ON APOSTASY

 

  As I wrote in my latest book, The Omega Variant, the problem in the world is not a serpent per se but the real notion of sin.

  Many theologians will argue the point, but “Satan” and “Serpent” in the Bible represent the unnatural and natural characteristics of the angel, Lucifer.

  Satanail is the word from which “Satan” is taken. First examine apostates as Enoch saw them:

And I said to the men who were with me: Wherefore are these incessantly tortured? They answered me: These are God’s apostates, who obeyed not God’s commands, but took counsel with their own will, and turned away with their prince, who also is fastened on the fifth heaven. (1 Enoch 7:2)

  Apostates (apostasia in the Greek; Heb 6:6) is translated “fall away.” From whom or what? The LORD GOD. Literally, apostasy means defection from the LORD, implying that the beings, either angel or man, once had affection — “a bodily condition” — for God. (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). Scripture defines affection well: “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own” (1 Cor 6:19)?

  That affection that Christians have for God is that their body, their entire existence, belongs to God. Satan and God cannot share a Christian, nor can anyone be their own!

  The vision that Enoch saw hit the proverbial “nail” on the head: “the apostates took counsel with their own will.” The human will is the inner man. Beings may look like angels or men, but inwardly, they may be a self-anointed “god” doing their own thing. Paul describes the human will as the “flesh” which opposes the Will of God, the Spirit (Mat 26:41). The “flesh” is the image of Lucifer now that sin has entered unto the world.

  Affection is offering the flesh of the person to God with its will intact. Defection, or apostasy, is removing the flesh and will from the offering “table.” To the brethren, Paul wrote, “By the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom 12:1). Therefore, the offering “table” signifies worship. Defection from God is when the worship of God is taken off the “table.”

  How would anyone know if he has defected from God? When he or she no longer worships Him in Spirit. In Spirit just means communion in accordance with God as the converts did in Acts 2:1.

  In this age, as always, people take council with their own will (from above). They do what is right in their own eyes (Jud 17:6). They make themselves out to be God just as the Serpent warned Adam and Eve (Gen 3:5).

  Satanail is the “prince,” according to the Book of Enoch, but he was not crown prince by God, but by Adam and Eve who directly and indirectly hearkened unto him rather than God.

  The human will matters to Satan because he is prince by their authority. God created mankind, then Eve turned around and made the Serpent her “lord” (Gen 4:1).

  Thus, Satan is the title of the image that Adam and Eve made. Because the Hebrew word, nachash, means both serpent and image, then the Serpent is merely the image inside Lucifer in that the “bringer of light” (Lucifer) is his angel and persona.

  With that said, God made Lucifer, but Adam and Eve made Satan when he was looked on as lord and prince. The created had become the “creators”!

 Rebirth, or “born again,” is when a person topples Satan and exalts Jesus, as in John 3:14. Satan is no longer recognized as either prince or lord, but who he is — a mere image like Judas with a false prince who flees the King! But not only a demotion of Satan but a promotion of the Jesus to the LORD GOD and King!

Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the Name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him My New Name. (Rev 3:12)

  So, those who are reborn must remain spiritually alive. They must have overcome the temptations of Satan who uses the things of the world to overcome Christians just as he did with Christ.

  When Jesus remained true to His Father as he was challenged by Satan, Christians must remain true to Jesus as LORD (His “New Name”). Those who are born again, even the “elders,” must stay sober and vigilant or they will be devoured by Satan and his “new image” — the Lion: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the Devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet 5:8).

  Thus, the “Devil” is the “lion,” or “Beast,” inside Lucifer. In the beginning, the nature of Lucifer was as a serpent, and in the end, a lion. Serpents crawl, but lions are kings of the jungle. Therefore, just as the Devil in Lucifer is “as a roaring lion” as is written, the Devil in him at the beginning was as a “pompous” Serpent who God diminished to a mere “worm” (Isa 14:12-14). Not that Lucifer was amorphous and changed species at will, but that his nature changed as was necessary for his initiative.

  On crucifixion day, Jesus, by His own sacrifice, transformed Satan in Judas to a mere worm when he fell from his tree on High, and then Satan crawled from the bosom of Judas, like… a worm!

  Conversion (persuasion; born again) is seeing Jesus as the True Lion of Judah who stepped on the “worm,” Satan, according to Gen 3:15, “And I 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.”

  Indeed, the “Serpent’s head,” Satan in Judas, was bruised that day, as Jesus figuratively stepped on the Serpent’s head when he walked up the Calvariae Locus (Calvary — the place of the cranium).

  Sure, anyone who truly believes that Jesus overcame the Wicked One, is born again. But just as birth is the onset of the process of death, rebirth is the onset of tribulation in the “womb” of the Earth.

  You must understand, Christian, that Satan is out to eat your flesh and soul! He can and will devour it unless the whole armor of God is worn. (Ephes 6:13) of which the most imperative is foremost, or
“Above all, taking the shield of faith” ((Ephes 6:16).

  Always remain sober and vigilant. Never let down the “shield of faith” or even the mature Christian, an elder, can be devoured.

  Why would Christians even need a shield of faith if they were invulnerable to the wiles of Satan? Because, they can be deceived, just as Adam and Eve who were perfectly innocent!

  How can anyone defect from the LORD GOD? By lowering their shield of faith. Faith is not something to use for a few moments then put away; it must be raised continually just as Moses did with the pole… in stedfast faith. Likewise, beware the roaring lion, “Whom resist stedfast in the faith” (1 Pet 5:9).

  Satan wants you to feel secure, especially when you are not! If worship is neglected, then temptation is entered unto. The faithful worship continually to demonstrate their faith.

  Worship is communing with God, and today that communion is reading the Word of God. To, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (Jas 4:7). Do you think of reading the Word, then fail to do that? If that happens too long, then the shield of faith is lowered, and the flesh is exposed for destruction.

  I wish that one trip to the altar was sufficient, then anyone could continue to do their own will. Unfortunately, that is the case for most; and many think they are saved when they are the most vulnerable. Those who endure to the end shall be saved, but until then, they live in safety, so long as the shield of faith is raised.