I woke up with this concept on my mind: “Is Satan the embodiment of sin?” Please give this some thought, does this make sense to you?
Mornings tend to be the most spiritual time for me. Some mornings, I wake up with a strong thought about something and I have no idea why that thought popped into my mind. Sometimes it’s a dream, sometimes it’s a clarity about something, sometimes it’s a “message” that I feel compelled to share. Often when it is the “message” type, later in the day I will see the same message, sometimes even the exact same sequence of words being spoken by another Christian, and sometimes numerous Christians in the same day will say the same thing. When that happens, I can’t help but think there was more to it. It wasn’t just “my thought”, it was God using various people to pass on the message. I don’t know if God is giving me clarity here about Sin and Satan?
Let’s think about when “sin” entered the world. It happened in the biblical story of Adam and Eve when the serpent deceived Eve and she disobeyed, then caused Adam to disobey the only command God gave them. Pay attention to this too: God was walking (and you can trace this back to the Hebrew word: Halak in scripture) in the garden when He called for Adam. My conclusion is that God was present with Adam and Eve. This concept works whether you believe the story of Adam and Eve is figurative or literal. God was present with mankind on earth at that point in time, before sin entered, but then the Bible doesn’t seem to describe the same possible “physical” presence after that: God remains omnipresent though, it just seems “differently described” after that. It seems (my opinion) that if God is present and a sinful person comes into His presence, the “sinful” person will die: an example is when God told Moses to keep the people away or they would die at Mt. Sinai when he revealed the 10 Commandments to Moses. And interestingly, the 10 Commandments were placed in the Ark of the Covenant and God appointed a specific group of people, the Levites, to be the ones to carry the Ark. The arc was known to be “holy” and there were many rules about being in the presence of the Ark. In fact, there was a story of men transporting the Ark and one of the men reached out and touched the Ark to save it from falling (which would be a “kind” action), but he instantly died. If the man was sinful (and all people are naturally) and the Ark is holy, that would make sense, follow the logic, explaining why he died instantly. Yes the bible tells us God caused that to happen, but was it because of the law (Sin leads to death and the sinful will die in the presence of God or what God defines as “Holy”)? There were also stories of people who stole the Ark and then had calamities happen to them and at one point there was a passing back and forth of the Ark (you take it, “no, you take it”) that I recall from reading the Bible too. This logic seems to make sense to me.
As I was writing this, I had more clarity about “sacrificing.” I wrote about this before and have always struggled with God requiring a “sacrifice.” Why would He ever do that? Why would God allow people to kill animals in the sinner’s place? I really struggled with these questions. However, I just recalled there are many entries in the bible where God states: “I am not happy with your sacrifices! They are worthless!” But yet God told the people specifically what they had to do. Think about this logically: if sin leads to death, then death is a consequence of sin. We know God places a high value on people and doesn’t want people to perish so if God made the law that Sin becomes Death, then if a person sins, according to God’s law, the person must die, but God didn’t want that, but in accordance with His law, there had to be a death as a penalty for sin. Therefore a life must be sacrificed or given up, so God allowed animals as a substitute for people during the Old Testament time. Of course I would not question God about that sacrifice not being proper, knowing who He is, I just didn’t understand this, I couldn’t accept it, but I knew there had to be a reason for it, I just didn’t understand. But throughout the Bible it states that God’s word will remain. Now I think I am beginning to understand: God didn’t want ANY OF THIS! Remember one of the 10 Commandments God gave us: Do not murder. (Does this have a slightly different definition than kill?) The living sacrifice only came about because of Sin and the law was the penalty of Sin is death. There had to be a resolution, an end to the killing, an end to the sacrificing. But it couldn’t stop unless the law was fulfilled, so God (the only one more powerful than all) took personal action, through Jesus, who became the final sacrifice that ended it. Jesus was the sacrifice that no one else could be, no one else has the value of Jesus, was sinless, without blemish, only Jesus. The Son of God is the only one who is worthy to be the substitute for all the sacrifices, and to be the sacrifice for our sin, Jesus was the final sacrifice. We should be thankful, Jesus ended this horrible act.
Getting back to Satan being the embodiment of Sin. The Bible tells us the life we are experiencing is more than what most of us realize: it is a spiritual war happening. Satan, and his followers, rebelled against God and are fighting against God still today. You may ask: Why doesn’t God simply kill Satan then? If He is all powerful, why doesn’t He just take care of it now? My opinion, from what I understand from the bible is that God gives everyone a choice to love and obey Him, but God has a timeline for each and every one of us already determined: a time to be born and a time to have a physical death and that time in between is our opportunity to choose God or reject God. We have numbered opportunities (so don’t waste them). If God did that for us, wouldn’t it be possible for God to do that for Satan too? If God is Love, that conclusion/opinion makes sense.
Here is another opinion/thought about the Bible: maybe God knew how confusing and tough this spiritual war would be for all of mankind to comprehend and experience, so in His love for us, He spoke through the authors and gave us this information (the scripture), so we would know there is a good ending (God wins): don’t give up!
The Bible reveals the last thing that Jesus conquers in this spiritual battle is DEATH. The Sin that leads to death is blasphemy of the Spirit. (Blasphemy: the act or offense of speaking sacrilegiously about God or sacred things; profane talk.) All other sins can be forgiven by God, if a desired change in action occurs and one asks God for forgiveness, God is merciful and he forgives. Satan is cast into the lake of fire for eternity = Sin and Death are gone forever.
Think about this: God is Love. Satan is Sin. There is a spiritual battle happening and it is between God and Satan.
Sin separates us from God. Satan is sin. Satan wants to separate us from God; he seeks to kill and destroy. When we choose sin, we are allowing, permitting Satan spiritual access to our bodies, our mind, our being. Satan/Sin is powerful, appealing but deceiving, it’s manipulative, full of lies and people are influenced and drawn to it naturally (sin is an evil spiritual force). People are not more powerful than the spiritual beings, but God is. Who/whatever we give access to will influence and determine the outcome of our existence.
When we allow God access (by surrendering our life, or asking God to take over/guide our life) we then permit God spiritual access (through the Holy Spirit) to our bodies, our mind, our being.
God has always allowed “choice.” So what are you choosing?
S.A.I.L. 