IS GOD ON PLAN C?

Author of Sin?
The writers of the 1689 London Baptist Confession
made the following statement with regards to Gods
decree:
God has decreed in Himself, from all eternity, by
the most wise and holy counsel of His own will,
freely and unchangeably, all things, whatever
come to pass; yet so as thereby is God neither the
author of sin nor hath fellowship with any
therein.
The sovereignty of God and the presence of sin
causes much consternation for many, leading to
things like Plan B and Plan C. The prophet Isaiah
records these words of Yahweh Himself:
I am Yahweh Elohim, and there is none
else. There is no Elohim except Me. I am
girding you, yet you do not know Me. 6That
they may know, from the rising of the sun and
from the west, that there is a limit apart from
Me. I am Yahweh Elohim, and there is none
else. 7Former of light and Creator of
darkness, Maker of good2 and Creator of
evil. I, Yahweh Elohim, made all of these
things. 9Will anyone contend with his
Former? The earthenware with the
ceramists? Is the clay saying to its potter,
`What are you making?'
And your
contrivance, No hands has he? 10Will
anyone say to a father, What are you
begetting? Or to a woman, With what are
you travailing? (45:5-10)
5

This week on Facebook I have been writing about the

four individuals that were involved in the Second C
(Corruption) of History Yahweh, Satan, Eve and
Adam, as recorded in Genesis 3. Many people
believe that the presence of Satan in the picture
already meant that Yahweh was on Plan B and
Adams sin meant He had to move onto Plan C. For
example, Victor Sackey writes:
It was Lucifer and his cohorts that rebelled at
Gods government and laws; they destroyed the
Earth and this is where the Bible in Genesis 1:2
states, the earth was empty and formless and
darkness was everywhere.
However, God seeing that one third of His angels
had rebelled against His government thought of
Plan B, which was to recreate Himself through
moral beings which resembled Him. Adam was
supposed to replace Lucifer upon the throne of
the Earth before he fell to the temptation of Satan
and sinned. Then came Plan C, the redemption
plan, which was for Christ to come and save the
whole of humanity officially and qualify to
replace Satan upon the throne of the Earth.1
I that the very few who read this will disagree, but I
hope to show that this view of history makes God a
sinner. Yahweh is the One Who is operating all in
accord with the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11)
and He only has Plan A. The idea that He had two
plans that failed before the present one makes a
mockery of Yahwehs sovereignty.
1

Evangelist Victor A. Sackey, Man of Destiny: Lessons

from Joseph and Modern Day Parallels (West Bow Press,
2015)

Is Creator of evil the same as Author of sin?

That all depends on the meaning of create and
whether or not there is a difference between evil and
sin?
The Meaning of the Hebrew Word Bara
No one has a problem with Yahweh calling Himself
the Former of light and the Maker of good, but
the Creator of darkness and the Creator of evil,
now that is a different story. The Hebrew word
translated Creator is bara (), the very same
word found in Genesis 1:1 in a beginning created
by the Elohim were the heavens and the earth.
Jeff Benner writes regarding the root of this word:

Although the Masoretic text (MT) has peace (Hebrew

shalowm), the Dead Sea Scrolls, which predate the MT by
a thousand years, has good (Hebrew towb).

The pictograph is a picture of a tent but

also represents the family which resides inside
the tent. The is a picture of a head.
Combined these have the meaning of "family
of heads". The plant families of grains such as
wheat and barley have a cluster of seeds at
the top of the stalk called "heads". These
grains were used for food for both man and
livestock.3
The concrete idea behind bara is the fattening or
filling up of something. It does not mean to make
something out of nothing (i.e., ex nihilo). The true
meaning of bara can be seen in the following
passage:
27

And there comes a man of Elohim unto Eli,

and said unto him, "Thus said Yahweh,
29
Why do you kick at My sacrifice, and at
Mine offering which I commanded [in] My
habitation, and do honor your sons above
Me, to make yourselves fat from the first part
of every offering of Israel, of My people? (1
Samuel 2:27-29)
The Hebrew word translated make fat is bara. Eli
and his sons were not creating the first part of
every offering of the people of Israel, rather they
were making themselves fat from them. Consider
this passage regarding Pharaohs dream interpreted
by Joseph:
2

And, behold! From the waterway are

coming up seven young cows, lovely in
appearance and plump of flesh. And grazing
are they in the marsh grass. (Genesis 41:2)
The Hebrew word translated plump is bariy (from
bara). These cows were well fed fattened even.
Based on these observations, a more literal
translation of Genesis 1:1 would be:
Elohim fattened the heavens and the land.
In Genesis 1:2, we see that the land was tohu and
bohu (i.e., chaos and empty). The remainder of
Genesis 1 is about God eliminating the chaos and
filling the emptiness. God separated the light and
darkness on day one and filled them with the sun, the
moon and stars on day four. He separated the water
and the sky on day two and filled them with the fish
and the birds on day five. He separated the land from
the water on day three and filled the land with
animals on day six. The emphasis of Genesis 1 is not
on creating, but rather filling up or fattening.
3

Jeff Benner, Ancient Hebrew Lexicon,

Virtualbookworm.com, 2005, pg. 72.

Further, consider these two passages from the early

chapters of Genesis:
27

And creating (bara) is the Elohim humanity

in His image. In the image of the Elohim He
creates (bara) it. Male and female He creates
(bara) them. (Genesis 1:27)
7

And forming is Yahweh Elohim the human of

soil from the ground, and He is blowing into
his nostrils the breath of the living, and
becoming is the human a living soul.
(Genesis 2:7)
In the second passage, the Hebrew word translated
forming is yatsar and it has idea of pressing clay
into shape to form something. It is the same word
used in Isaiah 45:7 in the phrase Former of light.
Man obviously was not made from nothing he was
formed from the soil of the ground and the breath of
God. Therefore, bara in Genesis 1:27 cannot mean
created from nothing. Again, we see that the idea
of filling makes much more sense. The Hebrew
word translated image is tselem and it is the outline
or representation of the original. So Yahweh molded
a shell for man out of the ground and filled that shell
with a representation of Himself. The passage would
be more accurately translated:
27

And filling is the Elohim humanity with His

image. With the image of the Elohim He fills
it. Male and female He fills them.
The One Filling the Darkness
The description of the fourth day gives us insight into
the phrase the One creating darkness or more
accurately the One filling the darkness in Isaiah
45:7:
And saying is the Elohim, Become shall
luminaries in the atmosphere of the heavens,
to give light on the earth, to separate
between the day and the night. And they
come to be for signs and for appointments,
and for days and years." 15And there come to
be luminaries in the atmosphere of the
heavens to give light on the earth. And
coming is it to be so. 16And making is the
Elohim two great luminaries, the greater
luminary for ruling the day, and the smaller
luminary for ruling the night, and the stars.
17
And bestowing them is the Elohim in the
atmosphere of the heavens to give light on
the earth, 18and to rule in the day and in the
night, and to separate between the light and
the darkness. And seeing is the Elohim that it
is good. (Genesis 1:14-18)
14

Yahweh is the One forming (yatsar) light (i.e., the

greater light, smaller light and the stars) and fills the
darkness with them. But these lights do not do away
with the darkness. Notice that Yahweh indicates this
condition of both light and darkness is good (we will
be looking at this word shortly). In this case, light is
not necessarily good and darkness necessarily
bad, in the way that we generally understand these
words. We would be blinded by both pure light and
pure darkness. In order to see, we need a balance
between both.
Meaning of Good & Evil

31

And seeing is the Elohim all that He had

made, and, behold, it is very good (towb).
(Genesis 1:31)
Light and darkness, the waters and the sky, the land
and the plants, the sun, moon and stars, the fish and
the birds, the land animals, man and woman it was
all functional. God saw His creation working like a
well-oiled machine.
Based on this understanding of the word towb, the
primary meaning behind the word ra would be the
opposite, namely, dysfunctional. Jeff Benner writes:
In our western way of thinking, we see
good as something to be pursued and
bad as something to be avoided, a moral
dichotomy. However, in the Hebrew mind of
the Biblical authors, towb and ra are not
moral issues but a balance, like the positive
and negative ends of a magnet.

So what is evil? The Hebrew word translated evil

in Isaiah 45:7 is ra. It is the same word that we find
in the command given to Adam:
15

And taking is Yahweh Elohim the human

that he had formed and is leaving him in the
garden of Eden to serve it and to keep it.
16
And instructing is Yahweh Elohim the
human, saying, "From every tree of the
garden, you are to eat, yea, eat. 17Yet from
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
(ra), you are not to be eating from it, for in
the day you eat from it, to die shall you be
dying." (Genesis 2:15-17)

Up to the point where Adam and Eve ate

from the tree of the knowledge of function
and dysfunction they had only experienced
function, but they were in a state where
they could not understand the concept of
function. Why do some foods taste good
to you while others taste bad? Because
you are able to compare the one with the
other. If all your life you had eaten only one
food, you would not be able to make an
opinion on its taste, since you would have
nothing to compare it to. Not until Adam and
Eve had eaten the fruit, and thereby violated
Gods instructions, could they really know
function as they had now experienced
dysfunction.5

We see the word that ra is set in opposition to towb

( translated good). Benner writes regarding
the root () of this word:
The pictograph is a picture of a basket,
used to contain or surround something. The
is a picture of a tent or house. Combined
these mean "surround the house". The house
is surrounded by grace, beauty, love, health
and prosperity, something that is functional.4
This word is used often in Genesis 1 and 2. One of
these instances is:
And saying is Yahweh Elohim, Not good
(towb) is it for the human for him to be alone.
Make for him will I a helper as his
complement. (Genesis 2:18)
18

Remember the root meaning of towb was surround

the house. As soon as Adam and Eve disobeyed
Yahweh, their house was no longer surrounded by
grace, beauty, love, health and prosperity. That all
changed with the entrance of:

God would give Adam and Eve together the

command be fruitful and increase. Adam alone
would not have been able to fulfill this command
he was not functional from the standpoint of
producing offspring. The situation was not morally
evil, just not towb. After Eve was made, God said:

5
4

Benner, pg. 136.

Exposure (knowing are they that they are

naked [3:7]);

Fear (The sound of You walking hear I in

the garden, and fearful am I, for naked am I,
and I am hiding [3:10]);

Blame (The woman whom You gave,

withal, she gave to me from the tree and I am
eating [3:12]);

Jeff A. Benner, Living Words, Ancient Hebrew Research

Center, 2007, pp. 91, 92.

Grief (In grief shall you bear sons [3:16]

AND In grief shall you eat of it all the days
of your lives [3:17]);

Domination (he shall rule over you

[3:16]);

Cursing (cursed shall be the ground when

you serve it [3:17]);

Futility (thorns and weeds shall it sprout for

you [3:18]);

Death (your return to the ground, for from it

are you taken, for soil you are, and to soil are
you returning [3:19]); and,

Banishment (Yahweh Elohim is sending

him away from the garden of Eden [3:23])

They now had an existence that was full of

dysfunction.
Job & Evil
Following the second round of his trial, Job said the
following to his wife:
Yet he said to her, Like the speech of some
decadent woman are you speaking. Indeed
should we receive good (towb) from the One,
Elohim, and should we not receive evil
(ra)? In all this, Job did not sin with his
lips. (Job 2:10)
10

Job ascribed the evil to God. Further, God informs

us that Job did not sin with his lips in saying so.
Job realized that the same hand that gave him seven
sons, three daughters, seven thousand sheep, three
thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five
hundred female donkeys and a very large household
was the same hand that took them all back. The
Sabeans, the fire, the Chaldeans and great wind were
the immediate causes of his loss, but behind all these
was the hand of Yahweh (i.e., Yahweh, He gives,
and Yahweh, He takes away [1:21]). After stating
this, the Scripture inform us:
22

In all this, Job neither sinned nor ascribed

anything improper to Elohim. (1:22)
Job recognized that everything belongs to God and
God could take it back at anytime. He was not
charging God of sin for an owner cannot steal his
own property. God was teaching Job about His
sovereignty. God was the author of the trial of which
Satan, the Sabeans, the Chaldeans, the fire and the
wind were instruments in His hands. Satan wanted to
destroy Job; God was teaching Job.

It is not wrong for God to use evil. Evil and sin

are not the same thing.
Evil & Sin
We have been showing that evil and sin are not
synonymous. For instance, we read the following
Zimri, a king of the house of Israel:
19

For his sins that he sinned, to do the evil

thing in the eyes of Yahweh, to walk in the
way of Jeroboam, and in his sin that he did,
to cause Israel to sin. (1 Kings 16:19)
We see that Zimri did evil (asher hara) and it was
considered sin. However, consider these passages
from the prophets:
6

Would a trumpet be blown in a city, and the

people not tremble? Would there come to be
evil (raa) in a city, and Yahweh not have
done (asa) it? (Amos 3:6)
10

And they have known that I [am] Yahweh,

not for nought have I spoken to do (laasot) to
them this evil (haraa). (Ezekiel 6:10)
14

Alert is Yahweh over the evil (haraa), and

He is bringing it on us. Just is Yahweh our
Elohim in all His doings which He does
(asher); yet we do not hearken to His voice.
(Daniel 9:14)
God clearly does evil, but it cannot be sin. Notice
what Daniel says after indicating that Yahweh
brought evil upon the house of Judah, just is
Yahweh our Elohim in all His doings which He
does. Works that result in dysfunction (i.e., evil)
are sin when committed by humans, but righteous
when committed by God. It goes to intention.
Consider these words of Joseph to his brothers
concerning their sale of him to the Ishmaelites:
5

And now, you must not grieve, and it must

not be hot in your eyes, that you sell me
hither, for to preserve life the Elohim sends
me before you. 6For this two years the
famine is within the land, and there are still
five years in which there is no plowing or
harvesting. 7And sending me is the Elohim
before you to constitute you a remnant in the
earth and to preserve your lives for a great
deliverance. 8And now, not you send me
hither, for it was the Elohim. And
constituting me is He a father to Pharaoh,
and lord of all his household, and ruler in all
the land of Egypt. (Genesis 45:5-8)

20

And you, you devised against me evil (raa),

yet the Elohim devises it for me for good
(latoba), that it may work out as at this day,
to preserve alive many people. (Genesis
50:20)
Similarly the psalmist recounts:
16

He (Yahweh) called forth a famine on the

earth; He broke off the entire stock of bread.
17
He sent a man before them, Joseph, who
was sold as a slave. 18They humbled his feet
in fetters; His soul was inserted in iron
19
until the era when His word came to pass,
when the saying of Yahweh had refined him.
(Psalm 105:16-19)
Do Josephs brothers get credit for saving many
people because their wicked plan resulted in Joseph
going down to Egypt where God could use him? No,
they sinned because their intention was not good; but
God, Whose plan was for Joseph to be in Egypt to
address the coming famine, gets the glory because
His intention in the dysfunction that came into
Josephs life was good. Josephs brothers did the
selling, but Yahweh did the sending. This goes not
only for the sin of his brothers, but also the sin of
Potiphers wife for falsely accusing him, of Potipher
for falsely throwing him in prison, and of Pharaohs
chief butler in forgetting about Joseph. Notice the
psalmist says that these things refined Joseph,
prepared him for Gods ultimate plans for him.
God ordains sin for the sake of bringing about greater
good. When we sin, we do it because we delight in
the sin. Our intentions are evil. But God does not
ordain sin because He delights in it. He ordains evil
because He delights in the good that He plans to
bring out of it.
This is very similar to the crucifixion. We read in
Acts:
22

Men! Israelites! Hear these words: Jesus,

the Nazarene, a Man demonstrated to be
from God for you by powerful deeds and
miracles and signs, which God does through
Him in the midst of you, according as you
yourselves are aware-- 23This One, given up
in the specific counsel and foreknowledge of
God, you, gibbeting by the hand of the
lawless, assassinate. (2:22, 23)
27

For of a truth, in this city were gathered

against Thy holy Boy Jesus, Whom Thou dost
anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate,
together with the nations and the peoples of
Israel, 28to do whatever Thy hand and Thy

counsel designates beforehand to occur.

(4:27, 28)
Do we owe our salvation to Judas Iscariot, Annas,
Caiaphas, the other members of the Sanhedrin, the
Jewish crowd, Herod, Pontius Pilate and the Roman
soldiers? No, they all sinned in putting Jesus to
death. But everything they did, they did whatever
Yahweh had planned to be done. Their intentions
were wicked, His intentions righteous.

What is Sin?
In Exodus 34, Yahweh describes Himself to Moses as
the One who forgives iniquity (avon),
transgression (pesha) and sin (chattaah). The
most prevalent of these three is chattah and its root
verb (chata). The root meaning of the word group is
to miss. For instance, we read in the Book of
Judges:
15

And the sons of Benjamin number

themselves on that day; out of the cities [are]
twenty and six thousand men drawing sword,
apart from the inhabitants of Gibeah, [who]
numbered themselves, seven hundred chosen
men; 16among all this people [are] seven
hundred chosen men, bound of their right
hand, each of these slinging with a stone at
the hair, and he does not err (yachati).
(20:15, 16)
Amongst the tribe of Benjamin, there were 700
hundred left-handed men who could throw a stone
from a sling and hit a hair and not miss. The Hebrew
word translated err is our word for sin. At its heart,
sin has to do with missing a target. What target? The
apostle Paul writes:
23

For all sinned and are wanting of the glory

of God. (Romans 3:23)
In translating the New Testament to Hebrew,
Delitzsch uses chatau for the English sinned.
Similarly, the Peshitta (ancient Aramaic translation)
has chataw. When it comes to living our lives for the
glory of God, we have all missed the target.
With that understanding of sin, can God sin? The
answer is a resounding NO! Yahweh does whatever
pleases Him (i.e., He never fails to accomplish what
He sets out to do, He never misses the target).
Regarding Jesus, the prophet Isaiah declares:
10

Yahweh desires (chaphets) to crush Him,

and He causes Him to be wounded. Should
you place His soul for a guilt approach, He
shall see a seed. He shall lengthen His days,

and the desire (chaphets) of Yahweh shall

prosper in His hand. (53:10)
It was Yahwehs pleasure to crush the Messiah. In
fact, the desire of Yahweh was to prosper in the
hand of Jesus. At the end of His ministry, our Lord
could say that He finished the work given to Him by
the Father (John 17:4) He did not miss the target
(i.e., He did not sin):

saying that God failed, that He fell short of His goal;

in short, you are saying that God sinned. But you are
thinking, God couldnt possibly have wanted Adam
to sin. Listen to the Apostle Paul:
32

For God locks up all together in

stubbornness, that He should be merciful to
all. 33O, the depth of the riches and the
wisdom and the knowledge of God! How
inscrutable are His judgments, and
untraceable His ways! (Romans 11:32, 33)

21

For the One not knowing sin (Delitzsch,

chatah), He makes to be a sin offering for
our sakes that we may be becoming God's
righteousness in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

Adolph Knoch writes:

Sin has an essential, though transient, part in
God's purpose. Creation may reveal some
aspects of God's power and wisdom, but His
love can be displayed only where sin has
sown the seeds of hate. There can be no
Saviour apart from sin. There can be no
reconciliation apart from enmity. God locks
up all in stubbornness in order that He may
be merciful to all.

And you are aware that He was manifested

that He should be taking away our sins, and
in Him is no sin (Delitzsch, chete). (1 John
3:5)

Source of Sin
The Apostle Paul indicates that all things find their
source in God, the Father:

Shall God's affections remain forever pent up

in His own bosom? Shall He never taste the
sweet response of love? Then all He needs is
a perfect universe, where His creatures have
no need of Him and His gracious
ministrations. But if He wants the deep
satisfaction of requited love, and desires to
impart to His creatures the delicious sense of
His fatherly affection, then there must be
distance, distress and condemnation, to form
the field for the exercise of His favor.6

There is one God, the Father, out of Whom

all is, and we for Him, and one Lord, Jesus
Christ, through Whom all is, and we through
Him. (1 Corinthians 8:6
36

Out of Him (Yahweh) and through Him

and for Him is all: to Him be the glory for
the eons! Amen! (Romans 11:36)
And yet we have seen that God cannot sin. So what
is the source of sin?
The Fall of Man?
The same apostle writes:
12

Therefore, even as through one man sin

entered into the world, and through sin
death, and thus death passed through into all
mankind, on which all sinned. (Romans
5:12)

Are you troubled by the fact that God willed sin to

enter the world? Paul wasnt in fact it caused him to
stand in amazement of Gods ways. Youre thinking,
God told Adam not to eat from the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, how could He will the
exact opposite? Consider the Law of Moses. Was it
given in order to be obeyed? Yes and no:
20

By works of law, no flesh at all shall be

|justified in His sight, for through law is the
recognition of sin. (Romans 3:20)

Sin entered the world through Adam, but does this

make Adam the source of sin? Another question that
needs to be addressed is Could God have prevented
Adam's sin? The obvious answer regarding the One
Who does whatever He wants is Yes! God could
have created Adam incapable of sin. He could have
ensured that there was no temptation, no tempter and
no wife to be deceived by the tempter in the Garden
of Eden.
So the next question that comes to mind is was it
Gods will that Adam sin? Be careful how you
answer that question. If you say no, then you are

20

Yet law came in by the way, that the

offense should be increasing. Yet where sin
increases, grace superexceeds, 21that, even as
Sin reigns in death, thus Grace also should
be reigning through righteousness, for life
eonian, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
(Romans 5:20, 21)

Adolph Knoch, Problem of Evil

The purpose of the Law was to show man how sinful

he was to give Gods grace greater platform to be
displayed. The presence of sin in the universe was
not a mistake, but rather a part of Gods plan. God
planted the tree, God gave the woman, God let the
serpent in all these factors that led to Adams sin
were from the hand of God.
The Fall of Satan?
So Adam is not the source of sin. You might not like
what was said above concerning sin and Gods
purposes and want to pass the buck onto Satan, as the
serpent tempted Adam to disobey Gods
commandment. OK, you want to protect God and
make Satan the fall guy. There are a couple of
questions you need to answer. Who created Satan?
Paul writes:
16

For in Him (Jesus) is all created, that in the

heavens and that on the earth, the visible and
the invisible, whether thrones, or lordships,
or sovereignties, or authorities, all is created
through Him and for Him. (Colossians 1:16)
Who are these thrones, lordships, sovereignties and
authorities? In describing the whole armor of God,
the apostle writes:
11

Put on the panoply of God, to enable you to

stand up to the stratagems of the Adversary,
12
for it is not ours to wrestle with blood and
flesh, but with the sovereignties, with the
authorities, with the world-mights of this
darkness, with the spiritual forces of
wickedness among the celestials. (Ephesians
6:11, 12)
A comparison of these passages would make clear
that Jesus created Satan, the Adversary.
Second question, did Yahweh intend for this being
to remain sinless, assuming that was his original
condition? Again, be careful how you answer. If
God intended this being to remain sinless, then God
failed, He sinned. As God does not sin, it could not
have been Gods intention for this being to remain
sinless.
Third question, did Yahweh sin in creating a being
who would tempt man to sin?
Well, if God
intended to keep sin isolated in the heart of Satan, He
failed He sinned. But as sin was an essential part of
Gods plan, He created a being that would wreck
havoc in the universe. That is exactly what Satan has
done, so God hit the target. Ultimately, like all
things, sin is out of God.

Many people believe that in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 38

there are descriptions of the fall of Satan. Again, it
is important to note, that if Satan fell independently
of Gods intention, then God is a sinner. These
passages are directed to the king of Babylon and the
king of Tyre, respectively, and are not about Satan.
God has given us much less cryptic information
regarding His chief adversary. The Apostle John
writes:
8

Yet he who is doing sin is of the Adversary,

for from the beginning is the Adversary
sinning. (1 John 3:8a)
The apostle would seem to be indicating that the
Adversary was sinning from his beginning. We do
not read that from the beginning is Adam sinning,
because we know that Adam did not sin until he ate
the fruit given him by Eve. But the apostle indicates
that the Adversary was sinning from the beginning,
he did not have a fall. This is not the only indication
of this truth. In the gospel of John, Jesus states:
44

You are of your father, the Adversary, and

the desires of your father you are wanting to
do. He was a man-killer from the beginning,
and does not stand in the truth, for truth is not
in him. Whenever he may be speaking a lie, he
is speaking of his own, for he is a liar, and the
father of it. (8:44)
Again, the indication is that Satan has always been a
murderer and liar (from the beginning). It is not
only in the New Testament that we find this teaching.
In Isaiah, Yahweh declares:
16

Behold! I, I created the artificer who blows

into the fire of coal, and brings forth an
implement for his occupation. And I, I
created the ruiner to harm. (54:16)
Who is this ruiner that harms? The LXX uses the
Greek word apoleia for the English ruiner. This
Greek word is from apollumi, which Jesus uses:
10

The thief is not coming except that he should

be stealing and sacrificing and destroying
(apoles). I came that they may have life
eonian, and have it superabundantly. (John
10:10)
Now Jesus is not speaking solely or even primarily of
Satan in this passage. In verse 8, He indicated that
there had been multiple thieves and robbers had come
before Him. The thieves are likely the shepherds of
Israel referenced in Ezekiel 34:
2

Woe [to] the shepherds of Israel, Who have

been feeding themselves! The flock do not the

shepherds feed? 3The fat you do eat, and the

wool you put on, The fed one you slaughter,
the flock you feed not. 4The weak you have
not strengthened, And the sick one you have
not healed, And the broken you have not
bound up, And the driven away have not
brought back, And the lost you have not
sought, And with might you have ruled them
and with rigor. 5And they are scattered from
want of a shepherd, And are for food to every
beast of the field, Yea, they are scattered.
(vv. 2-5)
However, John points out:
For this was the Son of God manifested, that
He should be annulling the acts of the
Adversary. (1 John 3:8b)
Jesus came to annul the work of the Adversary. If we
go back to Ezekiel 34, we read:
11

For thus said the Lord Yahweh: Lo, I--even

I, have required My flock, And I have sought
it out. 12As a shepherd's searching of his
drove, In the day of his being in the midst of
his scattered flock, so I do seek My flock, And
have delivered them out of all places,
Whither they have been scattered, In a day of
cloud and thick darkness. 13And brought
them out from the peoples, And have
gathered them from the lands, And brought
them unto their own ground, And have fed
them on mountains of Israel, By streams, and
by all dwellings of the land. 14With good
pasture I do feed them, And on mountains of
the high place of Israel is their habitation,
There do they lie down in a good habitation,
And fat pastures they enjoy on mountains of
Israel. 15I feed My flock, and cause them to
lie down, An affirmation of the Lord Yahweh.
16
The lost I seek, and the driven away bring
back, And the broken I bind up, and the sick I
strengthen, And the fat and the strong I
destroy, I feed it with judgment. (vv. 11-16)
Yahweh, in the person of Jesus, would annul the
work of shepherds of Israel the thieves and robbers.
But based on 1 John 3:8, Jesus ultimately came to
annul the works of the Adversary. Satan is the
ultimate thief. If anyone was to be titled the ruiner,
it would be him.
Returning to Isaiah 54:16, the LXX uses the Greek
word phtheiro for the English harm. Paul uses this
same word when writing:

Yet I fear lest somehow, as the serpent

deludes Eve by its craftiness, your
apprehensions should be corrupted (phthar)
from the singleness and pureness which is in
Christ. (2 Corinthians 11:3)
Again, the language is consistent with Satan.
Yahweh has no issue declaring that he created the
ruiner for the very purpose of harming. And we
should remember that the word bara (created)
really means to fill, as if to say that God filled this
ruiner with all that he needed to harm. Job makes the
following statement:
13

By His spirit the heavens were made (Heb,

shipherah) seemly; His hand travailed (Heb,
cholalah) with the fugitive serpent. (Job
26:13)
This verse, like many in Hebrew, has a parallel
construction two very similar, but contrasting,
things are stated:
Subject

His Spirit

His hand

Verb

made

travailed

Object

the heavens

the serpent

Object
Modifier

seemly

fugitive

The Hebrew shipherah, the verb of the first phrase,

has the idea of making bright. Yahweh filled the
heavens with lights (sun, moon and stars) in Genesis
1:14-19, which ties the first phrase to His creative
work. Therefore, we would anticipate the same from
the second. The Hebrew cholalah, the verb of the
second phrase, has at its root the idea of boring a hole
with a bow drill, which explains the NKJV
translation pierced. However, in line with Gods
creative work, this verb can mean to writhe in
trevail with, bear, bring forth. A child bores a hole
through his mother in being brought forth. Consider
these words from Yahweh to Job:
1

Are you acquainted with the bearing of the

ibexes of the crag? Do you observe the
travailing (Heb, cholel) of the hinds? 2Do
you number the months they must fulfill, and
do you know the time of their bearing? 3They
crouch; they deliver their young; they put
forth the cause of their cramps. 4Their young
ones thrive; they grow great in the open; they
go forth and return no more to them. (39:1)
This passage is clearly about giving birth to young
and uses the same word for travailing as is used of

the fugitive serpent in Job 26. This use of the verb is

found elsewhere in Scripture regarding the creative
work of Yahweh:
18

The Rock Who generated you, you were

oblivious of Him, and you forgot the El
travailing with you. (Deuteronomy 32:18)
2

Ere the mountains were born, And You

travailed with the earth and the habitance,
From eon unto eon You are El. (Psalm 90:2)
22

Yahweh Himself acquired me as the

beginning of His way; Preceeding His deeds
of yore. 23From the eon was I inaugurated,
From the beginning, preceeding the earth;
24
When there were no abysses I was
travailed, When there were no springs
teeming with water. 25Ere the mountains
were sunk in place, before the hills, I was
travailed. (Proverbs 8:22-25)
Whatever the fugitive serpent is, it is clear that this
passage has to do with its being brought forth by the
travailing of Yahweh. The reference to the serpent
(Hebrew nachash) is important. Of course, in
Genesis 3, it is the serpent that tempts Eve to eat
from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Therefore, the apostle John writes of the dragon, the
ancient serpent, who is the Adversary and Satan
(Revelation 20:2). The LXX uses the Greek word
drakon to translate serpent in Job 26, the same
word used by John and translated dragon. The
Hebrew word translated fugitive (bariyach) is
related to the word used of Jonah fleeing (beroach)
from doing what God was calling him to do. It
would seem clear that the fugitive serpent is Satan.
Note the contrast between the making bright the
heavens by His spirit and the painful production of
the serpent by His hand. The spirit is used of intimate
association; the hand holds its work at a distance. It
makes sense that the bringing forth of the Adversary
needed for His plans, that it would bring God pain
and that it would be a work that God distanced
Himself from. Isaiah also speaks of the fugitive
serpent:
1

In that day Yahweh will check over with His

sword, holy and great and steadfast, on the
dragon (LXX, drakonta), the fugitive serpent
(Heb, nachash bariach), and on the dragon
(LXX. drakonta), the tortuous serpent (Heb,
nachash akalathon), and He will kill the
monster which is in the sea. (27:1)
In this passage, the translators of the LXX used
drakon for the Hebrew livyathan, translated in

English as dragon. The same translators used the

Greek ophis, same word that was used in Genesis 3,
to translate serpent. It is hard not to see a
relationship between these passages and references to
the dragon in the Apocalypse:
9

And the great dragon was cast out, the

ancient serpent called Adversary and Satan,
who is deceiving the whole inhabited earth. It
was cast into the earth, and its messengers
were cast with it. (Revelation 12:9)
2

And the wild beast which I perceived was

like a leopardess, and its feet were as a
bear's, and its mouth as the mouth of a lion.
And the dragon gives it its power and its
throne and great authority. (Revelation
13:2)
Isaiah 27 would seem to be related to Satans end,
while Job has to do with his beginning. Yahweh
created him to be His great adversary. Yahweh did
not sin in doing this because Satan does exactly what
Yahweh intended him to do tempt man and
introduce sin and death into world. In order for God
to bring function (good) into the universe, there was a
need for dysfunction (evil), a work done well by
Satan. Therefore, God is not the author of sin, but
He is the One who filled His adversary with all that
he would need to wreck havoc.

God Still on Plan A

Yahwehs purpose:
1. To gather together all in Messiah required
that all things be scattered (Ephesians 1:10);
2. To reconcile all by Messiah required that all
things be at enmity (Colossians 1:20);
3. To be merciful to all required all to be
sinners (Romans 11:32);
4. To give life to all in Messiah required that all
die in Adam (1 Corinthians 15:22); and,
5. To justify all through Messiah required all to
be condemned in Adam (Romans 5:18, 19)
There is so much that we could not understand about
God His love, peace, patience, kindness,
forgiveness, mercy, grace and on and on, if it had not
been for sin and death. Satan did not fall he is the
Adversary that Yahweh Himself created to wreck the
necessary havoc among men. Adam did not sin apart
from the sovereign will of God. God has always
been on Plan A the redemption plan that Sackey
referred to as Gods Plan C. He would not be
sovereign if it were any other way. Amen!