Chapter 8 - The Devil - p.187

Opposites

It is impossible to read the Bible and ignore the important part which it assigns to the Devil. The Devil first appears as the Serpent in the story of "the Fall" and figures throughout Scripture till the final scene in Revelation, where "the old Serpent, which is the Devil and Satan", is cast into the lake of fire. What, then, is meant by the Devil? We may start with the self-obvious proposition that "God" and the "Devil" must be the exact opposites of each other. Whatever God is, the Devil is not. Since God is Being, the Devil is Not-Being. And so we are met by the paradox that though the Bible says so much about the Devil, yet the Devil does not exist. It is precisely this fact of non-existence that makes up the Devil; it is that power which in appearance is, and in reality is not; in a word, it is the Power of the Negative.

We are put upon this track by the statement in 2 Corinthians 1:20 that in Christ, all the promises of God are Yea and Amen --- that is, essentially Affirmative;