Man now is exploring the technology of genetic modification to alter the inheritable characteristics of living creatures (even human babies). People involved with ethics in research are concerned about these developments.
Man has never been good at predicting all the unintended consequences of his actions. Satan knows far, far more about genetics than any person can imagine. But again, he is not good at predicting all possible consequences of his actions. Jesus did call Satan the “Lord of the Flies” (Beelzebub) Matthew 12:24.
At least one of these pestilent creatures – scorpions – have been roaming the land since there were coal forests. (Andrew R. Milner, “Scottish window on terrestrial life in the Lower Carboniferous,” Nature, 28 March 1985, p.320) Exquisite details have emerged under the microscope so that we even know what scorpion lungs look like and how these lungs differ somewhat from their present-day descendants (see Andrew J. Jeram, “Book-lungs in a Lower Carboniferous scorpion,” Nature, 25 January 1990, p.360).
Since this coal stratum comes from what Genesis identifies as the Day 3, the only conclusion we can come to is that scorpions are part of the Lord’s creation – unsightly and dangerous though they are. So scorpions were not an animal created by Satan.
How might we understand these nasty creatures as a part of God’s creation? I think the answer is given in the familiar passage about the kingdom in Isaiah 11:6-8, “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.”
The Lord says that man’s relationship with the animals will change, and the animals, themselves, will change. In the kingdom, these dangerous creatures will no longer be harmful.
