And war broke out in heaven…

How could this happen, and what could this mean? What possibly are the issues involved that could bring about conflict among perfect beings in the presence of a perfect God, in a perfect place like heaven? Was something lacking among these obedient beings in heaven that was unable to keep them perfect? Is this war in heaven relevant to my situation here and now? What am I to think of verses 12 and 17, that state that this war that began in heaven is now being waged on this earth?

…Rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you!

So if this war involves both God and Satan, even all angels and all men… if it is simply a war over who is more powerful in the physical sense, if there trully is an all knowing, all loving, all powerful God, why hasn’t He just wiped out his opposition ages ago, even as soon as, or even before it developed?  In the words of Bill Maher on the trailer of his recent mockumentary Religulous,

Why doesn’t God just obliterate the Devil and thus get rid of evil—and if he can, what is he waiting for?

The answer is simple, the war that began in heaven is clearly not concerning the reality of God’s power itself.  Satan has not accused God of a lack of power, or even of having more power than any supposed deity might presume to have.  Satan not only believes in God’s existence, but also fears Him (James 2:19, Rev 12:12).  And as this created being who recognizes that God is supremely powerful, he seeks above all else to acquire God’s power for himself, even asking our very Creator to submit to him in worship (Isaiah 14:12-14, Matt 4:9).  No instead, Satan, among intelligent angels and men, has accused our infinitely powerful Creator of using this power in a way that would or should cause any rational being to tremble before the very thought of Him, to seek to escape and avoid at all costs and through any means such as attempted open rebellion and disregard, …or worse, even a sullen, rebellious, fearful, submissive, yes obedient recognition of His mighty power, or maybe yet one step further, even accepting and admiring a Satanic caricature of God and then seeking above all else to become like it! Might this be the delicate nature of the conflict?  If so would wiping out all of His present opposition prove God to be right and to truly have won the war in our hearts and minds for all eternity?  It may be controversial to suggest that God Himself is on trial, but is this not the undeniable truth?  That the nature of Gods character and government is at the very center of the conflict? Indeed, the very word translated war in Revelation 12:7 is none other than polemos, the Greek equivalent root of our word polemic in modern English, meaning

(Wikipedia) a variety of argument or controversy made against one opinion, doctrine, or person…

Simply, this is a war of ideas and of belief and trust. Does anyone really think that such a war can be won by anything other than evidence and truth?  Can an absolute and eternal peace be established by force and violence?  No, the fundamental issue to be resolved before a reestablishment of peace in this cosmic controversy involving angels and men, the Creator and his created, is simply whether the character and government of our God Himself, and consequently the resulting restored “Edenic” state to be established throughout His universe and in our hearts is indeed irresistibly and infinitely desirable and trustworthy!  If God’s opposition causes us to do anything but run toward our Creator in perfect love, trust, worship, and admiration accompanied with a desire to be completely healed of our own damaged trustworthiness, could we say God has really won the war?

The book of Genesis is widely understood to contain both a brief mention of a perfect peaceful state of humanity, and following in Chapter 3, a foundational description of the very reality and reason for the fallen and imperfect condition of existance that we all find ourselves in. In colorful interactions it describes God the Creator, and His created, both the human “Eve”, and the serpent who is identified in Revelation 12 as

“the great dragon… that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray.”

He who at one time was “perfect”, and walked in the midst of Gods glory (Ez 28:14,15), was called “Lucifer”, “day-star” or “light bearer” (Isaiah 14:12–14) is also the first and leader of a large number of previously perfect and heavenly, but now fallen angelic beings (Rev 12:4, 9), God’s vowed enemy and instigator of the war (vs 7), and an accuser of God’s followers and by extension God himself (vs 10, Job 1:6-11).

Let’s pick up the story in verse 1. We find that our main character Satan (Hebrew: ha-Satan “the accuser”), in the form of a serpent “was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made.” From the onset we understand that this entire story of the fall of both angels and men and any of what follows is to be framed within the context of questions and accusations concerning truth, and of allegations, insinuations and cunning deception. Let us go on to seek to understand the craftiness of Satan’s statements and to see clearly what this serpent would like us to believe.

He said to the woman, “Did God really say? ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The crafty questioning of the serpent is shown to be aimed precisely at the validity of certain truths about the Creator God himself, about His words and about His commands. “Did God really say?” contains the implied question “why?”, “why on earth would God say something like that to you?” and insinuates immediately that God’s commands and actions with angels and humanity, and even his basic character and motives are at best incomprehensible and arbitrary.

Verse 2,3: The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ “

Verse 4,5: “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

“You will NOT surely die”, regardless of what you may have been previously told, your choice is not actually one that would result in your death! This is Satan’s primary, undiluted charge.  Yes there is Someone with certain claims. There is Someone who says…

I am the Creator, Sustainer, and Provider of all Life (Gen 1, 2:1-9) and through a continued intimate knowledge of and relationship with me, and through my provision if you choose me, you do not need to instead also experience death and an intimate knowledge of evil in all it’s forms or of any of its atrocities (2:8,9); I personally designed and created a body from the dust and minerals of the ground for you (2:7), and have breathed into it my own Spirit and life, the very breath and sustaining, vitalizing spark of all life (2:7), and have created you into a living breathing autonomous person in my very own image like myself, with a mind to think and reason, and capacity to choose to love, and power to do and be (2:7, 1:27), and have created a beautiful perfect environment for you, calling everything “very good” (1:31); I have provided food for you to produce and eat, and water for you to gather and drink (1:29, 2:5-10); I have set all planets and stars in various motions, and hold the Earth, the Sun, and the moon suspended in just the perfect relationship in order to sustain your life, and to provide warmth and light during the day and cool and shade during the night (1:14-18).

I have granted you autonomy and ownership of yourself and a freedom to live and to be within the earth, and to have it also as your very own, it’s land, it’s resources, and all of it’s non-human lifeforms within it, as a gift for you for your own property, dominion and care (1:26-28, 2:15), to use, to care for, and to transform as you see fit for your dwelling, your sustainance, your exploration and increased knowledge of me and my whole creation, for your freedom, your happiness and your good pleasure; I have created you to work in this garden and enjoy and keep from all of the earth as property that which you subdue, transform, build, and freely exchange, the fruits of your freedom and labor (1:26-28, 2:15), if you choose to place your continued trust in me, I have provided everything you need for your life and for you to remain in peaceful, trustworthy relationships with all, and have purposed for it to be absolutely unneccesary for you as one of my intelligent created beings, to experience the pain and consequences resulting from for even one moment selfishly seeking submission and worship from others as a god (3:5, Is 14:13, 14), or for one moment to consider selfishly resorting to dominion and rule of other humans of which all persons have equally been given the breath of life directly from me and are made in my image, and as rational human beings all have equally been freely granted autonomous self ownership, just as you have, and as your personal Creator and Sustainer, I alone can say that I own you, and no created being can take this from you and say that they are your owner, ruler or god (1:26-28); I have therefore made it completely unnecessary for you to experience theft and coercion, any involuntary actions and exchanges involving force or fraud in which one would seek to consider any other persons as their own property or the fruit of anothers free labor as their own; instead I have created you free, to enjoy life, for companionship and for special peaceful trusting relationships and have even shared my creative power with you to create little persons in your own image (1:27, 28, 2:21-25).

If there is anything that you don’t understand, I am here to to spend time speaking with you face to face in this very garden for you to seek wisdom from me (1:27-29, 2:15-23), ask me questions and to seek the depths of understanding of me, my character and the perfect law of liberty (James 1:25; 2:12; Matt 22:35-40; Romans 13:8-10; 1 Cor 13:4-7; 1 John 4:16-21) that governs my free universe, and when you are led astray as to my character and desires for you by choosing to believe another of my created beings,  I will seek you out (3:9,15 Rom 5:8); but for now, just to always remember this perfect happy moment of peace and rest shared between us when everything is “good”, I myself have rested on, blessed, sanctified, and set aside throughout eternity a weekly day of rememberance to celebrate and commemorate this absolute perfection and freedom, rest and peace, the absolute ideal of what can and should be, of my intentions for you, and of our special intimate relationship (Gen 2:2,3); never forget that I have freely placed before you these two trees in the midst of the garden and have created you an entirely free moral agent, with the absolute freedom to choose to love, trust and listen to me, or to reject me and my wishes for you (2:9), but I must warn you that if you do, your separation from me, your Life-giver would sadly but inevitably result in your death! (2:16,17, Rom 6:16,22,23)

“…You will not surely die.” This Person who claims all of these things, Satan simply and pointedly says, the Person that says all of this to you, that you think you know so well, that you have been spending so much time with, this Person is in fact nothing more than an unbelievable, untrustworthy liar!

Increasingly remarkable is what follows: “for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The cry that goes forth is that God is not only arbitrary, even lying, He is doing it with full knowledge.  And from what intentions spring forth His arbitrary commands and lies? Not to warn you about any real inherent danger or inevitable consequence of your own actions, but instead to selfishly withhold something from you that would actually be to your advantage, best interest, and the betterment of your life! God has not created you perfect, but through His severe and exacting intimidation He intends to keep you incomplete, to restrict your freedom, and simply to harm you.

And of course if this be His character and thoughts toward you, any supposed danger or negative consequence resulting from your choice to disobey this deity would surely stem from His vengeful and unforgiving hand.  Indeed, His very command itself is not a warning to save you from death, but a threat revealing His intention to have His way with you, overpower you, and if not, to kill you.  In sum, God is not the life-giving solution to death, tyranny, and violence, but instead He is the grand instigator of it!

Explicitly, the controversy is over the question “What is God like?” This without a doubt is the question of the ages – the question of our picture of God.   Satan stakes his claim on the fact that God is an arbitrary, selfish, unforgiving, severe, exacting, vengeful, lying tyrant! In Job 1:6-11 we find these same charges. Again Satan accuses God of being the type of Person that has no true admiring friends, no one who sees Him the way He purports to wish to be seen. He insinuates this by provokingly stating to God that he has just come “from roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it”, and that apparently all of this world is his with not a single person on the face of the planet disagreeing with Satan’s charges and simply serving God just because they believe He is good and His commands are good. When God says to Satan…

Have you noticed my servant Job? He is the finest man in all the earth. He is blameless–a man of complete integrity. He fears God and stays away from evil” (1:8 NLT),

Satan replies…

Yes, but Job has good reason to fear God. You have always put a wall of protection around him and his home and his property. You have made him prosper in everything he does. Look how rich he is! But reach out and take away everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face!

Satan’s accusations are simply that no one has trully chosen to love and trust God based on a simple belief that God is good and truthful and that his commands are good and truthful! If there are any that serve him it is not because of a firm belief in the goodness of their Creator but it is due to their recognition of possible rewards or punishments this powerful deity can bestow!

So what is the bottom line? We have seen that the question is not over whether God has or has not the power and right to do whatever he wants to do with us creatures he has created, sustains, and invariably owns just as a potter owns the clay (Rom 9), or even primarily a legal matter in which we will obey or not obey Him, but even more importantly whether we believe the accusation that He as the Sovereign Lord and Proprietor of the Universe indeed exercises this perogative with the character of a tyrannical deity, of whom we simply cannot intimately trust, and of whom we would be better off without if that were somehow possible! The question posed to us all in the Garden of Eden is simply one of a relational nature, whether we truly indeed believe that the Creator God runs His universe in perfect love, always acting for the best interests of his creation.  And if this is truly the meaning of Genesis, maybe we have been wrong this whole time to have simply categorized the scriptures as a mere codebook collection of rules and ethics and humans resulting successes and failures to obediently live up to them, when instead it is the very storybook record of the Almighty Creator, in love relentlessly pursuing and meeting his strayed creation wherever they are, in many and various ways and efforts speaking a language they can understand, all to simply win back their complete trust, and then to heal the damage done, restore Eden, and end all conflict!  Then again it might be the first time for some to even hear about a conflict that did not begin on our planet, but is actually an extension of a controversy conceived in some ancient past among even the very dwelling place of God and angelic beings, and in the very seat of things perfect and eternal!

Now the fruit is before us.

Gen 3 verse 6: When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”
10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

What will we do?  When intelligent beings dwelling in the very throne room of God, with a knowledge of His ultimate power, accompanied with perfect obedience for a time is not even enough to prevent unrest in God’s universe, and with these intelligent but fallen angels now seeking converts on our planet, what can we possibly do?  Do we truly believe God to be the type of Person to be respected, loved, trusted and the knowledge of Him and his will is to be sought after in intimate relationship throughout eternity, or as the man and woman in Genesis 3, is it possible that we are susceptible to accept the “wisdom” of the serpent and believe that if God exists he must be the kind of God to be avoided or feared?  In the words and actions of God’s representatives on earth what is being told about who God is, and what might one expect His kingdom to be like with them as neighbors? What does our willingness to support the initiation of force against a single one of our neighbors now say about our readiness to inherit an end to the war, a restored Eden, and an eternal kingdom of meekness (Matt 5:5)? Who should we believe is telling the truth about God and His character, and truly how can we decide? More importantly, can questions of truth and charges of untrustworthiness be met with demands or mere claims? Can love, belief, trust, even an absence of fear (1 John 16-21) be simply commanded? Or is it that what is needed is that we actually look hard at evidence for once?

I’ll start you off with the first piece. The most amazing thing is that God has not covered up the evidence both for or against Satan’s cunning charges, and each one of us has the freedom and opportunity to weigh the truth of these statements and conclude them for ourselves. The evidence is all around us and in the scriptures, the historical record of God’s dealing with mankind. Even considering what would happen, God values freedom and transparency so much that He not only did not wipe out Satan and his fellow accusers and their charges from their very existance in God’s universe and in the minds of his created beings, he allowed these charges to be made, convincing one third of His millions of angels, and he allowed them to be put forth at one, but only one, tree in the garden.  When our parents accepted Satan’s charges as well he allowed things to play out starting with their inevitable fear and distrust and the resulting behaviour of them and their children, and he still readily allows these charges to be put forth today in many and various ways. He values evidence so much that He let His claim that Job was his trusting friend be tested by his enemy and accuser Satan.  And through all of this he pursues our hearts and minds and thankfully ”God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.” (1 Cor 10:13) Who is this God who earnestly desires friendship rather than servanthood (John 15:12-17), to be intimately known and his character and commands to be seen rightly and truthfully in the very hearts and minds of his people (Jer 31:31-34), and even lets his case be taken “into court”? (Rom 3:4) Could He really be a God with a character who has always simply desired us to love, trust, listen and obey Him because we honestly believe He is good, and a Person who simply wants to write His laws internally on our hearts and minds where we think and desire, once again ending all external force, law, and conflict, so that we will simply do what is right, not because of fear (1 John 16-21), but because we actually believe it is right, (Jer. 31:31-34; Heb. 8:6-13) restoring to us our own Edenic trustworthy character including complete self-control and self-government, and finally ending the war in our hearts?