What is the Great Controversy?
Every conflict we experience, large or small, internal or external, is part of a much larger battle that every person and every angel is involved in. The Great Controversy is the big fight—the biggest fight—and it affects everything. While the Great Controversy is a clash between good and evil, it is not just a war of concepts. The controversy is personal between Jesus and Satan. It centers on whether the accusations Satan made against God are true.
Satan is a created being, who was once named Lucifer, an angel who stood in God’s presence. God is the uncreated Creator, and the Universe is His. God sustains every created being by His life. His government is administered according to the principles of His perfect character. God’s character is represented by His perfect Law, and His Law shows who us who God is and what He is like.
God is love; God is just; God is perfect; God is infinitely worthy of our loyalty; and God gives freedom to choose so we may experience the joy of loving Him. Satan challenged each truth about God, and in doing so, he challenged God’s authority to govern His Universe. Instead, he asserted his principles of selfishness as the rule by which the Universe should operate. Satan rejected God’s Law, which is sin.
Satan’s challenge began in Heaven among God’s angels, and each of them had to make a choice. The conflict was not a physical conflict, but a battle of competing views about God. Today’s world is a virtual shopping center of competing views, and almost all of them are distortions of the truth designed to confuse the mind and distract us from the trustworthy truth about God. The controversy is about God. Can He be trusted? Can He be loved? Can He be obeyed?
If God had destroyed Satan because of His rebellion or forced him into submission, that would have confirmed Satan’s lying accusations. God had to let the principles of selfishness Satan promoted to reveal their fruit, so every angel’s decision to attack God’s character could be judged fairly, and every person God created could make a fully informed decision about who they would follow.
On Earth, humanity was created in the image of God, reflecting His righteous character. Satan twisted the words of God to tempt Adam and Eve into sin, and in this way, he introduced his rebellion into the human race. Each person has inherited a sinful human nature and has made the same choice as Adam and Eve to sin against God. The destructive effects of sin have devastated the world, and the ultimate consequence of sin is death. But Jesus willingly offered Himself to bear the full penalty we deserve.
When Jesus died on the Cross, every angel clearly saw the two governments, side by side. Satan was unmasked as a torturer who would kill even the sinless Son of God. Jesus was confirmed to be nothing but love when He willingly laid down His own life to take the place of sinful people who would reject Him.
The battle continues today, but it will conclude soon, when the evidence has been made fully known to everyone. The battle is for the loyalty of each person alive. It is over your choice and mine. The decisions we make during our lives on Earth will support either the truth about God or the lies of Satan. Satan and the angels who joined in his rebellion are fighting intensely to lead every person to join them in sin, and they are especially focused on those who are obedient to God’s Law.
God’s righteous character does not change, but His character will be vindicated by people who allow His principles to reveal in their lives what He is really like. By choosing loyalty to God, we allow Him to restore the righteous character He intended for us to have. This will demonstrate to people, to angels, and even to other worlds that God’s way is just and true. There will be no question remaining about what God is really like. His government, based on His character of love, will be established forever.
When all the evidence has been clearly displayed and God’s character is vindicated before the Universe, Jesus will return to this Earth in glorious victory. The rebellion will be stopped for good, and sin and death will be no more.
For further study, read: 1 John 4:8; Psalm 19:7–11; 1 John 3:4; Revelation 12:4–9; Isaiah 14:12–14; Ezekiel 28:12–18; John 8:44; Genesis 1:27; Genesis 3; Romans 5:12–21; Ephesians 6:12; John 14:26; Hebrews 1:14; Revelation 20:9–10; Deuteronomy 30:9; 1 Corinthians 4:9; Revelation 12:17; Philippians 2:9–11.