What Does 2 Corinthians 11:14 Mean?

(14) **For Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.**—The present tense of the original excludes the thought that reference is made to any special incident (such as the appearance of Satan among “the sons of God,” of Job 1:6) recorded in the Old Testament, or in tradition. The thought is rather that Satan is ever so transforming himself. If we are to look for any special allusion, we may find a possible explanation in the words “though we, or an angel from heaven,” in Galatians 1:8. They suggest the thought, as at least a probable inference, that the Judaising teachers had claimed the authority of an angelic message for the gospel which they preached, and set this against the authority of the angelic visions which St. Luke had recorded in the case of Cornelius (Acts 10:2). It is probable, we may add, that the Christ-party at Corinth, as distinct from that of Cephas, had affinities with the Jewish sect of the Essenes, and they, we know, were addicted to the worship of angels (Jos. *Wars, ii.* 8, § 6), and made much of revelations conveyed through their ministry. On this supposition St. Paul may, in his allusive way, mean to imply that they were mistaking a satanic for an angelic apparition. Something of the kind is obviously implied in the stress which St. Paul lays on his own visions and revelations in 2Corinthians 12:1.