Don’t think for a minute that Adam and Eve saw an actual snake or serpent in the garden east of Eden. Apostle John tells us plainly
Rev 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world:
he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
Paul also tells us that Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.(2Cor 11:14)
Also Scripture says that
Eze 28:13 You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was your covering: The sardius, topaz, and diamond, Beryl, onyx, and jasper, Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold. The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes Was prepared for you on the day you were created.
Eze 28:14 “You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; You were on the holy mountain of God; You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones.
Eze 28:15 You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, Till iniquity was found in you.
This Created being, an angel was beautiful beyond description, a dazzling light show complete and perfect with musical parts embedded within him. All this outer perfection was in the Garden and wanted something for himself…something that was given to man.
Why did Satan even show up in the garden?
Gen 1:26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
Gen 1:27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Gen 1:28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
God made man(Adam and Eve) in His own image and likeness. Satan wanted to be that image.
Problem….
Satan is an angel not a human. Thus Satan is NOT the image of God and never can be.
Humans are the image and likeness of God and always will be. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!!
Like a spoiled child Satan said ‘Well if I cannot be the image of God I will destroy those who are!’
King of Tyre analogy
In prophesying about the King of Tyre a real earthly human king we gain insight into the thinking of the Serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan.
Eze 28:6 ‘Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: “Because you have set your heart as the heart of a god,
Eze 28:8 They shall throw you down into the Pit, And you shall die the death of the slain In the midst of the seas.
Eze 28:9 “Will you still say before him who slays you, ‘I am a god’? But you shall be a man, and not a god, In the hand of him who slays you.
The King of Tyre typifies the Adamic mindset…the mind of the Serpent. It is a mind that vaunts itself up above all others, a mind that wants to rule over others and to use others for self glory.
It thinks of itself as being a god, self sufficient in and of itself. It has no need of others except to use them for vain glory. It imagines that God, the True God is like that…arrogant and proud. It aims to be prouder and more arrogant than God.
Yet God is not proud though He is the Highest. God is meek and lowly in heart.
Lucifer imagines that he is like god in all his arrogance, but his view of God is warped by his own vanity.
Jesus meant it when He said “The Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many”(ALL!) Mark 10:45
God came to serve people, not to have them serve Him. This is the true God. He said if you have seen me you have seen the Father(God).
Satan imagines that being like God means DOMINANCE. But God takes the lowly place in order to raise others up. He thinks more highly of others than He does of Himself.
Adam did not want that kind of God either. he wanted to be like Lucifer all glorious and powerful looking. So he took Lucifer’s mind into himself so as to be powerful…..but he got nothing from Lucifer but lost all he had. Lucifer wanted to be like Adam–the image and likeness of God–but he also didn’t get anything.
Jesus also showed us God when he said
Luk 9:55 But He turned and rebuked them, and said, “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of.
Luk 9:56 For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.” And they went to another village.
God does NOT DESTROY people’s lives–Satan does. God SAVES people…if they are willing to let Him.
Jesus was telling His disciples the difference between the False god and the True God. One destroys and One saves. One heals and one makes sick.
John 10:10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
Because Satan cannot be the image and likeness of the true God he has perverted the knowledge of what God is really like. God gets blamed all the time for every tragedy and disaster, for every form of evil under the sun. Yet it is not God but Satan the false, puny-god that is to blame even as Jesus said.
Satan cannot be the image of God. Being like God turns him off completely….
God is love. God is kind. God is faithful. God is lowly. God is meek. God is humble. God does not hold grudges.
So Satan spins lies all the time to us who are God’s image that God is High and mighty, arrogant and proud. He makes us thing that God rules over us to satisfy his own ego. He makes us feel God is distant and uncaring and unconcerned with our little troubles. All absolute lies!!
By changing the image of God into his own image….he then can tell himself he is like God. And all the masses of people who have grown up believing his lies will worship this mighty Beast who is like God —so they think. For isn’t God high and mighty, isn’t he better than us and wiser and stronger? So they worship him who boasts in his own self glory and self loathing. The Great Pretender- Lucifer.
But we know that being made in the image and likeness of God was God’s doing, not ours. We are just like Jesus because Jesus lives in our hearts…not by what we do. We are love in the flesh—for God dwells in us. We are faithful, for God dwells in us. He is in us. Believing in Jesus and knowing that He lives in you and as is what makes us His image.
All humans are God’s image…..but not all have the mind that is in Christ Jesus. Instead they have the Serpent’s mind and want to rule over and dominate others.
Php 2:3 Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.
Php 2:4 Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.
Php 2:5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,
