True sovereignty

God is man's rightful Lord, Satan a false lord, a usurper, a thief, a robber. This distinction between God and the Devil, their contrasted claim on man, is not something which should be added to the contrast between life and death to complete that contrast, for Satan's subordination to God and his helplessness before God are implied in that very contrast itself. When it is said that God is life, it is implied that man becomes man by receiving from God; and when Satan is said to be death, it is implied that man loses his humanity when under the legitimacy of God's claim, and of Satan's, on man is a question that provides its own answer, as is always the case when true sovereignty emerges: the dispute is not settled in favour of the rightful claimant, instead it is clear that the rightful claimant never disputes with the underling but allows him to be just who he is, and thus proceeds with his work using the subordinate usurper as his tool without taking away his evil. So shall it be at the last day when the faithful of the Lord shall attain to fulness of vision and shall see that the death, discipline and evil under which they suffered on earth, ad in which Satan always works, but brought them nearer to life and destroyed the hold that sin, their enemy, had on their inmost being. The enemy executes that which God has determined shall be.

(pp. 93-94, The Living Word, Gustaf Wingren)