By Mark Johnson

I used to worship the devil.

I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t even know I was doing it. In fact, all the time, I thought I was worshipping God.

I was never a Satanist. I never took part in satanic cult rituals or anything like that. I just went to church.

The devil deceived me. I’m still not exactly sure how he did it, but somehow, despite my loving Christian parents and my well-meaning Christian teachers and pastors, I came to believe that God was severe, exacting, revengeful and arbitrary—that He was a stern Judge who was constantly and carefully watching to catch me doing something wrong so He could punish me. And His punishments were very painful.

I was scared to death of the “god” I was worshipping, but I did my best to please and appease him, mainly so I could escape those punishments. Then I learned that I had been worshipping a caricature of the true God. I had been worshipping the devil’s picture of God—a picture that really describes Satan himself. I also learned how and why I had been misled.

Here are several of Ellen White’s statements about Satan: “Satan led men to conceive of God as a being whose chief attribute is stern justice—one who is a severe judge, a harsh, exacting creditor. He pictured the Creator as a being who is watching with jealous eye to discern the errors and mistakes of men, that He may visit judgments upon them” (Steps to Christ, pp. 10–11). “Satan had worked long to efface the true impression of God, and to represent Him as a God having no love. This is Satan’s character. He is destitute of mercy and compassion. Overbearing and revengeful, he delights in the misery that he brings on the human family. With these attributes he attempted to clothe the God of heaven” (Signs of the Times, January 20, 1898). “Satan sought to intercept every ray of light from the throne of God. He sought to cast his shadow across the earth, that men might lose the true views of God’s character. . . . The very attributes that belonged to the character of Satan, the evil one represented as belonging to the character of God” (Signs of the Times, January 20, 1890).

The Bible makes it pretty clear that things in the uni- verse are not the way they were meant to be, nor are they always the way they appear to be. In the opening biblical scenes, we find an enemy who questions God’s motives and methods, and calls Him a liar (Genesis 3:1–5). This being is later found accusing God of playing favorites and of not being able to read His creatures’ motives or judge their characters (Job 1:6–12). This enemy is portrayed as a master of deception and a grand illusionist (Genesis 3:1; Matthew 4). There’s a hint that this person caused so much trouble in heaven that he finally had to be thrown out (Revelation 12:7). The root of this creature’s problem is that he wants for him- self the power, authority, grandeur and worship that only God the Creator deserves (Isaiah 14:12–14; Ezekiel 28:12–19). He is known as Satan, the accuser, the dragon, and the devil.

And somehow, I ended up worshipping him.

We Adventists have a name for this conflict that appeared in God’s family. We call it the “Great Controversy between Christ and Satan.” It’s a legacy belief of Adventists, and it is rather unique to us. (It’s the eighth of our twenty- eight fundamental beliefs.) And yet, it seems that many Adventists, even some of us older ones, don’t really know much about it. Many seem to have accepted the worldview of this—that there are bad and good supernatural persons at war, but the idea that one of God’s creatures challenged His very character and questioned His motives for creating and His methods of governing, is distinctly Adventist. To me, this perspective has literally been a lifesaver, and it has provided rational answers to many of the theological questions with which I’ve struggled throughout my life. It has finally led me to worship the God whom Christ revealed to us instead of the “god” that the devil has been trying to pass off to us.

I have to warn you that the story sounds a lot like a Star Wars movie or a Star Trek plot, but remember which one came first! Its skeleton can be found in the Bible (Genesis 3; Job 1; Zechariah 3; Matthew 4 and the other Gospels; and Revelation 12), but for Adventists, some of the main writings that put meat on the skeleton (sorry for the inappropriate metaphor!) are found in Early Writings, The Story of Redemption, Patriarchs and Prophets, and The Desire of Ages by Ellen White. A couple of non-Adventist sources that speak to the subject, but are not quite “Adventist” are John Milton’s Paradise Lost and some of Henry Melvill’s sermons.

The overarching premises and assumptions on which this belief is built, some of which are found in other “Fundamental Beliefs,” should be familiar to any Adventist. There is one triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a unity of three distinct and co-eternal Persons. While all the qualities and powers of God are exhibited in each of these co-eternal Persons, the One we now know as Jesus Christ became God incarnate, first as a divine-angelic being known as Michael, the Archangel, and ultimately as a divine-human being, known as Jesus of Nazareth. In both cases, He was truly divine and truly creature in a way we cannot explain or understand. He was the main Agent in the creation of this world, of humanity, and of other supernatural beings, such as angels.

God’s creatures (angels, humans, and perhaps others) were made in His image, with individuality, the power and freedom to think, to choose and to act. God values this freedom so highly that He even allowed His method of governing and His motives for creating to be examined and challenged by the intelligent persons He created. Lucifer, a created angel, stood at God’s left hand in the heavenly throne room, and Michael, the divine archangel, stood on the right. They were “covering angels” and were messengers for God. But Lucifer became jealous of Michael’s divine prerogatives, and felt that he should also be treated as a divine being. This self-centered desire of Lucifer’s to have the power, authority, and worship that was due only to God finally drove Lucifer to rebel against God and His Son; there was “war in heaven,” and Lucifer and his followers were thrown out.

God then created this earth and us humans, in large part to answer the questions that had been raised by Lucifer. Now called Satan, the Accuser, Lucifer’s ultimate charges were about God’s character. He questioned His motives for creating and His methods of governing. He claimed that God was not a selfless, giving Creator with the best interests of His creatures in mind, but was instead like the God I worshipped in my youth—severe, exacting, revengeful and arbitrary. He argued that God’s creatures had innate powers that were being held back by God, and that rebellion against God (sin) did not lead to death, as God claimed, but would allow His creatures to flourish and become gods in their own right. And they believed him.

So, Christ came to this world.

He “came to represent the Father. We behold in Him the image of the invisible God. He clothed His divinity with humanity, and came to the world that the erroneous ideas Satan had been the means of creating in the minds of men in regard to the character of God, might be removed” (Signs of the Times, January 20, 1890). “[Christ] came to assure men that they need not fear to approach God because of His greatness and majesty. . . . He presented the greatness of the Father’s love, declaring that He had so great a care for His children that even the hairs of their head are numbered. . . . He sympathizes with all the creatures He has made . . .” (Signs of the Times, January 20, 1898).

As His crowning act, He verified the truth that sin leads to death. He took the responsibility on Himself. He was “made to be sin,” and died the death of a sinner. This ultimate demonstration of God’s character was not made for mankind alone. “To the angels and the unfallen worlds the cry, ‘It is finished,’ had a deep significance. It was for them as well as for us that the great work of redemption had been accomplished. . . . Not until the death of Christ was the character of Satan clearly revealed to the angels or to the unfallen worlds. The arch-apostate had so clothed himself with deception that even holy beings had not understood his principles. They had not clearly seen the nature of his rebellion” (Desire of Ages, p. 758).

The conflict has been won. We are now involved in mopping up activities. Jesus longs to return to gather up His friends and take them home. “Just as soon as the people of God are sealed in their foreheads—it is not any seal or mark that can be seen, but a settling into the truth, both intellectually and spiritually, so they cannot be moved—just as soon as God’s people are sealed and prepared for the shaking, it will come” (Manuscript 173, 1902).

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.

–Mark Johnson is chair of the Boulder Adventist Church’s Vision Board. Email him at: [email protected]