Part two of Mr. Cook’s excellent series of essays authored for this site.

SATAN AND THE SECOND ‘MAN’

It is no secret that Jesus’s favorite term for Himself was Son of Man. But what He meant by that term is mysterious indeed. I read my Bible for years without understanding this subtle, almost literary term. And it took many more years before I understood all of its profound implications. ‘Adam’ is, of course, Hebrew for ‘man’. Jesus saw Himself not only as a descendant of Adam, but also, as another Adam—the second Adam. St. Paul, likewise, refers to Jesus as ‘the last Adam’.

But the really most striking parallel occurs in the 3rd and 4th chapters of the Gospel of Luke. You might consider looking at it now, for full effect. Chapter three’s epic genealogy ends with ‘…the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.’ Thus, not only is Jesus called the ‘the Son of Man’—but Adam is called ‘the son of God’. And what’s more, immediately after that, in chapter four, we have another appearance by our old friend, Satan. (He’s rather fond of his cameos.) We find him in the desert tempting Jesus, saying the words ‘If you are the Son of God…’

St. Luke’s subtle point here, is that Satan (being the surprisingly ill-informed bungler that he is) was unsure whether Jesus was really the Son of God. Hence, the ‘If you are…’ This is, of course, speculation, but it makes a good deal of sense. Since Jesus’s public ministry had just begun, Satan didn’t yet have ample time to recognize Jesus by the works He had done. This would also explain why Jesus was rather furtive about his miraculous powers. For instance, He would restore someone’s sight, and then tell them ‘see that no one knows about this’. And when asked by Pharisees who gave Him such authority, he would answer their question with a riddle–because He knew it was not yet His time to die. It wasn’t until He was before the Sanhedrin, that He publicly confessed to being the Son of God. In a sense, it was that confession which gave Satan permission to carry out His death. And if Satan had have known Jesus’s identity beforehand, then Herod would perhaps have successfully killed Jesus at His birth.

But getting back to Jesus’s temptations: Satan hadn’t exactly sought Jesus out—it was the Holy Spirit that led Him to the desert, specifically to be tempted. I imagine there is even something significant to His being taken to a specific locale to be tempted: it is a desert instead of a garden, in which the second Adam will pass the test which the first Adam failed.

An interesting corollary to this point, is that even in the garden of Eden, Satan perhaps didn’t even know whether Adam was the one-and-only Son of God. Which is precisely why he chose to tempt Eve. At least, that is the speculation of John Milton in Paradise Lost, and the speculation of a great many other theologians. The idea is that Satan had mistakenly assumed that Adam was the ‘Son of God’, since God was his only Father. Thus, to achieve his goal of condemnation and death for mankind, Satan’s safest bet was to go after the woman.

Or did he choose to tempt Eve because she was the weaker sex? I dunno, but I like the other reason better. Anyhow, what I wish to point out here, is that Satan’s logic is actually a great example of speculation-gone-wild, the sort of speculation which is fundamentally destructive and anti-theological. Like all of us, Satan makes decisions despite his doubts, but his whole strategy, is always to confuse doubt with certainty. He is careful to take the ‘surely’ out of ‘you will surely die’, and pretends to possess a higher knowledge which is just within Eve’s reach.

Whereas, doubt and ignorance were protective forces for Adam and Eve. Doubt and ignorance had covered them like a blanket, and protecting their dignity as human beings, by confusing it with the dignity of Jesus Christ. It was precisely their ignorance of sin, which had kept them from sin. It was precisely because their origins were a mystery, that they were truly children of God. And it wasn’t until Adam had sinned, when he discovered that he had come from the dust.

Likewise it is precisely the ignorance of children, which protects their innocence. No, I take that back. Not their ignorance, but their imagination. Deep down, the two are probably one and the same. Imagination is essentially a form of ignorance, but not a passive ignorance. It is an active ignorance which is at the core of a good imagination. You know what I mean: movies which don’t show the monster are better than the ones that do.

Jesus was a child, with an imagination Himself. In a sense, it was the mystery of the second Adam which renewed the mystery of the first. Jesus was unknown as the Son of God for most of his life, except to a select few. His secret identity was known specially by his mother. ‘His mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.’ -Luke 2:51-52. You know, this is an odd verse, especially in view of Jesus’s divinity. We may speculate, as Anne Rice has done in her book Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt, that Jesus’s divinity may have been initially unknown, even unto Himself. Her book portrays Him in the first person at the age of eight, gradually piecing together the clues which point towards His own divinity. He gains the divine self-awareness we find in the gospels, as a sort of exciting process of discovery. There is a story of Jesus as a little boy, shaping sparrows out of clay, which He ‘accidentally’ turns into real sparrows which fly away. Other children are amazed. Only later in His life does He realize why He could do that. And all of this is portrayed sincerely, realistically, and reverently by Anne Rice.

You see, this is the sort of pure, innocent speculation which is faithful to history, tradition, and to orthodox theology. It is this sort of imaginative thinking in which Dan Brown fails. For him, and for so many so-called ‘progressive’ theologians today, to think about God is essentially a contrivance. It is a contrivance which cannot be sincere.

And the cure to this problem, is not to reject speculative theology in general. The cure is not to retreat into the confines of sola scriptura, or even into the confines of the most definitive statements of the Vatican. No, imagination is crucial to the Church. Imagination is the organ of meaning, and the mind must function imaginatively if it is to function at all. We must think holy imaginative thoughts, if we are to think at all. The imagination itself must be baptized.

…to be continued in Part III.