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Originally Posted by aron
I respectfully disagree. God is one, but Satan is "anti-one", or "pro-scattering". Satan is "division" and "confusion". When Jesus said, "A house divided cannot stand", He was foretelling the downfall of Satan's house, because it is in fact divided. Satan's house cannot stand before God. Satan's house, his kingdom, is unable to maintain coherence, because at its heart is turmoil and chaos and bedlam. There is no peace there.
So I read Jesus' statement differently. You say it is proof that Satan's house is one; I say it points to the fall of the house in question.
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I would disagree on this point simply based upon context. The context of these verses is Jesus is explaining why it is ridiculous to state that he cast out the demons by the power of Beelzebub. If he was casting out the demons by Satan that would imply that there were factions in Satan's kingdom working against one another. If this weren't an aspect of Satan's kingdom it would be deceitful for the Lord to use it to defend Himself.
Furthermore it could be pointed out that the Bible refers to the enemy, not a group of competing enemies. This make sense because Satan's desire in rebelling against God wasn't to make everyone divide, It was to rule in God's place. Therefore he should have no problem with oneness as long as it is one with him.
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In Babel they were united for a time, but eventually this unity was sundered. Note that this fall of commonality came not from without, but from within. God sowed confusion into their speech, so that they could not understand each other.
Any Satanic "oneness", or commonality of purpose, is only temporary, only an illusion, and is eventually broken. I have mentioned this before, but look at the oneness in Revelation 13. No one is able to buy or sell anything unless they have the mark of the name of the beast (v.17). Anyone who doesn't worship the image of the beast is killed (v.15). This is an enforced oneness, externally derived by threats. "Do as I say or I will crush you."
Human governments run by this kind of oneness. Remember the peace treaty of the antichrist with Israel? It is based on a piece of paper, which is useless, because there is no peace in his heart. So the signed parchement of "oneness" is a sham, and eventually it is exposed. The antichrist breaks the treaty after 3 1/2 years and invades Israel. (Daniel 9:27, see also Revelation 13:5). So it is with all externally derived "treaties" among men. There is no peace within, so they have to make speeches and sign documents, all of which are shown eventually to be worthless. The only peace is the peace within, the oneness with God found by acknowledging Jesus Christ as Lord. I recognize no other peace, nor oneness.
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I have no objection to this statement. I didn't mean to imply that Satan's oneness was the same in nature as God's oneness. Just that it was a form of oneness. There is a kind of one accord there. There is nothing within the bible (to my knowledge) which suggests that there are groups of demons/fallen angels which seriously questioned Satan as the one fallen angel for the kingdom of darknesses move on the Earth. It suggests that as long as their is such a kingdom on the earth that Satan will be it's commander in chief. Whether this is through intimidation or what have you I don't know, It does seem to be a fact however.
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When Jesus spoke to the demon-posessed man in the Gadarenes, he said, "Who are you?" The man answered "Legion, for we are many". The many spirits within this man were only temporarily united for the purpose of confounding God's expression in humankind. But there was no intrinsic oneness there. It was "each demon for himself"...when Jesus cast them out into the hogs the whole herd rushed down into the water and perished. You can see the turmoil when the pigs got infected. "Every pig for himself", and they all were destroyed.
The example of Jeroboam I am not too familiar with, and thus am not able to comment either way. But thank you for raising it; I will try to become more familiar with the significance of this story.
In sum, I would hold that Satan's only "oneness" is that of blind and stubborn opposition to the kingdom of God. But beyond that there is only confusion, and destruction. There is no oneness, no unity there.
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I would say that you are right in that, no, there probably is nothing that we would call "true oneness" in Satan's kingdom. But that said there does seem to be a kind of oneness there which we might mistake for "true oneness" if we are not careful. If we had the thought that we had to be one above all else.
To give you context I was thinking about this in context of Witness Lee statements about the rebel groups dividing and dividing again. I asked myself was this the case with the original rebel group (Satan). At the moment it seems not. In addition I can't help but wonder if the cause of further division after rebelling is simply because they were so used to using Witness Lee as the glue to hold them together.