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The Great Controversy 1888
the spirit which has been displayed toward those who dare to condemn
sin.
By the same misrepresentation of the character of God as he had
practiced in Heaven, causing him to be regarded as severe and tyran-
nical, Satan induced man to sin. And having succeeded thus far, he
declared that God’s unjust restrictions had led to man’s fall, as they
had led to his own rebellion.
But the Eternal One himself proclaims his character: “The Lord
God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness
and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and trans-
gression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty.” [
Exodus
34:6, 7
.]
In the banishment of Satan from Heaven, God declared his justice,
and maintained the honor of his throne. But when man had sinned
[501]
through yielding to the deceptions of this apostate spirit, God gave an
evidence of his love by yielding up his only begotten Son to die for
the fallen race. In the atonement the character of God is revealed. The
mighty argument of the cross demonstrates to the whole universe that
the course of sin which Lucifer had chosen was in nowise chargeable
upon the government of God.
In the contest between Christ and Satan, during the Saviour’s
earthly ministry, the character of the great deceiver was unmasked.
Nothing could so effectually have uprooted Satan from the affections
of the heavenly angels and the whole loyal universe as did his cruel
warfare upon the world’s Redeemer. The daring blasphemy of his de-
mand that Christ should pay him homage, his presumptuous boldness
in bearing him to the mountain summit and the pinnacle of the temple,
the malicious intent betrayed in urging him to cast himself down from
the dizzy height, the unsleeping malice that hunted him from place
to place, inspiring the hearts of priests and people to reject his love,
and at the last to cry, “Crucify him! crucify him!”—all this excited the
amazement and indignation of the universe.
It was Satan that prompted the world’s rejection of Christ. The
prince of evil exerted all his power and cunning to destroy Jesus; for
he saw that the Saviour’s mercy and love, his compassion and pitying
tenderness, were representing to the world the character of God. Satan
contested every claim put forth by the Son of God, and employed men
as his agents to fill the Saviour’s life with suffering and sorrow. The