This was also originally part of a series I posted in October/November 2021 “exposing” the person and works of the devil. Some revisions have been made.
I would like to continue considering the why question regarding God’s purpose in the creation of Satan/the devil and subsequently allowing the evil and destruction that he and his minions have brought upon God’s good creation. Our good friend Jonathan Edwards, in The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Volume 2, writing on the Fall of the Angels, sees God’s purpose in allowing Lucifer and the angels, and ultimately man to rebel against His good purposes in creating them, as being for His glory – that the infinite perfections of God’s being would be seen, displayed, proclaimed, delighted in and enjoyed by those He created for His glory, namely mankind (Isaiah 43:7).
However, Edwards sees a specific aspect of God’s glory, a specific attribute of God that is to be magnified in the fall of men and angels, and that is to be the glory of His sovereign grace, as it is revealed most gloriously in the person and work of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, in His redemption of both man and the natural creation from the ravages of sin (John 1:29) (Ephesians 1:7) (Isaiah 65:17). In Him the infinite glory of God’s grace would shine most gloriously in this age and in the ages to come (2 Corinthians 4:6) (Ephesians 2:5-7).
The term or concept of grace is typically defined as the kind intentions of one person toward another, a gift freely given that benefits another, or the goodness we receive from someone who owes us absolutely nothing.
One writer describes God’s grace as being God’s free and glad display of His infinite goodness, wisdom and power on behalf of his creation, particularly mankind, for our eternal joy, pleasure and satisfaction in Him (Psalm 65:4).
Although God’s gracious disposition dominates the revelatory exposition of His person throughout the Bible, it is proclaimed most succinctly by God Himself in Exodus 34:5-8. In this passage we also see God’s mercy proclaimed. Mercy is the flipside of the coin of grace, wherein grace is God’s goodness displayed toward the undeserving, while mercy is God’s goodness displayed toward the Hell deserving, which we all are (Lamentations 3:22-23) (Romans 3:9-12).
From the beginning, all of creation came into being and is sustained by God’s grace, for his glory and man’s good (Psalm 119:68). God graciously created angels with great wisdom, beauty and power to exist in His immediate presence, beholding His glory and serving Him in His beneficence toward mankind, whom He would create in His image and likeness to also have life in His presence where we would know only fulness of joy and pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11). All of the awesome wonders of nature in the heavens and the earth that God heralded as “very good” were graciously provided by God for man to rule over, protect, and fully and freely enjoy under God’s gracious authority (Genesis 1:27-31) (1 Timothy 6:17).
As created beings, made for His glory, it should be evident to both men and angels that apart from His grace we are nothing and have nothing to bring about our happiness as God designed (James 1:17).
Edwards thus sets forth the premise that the fall of men and angels from the gracious and glorious relationship with God for which they were created, a fall caused by our disdaining/despising of the riches of His grace (Romans 2:4), was by God’s design to demonstrate for all eternity and to all creation, the emptiness, the helplessness, the exceeding insufficiency of both men and angels to exist and thrive, as God intended, apart from His grace (Romans 11:33-36) (Acts 17:28) (John 15:5).
Edward’s writes “God’s design was to first show the creature’s emptiness in itself and then fill it with himself in eternal, unalterable fullness and glory”. To this end, God allowed the creature, both men and angels, in their opposition to God, to sink into total and utter depravity and humiliation, and the earth that was to be ruled and enjoyed by man to undergo complete ruin” (Romans 8:20-22).
Through this judgement, both men and angels would know their own emptiness, inadequacy and absolute insufficiency apart from submission to God, as the vanity, the futility and destructiveness of their self-dependence and self-willfulness would be exposed as they were cut off from the life with God for which they were created, subjected to His wrath, and thus brought to an entire dependence on sovereign grace and the all sufficient mercy of God to be communicated to them by God to escape the finality of that judgement (Ephesians 2:1-3).
Edwards writes as to the wisdom of this purpose, “And thus the whole old creation, both heaven and earth, as to all its natural glory and creature-fulness, was to be pulled down; and thus, way was to be made for the creation of the new heavens and new earth, or the setting forth of the whole elect universe in its consummate, everlasting, immutable glory in the fulness of God, in a great, most conspicuous, immediate, and universal dependence on his power and sovereign grace, and also on the glorious and infinitely excellent nature and essence of God, as the infinite fountain of glory and love; the beholding and enjoying of which, and union with which, being the elect creature’s all in all, all its strength, all its beauty, all its life, its fruit, its honour, its blessedness”.
This new creation would come forth through the One who unlike the devil and fallen mankind, both of whom sought equality with and even exaltation over God, “did not see equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:5-11).
This One is of course God the Son, Jesus Christ, who after living a life of perfect obedience to and total dependence upon God the Father as a man, suffers the greatest of humiliations on the cross so that creation could be renewed and redeemed men and women could one day be conformed, by grace, to His eternal glory in every aspect of our being (Revelation 21:5) (1 John 3:1-4) (Philippians 3:20-21).
Edwards writes that it was always the divine purpose that the human nature was to be assumed by, and united to, the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, and that He was to be the head of all principality and power, the infinite fountain of God’s glory and love, such that angels and men should come to know the riches and the glory of God’s grace through Him and in Him (Ephesians 1:3-10).
Edwards notes that this grace was first extended to what he referred to as the “elect angels” (1 Timothy 5:21), those angels whom God graciously chose to restrain from joining the devil and his angels in their rebellion, who would be cut off from God’s grace forever (Matthew 25:41). The “elect” angels would be confirmed in holiness as ministering spirits to Christ and His redeemed image bearers – His elect (Hebrews 1:14) (1 Peter 1:1-2). His “elect” are men and women graciously chosen by God out of condemned humanity (Romans 11:5-6), in whom God would grant spiritual life (Ephesians 2:4-7), create in them a new heart, freeing them from the pride and envy that brought about that condemnation, and put His Spirit in them (Ezekiel 36:24-27). He would do so that we could receive by faith the redemption that is in Jesus Chris and fully and forever enjoy the benefits of the new creation (Romans 3:24). This new creation would exceed in glory all that was found in the first creation, even before it was corrupted by sin (2 Corinthians 5:17) (1 Corinthians 2:9) (Revelation 21:1-3).
This is the glorious destiny of all whom God freely chose from the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:3-5), whose hearts have been humbled ( James 4:6), so that we would know that it is not by our righteous works that we have been saved, but that our salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ and His works alone ( (Titus 3:3-7) (Ephesians 2:8-10), to the praise of the glory of His grace alone (Ephesians 1:6) (John 1:14-16).
And thus, all elect men and angels must and will, with great joy, proclaim from the depths of their hearts, now and throughout eternity, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, And strength and honor and glory and blessing!” “Amen” (Revelation 5:11-14)
Grace and Peace ×