Thoughts On The Movie "Son Of God"

I have been having some doubts lately over the new film, “Son of God”. While I believe that producers Mark Burnett and Roma Downey are truly sincere in their faith, and in their efforts to bring the life of Jesus to the big screen, the fact that Newsweek Magazine, and the rest of the liberal news media, as well as Hollywood, are singing the praises of this new movie raised a red flag in my mind.

I felt there was something not quite right about it.

Then, I happened to read in an interview with Roma Downey about her new film, in which she said that she and her husband decided to “leave Satan on the cutting room floor.” Downey claimed that they wanted all the focus to be on Jesus. She was also concerned because of last year’s reaction by the liberal news media to the miniseries, “The Bible” in which the actor portraying Satan resembled President Obama.

While I understand her concern for possibly offending the president, I cannot see how can she and the producers of this new film can truly portray the life of Jesus by leaving Satan out of the story, when the Lord went to the cross specifically to destroy all the works of the enemy, thus fulfilling the wonderful promise of God in Genesis 3:15: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her Offspring. He will bruise and tread your head underfoot, and you will lie in wait and bruise His heel.”
 In these perilous times we are living in, people are desperately searching for the truth and need to know that while there is mercy and forgiveness for their sins, and that eternal life comes only through and in Jesus, our loving and compassionate Lord and Messiah, He is not merely a religious figure on the big screen, but He is alive and seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven. And He is coming back soon to claim His bride, the Church.

However, people should also be made aware that Satan is alive too. And he is not only a lying and deceiving force of appalling wickedness, but, in his own words, from the Book of Job, he “has been wandering to and fro through the earth and walking up and down on it” from the very beginning.

In my opinion, by leaving out Satan’s essential role in the story, the producers of "Son of God", although they are probably not aware of it, are actually appealing to his vanity and his legitimacy as the destroyer of the souls of mankind.
On the other hand, I hope that many people who will see this movie will be inspired by the life of Jesus and will choose to seek Him as their Lord and Messiah.