Another Parable of Life

The ultimate truth of things is far beyond our grasp, never mind our ability to discuss. We are left with symbols, imagery and parables to indicate just enough that we can serve and manifest God’s glory. It’s not so much what we do as that we stand in the place where His glory waits for us. There’s a place for you and one for me. I can tell you what I see of His glory, but you’ll have to find your own place to see for yourself.

I struggle at times to put into words even so much as I can see. My mind reels at the impact of things spilling out of my heart.

Individual redemption unto eternity is a given. It is real and we can be aware of our own spiritual awakening. We can sometimes see glimpses of it in others. However, the particulars are beyond our understanding. God says it’s not for everyone, and that He does make a selection between us here below, but says little else about it. What He does say makes no sense on our level; it’s loaded with apparent contradictions. We are assured it is a miracle, that He alone decides, that we cannot possibly know for anyone but ourselves.

Instead, we pretend, we act as if it’s somehow possible for others to seize upon something in our lives that would bring to them at least the realization of it. There is something about breathing in the winds of Heaven and exhaling that sweet breath of the divine into our world that gives us a reason to keep on living. Otherwise, we are in a hurry to get out of here and be with Our Lord. In His time, when He is done with us in His glory here.

We are not unopposed in this mission.

Satan is not having a good time. His assigned job in Creation is not his original role and he is not happy at all with the demotion. The Scripture characterizes him as previously the Covering Cherub, a mission that placed him between God and His Creation. Something in his character was flawed, and the glory that should have simply passed through him, he tried to claim some of it as his own. Something in his mistake adheres to the issue of God’s glory flowing between Him and His Creation.

So God reassigned Satan to the task of Divine Lictor and Jailer. There are distinct limits on this role. Something about it confines the Devil to this sphere of existence. He’s not allowed to hang out in Heaven as a member of the Divine Inner Council. Whatever his previous reward, it’s now confined to consuming us and our souls in a certain sense. There’s nothing he can do about people going to Heaven, but he does have a lot of authority over human life down here.

The hardest thing you’ll do here is discard all the imagery of our Western culture in regards to Satan’s character and powers. It should come as no surprise that much of our Western consciousness is pretty much what Satan designed. Whatever resentment he has with his demotion is expressed in keeping us away from God’s glory. All the things I complain about as limitations in Western intellectual traditions reflect an acute awareness of how it keeps us from seizing the full inheritance that comes with spiritual birth.

More than that, it is the blessings of divine justice on this level of existence that Satan denies all humanity, as much as possible. Blindness to the moral fabric of the universe is his greatest achievement against humanity. It’s the single greatest factor in denying God His due glory from us. You see, that moral discernment and living by divine justice is the glory of God. It’s the best possible life we could have here below in this prison. It’s how we tell Satan to keep his hands off of us.

No, it’s not a total release from every aspect of slavery. We are still here in his sphere, after all. But our cry for the character of God is answered and somewhere between the total depravity of the Curse and our departure to Heaven is a life of moral justice that weakens the Devil’s hold over us. We get a taste of divine glory and it begins the process of bringing us out of this world.