Satanic beliefs focus on, as they put it, personal sovereignty, independence, and free will. These tenants seem pretty reasonable at face-value, and are often used in conjunction with describing the United States’ founding values as well. Are Satanists morally justified in pursuing this? If you are a Christian, I believe you should be well equipped to respond to questions like this that can challenge your faith. The fact of the matter is that Satanic beliefs come from these desires for personal freedom, yet are founded on the greatest lie known to mankind. This lie begins in the form of a question:
“Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” – Genesis 3:1
This question gave a basis for making up things that aren’t real, and for compromising with sin. God forbade the eating of one fruit.
Eve said “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.'” – Genesis 3:3
Eve made up a rule right here. God never said that they couldn’t touch the fruit.
“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3:4-5
Consider these two truths revealed in these verses:
- They will die
- They already know good and evil
Upon reading the rest of the story, it’s quite evident how #1 plays out, but #2 is more nuanced and forms the basis for our main issue in this post. There are a couple ideas that Satanists, Wiccans, and general pagan beliefs introduce that are hard to disagree with at first glance. This post is going to break this down using scripture and show that:
- God was not promoting ignorance of good and evil
- God is not threatened by our sin
- God showed Adam and Eve immense mercy during the fall, desiring a relationship with us
Freedom from a Tyrant God
To some, Satanism and other pagan beliefs, will introduce the idea that Satan was attempting to liberate Adam and Eve from slavery to God. This slavery is in the form of ignorance, and that God was keeping Adam and Eve from knowing about good and evil.
But were Adam and Eve really that naive? Eve, before even eating the fruit, knew the consequences. She knew what death was, the consequence of evil and sin. She knew what was right and what was wrong. However, if this is true, then what was God talking about when he reflected on the consequences here?
And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” – Genesis 3:22
If this isn’t intellectual knowledge of good and evil, could it be experiential knowledge? This is a reason most commonly given by scholars, but God has not, nor will ever gain knowledge of evil through experience. Jesus experienced the consequences of our own sin, insofar as becoming sin itself:
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. – 2 Corinthians 5:21
But even then, this sacrifice had yet to be made, and it was not Jesus who sinned. God never experienced sin by sinning. So if it isn’t intellectual or experiential knowledge, what could make Adam and Eve more like God through disobedience? The answer debunks the pagan view that God is tyrannically keeping us stupid so that we can’t pose a legitimate challenge to him. How did the knowledge of good and evil make us like God? Jeremiah reflects:
I well know, O Jehovah, that man’s way does not belong to him. It does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step. – Jeremiah 10:23
All sin can be boiled down to an issue of pride and sovereignty. Man’s way does not belong to him. Before the fall, God held a unique authority over the sinless and righteous Adam and Eve: the authority over deciding what is good and evil. In the eating of the fruit, Adam and Eve declared that they surely wouldn’t die by eating it. But they were wrong, because man’s way does not belong to him.
You have wearied the Lord with your words.
But you say, “How have we wearied him?”
By saying, “Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?” – Malachi 2:17
Because of this, God, who by nature created and follows the Biblical law, can no longer live with Adam and Eve, who are now also bound to the law. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is not called the Tree of Death for a reason; it means that eating from it places the burden of the law on oneself. To put it in a different way, the Tree of Life represents salvation through faith, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil represents salvation through the law. So Adam and Eve chose the law, which is an impossible task:
For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. – Romans 3:20
This is why God forbade this path, because it isn’t possible and it leads to death. So is choosing this forbidden fruit, as pagans would believe, freedom from a tyrant god? God is more merciful than this:
“He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” – Genesis 3:22
The basis of “freedom from God” is again, misdirection and a misunderstanding. God would not allow Adam and Eve to live forever physically inside a spiritually dead body. That is the basis of hell.
And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. – 1 John 2:15-17
God wants us to have spiritual life, and to give us a second chance:
Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? – Ezekiel 18:23
This is not tyranny, but great mercy. Even in our rebellion, God does not wish for us to suffer eternally, but to have spiritual life through his son. Jesus is offering to freely bear our burden of the law, a burden which only condemns.
Nakedness
In challenging the pagan belief that God is keeping us ignorant, I wanted to delve into one more point from Genesis: Adam and Eve realizing that they were naked. Does this mean that they’ve been naked this whole time, and God was keeping them too stupid to notice?
Adam answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
And God said, “Who told you that you were naked?” – Genesis 3:10-11
It’s a fair question to ask why sin revealed nakedness, instead of causing it. Earlier we saw a reference alluding to this from Romans, but there’s more:
Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.
For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. – Romans 3:19-20
Who told Adam and Eve that they were naked? The law. Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law. Is it unfair and tyrannical that this nakedness wasn’t told to Adam and Eve before the fall?
I want to share an answer to this as succinctly as possible. I believe that Adam and Eve were already clothed with something other than normal clothing before the fall, and only became truly naked after sinning. Not clothing as described here:
Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. – Genesis 2:25
But clothing described here, as a direct result of being righteous and in the presence of God. A clothing that we don’t notice ourselves:
When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. – Exodus 34:29
And here:
All who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel. – Acts 6:15
And here:
There Jesus was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. – Matthew 17:2
Isaiah also reflects on this spiritual clothing:
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, My soul shall be joyful in my God; For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. – Isaiah 61:10
And what it looks like in its absence:
Their webs will not become garments, Nor will they cover themselves with their works; Their works are works of iniquity, And the act of violence is in their hands. – Isaiah 59:6
In the eating of the fruit, Adam and Eve fell under the law and were condemned, losing the glory they had in the presence of the Holy God. The law reveals sin, and told them that they were naked. Was God hiding their nakedness? How could he hide it if they were already clothed in righteousness? Who needs worldly clothing if you are clothed in light?
Conclusion
By no means do I believe this post definitively answers all Satanist, Wiccan, and other pagan concerns about the fall in Genesis. However, I do hope that this topic has inspired you to think more about these questions, and to inquire more of God regarding these issues. The fall should serve as the penultimate reminder of the impossible burden of the law, and how even while we are sinning, God has mercy on us and offers a way out.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. – Romans 5:8
Jesus has suffered the ultimate price for our choice to try and determine our own morality and becoming burdened with the law in the process. Jesus fulfilled the law and is the only person ever to have been justified by it, and even then he chose to suffer for our own failure to follow it.
God is offering us a second chance to instead have salvation by faith, justified by Christ’s sacrifice under the law. He wants us to have salvation by faith, to eat from the Tree of Life, and to live forever with him. But this cannot happen if we are spiritually dead and living under the law, because that would be an eternal hell. To reiterate our points from the beginning of this post:
- God was not promoting ignorance of good and evil – God knows that it’s impossible for us to determine morality. We will fail if we try, and the consequence is our own suffering. “Man’s way does not belong to him. It does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step.” – Jeremiah 10:23
- God is not threatened by our sin – God is Holy and infinitely beyond this. By nature sin cannot stand before him. “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.” – Habakkuk 1:13
- God showed Adam and Eve immense mercy during the fall, desiring a relationship with us – Instead of condemning Adam and Eve to eternal suffering, he kept them from eating from the Tree of Life, and clothed them once again so that they weren’t naked. “And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.” – Genesis 3:21
What other questions about the Fall in Genesis do you feel uncertain about? In what ways are you tempted to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? Where are you trying to determine what is right and wrong for yourself, and living your own truth?
Additionally, some scriptural questions may come from this topic, that would be excellent to cover in the future, such as:
- If the law is impossible to follow and only condemns, how did Moses and the Israelites throughout the Old Testament survive and have salvation?
- How could Jesus become sin without actually sinning himself?
- If Adam and Eve only felt shame after the law told them they were naked, does that mean that it would be better to never know the law, and therefore never feel shame?
And finally, I want to close with a passage from Zechariah, which illustrates how God clothes us in righteousness and has the final word concerning Satan’s lies and accusations. God is merciful and offers us salvation through Christ, which sheds our sinful attire and replaces it with righteousness:
Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. The Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?”
Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. The angel said to those who were standing before him, “Take off his filthy clothes.”
Then he said to Joshua, “See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put fine garments on you.” – Zechariah 3:1-4
Dave Aldon 