Steve Gregg on Atonement

[Guest]

Perhaps. Maybe a better angle would be that God gave it over to Satan for a "season" to suit His purposes. God allows evil for a reason. "No pain, no gain"...? Consider the opening chapters of Job and this dialogue between Satan and God. Sounds as if there was a "wager" being placed
regarding Job's motives for serving God. Of course Satan is proved a liar
as Job maintained his faith in God. Is something like that going on between God, us and Satan? What do you think?



Treveler, I believe Paul who said "Satan is the god of this age who blinds the minds of unbelievers." So "this age" is more then a season isn't it?
Re Job , what i take is that God has a hedge around his people but when we lose the protection of the hedge Satan has quite a bit of power to do a great deal of damage. I take Job as an allegory to reveal to us certain aspects of good and evil and continuing in faith.
I'm not sure that Satan is simply a rebel and was'nt created from the beginning as an "Adversary" to man for the purpose of us learning about evil as part of a journey toward being children of God.
It's clear from Gen 3 that knowing evil is part of being more like God, "knowing good and evil they have become like us." Of course what we lack is love and wisdom.
Isa 54.16 " I have CREATED the WASTER to destroy."