Satan is God’s enemy. All he does is motivated by the thought of preventing God being glorified in His dealings with His creatures. Satan watched Adam and Eve in their state of complete holiness immediately after the Creation; he not only envied them their happiness but he wanted to bring an end to their perfect obedience and sincere worship, as they lived to the glory of God. So he became an out-and-out enemy to our first parents. He came into the Garden of Eden, in the form of a serpent, with a view to inducing Adam and Eve to sin. No doubt he also realised that, if only he could bring Adam into a sinful condition, he would ensure that the whole human race – whom Adam was representing in the covenant of works – would be born with fallen natures.
God was supplying all Adam and Eve’s needs, both spiritual and physical; they lacked nothing. And as long as they remained obedient, He would continue to do so. Indeed, as Charles Hodge expresses it, it is “to be inferred that, had Adam continued obedient during the period allotted to his probation, neither he nor any of his posterity would ever have been exposed to the danger of sinning”.1 Satan came into the Garden pretending to be Eve’s friend but he quickly began to drive a wedge between Eve and her gracious God by asking the question: “Yea, hath God said?” It was the action of a mortal enemy. Soon he was driving the wedge further in with a blatant statement denying the authority and the goodness of God. Eve’s enemy thus succeeded in leading her into sin and separating her from God, the source of every blessing. And, very quickly, acting through Eve, he succeeded with Adam too. They were now both fallen creatures, destined for a lost eternity, which implies the complete absence of every blessing.
There could now, it would seem, be no hope of deliverance. Very likely, such a possibility would not have entered the mind of either Adam or Eve. But deliverance was very much God’s purpose; indeed the provision of salvation had been in His plan from all eternity. This gracious and glorious purpose to deliver Adam and Eve and a large number of their fallen descen-1Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Eerdmans 1977 reprint, vol 2, p 120.dants never had a beginning; and the praise which will go up to God for this marvellous deliverance will never have an end.
How could this deliverance be accomplished in consistency with God’s absolute justice? Adam and Eve and all their descendants were guilty; they deserved to be punished for ever. How could God remain perfectly just if He was to allow any of them to escape this punishment? This is no slight difficulty; yet God revealed the answer to it very soon after the Fall when He made known His purpose to send a Substitute who would bear the punishment instead of the sinner – One whose heel would be bruised as He bruised the head of the serpent. The Substitute, as would be more clearly disclosed in further revelations, was to be the Son of God, who would take human nature into union with His eternal divine Person. Thus Peter could speak of believers as redeemed “with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Pet 1:19); Christ the Substitute had now offered Himself as a sacrifice to turn away the anger of God from sinners. He thereby made it possible for them to be delivered from the eternal punishment which they deserved, and to be delivered also from the power of Satan, their mortal enemy.
Yet Satan is always doing everything in his power to prevent sinners coming to Christ – to prevent them trusting in Him as God’s provision for lost human beings. He will do all in his power so that sinners will not be delivered from the wrath to come. To the extent that he is permitted, Satan is blinding the eyes of those who do not believe. He does so out of enmity to God, hoping to prevent Him being glorified in their salvation and in living godly lives while they are spared in this world. Satan also blinds sinners’ eyes out of enmity to Christ, so that He will not be glorified in them submitting to Him as Prophet, Priest and King. And Satan, who was a murderer from the beginning, blinds the sinner’s eyes in the hope of keeping them in a state of spiritual death and of bringing them at last into hell, which is a state of irreversible, eternal death. Besides, if he can keep sinners in his kingdom, they are likely to continue to have a bad effect on other sinners; they will not influence others, by advice or by example, to flee from the wrath to come and lay hold on eternal life.
Consider today’s believers, or those who were at any time brought to faith in Jesus Christ in this world and have already been taken home to glory. They were once under the power of the great enemy of humanity and of God; he was plying them with his temptations, doing all in his power to keep them in his kingdom. Thus they were following the ways of sin and were utterly unwilling to submit to the claims of Christ – even although, in their rebellion, they were continuing down the broad way towards a lost eternity.
In spite of Satan’s great power, the Holy Spirit has regenerated all God’s children. Regeneration is a new creation, a work altogether beyond human power. Only by divine power could the universe be created, and human life in particular. Many have tried to turn over a new leaf, and to some extent they have succeeded – but only outwardly; their heart has remained unchanged. It is completely different when the Holy Spirit comes to work a new creation, as He applies the Word of God to people’s souls. He shows them that they are sinners – fallen, hell-deserving sinners, who cannot deliver themselves from their guilt or from the corruption of their natures. He goes on to make the call of the gospel effective. Particularly through preaching, the Spirit applies to their souls such words as these: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31).
Thus God delivers them from the power of the enemy, they believe and are saved and begin to walk in the ways of new obedience. And having been thus delivered, they are directed: “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom He hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy” (Ps 107:2). But what are they to say? The previous verse explains: “O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good: for His mercy endureth for ever”.
When the Children of Israel were delivered from Pharaoh, their powerful enemy, they acknowledged that their deliverance was an act of God’s mercy and they gave thanks to Him. They sang: “Thou in Thy mercy hast led forth the people which Thou hast redeemed: Thou hast guided them in Thy strength unto Thy holy habitation” (Ex 15:13). Pharaoh was powerful, but God showed that He is infinitely more powerful; He not only brought Israel out of Egypt but began to lead them towards the Promised Land. So today’s believers sing of the goodness and mercy of their all-powerful God who delivered them from the power of Satan, a being much stronger and more evil than Pharaoh ever was. They are also to give thanks for the fact that their God is leading them on towards heaven, the land of eternal blessedness.
Heaven is paradise restored, a place where no one will lack anything. There Satan cannot enter. He has no opportunity to ply his temptations there and he never will. He cannot prevent the inhabitants of heaven glorifying God for ever to the utmost of their powers. They will live in perfect obedience to God, for sin cannot enter heaven and, accordingly, “there shall be no more curse” for those who, having been redeemed, are brought there (Rev 22:3). And in that restored paradise they will worship the Lord unceasingly with total sincerity. Prominent in their worship will be praise for the work of Christ as their Redeemer: “Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father; to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen” (Rev 1:5,6).