Is that really the picture the bible paints? Huge spiritual warfare between the forces of good and evil before the creation of the heavens and the earth?
We know from Job that all the angels were created before the heavens and earth because they rejoiced as they watched Jesus and the Holy Spirit putting it all together. There is no mention of dark angels attacking the merry throng, or even a couple of mischievous angels impolitely hissing and booing! Nor even a twitter of mild dissension!
We also know that once Team Trinity had finished creating everything, it was good.
Now we must take that at face value. It was not a spin-doctor type of good that really meant: Everything is generally good but if the truth be known there's a pocket the cosmos that has erupted in angelic carnage as this redskined, pointy-tailed, pitchfork carrying lunatic has mounted a rebellion, but we are containing it and expect to have it under control within the eon!
NB Much as I think Ricky Gervais is irreverent (and funny at times), he does typify this point of view quite well! (See from 5:30 to end. DO NOT watch this if you are easily offended by coarse language.)
Is that really true though? Did God place Adam and Eve in the garden, knowing that there was a serpent in there who would get them to rebel? Was God so careless? If a mum put her newborn in a pen with a hungry lion and expect the lion not to gobble it up for lunch, you would say the mum is nuts... evil even! If you believe the first paragraph of this post then you have to also say that God is that brand of nuts or evil, or both, when he knowingly put Adam and Eve in the pen of Eden.
Unless of course there is a better way...
The Bible tells us that Adam, Eve and the Lucifer all rebelled against God together.
Satan, (or Lucifer as was his pre-rebellion name) was the guardian angel in the garden of Eden. But he rebelled, by inciting Adam and Eve to rebel against God.
And so we have lived under this curse ever since.
Thank God for Jesus!
