Satan’s Enmity Toward the Law
199
his work of rebellion with the angels under his command, seeking
to diffuse among them the spirit of discontent. And he worked in so
deceptive a way that many of the angels were won to his allegiance
before his purposes were fully known. Even the loyal angels could
not fully discern his character, nor see to what his work was leading.
When Satan had succeeded in winning many angels to his side, he
took his cause to God, representing that it was the desire of the angels
that he occupy the position that Christ held.
The evil continued to work until the spirit of disaffection ripened
into active revolt. Then there was war in heaven, and Satan, with all
who sympathized with him, was cast out. Satan had warred for the
mastery in heaven, and had lost the battle. God could no longer trust
him with honor and supremacy, and these, with the part he had taken
in the government of heaven, were taken from him.
Since that time Satan and his army of confederates have been the
avowed enemies of God in our world, continually warring against the
cause of truth and righteousness. Satan has continued to present to
men, as he presented to the angels, his false representations of Christ
and of God, and he has won the world to his side. Even the professedly
Christian churches have taken sides with the first great apostate.
[223]
Satan represents himself as the prince of the kingdom of this world,
and it was in this character that he approached Christ in the last of
his three great temptations in the wilderness. “If thou wilt fall down
and worship me,” he said to the Saviour, “all these”—pointing to
the kingdoms of the world which Satan had caused to pass before
Jesus—“will I give thee.”
Christ in the courts of heaven had known that the time would come
when the power of Satan must be met and conquered if the human race
was ever to be saved from his dominion. And when that time came, the
Son of God laid off His kingly crown and royal robe, and clothing His
divinity with humanity, came to the earth to meet the prince of evil,
and to conquer him. In order to become the advocate of man before
the Father, the Saviour would live His life on earth as every human
being must, accepting its adversities and sorrows and temptations. As
the Babe of Bethlehem, He would become one with the race, and by a
spotless life from the manger to the cross He would show that man, by
a life of repentance and faith in Him, might be restored to the favor
of God. He would bring to man redeeming grace, forgiveness of sins.