Deception comes wrapped in the prettiest of bows. The sins that ruin us are rarely introduced as sins; they are introduced as relief. Freedom. Justice. Romance. Rest. Self-care. Success. Wisdom. They borrow the language of virtue while removing God from the sentence. Think back to the beginning, to peace and tranquility, to the deception of Eve. The devil held the holy words she knew and rephrased them until she didn’t. One could argue that Eve was naive- sin was not yet known to her, so how could she perceive his lies? Experience has not made us wiser than Eve. It has merely made us better at defending ourselves and our vices. How difficult is it to persuade the businessman to abandon God for profit? How difficult is it to persuade the gambler that one more wager will repay every loss? How difficult is it to persuade the hateful that cruelty is justice?
The serpent did not arrive in Eden carrying a knife. He carried an argument. Armed with God’s words and Eve’s curiosity, he twisted her mind until he made sense. He never denied God, but he questioned her understanding of his words, questioned her memory.
“Did God really say…?”
“You will not surely die.”
“You will be like God.”
Temptation starts with doubt, not rebellion. Doubt that you do not truly know right from wrong, that just perhaps, in your specific case, it is not indeed wrong; but the only solution. Suddenly, your sin comes repackaged with a beautiful wrapping of excuses and a bow of exception. Perhaps Satan’s greatest weapon is not lies, but presentation. He edits and contorts the truth just enough, so the fragments that remain still give the illusion of truth. You cannot see the wilting flowers through the box, but it looks so beautiful that what lay inside must be true.
We cannot scorn Eve. We cannot judge. For the words that deceived her deceive us still today- and we are none the wiser that she was.
“You deserve this.”
“Follow your heart.”
“Your truth.”
“God wants you to be happy.”
And just like when he spoke to Eve, we see what we want and not what is. And although we deserve good things, we should follow our heart, we should live our truth, and God does want us to be happy- he leaves out the conditions to these truths.
We deserve good things when we do good things for the sake of being kind and not the promise of reward. We should follow our heart but not allow doing so to lead us away from who we are. We should live our truth but not allow it to hurt or offend others. And yes, of course God wants you to be happy- but he wants you to be righteous and good as well. For the conditions to these truths will lead us to happiness in a more rewarding way than any quick fix could. To learn from mistakes and accept our punishment with dignity, before moving on. I have no doubt Adam and Eve wept as they walked out of the garden of Eden. But I fear very few people today weep, for they do not know the difference between sin and virtue.
Understandably so- for every deadly sin wears a costume that we cannot distinguish from. Lust becomes love. Wrath becomes justice. Sloth becomes self-care. Gluttony becomes comfort. The devil has never marketed pride as arrogance; he calls it knowing your worth. He never sells greed; he calls it financial security. He never says hate your enemies; he says protect your peace.
A sinful man is not an evil man, and that distortion is the ripple in people’s vision. Sometimes, sin presents itself as salvation for good people. It is not right to align a poor man stealing bread with the man who is wealthy and still cheats others. The peasants who covet what others have are much different than the king who has it all and still demands the company of harlots and the property of others. Sin is corruption, and evil is the result. Sin jumpstarts us on a path towards evil, but it does not mean all sinners are evil or that to disobey is unforgivable. We are just as easy to sell sin to, and the devil has only mastered the art of the sale. It is a common motif throughout all of history, because it is easy to speculate from an image how one could do a terrible deed. But we have all been victim to Lucifer’s whispers and distortions; we have all cheated and lied and envied in some way or another. For sin has never been so accessible.
Sin is astonishingly easy.
It requires only one surrender of reason before reason begins defending surrender. The first compromise is the hardest; you struggle back and forth between what you know and what you want. But temptation is strong. The second is easier; you figure what is one more step down the wrong way when you can turn back? By the third, your conscience has begun drafting arguments on behalf of your desires and excuses on behalf of your pleasures. It is like walking into the ocean when you don’t know where the bottom drops. Nobody intends to drown; you simply keep taking one more step until you can no longer touch the ground.
Our conscience did not fall silent. We became fluent in talking over it. Once justified, though, sin has the slimy ability to slip into our minds and rewrite our conscience- the birthplace of hypocrisy.
Suddenly, sin no longer counts when inflicted upon ourselves, but only when we may use it to judge others. Because Sin is like a terrible houseguest. It arrives politely enough, asking only for a place to stay. Before long, the dishes pile in the sink, the floors are stained with muddy footprints, and the house no longer resembles the one you once kept. It contributes nothing, yet demands everything. Worst of all, after living with it long enough, you stop noticing the mess. The clutter becomes ordinary. The smell becomes familiar. You no longer apologize for it because you have forgotten what a clean house looked like.
Then one day you visit a neighbour who has also opened the door to Sin. Their house is untidy too, perhaps in different ways than yours, yet suddenly your own filth disappears from view. You wrinkle your nose at their clutter while stepping over the debris in your own hallway. Sin has convinced you that it is intolerable in everyone else’s home while making itself comfortable in your own.
We see this rewrite of truth across genres and times. Macbeth was not tempted with the brutality of murder, but with the promise of greatness. Faust is not tempted by the idea of a burning hell, but by knowledge. Dorian Grey did not desire evil, but he was tempted by beauty. Because we know- writers especially- how easily sin can hide in the sheep’s clothing, we tell so many tragic tales of sin's deception. If evil always appeared ugly, very few people would choose it. In fact, oftentimes, it can disguise itself as the right choice, and we unknowingly fall into the hole of corruption.
But while sin hides, while he cowers and hides the price of his indulgence, Christ is opposite.
Jesus knew what awaited him if he followed his father- pain, suffering, torture. But he knew something stronger than we can understand; it is better to be a kind and beaten fool than a selfish and admired sinner. The devil promises crowns and conceals the cross. Christ promises the cross, and then reveals the crown. He taught us to take up our crosses, to deny ourselves, to count the cost- that we may not follow any misleading voice and cry out later of the inequality of us not knowing the cost.
We know what it means to sin, to commit evil, to be an overall terrible person. But we allow sin to twist God’s words so that we may think we can have our crown without our cross. But good things come to those who wait and those who work. To those who sow seeds and cultivate their fortune with the help of righteousness and the holy hand. And while it is a struggle, to struggle momentarily and thrive eternally is a far better deal than to thrive momentarily and struggle eternally. Forever is quite a long time.
The devil may mimic the same robes as God, and the same voice as God, but he will never be able to mimic the love and devotion of God. Perhaps that is why Scripture tells us to test the spirits who speak to us, to have faith but to not trust blindly. Evil does not usually announce itself with bloodied hands. It arrives smiling. It quotes Scripture. It flatters your intelligence. It speaks in your own voice until you mistake temptation for wisdom. The devil rarely introduces himself, for he prefers that you think you invited him yourself.
