What Kind of Christian Would Satan Be?

There are many ways to distinguish yourself inside Christianity. Christianity is one of the most complex religions in the world, with thousands of denominations, theologies, sects, and cults. You can distinguish yourself as a liberal, a conservative, or a middle of the road Christian. The list of titles could go on and on, emerging church, Jesus movement, etc. One question I often ask, and I think many others do as well is, "If Jesus were here, how would He distinguish himself?" A question that we don't often ask however is this, "Who would Satan most easily associate with?"

Before I start in I want to place a qualifier here. Lies and evil avoid no group. There is no one sect of Christianity that you can associate with that will not be in danger of deception. Why is this? It is because every sect of Christianity has one big flaw, humanity. Mankind has a knack for turning truth in to error. A movement that starts out containing the truth often ends up persecuting those who come after with even more truth and light. In history, groups that had the truth ended up murdering those they deemed did not have the truth. Mankind will never cease to destroy and pervert that which was once the truth. That being said I believe there is one form of thinking that is most often used to turn people from the truth.

The real danger to Christianity is not the emerging church, or the One Project, or any such thing. The real danger to the church comes in the form of a resurgence in what I will call traditionalist ideals. Let me attempt to explain what this looks like. In this culture you are led to believe that God can only use you as much as you are faithful to him. If you have a bad day, say you are a salesman and your sales are down that day, it is almost certainly because you fell to temptation and broke your promise to God in some way, such as eating cheese on your Taco Bell instead of going vegan. The belief becomes this, “God only blesses those who are faithful.” It isn't done on purpose, the belief just kind of surfaces as these ideals are propagated. There is a story that was used once to support not eating at any restaurant that cooked with lard. A certain group of Christians went to a restaurant that cooked with lard, and they ordered their food and discovered that it had lard in it, so they canceled their order and went somewhere else. On the way back they saw the original restaurant had caught fire and burned down. Of course the thought was that because they were faithful to God in canceling their order and leaving, God spared them from potential disaster.

I don't mean to harp on any particular community and pick on them in particular, it is just this sort of thinking that typifies "traditional" thought. It is the general idea that if I do something for God, then God will do something for me. Nicodemus had a very similar understanding when he met Jesus for the first time. John chapter 3 describes this scene. Nicodemus had just watched Jesus cleanse the temple. He had seen the authority with which Jesus commanded the Pharisees to leave the temple. Nicodemus was actually a pretty righteous man. He had seen the commercialism of the temple and the robbery that took place and he inwardly abhorred it. He desired a change and had been fighting for years to curb the behavior of his fellow Pharisees. So Nicodemus comes to Jesus one night after the cleansing of the temple and he says to Jesus, "Jesus, you and I, we are the same! You have the same desires as me! We need to work together. If I bring my works to the table, and you bring yours, we can actually get something done in this place!" Nicodemus even gives Jesus the title of teacher. Nicodemus was twice Jesus' age, but he honors him with a title of equality with himself. Nicodemus had great respect for Jesus.

What was Jesus' response to Nicodemus though? Did Jesus say, "Oh, thank you Nick! I've been waiting for a righteous man just like you to help finish my work here!" Did Jesus accept Nicodemus' offer of co-partnership in the works of righteousness? No He didn't. He tells Nicodemus, "Nicodemus, you need to be born again." Nicodemus mocks Jesus here and says, "Can a grown man enter his mother’s womb?" You see, Nicodemus understood exactly what Jesus was insinuating. There was an idea in those days that a Jew was a trueborn son or daughter of God, and in order to be saved and enter the inheritance of God, a gentile had to be born again. Jesus was telling Nicodemus, "you are not good enough to help me in my work. In fact Nicodemus, you are just like the Gentiles, you are in need of baptism." Nicodemus thought he had something to offer Jesus. He had done all these good works; he had withstood the temptation to use his office to swindle others. He came to Jesus offering everything. He was offering a partnership with Christ. His works together with the works of Christ would accomplish the end. Yet Jesus says no.

You see, the so-called "Traditional" ideal is Nicodemus. A man committed to doing right, a man who would stand for the right though the heavens fell partnering with Christ to accomplish the work set before him. But that is not the desire of Christ. The desire of Christ is found in the very next chapter in John chapter 4. Jesus meets a gentile at a well and guess what, her response is identical to Nicodemus'. She meets Jesus' comments with scorn and sarcasm just as Nicodemus did. Jesus tells her that she has absolute need of him. She came to Jesus with something to offer just as Nicodemus did. She had the jar with which to draw the water, Jesus had nothing to offer but good company. When Jesus tells her that her works are useless that she actually needed him to give her the water her soul desired, she scoffs. Nicodemus and the woman at the well were the same. John put these stories back to back very deliberately. Both thought they had something to offer Jesus, both considered Jesus to be offering something equal to the amount of work they had put in, and Jesus tells both of them that they are in need of new life, a life supplied by himself and himself only. You see John is bringing our understanding to a point of recognition that what Jesus was offering was not some sort of partnership. Jesus didn’t care what they had to bring to the table. Jesus was not impressed or swayed by the works they had done, but instead offered the gift of life freely and without the input of their individual works.

The woman did something that Nicodemus did not however. She recognized her need and in her need she did the work of Christ. She did not go in to the town to alter the behavior of her fellow neighbors because of her righteousness. She went to them and declared, "Come see the man who told me everything I have ever done!" In other words, "Come see the man who knows my awful past and yet associated with me at the well anyway!" Jesus knew everything about her, yet asked her, “Come follow me.” Jesus did not judge her or try to alter her behavior with threats of damnation and hell, He simply associated with her, and in so doing accepted her as she was. This simple act of Jesus, to associate with a sinner and accept them as they were, altered that women's life forever. She became a disciple of the gospel and in so doing there was a change in her life.

A theological traditionalist would not accept this about Jesus' character though. The traditionalist’s mind screams at this injustice. How is it just of God to accept all alike no matter their life? How is it right of Jesus to refuse such a respected man as Nicodemus, he was righteous! There was nothing about his actions that Jesus found fault with except one thing, that he thought he had something to offer.

I believe if it were possible for Satan to join a movement he would join the traditionalists. Why? Because it is the goal of Satan to turn people from a knowledge of the love and beauty of the character of God; and what better way to do it then to create a standard for entering the kingdom of Heaven that no living person on earth can achieve? Traditionalism does not offer an abiding relationship with Jesus they offer a partnership. The Traditionalist teaches that if you do this, this, and this, Christ will abide in your heart and life. But if you do things such as watch movies, listen to "bad" music, and have a love for Worldly things such as money, cars, houses and a comfortable life, then Christ cannot abide in your life and you cannot enter the work set before you. In other words, unless you are like Nicodemus, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Yet Jesus refused Nicodemus. And that is why I believe this is a doctrine of demons; God rejects the traditionalist ideal because they do not know Him. If Satan had one goal in this world, that would be it, to cause all living things to misunderstand God.

Because Traditionalists do not understand the love and universal character of God, they create concepts such as the idea of us and them. A church that everyone has to join in order to be saved, it was the Traditional ideal in the days of Christ and it is the ideal now. You must belong in order to be saved. You must worship on a particular day or God will reject you at the end. You must be a male in order to lead God's people; you must only listen to organ music and piano because God does not accept any other forms of music as worship. If it has a beat it is from the devil. In other words they teach that you have to identify with a specific culture in order to be saved, primarily the culture of the 1800's. In other words, traditionalists teach that the Spirit of God is so delicate and arbitrary that the slightest thing not in "order" will cause Him to flee in terror. The Traditionalist’s god is weak and easily swayed by the actions of men.

All these things are not the teachings of Jesus though. Jesus taught that the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike equally. Jesus taught that the abiding relationship with God is not conditional but is with all who desire a relationship and friendship with him, even if they don't know that is what they are seeking. Jesus taught that the kingdom of heaven is full of those who do not deserve to be there and indeed did not even work to achieve it. Jesus taught that those who think they deserve the kingdom will not be there because heaven would be to them a place of terror because they do not know the character of God.

Jesus did not call people in to a certain religion or culture. Jesus did not go to the Gentiles and teach them they must become a Jew and eat only meat prepared by Jews. Jesus called people where they were and in the cultures they associated with and invited them to follow him. Jesus was not calling people into a church, but rather into an understanding of His character. Jesus did not preach the Seventh-day Sabbath, but rather he acted out its purpose, to get to know people and take time to care and spend time with them. Jesus acted out the law, and preached a message of character and not laws. Jesus preached a message of a change in the life. He promised that a relationship with him would change your life. He preached that knowledge and understanding of the character of God would change the heart and cause you to love your neighbor as yourself. These were the teachings of Jesus. They were radical and contrary to every teaching taught during that day. The conservatives of that day wanted to kill him, the ungodly wanted to silence him, the liberals could not handle his unassuming and uncompromising way of life, but those who truly sought a new life full of joy and happiness, those people found it.

This is not the message of any specific group inside of Christianity. It is the message of truth, truth that transcends culture and time and crosses borders. It ignores the culturally derived stigmas that place people in boxes. It ignores the headship created by a culture of war that associated power with males. It ignores color and people groups, it looks beyond culturally relevant and irrelevant music alike. It looks past the writings of the Bible, it looks beyond humanity and its narrow focus and it looks beyond this world and its cares. This truth looks forward to the future of where God desires to lead us. Where there are cultures they will cease, where there is music it will change, where there is science, it will grow, where there is theology it will progress.

We are on a course set by the creator of existence to learn the purpose of existence itself. God desires to be known, that is the truth. The truth is the pursuit of an understanding of love. The 28 fundamental beliefs of Seventh-Day Adventists are not the end of truth, nor are they the beginning, but rather a part of man's endeavor to discover. My own set of 23 fundamentals found on my blog are not a start nor a beginning to truth either, rather they are just a feeble effort to place one more piece in the puzzle of God’s character.

Error is working in every culture, every belief, every sect of Christianity and religious cultures of the world to turn people from the path of truth, and foremost in turning people from the truth is the traditionalist culture conflicting the truth about Gods character. This is the case in every religion, ISIS for instance. I ask you, are you seeking truth, or are you seeking a method of belief that gains you some sort of reward? Are you trying to gain heaven, or are you creating heaven here and now? Jesus says in Luke 17:20-21, "Some of the Pharisees asked Jesus, "When will God's kingdom come?" Jesus answered, "God's kingdom is coming, but not in a way that you can see it. People will not say, 'Look, God's kingdom is here!' or 'There it is!' No, God's kingdom is here with you." Jesus didn't preach a message of attainment, but a message that declared the reward already given. God has already given our reward. Will you seek truth, or will you stubbornly stand by the theology created by humanity in order to place themselves in a position of power over others. The choice is yours.