Question concerning Satan posited on FB: “Why [did] God allow Satan to compete with Him, please quote?”

Christian response (as succinct as possible),

Satan was God the Father’s chief cherub angel in the Kingdom (Ezekiel 28:11-17) until Satan opted to covet God’s authority and dominion (Isaiah 14). A war broke-out in the Kingdom of God between the servants of God and the army of Satan and seeing that God will not permit sin to enter His Kingdom (Revelation 20; Revelation 21:27), God the Father extricated Satan from His presence (Isaiah 14; Luke 10:18; Revelation 20); in response to Satan’s rebellion, God the Father commissioned the Son, Jesus Christ (John 3:35), to take elements from the unseen Spiritual Realm (Hebrews 11:3) and fashion those elements into matter that can be apprehended and interacted with by life constrained by Time, flesh, physics (Genesis 1; John 1; Colossians 1). It would be through the Gospel of Jesus Christ that God the Father would deal with the rebellious cherub angel as the Gospel was ordained “before the beginning of Time” (2 Timothy 1:9-10).

God the Father extricated Satan from the Kingdom (Luke 10:18) and placed the rebellious angel and his followers (demons) partially within the constraints of Time and physics upon this Earth (Genesis 3). God the Father permitted Satan access to mankind and subsequent to mankind’s alliance with Satan via man’s compromise with evil, this alliance resulted in the Adamic Curse (Genesis 3:17); God then declared a war between the Son of God who would enter Time through the seed of the woman (virgin – Genesis 3:15) and Satan (the serpent) as Jesus Christ would crush the head of Satan and Satan would bruise the heel of Christ; in fact, the primary reason the Son of God entered the Realm of Time was to “destroy the works of the Devil” (1 John 3:8b). Jesus Christ’ victory over Satan was accomplished 4000-years subsequent to Genesis 3:15 (the Gospel pictured in Genesis 3:21) as Jesus defeated the tactics of Satan i.e. death, Hell, the grave, by giving Himself as a sacrifice for our sin thereby defeating death, Hell, the grave for everyone who believes that Jesus Christ is God who died to pay their sin-debt (John 3:16; John 8:24; John 14:6; Romans 10:9-10).

In conclusion,

If God the Father had simply destroyed Satan and the rebellious angles for their rebellion in the Kingdom, God ran the risk of destroying volitional love with the faithful angels that did not rebel against Him but remain true to this very day. If God the Father had simply destroyed Satan at the moment of the rebellion, it is possible that the faithful angels would no longer love God out of free will but out of fear as the angels would perceive God as capricious and a tyrant. In order to demonstrate His perfect love for the faithful angels in the Kingdom, God the Father opted to go to battle with Satan and defeat Satan with selfless love and personal sacrifice by giving Himself as the “Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the World” (John 1:29).

Also, God the Father is actively demonstrating to the faithful angelic creation that is observing God’s work in Time the destructiveness of sin and the horrors that result from rebellion to and rejection of God’s law and God’s righteousness. At the conclusion of Time, at the end of the Millennial Reign of Jesus Christ, the Judgment of the Condemned (The Great White Throne Judgment, Rev. 20:11-15) will manifest and Satan and the fallen angles will be judged and every faithful angel in the Kingdom will wholly concur with God the Father that Satan and their former brethren, the fallen angles, do indeed deserve punishment in Hell forever and ever (Matthew 25:41; Revelation 20:10); in this, God will have successfully maintained volitional love with His faithful angelic creation through selfless love and sacrifice.

So then, God the Father’s Plan to deal with Satan has resulted in our creation in Time and the war between God and Satan and its destructiveness was placed in Time to be dealt with apart from the Kingdom where nothing impure will ever enter (Revelation 21:27). I know it’s difficult to fathom this truism, but mankind and our creation in the Realm of Time is simply refuse of an incredible cosmic war that is manifesting before our eyes this very moment. God the Father, in His mercy, has allowed you and me to become active players and participants in this war and God has set before us the opportunity to ally with Him through faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and receive glory and honor in the Kingdom of God forever – or – mankind can choose to ally with Satan by rejecting Jesus Christ as Lord and suffer a similar fate as Satan in Hell as death in Hell is necessary seeing that unrepentant sin will NOT enter the Kingdom of God.