When People Look Like Satan

God made humans to reflect his image and advance the display of his glory over the created world (Genesis 1:26–28). But Adam failed in this commission. 

Rather than have dominion over the serpent he succumbed to its craftiness. As Greg Beale explains, "Instead of wanting to be near God to reflect him, Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden (Genesis 3:8 [so also 3:10])" (NTBT, 359).

Sin brought chaos and disorder. Things got all messed up. In fact, things became so backwards that Adam could be seen as actually suppressing the image of God to reflect the image of the serpent, like a back-story to Romans 1:18–25.

Adam was the first human idolator who became something he was not supposed to become, looking more like the snake than he did his Creator. Beale explains how:

"Idol worship" should be defined as revering anything other than God. At the least, Adam's allegiance had shifted from God to himself and probably to Satan, since he came to resemble the serpent's character in some ways.

[He Lied]
The serpent was a liar (Genesis 3:4) and a deceiver (Genesis 3:1, 13). Likewise Adam, when asked by God, "Have you eaten from the tree of the which I commanded you not to eat?" (Genesis 3:11), does not answer forthrightly. Adam replies, "The woman whom you gave me to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate" (Genesis 3:12). Adam was deceptively blaming Eve for his sin, which shifted accountability from him to his wife, in contrast to the biblical testimony that Adam, not Eve, was accountable for the fall (e.g., see Romans 5:12–19).

[He Didn't Trust God's Word]

In addition, Adam, like the serpent, did not trust the word of God (with respect to Adam, see Genesis 2:16–17; 3:6; with respect to the serpent, Genesis 3:1, 4–5). Adam's shift from trusting God to trusting the serpent meant that he no longer reflected God's image but rather the serpent's image. . . .  Continue at  Jonathan Parnell

Christmas Chaos

Christmas has really become a hopeless muddle of confusion. The humility and the poverty of the stable are somehow confused with the wealth and indulgence and selfishness of gift giving. The quietness of Bethlehem is mingled with the din of shopping malls and freeway traffic. The soberness of the incarnation is somehow mixed with the drunkenness of this season. Blinking colored lights somehow have some connection to the star of Bethlehem. The room in the inn, so obscure, so dirty with such meager fare, somehow embraces the thought of a warm house, a fireplace and opulent feasting. Cheap plastic toys for little kids with which to play out their follies are mixed with the true value of the gifts given by wise men. Salesmen somehow get mixed up with shepherds. Angels are confused with flying reindeer, one of which even has a red nose. The pain of childbirth is mixed with the parties. The filth of the stable is confounded with the whiteness of fresh snow. And then there’s Mary, Joseph, Perry Como and Bing Crosby. And so it goes. Read it all HERE