Stories of the Bible, Podcast 13, “The Fall Pt 12.” Episode

Stories of the Bible, Podcast 13, “The Fall Pt 12.”

A very important thing occurs. The Lord establishes boundaries. First he imposes limitations on Lucifer’s powers. 

Genesis 3:14-15

“And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”

Satan is allowed to remain on earth. He and his angels were cast out of heaven. Why did the Lord allow Lucifer and his angels to come to earth and create such havoc and misery? Why not just assign them forever to perdition, their final fate, and curb all their powers? 

The answer is one of the most important lessons we can learn on earth.  It relates to the independence God has granted us. The bottom line with God is our freedom. 

John 8:31–32 

“Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

Consider four terms, each related to our ability to act independently: Freewill, Freedom, Liberty, and Agency. Please allow me to distinguish the differences among those four terms, all of which are very important to us. 

Freewill is a compound word composed of ‘free’ and ‘will.’ What is will? Will is consciousness. Will is that which sets us apart from all other intelligences. Will makes us unique even from our own species. Where did will come from? It is a question that cannot be answered in this life and perhaps not even in the next. The only possible answer is that will must self-exist. Will is a source of intelligence, a source of consciousness, a state of being. It may or may not exist as a form or shape, but it must self-exist or where did intelligence come from? Where did God come from? Where did consciousness come from? Science has no problem accepting the eternal truth that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed. If that is true, it must also be true that intelligence or consciousness cannot be created or destroyed, or something could come from nothing.

Something can never come from nothing, including God and including man. Will, or consciousness, or a sense of self, must self-exist. Why is there something rather than nothing is perhaps a question we may never answer. It is merely a self-evident truth. The French philosopher Rene Descartes said, “Cogito, ergo sum.”—‘I think, therefore I am.’ We may have to settle for that, at least in this life. Even God cannot create himself. It simply may be that God is the most intelligent being in the universe, and to become like God, we must grow in intelligence. Since nothing can lift itself higher than its own power permits, then we must accept the truth that we depend upon God to lift us up to his level; and one of the necessary paths to exaltation is to be able to discern between good and evil.  

Another universal truth is that disobedience to law brings chaos. Obedience to law brings order. God is a God of law and order. Satan is a demon of lawlessness and disorder. One of his names is ‘Destroyer.’  One of God’s titles is ‘Creator.’ There must be a reason for that. 

Let’s define will as our self-existing consciousness. Intelligence must self-exist, or we could never account for the existence of God or life or consciousness or intelligence. However, what makes will free? Does freedom self-exist? The answer must be no. Only through law can the will be made free. There is no freedom in chaos. God is God because he is a God of Law and Order. Lucifer is Satan because he is God of lawlessness and disorder. He destroys everything he touches.