This father of lies charged upon the government of God, that it was
based in selfishness and oppression; that God and Christ acted only for their own exaltation and aggrandizement, at the expense of the liberty and happiness of their creatures; and that injustice and partiality, instead of righteousness and truth, were the habitation of their throne.
---All this is revealed in the temptation by which our first parents were seduced into sin. Most adroitly Satan insinuated this idea into the mind of Eve, when he said: "Ye shall not surely die; for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Gen.3:4,5.
The argument he thus virtually submitted to Eve was this: "God and Christ are withholding from you the good you ought to have.
They are keeping you from a position you ought to gain. They fear others will become equal with themselves, and they are determined to prevent it. They are selfish, unjust, and partial. Here is a tree, the fruit of which will lift you out of this degraded and slavish condition. They say, therefore, that if you eat of it, you shall die. But in this they lie; for ye shall not surely die."
---This was the same principle that Satan had before this cherished in his own behalf to his own ruin.
He conceived the strange idea that he was kept in an inferior position to that which he was adapted to fill.
And fostering this conceit, he gave way to the pride from which it sprung, and aspired to sit with the Most High upon his throne.
Speaking of Satan, the prophet testifies: "For thou hast said in thine
heart, I will ascend into heaven [or, I will be exalted in heaven], I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High." Isa.14:13,14.
That this heaven-daring aspiration was the channel through which evil came into the universe, and caused Satan to fall, Paul, in 1Tim.3:6, affirms where he calls pride the "condemnation" of the Devil."
Uriah Smith
