Originally posted by ua41
In, a way, Lucifer is the light bearer in the sense that he exemplifies God and Christ attributes.
You have Lucifer, who is a being created by God. Lucifer responds to God's power in the classic story, and throws an uprising. God responds by casting him and his angel followers out of his paradise. Now Lucifer reigns over earth and represents causing sufferin ...[text shortened]... god, or spiritually or whatever). If you never suffered, there'd never be a time to be happy.
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In, a way, Lucifer is the light bearer in the sense that he exemplifies God and Christ attributes.
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Actually, this being became the opposite of all that God is. God is a God of truth. Satan became a god of lying and decption. God is a God of righteousness. Satan beame the opposite.
Whereas God is a God of eternal life, this being became the one who has
"the might of death" (Hebrews 2:14 RcV) - a dynamic withdrawal from God the God of immortality and divine life.
Satan became the opposing opposite of all that God is. The book of Isaiah shows Satan's sin against God's authority. And the book of Ezekiel shows Satan's sin against God's holiness.
The sins against God's holiness is more easily forgiven then a sin against God's authority. Both are serious. But I think Satan's challenge to the authority of the Most High God was more serious then the terrible sin against God's holiness - to become morally unclean and sinful.
I know that you know these things and perhaps more.
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You have Lucifer, who is a being created by God. Lucifer responds to God's power in the classic story, and throws an uprising.
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Sometime in the ancient history of the universe this Daystar became obsessed with his own beauty and position and sought to replace God. He deceived one third of the angels of God to join in this great cosmic revolt.
I don't know how extensive was the former sphere of his empire. I know that it involved the earth. Maybe it stretched far beyond the earth. But there was a former system of government and created things which we would find hard to understand today.
Remnants of this overthrown rebellion and kingdom still exist in the universe. And God has prepared an eternal fire - an eternal punishment for
"the devil and his angels" (Matt. 25:41)
When God created man, a triangular situation was created in the universe. At one point in this triangle is man. At the two other points of this triangle are God at one point and Satan at the other.
Adam was created inbetween these two points. It appears that the free will of Adam, either towards God or towards Satan, was the direction in which the universe would move.
Man was created neutral and innocent between two choices - to choose his Creator or to choose the Advasary and enemy of God. Man was created and God was before him signified by
the tree of life. And Satan was signified by
"the tree of the knowledge of good and evil".
These scene of Adam before two choices reminds me much of the oldest book in the Bible -
Job. There also you have a kind of contest in which man is the center with his choosing free will. And God and Satan are having a kind of dispute that one or the other principle might be proved.
Adam between
the tree of life and
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil reminds me of God and Satan having a contraversy over Job.
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God responds by casting him and his angel followers out of his paradise. Now Lucifer reigns over earth and represents causing suffering and evil and what not.
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Satan would not have had any power over the earth had Adam not taken the wrong choice to eat the forbidden
tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I think that had Adam made the choice to obey God, Satan would eventually be executed.
When I read the Bible one of the first questions I have is
"What in the world is this lying snake doing in paradise anyway ? This is not right."
That there was a opposer to God in God's creation was something left over from a previous time. This opposer was severly limited and restricted. But he was not yet destroyed.
Yet God said that
"everything that He had made ... indeed, it was very good" (Gen. 1:31)
Now Satan was not good. The fallen angels were not good. The disembodied spirits who are demons are not good. The speaking and lying serpent who tempted Eve was not good. But what was good was that Adam had been assigned to have dominion over all of God's creation.
What was
"very good" was that man had been invested with deputy authority over every animal, and all the earth, and every creeping thing (including the lying serpent). Adam had deputy authroity over this all.
I think Adam too would have realized that a serpent in the garden seeking to twist and lie about God's command should be eliminated. My belief is that part of the mandate of man's creation was to deal with God's enemy. Sentence had been pronounced against Satan but execution had not yet occured.
I believe that man was created to also be the executioner of Satan. Or at least to give the command to the good angels to execute Satan.
Satan knew this contest would end in his being destroyed. So his preemptive strike was to capture this new creature man under his evil enfluence. Isn't the rest history ? Man came under the authroity of darkness until God became the second man, the last Adam, to defeat Satan with his own weapon - death.
"Since therefore the children have shared in blood and flesh, He also Himself in like manner partook of the same, that through death He might destroy him who has the might of death, that is, the devil, and might release those who beause of the fear of death through all their life were held in slavery." (Hebrews 2:14,15)
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And how do we escape such suffering? By taking refuge in God- almost like being exposed to Lucifer's doings points you in the direction of God.
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The
tree of life was there to saturate man with God Himself. God's eternal purpose is to mingle Himself with man. God's eternal plan even from Genesis was to dispense His eternal life into man that God and man would be united.
You see, God's life and nature, is something that Lucifer never had. He was only the highest created being, an archangel.
But this new creature made of the dust of the ground - man, he was made to recieve God Himself into his being to be united with, incorporated with, and mingled with God.
The God-man Jesus is the undoing of all of Satan's work and puts man back on the path to receiving the eternal Uncreated Person of God Himself as divine life.
When we turn to Jesus to be saved, it is also turning to participate in the execution of Satan and the fulfillment of the eternal purpose of God. What an unspeakable priviledge !!
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Kinda seems like spiritual awareness means being exposed to all ends of the spectrum. Challenges in your way make you stronger (as a person, as in a relationship with god, or spiritually or whatever). If you never suffered, there'd never be a time to be happy.
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Individually, we cannot destroy Satan. But built up in oneness and love as the Body of Christ, we will give the command and Satan will go to the eternal damnation he and his angels deserve.
But you are absolutely right that trials can drive us closer to God and strengthen us. The strengthening must be the being filled with the Spirit of God more and more to unite us with God in life.
That is like a tea bag releasing its flavor into the hot water in a cup. The Triune God is in the believers in Jesus. The trials and circumstances can all go to stir the flavor of Christ up in us. Then we become more and more permeated with Christ. We become more mingled with God.
We were united with Satan from Adam's fall. In salvation we become united with the Triune God. God is fighting in us from the inside out. Satan is resisting from the outside in. We are a battlefield.
Christ is in the innermost being of the saved one - moving from the inside out. And Satan got into man's fallen body and is resisting from the outside against Christ moving out. We have to allow Christ to migrate out into our soul and eventually even into our glorified and resurrected body.
Praise the Lord that the Christian is on the winning side of this great war. And creation itself will be liberated with the manifestation of the sons of God.
17 Mar '11 05:56
Lucifer
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