Matt,
You are obviously correct with the statement, “The OT writers often do not precisely identify the causal relationship of actions, because the OT audience assumed (rightly so) that God was controlling everything”. For me as a person with a strong pension for Reformed Theology, I have mulled over this thought because then cannot one say that God is ultimately the author of evil?

In regards to “Beelzebub”: where you say, “Therefore, is it possible that signs, miracles and healings in Bentley’s ministry are being performed by the enemy for the purpose of validating the bad doctrine and lifestyle of a false teacher, so that weak believers may think that God does not care about morality, truth or righteousness?”, “Satan’s ultimate goal is not the destruction of bodies, so allowing a healing or miracle here and there is no big deal to him”, and “he will gladly risk people being saved, delivered and even healed through that man’s ministry”, I have some more questions and thoughts.

If we are saying that Satan is the performer of these miracles, are we then not saying he is performing them against himself if we then come to the conclusion of “he will gladly risk people being saved, delivered and even healed through that man’s ministry”? That would almost seem contradictory to what Jesus says in the Beelzebub incident, unless I am reading you wrong.

But more to the point, I have difficulty with the idea of “risk” being involved with satan. How does satan at all stand to lose? Though it is true that Jesus has said of the Pharisees that they are the children of the devil, the idea of satan’s “risk”, the loss of anything, especially people, is I think something really foreign to the NT. For instance Morris points out in his The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross that redemption or lutron is a substitution, but a substitution for what? The substitution has to be of a value equal to or greater than that which is being held, so are we saying that the price that “satan” has on us is great, or is it that the price on is great by another owner?

Morris points out that the price that is paid out, the redemption/substitution, is a slavery price that is paradoxically given to God and the price for sin, but never a price that is paid out to satan, hence there is no “risk” involved to satan at least when it comes to the idea of redemption.

Further, if this is not the case then this would have a tremendous impact then on another important theological concept, propitiation or hylaskomia. Jesus is just not a substitute for us in redemption, but he is also our substitute when it comes to God’s dispensing of wrath on sin, to which is to say again, satan has nothing to do with it. This takes us I think into what Ladd calls, “Vicarious propitiatory substitutionary atonement”.

Now to one final point on the “risk” to satan; How can there be any risk to him when it is the moving of the Holy Spirit, the act of regeneration which starts from God, which works its way into pistis, and then brings me into relationship with him, which stops me from being at enmity with God? If works alone cannot make me saved, if it is a complete and total act on God’s part, then where and how can satan come into it at all? I know you might point out the parable in Mark about the sower, and it is true that satan can “eat” the seed, but I think in order for the ground to be receptive it is work of the Spirit.

Obviously I cannot do anything to make my heart into that condition, it has to be God because up until this point I am totally depraved, I cannot do any spiritual good, much less make my heart ready for God. So again how is there any “risk” for satan at all?

This post was mentioned on Twitter by matthewdgreen: New at GreenWords: Why False Miracles? http://matthewdgreen.com/2010/01/why-false-miracles/...