If you will notice in the Book of Job when Satan is speaking to the Lord, his words are as one speaking to an equal, it is, as far as I can recall, the only place in the Scriptures when a created being exhibited so much arrogance against the Most High.
It is for any of the children of God, those who have been saved by His grace, unfathomable, and denotes a level of pride that no other has attained to. There are of course many hundreds of millions alive even today, those to whom He does not exist, that have no problem with expressing their pride, and none will of course have an excuse, (Romans 1:20) but I believe that every single one of them on that day will not have one iota of pride, on that day great fear and trembling will come upon them. Their first visage of the Lake of Fire will more than likely cause that, if their thousand years or more in hell have not.
Not so with our adversary, although I could be wrong. His punishment may be the greatest, for he was the covering cherubim, (Eze. 28:14) his place was above the throne of God, and even after all he knew as truth, he rebelled. “Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” (John 20:29) This verse is for human beings, but in a small way we can employ it towards those angelic beings who will never be allowed to return to their first estate, (Jude 1:6) and it may be in part the reason that angels desire to look into this matter of grace that they cannot fully comprehend, (1 Peter 1:12) for it was not offered to their brothers.
Grace, the unmerited favor of God towards man, is more than a word, it is an action that we cannot grasp in its totality, for the intent of our sins many not reach the heights that Satan has and is exerting, but nonetheless it is sin, and sin must be punished by the Lord God, it is wickedness, and a direct assault on the Sovereignty of His Holy name. No king would do any less.
It is the semblance of Sovereignty that Satan desires, and in part, at least towards the end of the tribulation period, he will achieve it in the eyes of mankind. And then once again, also only partially, before the millennial period comes to a close, although our information about that time period is limited.
Pride is the worse sin against the Most High, for it states that we do not need God, and it forgets entirely, or denies in its ignorance, that we can exist without He by which all things subsist, pride rashly insists that we are self-sufficient, the perfect deceit to employ. Every human being will be shown this truth, “For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” (Romans 14:11) But some, by the Lord’s mercies, have been given this truth before that day.
Salvation comes through Jesus Christ, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6:44) And one of the first ways that those who are chosen by Him are blessed is by the knowledge imparted to us that we are but dust, (Psalm 103:14) that we have an end, and that it is only by the grace and mercy of the Sovereign Creator of all reality that we have been chosen to become a part of His eternal kingdom, where there are pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:11) It is at that moment, at that one moment in time when each of us that fell on our faces at the cross and recognized the complete and total Sovereignty of the Most High that pride began to die in us, a blessed event. Does it still well up in us at times? Of course, we have been justified, we are being sanctified, a cleansing process, in a sense, but when we are glorified, it will finally pass away.
The old nature in us is very difficult to part with. “For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.” (2 Tim. 1:12) It is a personal battle, one that will see victory, but a battle nonetheless today for each of us, but if it is fought with nothing more than the glory of God in mind, it becomes a battle that we will willingly enter in to.
