Sheitan!

Mike Potemra over at The Corner has put something important about Satan rather well:

Think of Satan, therefore, as the ultimate prosecuting attorney, winning laughs from the gallery with his witty denunciations of the worst shames and guilts hidden in the heart of the accused, all with the goal of breaking their spirit and making them admit they belong with him and not with God. Hee hee hee, you bore false witness! You committed adultery! You coveted thy neighbor’s goods! You did sins X and Y and Z! And that’s the sum total of who you are, all you’ve ever been, all you ever will be!

Pretty good stuff that.

And yet I think we would be well advised to resist going all the way Potemra does here. No reasonable reading of the Bible nor any reasonable reading of the facts of human nature would deny that we do need accusing. We are sinners and we are not worthy of God's grace. There is no disputing that and Satan also sometimes takes the opposite tack of trying to convince us that we are too good to be judged.

Ultimately, Satan's accusations are always against God not us. He makes us think that there is something wrong with God's judgment. If you look at Potemra's example you can see this; it's not really what we are that is at issue but the Judge whom Satan wants us to believe unwilling or incapable of forgiving us.

There was a commenter here a while ago who accused me of trying to set Jesus up as a cosmic policeman. And you can see the fear that Satan works on us in that image. When you're driving along and you see a police car in the rear view mirror and it it just stays there as if following you—and maybe it is, or maybe the officer is running your plates through the system, or maybe the officer just happens to be going the same way you are—but, whatever the explanation for his being there, what matters is the way you respond. If Satan can get you to see God like that police officer, you lose.

And yet, and this is where I kept offending my commenter and is also where I part company with Potemra above, Jesus is judge. He will come again to separate the sheep and the goats.