Have you ever heard of an angel of light? An extremely important fact about our adversary, the devil, is cited only once and is very easy to miss or misunderstand. In that passage it mentions that the devil can disguise himself as an angel of light:
Satan’s Disguise – An Angel Of Light
And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. (2 Cor 11:14)
For the devil to disguise himself as an angel of light means he can come as an angel of God. [When an angel of the Lord appeared to Peter, a light shone in his prison cell (Acts 12:7), which the devil can duplicate.] His malicious intent would be to mislead in order to destroy! Since God’s holy angels appear in visions, then 2 Cor. 11:14 is saying the devil can produce visions, which seem to be from God, in order to deceive people! Such Satanic apparitions, clothed with religious terms, will contain untrue Christian doctrine and/or practices, according to Scripture. Since the devil is the father of lies (Jn. 8:44) and arch deceiver of mankind (Rev. 12:9), such would fit his evil goals to devour (1 Pet. 5:8).
Religious deception is a primary way the devil misleads religious people to eternal fire! He has many false teachers and false prophets to spread his poisonous doctrines, and according to 2 Cor. 11:14 sometimes he too will directly get involved in religious deception by coming as an angel of light! Christians must be on guard and stick to the Biblical message like glue or we’ll be jeopardizing our SOUL by our own negligence and ignorance!
Angel of Light at Fatima
At various times the devil came as an angel of light to deceive people through visions. The foremost example I know of is the Marian apparitions which occurred in the Catholic country of Portugal in the town of Fatima in 1917. In that Marian apparition (vision) the devil through the appearance of Mary, the mother of Jesus, stated that Mary is “the way” to God and our “refuge”! That is in direct and abhorrent violation to the message of Scripture which states Jesus is the way to God (Jn. 14:6) and God is our refuge (Psa. 46:1; etc.)! Some need to know that the devil is NOT in hell now. One day he will be in the lake of fire (Rev. 20:10), but now he is trying to religiously deceive with the intent to devour. Sometimes the evil one comes as an angel of light to do that!
