Satan is an angel, as I have said before. He is not God's equal, and it is only through anecdotal sources (mainly paintings and stuff like
Paradise Lost) where we get a sense that he is some kind of archrival to God.
That he turned away and rebelled against God.
But what if he didn't?
What if it is his job to play, ahem, "devil's advocate"?
I do not think Jesus is absolute goodness. As a matter of fact, you know what I do think?
Satan and Jesus are the same entity.
You say, "Now hold on a minute!" But hear me out.
When Adam and Eve were in the garden, they ate a certain piece of fruit that gave them the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
After which, they hid in fear of the Lord. The Lord, who before that point, had a very personal relationship with them, who walked in the Garden with them. In fact, placing a tree not only in the center, but unguarded, with the fruit low enough to reach, and furthermore giving Adam two tempters (Eve, and at her end, the snake who indeed was created by God)... yeaaaaah, we're talking about a major setup. So God, they are convinced will punish them (a suspicion they get from accusing themselves after eating the fruit), so he does. And contrary to popular reading from Paradise Lost, it is after this point where first record of Satan appears. Except if you consider Job to be the first book of the Bible.
Advocate/Accuser. Jesus is a lawyer, God is judge. But we've at best separated the lawyer into two people (one attorney and one prosecutor), and at worst we don't believe in a Savior which means we're stuck trying to defend ourselves. But it's time we see this court case for what it is. A sham trial. All three participants are God, and if we want the truth, so are we. We are made in God's image, because we came out of God. We are a special creation (they didn't repeat the creation of man twice as an oversight), designed as God's bride. God creates woman to give us a model of how we are to be, and to show us what his motives for creation are. "It is not good for man to be alone."
Now, you could reject this, but either way we have the same conclusion.
1. Either Satan is an angel, and no match for God himself.
(This is not Zoroastrianism or Taoism, good and evil don't need to be equal)
2. Or Satan is a distorted perception of Jesus that we get because of knowledge of good and evil.
Two different conclusions leading to the same result is called a Morton's Fork. In either case, we should fear God, not evil.
Now, I don't accept all of the Bible. There is plenty that I accept as God's inspired word. And there is some that appears to be written by people influenced by Satan, which I categorically reject. My guideline is that if it seems to be false prophecy, or runs afoul of Galatians 1:8, I toss it aside. Revelations is a biggie. Loads of nonsensical prophecies that haven't come true, to predict a return of Jesus... THAT HAS ALREADY COME TO PASS!
Likewise, I reject the command not to alter any of the Bible. This command assumes we know the canon, something the founders of the Christian movement struggled with, as there were heretical writings such as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (where Jesus kills a couple of kids). If this is problematic, why not Revelation? Because the Catholic church said so! That's it. The Orthodox church rejected it until later when they were pressured into following this as part of the canon. Martin Luther didn't think much of it either.
About this Book of the Revelation of John, I leave everyone free to hold his own opinions. I would not have anyone bound to my opinion or judgment. I say what I feel. I miss more than one thing in this book, and it makes me consider it to be neither apostolic nor prophetic.
First and foremost, the apostles do not deal with visions, but prophesy in clear and plain words, as do Peter and Paul, and Christ in the gospel. For it befits the apostolic office to speak clearly of Christ and his deeds, without images and visions. Moreover there is no prophet in the Old Testament, to say nothing of the New, who deals so exclusively with visions and images. For myself, I think it approximates the Fourth Book of Esdras; I can in no way detect that the Holy Spirit produced it.
Moreover he seems to me to be going much too far when he commends his own book so highly—indeed, more than any of the other sacred books do, though they are much more important—and threatens that if anyone takes away anything from it, God will take away from him, etc. Again, they are supposed to be blessed who keep what is written in this book; and yet no one knows what that is, to say nothing of keeping it. This is just the same as if we did not have the book at all. And there are many far better books available for us to keep.
Many of the fathers also rejected this book a long time ago; although St. Jerome, to be sure, refers to it in exalted terms and says that it is above all praise and that there are as many mysteries in it as words. Still, Jerome cannot prove this at all, and his praise at numerous places is too generous.
Finally, let everyone think of it as his own spirit leads him. My spirit cannot accommodate itself to this book. For me this is reason enough not to think highly of it: Christ is neither taught nor known in it. But to teach Christ, this is the thing which an apostle is bound above all else to do; as Christ says in Acts 1:8, “You shall be my witnesses.” Therefore I stick to the books which present Christ to me clearly and purely.
The Second Coming was when Jesus rose from the dead! He declared "It is finished" right before, and then came back in order to instruct his disciples on how to make the Earth resemble the spiritual kingdom that he had built with his death and resurrection. That's right, every last word of Revelation is based on a complete lie.
God's truth abideth still. No matter what tall tales may be written, John tells us the truth about the Temple being rebuilt. It's not about some far off end time. "But he was speaking about his body," it says. The Second Coming, and the rebuilt Temple are done. If you still need a Temple, it's the Temple Mount, which the Jews are still wailing about even though the Muslims have a Temple (Muhammad being the very model of a war king who drives people from Israel), the Christians have a church near there, and there are several synagogues.
If you need any more proof. There were two passages about the Eastern Gate. One had predicted a victorious arrival from the Messiah (by donkey!) and another predicted that once the Lord had arrived and finished his business, that the gate would be sealed. It was sealed by the Muslims in fear of a Jewish Messiah, opened briefly by Christians, then sealed again by Muslims.
As mentioned previously, the Eastern gate was ultimately sealed shut in 1541 by the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman. However, prior to this time, the gate was closed in 810 (also by the Muslims), then reopened in 1102 by the Crusaders, and then walled up again by Saladin (the first sultan of Egypt and Syria and the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty) after defeating the Crusaders in 1187 and gaining control of Palestine and the city of Jerusalem.
From Ezekiel 44
The man brought me back to the outer gate of the sanctuary, the one facing east, and it was shut. The Lord said to me, ‘This gate is to remain shut. It must not be opened; no one may enter through it. It is to remain shut because the Lord, the God of Israel, has entered through it.