Was Satan Telling the Truth?

In the Old Testament book of Genesis the third chapter gives the events of the Devil (Satan, Lucifer, the Father of Lies so on and so forth) tempting our first mom, Eve. He is trying to get Eve to consume the one thing in a land of lush plenty which God told Eve and her husband, Adam, not to consume. Contrary to the bit in the movie Walk the Line by the character Jerry Lee Lewis, Adam and Eve could look and touch and think about touching this death-bringing fruit, but they were clearly and definitely not to eat it.

Satan tempted Eve with likeness: 'God knows that when you eat of [the fruit] your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.' The interesting part is when we turn all the way to the New Testament book of 1st John, the third chapter in verse 2 it reads, 'but we know that when [Jesus] appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.'

Satan's temptation of Eve with being like God was evil but in 1st John we are PROMISED to be like God. What is the deal? Was the Father of Lies saying a good thing for once? Is God changing his mind here--eh, maybe they will be like me? Is the Apostle John unfamiliar with the Old Testament? Does he not care about the Old Testament? What's going on?

Perhaps the point that slithers away from us in all this is that God told Adam and Eve not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. What is it that Adam and Eve lacked in their likeness of God? Were they unsatisfied or did they just want more? The couple, it seems, did not want to be merely human, but actually God. In 1st John the promise is for God to make us like Jesus. In Genesis humanity is abandoned for divinity; in 1st John humanity is completely fulfilled and echoes divinity; in Genesis disobedience brought shame and corruption; in 1st John perfect obedience in Jesus Christ brings redemption and perfection; in Genesis death is born; in 1st John death is forever dead because of Jesus' conquering of it.

In a way Satan was telling the truth in his temptation of Eve, but being the deceiver he is, it was a truth that was a lie: God gave Adam and Eve all he desired them to have and withheld all that they were unable to know. In god's image man was made and in his manor humanity is meant to live, but no where is the human race told to BE God. Man is to reflect God's image by mirroring God in ways, we are not to play or portray God by trying to be him.