3522 — Why Did God Make Satan?
By Editor
Why did God make Satan? Does not this make God responsible for all sin? Would be very glad to have your opinion. God did not make Satan, any more than He made alcohol, or whisky, or beer. God made Lucifer a shining angel of light, gave him the most glorious position that a creature could possess; he was one of the beings that was closest to God's throne. Read the description of this angel in the beginning of the 28th chapter of Ezekiel, there mentioned under the symbol of the king of Tyre: "Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou wast in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, the topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was in thee; in the day that thou wast created they were prepared. Thou wast the anointed cherub that covereth; and I set thee, so that thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till unrighteousness was found in thee." But God made Lucifer, even as He makes man and every other intelligent, rational creature in His dominion, a being of free will, and with power to choose. That must be the case in order to obtain acceptable service. It would not be acceptable, appreciated service to a king to know that all his subjects obeyed simply and solely because they could not do otherwise. There is excellent conduct manifested many times in the great prisons of the earth, because the men can not do wrong. Sometimes they are bound by chains to prevent them from doing wrong. Their negative conduct is not acceptable service to the State. If Lucifer had been made a mere automaton, one who must necessarily do right, he would be no more than a mere machine. That could bring no satisfaction to God. God wants willing service, service of choice; and so He made Lucifer, as He made us, a free moral agent, one who could choose or refuse. Around every moral intelligence in His universe God places a circle sacred to that soul, and Omnipotent Power will not enter that circle to compel that soul to do right. That soul must choose. Said God to Israel, "I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse: therefore choose life, that thou mayest live." So it was set before Lucifer. Just how it was that sin came into his heart we do not know. This we do know: that the perversion of all God's blessings is sin. There was not one evil thing in the universe, as it came from the hand of God. All the evil things are the good perverted. Every faculty that Lucifer possessed could have been used to God's glory, and would have brought abundance of blessings back upon himself; but he chose to use them to himself. He took glory to himself instead of giving glory to God. As expressed in the chapter in Ezekiel from which we have already quoted, "Thy heart was lifted up because of thy beauty; thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness." In order to have perfect service, God must take the awful risk of sin. Only so could character be formed. But with the risk of sin which the Lord saw would come, provision also was made for that; for "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound," and in God's great plan there was salvation for Lucifer after he became the adversary Satan, if he had accepted it. But he went on and on until every manifestation of grace was utterly rejected. The human soul may do the same thing if it choose. Or it may turn from the sin, yield all to God, and find grace sufficient for every time of need.