Christ Hears Satan’s Lie

In 1888 delegates gathered for a General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist church in Minneapolis. The ongoing discussions of Righteousness by Faith that were conducted at that time and the results of those discussions have been described and commented on by others and are not the subject of this chapter.
We do, however, wish to direct the reader’s attention to one point of those discussions - the law in Galatians. The apostle Paul had written in Galatians 3:19:

Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions. . . .

Many, if not most, Seventh day Adventists had understood this to be a reference to the ceremonial law of sacrifices and offerings. They reasoned quite logically that if there had never been any transgression on earth there would never have been any ceremonial law prescribing sacrifices and offerings.
Hence it was the ceremonial law that had been added because of transgressions.
How surprising, then, to hear Ellen White eventually state that the words of Paul applied to both the moral law of ten commandments and the ceremonial law. How could this be true? Where was the logic in such a statement?
The logic is found in her longer look. The scope of Ellen White’s vision was reaching far back into prehistory - all the way back to the very beginning of the great controversy between Christ and Satan.
Ellen White envisioned a time when there was no sin in God’s great universe, and all of God’s created beings were ruled by the law of love, nothing more. (See Patriarchs and Prophets, ch. 1.)
For unfallen beings the law of love was enough. It was not necessary to explain to them that if you loved your fellow-creature you would not lie to him, steal from him, abuse him, or even kill him. For them no such

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detailed explanations or applications of the law of love were required. They understood love, and they lived by love. That was law enough for them.
Then the jealous and rebellious murmurings and insinuations of Lucifer disrupted the harmony of heaven, introducing doubt and confusion, and it became necessary for God to spell out the practical applications of the law of love in detail. Thus came into being what we know as the Ten Commandments, the moral law. It was added because of transgression, the transgression of Lucifer in heaven. The ceremonial law was added because of Adam’s transgression.
Thus, with Ellen White’s longer vision, it would be perfectly accurate and appropriate to say that Paul’s statement in Galatians applies to both the moral and ceremonial laws. Both laws were added because of transgression. Paul’s statement applies in terms of history to both the moral and ceremonial laws.

We should not overlook, however, that Paul’s words . . . the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ. . . . Galatians 3:24

have a particularly meaningful application to the moral law, speaking in terms of human experience.
This awesome standard of righteousness before which we all stand condemned causes us to flee to Christ as our only hope. Only He can forgive us and deliver us from the condemnation of the moral law. Thus the moral law does serve very effectively as our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. Let us observe that we would not do well, when this has happened, to then shoot the schoolmaster (destroy the moral law). With the schoolmaster dead (the moral law destroyed), how would our unconverted neighbor be led to Christ? And if we should depart from Christ, how could we be led to Him again if the schoolmaster is dead?
Those who participated in the discussions of 1888 eventually realized, as do modern Seventh-day Adventists, that Ellen White’s position in no way weakens the claims of the moral law.

Since the fall of Adam, men in every age have excused themselves for sinning, charging God with their sin, saying that they could not keep His commandments. This is the insinuation Satan cast at God in heaven. But the plea, “I cannot keep the commandments,” need never be presented to God; for before Him stands the Saviour, the marks of the crucifixion upon His body, a living witness that the law can be kept. It is not that men cannot keep the law, but that they will not. 4RH 303

(Satan) declares that it is impossible for man to keep the law. 4RH 405

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Declaring that no human-being can keep the law of God’s kingdom, he (Satan) claims all men as his subjects. 4ST 293

Satan represents God’s law of love as a law of selfishness. He declares that it is impossible for us to obey its precepts. DA 24

Those who live the life of a Christian are battling against the devil’s lie, that man cannot keep God’s law. Can we doubt the results of this conflict? 4ST 188

Satan has cast his shadow athwart the pathway of every human being, in order that he may misrepresent God to the world. He has clothed the character of God with attributes that are satanic, and wholly at variance with the truth. He has pictured Him as a being full of revenge, as a lawgiver whose law is beyond the power of man to keep, and he has implanted enmity in the heart of the sinner, so that man unregenerated is in rebellion against God. This is the impression that Satan has made upon the human mind. 2RH 464

. . . all who break God’s commandments are sustaining Satan’s claims that the law is unjust, and cannot be obeyed. Thus they second the deceptions of the great adversary, and cast dishonor upon God. DA 309

If those who hide and excuse their faults could see how Satan exults over them, how he taunts Christ and holy angels with their course, they would haste to confess their sins and to put them away. Through defects in the character, Satan works to gain control of the whole mind, and he knows that if these defects are cherished, he will succeed. Therefore he is constantly seeking to deceive the followers of Christ with his fatal sophistry that it is impossible for them to overcome. GC 489

Exact obedience is required, and those who say that it is not possible to live a perfect life throw upon God the imputation of injustice and untruth. 6RH 519

In His divine plan of salvation, God gave His only begotten Son, that every voice may be silent upon the point that it is not possible for humanity to keep the law of God. In Christ, divinity and humanity bore every test of temptation; in Him, humanity is exalted and honored. In Christ, man is privileged to become a partaker of the divine nature. 3RH 628

Satan declared that it was impossible for the sons and daughters of Adam to keep the law of God, and thus charged upon God a lack of wisdom and love. If they could not keep the law, then there was fault with the Lawgiver. Men who are under the control of Satan repeat

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these accusations against God, in asserting that men can not keep the law of God. Jesus humbled Himself, clothing His divinity with humanity, in order that He might stand as the head and representative of the human family, and by both precept and example condemn sin in the flesh, and give the lie to Satan’s charges. 3ST 264

(Christ) came to this world to live the law in humanity, that Satan’s charge that man can not keep the law might be demonstrated as false. 3ST 465

By His life and His death, Christ proved that God’s justice did not destroy His mercy, but that sin could be forgiven, and that the law is righteous, and can be perfectly obeyed. Satan’s charges were refuted. God had given man unmistakable evidence of His love. DA 762

Christ came to vindicate the sacred claims of the law. He came to live a life of obedience to its requirements, and thus prove the falsity of the charge made by Satan that it is impossible for man to keep the law of God. As a man He met temptation, and overcame in the strength given Him from God. As He went about doing good, healing all who were afflicted by Satan, He made plain to men the character of God’s law and the nature of His service. His life testifies that it is possible for us also to obey the law of God. 8 T, 207-8

In the opening of the great controversy, Satan had declared that the law of God could not be obeyed. DA 761

From the beginning, it has been the special doctrine of the adversary of God and man, that the law of God was faulty and objectionable. He has ever represented the royal law of liberty, as oppressive and unendurable. He has denoted it “a yoke of bondage.” He has declared that it was impossible for man to keep the precepts of Jehovah. This has been, and still is, the work of Satan. 2RH 233

(Satan) hoped to establish the claim put forth when he rebelled in heaven, that the requirements of God were unjust and could not be obeyed. Even Israel, he declared, did not keep the law. DA 29

Satan declared that he would prove to the worlds which God has created, and to the heavenly intelligences, that it was an impossibility to keep the law of God. 4RH 331

On this earth Satan sought to carry forward the work that he began in heaven. He declared that man could not obey the law of God . . . The Son of God, heaven’s glorious Commander, was touched with pity for the fallen race. He entered into a covenant with God to save man, and to vindicate His Father’s character as expressed in the law. He came to the earth in the form of man to refute Satan’s lie, that God had given a law which man could not keep. 4ST 252

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Satan had pointed to Adam’s sin as proof that God’s law was unjust, and could not be obeyed. DA 117

Satan, the fallen angel, had declared that no man could keep God’s law, and he pointed to the disobedience of Adam as proving the declaration true. 3ST 30

Satan declared that human beings could not live without sin. 5RH 120

. . . Satan had represented (God) to man as arbitrary, stern, and unforgiving. All the misery and suffering he had brought upon man, he charged to God. He declared that man could not keep the law, and that God was arbitrary and cruel in demanding of him something that he could not do. YI 446

The plan of Satan was by lying philosophies to widen the breach that existed between God and man. He argued that man could not keep the law of God. . . . 3ST 188

Satan was urging upon men the belief that there was no reward for the righteous or punishment for the wicked, and that it was impossible for men to obey the divine statues. PP 88

Now God would demonstrate to the universe the falsity of Satan’s charge that men could not keep God’s law. He would demonstrate that though man had sinned, he could so relate himself to God that he would have the mind and spirit of God. This holy man (Enoch) was selected to denounce the wickedness of the world, and to give evidence that man can keep the law. 5RH 515

The holy life of Abel testified against Satan’s claim that it is impossible for man to keep God’s law. PP 77

Christ came to give moral power to man; to elevate, ennoble, and strengthen him. He came to prove the falsity of Satan’s charge that God had made a law which man could not keep. While possessing man’s nature, Christ kept the Ten Commandments. Thus He proved to the inhabitants of the unfallen worlds and to human beings that it is possible for man perfectly to obey the law. He vindicated God’s justice in demanding obedience to His law. Those who accept Christ as their Saviour, becoming partakers of the divine nature, are enabled to follow His example of obedience to every divine precept. 4ST 239

(Christ’s words): Satan has declared that man cannot keep the law. I will show that his statement is false; that man can keep the law. . . .” 4ST 372

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Satan had made the boast that he would gather the world under his banner of rebellion. He declared that man could not keep the law of God. Christ came to prove this assertion false. 4ST 398

We are ever to be thankful that Jesus has proved to us by actual life that man can keep the commandments of God, contradicting Satan’s falsehood that man cannot keep them. 3ST 32

It was necessary that Christ should take upon Him our nature, in order to prove the falsity of Satan’s statements. The apostate cast contempt upon the law of God, and declared that it was impossible for men to keep God’s commandment, which had been pre-ordained in the counsels of heaven. 3ST 125

Satan had claimed that it was impossible for man to obey God’s commandments; and in our own strength it is true that we cannot obey them. But Christ came in the form of humanity, and by His perfect obedience He proved that humanity and divinity combined can obey every one of God’s precepts. COL 314

Satan declared that human beings could not keep the law. Christ has proved this statement false. 4RH 337

Satan has asserted that men could not keep the commandments of God. To prove that they could, Christ became a man, and lived a life of perfect obedience, an evidence to sinful human beings, to the worlds unfallen, and to the heavenly angels, that man could keep God’s law through the divine power that is abundantly provided for all that believe. In order to reveal God to the world, to demonstrate as true that which Satan has denied, Christ volunteered to take humanity, and in His power, humanity can obey God. “As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God.” 4ST 34

May we suggest that this chapter deserves a second, thoughtful reading? We would do well to carefully and completely “internalize” it. The thirty-five statements it contains represent a testimony that Ellen White kept continuously before the church from the eventful year 1888 until 1909, six years before her death. (We will refer to this again in a later chapter.)
How important was this claim that God had given a law that His subjects could not obey?
Important enough to cause Satan to seize upon it as his best hope of proving to the universe that there was fault in the character of God.
Important enough to cause Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to leave His exalted position in the heavenly universe and become a man as the only effective way to prove that the accusation was false.
Important enough to remain as the central issue in the great controversy between Christ and Satan until the end of time.

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