Most of us have hired a skilled tradesman to build or repair things. Many times, their claims are exaggeration. They convince the naïve customer that they are the best of their trade. Then, when the bill comes, it is high, and the workmanship shoddy.
People are the same way. Satan sells himself with great
promises, but only provides shoddy workmanship. He is not as good at his craft
as people credit him for. Many even believe that they are craftier than him and
can outwit him. Well, only God can do that, and you are not God. But Jesus, the
Master Craftsman, did outwit the poser, Satan.
Both Jesus and Satan are journeyman tradesmen. Neither are
amateurs at using their skills. When Jesus is called a “carpenter,” in the
Greek it is “tektron” which means not exactly carpenter but craftsman
(Strong’s Dictionary). That Jesus was a carpenter may have come from the Hebrew
wherein “created” [i]
means specifically “cut wood.” A craftsman in prehistoric days would have
likely been a carpenter.
The Garden of Eden was a Garden of Trees. Therein, God would
have cut wood, so to speak. Satan’s role was as a bad craftsman; to destroy the
“wood” cut by the Creator.
God, the Creator, is a great craftsman (tektron). Today,
a tektron would be considered a “technician” which comes from the Greek
word, tekhnikos. God is a technician in all senses of the word. He created,
not just cut wood, but particles of all types including electrons, photons,
neutrons and made them all sizes and shapes. He created all things seen and unseen,
and that would be heaven and earth, or space and matter.
God created all things in a gradual manner. He did not need
to, but He did. In like manner, mimicking Jesus, Satan perishes all things
gradually. God had created Adam and his kind, and Satan would kill them. After
eating the tempting fruit, nothing seemed to have changed with Eve, so Adam ate
as well. Although undetectable, both immediately began to wither so gradually that
it went unnoticed. Adam and Eve would perish. Not their entire being but
their flesh. God would preserve their souls which the Serpent would try to destroy
again and again.
God (Jesus) is the Craftsman. However, Satan, poses
as one, to wit: “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field
which the Lord God had made” (Gen 3:1). Subtil means “crafty.” Satan in the
Serpent was a “craftsman” just as Jesus. Whatever God Crafted, Satan endeavors
to re-craft. His goal is not to repair but change the nature of whatever God
made. God’s best design was Adam who was patterned after God Himself. To undermine
God, Satan would need to re-craft the man that God had crafted. He would try that
with God’s “Second Man” as well, not Cain, but Jesus!
God crafted Adam by molding him from the mist and
dust of the ground, then breathed life unto him. [ii]
Satan re-crafted Adam and Eve by sucking life from them. God imbued their “vessels”
(souls) with Holy Spirit, and the crafty Serpent diffused what God had imbued. In
other words, God molded the “cup” and Satan cracked it, so microscopically,
that the “crack” is unnoticeable. Often the person fails to understand that it
is cracked but still wonder why he feels so empty inside.
God made Himself in the image of Adam and came to save the
day. As the Great Craftsman. He came to regenerate what the amateur craftsman
degenerated. He came not just to fix the soul but the body as well. He came to
repair the “cup” and refill it with Living Water just as He had crafted it in
the beginning.
When Jesus asked His Father to pass that “cup” from Him, [iii]
he was referring to refashioning the broken “vessel” of mankind. He would
repair the soul.
Down by the Garden, Satan would try to fix things before
Jesus was able to. He provided shoddy craftsmanship, and by the work of his own
hand, he marred his own “cup” beyond repair. Judas hung himself and his guts
spilled out. He perished and would never be repaired. Judas died, and Satan
still seeks another vessel to corrupt.
Satan’s faulty craftsmanship worked once with the first
Adam, and why would it not work with the “Second Adam?” Because Adam was not Jesus.
He was very good, but Jesus is Perfect.
KEY VERSES: The Son of man is betrayed to be crucified. Then assembled together the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people, unto the palace of the high priest, who was called Caiaphas, and consulted that they might take Jesus by subtilty, and kill him. (Mat 26:2-4)
Judas, with Satan in him, [iv]
betrayed Jesus just as he had the first Adam. Satan had entered the docile viper
and rendered him a Beast. Satan crafted a Beast from a gentle snake! Millennia
later, Satan took the friend of Jesus and made him His enemy. Satan recrafted
and made a friendly man into a wild beast who would kill, ostensibly for money!
Judas, the friend of Judas? Crazy! Or is it? The psalmist wrote, “Mine own
familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up
his heel against me” (Psalm 4:9). That was a prophecy about Judas and his
relationship with Jesus. He at least posed as a friend, but perhaps he was
indeed a friend who turned on Jesus by allowing Satan to enter him. Satan “paid”
Judas 30 pieces of silver for the short-term use of his body. He only needed
his services for a moment, but the penalty was eternal.
Satan knew that would work because the Word foretold it, to wit: “I (God) will
put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it
shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Gen 3:15).
Satan would use the same method. It worked before, why would
it not work again? Well, the answer to that is that although Satan tempted Adam
and it succeeded, he tempted Jesus and it failed! Adam was not God but Jesus IS.
Adam was only the image of God.
In the key verse, Judas was the Betrayer. He was not alone. He
had Satan in him just as the Serpent of long ago. Remember, the Serpent was
more subtil than any beast. He used his craftiness to deceive
Adam and Eve.
The same thing happened to Jesus (see the key verses), “They
might take Jesus by subtilty, and kill him.” Satan “killed” Adam and Eve by his
subtilty. That was how the first Adam was killed. It worked then; would it work
now? The assembly used the High Priest, Caiaphas, to kill Jesus by the same
subtilty. Satan would work his craft again, and not only did Judas assist in
the conspiracy, but so did Caiaphas, to wit: “Caiaphas was he, which gave
counsel to the Jews, that it was expedient that one man should die for the
people” (John 18:14).
Caiaphas used Judas to betray Christ. Judas had to do that
because it was prophetic. Satan had to have a body to craft his plan to kill.
Originally, the body that Satan used was a mere beast that Adam had named. Animals
were to befriend Adam. This time, the Beast would be a friend of Jesus
as well! Satan often uses friends of people for his purposes.
Caiaphas was not a friend of Jesus and he would never do!
However, Satan was not the one who was sacrificing. Jesus was sacrificing himself.
Jesus was not Adam. The Serpent would not have his way with Jesus. Caiaphas was
elected by God to do the “bloody deed”[v] of circumcising God’s
Flesh from the earth.
The key word is “subtilty.” The Serpent was more “subtil”
than any beast of the field, and Judas was selected from all the field at the
assembly to take Jesus by “subtilty.”
Judas, however, was not a good enough craftsman to plan the conspiracy. Conspiracy? This event was the ultimate conspiracy, the granddaddy of them all: “Thou (Lucifer) hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, (Isa 14:13).
That was the subtil plan of Satan, but just how
crafty he turned out to be? He hung himself from a tree with a noose so inept
that Judas fell to the earth and spilled his guts. Isaiah was prophetic — the conspiracy
was to exalt Satan, perhaps with the silver, but what happened? The craftsman
was not very crafty: “O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to
the ground, which didst weaken the nations!” (Isa 14_12).
Isaiah knew all along that Satan was not the craftsman that
he claimed to be. He is not as crafty as he is said to be!
On the other hand, Jesus is THE Crafts-Man and He is so
crafty thar he Created all things and shall re-create them in the end. Jesus
crafted his own death and Satan and Caiaphas got the credit. Caiaphas and Judas
were the Oliver and Hardy, about whom Hardy said, “Ollie, look at another fine
mess that you got us into!”
Satan got himself and Caiaphas into a fine mess with God.
Jesus said, to Pontius Pilate, “Thou couldest have no power at all against me,
except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee
hath the greater sin” (John 19:11). Pilate may have converted and the soldier
who pierced Jesus was. Judas nor Caiaphas were converted. The subtil Satan in
Judas had gotten the two into another fine mess — a mess for which they are
still punished.
When I read the key verses. I said aloud, “That is the craft
of Satan. He is the one who beguiles!” Then it struck me — It was Satan doing
his thing all over again. Indeed, Solomon was right… there is nothing new under
the sun! [vi]
(Picture credit: dreamstime.com; "Crafty Person")
No comments:
Post a Comment