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Satan Also Came With Them

             One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”

Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.” (Job 1:6-7)

 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. (Galatians 5:14-15)

There’s a major gathering of angels and Satan shows up. Why would Satan show up? Why would the angels at the gate let him in? Why didn’t God attack him, bind him, throw him in hell, or whatever? How do you read the Job passage above? 

Did God say, “Hey, have a seat. Want some coffee? Where’ve you been?”

Or is it closer to the tone of a mother? “Where have you been? I’ve been calling you for the past century! Just look at you. Your wings are filthy…”

Given Satan’s answer, I’m inclined toward the former. Neither God nor Satan seems to be afraid. Satan is certainly no threat to God or to Heaven any more than we would likely consider a ladybug a threat if it got into the house.

In Matthew 4, Jesus seems to have the same, almost casual encounter with Satan. Yes, Satan was there to tempt Him, but even Jesus’ last rejection didn’t involve His inviting Satan to an MMA cage match or even an arm wrestling contest. To put it simply, Satan just doesn’t seem to be that big a threat to the Father or the Son. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that God may love Satan. He doesn’t wish him harm, though harm is inevitable if Satan continues on his course.

Now, let’s jump unceremoniously from Job to Galatians. Paul reminds us that the greatest commandment is to love one another. If we bite and devour others, we can only expect to be bitten and devoured in response. What if we adopted the general attitude that “they” aren’t a real threat? I’m not saying we live in denial that there are people out there who may try to do us harm, and we may have to respond to that at some point. But what if our attitude before that actual danger was that they weren’t a threat and that we could invite them to coffee? That doesn’t have to include our agreeing with them, but what if we showed them what treating others with love looks like – what being a Christian looks like, instead of following their example?

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