David,

             You had written, “Is Satan in control, or is God in control?”

Would it be too much of a copout to say, “both”?

In a sense that is true, given that the LORD has given the devil great power and authority.

However, in the other sense, that no matter how much authority and independence one of his creatures has, the LORD remains ultimately sovereign.

An example of this can be seen from two different scriptural accounts of the same thing.

One attributes what is going on to the devil:

I Chronicles 21:1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.

 

The other attributes what is going on to the LORD:

II Samuel 24:1 And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.

 

So, who was behind the numbering of Israel?

Was it David that made a conscious freewill choice to do it?

Yes it was, and that is why he had to also choose between three years famine, three months overtaken by foes, or three days pestilence.

 

However, didn’t scriptures indicate that the devil was behind the numbering of Israel?

Yes he was. It said that Satan provoked David to do it.

In this particular case, the devil was able to get his will fulfilled through David.

Yet, David was still able to make a freewill choice of his own.

To some this looks like a contradiction, but it is not, the scripture shows both simultaneously.

 

However, didn’t the scriptures also indicate that the LORD was behind the numbering of Israel?

Yes he was. It said the LORD moved David to do it.

The LORD was able to get his will fulfilled through David.

Yet, David was still able to make a freewill choice of his own.

To some this looks like a contradiction, but it is not, the scriptures shows both simultaneously.

 

However, who got David to number Israel?

Was it the devil? Yes.

Was it the LORD? Yes.

That looks like a contradiction to a lot of people, but it is not, the scriptures show both simultaneously.

Both the devil and the LORD got David to do it, but they did not plan that together, the devil is not out to help the LORD.

There appears to be a hierarchy of power and authority involved.

David was able to make a freewill choice to number Israel, which he did, and was called in question for that very decision.

However, it looks like the devil was able to pull David’s chain.

In this particular case, the devil was able to get David to his will, he provoked David to number Israel.

However, it looks like the LORD was able to pull the devil’s chain.

The LORD was able to get the devil to provoke David to do it.

 

So it appears that the ultimate power and authority to plan and accomplish his will, resides with the LORD.

However, even though the LORD accomplishes his sovereign will, and can prophesy this in advance, he still allows his creatures freewill.

The devil had the freewill to provoke David or not. He chose to provoke David.

He may not have even realized that it was the LORD’s will all along.

He may have thought that the idea was originally his, but it wasn’t.

David had the freewill to number Israel or not. He chose to number them.

He may not have even realized that it was the devil’s will all along, which was actually the LORD’s will all along.

 

So the answer to the question is not as cut and dry as we may like it, but it is there in black and white in the book.

In our frame of reference in time, in the visible world, which operates according to certain principles of logic, in cannot be all three at the same time.

However, there is a simultaneous, invisible world existing and interacting with our visible world.

That is the world that the devil works in, which appears to be transcendent to our world, in power and authority.

By his invisible intervention into our world, especially into the arena of our choices, he operates outside the parameters of our world’s logic.

Then beyond that, the LORD is in eternity, transcendent to the invisible world that the devil works in.

So whatever rules that things work by in the invisible world, the LORD,

by his eternal intervention into that invisible world, operates outside the parameters of the invisible world’s rules.

Therefore he certainly, also, operates outside the parameters of our visible world’s logic.

 

In a similar way, to most of us who are Christians, we consider the way of salvation to either be Calvinist or Arminian.

We only allow in our thinking that it must be one or the other, and that it can never be both.

However, the LORD is in eternity, and is transcendent to everything and every way, to our visible world that exists in time.

The Calvinists deny the clear part that the will of man operates according to the scriptures.

That is because they cannot see that both the LORD will have his will done, while not violating our freewill.

On the other hand, the Arminians deny the clear independent choice the LORD makes in election.

They view his election within the framework of our time bound, visible world’s logic.

In other words they say he only chooses those that he foresees choosing Christ.

The Calvinists deny man his independence in the choice of salvation.

While the Arminians deny the LORD his independence in the choice of salvation.

However, the way that the LORD so ordered his creation, and in context of his personal attributes, it is both.

Like seen in the choice of David numbering Israel, it is not only one or the other.

 

The LORD is sovereign in his will.

However, the devil is not sovereign in his will, he cannot make all things happen according to his will.

We also are not sovereign in our wills, we cannot make all things happen according to our will, either.

 

The LORD gets his will done by his creatures, regardless, while yet allowing them freewill choice within their own realm.

His will is in eternity, and will be done as he says.

The devil’s will is in the invisible world, and the LORD doesn’t violate the devil’s freewill, for which he is responsible for.

However, in looking at the whole of scripture, we see that in the end, looking back, the LORD’s will is still done, no matter what the devil does.

Our will is in the visible world, in time, and the LORD doesn’t violate our freewill, for which we are responsible for.

However, in looking at the whole of scripture, we see that in the end, looking back, the LORD’s will is still done, no matter what we do.

 

There are three things existing and interacting simultaneously, within a hierarchy of power and authority.

The LORD in eternity, the devil in the invisible realm, and us in this visible realm in time.

In all three there is independent freewill.

Yet the LORD can move the devil to do his will, regardless of the freewill of the devil.

 

Like how Jesus taught the disciples to say to the LORD, “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven”.

We know from the end of the book, that it will be.

 

                          Praise the LORD,

                                       Gino