Objection:
Your view of the “day of atonement” makes Satan your savior, sin-bearer, and vicarious substitute.
Answer:
This objection is given respecting our belief that Satan is represented as the scapegoat in the final phase of the Day of Atonement (See Leviticus 16). Yet, with all evangelical Protestants, we believe that there is no other name given under heaven whereby we must be saved than the name of Jesus Christ (See Acts 4:12). We qualify this in no way. Not until the plan of salvation is completed and the righteous have been saved for eternity through the atoning work of Christ does Satan enter into the picture. Our belief as to the relationship of Satan to our sins might perhaps be stated more or less precisely with the aid of an illustration:
A group of men have been arrested, tried, and convicted of certain crimes. A heavy fine is imposed upon them. They are in a hopeless state, for they are penniless. But their hopelessness is changed to joy: a wealthy philanthropist offers to pay their fine. They accept and are freed. The case is apparently settled. However, continuing its investigation, the court discovers that a person of fiendish cunning has dominated these poor men and has seduced them into their course of wrongdoing. He is captured, and judgment is meted out to him. He is made to pay a fine much heavier than that from which the poor men have been freed by the gracious act of the philanthropist, for the court reasons that he is doubly guilty.
We all consider that the court has acted reasonably. No one would think for a moment that because the group of men have been freed, therefore the matter is necessarily closed. And because the fiend has to pay the penalty for the crimes of the group of men whose heavy fines have been paid by the philanthropist, no one feels any reproach is being cast upon the rich man’s gift. The gift ultimately paid the penalty that was to have been meted out to that group, yet the fiend must finally suffer for the same crimes because he was primarily responsible for them.
In vague outline and with the handicaps of analogy, that illustrates our view as to the relation of Satan to our sins. We are guilty before God. We are penniless and in a hopeless state, but Christ paid the price necessary to set us free—not with silver or gold, but with the price of His precious blood (See 1 Peter 1:18-19). He is the philanthropist—the lover of man—in our illustration. The penalty for our sins He fully paid, for His gift is all-sufficient. His atoning sacrifice is full and complete.
But the court of heaven determines that Satan, the archfiend, has been the real instigator of all sin from the very day when he seduced our first mother, Eve. He is brought before the bar of justice and indicted, not simply for his own sins, but for the primary responsibility for the sins of those who have been pardoned. It is as though our Advocate, having obtained our pardon, turns prosecuting attorney against our fiendish adversary, causing to return upon his own head the mischief and woe into which the now pardoned and saved sinners had been drawn during their lives.
Thus instead of viewing Satan in any sense as our savior from sin, our doctrine makes most vivid the fact that he is the author of sin. Instead of viewing him as one who was made “to be sin for us, who knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21), we view him as one who, being the primary instigator of all sin (See John 8:44), is about to suffer the final judgments of God.
