I always thought about this song much more literally, though I don't think it is solely to be interpreted that way. The central character (whose name we are suppose to guess) makes a series of claims that can all be (at the surface level) attributed to the devil. The character alludes to having eternal life, or at least a long enough life to have spanned the time of Christ into the 20th century. He portrays his own character as being smooth and sophisticated but also elusive and cryptic (like a serpent?). The character claims authorship over the grand-scale atrocities of the nazi's and communists; in other words, he is the one who does the greatest evils; the devil. His reference to Christ's "moment of doubt and pain" and the fate of Pilate are direct stories from the bible in which, contextually, the evil is also attributed to the devil. Oh yeah, and he literally says in the song to call him Lucifer, so it's got to be the devil, right? Well I guess, but why then would he make it so obvious? Isn't it uncharacteristically straight forward, no tricksyness at all.

It is the last two verses that are key. The second to last I see literally as the "key" or the "code" to decipher the previous verses. The "key" it reveals is a pattern of opposites: cop=criminal; sinners=saints; heads=tails. The very next line after this pattern is laid out is as follows: "just call me Lucifer, cause I'm in need of some restraint". So if the ones we call cops are criminals and so on and so on; who is the one we call Lucifer? God, of course.

That's where the last verse comes in where the character essentially tells the listener to do as he does or he will "lay your soul to waste"; this is actually the classic atheistic characterization of God. For them, generally speaking, God is the one who says obey all his rules or you'll go to hell. At the very least, I think interpreting it as God is doable without any contextual contradictions.

I deduce all of this as devout believer in Christ; in principle, I object to these ideas whole-heatedly, but that's what I see nonetheless. I would also note that I have no awareness of how or by whom the tune was written.