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Ellen White on Satan’s Sin Strategy

Here is one statement about Satan’s sin strategy:

“It is Satan’s constant effort to misrepresent the character of God, the nature of sin, and the real issues at stake in the great controversy. His sophistry lessens the obligation of the divine law and gives men license to sin. At the same time he causes them to cherish false conceptions of God so that they regard Him with fear and hate rather than with love.” (The Great Controversy, p569)

Let’s look at how Satan has worked and is working to misrepresent the nature and results of sin. This study will focus more on the results of sin. God said (as related by Eve to the serpent) concerning the tree of knowledge of good and evil that:

“Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.” (Gen 3:3)

God did not say “I will surely kill you” (an imposed punishment for sin) but that death was the inevitable result of sin. Had He said that the end result was that He would eternally kill the sinner there could hardly have been an attitude of love towards Him on the part of Adam and Eve – even before they sinned.

Satan’s counter argument was:

“Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” (Gen 3:4-5)

God said that sin would lead to death. Satan said that sin (or eating of the fruit – He didn’t term it sin), would not lead to death but to an elevation to the level of God.

So who was telling the truth? Satan has been working for centuries to sustain his lie about the final result of sin. His lie was not just meant for Adam and Eve. He has continued to promote the same falsehood ever since in a variety of ways:

  • The first death, he has taught, was just part of an evolutionary process rather than a result of separation from God and the disease etc that he (Satan) has brought upon the world.
  • Death by the forces of nature Satan has led men to understand as acts of God or at least to so term them.
  • Cases of apparent direct acts of God in scripture have been misunderstood to be so through incorrect interpretation of scripture often involving various figures of speech – the permissive idiom.
  • the second death Satan has done away with through theories such as reincarnation and an ever-burning hell

Satan was denying the inherent result of sin. He said no, it would not lead to death. But, obviously, everyone dies the first death by forces of nature, disease, old age or otherwise so if sin does not inherently lead to death, then how else can the sinner die? Obviously, the only contender, from Satan’s viewpoint, is God “the liar” who says that sin, instead of making one to be like God, will lead to the death of the sinner. Satan made God out to be the source of death and so many today will say of a recently-deceased person something like “God ‘took’ him or her.”

The same applies regarding the second death at the final judgment. Satan implies that God kills the sinner as the ultimate punishment for sin. This is how Satan has misrepresented the true results of sin throughout the world’s history.

This is reflected in statements such as this:

“Satan, the author of sin and all its results, had led men to look upon disease and death as proceeding from God,—as punishment arbitrarily inflicted on account of sin.” (The Desire of Ages, p471)

Satan is called “the author of sin and all its results.” What are the results of sin? – “disease and death.” Satan is the author of sin, disease and death – not God.

But, Satan had led men to look upon sin and all its results as punishment for sin arbitrarily inflicted by God. Why did Satan do that?

If death is seen by men as proceeding directly from God as punishment against sin, then Satan can still argue that “sin itself does not (inherently) lead to death” but it is God who cuts one’s life short in order that the sinner might not realize his goal of becoming God, because God is afraid of competition (“… ye shall be as gods.”) Satan’s lie “ye shall not surely die” – not as a natural consequence of sin (which then isn’t so bad after all) leaves the remaining option that God kills; that God is the source of death.

So, Satan misrepresents the results of sin by leading men to see “death” as proceeding from God arbitrarily inflicted as punishment for sin.

“Their [The Jews] sufferings are often represented as a punishment visited upon them by the direct decree of God. It is thus that the great deceiver seeks to conceal his own work.” (The Great Controversy, p36)

Note that the deception of Satan is that punishment comes “by the direct decree of God.” He charges God with that even though it was his idea:

“Every sin must meet its punishment, urged Satan …” (The Desire of Ages, p761)

Does God punish sin? – anytime He does it is by Him releasing the sinner to the consequences of sin by removing His protection.

So Satan makes it appear that suffering and death proceed from God directly as punishment for sin in contrast to scriptures showing that suffering and death are the inevitable consequence of sin. https://characterofgod.org/sin-destruction/. Thus Satan misrepresents the results of sin and in so doing casts the blame of death and killing on God.

The above is a discussion of the results of sin. Even more basic than that is the question of “what is the nature of sin?” What is sin? Is it always hurtful? Is it just an act or is there attitude or something else involved? What does it do to our relationship with God? Watch for a coming study.