Introduction

SPIRITUAL COMBAT

FROM THE MOMENT OF BIRTH, every person, regardless of age or gender, regardless of status in life, is in the midst of the great war. A ceaseless war! No man knows exactly when it began, and no man can end it. The resolution will never be attained during human history. The antagonists are irreconcilable; the conflagration, inescapable.

    The angelic conflict is not a world war. This is a war beyond the world. Yet for all of its infinite size and scope, the key combatants are unseen, although very real. This horrendous fight pits Satan, as the god of this world, against the God of all creation. At the same time man has a part to play—a huge part. Even though on his own man cannot bring the war to an end, he was created to resolve the conflict. Yes! God created man to conclusively settle this massive spiritual conflict. More importantly, believers in the Lord Jesus Christ have an indispensable role as His soldiers. Throughout human history Satan and his angels will mightily struggle to achieve victory, but the outcome of their operations is not in the balance. Ultimately God will win, even though Satan will appear to have some success along the way.

    The titanic struggle began as a rebellion of angels in heaven, long before the genesis of Adam and Eve. Mankind entered the spiritual combat when Satan approached the woman in the Garden with the idea of being “like God” (Gen. 3:5). The first couple partook of the forbidden fruit and propelled their progeny into combat that will endure until Jesus Christ’s triumphant return.

    The war strategies of Satan and his angels are abundant and diverse. Until the birth of Christ, it was the overall intent of Satan to block the coming of the Messiah. That failed! While Christ was on Earth, Satan’s objective was to frustrate and arrest His salvation mission on the cross. That also failed! Jesus Christ accomplished what Satan feared most—strategic victory at the cross.

    The God-man Savior is now resurrected, ascended to heaven, and seated at the right hand of the Father, sealing the doom of Satan and his angels. Yet they will never quit and they will never surrender. Instead, the fallen legions and their commander have regrouped and plotted a new strategy for the current era of human history—the Church Age. Their battle for the hearts and minds of the human race has intensified, as these condemned beings come ever closer to the divine reckoning that is their end.

    Satan and his angels seek to discredit, distort, and eliminate the dissemination of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They advance false religions to obscure the message of grace. They counter all advance by Christians in the plan of God. All of the believer’s service for God is contested. Every believer in Jesus Christ is the object of God’s implacable antagonists.

    In light of Satan’s new, insidious agenda, it is imperative that as believers in Jesus Christ we understand the spiritual warfare that surrounds us—this ongoing battle between good and evil that defines our very existence. There can be no pacifism, no shirking of responsibility, no ‘draft dodging,’ or hiding from the onslaught. Satan will destroy and annihilate, if he can! And we are always his prime target.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. (Eph. 6:12)1

    To score tactical victories in our Lord’s inevitable march to triumph, we must understand the enemy and we must know how to fight and how to win. We are never left defenseless. The grace of God has provided an overwhelming advantage in the form of protective spiritual armor (Eph. 6:13-17). We have the power of God the Holy Spirit within us, the infallible Word of God as our weapon of choice, the Gospel to declare to a dying world, and a spiritual life pioneered by the Lord Jesus Christ. Using these resources, we have the extraordinary privilege of bringing tactical defeat to the treacherous and pernicious enemy of God. We can advance to spiritual maturity and become heroes in the invisible war. God is glorified as we lock shields and stand firm on His power and Word.

Chapter One:

THE ANGELIC REALM

DO ANGELS REALLY EXIST?

THE INTRIGUING POSSIBILITY THAT ALIENS EXIST in the stellar universe has excited the imagination of mankind. Fascination with reports of unidentified flying objects and tales of spaceship encounters have conjured visions of strange creatures from other planets. Countless movies have portrayed such events. People want to believe they are not alone in the universe.

    Debate has intensified over whether these alleged sightings are science fiction or actual fact. Is there indeed unseen life in outer space? The answer, perhaps surprisingly, is yes. Real extraterrestrial beings do exist, but they are not the exotic life forms so often depicted in the popular entertainment media. They are rational, supernatural creatures revealed throughout the Bible as angels (Ps. 91:11; 103:20; 148:2; 1 Cor. 4:9; 1 Tim. 3:16).

    An angel (ἄγγελος, angelos) is a messenger or communicator, an envoy, one who brings news. Angels are also described as “morning stars” (Job 38:7), “stars of God” (Isa. 14:13), “ministering spirits” (Heb. 1:14), “stars of heaven” (Rev. 12:4). The Bible describes their number as “myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands” (Rev. 5:11).

    In spite of biblical documentation of angelic existence, many Christian scholars, theologians, and even ministers feel uneasy and uncertain about angels. They do not like speaking of supernatural creatures that cannot be empirically verified, especially in these days of great technical, scientific advances. Even if the existence of angelic beings is not outright denied, it is ‘spiritualized’ or somehow diminished to make the Christian message more palatable to a skeptical world.

    Unfortunately, this confusion has penetrated the minds of those who view angels and spiritual warfare apart from the declarations of Scripture. While refusing biblical testimony, they have become enamored and entranced by the divergent and seductive views of Eastern religions, spiritism, humanistic psychology, and even agnosticism. Despite the misconceptions and perversions of the biblical doctrine of angelology, angelic creatures do exist and hold a unique place in the plan of God. To dismiss these supernatural beings as either myth or irrelevant is to ignore their integral relationship with creation, salvation, and the ongoing activities of mankind. This role is found in the assertion of the Word of God, which must not be denied by the believer in Jesus Christ.

THE ANGELIC CREATION

    Before time existed, there always was the eternal triune God.2 At some point before the universe existed, God chose to create a vast host of powerful, rational creatures who would reside with Him (Col. 1:16). In speaking to Job, the Lord confirmed that the angels preexisted creation. They were on hand to observe the work of God.

“Where were you [Job] when I [God] laid the foundation of the earth?

Tell Me, if you have understanding,

Who set its measurements, since you know?

Or who stretched the line on it?

On what were its bases sunk?

Or who laid its cornerstone,

When the morning stars [angels] sang together,

And all the sons of God [the entire angelic creation] shouted for joy?” (Job 38:4-7)

    “All of the sons of God shouted for joy” (italics added) when the universe, “the heavens and the earth” (Gen 1:1), was created as the domain of the angels. Here they would rule and perform whatever responsibilities and tasks God had for them. Why God created angels and a place for them we can only guess. He was not lonely or in need of companionship, but clearly their main purpose was to serve and praise God.

Bless the LORD, all you His hosts,

You who serve Him, doing His will. (Ps. 103:21)

Praise Him, all His angels;

Praise Him, all His hosts! (Ps. 148:2)

While all angels have phenomenal power with which to carry out this role, they are neither sovereign, omnipotent, omniscient, nor omnipresent. They are limited to what God commands or permits as His purpose requires.

    Descriptions of angels are quite varied. They are likened to stars, and their bodies are composed of a substance similar to light (Matt. 28:3).3 Whatever their makeup, the bodies of angels have the capacity to become visible or invisible and the ability to alter their appearance for the purpose of carrying out their roles. In previous dispensations,4 angels appeared to man in human form in order to act as guardians (Gen. 3:24), divine messengers (Gen. 19:1-15; Luke 1:11-20), and communicators of doctrine (Dan. 8:15-19; 9:22). Scripture reveals that angels will once again be visible on Earth in future dispensations (Rev. 12:7-9; 16:12; 19:17). However, the period of the Church Age, the dispensation in which we now live, is unique in that all activities of angels in the world are invisible. This is the age when all divine revelation comes directly from the Bible and when all angelic protection, including the “ministering spirits” assigned to every believer (Heb. 1:14), is strictly unseen.

    According to Psalm 8:5 in the King James Version, angels were created a higher species than mankind. Angels are superior to man in intellect (2 Sam. 14:20), physical strength (Ps. 103:20; Matt. 28:2; Rev. 7:1; 9:15), and beauty (Rev. 10:1). Unhindered by material barriers (Acts 12:6-7), angels possess greater mobility than mankind (Dan. 9:21) and they are not confined to habitation on Earth.

    While angels are physically superior to man as created (Heb. 2:7), believers in the Church Age have a higher position, or spiritual rank, than angels. In the future eternal state, through the possession of a resurrection body like that of the Lord Jesus Christ, all believers will hold both a spiritual and physical advantage over angels (Phil. 3:21; Heb. 1:4).

    For all their differences, men and angels have one vital attribute in common—self determination, or volition. In other words, both creatures are able to make free and independent decisions. Because volition is a necessary component of rational mentality, God gave His creatures free will so that they might choose for or against Him, for or against His plan (Col. 1:20). The question is this: How could angels who saw firsthand the power and glory of God reject Him? It seems unimaginable, but many angels did. The angelic conflict originated with their first act of negative volition, their first decision counter to the will of God.

Chapter Two:

THE OPENING OF THE CONFLICT

LUCIFER, THE ANGEL OF LIGHT

LUCIFER, EVENTUALLY KNOWN AS SATAN, was the most beautiful creature ever to come from the hand of God. He was the very embodiment of his name “star of the morning, son of the dawn” (Isa. 14:12). Ezekiel 28 establishes an analogy between the magnificence of Lucifer and the glamour of the King of Tyre:

“Son of man [Ezekiel], take up a lamentation [funeral dirge] over the king of Tyre [Lucifer], and say to him,

‘Thus says the Lord GOD,

“You had the seal of perfection,

Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.” ’ ” (Ezek. 28:12)

    This type of analogy is common in Hebrew writing; the same principle occurs in the Messianic Psalms (Ps. 16:10). While David makes statements concerning himself, these statements also apply prophetically to the Messiah. Similarly, while Ezekiel describes the qualities of the King of Tyre, his statement involves a person greater than the King of Tyre. About this person Ezekiel says, “You had the seal of perfection.” He characterizes Lucifer, who was created with a perfect balance of beauty and wisdom.

“You were in Eden, the garden of God;

Every precious stone was your covering:

The ruby, the topaz, and the diamond;

The beryl, the onyx, and the jasper;

The lapis lazuli, the turquoise, and the emerald;

And the gold, the workmanship of your settings and sockets,

Was in you.

On the day that you were created

They were prepared.” (Ezek. 28:13)

    Satan remains the most intelligent and spectacularly beautiful creature in the universe. The traditional portrayal of the devil with red skin, narrow evil eyes, and forked tail is pure fiction. Neither is Satan the sinister beast depicted in art and literature. Were he visible, men would undoubtedly be awed by his glamour, charmed by his brilliance, captivated by his personality. He remains the most impressive of all creatures. Nevertheless, he is absolute evil.

    “Eden” in Ezekiel 28:13 refers not to the earthly Garden of Eden of Genesis 2 and 3 but to heaven, where Lucifer originally resided. The gemstones adorning Lucifer indicate a significant endowment of beauty and favor from God. They are mentioned only three times in Scripture: in connection with the breastplate of the high priest of Israel (Ex. 28:17-20), in reference to the eternal New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:19-20), and here, describing Lucifer’s clothing prepared for him by God. Lucifer’s jewel-encrusted vestments, worn in the presence of God, signify the honor of his high rank as guardian of the throne room, where he reflected God’s glory. Even his voice was incomparable. “The workmanship of your settings and sockets” likens Lucifer’s voice to the sound of a pipe organ, resonant and melodious, an instrument of praise to God.

“You were the anointed [messianic] cherub who covers [the throne room],

And I placed you there.

You were on the holy mountain [throne] of God;

You walked in the midst of the stones of fire.” (Ezek. 28:14)

    Verse 14 reveals Lucifer’s original job title and the description of his commission by God. He was the “anointed cherub.” Contrary to many artistic representations, a cherub is not a fat, pink, naked infant with cropped wings. Cherubs are high-ranking, four-winged angels, beautiful and powerful creatures (Ezek. 1:4-12).5 As the messianic cherub, Lucifer was the personal honor guard of the second person of the Godhead, the Lord Jesus Christ. This was the highest position a creature could hold. However, for all his impressive qualities, he was still a creation of God and did not possess God’s essence.6

THE PREHISTORIC CONFLICT

    Despite his exalted position, Lucifer became dissatisfied and wanted even more. He led an attempted coup against God and introduced the concept of evil into prehistory. For this Lucifer was sentenced to eternal condemnation in the lake of fire. His fall launched the conflict of the ages—the conflict in which we are intimately and immediately involved.

Satan’s Prehistoric Fall

“You [Lucifer] were blameless in your ways

From the day you were created,

Until unrighteousness [the original sin] was found in you [his moral fall].” (Ezek. 28:15)

    Lucifer was created a sinless, perfect being, mightier than all the other angelic creatures. Secretly, he began to covet the sovereignty, power, and glory of God. Omniscient God “found” the “unrighteousness” in His prized angel. Lucifer had decided in his mind to rebel against God before he committed any overt act of sin. From this moment on, “Lucifer” became known as “Satan.”7 This one spark of arrogance initiated sin in the universe and caused his personal demise. Arrogance motivated Satan’s revolution in heaven and became the cornerstone of his cosmic system on planet Earth.8

Satan’s Attitude

“But you said in your heart,

‘I will ascend to heaven;

I will raise my throne above the stars of God [angels],

And I will sit on the mount of assembly [place of assembly for angels in heaven]

In the recesses of the north.

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds [angelic masses];

I will make myself like the Most High.’ ” (Isa. 14:13-14)

    These two verses describe mental attitude sins underlying the prehistoric fall of Satan. Instead of thinking about the high honor bestowed upon him, Satan justified his ruthless ambition and deceived himself regarding his own ability. The anointed cherub became absorbed in his own splendor and wisdom. He asserted his independence from God. Choosing his own will over God’s will was the quintessence of sin.

    Satan’s unchecked pride culminated in five abominable “I wills,” found in Isaiah 14:13-14. His five presumptuous boasts manifested his audacity and accompanying covetousness toward God. Clearly, the devil is the author of negative volition, as well as vainglory, sin, and evil.

The First “I Will”

    “I will ascend to heaven.” At this time, Satan still inhabited the abode of God, the third heaven.9 The first “I will” is a defiant expression exposing his burning desire to displace God as the ruler of the third heaven. Notice he did not say, “I will remove God,” a mission he knew was impossible. He wanted to replace God’s rule and almighty authority.

The Second “I Will”

    “I will raise my throne above the stars of God.” The metaphor “stars of God” refers to angels (Job 38:7; Rev. 12:4). This second “I will” reveals Satan’s ambition to seize greater power and his impatience to usurp the throne of God as the ruler of angels. As the supercreature, he wanted to be worshiped alongside God by the angelic creation. This was the arrogance of his thinking: “Why should God not provide authority and autonomy to me? Am I not beautiful and brilliant above all others? Did He not create me to rule?” This power lust would disrupt not only the angelic creation but later the human race as well.

The Third “I Will”

    “And I will sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north.” This phrase reveals Satan’s desire to rule on the heavenly throne before all the assembled angels. He wanted to reside in the very seat of power and authority occupied by God the Father, the One who would condemn him.

The Fourth “I Will”

    “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.” Many figurative uses of clouds in the Bible refer to God’s presence (Ex. 33:9; Isa. 19:1; Matt. 17:5), illustrating His unparalleled glory (Ex. 16:10; 40:34; 1 Kings 8:10-11) and sovereign power (Ps. 135:6-7). Even though Satan had been bestowed with tremendous honor and glory over other angelic creatures, he grew increasingly dissatisfied with the position God had assigned him. He craved to possess the very power and glory of God, to usurp the throne for himself, to overthrow divine authority. Ever more ambitious, the fourth “I will” reflects his obsession with supplanting God as the ruler of the physical universe. Satan wanted all the glory, yet he had neither the character, the ability, nor the means for it.

The Fifth “I Will”

    “I will make myself like the Most High.” This boast conveys the escalation of Satan’s insatiable power lust: “I will be like God!” The mighty angel was impressed with God’s omnipotence and sovereignty, not with His grace or justice, righteousness or love. Notice his claim to be like the Most High. Satan knew he could never be equal to God, but that did not curb his rabid hunger to rule his own kingdom. He would endeavor to seize and hold the authority of God, a futile ambition indeed.

The Angelic Revolt

    Conversion of Satan’s arrogant power lust into active treason disrupted the harmony existing in the universe. He wanted the absolute authority wielded by God. He became narcissistic and rebelled against divine authority. The insurrection had repercussions throughout heaven among all of angelic creation. Using his considerable powers of persuasion, Satan rallied other angels to his side and perpetrated the division of angels for all time.

    The test of angelic volition continued in heaven until all angels had made a decision for Satan or for God. Scripture’s division of angels into the categories of elect and fallen, or holy angels and demons (Mark 8:38b; 1 Cor. 10:20-21), confirms that some angels accepted and others rejected God. Though the majority of angels remained true to their Creator, certain members of angelic creation yielded to the super-angel.

And his tail [Satan’s power] swept away [revolution in heaven] a third of the stars of heaven [angelic creatures who followed Satan at his first fall], and threw them to the earth. (Rev. 12:4a)

    One-third of the angels were lured from God by the charismatic Satan. They fell into the same destructive trap of arrogance and joined him in his fall. As the architect and instigator of this celestial anarchy, Satan became the leader of these angels who chose against God.

    Unbridled arrogance breeds inordinate ambition, and Satan certainly surpassed all other creatures in his egocentric desires. In God’s realm, only genuine humility pleases God. Humility recognizes and submits to divine authority. Satan lacked all humility and became the prototype for anti-authority. This attitude was his demise.

THE TRIAL OF SATAN

    Unable to ignore this angelic mutiny, God convened a trial of the offenders.10 Satan and those angels who followed him were found guilty and judged. This trial was fair in every respect, consistent with God’s essence. God is just—He is absolutely fair. God is omniscient—He knows all the facts. He is omnipresent—He is a complete and astute observer. He is omnipotent—He has the absolute power to execute justice. God is immutable—He is incorruptible as a judge. He is veracity, or truth, and cannot countenance any lie. God is sovereign—He is the supreme ruler of the universe. He cannot share that status with His creatures. His perfect integrity, made up of His righteousness and justice, cannot be compromised for sinful creatures. Consequently, God had to reject any attempt by Satan to supplant Himself.

    At the conclusion of the trial, God pronounced a penalty on those guilty of revolution, those who chose against Him in favor of an imperfect, aspiring, evil substitute. Their sentence is recorded in Scripture:

“Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.’ ” (Matt. 25:41, italics added)

This conclusively determined the eternal destiny of the fallen angels. Once the judgment was pronounced, immutable God could not reverse His decision. They were convicted and doomed. From then on, Satan and his fallen angels were permanently aligned against God and the elect angels.

Chapter Three:

THE EXTENSION OF THE CONFLICT

SATAN APPEALS HIS SENTENCE

CLEARLY, EXECUTION OF THE JUDGMENT of Matthew 25:41 has been delayed. Satan and his angels still wander the earth and will continue to be a force in the universe until the end of human history. Only then will their sentence be executed (Rev. 20:10). What could have postponed their punishment? No doubt faced with the horror of his doom, Satan vigorously objected to the verdict and filed an appeal with God. The lapse of time between the sentence of fallen angels in eternity past and execution of that sentence at the termination of human history leads to this conclusion. Satan’s appeal is played out in human history. In fact, human history is the actual demonstration of that appeal.

    Titles ascribed to the super-angel after his fall, “Satan” (σατάν, satan) and “the devil” (διάβολος, diabolos), mean “adversary, accuser, attorney.” The legal connotation of these designations further implies Satan’s course of action. He assumed the role of defense attorney to appeal what he considered an unjust ruling.

    A judicial appeal is always grounded upon some alleged miscarriage of justice. What exactly was Satan’s allegation? What argument could he have possibly concocted to refute the verdict of perfect, omniscient, and just God? While the blasphemous accusation of Satan is unknown to us, it can be reconstructed on the basis of an objection voiced consistently in devil’s world—“It is not fair!”

    Here is the most important point. Satan’s appeal was grounded on the claim that God’s just decision to cast His own creatures into the lake of fire was incompatible with His divine love: “How can a loving God pronounce such a horrific sentence on His own creatures? How can a loving God cast His angels into an eternal lake of fire? What kind of love is that?”11

    Satan’s polemic was brilliant but blasphemous. He contended that God cannot be loving and just at the same time. He impugned the essence of God by seeking to elevate divine love above divine justice and righteousness. The great perpetrator of arrogance completely rejected the fact that the solidarity of God’s attributes is behind everything He thinks and does. The perfect, eternal character of God cannot be unfair or prejudiced and cannot pass a false sentence. God can never compromise His righteousness and justice in order to deal with His imperfect creatures strictly out of love.

    Embedded in the accuser’s challenge are two egotistical assumptions: (1) the creature is perfectly capable of succeeding independently of the Creator, and (2) the creature should not be held responsible for his wicked decisions. Satan contended that the love of God should allow for disobedience and that autonomy and independence from God are valid principles for successful living. Satan set God’s love against His justice and righteousness. In doing so, Satan established an argument often used today against punishment, both human and divine. Satan is formidable in his subterfuge.

    When Satan hurled his malicious slur, God would have been perfectly justified to immediately banish these offending angels to their fiery doom. Instead, He graciously chose to grant Satan’s appeal. In this momentous action, God would demonstrate His perfect character while allowing Satan every opportunity to prove his own flawed case. Exactly why He did this is unknown, as Scripture does not reveal His reasons. He did, however, grant the appeal, for Satan is still at large and is still demonstrating the evil that marks his every action.

    Of course, God never loses control of any situation. God set the terms of the appeal. God set the stage for the appeal. God put the appeal in motion. He countered Satan’s argument by initiating to the angels a grand demonstration of the perfect harmony of His justice, love, and righteousness. This would be a test case to prove that arrogance always leads to destruction and that creation can never achieve independence from the Creator. As evidence, God brought another creature into the mix—mankind.

THE ROLE OF HUMANITY IN SATAN’S APPEAL

    With the creation of man, God inaugurated human history as the environment for demonstrating that His decision to condemn the angels was indeed righteous, just, and compatible with His love. The stage was set with planet Earth as the battleground. The prehistoric angelic conflict was extended into and reflected in the human realm.

    Man was created a lower creature than the angels, limited in strength, intelligence, and mobility. His very existence, however, would provide evidence, arguments, and precedents for the rejection of Satan’s appeal. Man was God’s answer to Satan.

    The appeal of Satan runs coterminously with human history. Between the passing of sentence in eternity past and execution of sentence at the end of the Millennium, the entire panorama of the human-angelic drama unfolds. Everything in Scripture regarding the history of mankind is either directly or indirectly related to the ancient warfare among the angels. God is duplicating every situation that Satan used as a basis for his arguments and objections during both the prehistoric trial and appeal. Earth is now the courtroom and stadium for the angels to witness Satan’s culpability and proof after proof of God’s perfect love and fairness (Job 1:6; 1 Tim. 5:21; 1 Pet. 1:12).

Human Volition Is the Issue

    Like angels, man is rational and possesses free will. The exercise of human volition for or against the plan of God, for or against Jesus Christ, will resolve Satan’s appeal and the overall conflict. God’s purpose, then, was to test human volition by replicating the decision faced by the angelic creation in prehistory. This test would begin with the first man and woman in the perfect environment of the Garden of Eden. In the heavenly “garden of God” (Ezek. 28:13), Satan opted for arrogance and negative volition over grace. In the Garden of Eden, mankind would face the same option. Thus Adam and the woman were introduced to a tree in a watershed choice for free will.

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat [a test of volition, a choice for or against God], for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die [the fall of man that would parallel Satan’s fall].” (Gen. 2:16-17)

    Although sin and evil had already entered the universe through the fallen angelic hosts, Adam and the woman were not yet tainted by the stain of that sin and rebellion.12 In their state of sinlessness, it was unnecessary for God to place conscience, the knowledge of good and evil, in their souls.13 What they did possess was mentality and volition—the ability to decide for or against the plan of God. Adam and the woman had the complete freedom to either comply with or disobey God’s one mandate concerning the tree. Upon the outcome of that decision hung the future of all mankind. Sadly, the arrogance and negative volition of Adam and the woman in the Garden of Eden propelled the human race into a fall parallel to Satan’s, with equally disastrous consequences: condemnation from the justice of God! But God did not leave man in a hopeless condition.

    The love of God was clearly demonstrated even in the midst of divine judgment. God’s love interceded for the man and woman with a way to redress condemnation. He provided for them, and subsequently the human race, a Savior and salvation by grace through faith contingent on nonmeritorious positive volition.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten [uniquely born] Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)

    The moment of Adam’s fall and judgment was a moment of truth for the angels. Once again they saw the justice of God at work. Just like Satan and his angels, man was condemned for choosing against God. Divine justice had sentenced Satan to spend eternity in the lake of fire. Man deserved the same. Yet would man have to join Satan? Definitely not! He could accept the solution offered by the love of God. He could believe in the promise of a Savior, Jesus Christ, who would pay the penalty for all human sin at the cross, opening the door of salvation to all mankind. As the conflict plays out against the backdrop of human history, the issue is human volition! Man, inferior to angels but possessing identical free will, can choose either God’s grace plan of salvation or Satan’s path of condemnation.

    The truth is, if only one person in human history believes in Jesus Christ, the character of God and His judgment of Satan are vindicated and Satan loses his appeal. Why? Because the passage of human history demonstrates that no person—or angel—goes to the lake of fire except by his own negative volition (John 3:18, 36). This salvation, in fact, has been appropriated not only by one person but by untold numbers of people throughout the ages. Thus God reveals His perfection, fairness, love, and grace toward all creatures (Ps. 145:21; Rom. 9:23; 11:25-36).

    What, then, is the major issue in resolving the appeal of Satan and all fallen angels? In a word, Christ! “For as in Adam all die [spiritually], so also in Christ all shall be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22). Man’s decision to remain in Adam, under condemnation, or to accept God’s provision for redemption and reconciliation is the resolution.

    No longer under condemnation, the believer in Christ now has another option: whether or not to advance toward spiritual maturity and execute the spiritual life. Choosing the plan of God sets him apart for the highest honor that can be bestowed upon a believer—to be entered as evidence against Satan. Such a believer is a witness for the Prosecution. As the believer advances toward spiritual maturity, he gains credibility as a witness for the divine Prosecutor. His maturity glorifies God and provides conclusive evidence to God’s love, grace, and justice. This believer testifies to the efficacy of divine assets against all obstacles in Satan’s world. When the believer in humility implements the plan of God, relying upon divine grace and power, the appeal of Satan is shown to be invalid.

    During his appeal Satan and his angels watch every believer. They see the grace, mercy, and love of God by observing the volition, positive or negative, of mankind. They can understand why they are condemned as they behold human beings placing their trust in Jesus Christ, thereby demonstrating that the free will of man does not necessarily choose against God, as the fallen angels did in eternity past. It is significant, then, that while alive on this earth, every believer represents Christ as an ambassador (Acts 1:8; 2 Cor. 5:20) to both man and observing angels.

For, I think, God has exhibited us apostles [as witnesses for the Prosecution in the angelic conflict] last of all, as men condemned to death; because we have become a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men. (1 Cor. 4:9)

    Elect and fallen angels sit in the stands of the stadium called planet Earth. Elect angels observe and rejoice over the conversion of just one person to Christ (Luke 15:7-10). They “long to look” at the Gospel being spread by ambassadors for Christ (1 Pet. 1:12). Fallen angels watch and tremble when one person expresses positive volition to the Gospel, is regenerated, and then advances to spiritual maturity.14 This is the testimony that destroys Satan’s appeal and demonstrates God’s love and justice working in tandem. This is why fallen angels are organized to resist and oppose the ambassadorship of the believer.

    The possession of volition makes every man a free agent in the devil’s world. There are two decisions that impact the angelic conflict. First, man has the option either to believe in Jesus Christ and inherit eternal life or to reject this salvation and reap eternal condemnation. Second, having trusted Christ as Savior, man can continually choose to execute the plan of God or reject His plan and follow Satan’s malevolent agenda. Each person chooses to be either a witness for the divine Prosecutor or a witness on behalf of Satan’s defense. Which choice do you make? Best to be a witness for the Prosecution, glorifying God while countering Satan’s plan.

Human Volition Is Tested

    God’s response to Satan’s appeal began with the creation of Adam. God created Adam innocent, in an untested state of sinlessness. Adam was created trichotomous: body, soul, and spirit. He had a perfect body from the perfect hand of God. Made in the image of God, he had a soul, which gave him rational, moral, and relational capacities. He also had a human spirit necessary to understand spiritual phenomena, divine truth. Adam was spiritually alive and had a personal relationship with God.

    Adam was placed in the pristine environment of the Garden of Eden. In love, God abundantly provided for all of Adam’s needs, just as God had provided for the angels in heaven. So that Adam would not remain alone, God created for him a suitable companion. God’s order evidenced distinct roles in a well-defined system.

The Divine Design: Roles Of The Man And The Woman

    In His design of man and woman, God originated the most exceptional of all human relationships. God created Adam first, forming him from the “dust of the ground” (Gen. 2:7). Adam was capable of total obedience in carrying out his position as ruler over all God’s creation. Yet even in the perfect environment of the Garden, where he was surrounded by “all the cattle, . . . the birds of the sky, and . . . every beast of the field,” Adam was not a reclusive creature; he was lonely and incomplete (Gen. 2:20). By himself, Adam could not be fulfilled. In God’s infinite wisdom and love, He furnished exactly the right solution.

Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man [אָדָם, adam] to be alone; I will make him a helper [עֵזֶר, ezer] suitable for him.” (Gen. 2:18)

And the LORD God fashioned [בָּנָה, banah] into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. And the man said,

“This is now bone of my bones,

And flesh of my flesh;

She shall be called Woman [אִשָּׁה, ishah],

Because she was taken out of Man [אִישׁ, ish].”

    (Gen. 2:22-23)

    The woman was created from the source of Adam, his rib, and presented to him. Adam bestowed upon his gift the name “Woman,” ishah, identifying the qualities of womanhood and commemorating her origin, “out of Man,” from a missing part of man (ish). In taking Adam’s rib, God had left a gap filled only by that which was “fashioned” from the rib.

    God pronounced them husband and wife. They would “become one flesh” in a union that would be sealed by physical intimacy and transcend all other human relationships (Gen. 2:24). God’s marital design included an ideal order, one that confirmed equally important yet distinct roles: the man would lead and the woman would respond to his leadership. Adam’s authority would be over the woman. The order of their creation established this priority:

For man does not originate from woman, but woman from man [Adam]; for indeed man was not created for the woman’s sake, but woman for the man’s sake. (1 Cor. 11:8-9)

    To fulfill his God-granted obligation, Adam would have to initiate love toward his wife and assume the responsibility to guard and maintain her freedom. As the designated leader and protector, he would have to love her with an intensive love, exhibiting enduring devotion, loyalty, and dedication. He would have to assume the necessary responsibilities of everyday life and consider his wife’s opinions whenever facing a decision. In other words, he would have to demonstrate leadership.

    We can draw upon a military analogy to help explain the concept of Adam’s authority as the husband, the initiator-leader. An infantry company is ordered to defend a hill. The company commander, the leader and authority in that organization, is responsible for the tactical deployment of his company and the welfare of his men. Once the commander gives the order to execute, he then directs his subordinate platoon leaders to disseminate his plan. They respond to his authority and set up the defense. They are not inferior to him; they just have less authority. As the initiator-leader, the one in authority bears the responsibility for the end results, either failure or success.

    With God’s delegation of fundamental authority to the man, the woman’s divinely appointed purpose was that of a “helper” (ezer) who would respond to Adam’s authority with virtue, deference, and honor (Gen. 2:18). As his perfectly suited counterpart, she would complete him physically, relationally, intellectually, in every way that husband and wife unite. Her love would ultimately be expressed through her respect for her husband and his God-ordained role. She would exemplify God’s design and remain at her feminine best by responding to her husband’s love, not by opposing him in reaction.

    This divine design of marriage, with its perfectly ordered system of leadership and response, would ensure the volitional freedom of both Adam and the woman while guarding them from disobedience toward God. If Adam and his wife maintained the proper balance between authority and freedom, initiation and response, they would remain obedient, be acceptable to His righteousness, and avoid His justice. They could resolve once and for all the ancient conflict between God and Satan. Basking in God’s love, they would enjoy an eternity of perfect environment and demolish Satan’s appeal.

    Satan, who had rejected rather than responded to God’s love, was already tried and judged. Now it was man’s turn either to revolt and be condemned or to respond and revel in His love. The extension of the angelic conflict into human history began with the first couple.

Focus On The Tree

    God accompanied His provision for man’s enduring, undefiled existence in Garden of Eden with one definitive prohibition:

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it, [dying] you shall surely die [מוּת, mut].” (Gen. 2:16-17)

Notice that God’s command concerning the prohibition of this particular tree was given directly to the man. Why? Because the man was the designated authority. God utilized the chain of command He had established. It was Adam’s responsibility to communicate God’s mandate to the woman and ensure its implementation by both of them.

    For the first couple, the other trees in the Garden were to provide physical nourishment, aesthetic pleasure, and spiritual blessing (Gen. 2:9). But the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” served an entirely different purpose. The tree represented the coexistence of God’s absolute authority with the free will of man. This tree would be the test of their volition. God’s definitive mandate provided man with a clear-cut choice. To eat from the tree would be disobedience—negative volition; to refrain from eating would be obedience—positive volition. Would Adam and the woman abuse their freedom and elect to defy God’s sovereign authority as had Satan? Would man obey or disobey God, respect or abuse the authority delegated to him, use his freedom to succeed or to fail?

    As long as man complied with the divine prohibition, he would enjoy the benefits and blessings of perfect environment in the Garden and love would remain his point of contact with God. Righteous God can only personally love what His righteousness approves. As long as man obeyed, he would maintain a harmonious relationship with God. On the other hand, if Adam partook of the forbidden fruit in rebellious independence of God, he would become the object of divine judgment. Divine justice would have to replace divine love as the point of contact with the human race.15

    God carefully instructed Adam regarding the test and warned him of the consequences of disobedience (Gen. 2:17). The verb mut, “to die,” actually occurs twice in the Hebrew and is literally translated “dying you shall surely die.” The grammatical structure of this phrase emphasizes the intensity of the death that God declared.16 God specifically warned man that eating this fruit would have extreme consequences.

    The first use of mut, “dying,” however, did not refer to physical death. When Adam bit into the fruit, he did not suddenly keel over and die. In fact, Adam lived for 930 years after his original sin (Gen. 5:3-5). God’s warning of Genesis 2:17 referred to a penalty more immediate and severe: spiritual death—total separation from God, total inability to have a personal relationship with Him. The wages of sin is not physical death; “the wages of sin is [spiritual] death” (Rom. 6:23). When Adam and the woman ate of the forbidden fruit, this is what occurred; they died spiritually (Rom. 3:23; 5:12). Physical death would eventually follow spiritual death. Just as God proclaimed, “dying [spiritually] you shall surely die [physically].”

    Satan and his angels listened very carefully when God instructed Adam concerning the tree. The man was the divinely appointed ruler “over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen. 1:28b). Satan craved that position as a springboard to greater power and authority over God’s creatures. Should Adam fail the test, Satan would become the ruler of the world (John 12:31) and gain the opportunity to win his appeal. With this in mind, Satan took action and interjected himself into the affairs of mankind for the very first time. The devil plotted a coup d’etat to usurp Adam’s rulership and subvert God’s new creation. He craftily implemented a covert strategy of divide and conquer. He first attacked the woman, and then the man through her.

The Attack On The Woman

    Satan chose to indwell the serpent as his instrument to attack the woman. His decision to confront the woman first was deliberate. God had ordained the man as the authority in marriage. Satan knew that the woman, whose natural role was to respond, was more susceptible to following him. So Satan chose to attack the woman away from her husband. Satan would tempt the woman through deceit and flattery. He would home in on any uncertainties in her soul while simultaneously offering her a prime opportunity for disobedience. His primary weapon would not be fear, intimidation, force, or power, but conversation—especially provocative, crafty conversation—designed to exploit her vulnerability. Satan would employ intentional distortions, subtle but effective insinuations, in order to further his own agenda.

    As long as Adam afforded care and leadership to his wife from the doctrine and love in his soul, the woman would remain under his protective authority and would not be tempted by the “knowledge of good and evil.” Yet sometime between her creation and her fall, Adam apparently relinquished his leadership responsibilities. In that case, the woman’s respect for him weakened. Instead of responding to Adam, she began to drift away from his authority and question God’s design for the man’s leadership role. She should have recognized the serpent’s cynical innuendoes as contrary to the divine mandate and conferred with Adam. But the woman did not. Beguiled by the serpent, she bypassed her husband.

    Keep in mind, Adam was not the only authority over her. The other authority designed to protect her was the Lord Jesus Christ and the divine viewpoint that He communicated “in the cool of the day” (Gen. 3:8b). Even though she had been attending ‘Bible class’ every evening, she probably had stopped paying attention. She apparently became distracted from the Lord’s authority, especially His prohibition of the tree.

    Dismissing these two means of protection, the woman allowed herself to be deceived. She started talking and responding to a serpent. By engaging in this dialogue and listening to an authority other than God and her husband, she became enthralled and began to entertain Satan’s distortions of truth. Her temptation was not sinful. There was only one sin possible in the Garden—disobeying the divine prohibition. This overt act of disobedience would inevitably follow the denial of her divinely appointed role as a woman.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God [Yahweh Elohim] had made. (Gen. 3:1a)

    Satan, in the guise of a serpent, spoke intimately with the woman. The serpent is often considered among the lowest of created beings—slimy, dirty, sneaky, poisonous. The original serpent, however, apparently possessed an illumination or rare beauty that set it apart from the other animals in the Garden. This serpent also exhibited a familiarity with the woman; perhaps it was even her pet, her companion, as a dog or cat might be today. The woman must have been delighted when the serpent, indwelt by Satan, actually spoke to her.

And he [the serpent] said to the woman, “Indeed, has God [Elohim] said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” (Gen. 3:1b)

    Satan realized that the words he used would affect the woman’s thinking. Satan fired his opening volley in such a way as to introduce doubt into her unsuspecting mind, literally saying, “Is it really true that God has said . . . ?” The sly devil pretended to be shocked at the idea that God would make such a prohibition. He sought to influence the woman’s thinking by suggesting that God was lying about the danger of the forbidden fruit.

    Notice also how Satan referred to God only as Elohim, instead of the Yahweh Elohim of Genesis 3:1a. There is a difference between the two titles. Yahweh Elohim in the Old Testament is “Lord God,” the name of God in relationship to man. Elohim, the plural word for “God,” refers to divine essence in general, as opposed to one person of the Trinity. The woman had a relationship with Jesus Christ as Yahweh Elohim, not as the more distant Elohim. By using Elohim only, a tactic he would weave throughout this entire dialogue, Satan intentionally sought to divert the woman’s attention away from her personal relationship with God. God entered the conversation only as an impersonal being of unapproachable status. Satan was implying that God lacked personal love and concern for the woman—an implication upon which he would quickly expand.

    Satan pressed on with his line of questioning, “Has God really forbidden one tree in the Garden of Eden?” Satan was implying that God was unfair, keeping something from her that was valuable and desirable. The tempter’s first stratagem slandered the character and grace of God.

    One of the devil’s primary objectives has always been to deny that God is in any way connected to or concerned with man, to deny that a distant, righteous God does love. Satan’s suggestion that God is unjust, unfair, and uncaring implies that for God to condemn anyone to the lake of fire is incompatible with His love and shows a lack of concern for the welfare of man. Of course, Satan is the “father of lies” (John 8:44). God is very interested in man! The prohibition of one tree was a bona fide test of free will and was in no way an unkindness or indifference to man. God’s love was not suspended at the tree. God loves man, and He would ultimately demonstrate that love at the cross.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died [as a substitute] for us. (Rom. 5:8)

    Adam and the woman had everything they needed in the Garden. Satan’s insinuation of unfairness exploited the woman’s weakness, which eventually led to overt sin. The woman fell into his trap. She began to entertain thoughts of self-indulgence and rejection of divine authority—the same thought pattern that had caused Satan’s fall. Once appreciative of God’s perfect provision, now she was becoming dissatisfied with God’s one prohibition. Instead of conferring with either Adam or God regarding the choice she now faced, she carried on with her ‘harmless’ little conversation.

The Woman’s Response

    Aside from slandering God’s character, Satan had baited the woman with an opportunity to explain God’s prohibition. Satan was hoping she would in turn distort the prohibition. This is exactly what she did.

And the woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said [her interpretation], ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, lest you die.’ ” (Gen. 3:2-3), italics added)

    In her answer to the tempter’s question, it is clear she had paid little attention to God’s instruction and cared even less for the details of His Word. The Lord had taught her “you shall not eat” from the tree, but she foolishly added her own false interpretation when she said “or touch it.” The woman misstated God’s Word. She put her own ‘spin’ on the truth, indicating a dissatisfaction with the divine prohibition. Had her soul been saturated with doctrine, she would have accurately echoed God’s one mandate. The woman would have understood the import of the one prohibition He had given to her, but such was not the case. She was deceived by Satan’s flattery. She had made herself vulnerable to Satan’s deception by ignoring every authority designed to protect her and by distorting God’s Word.

    The woman assumed that death was in the property of the tree, so that either to taste it or to touch it would cause physical death. She was wrong on two counts! Death did not lie in the property of the tree but in disobedience to the authority of God. God had warned of spiritual death in relation to eating the fruit, but she failed to understand that eating meant severing all relationship with God.

    Genesis 3:2-3 reveals how fully the woman allowed the serpent to determine the agenda. Ignorance of doctrine prepares fertile soil for the germination of self-centeredness. Having gained a foothold, Satan pressed his attack:

And the serpent said to the woman, “You surely shall not die!” (Gen. 3:4)

    As sarcastic ridicule of God’s warning in Genesis 2:17, the serpent exclaimed, “Now look here, you are not really going to die; that is absurd!” He was denying the reality of disobedience to God and disconnecting sin from its consequences of death. Denying death, Satan disregarded God’s just condemnation of sin by disconnecting love from justice. In doing so, Satan highlighted his own case. Yet to sever the connection between sin and punishment is impossible. God would be unrighteous and unjust if He did not pronounce a penalty upon sin and hold the creature responsible for his decisions. Satan’s entire mission, then and now, is to deny this truth.

    With each successive stage of seducing the woman, the serpent grew more bold in his attack upon God.

“For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Gen. 3:5)

As revealed in verse 5, Satan impugned God’s motives. He portrayed God as selfishly withholding a greater wisdom and status from Adam and the woman. In effect Satan said, “If God really loved you, He would not deny you the knowledge of good and evil.” Now the woman was paying close attention to every word.

    Satan then made his first appeal to human arrogance and ego: “You will be like God.” Satan himself had arrogantly succumbed to the desire to be like God, and now he promoted the same thought in the woman. His assertion decorated the lie with enough truth to gain credibility. He disguised the fact that “the wages of sin is death.” If she ate of that tree, her eyes would indeed be opened—not to be like God but to discover what Satan and sin were truly like! The woman would see that disobedience to God was inevitably self-destructive. Spiritual death—separation from God—would be the horrendous result.

The Fall of Man

    In the wake of Satan’s temptation of the woman would occur an event with repercussions for the remainder of human history. Adam would commit the first act of willful, cognitive disobedience toward God. Adam’s original sin would result in the total depravity of his progeny—the fall of mankind (Rom. 5:12-14).

The Sin Of The Woman

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate. (Gen. 3:6a)

    Following her discussion of the tree with Satan, the woman began to rationalize disobedience. She had swallowed Satan’s lie instead of metabolizing God’s truth. She persuaded herself that she needed what she thought that fruit could provide—wisdom. She looked longingly at the fruit, the object of the test. God’s mandate was blotted out of her thinking. Her vulnerability to the temptation made her ripe for overt disobedience, even before she plucked and tasted the fruit.

    Man has perpetuated this mentality throughout history. People who have been provided everything by God’s immeasurable grace continually desire more. And who prods us in this quest? Satan!

    The more the woman stared at the tree in the middle of the Garden, the more the fruit “was a delight to the eyes.” Aspirations of being like God lingered in her mind. To her, the tree was desirable to make her as wise as God—the final rationalization. Being tempted was not wrong, but succumbing to temptation was her downfall. At this point the first overt sin in the human race occurred—she ate the forbidden fruit. The penalty for her disobedience was immediately imposed. She died spiritually and lost her relationship with God.

    Satan in his genius had plotted to separate the woman from the authority umbrella of the Lord and her husband. Satan deceived the woman and exploited her role as responder. In turn, she reversed her role toward Adam and became the initiator. She enticed her husband to ignore God’s Word, just as she had done.

The Sin Of The Man

    Adam was faced with a dilemma: either maintain his obedience to God or follow the lead of his now spiritually dead wife. He could choose fellowship with God in the Garden or fellowship with the woman outside the Garden. He chose the woman, the same choice many men would make today.

And she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. (Gen. 3:6b)

    Adam, the ruler of the earth and head of the first household, abdicated his authority. He responded to his wife’s overture, even though he knew better. He had no illusions concerning the meaning of God’s prohibition, which he now flagrantly disregarded. The woman, in reaction to Adam’s authority, had responded to the deceit of Satan. Adam knowingly abandoned his authority, misused his freedom, and decided to follow the woman. He, too, became subservient to Satan and rejected the divine mandate. Adam knowingly disobeyed God, “and he ate.” Satan’s ploy had worked.

    Now in spiritual death, Adam and the woman were separated and estranged from God. They were condemned! Without hope, without everlasting life! The same arrogance and negative volition found in Satan propelled the first humans into a parallel fall with equally disastrous consequences for the entire human race. Adam fell under the condemnation of sin and, like Satan, became an outcast. Because Adam was condemned, the entire human race was also condemned (1 Cor. 15:22a). Satan’s contention that a loving God cannot sentence His creatures who have chosen against Him to eternal condemnation was proven wrong in the Garden.

Operation Fig Leaves

    Adam and his wife had been created without the knowledge of sin. Before the Fall they were ignorant of evil. Each possessed a human spirit for fellowship with God, and neither had a sin nature.17 As long as they remained obedient to God’s one mandate, they enjoyed the blessings God poured forth. However, the instant they partook of the forbidden fruit, they suffered spiritual death. They were stripped of their relationship with God. They lost their human spirit, acquired a sin nature, and became aware of the existence of another plan—satanic good and evil.

Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. (Gen. 3:7)

    Until that moment they had never noticed their naked state in the pristine Garden. Now “the eyes of both of them were opened” to their nakedness. They saw themselves and were suddenly conscious of sin. Discovering their condition signified they had acquired a conscience. They could distinguish between good and evil, and their conscience was a witness to them that they were in a fallen state.

    Looking at each other, Adam and the woman were ashamed. Satan wasted no time in drawing their attention away from their fallen condition and onto their vulnerable nakedness. The new ruler of the world naturally insinuated that clothing was necessary for Adam and the woman to make themselves right with God.

    Adam and the woman got busy making “loin coverings.” They attempted to solve the problem of sin and the sin nature with a superficial covering of fig leaves. In their estimation, this eye-opening situation of good and evil called for a relational adjustment. Adam and the woman covered themselves in an attempt to adapt to each other and to make a human adjustment to the justice of God.18 Behind these self-righteous efforts to make themselves acceptable to God was the thinking of evil. Fig leaves were their attempt to cover their sin. “If we are right with each other,” they reasoned, “we must be right with God. If we put on some clothes and adjust to one another’s shame and sin, we will be adjusted to God’s justice.” Thus began Operation Fig Leaves, the first act of human good—man’s attempt to regain the favor of God through his own works.

    Human good is any benevolent production or deed that seeks to meet the standards of God apart from the filling of the Holy Spirit. A function of the sin nature, human good at its best produces relative, temporary fixes to mankind’s problems, as opposed to the absolute, permanent solutions of God. No matter how admirable the accomplishments, no matter how sincere the intentions, human good has no spiritual or eternal value and is not rewardable in heaven. It obscures the grace of God and the reality of man’s depraved condition. It always falls short of the standard of divine righteousness and, for this reason, falls right in line with Satan’s agenda.

    Human good is part of Satan’s policy of evil—Satan’s thinking—and reflects the subtlety of his genius. Theologian Lewis Sperry Chafer points out that the system which Satan initiated in his fall, cosmos diabolicus, “includes all the good which he can incorporate into it and be consistent in the thing he aims to accomplish.”19 There is, then, a conflict of ‘good’ versus good, that is, satanic good versus divine good.20 Satan seeks to replace divine good in this world by sponsoring the counterfeit righteousness of human good, like Operation Fig Leaves.

    Here is a fundamental flaw in Satan’s cosmos: Human beings seek to adjust to each other instead of adjusting to the truth of God’s person and will. They seek human solutions rather than divine solutions. Such anthropocentric philosophy thrives today. Many people assume they will go to heaven because they do not harm anyone, or because they pay their debts, or because they get along well with people, or because they are respected by their peers. In other words, because they are ‘good people.’ These beliefs exemplify the myth of salvation by works—striving to please God through human efforts. Relative human righteousness is a vain effort that cannot meet the standard of God’s perfect righteousness and justice. No matter how good man may be, he cannot on his own solve the problem of spiritual death—condemnation and separation from God.

    Man makes a permanent adjustment to the justice of God through faith alone in Christ alone,21 and then he makes continual adjustments throughout his life as he grows spiritually by learning and metabolizing Bible doctrine.22 Adapting to other members of the human race, though important for human relationships, does not impress God. Living a good life cannot placate God.

    Not surprisingly, after the first man and woman succumbed to Satan’s temptations, the deceptions of human good instantly controlled their lives. Adopting the devil’s policy, they completely violated the justice and righteousness of God and sought His approbation through a pitiful act of covering themselves. There was no turning to God in recognition of their helplessness. They did not say, “O God, we have sinned.” They did not implore His grace and mercy. Instead, they assumed that if they could become acceptable to each other, they would be acceptable to God. They assumed they had solved the problem because they had covered their nakedness. But who made the clothes? They made them. They sewed the fig leaves; they put them on.

    Adam and the woman expected their own works would square them with God, but they could no longer approach God. An impenetrable barrier had been erected between the first couple and God the moment they sinned and died spiritually. The fig leaves were useless! This reality hit them head-on the moment the Lord entered the Garden.

And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool [spiritual time] of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” (Gen. 3:8-9)

    The Lord God came into the garden to pay His daily visit to them in the “spiritual time” of the day, the time of their daily exposure to God’s Word. What did they do when they heard the Lord? They both hid among the trees. They recognized the inadequacy of the fig leaves.

    When God called to the man, the responsible one, the leader, to account for himself, why did Adam not respond to God as he had always done before he ate of the forbidden tree? He no longer ran to meet his Creator because he had forfeited his personal relationship through spiritual death. All rapport was gone between mankind and God. At that moment, Adam and the woman realized their total separation from God and their helplessness to do anything about it. All they could do was hide. They could no longer come face to face with God. They could not adjust to the righteousness of God, and this is why the justice of God had to judge them. In love, God would provide the answer to the condition of spiritual death.

    The only possible way spiritually dead Adam and the woman could regain their relationship with God was if someone else totally acceptable to God paid the penalty for their sin. Christ would be that someone else (1 Pet. 2:24). Although mankind did not become like God, as Satan claimed, in time God would become Man through the Incarnation, so that by means of salvation mankind could share God’s estate forever. There can be no greater love and no greater justice and righteousness. They go together! If Adam and the woman would accept Christ’s still future work on their behalf, their human spirit would be restored to them. However, the sin nature was here to stay.

‘Passing The Buck’

    Hiding among the trees, spiritually dead Adam and the woman did not deserve to hear from the Lord ever again. But Jesus Christ, in an act of grace, broke the silence. He called them out from where they were hiding (Gen. 3:9-10). While Adam was preoccupied with fig leaves—covering up his nakedness, shame, and fear—the Lord’s questions directed the man’s attention to the real problem.

And He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” (Gen. 3:11)

    Negative volition, that is, the act of disobedience to God’s command, was the issue. The divine interrogation put Adam on the spot. When he realized that there was no way out of his predicament, he devised a means of absolving himself of guilt or blame. He passed the buck; he played the blame game.

And the man said, “The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate.” (Gen. 3:12)

Notice how Adam implicated God as well as the woman. He actually included God because God gave him the woman. Adam also indirectly blamed the tree—his environment. Now you cannot beat that for ingenuity! Adam was brilliant, but not enough to match God. In shifting the blame, he exposed his lack of obeisance for his Creator as well as the loss of leadership and love for his wife. Once united under perfect environment and idyllic personal love, the relationship of the first man and woman was now devastated. Characteristic of the sin nature was his rejection of responsibility for bad decisions. Only after submitting his lame excuses did Adam finally admit his own failure: “I ate.”

    The Lord ignored Adam for the moment and turned to the woman.

Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” (Gen. 3:13)

The woman caught on quickly. Faced with the issue of disobedience, she also attempted to escape responsibility. What was her excuse? “It’s not my fault, God. The serpent told me it would be all right.” She claimed ignorance. True, the serpent did deceive her, but the serpent was not responsible for the fact that she ignored God’s mandate and conceded to Satan’s temptation from her own free will. Ignorance was, and still is, no excuse.

Sentencing the Guilty

    At this point the Lord God ceased His questioning. The disobedience was exposed. His next step was to pronounce a just punishment on everyone involved, beginning with the serpent. Since the serpent was the agent of Satan in deceiving the woman, he too must be judged.

And the LORD God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this,

Cursed are you more than all cattle,

And more than every beast of the field;

On your belly shall you go,

And dust shall you eat

All the days of your life.” (Gen. 3:14)

    Until that time the serpent had been the alluring and shining one, the most glamorous of all the lower creatures. From then on this animal would be a reptile crawling on the ground and eating dust, degraded and despised. The serpent had been a party to Satan’s self-exaltation, so now it would undulate through the dirt in perpetual humiliation.

    The curse on the serpent was given before the promise of salvation of Genesis 3:15. Satan also had been judged before the plan of salvation was declared to man, making it clear that Satan and his agent are excluded. Salvation concerns only the human race. Nevertheless, the promise in Genesis 3:15 uses an analogy that cannot be understood apart from this curse on the serpent. By crawling or creeping on the ground, the snake is most vulnerable to attack. While a snake can strike a man from the ground, the man can kill a snake by crushing its head. The plan of salvation would be revealed and promised to mankind using just this analogy.

The Woman’s Sentence After The Fall

    We will bypass Genesis 3:15 for the moment and continue with the sentencing of the woman and the man in verses 16-19.

To the woman He said,

“I will greatly multiply

Your pain in childbirth,

In pain you shall bring forth children;

Yet your desire [תְשׁוּקַה, teshuqah] shall be for your husband,

And he shall rule over you.” (Gen. 3:16)

    The woman’s sentence still holds. With the pronouncement of the woman’s curse came the activation of the womb, which was dormant prior to the Fall. For the remainder of human history, the woman’s body would bear biological life. The entire pregnancy is in view here, as it encompasses a lengthy period of heightened emotions and physical discomfort culminating in the child’s birth. Still, from this sting of God’s justice would emerge the opportunity of salvation for condemned mankind. Through childbearing, God would demonstrate the greatest love to the human race. The process would be the means through which the humanity of Christ would enter the world, the means through which God would become man in order to pay the penalty for mankind’s sin. This is God’s grace, even in judgment.

But women shall be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint. (1 Tim. 2:15)

    Then follows the second aspect of God’s judgment of the woman in Genesis 3:16b, which helps explain the nature of the woman: “Yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.” Often misinterpreted as sexual desire, the Hebrew word teshuqah in this context means “desire to rule or control.” Teshuqah, as a desire to rule, specifically refers to the woman’s strong inclination to resist the man’s authority in marriage. This understanding of “desire” is apparent because of the literary genre of verse 16—Hebrew poetry. Hebrew poetry utilizes parallelism to express the intended meaning. In other words, the phrases work in pairs to further enhance and define each other. Genesis 3:16b is antithetical parallelism—the phrases share a common subject, authority, yet are opposed to each other. The final phrase, “he shall rule over you,” indicating his designated authority over her, is the key to understanding the woman’s desire. The husband will rule over her, even though her desire is to rule over him. The first phrase refers to the woman’s desire to take the man’s authority, while the second phrase stipulates that regardless of her “desire,” the man will hold the leadership role.

    The woman dominated her husband at the Fall, so God gave her a fitting and just sentence. He pronounced her natural trend as the lust to become the initiator rather than the responder, the lust to rebel against God’s design for the man to “rule [be the leader] over you.” From this point on, women in all generations would strive to subvert the authority and leadership of their husbands. Because of sin, women seek to dominate men.

    The woman’s rebellious pride, which was first aroused by Satan’s flattery, was intensified in the Fall. After the Fall she instinctively despised being ruled by the man. Yet now in God’s stated curse and condemnation, He once again defined the role of man and woman in the divine design. Revolt was the woman’s curse, but in love God provided for her deliverance from that curse. Within her designated role as responder was the woman’s opportunity to fulfill the plan of God for her life. The cursing of “desire” for her husband became the blessing of submitting to the divine design, something she failed to do in the Garden. In pronouncing a just punishment on the woman and providing the solution, God once again demonstrated the compatibility of His justice with His love.

    Is this subordination unfair to the woman? Feminists certainly contend that it is. But in their contention they display the curse on the first woman, the innate desire to control. Authority orientation toward a husband is strength for the woman. Without it she takes on the man’s role, which does not become her. She loses direction and becomes vulnerable to deceit and seduction. She responds to the wrong stimuli or to the wrong person in wrong ways. This is how Satan attacks. What a woman thinks passes for happiness and independence turns into confusion and misery—the consequence for refusing to orient to her husband’s authority.

    Unfairness and injustice have no place in God’s perfect order. Cursing is turned to magnificent blessing when mankind submits to His plan. Subordination to the husband by the wife is embracing God’s plan. This is the solution to the curse of the woman.

    The original role of subordination for the woman in marriage is described in Genesis 2:18, where God states that He would “make him [the man] a helper [ezer] suitable for him.” For the purpose of completing the man, God created an ezer—what a beautiful word! Ezer means much more than just an assistant who eases the load of life for man. The word denotes correlation, association, and fulfillment. By nature of her distinct design, the ezer is a complementary component, the part that corresponds and responds, an opposite number that fits him specifically. The woman is the man’s partner in life, which includes sexual fulfillment under the prescribed condition of marriage. She has the same soul composition, the same spiritual opportunities, yet she has a different role in God’s plan.

    Contrary to human viewpoint contentions, ezer does not imply a status of inferiority or forceful servitude. In following God’s purpose, a woman willingly surrenders to her husband’s authority vested in him by God. Her natural inclination, however, is to contend with authority; therefore, becoming a responder is an acquired skill. She must learn to respect the authority of both God and her husband. How could it not be a blessing for the authority-oriented woman to bear witness against Satan, the one who originally undermined God’s authority structure?

The Man’s Sentence After The Fall

Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’;

Cursed is the ground because of you;

In toil you shall eat of it

All the days of your life.

Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you;

And you shall eat the plants of the field;

By the sweat of your face

You shall eat bread,

Till you return to the ground,

Because from it you were taken;

For you are dust,

And to dust you shall return.” (Gen. 3:17-19)

    Instead of leading her away from Satan’s seduction, Adam had followed the woman’s lead. He was influenced by the woman when he should have been influencing her. He had renounced his own rightful position as the man and relinquished his responsibility in marriage.

Let the husband fulfill [ἀποδίδωμι, apodidomi] his duty [ὀφειλή, opheile] to his wife, and likewise also the wife [respond] to her husband. (1 Cor. 7:3)

    He must lead; the wife must respond. The present active imperative of apodidomi is a command meaning “to render.” Opheile refers to what is mandated to be rendered to the wife: “his duty” or “due.” In God’s design, the husband’s due is to initiate love and benevolence to her.

    A principle of business and investment illustrates how a husband should “fulfill his duty.” In order to receive a return, something must be invested. When a man invests nothing in his marriage, he receives nothing in return. Failing to invest leadership in his marriage, a man may make the mistake of treating his wife with indifference, callousness, or abuse, still expecting her to respond with love. He may be kind and affectionate when he wants to satisfy sexual needs but then quickly revert to selfishness. In reaction, the wife can so easily become vindictive, bitter, resentful, or hostile toward her husband, perhaps toward authority in general. Her reactions can eventually result in apathy, depression, extreme self-indulgence, or even the rejection of the concept of marriage. Such men have yet to understand that what they sow by either leadership or the lack of it, they reap in either marital harmony or marital discord.

    Adam apparently failed to “fulfill his duty” in the Garden. The result was a wife who was persuaded by Satan, a wife who in turn persuaded her husband into overt sin. Adam deliberately disobeyed God’s command to “not eat from it” and instead obeyed his wife. For this the justice of God sentenced him.

    Where man had previously received total provision without working, now he would make his livelihood from his own painful toil. As additional punishment, Adam lost his dominion over creation. Nature shared in the consequences of Adam’s original sin (Rom. 8:19-22), for the natural world that God created was included in the curse. Earth now produced troublesome briars and thorns, and some animals became carnivorous and ferocious. Only through hard labor, superior intellect, and shrewd calculation could man wrest a living from the soil and dominate animal life.

The Promise of Salvation

    The curse showed that fallen man was in no position to reverse his predicament unless God should mercifully intervene. Man’s only hope would be found in God’s solution to the angelic conflict, for it would show Satan and his angels how a loving God can save a fallen creature and still maintain His righteousness. So let us return to Genesis 3:15, where the divine answer to the problem of man’s sin is first revealed.

“And I will put enmity

Between you [Satan] and the woman,

And between your seed [Satan’s seed] and her seed [seed of the woman, Jesus Christ].” (Gen. 3:15a)

    God pronounced eternal enmity between two seeds, Satan’s and the woman’s. Yet within this declaration of enmity is found the embryonic promise of a Savior and salvation. The first declaration of the Gospel and only hope for mankind is Genesis 3:15, referred to in theology as the “proto-evangel.”

    The seed of Satan represents unbelief, rebellion, and spiritual death. Satan’s seed is the proliferation of his policy of evil in human history, as well as his antagonism toward God and God’s plan of salvation from the seed of the woman. The woman’s seed is her descendant or offspring—the Promised One, the Messiah. The woman’s seed represents God’s gracious plan of redemption centered in her descendant, a virgin-born child: “When the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman” (Gal. 4:4a). The seed of the woman is the first messianic title, and it refers specifically to the human origin of Jesus Christ.

    It is important to note that Genesis 3:15 contains references only to Satan’s seed and the woman’s seed. Adam is not mentioned. Why? Because Adam’s sin was a sin of cognizance, and through him spiritual death is passed to the human race. This is what 1 Timothy 2:13-14 reveals to us:

For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived [ἀπατάω, apatao], but the woman being quite deceived [ἐξαπατάω, exsapatao], fell into transgression. (1 Tim. 2:13-14)

    The whole emphasis of this verse is on “deceived,” as confirmed by the use of apatao and exsapatao. This same verb, apatao, is found in Genesis 3:13 of the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament, to describe the woman’s “transgression,” not the man’s sin. Paul probably chose the verb apatao to connect 1 Timothy 2:14 with the deception in Genesis 3:13. Adam was not influenced by subterfuge, but the woman was misled by her chat with Satan. She whined, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate” (Gen. 3:13).

    “Deceived” describes the condition of the woman at the time of the Fall. By rejecting the protection of both Adam’s authority and God’s Word, she fell prey to a complete snow job! There is no doubt, however, that while blindly deceived, the woman did sin. Ignorance was no excuse. She wanted to eat of the forbidden fruit, and she made the decision to do so. Sin lies in an act of volition, whether in ignorance or cognizance. Yet being deceived, she did not understand the consequences of her sin. With Adam, such was not the case.

    When Adam accepted the forbidden fruit from the woman, he was completely aware of his act of disobedience and had no doubt about the consequences. When Adam saw her with the fruit in her hand, he knew what had happened. Even so, he proceeded to take the fruit from her. His volition responded knowingly, willingly, in full cognizance. He deliberately chose fallen woman outside the Garden over the Lord inside the Garden.

    Remember that the burden of leadership was on Adam, not the woman. Even before the woman was created, “the LORD God commanded the man” not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:16-17, italics added). Consequently, while man and woman were both guilty of sin, upon Adam fell the greater culpability for the Fall. The onus was placed upon Adam. The Lord Himself placed the blame. The post-Fall confrontation was between God and Adam, not between God and the woman (Gen. 3:9).

    When Adam sinned in the Garden, he was the ruler of the world and the representative, or federal head, of the human race. Adam’s sin of cognizance caused our fallen condition. When he chose to sin, he secured the condemnation of the entire human race because the entire human race was seminally in him. “Seminally in Adam” means the entire human race was present with Adam because we are all derived genetically from him. We all share Adam’s corrupted nature.

Therefore, just as through one man [Adam] sin [the sin nature] entered into the world and [spiritual] death through sin, and so [spiritual] death spread to all men, because all sinned [when Adam sinned]. (Rom. 5:12)

For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous. (Rom. 5:19)

For as in Adam all die. (1 Cor. 15:22a)

    All members of the human race—except One—are the seed of Adam. Adam’s sin nature is transmitted to all genetically; every cell of biological life is contaminated with the sin nature.23 In human procreation it is the seed of the man that passes the sin nature to his offspring, whether son or daughter. Adam’s sin nature becomes everyone’s sin nature through the twenty-three contaminated male chromosomes that fertilize the uncontaminated female ovum at conception. Then at birth, Adam’s original sin of cognizance is imputed to the genetically formed sin nature for condemnation.24 Consequently, every person entering the world by natural generation, the progeny of Adam, is rendered spiritually dead at birth, in a state of total separation from God, in total depravity, and incapable of fellowship with Him.

    Herein is revealed the need for a virgin pregnancy, no male seed, in order to preclude the genetic transmission of the sin nature. The Savior had to be true humanity yet without a sin nature. Such prerequisites could be satisfied only through a supernatural birth that excluded a human father (Luke 1:35). The seed of the woman, Jesus Christ, would enter this world by means of the virgin pregnancy.

“Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel [God with us].” (Isa. 7:14b)

Our Lord had to be born in this miraculous way in order to be without sin and qualify as the promised Savior. Without the perfect twenty-three male chromosomes provided by God the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:20), Christ would have been tainted by the sin nature passed down from Adam. This manner of procreation was the basis for redemption, because it provided the world with a perfect human being, the only One qualified to be judged as a substitute for sinful man.

    Genesis 3:15 continues,

“He [Christ, the seed of the woman] shall bruise [crush] you on the head [Satan at the return of Christ at the Second Advent],

And you [Satan] shall bruise him on the heel [Christ at the cross, the First Advent].” (Gen. 3:15b, italics added)

The seed of the woman, the Lord Jesus Christ, will crush the head of Satan. Just as a man might kill a snake on the ground by a blow to its head, so Christ will crush Satan’s head, his rulership of the earth, at the Second Advent (Rev. 19:21—20:3). In Genesis 3:15b, the bruising of Christ’s heel is a prophecy of the cross, where He “was wounded for our transgressions” and “bruised for our iniquities” (Isa. 53:5, KJV).

    A man’s heel is vulnerable to the strike of a serpent, and Satan hoped the death of Christ would be the fatal blow. But in fact, Christ’s “bruise,” His substitutionary spiritual death on the cross, would pay the penalty of sin and open the way of eternal life. Christ would bear in His own body the judgment for every sin in the human race, including Adam’s original sin (2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 2:24). This triumph at the cross would be Christ’s strategic victory in the angelic conflict.

    In declaring the victory to be the seed of the woman, Genesis 3:15 points to salvation for the human race through her seed. Adam, as the representative of fallen mankind, recognized the truth of this prophecy.

Now the man called his wife’s name Eve [חַוָּה, chavvah, “life”], because she was the mother of all the living. (Gen. 3:20)

The Hebrew word for Eve is chavvah, which means “life” or “life-receiving one.” The woman would receive from Adam that seed which would perpetuate the human race. At the same time, his seed would transmit sin and spiritual death to all their progeny, thus extending the angelic conflict into human history.

    In the midst of this tragedy, Christ would arrive as the seed of the woman and win the strategic victory at the cross. Satan’s doom would be sealed by that victory, though his final defeat would be postponed until after the Millennium. For mankind, the result of Christ’s strategic victory over death would be the free gift of “eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:23).

    Whereas the man and the woman had been under condemnation a moment before, they now possessed eternal life, having believed in the promise of the living one, Jesus Christ. Adam called her chavvah as a testimony to their personal faith in the promise of the One who would become the seed of the woman.

    To graphically depict His salvation promise of Genesis 3:15, the Lord Jesus Christ performed the very first animal sacrifice. The shedding of animal blood was an illustration of the future substitutionary sacrifice of Christ on the cross: Christ, the Innocent One, must suffer and die for the guilty (Eph. 1:7; Heb. 9:22; 1 Pet. 1:18-19).25 The blood of Christ, a metaphor for His substitutionary spiritual death, would cover, or atone for, the sins of man. Christ would pay the penalty of sin, incurred at the fall of Adam and the woman, and remove the issue of spiritual death for all mankind.

The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them. (Gen. 3:21)

    Adam and Eve, having accepted the redemption solution depicted in the sacrificial offering, were clothed by God with “garments of skin.” These garments, made from the skins of the innocent, sacrificial animals, replaced the fig leaves that Adam and the woman had put on after the Fall. The fig leaves represented human righteousness and good deeds, the attempt by man to reconcile himself with God, and epitomized the counterfeit nature of Satan’s evil plan. The garments represented God’s own righteousness, imputed to man at salvation (2 Cor. 5:21). Just as the animal’s blood was shed to provide these garments, so also must the blood of Christ be shed to allow for God’s imputation of righteousness. In other words, God’s solution of Genesis 3:15 replaced man’s solution.

    At the last judgment, the Great White Throne Judgment, all who have refused the redemption solution will stand before God in the “fig leaves” of their own making. They will be judged on the basis of their good works (Rev. 20:12-13). Their sins, which were judged on the cross, are not an issue. Only those regenerate ones who wear the righteousness of God, illustrated by the “garments of skin,” will avoid the final judgment and the lake of fire (Isa. 61:10; Rom. 3:22; Rev. 20:11-15).

Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim, and the flaming sword which turned every direction, to guard the way to the tree of life. (Gen. 3:22-24)

    This verse delineates a change of scene for the battleground of the angelic conflict—“east of the garden of Eden.” The sinless environment of Eden had been lost by the disobedience of the man and woman. The tree of life, associated with perfect environment and perpetuation of right relationship with God (Gen. 2:9), was forfeited. God placed the cherubim with “the flaming sword” to guard the entrance to the Garden. Had Adam and the woman returned to the Garden in their fallen state and eaten of the tree of life, they would have lived forever in spiritual death, no relationship with God for all eternity. The conflict would have remained unresolved.

    The tree of life will not be seen again by man until the eternal state (Rev. 2:7; 22:2, 14). A new tree, the cross, was now the issue. Forgiveness of sin and eternal life with God could only be accomplished through the cross of Christ (Gal. 3:13). The salient issue in resolving the angelic conflict was still man’s nonmeritorious positive volition. In a sinful environment outside the Garden, man’s free will would now decide for or against the salvation work of Christ.

    God transformed an apparent defeat by the failed witness of Adam into the basis for ultimate triumph. In grace and love God provided the perfect solution—the promised Savior who would propitiate, or satisfy, His justice.

Being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God [the Father] displayed publicly as a propitiation in His [Jesus Christ’s] blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His [the Father’s] righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed. (Rom. 3:24-25)

Jesus Christ, God the Son, the seed of the woman, would become true humanity and be judged in order to satisfy God’s perfect righteousness and justice. Thus God the Father would demonstrate the greatest love in sending His Son to pay the penalty for human sin. This demonstration would destroy the basis for Satan’s appeal.

    Although banishment from the Garden turned disaster into the greatest possible potential happiness for man, he would never be free from satanic attacks. Always crafty, Satan would become bolder and more diversified in his attempts to lure mankind into his camp. In his pride, the devil would never stop trying to prove God wrong or usurp His authority, and he would use both believers and unbelievers as pawns in his warfare. But God, the divine Prosecutor, has His witnesses, and a certain believer named Job was one of His first stars.

Chapter Four:

THE WITNESS OF JOB—A VISIBLE OLD TESTAMENT HERO

SATAN’S VICTORY IN THE GARDEN segued into more attempts to invalidate the Prosecution’s case. Having wrested rulership of the world from Adam, Satan initiated his malevolent plan to promote his new kingdom on the earth and destroy the work of God. Because of Adam’s failure, the usurper was firmly entrenched as the “ruler of this world” and “god of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30; 2 Cor. 4:4). Now he had to conclusively prove his case. The battleground was planet Earth; the target, fallen mankind. Satan’s assets included his legion of fallen angels.

    Though Satan no longer held the honored position he had before his fall, he continued to have free access to the courtroom of heaven (Rev. 12:7-9; cf. Job 1:6; 2:1; Zech. 3:1). He regularly went into the presence of the Lord at the time of angelic convocations. In these convocations God presented certain believers as witnesses for the Prosecution.

    Satan, as his own defense attorney, enjoyed the right to cross-examine God’s subjects in efforts to disprove the validity of their faith. He accused believers of loving God only because they were being blessed. God heard the argument and permitted Satan’s scheming, belligerent scrutiny of His children for the same reason He allowed Satan to live—to settle Satan’s appeal in the angelic conflict. To this day, the heavenly courtroom examines the evidence of mature believers as they live their spiritual lives.

    The most detailed account of testimony for the Prosecution is that of Job, an early believer from the patriarchal period.26 Job became Satan’s target because there was no believer like him throughout Satan’s entire kingdom. He was a believer in fellowship with God, said to be “blameless, upright, fearing [trusting] God, and turning away from evil” (Job 1:1). He was “blameless” in that he did not invite temptation or testing. By the gracious hand of God, Job had been endowed with tremendous wealth and ten children (Job 1:2-3).

    Accusations the devil would level against Job exemplify his venomous methods. Job would face this agonizing trial while completely unaware that he was the chief witness in the heavenly courtroom battle taking place.

    As the biblical chronicle of Job unfolds, we see Satan, the great accuser of believers, presenting himself along with the “sons of God [other angels]” before the Supreme Court of Heaven. Satan had just returned from “roaming about on the earth” (Job 1:6-7), performing reconnaissance on the weaknesses and sins of believers, which he still does to this very moment. The information he gathers serves to promote his case.

    Knowing that Job was prepared to be marvelous evidence for the Prosecution, the Lord presented Job as His witness and granted Satan the right of cross-examination (Job 1:8). Satan immediately proceeded to censure Job’s character while casting aspersions on divine justice and challenging the love of God.

Then Satan answered the LORD, “Does Job fear God for nothing? Hast Thou not made a hedge about him and his house and all that he has, on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But put forth Thy hand now and touch all that he has; he will surely curse Thee to Thy face.” (Job 1:9-11)

    Satan ridiculed the faith of Job, slurring his motivation and implying that Job’s faithfulness was merely the expected result of divine favor. Satan attributed Job’s happiness to material prosperity, something the devil still offers as a substitute for God’s grace. Trying to bolster his own case, Satan charged that if God removed Job’s prosperity, he would “curse Thee to Thy face” and be no different from Satan himself (Job 1:11).

    In order that Job’s testimony might disprove Satan’s claims, God permitted Satan to challenge the witness with intense suffering. Before commencing cross-examination, however, God reminded Satan that Job’s life must not be harmed (Job 1:12). Satan could go only as far as God permitted, for believers are a “PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION” (1 Pet. 2:9). He does not let Satan run roughshod over them without constraints.

    Satan departed from the presence of the Lord and wasted no time in carrying out his plan to break down Job. Within a very short period of time, he brought swift and repeated disaster upon Job: Sabean bandits massacred many of Job’s workers and stole his work animals; an electrical storm killed additional staff along with his flock of sheep; a Chaldean raid destroyed his remaining men and animals; and finally, a violent desert storm collapsed the house in which Job’s children were enjoying a feast. All but the messengers were killed (Job 1:14-19).

    Job had lost everything. The depth of his grief was unfathomable. Contrary to Satan’s expectations, Job, in the midst of his shock and sorrow, continued to worship God as the source of his prosperity and strength (Job 1:20). He faithfully responded, “I was born into this world with nothing, and I shall go out of this world with nothing. The LORD gave me everything I have, and the LORD has taken away everything. Blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21, corrected translation).

“Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God.” (Job 1:22)

    Job had passed the initial evidence test with admirable poise and grace orientation. Satan’s first cross-examination had failed; his cynical opinion of Job had proven false. Satan strode back into the courtroom continuing to berate. God then reiterated His case, repeating His formal commendation of Job:

“Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man fearing God and turning away from evil. And he still holds fast his integrity, although you incited Me against him, to ruin him without cause.” (Job 2:3b)

    In the context of praising Job, God stated the purpose of evidence testing.27 God permitted Satan to cross-examine this mature believer with undeserved suffering, a suffering inflicted for no apparent reason. But there was a good reason. Job’s suffering “without cause” would demonstrate the glory of God by forcing Job to depend totally on God’s grace provisions. Job’s integrity was sustained by divine assets provided for his spiritual life.

    The devil paid no attention to the integrity of Job. Arrogantly refusing to admit his wrongful claims, he now argued that Job had not been thoroughly tested. He suggested that as long as Job was physically sound, he could find the human strength to keep up this hypocritical façade, but if Job were to lose his health, he would surely then curse God (Job 2:4-5). God again permitted His adversary to continue this line of inquisition.

    Satan inflicted Job with a horrible, painful skin disease, reducing Job to such a miserable and repulsive state that even his wife advised him to “curse God and die” (Job 2:6-7, 9). Despite these crushing circumstances and disappointments, Job maintained his perspective of God’s love and justice and refused to join his wife in reaction against God. Job expressed his spiritual maturity magnificently in the way he answered her. Where Adam had accepted his wife’s call to sin, Job refused to follow his wife’s goading to sin against the Lord.

But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips. (Job 2:10)

    Still determined, Satan now set out to discredit Job’s faith in another way. Job began a seven-day period of silence under the pious scrutiny of three ‘friends.’ During this time, as Job sat in excruciating pain, each of his visitors concluded independently that Job must have committed some horrible, secret sin that moved God to discipline him so severely. Rather than comfort their bereaved friend in this intense testing period, they self-righteously judged him. These arrogant interrogators, presuming to help God make Job see the error of his ways, engaged Job in a formal debate regarding the reason for his terrible suffering. Yet they were unwittingly aiding Satan in making his case.

    Throughout this arduous deliberation, Job remained confident in his innocence and the fact that his suffering was undeserved. Job was not perfect, however. His tremendous pain and pressure made him vulnerable to the pious arrogance of his ‘comforters,’ and he periodically succumbed to self-pity and self-justification. At one point he even complained that God was refusing to vindicate him.

“Oh that I knew where I might find Him,

That I might come to His seat!

I would present my case before Him

And fill my mouth with arguments.” (Job 23:3-4)

    Although Job had no problem understanding his blamelessness, he was exasperated with the silence of God. Why did God allow this debate with Job’s friends to go on and on? Why did God refuse to make Job’s innocence clear to his critics? God understood Job’s pressure, but He would not intervene until Job had passed the test with his own knowledge and application of the doctrine in his soul. God also remained silent because the courtroom procedure of cross-examination was under way. He would not vindicate Job until Satan had finished his interrogation.

    The long debate finally ended when Job’s three critics ran out of arguments. Job had adamantly opposed every suggestion that he was guilty of secret wrongdoing (Job 32:1).

    God then broke His silence and reminded Job of divine omnipotence and faithfulness (Job 38—41). At any moment God could have vindicated Job before his three petty antagonists, but a far greater issue was at stake: the vindication of God in Satan’s appeal. So God made the issue clear to Job. The witness of Job in the angelic conflict was more important than Job’s personal vindication.

“Will you really annul My judgment?

Will you condemn Me that you may be justified?”

    (Job 40:8)

    Job ultimately admitted his attempt at self-justification (Job 23:3-4) and returned to fellowship with God. He judged himself as having committed a sin, and he changed his mind about attempting to defend himself to the three friends.

“Therefore I retract,

And I repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:6)

    Job had now completely passed his evidence test on behalf of the Prosecution’s case. The mighty accuser had nothing more to say. Satan had deployed his entire arsenal at Job, urging him to relinquish all confidence and turn against the Lord. Job’s testimony, however, had ultimately served to silence Satan, refute his slander, and win a victory for the Prosecution.

    The angelic creatures, both elect and fallen, were all watching as Job came out on top and glorified God to the maximum. Job had remained faithful to God even under such adversity because he understood God’s perfect character and trusted His grace provision. In this the angels found proof that volition is truly free to accept or reject God’s will. In this they witnessed the perfection of God’s integrity and His love.

    God did not forget Job’s success in passing evidence testing. He proceeded to bless Job abundantly beyond his original state of prosperity, even providing a new family (Job 42:10-16). God’s grace and love were supremely demonstrated toward a man who refused to apply cosmic solutions to the adversities of life.

    God continued to present Old Testament believers as evidence for the Prosecution. Visible heroes such as Abraham, Moses, David, Daniel, and Esther relentlessly chose the plan of God over Satan’s cosmic system and produced positive impact on their generation and history. By so choosing, their lives were declarations of the benevolent grace, love, and faultless justice of God. Divine praise for their faith is forever recorded in Hebrews 11.

Chapter Five:

VICTORY IN THE CONFLICT

SINCE SATAN’S APPEAL WILL BE RESOLVED in human history, it must also run parallel with human history. The progress of the appeal corresponds to the biblical periods of history called dispensations. These six divine administrations can be grouped into three categories of two dispensations each. Each phase of divine history reflects an advance in the unfolding of God’s plan for mankind and requires a new strategy by Satan.