Re: [TruthTalk] Fw: Satan

Sat, 04 Jun 2005 23:43:37 -0700

Don't wait up all night looking for a response. 
Jd
 
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Judy Taylor <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: truthtalk@mail.innglory.org
Sent: Sun, 5 Jun 2005 02:19:03 -0400
Subject: [TruthTalk] Fw: Satan

 
[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
even if an angel from heaven
I think it was from James Jordan that I first encountered the notion that Satan may have had a legitimate teaching task in Eden. After all, despite popular mythology, we don't have a biblical text that specifically points out when Satan fell. Moreover, elsewhere in Scripture, angels are teachers of human beings - indeed, angel means messenger. Furthermore, as I think I noted recently, God pronounces a curse upon the serpent specifically in connection with his deception of Adam and Eve; it could be argued that this is the initial curse against Satan.
Hmmm I don't have to ask who the author of this is.  Legitimate teaching task?  Only if you want to learn the lie; what do you expect the Father of lies to teach?  We do have a biblical text that tells us Satan fell from the third heaven with the angels who rebelled with him, no date but it was before God created A&E.  I'd like to see somewhere in scripture where angels teach.  A messenger announces something and/or delivers a message.  A teacher teaches.
But it strikes me that there is one further possible line of evidence: Galatians 1.8. "But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed." It seems to me that it is not much of a stretch to think that Paul is alluding to Satan coming as a messenger from heaven and "preaching" something other than what had already been preached to Adam and Eve - namely, the words of God in Genesis 2.16-17. This is only fortified by the resultant curse upon the serpent in Gen 3.14-15 and Paul's use of the term anathema. The point then would not be that the serpent/Satan was not supposed to be in the garden - he had a legitimate teaching task. But he "preached another message," and Adam and Eve's calling was to judge it in terms of the message they had already received.
A&E were to fellowship with and obey God and when they chose to obey the voice with the opposite message they lost it.
This again opens up a further interesting door upon what the serpent was doing, if the analogy goes further. Paul is speaking of those who are offering "a different gospel," or rather, not another one, but a perversion of the gospel that they had heard. Suggesting, if the parallel holds, that Satan wasn't just telling nothing but lies; rather, he was twisting the truth that they knew.  All very interesting possibilities which deserve further reflection and investigation, it seems to me.
And.......... Should we give our pulpits over to Satan now as the teacher??
 
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