to our own time, such is the spirit which has been
displayed toward those who dare to condemn sin.

By the same misrepresentation of the character of God as he had practised
in heaven, causing Him to be regarded as severe and tyrannical, Satan
induced man to sin. And having succeeded thus far, he declared that God's
unjust restrictions had led to man's fall, as they had led to his own
rebellion.

But the Eternal One Himself proclaims His character: "The Lord God,
merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,
keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,
and that will by no means clear the guilty."(883)

In the banishment of Satan from heaven, God declared His justice, and
maintained the honor of His throne. But when man had sinned through
yielding to the deceptions of this apostate spirit, God gave an evidence
of His love by yielding up His only begotten Son to die for the fallen
race. In the atonement the character of God is revealed. The mighty
argument of the cross demonstrates to the whole universe that the course
of sin which Lucifer had chosen was in no wise chargeable upon the
government of God.

In the contest between Christ and Satan, during the Saviour's earthly
ministry, the character of the great deceiver was unmasked. Nothing could
so effectually have uprooted Satan from the affections of the heavenly
angels and the whole loyal universe, as did his cruel warfare upon the
world's Redeemer. The daring blasphemy of his demand that Christ should
pay him homage, his presumptuous boldness in bearing Him to the mountain
summit and the pinnacle of the temple, the malicious intent betrayed in
urging Him to cast Himself down from the dizzy height, the unsleeping
malice that hunted Him from place to place, inspiring the hearts of
priests and people to reject His love, and at the last to cry, "Crucify
Him! crucify Him!"--all this excited the amazement and indignation of the
universe.

It was Satan that prompted the world's rejection of Christ. The prince of
evil exerted all his power and cunning to destroy Jesus; for he saw that
the Saviour's mercy and love, His compassion and pitying tenderness, were
representing to the world the character of God. Satan contested every
claim put forth by the Son of God, and employed men as his agents to fill
the Saviour's life with suffering and sorrow. The sophistry and falsehood
by which he had sought to hinder the work