by Brent King
CHAPTER FOUR
“He’s here!”
I burst into Lucifer’s counsel room. The angels in the circle turned toward me.
“Who’s here?” asked Lucifer.
“God,” I said, still out of breath.
“Good!” said Lucifer, “Have I got words for him!”
“No,” I said, “I mean that he’s here as a man.”
Lucifer started up with an expression of alarm. His eyes bored through me.
“Are you sure?” he asked, speaking each word with measured articulation.
“Gabriel spoke to a young girl,” I said. “He said that she would have a child and that child would be the Son of God. His name will be Jesus…”
Lucifer’s eyes glazed over, and it seemed like he stared right through me at some unspeakable vision beyond. He drew in an irregular breath. I could scarcely hear his murmured words as he spoke.
“Jesus…” he said. “Jehovah saves…I didn’t think God would do something this extreme. He…he was serious...”
“What should we do,” I asked, startling Lucifer out of his reverie.
“Kill him!” cried Lucifer. “We can’t let him become a man. That is our first priority.”
Angels scattered this way and that in a flurry of black intention. Darkness spread everywhere. God must not live past childhood.
* * *
“Have you forgotten how powerful God is?” I asked. “You should know, more than anyone else.”
Lucifer scowled at me before he spoke.
“You’re right,” he said, breaking into a smirk, “but you forget that I, more than anyone else, also know his weakness. He can’t use a host of dark tools that we have at our disposal. We can intimidate with suffering, and we can kill. We can use selfishness and force. These are powerful and fearful tools that God can’t use.”
Lucifer’s smirk turned into an outright sneer.
“Yes,” he continued, “I should have known that he would protect his son from physical harm, but protecting him from moral harm is impossible. I know his intention. He thinks he can show me that morally weak men can perfectly keep his law, and he’s going to prove it himself!”
Lucifer paused a moment to laugh out loud.
“But he is soft. All he has ever known is a life of luxury. He’s a spoiled palace brat! He has no idea how dark earth is—how putrid and evil. He has overstepped himself this time and, when he sins—heh heh heh—which he will, then we will see how powerful God is!”
It proved harder to get God to sin than Lucifer thought. He employed every sinister tool at his disposal throughout his childhood and early manhood with no success. We all did. Lucifer became more and more frustrated, and we soon learned to hold our tongues on the subject for fear of an outright raging temper tantrum.
Yet one evening he seemed to have shaken his foul mood. He stood at the height of our assembly on the Mount of Olives, and his enthusiasm infected us.
“As you know,” he said, “I was unable to get Jesus to sin in his weakened condition in the wilderness. Well, this time I have a sure-fire encounter planned for him that will not fail. It’s Job’s skin for skin experience on steroids! We will press him and torture him physically and emotionally to the very limits of death. In such anguish he will fail and fall. Then we will kill him. And when they put him in the tomb, the stone will never be rolled away from his rocky chamber!”
I cheered Lucifer’s speech with the rest of them, but I have to say that worry clutched my heart. We had been forced to concede to God at every point in the controversy so far. What would make the difference? Where would the turning point be, where our methods would begin to triumph? I didn’t have too much time to contemplate.
“Look!” Lucifer’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “He’s coming out of the city now, headed this way.”
Lucifer seemed ecstatic as he paced before the billions of us that frothed like a tide upon the Mount that Jesus climbed.
“Listen carefully,” he said. “Here’s the plan…”
* * *
The night waned, and light gathered in the east. We waited with foreboding alongside the meager Roman guard for the morning.
“We shut out every bit of light,” I said. “Jesus could never have known his father was there. He believed without doubt that he was dying forever. How, then, did he overcome us?”
“It’s impossible,” said Lucifer, brooding like a whipped pup. “Somehow he gathered strength from his father even though he couldn’t feel his presence.”
Lucifer was pacing again, baffled by the same reality I couldn’t comprehend.
“It must have been by faith,” I said. “The only way he could have defeated us is by relying upon the evidence of his father’s love and acceptance that he already knew. I don’t see how, but…”
The wail that gained strength as more and more angels realized the impact of God’s victory drowned out my voice. Lucifer ignored their cries. He stopped pacing and glowered at me.
“But what?” he asked.
I raised my voice above the din.
“If God,” I cried, “encumbered with fallen humanity, can overcome by faith, what will keep humans from doing so too?”
Before Lucifer could answer, the rim of the sunrise flashed across the morning like a mighty earthquake, and Gabriel stood before us. The brilliance of the glory of God went before him, and our entire host recoiled before his brightness.
“Lucifer,” he cried, “you devil! How could you kill our beloved commander? Is this the kind of activity that makes your form of government superior? Is grief better than happiness?”
Lucifer cowered behind his arm. He called down every calamity upon Gabriel as the angel stepped in front of him.
“Son of God,” Gabriel cried, “Your Father calls you!”
The stone before the tomb disintegrated, and there stood Jesus before us. His face shone brighter than the sun or Gabriel as he stepped forward.
“I am the resurrection and the life!” he said.
His eyes locked with Lucifer’s as he spoke the words.
“You can’t hold a righteous man in the grip of death Lucifer,” he said, “and I have just demonstrated that by faith, any weak man—just like these Roman guards here—can live without sin.”
Lucifer writhed, and he dared to take a step toward Jesus. His words seethed like a sword against the holy light.
“Sure!” he said, “You can obey God’s law! You are God. You have never sinned like they have. So don’t get your hopes up big boy, because you aren’t going to find people anywhere who will be able to keep your law as perfectly as you have. Huh! None of these wicked humans that you are so gaga about are even capable of following suit. You’re wasting your time!
The forgiveness of men is all that you have accomplished here. They still sin even if they accept your forgiveness. Don’t let me discourage you though, because it works for me. If forgiveness is your best shot, then go ahead and cover their sin. But then you had better start learning how to forgive me too!”
Lucifer gloated at the magnitude of God’s apparent quandary before he shook his fist at Jesus and growled.
“A perfect god living a perfect life is one thing, but good luck getting sinful men to do it. When will you get it? They can’t keep your law!” he said, “I remain undefeated!”
Gabriel stepped between Jesus and Lucifer, but Jesus waved him aside. He took a step toward Lucifer and continued to hold his eye.
“I will show you these people Lucifer,” he said, “you and the rest of the cosmos. I will produce them in the worst time of earth’s history. I will separate them completely from sin. They will reflect me fully in their perfect obedience of my law under the most trying circumstances. I will be able to step out of my position of mediator, because my people will no longer commit sin that needs to be forgiven. They will live sinless lives without an intercessor, and you will see with your own eyes those who keep the commandments of God and have the perfect faith of Jesus.’”
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“You will not!”
Lucifer retorted the words like a child, but Jesus had no more time to trifle with him. He and our entire host were left in the remnants of a tasteless morning. I stared at the fading light in the tomb of God’s son.
“You’re right Lucifer,” I said. “One nagging question yet hangs before the universe: can sinful human beings who have spent more than half of their lives in rebellion really live without rebelling any more? Maybe Jesus could, but can they?”
“That is my point,” he said, “and I do have one! The bottom line is that we must make sure that no man ever can and definitely never a group of men.”
“How will we do that?” I asked.
“We must blend the concept into the core doctrines of the followers of Jesus from the very beginning,” he answered. “We must make sure they believe that God sovereignly predestines everything that happens, including sin, evil, salvation, and righteousness. This will lead men to conclude that their corruption and guilt is unavoidable because of their connection with Adam. They are already guilty and condemned for his sin, because they inherited his sinful flesh, which included evil impulses, tendencies, and desires. They will come to believe that, even though they continue to sin, God’s forgiveness will cover them because on this side of heaven they are free to sin, but not free to obey. Even better, they will believe that a one-time decision for God will save them eternally and cover a lifetime of subsequent sinning.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “What does this have to do with keeping men from living sin free lives?”
Lucifer glared at me and shook his head.
“It’s a good thing you guys have me,” he said, “or your case would be lost!”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, “and your point is?”
“Because,” Lucifer continued, “with this line of reasoning men will believe that sin, salvation, righteousness, and damnation are all the result of God’s decision, not theirs. How can anyone live a sin free life if they don’t believe they have a choice to do so?”
He paused to laugh.
“Their poor behavior is all God’s fault,” he said in an evil tone, “or Adam’s, but surely not theirs. They are saved or lost by God’s eternal decree—heh heh heh heh—their sin is forever divorced from their choice, because their character development has already been fixed by God. They will feel they have a license to sin, not realizing the obligation of the divine law!”
“Are you saying,” I asked, “that even though men experience the weakening effect of Adam’s transgression that is passed down to them through the law of heredity in a fallen, sin-prone human nature, that they still don’t have a license to sin? Is the divine law binding on all...?”
“All have a license to sin!” said Lucifer, obviously realizing his double talk. His visage twisted, and his face turned red. “God’s law can’t be obligatory, because fallen creatures can’t possibly keep it. That’s what we are proving here!”
“Or trying to prove,” I corrected him.
“It’s not all over till men prove God right,” said Lucifer. “God knows this. If he is right, then he will have a pretty hard task of getting men to believe that they are responsible for their own choices and actions. Men love the easy way, so they are readily convinced that God is love and will consequently over-look their sin. They have no taste for the battle that would ensue if they worked with God to change their characters here on earth. Haven’t any of you been watching? That wasn’t even easy for God!”
“We made sure of that,” I said.
“And we will make double sure with any of his followers,” said Lucifer. “All of the doctrines I have mentioned above will be underscored by our unmovable teaching that Jesus overcame with a nature unlike men. We will teach them that he came with a nature like Adam had before he fell. We will also teach them that, being God, he was immutable: that he didn’t actually change to become a man; that he couldn’t have sinned; and that he had no risk in facing the trials of earth, because he would never have ceased to exist even if He had sinned. If they believe this, no man will even try to do what Jesus did, because it would be impossible.”
“Won’t there be some” I asked, “who might come to believe that Jesus did take on the fallen, sinful nature of weakened humans; that he risked what they risked, because he was really like them? I mean, men aren’t all that stupid are they? Isn’t it obvious that if men have anything to bear that Jesus did not endure, or if he used any power that is not freely available to them, then upon that point we would be the first to scream foul play? I fear that there will be some who will be able to figure out the truth that....”
Lucifer cut me off with a boisterous laugh. He rolled his eyes as he spoke.
“They don’t care about truth!” he said. “They are sheep, stupid sheep; too stupid to know they need a shepherd; too stupid to see the difference between sheep and wolves disguised as sheep. They will all fall for these doctrines, and the end result will be a unanimous belief that no man could ever live a sinless life on this side of heaven.”
Lucifer suddenly grew serious, and the wicked intent in his eyes bored right through me.
“They must never come to believe this,” he said, “because if they ever should, our cause would be completely lost.”
He paused a moment, and fear was in his face.
“Completely lost means no heaven for us ever again,” he said, as he turned to stare at Jesus’ empty tomb. “It means eternal death.”
