The Gospel According to Satan by Jared Wilson
“The prospect of the fruit promised the three things—fulfillment, beauty, and enlightenment—that we have been chasing in every tree ever since” – Jared Wilson in The Gospel According to Satan
The gospel.
This small six-letter word is wrapped with absolute simplicity and abounding complexity. It is a trigger word. Meaning that it triggers certain presuppositions in people when it is read, spoken, or heard; Many of which are completely inaccurate.
Jared Wilson
One person who holds such inaccuracies is Satan. And there is nothing else he would like more than for us to share in his misunderstanding and twisting of God’s words.
Week 9 of 52 in the Tim Challies reading plan brings me to The Gospel According to Satan by Jared Wilson. I chose this book because I believe Wilson is staking a bold claim against some of Christianity’s most popular clichés. Wilson doesn’t just say they are inaccurate or unsupported biblically. He is arguing that these 8 particular claims are lies from Satan himself.
In his last chapter, Wilson agrees with and quotes his friend's offhanded comment that “Satan knows exactly what will bring you down. And every day he is working that strategy to make it a reality” (p. 156).
Wilson’s point is that Satan will use whatever he can, even things that seem so smart and good, to try to bring you down with him.
Jared Wilson is no spiritual or intellectual novice. He is the assistant professor of pastoral ministry at Spurgeon College, author in residence at Midwestern Seminary, general editor of For the Church, and director of the Pastor Training Center at Liberty Baptist Church in Kansas City.
Overall, I have been blessed and challenged with Wilson’s writing and recommend it to help break up our Christian presuppositions that evolve from culture rather than Christ. However, there are a few theological bones that require clarification or accurate nuance. Let’s swan dive in.
The Good
1. Bold
Wilson is simply bold. But he is also biblical.
In each chapter, Wilson states lies that Satan would like us to believe. The following are the titles of the 8 different chapters.
God Just Wants You to Be Happy
You Only Live Once
You Need to Live Your Truth
Your Feelings Are Reality
Your Life Is What You Make It
You Need to Let Go and Let God
The Cross Is Not About Wrath
God Helps Those Who Helps Themselves
Each one of these phrases likely raises in you some emotion or memory. I know because they do for me.
I have heard most of these from peers and would be theological mentors before. At one point, I believed some of them myself.
Wilson walks through each slogan and shows the intended truth followed by the secret lie. Each one of these thoughts has a dreadful lie attached to them that distorts the person of God and his given truth.
The clarification Wilson provides is extremely helpful in sifting out the lie in each category.
In the first chapter, Wilson exposes how if God just wants you to be happy than you should receive anything you ask for in Jesus’ name. But the reality is, God, desires your ultimate happiness which will only culminate as you are directly in his will.
He says, “When you ask anything “in the name of Jesus,” what that really means is that you want the name of Jesus to be magnified more than anything else” (p. 27).
God wants his glory, which is achieved when you are most satisfied in him (thank you to the ministry of John Piper and his book Desiring God for making that truth so succinct and evident).
2. Breaks Down and Builds Up
I appreciate Wilson’s process of breaking down each lie, identifying the root target of the lie, and then building back up a biblical foundation to counter the lie in practical life.
While he does this process at length in each chapter, Wilson provides the most concise and clear examples of this process in his conclusion, which he titles the “autopsy of the lie.”
He provides several helpful tables that give a quick analysis of each lie, its corresponding problem, and what passage in scripture provides the antidote.
Overall, he displays consistently that where humanity in Adam and Eve failed to identify these lies, Jesus succeeds. And we are brought into his righteousness through faith and surrender to him as both Savior and Lord.
3. Pastoral Heart
While Wilson is a scholar, he is also a pastor.
Throughout the book, he is honest with his own struggles and the complexity of the subject matter. He provides excellent examples and antidotes that help the reader comprehend both the lie and the reason for the lie at the cognitive and emotional levels.
In chapter 4, Your Feelings Are Reality, he addresses real hurt and pain from real people. Instead of trying to communicate only theological head knowledge, he often relied on a single question:
“If you weren’t going through this, would you be as close to God as you are right now?” (p. 82).
He says he has never once, not one time, received a “yes” to that question.
Wilson helps the reader think past the lie to the reason for it in the first place.
In chapter 7, he writes, “If [Satan] can get us to stop thinking about God’s wrath at the cross, he can get us to stop thinking about how our sin is an offense to God, which means he can get us distracted from God’s holiness and, thus, our need for salvation” (p. 139).
Wilson writes with both compassion toward the hurting and determination for the truth. This combination produces in The Gospel According to Satan a convicting readable self-diagnostic for the believer.
While I hope this next section does not distract from the Good of this book, I must acknowledge the perhaps unintentional or overlooked aspect that misconstrues the person of Satan.
The Bad
1. Misrepresentation of Satan
Demonology is simply the study of demons or beliefs about demons.
I admit my lack of study in this subject matter. I would concede that Jared Wilson has more width and depth of knowledge on the topic. However, I believe that he fails to clarify a critical aspect of Satan’s limitations.
Satan is not Omnipresent.
What this means is that Satan, unlike God, is not all places at the same time. We should never fear that we are being watched by Satan or that he is always on one shoulder trying to convince us into sin.
Conversely, God is all places at the same time and always provides us with a way of escape from the lies of the enemy. Predominately, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Satan is not Omnipotent
The famous phrase “the devil made me do it” is false. Satan cannot cause a Christian to act in any particular way.
Yes, Satan and his demons can wage spiritual warfare to lie and deceive us into sin. However, that sin is still our choice and originates from our sinful nature.
In fact, Satan is equally bound to the omnipotent God as us. In Job, Satan has to ask permission of God before he can arrange anything evil to happen to Job.
Satan is not Omniscient.
Satan does not know your thoughts or motivations. He is not all-knowing, as God is.
However, Satan and his fallen angels have had centuries to observe and study the condition of man. They can predict and utilize devices that snare us into sin and draw our hearts away from God.
But nowhere in the Bible are we told to fear Satan or his demons. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Our rightful fear is the omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient God of the universe, whose love in Christ Jesus we can never be separated from.
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Overall, this book is a recommended read and one I have absolutely learned from and will reference again!
*New Addition*
An excellent sermon by Tim Keller on Satan, Demons and their Existence https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/timothy-keller-sermons-podcast-by-gospel-in-life/id352660924?i=1000468175577
John Owen came from Welsh descent, was educated at Queens College, and became a renowned Puritan theologian, Oxford professor, and passionate pastor who lived from 1616 to 1683. In 1647, he wrote the exhaustive treatise The Death of Death defending Limited or Definite Atonement against the Arminian view of Universal Atonement or Unlimited Atonement.