Satan’s Plan

When Adam sinned against God, it appeared that God’s determinate purposes in creating him had been thwarted. Did God lose His omnipotence? Did He cease to be God?

It is time to examine another character in this Bible story a bit more closely. Long before God created man, He created angels which dwelt with Him in Heaven – the most beautiful and wise of which was Satan. He is described in the Bible’s book of Ezekiel:

“. . . Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee . . . Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness” (Eze 28:12-15, 17, emphasis added)

While sin did not enter the world until Adam violated God’s commandment, evil was apparently not new to God: like Adam, Satan was created sinless, but did not remain that way.  After Satan sinned, God ejected him from heaven. Most Bible scholars believe he took roughly one-third of the angels with him. The passage above seems to tell us that Satan’s wisdom and beauty essentially ‘went to his head:’ he “corrupted” his “wisdom.” As noted in the 28^th chapter of Ezekiel above, (and in our previous discussions) Satan was present in the Garden of Eden, and played a central role in facilitating the fall of man.

Why did he do that? Let’s let him speak for himself:

“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.” (Isa 14:12-14, emphasis added)

The word “mutiny” comes to mind: it seems quite clear that Satan felt worthy of ruling his own kingdom, apart from God. With God’s Word describing Satan as being “full of wisdom,” surely he had a plan to bring this about. Well . . . a kingdom requires a place, and it requires subjects. Satan had apparently set his sights on man – as subjects for his kingdom, instead of God’s! And after enjoying such close proximity with God, Satan certainly understood God’s attributes even better than we do. So exactly how could he – being “full of wisdom” – hope to defeat an omnipotent God?

While Satan’s overall plan to usurp God is not explicitly explained in a single place within the Bible, it is most certainly evident within its pages. Let’s look more closely.

I.  At the fall, Man was transformed from a servant of God into a servant of Satan.

While Adam was originally created “in the image” (or “resemblance”) of God, he lost this when he sinned against God. His resemblance came to be more like Satan’s image, as the first to rebel against God. God confirms the concept in His Word:

“ Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” (Ro 6:16)

“Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.” (Joh 8:34)

“Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.” (Joh 8:44)

Satan was careful to provoke Adam and Eve into sinning before they had children – and for good reason: any children they had before the fall would have still been in the image of God. Remember, God’s original creation was perfectly sinless: this included the inherent procreative process that He created between the first man and woman. Hence – before their fall – Adam and Eve could not possibly produce sinful offspring: their children would have remained servants of God – fit for God’s kingdom, not Satan’s.

To be clear: if Adam and Eve could have reproduced with sinful children before they fell into spiritual death, God could be accurately accused of being the “creator” of sin – because He created the biological reproductive process. We never read of God directly creating anything – or anyone – after the first six days in the Bible.

By corrupting the first couple before they could have children, he essentially corrupted all of mankind by ‘hijacking’ God’s ordained procreative process. Going back to the creation account:

“And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.” (Ge 1:24, emphasis added)

Now as sinners, only able to reproduce after their own “kind,” Adam and Eve could only reproduce sinners – servants of Satan. We see this confirmed later on in the Genesis account:

“And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth:” (Ge 5:3, emphasis added)

God is very careful to point out here that Adam’s children were not in His image – but in Adam’s, a sinner. And just as the first man suffered both spiritual and physical death as a result of sin, God tells us this curse propagates to all of us:

“Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:” (Ro 5:12)

“For as in Adam all die . . .” (1Co 15:22)

“And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;” (Eph 2:1, emphasis added)

These verses tell us that – millennia after-the-fact – Adam’s spiritual death has passed itself down to every one of us . . . that we entered this world spiritually “dead in trespasses and sins.” This happened because a creature of God reproduces “after his kind,” and because Adam’s descendents (all of us) were in his sinful “image.” In our natural state, we are no longer described as having “living” souls – as Adam had immediately after God breathed life into him.

II.  Another Un-Lift-able Boulder?

In addition to the angels he took from heaven, we see Satan’s plan to steal God’s human subjects away from Him – and make them subjects in his own false kingdom. Satan’s actions essentially pitted God’s attributes against each other: if God destroyed man for his sin, His original purpose in creating man would be defeated. We’ve repeatedly underscored that God’s omnipotence does not allow this. But if God does not judge man for His sin (i.e. destroy him in an eternal spiritual death), then God’s perfect holiness and justice is violated – and as we’ve said, He would become an accomplice to sin. Moreover, if God withheld judgment from man for His sin, He would not be able to judge Satan’s sin either: if He did, His justice would be partial, skewed . . . imperfect. As Satan saw things, it appeared he had gained the upper hand – that he had “tied the hands” of God. (‘Remember the rhetorical question about the un-lift-able boulder?)

III.  At the fall, Satan made the Earth his “kingdom”

Having been ejected from Heaven, Satan needed a place to call home. Recall what some scholars call “the dominion mandate” from Genesis, Chapter 1: God’s original purpose was to give man dominion “over all the earth.”  God’s attributes of omnipotence and immutability do not allow Him to change His mind on this decree:

“For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.” (Ro 11:29)

Man retains dominion over the earth to this very day. But also recall that while man was in God’s image, God ruled the earth through man – as His caretaker. Now in the image of Satan, it is Satan who rules the earth through man. This explains much about the horrific suffering we see all over the world today. The Bible repeatedly underscores Satan’s present rule over this earth. He is often referred to as the “prince” or “god” (lowercase ‘g’) of this world:

“Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.” (Joh 14:30, emphasis added)

“Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Eph 2:2, emphasis added)

“In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” (2Cor 4:4, emphasis added)

Satan even attempted to tempt God with his powers over the earth while He was with us as the man Jesus:

“And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.” (Lu 4:5-6, emphasis added)

It is clear that during Jesus’ time, Satan wielded power (albeit usurped power) over the world’s kingdoms. As we consider world history between then and now, it seems clear that Satan runs the world’s kingdoms through sinful men to this very day.

The key points to understand from this page are:

Satan – the wisest of God’s angels – entered the garden with a specific plan in mind: to corrupt the first man and woman before they could procreate. In so doing, Satan corrupted all of mankind, established his kingdom upon this earth, and ruled it through his newly-acquired human servants. As Satan saw it, he had successfully pitted God’s attributes of omnipotence and holiness against each other, preventing God from judging him or overthrowing his false kingdom here on earth.

Thankfully, Satan’s plans are one thing, but an omnipotent God’s purposes are another matter altogether!  Let’s look at that here.