How Satan Uses “Good Without Law” to Deceive the Church
An Epidemic in Today’s Church
There is a quiet epidemic happening right now: worldly philosophies are slipping into Christian pulpits and small-group studies. Where sound doctrine isn’t carefully protected and taught, Scripture gets twisted, and ideas that directly contradict the Bible become popular.
One of the most dangerous imports is dualism—the belief that good and evil are two equal, opposing forces (think Yin and Yang, or God and Satan as cosmic rivals).
That idea is not Christian. It never has been.
The Bible Rejects Dualism Completely
Scripture is crystal clear:
- God alone is eternal and uncreated. He has no beginning and no end.
- Satan is a created being—a fallen angel, not God’s equal in power, authority, or anything else.
There is one sovereign Creator and everything else is creature. Dualism dies the moment you open Genesis 1 or Isaiah 44:24.
Where Does Our Sense of “Good” and “Evil” Actually Come From?
The world says morality is just an evolving social contract—rules we vote on that can change with culture.
Christianity says something radically different:
God Himself is the source and standard of all goodness. Because He never changes (Hebrews 13:8), His moral character is the unchanging foundation of right and wrong.
Here’s the crucial point C.S. Lewis hammers home in Mere Christianity:
“Goodness is something that exists on its own. Evil is simply good spoiled. You can have good without evil, but you cannot have evil without good to spoil.”
Without an eternal, good God, the very concept of “evil” collapses.
When “Good” Gets Detached From God’s Law
Here’s where Satan’s real strategy shows up—not by denying that God is good, but by twisting what “good” actually means.
People start saying:
“Sex is good because God created it… so more sex must be better.” “Love is good… so any expression of love must be good.” “Grace is good… so rules don’t matter anymore.”
Take that logic far enough and you end up blessing everything from adultery to same-sex marriage to (as Lewis sarcastically points out) overeating or even worshiping food—because, hey, food is good!
It sounds ridiculous when you push it to the extreme, yet churches are doing exactly this today. They isolate one attribute of God (“God is love”) and turn it into a license for anything they want.
The Missing Ingredient: God’s Law
C.S. Lewis uses a musical analogy that’s brilliant:
Two people can both claim to be playing the same tune, but if one is actually wrong, we don’t say “both are valid interpretations.” One is right and one is wrong.
Same with morality. Goodness without God’s revealed right-and-wrong is meaningless.
That’s why the Bible never leaves “good” undefined. God gave us His law—summarized in the Ten Commandments, fleshed out in the Sermon on the Mount, and applied by the apostles—so we would know exactly what pleases Him.
Jesus Himself said:
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17-18)
Lawlessness in the Last Days
Jesus warned that in the last days “because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold” (Matthew 24:12). Paul calls the Antichrist “the man of lawlessness” (2 Thessalonians 2:3).
When pastors stop teaching God’s clear standards of right and wrong and replace them with vague slogans like “Just love people” or “God is good—all the time,” they are (unintentionally or not) preparing the way for deception.
A Final Encouragement
We are saved by grace through faith—full stop. But the faith that saves is never alone; it obeys. And you cannot obey what you do not know.
So read the whole Bible—Old and New Testament. Ask the Holy Spirit to teach you. Sit under preaching that isn’t afraid to open the text and say, “Thus says the Lord.”
Because knowing what is truly good only happens when we submit to what God says is right.
“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7)