Steven Masiga, Opinion – Did Satan want to overthrow God? Was it a power struggle that led God to cast his hitherto good angel onto Earth? Can God ever forgive Satan if Lucifer asks for forgiveness? Can Satan worship God if forgiven? Can God reform Satan if He chooses? Does God use Satan on certain errands here on Earth? Is Satan on Earth for checks and balances? Is he a creation of the system?
The famous Chinese sage Confucius once said that when the wind blows, the grass doesn’t choose but to bend. I would want to imagine, with all the power that God possesses, there was no need for Him to send Lucifer with such lethal power on Earth to disturb God’s people. God could have found other punitive measures to bring us to order rather than allocating lethal powers to Satan, who has eventually misused them and led weak and avaricious persons to abandon God’s ways.
When you scan through the Ten Commandments in the Bible, which discourage theft, lies, murder, and all sorts of sins, you can realize that many of us have indeed fallen short of glory. God outlined in Exodus the footsteps we, as His children created in His image, were to follow. However, impeccable biblical history and academic analysis indicate that over 70% of the human race have abandoned His path and are following the path of the devil. Many are engaged in witchcraft, hate speech, homosexuality, corruption, murder, hatred, and worshiping the devil, among other ills that God discourages.
In the olden days, whichever community disobeyed God, He would raze it down with landslides and plagues, the prime example being the city of Lot, among others.
Ocular observations indicate that many people on Earth now act against what the Bible, Quran, Torah, etc., command them to do. Thousands of years ago, Moses, out of anger, broke the tablets containing the Ten Commandments after realizing that almost the entire group of Israelites he had risked his life to rescue in Egypt did not even believe in God. The Israelites mocked Moses and told him, “Don’t tell us about the God we can’t see and feel.” They immediately created their own god, whom they tried to worship, even though the Bible discouraged the worship of idols.
Many people who don’t follow the path recommended by God think that Satan is their creator and worship him. For example, witch doctors, those who sacrifice people to attain wealth, those who engage in murder, and other ills forbidden by the holy books.
God has every right to annihilate Satan in a minute and strip him of all his powers, even scorching him to death. But God chose to leave Satan with such power, even knowing that Satan could potentially misuse it. In the military, once you become renegade, you must be disarmed immediately since you might become a potential source of trouble. Why did God not disarm Satan?
Today, allow me to examine the nexus between God and his hitherto good angel who later challenged God’s powers. Did God promise to relinquish power to Satan and delay doing so?
Has Satan also got some reporting lines? Biblical verses appear to indicate that God occasionally sends Satan on some errands on Earth, implying he is on God’s payroll. The nearest aorta of evidence that Lucifer may be a secret agent planted on Earth by God is seen in the Book of Job. When God asks Satan, “Man, where have you been all this long?” Satan responds, saying he has been roaming around the Earth and updates God about His servant Job as a true man of integrity. But God tasks Satan to mistreat Job in any way as long as he does not take away his life.
Biblical historians appear to suggest that God created the Earth with his angel Satan before disagreements broke out between them. It is possible that Satan disagreed with God over the execution of certain tasks given to him by God, like in the case of Job, when Satan asks God, “Why do you want to incite me against your people?” This shows that Satan may have a good side too.
Both God and Satan are spirits. While God is the holy creator of the Earth and a holy spirit among other dimensions He possesses, Satan is portrayed as an evil spirit after becoming rebellious in character and was thrown on Earth as God’s agent to try to persuade people to follow his path.
The writer is a Christian, and the article is for academic purposes. It is meant to awaken all those created in God’s image to do what God commanded us to do and renounce evil.
The writer is a researcher from Mbale. Tel: 0782231577
