God Has No Opposite

A great many Christians, I’m afraid, unwittingly subscribe to the doctrine of dualism, even though they may never heard of it nor have even the slightest idea of what the term means. They tend, I ‘m convinced, to think of God and Satan as two great cosmic forces who are equally balanced and who are locked in an almost equal struggle for the control of the universe. Nothing could be farther from the truth! To explain the difference is the purpose of this poem.

God Has No Opposite

God has no opposite. There is no perfect imperfection,
And hate as deep as His great love Is but a human misconception.
The goodness of God is absolute; That cannot be said of evil,
For evil is but corrupted good. ‘Tis pride that corrupts the devil.
Satan is not God’s opposite! He’s but a fallen angel;
As a bad man is to one that’s good, So old Satan is to Michael.
Without good, you see, there would be no bad; They’re not mutually exclusive,
For bad is but corrupted good. It’s not what but how men use it.
Satan’s sin was selfish pride And he passed it on to man.
He made self the object of man’s love Instead of the great “I AM.”
He took the things that God had made And turned them upside down,
Turned love to hate and life to death And brought a curse upon the ground.
No, Satan is not God’s opposite. He’s an angel with free will
Who chose, instead of serving God, To hate and maim and kill;
To corrupt and destroy what God calls good, With a special hate for man,
Whom God created to share His love As the focus of His great Plan.
Yes, God certainly has no opposite, And we need to understand
That Satan is not His equal, But a rebel to God’s command;
A rebel whose been defeated, Whose plans have been brought to naught
By the death of God’s Son on Calvary’s cross, Which mankind’s redemption bought.

a. franklin staples

January 22, 1991
© 1991 by A. Franklin Staples