The second announcement of Satan assured the woman that they would, by this independent action, “be as God;” and this, so far from promising death, seemed to them the immediate realization of the highest human ideal.  It was undoubtedly the original purpose of God in creation that humanity should eventually become like Himself.  By what process of development this was to have been accomplished, had not sin entered, has not been revealed.  It is enough to know that even after man had fallen from his high estate through sin, this Divine purpose was not abandoned, though the problems involved were immeasurably increased:  and now, through the unsearchable riches of His grace, the realization of that which surpasses all human dreams has been made possible, even to fallen and polluted man.

The consummation of the transforming work of God is thus described:  “For whom He did foreknow, He did also predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son” (Rom. 8:29).  “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be:  but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is” (I Jno. 3:2).  “When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory” (Col. 3:4).  “Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy” (Jude 24).  “For our citizenship is in heaven; whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:  who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working whereby He is able even to subject all things unto Himself” (Phil. 3:20, 21 R.V.).

It is natural that Satan should suggest to humanity that which had been the object of his own unholy ambition; and especially is it natural, since by such a separation of humanity from its God, he could claim that authority over them, and secure that worship from them, which he so much craved.

There are, then, at least two distinct methods proposed for the uplifting of humanity, and these are brought into sharp contrast; for one is of Satan, and the other is of God.  Since both these methods claim to aim at the same end—­though one ideal is not worthy to be compared with the other—­the method, alone, forms the first point for discussion.

Under the Satanic control, man has always been strangely influenced in the matter of his relation to his Creator.  He, too, has been willing to assume a hopeless position of independence toward God; and, under that abnormal relation, he has gone out alone to grope his way; blindly seeking to build his own character, and by education and cultivation to improve his natural heart, which God has pronounced humanly incurable.  He has also bent his inventive skill to the development of means by which God-imposed labor may be avoided; and much of his selfish greed springs from a desire to purchase a substitute who shall bear for him the discomfort of a sweating brow.  “God is not in all his thoughts;” nor has he any disposition to claim the help of God upon the terms upon which it is offered.  The Satanic method for life prompts him to become a god by a process of self-help and development of the finite resources.