for now is that those thoughts are our thoughts. That can be a hard pill to swallow, but it’s a necessary pill for any Christian wanting to grow in spiritual maturity. Whether it’s doubting God’s existence, questioning our salvation, thinking something hurtful about our spouse, or having a recurring thought that we hate, the best thing we can do is accept that these thoughts originate from somewhere within us. When we blame it on Satan, then we are merely victims of an external attack with nothing to do except try to fight against it. But if these thoughts are our responsibility, then we can reflect on why we’re having those thoughts.
Here are some ways we can analyze these thoughts:
- What are we consuming in other areas of our lives that lead to these thoughts?
- How does our time spent thinking or participating in godly things compare to our time spent on worldly things?
- What past beliefs have we held that might make these thoughts come up after all this time?
- What are some things we think we deserve that make these thoughts seem right to have?
- Is this a symptom that worldliness is influencing us more than we thought?
- What areas of our lives are we ignoring God, fighting against Him, or walking in unrepentant sin?
- Is there something biologically wrong that doesn’t deserve the fear and anxiety associated with believing we’re under spiritual attack?
If we’re willing to stop playing the victim by giving Satan powers that the Bible doesn’t give him, we will often see significant growth because we can better address poisoned “roots” that are creating these poisoned mental “fruits.”
[1] This will likely cause a flurry of questions that I can’t cover in this short section. Let me clear up two misconceptions people may have. 1) This doesn’t mean that God can’t communicate in other ways, nor does it dismiss the unique role of the Holy Spirit in the internal life of the believer; it just means that this is how He chooses to do so any time it’s recorded in Scripture. 2) When going to find other instances of angelic beings communicating, we want to be very careful not to read what we want into the text; there may be places like in Acts 27:23-24 where an angelic being could have communicated telepathically without bystanders hearing, but the text doesn’t imply such a thing, requiring us to place our assumptions onto the text.
[2] The only edge case here is in the Daniel 10 passage above, and even that may be that the men nearby didn’t see him because they ran and hid, not because it was impossible to see the creature they were hearing.
[3] Daniel 10 is described as a vision, but this may be more like what we see with Balaam in Numbers 22:22-35 or Elisha’s servant in 2 Kings 6:15-17 where a human is allowed to “peak” into the spiritual realm and see what’s really happening in their present location. These seem different than visions that shows the person a completely different time or place.
[4] John D. Barry, “Vision,” in The Lexham Bible Dictionary, ed. John D. Barry et al. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).
[5] See chapter XX to better understand who this being is.
[6] It may be worth noting that this is what Job’s friend reported, and may not may not have happened. I take the position that a being did appear in his dream, but the dialogue from Job’s friends is often filled with ignorance and untruths, and this may be another example of that.
[7] Genesis 31:10-13 shows Joseph interact with “the Angel of the Lord” in a dream. This isn’t an oversight or a rare exception to the rule. We’ll discuss this at the end of the chapter.
[8] Also note that angelic appearances are different from prophetic dreams. Angels’ message seems very straightforward, with little need to interpretation. In contrast, prophetic dreams were so vague that Daniel was noted as being skilled at interpreting dreams and visions, implying that those things required special understanding back when God used those methods to communicate (Daniel 1:17).
[9] Angels by Michael Heiser