Satans fall… WHY??

 angel. 

The story of Lucifer’s fall is described in two key Old Testament chapters—Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14. Let’s briefly look at both of these.

It would seem from the context of Ezekiel 28 that the first ten verses of this chapter are dealing with a human leader. Then, starting in verse 11 and on through verse 19, Lucifer is the focus of the discussion:

Moreover, the word of the LORD came to me: "Son of man, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus says the Lord GOD: "You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle; and crafted in gold were your settings and your engravings. On the day that you were created they were prepared. You were an anointed guardian cherub. I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God; in the midst of the stones of fire you walked. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created, till unrighteousness was found in you. In the abundance of your trade you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned; so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God, and I destroyed you, O guardian cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. 

Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I exposed you before kings, to feast their eyes on you. By the multitude of your iniquities, in the unrighteousness of your trade you profaned your sanctuaries; so I brought fire out from your midst; it consumed you, and I turned you to ashes on the earth in the sight of all who saw you. All who know you among the peoples are appalled at you; you have come to a dreadful end and shall be no more forever." (Ezekiel 28:11-19)

The Fall of Lucifer in the Bible

What is the rationale for the conclusion that these latter verses refer to the fall of Lucifer? Whereas the first ten verses in this chapter speak about the ruler of Tyre (who was condemned for claiming to be a god though he was just a man), the discussion moves to the king of Tyre starting in verse 11. Many scholars believe that though there was a human “ruler” of Tyre, the real “king” of Tyre was Satan, for it was he who was ultimately at work in this anti-God city and it was he who worked through the human ruler of the city.

Some have suggested that these verses may actually be dealing with a human king of Tyre who was empowered by Satan. Perhaps the historic king of Tyre was a tool of Satan, possibly even indwelt by him. In describing this king, Ezekiel also gives us glimpses of the superhuman creature, Satan, who was using, if not indwelling, him.

Now, there are things that are true of this “king” that—at least ultimately—can not be said to be true of human beings. For example, the king is portrayed as having a different nature from man (he is a cherub, verse 14); he had a different position from man (he was blameless and sinless, verse 15); he was in a different realm from man (the holy mount of God, verses 13,14); he received a different judgment from man (he was cast out of the mountain of God and thrown to the earth, verse 16); and the superlatives used to describe him don’t seem to fit that of a normal human being (“full of wisdom,” “perfect in beauty,” and having “the seal of perfection,” verse 12 NASB).

Who Is Lucifer, Why Did He Rebel?

Our text tells us that this king was a created being and left the creative hand of God in a perfect state (Ezekiel 28:12-15). And he remained perfect in his ways until iniquity was found in him (Ezekiel 28:15b). What was this iniquity? We read in Ezekiel 28:17, “Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor.” Lucifer apparently became so impressed with his own beauty, intelligence, power, and position that he began to desire for himself the honor and glory that belonged to God alone. The sin that corrupted Lucifer was self-generated pride.

Apparently, this represents the actual beginning of sin in the universe—preceding the fall of the human Adam by an indeterminate time. Sin originated in the free will of Lucifer in which—with a full understanding of the issues involved—he chose to rebel against the Creator.

This mighty angelic being was rightfully judged by God: “I threw you to the earth” (Ezekiel 28:18). This doesn’t mean that Satan had no further access to heaven, for other Scripture verses clearly indicate that Satan maintained this access even after his fall (Job 1:6-12; Zechariah 3:1,2). However, Ezekiel 28:18 indicates that Satan was absolutely and completely cast out of God’s heavenly government and his place of authority (Luke 10:18).

Isaiah 14, verses 12 through 17, is another Old Testament passage that may refer to the fall of Lucifer. We must be frank in admitting that some Bible scholars see no reference whatsoever to Lucifer in this passage. It is argued that the being mentioned in this verse is referred to as a man (Isaiah 14:16); is compared with other kings on the earth (verse 18); and the words, “How you have fallen from heaven” (verse 12), is alleged to refer to a fall from great political heights.

"How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.' But you are brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit. Those who see you will stare at you and ponder over you: 'Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world like a desert and overthrew its cities, who did not let his prisoners go home?' (Isaiah 14:12-17)

There are other scholars who interpret this passage as referring only to the fall of Lucifer, with no reference whatsoever to a human king. The argument here is that the description of this being is beyond humanness and hence could not refer to a mere mortal man.

There is a third view that I think is preferable to the two views above. This view sees Isaiah 14:12-17 as having a dual reference. It may be that verses 4 through 11 deal with an actual king of Babylon. Then, in verses 12 through 17, we find a dual reference that includes not just the king of Babylon but a typological description of Lucifer as well.

If this passage contains a reference to the fall of Lucifer, then the pattern of this passage would seem to fit that of the Ezekiel 28 reference—that is, first a human leader is described, and then the dual reference is made to a human leader and Satan.

It is significant that the language used to describe this fits other passages in the Bible that speak about Satan. For example, the five “I wills” in Isaiah 14indicate an element of pride, which was also evidenced in Ezekiel 28:17 (cf. 1 Timothy 3:6 which makes reference to Satan’s conceit).

As a result of this heinous sin against God, Lucifer was banished from living in heaven (Isaiah 14:12). He became corrupt, and his name changed from Lucifer (“morning star”) to Satan (“adversary”). His power became completely perverted (Isaiah 14:12,16,17). And his destiny, following the second coming of Christ, is to be bound in a pit during the 1000-year millennial kingdom over which Christ will rule (Revelation 20:3), and eventually will be thrown into the lake of fire (Matthew 25:41). 

Lucifer was not satisfied with worshipping God; instead, he wanted to be worshipped. Once a beautiful, powerful angel of God, he lost his former, exalted position in Heaven.

“How you are fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into Heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’ Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit” (Isaiah 14:12–15).

Lucifer (“star of the morning”) became Satan (“accuser”) when he fell to the earth. Jesus, speaking of this event, said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from Heaven” (Luke 10:18).

Lucifer’s followers

When Satan fell, he did not fall alone. Scripture tells us that he took one-third of the angels (see Revelation 12:4). Considering that the angelic host numbers more than 10,000 x 10,000 (see Revelation 5:11), that is a sizable group. They account for the fallen angels, or demons, that now do his bidding. As a result, Satan is a fallen, but powerful, spirit-being with a well-organized network of demon powers to help him accomplish his purposes. Those purposes, according to Jesus, are to “steal, kill, and destroy” (John 10:10).

That’s the bad news. The good news is that two-thirds of the angels are on our side! As the prophet Elisha said to his servant, “Don’t be afraid. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them” (2 Kings 6:16).

As Christians, we have an even greater asset than the majority of angels on our side: Jesus Christ, who conquered Satan at the cross of Calvary, is also on our side!

1. Pride

As we examine the Bible, we find that pride was a factor in Satan's fall. In a passage that may speak of the original fall of this anointed angel, we read the following. 

Pride was the main cause for both Satan’s (Lucifer at the time) and mankind’s fall. For that matter, pride seems to be at the center of all sin. After the fall, which we will read about in the next paragraph, Satan was probably jealous that mankind was given dominion over the earth as Genesis 1:26 says “let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Satan hatched a plan. He would deceive Eve and make her disobey God by taking to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and Adam would do the same. After this, “And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” (Gen 3:22) and so “the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken” (Gen 3:23). Not only were they banished from the Garden of Eden, they would now receive their wages and that was death (Rom 6:23) and would eventually die because the soul that sins will die (Ezk 18:20). They had lost their chance at eternal life and their only hope would be that they repented but there is no evidence that they ever did. We just don’t know for sure if they ever did.

The Fall of Satan

Isaiah gives us a good look at the cause of Lucifer’s fall from heaven in Isaiah 14:12 “How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, You who have weakened the nations”. The Hebrew word for “star” is “Helel” or “Hylel” and means the “shining one” so Lucifer must have been a glorious angel full of light at one time but then something drastic happened, “But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the recesses of the north” (Isaiah 14:13). Here we read that Lucifer was full of himself, full of pride, and wanted to “ascend to heaven” and raise his throne about the stars (or angels) of God and wanted to “sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north” meaning he wanted to sit on the throne of God but in place of God. This fall must have apparently happened shortly after the earth was created for he had to have had an earth to be cast down too.

Lucifer wasn’t satisfied with his state…he wanted more which is why it was written “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:14). In other words, Lucifer (or Satan) wanted to “ascend above the heights of the clouds” of which the clouds represent God’s Shekinah glory and he wanted that glory. Even more, he lusted in his prideful heart saying “I make myself like the Most High” God and he wanted to be God because he desired worship. He still desires that today but the bad news for him is he “will be thrust down to Sheol, to the recesses of the pit”(Isaiah 14:15) and the final consummation of that is described in Revelation 20:10 “And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”

Pride Before the Fall

Satan wasn’t the only one to fall and there will yet be more in the future. That’s because anyone who is full of pride is at war with God (James 4:6) because “Pride brings a person low, but the lowly in spirit gain honor” (Prov 29:23) which is why James wrote “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up” (James 4:10). The opposite of that is true as well; if you lift yourself up, He will humble you. Either we will humble ourselves before God or He will do it for us and guess which one is more painful? This is because “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble” (1 Pet 5:5). For those who refuse to voluntarily humble themselves God warns “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Prov 16:18). The word “haughty” means lifted up or to look down upon others from a lofty position and that position is only for God to have. To be haughty is to be full of pride and God will not tolerate such an attitude, just as He didn’t tolerate Lucifer’s pride.

The Self-Absorbed Lucifer

Ezekiel wrote about the prior state of Lucifer by writing “You had the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty” (Ezk 28:11). At one time he was “the anointed cherub who covers, and I placed you there. You were on the holy mountain of God; you walked in the midst of the stones of fire” (Ezk 28:14) and “You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created until unrighteousness was found in you” (Ezk 28:15). God describes the reason for Lucifer (or Satan’s) fall “Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor. I cast you to the ground” (Ezk 28:17). He was in love…with himself and so his “heart was lifted up” because of pride due to his beauty, wisdom, and splendor. There are many in the unsaved world today just like that and their fate will be the very same fate as Satan’s spoken of in Revelation 20:10-15.

Conclusion

Why more of us, including myself, won’t humble ourselves is a mystery to me. If we only fully understood the awesome, majestic, glory of God, we would all fall down before Him and humble ourselves. No one can truly be saved until they humble themselves before God, until they repent of their sins, meaning that they turn away from them and forsake them and then turn to their only hope of being saved and that is Jesus Christ. He will be your Lord and Savior or He will be your Judge. That decision is strictly up to you.

 Pride was the main cause for both Satan’s (Lucifer at the time) and mankind’s fall. For that matter, pride seems to be at the center of all sin. After the fall, which we will read about in the next paragraph, Satan was probably jealous that mankind was given dominion over the earth as Genesis 1:26 says “let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Satan hatched a plan. He would deceive Eve and make her disobey God by taking to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and Adam would do the same. After this, “And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” (Gen 3:22) and so “the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken” (Gen 3:23). Not only were they banished from the Garden of Eden, they would now receive their wages and that was death (Rom 6:23) and would eventually die because the soul that sins will die (Ezk 18:20). They had lost their chance at eternal life and their only hope would be that they repented but there is no evidence that they ever did. We just don’t know for sure if they ever did.

The Fall of Satan

Isaiah gives us a good look at the cause of Lucifer’s fall from heaven in Isaiah 14:12 “How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, You who have weakened the nations”. The Hebrew word for “star” is “Helel” or “Hylel” and means the “shining one” so Lucifer must have been a glorious angel full of light at one time but then something drastic happened, “But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the recesses of the north” (Isaiah 14:13). Here we read that Lucifer was full of himself, full of pride, and wanted to “ascend to heaven” and raise his throne about the stars (or angels) of God and wanted to “sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north” meaning he wanted to sit on the throne of God but in place of God. This fall must have apparently happened shortly after the earth was created for he had to have had an earth to be cast down too.

Lucifer wasn’t satisfied with his state…he wanted more which is why it was written “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:14). In other words, Lucifer (or Satan) wanted to “ascend above the heights of the clouds” of which the clouds represent God’s Shekinah glory and he wanted that glory. Even more, he lusted in his prideful heart saying “I make myself like the Most High” God and he wanted to be God because he desired worship. He still desires that today but the bad news for him is he “will be thrust down to Sheol, to the recesses of the pit”(Isaiah 14:15) and the final consummation of that is described in Revelation 20:10 “And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”

Pride Before the Fall

Satan wasn’t the only one to fall and there will yet be more in the future. That’s because anyone who is full of pride is at war with God (James 4:6) because “Pride brings a person low, but the lowly in spirit gain honor” (Prov 29:23) which is why James wrote “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up” (James 4:10). The opposite of that is true as well; if you lift yourself up, He will humble you. Either we will humble ourselves before God or He will do it for us and guess which one is more painful? This is because “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble” (1 Pet 5:5). For those who refuse to voluntarily humble themselves God warns “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Prov 16:18). The word “haughty” means lifted up or to look down upon others from a lofty position and that position is only for God to have. To be haughty is to be full of pride and God will not tolerate such an attitude, just as He didn’t tolerate Lucifer’s pride.

Pride was the main cause for both Satan’s (Lucifer at the time) and mankind’s fall. For that matter, pride seems to be at the center of all sin. After the fall, which we will read about in the next paragraph, Satan was probably jealous that mankind was given dominion over the earth as Genesis 1:26 says “let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Satan hatched a plan. He would deceive Eve and make her disobey God by taking to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and Adam would do the same. After this, “And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” (Gen 3:22) and so “the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken” (Gen 3:23). Not only were they banished from the Garden of Eden, they would now receive their wages and that was death (Rom 6:23) and would eventually die because the soul that sins will die (Ezk 18:20). They had lost their chance at eternal life and their only hope would be that they repented but there is no evidence that they ever did. We just don’t know for sure if they ever did.

The Fall of Satan

Isaiah gives us a good look at the cause of Lucifer’s fall from heaven in Isaiah 14:12 “How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, You who have weakened the nations”. The Hebrew word for “star” is “Helel” or “Hylel” and means the “shining one” so Lucifer must have been a glorious angel full of light at one time but then something drastic happened, “But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the recesses of the north” (Isaiah 14:13). Here we read that Lucifer was full of himself, full of pride, and wanted to “ascend to heaven” and raise his throne about the stars (or angels) of God and wanted to “sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north” meaning he wanted to sit on the throne of God but in place of God. This fall must have apparently happened shortly after the earth was created for he had to have had an earth to be cast down too.

Lucifer wasn’t satisfied with his state…he wanted more which is why it was written “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:14). In other words, Lucifer (or Satan) wanted to “ascend above the heights of the clouds” of which the clouds represent God’s Shekinah glory and he wanted that glory. Even more, he lusted in his prideful heart saying “I make myself like the Most High” God and he wanted to be God because he desired worship. He still desires that today but the bad news for him is he “will be thrust down to Sheol, to the recesses of the pit”(Isaiah 14:15) and the final consummation of that is described in Revelation 20:10 “And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.”

Pride Before the Fall

Satan wasn’t the only one to fall and there will yet be more in the future. That’s because anyone who is full of pride is at war with God (James 4:6) because “Pride brings a person low, but the lowly in spirit gain honor” (Prov 29:23) which is why James wrote “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up” (James 4:10). The opposite of that is true as well; if you lift yourself up, He will humble you. Either we will humble ourselves before God or He will do it for us and guess which one is more painful? This is because “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble” (1 Pet 5:5). For those who refuse to voluntarily humble themselves God warns “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Prov 16:18). The word “haughty” means lifted up or to look down upon others from a lofty position and that position is only for God to have. To be haughty is to be full of pride and God will not tolerate such an attitude, just as He didn’t tolerate Lucifer’s pride.

The Self-Absorbed Lucifer

Ezekiel wrote about the prior state of Lucifer by writing “You had the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty” (Ezk 28:11). At one time he was “the anointed cherub who covers, and I placed you there. You were on the holy mountain of God; you walked in the midst of the stones of fire” (Ezk 28:14) and “You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created until unrighteousness was found in you” (Ezk 28:15). God describes the reason for Lucifer (or Satan’s) fall “Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor. I cast you to the ground” (Ezk 28:17). He was in love…with himself and so his “heart was lifted up” because of pride due to his beauty, wisdom, and splendor. There are many in the unsaved world today just like that and their fate will be the very same fate as Satan’s spoken of in Revelation 20:10-15.

Conclusion

Why more of us, including myself, won’t humble ourselves is a mystery to me. If we only fully understood the awesome, majestic, glory of God, we would all fall down before Him and humble ourselves. No one can truly be saved until they humble themselves before God, until they repent of their sins, meaning that they turn away from them and forsake them and then turn to their only hope of being saved and that is Jesus Christ. He will be your Lord and Savior or He will be your Judge. That decision is strictly up to you.

https://www.agapefellowship.co.uk/studies/biblical-theology/the-decrees-of-god/14-satan-and-the-origin-of-evil

VIEW #1: The original fall of Satan in the Garden of Eden (or before Eden?).

Genesis 3 places Satan in the Garden of Eden before humanity fell. Moreover, Ezekiel 28 places Satan’s fall in the Garden. Both of these passages point toward a pre-human fall for Satan. This would explain when angels fell as well. There are several reasons for adopting this view:

First, John uses the imagery of Genesis 3 to identify Satan (“the serpent of old” verse 9). By doing this, John could be identifying this event with the fall of Satan in the Garden of Eden (“You were in Eden, the garden of God” Ezek. 28:13-16; Gen. 3).

Second, the events in this vision are not necessarily chronological. These could be arranged topically, not chronologically. In other words, this could be a montage of events. Surely, no matter how we interpret this passage, there are prophetic gaps between these events—especially between verses 5 and 6.

Third, this interpretation makes sense of the fact that there are countless demons on Earth at present. Throughout the OT and NT, there is undoubtedly a demonic presence on Earth. The fall of Satan (and a fall of a third of the angels) would fit with what we observe throughout the rest of the Bible. We believe that the most natural time frame for a corporate angelic fall would be shortly after Satan’s fall.

Fourth, Jesus places the fall of Satan (and other demons) before his death and resurrection. After a long ministry of exorcisms, Jesus told his disciples, “I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning” (Lk. 10:18). This seems to place the angelic fall long before his death. We realize that this doesn’t get us as far back as the Garden, but certainly very ancient.

VIEW #2: The defeat of Satan at the Cross and Resurrection of Christ.

Advocates of this view note that in preparing for the Cross, Jesus said, “Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out” (Jn. 12:31). Jesus uses the word “cast out” (ekballō), which is the same term used to describe Satan’s expulsion in this passage (“the great dragon was thrown down” Rev. 12:9). Moreover, Paul writes, “When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him” (Col. 2:15). This seems to associate the defeat of Satan with the Cross of Christ.

VIEW #3: The casting out of Satan during the future Tribulation.

In favor of this view, a number of arguments can be made:

First, the earthly battle with Satan occurs after the time of the Cross.The heavenly commentary on this vision relates the throwing down of Satan with the “salvation, and the power, and the kingdom” of God (v.10). This seems to place this battle with Satan sometime after the Cross—not before (cf. Rev. 12:11-12).

Second, this view makes sense of John’s mention of the 1,260 days. If this casting out of Satan was in the past (e.g. at Satan’s fall or at the Cross), then why mention the 1,260 days (which relates to the final 7 years of Israel’s history, Daniel 9:26-27)? The natural reading of the text would place this throwing down and persecution of the woman (Israel) during the Tribulation (“she would be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days,” verse 6; “a time and times and half a time,” verse 14).

Third, this view fits with the context of the tribulation. For instance, it makes sense of:

• The unusual persecution of people during this time. Thomas writes, “This accounts for the unusual severity of persecution during that last three and one half years.”^[1]
• The comment that Satan “has only a short time” (v.12). The nearest understanding of this time measurement is the 1,260 days (Rev. 12:6) or 3.5 years (Rev. 12:14; cf. 13:5).
• The unusual demonic activity during the end of human history. As we have already seen, the end of history is a time of intense demonic persecution on Earth (especially Revelation 9).
• Michael protecting Israel. John writes that Michael is here fighting over Israel (v.7), which Daniel also predicted during this time (“Now at that time Michael, the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people, will arise. And there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time” Dan. 12:1).

Conclusion

Which view should be adopted? We believe that verses 4 and 9 are referring to two separate events. That is, the sweeping of the third of the angels in verse 4 is separate from the casting out of Satan in verse 9.Verse 4 refers to the fall of Satan in the past, while verse 9 refers to the casting out of Satan in the future.

Based on the arguments for View #1 above, we believe that verse 4 is referring to the fall of Satan. But based on the arguments for View #3, we believe that verse 9 is still future in the Tribulation. Thus, we hold that John is explaining both the origin of Satan’s fall (v.4) and the future expulsion of Satan (v.9). He is explaining the beginning of Satan’s rebellion, as well as its end. Thus, verses 4 and 9 are describing two different events.

Verse 4 does not say that Satan was thrown out of heaven; it says that his angels were thrown down. While Satan “threw” (ballo) a third of the angels to the Earth (v.4), he himself will be “thrown down [ballo]… and his angels with him” (v.9) in the future.

This view makes sense of the expulsion of Satan from heaven in the future because Satan told God that he was “roaming about on the earth and walking around on it” (Job 1:7; cf. 2 Cor. 4:4; 1 Jn. 5:19). Satan had been thrown out of heaven, but he could still return to make accusations. At this point in the future (v.9), Satan will no longer have this luxury.

In a sense, John is conflating the fall of Satan with the expulsion of Satan. As believers are being ravished in the Tribulation, they will no doubt ask: How did the persecution get this bad? John is answering that question by revisiting the fall of Satan and describing his casting out. No matter how we interpret this passage, it is clear that John is giving a full panorama to place the Tribulation in its historical context in God’s overall plan.

The first part of 2 Enoch, a Jewish pseudepigraphon written in the first century C.E., deals with the heavenly ascent of the seventh antediluvian hero carried by his angelic psychopomps to the abode of the Deity. Slowly progressing through the heavens while receiving detailed explanations of their content from his angelic interpreters, in one of them, the patriarch encounters the group of the fallen angels whom the authors of the apocalypse designate as the Grigori (Watchers).¹ The detailed report of the group’s transgression given in chapter 18 of the text which mentions the angelic descent on Mount Hermon, leading to subsequent corruption of humanity and procreation of the race of the Giants, invokes the memory of the peculiar features well known from the classic descriptions of the fall of the infamous celestial rebels given in the Book of the Watchers. This early Enochic booklet unveils the misdeeds of the two hundred Watchers led by their leaders Shemihazah and Asael. What is striking, however, in the description given in the Slavonic apocalypse, is that in contrast to the classic Enochic account, the leadership over the fallen Watchers is ascribed not to Shemihazah or Asael, but instead to Satanail.² This reference to the figure of the negative protagonist of the Adamic story appears to be not coincidental. The careful examination of other details of the fallen angels traditions found in the Slavonic apocalypse unveils that the transference of the leadership over the Watchers from Shemihazah and Asael to Satanail, represents not a coincidental slip of pen, or a sign of a lack of knowledge of the authentic tradition, but an intentional attempt of introducing the Adamic development into the framework of the Enochic story, a move executed by the authors of the Slavonic apocalypse with a certain theological purpose. 

I previously explored the influence of the Adamic story on the Enochic account of the Slavonic apocalypse, especially in the materials of the longer recension, noticing an unusual readiness of its authors for the adoption of traditions and motifs from the Adamic trend, a tendency which appears to be quite surprising for a Second Temple Enochic text.³

Indeed, Adam’s story occupies a strikingly prominent place in 2 Enoch. The traditions pertaining to the first human can be found in all the sections of the book. ⁴ In these materials Adam is depicted as a glorious angelic being, predestined by God to be the ruler of the earth, but falling short of God’s expectations. Although the bulk of Adamic materials belongs to the longer recension, which includes, for example, the lengthy Adamic narrative in chapters 30-32, the Adamic tradition is not confined solely to this recension. A number of important Adamic passages are also attested in the shorter recension. The extensive presence of Adamic materials in both recensions and their significance for the theology of the Slavonic apocalypse indicates that they are not later interpolations but are part of the original layer of the text. 

It should be noted that such an extensive presence of Adamic materials in the intertestamental Enochic text is quite unusual. In the early Enochic circle reflected in 1 (Ethiopic) Enoch, Adam does not figure prominently. His presence in these materials is marginal and limited to a few insignificant remarks. Moreover, when the authors of the early Enochic booklets invoke the memory of Adam and Eve, they try to either ignore or “soften” the story of their transgression and fall in the garden. Scholars previously noticed this remarkable leniency of the Enochic writers towards the mishap of the protological couple in the texts “concerned with judgment and accountability.”⁵

This either modest or unusually positive profile which the Protoplasts enjoy in the early Enochic circle can be explained by several factors. Scholars previously observed that early Enochic and Adamic traditions appear to be operating with different mythologies of evil.⁶ The early Enochic tradition bases its understanding of the origin of evil on the Watchers’ story in which the fallen angels corrupt human beings by passing on to them various celestial secrets.⁷ In contrast, the Adamic tradition traces the source of evil to Satan’s transgression and the fall of Adam and Eve in Eden -- the trend which is hinted at in Genesis 3 and then fully reflected in the Primary Adam Books which explain the reason for Satan’s demotion by his rejection to obey God’s command to venerate a newly created Protoplast.⁸

While in the early Enochic circle the presence of the Adamic traditions appears to be either marginalized or silenced – it looms large in 2 Enoch. In my previous research I suggested that the extensive presence of the Adamic motifs in the Slavonic apocalypse has a profound conceptual significance for the overall theological framework of the Slavonic apocalypse.⁹ It appears that the purpose of the extensive presence of Adamic themes in 2 Enoch can be explained through the assessment of Enoch’s image in the text who is portrayed in the Slavonic apocalypse as the Second Adam – the one who is predestined to regain the original condition of the Protoplast once lost by the first humans in Eden.¹⁰ In this context many features of the exalted prelapsarian Adam are transferred to the seventh antediluvian hero in an attempt to hint at his status as the new Protoplast, who restores humanity to its original state. This new protological profile of the elevated Enoch in the Slavonic apocalypse thus can serve as an important clue for understanding the necessity of the extensive presence of the Adamic traditions in 2 Enoch.

Moreover, it appears that the appropriation of the Adamic lore in 2 Enoch is not limited solely to the figure of the main positive protagonist – the seventh antediluvian patriarch, but also extended to the story of the negative angelic counterparts of the Enochic hero – the Watchers whose portrayals in the Slavonic apocalypse also become enhanced with novel features of the Adamic mythology of evil, and more specifically, with the peculiar traits of the account of its infamous heavenly rebel - Satan. Such interplay and osmosis of two early paradigmatic trends, which in John Reeves’ terminology is designated as the mixed or transitional template, has long-lasting consequences for both “mythologies of evil” and their afterlife in rabbinic and patristic environments.¹¹The purpose of this paper is to explore the Adamic reworking of the Watchers traditions in the Slavonic apocalypse and its significance for subsequent Jewish mystical developments. 

I. 2 Enoch 7: The Watchers in the Second Heaven

There are two textual units pertaining to the Watchers traditions in 2 Enoch. One of them is situated in chapter seven. The chapter describes the patriarch’s arrival in the second heaven where he sees the group of the guarded angelic prisoners kept in darkness. Although chapter seven does not identify this group directly as the Watchers, the description of their transgressions hints to this fact. The second unit is situated in chapter eighteen which describes Enoch’s encounter with another angelic gathering in the fifth heaven, the group which this time is directly identified as the Watchers (Grigori). Although our study of the traditions of the fallen angels in the Slavonic apocalypse will deal mainly with these two passages found in chapters seven and eighteen, some attention will be paid also to the Satanail traditions situated in chapters twenty nine and thirty one.

Traces of the Enochic Template

In chapter 7 of the longer recension of 2 Enoch the following description is found:

… And those men picked me up and brought me up to the second heaven. And they showed me, and I saw a darkness greater than earthly darkness. And there I perceived prisoners under guard, hanging up, waiting for the measureless judgment. And those angels have the appearance of darkness itself, more than earthly darkness. And unceasingly they made weeping, all the day long. And I said to the men who were with me, “Why are these ones being tormented unceasingly?” Those men answered me, “These are those who turned away from the Lord, who did not obey the Lord’s commandments, but of their own will plotted together and turned away with their prince and with those who are under restraint in the fifth heaven.” And I felt very sorry for them; and those angels bowed down to me and said to me, “Man of God, pray for us to the Lord!” And I answered them and said, “Who am I, a mortal man, that I should pray for angels? Who knows where I am going and what will confront me? Or who indeed will pray for me?”¹²

Several scholars have previously recognized the connection of this passage about the incarcerated angels with the Watchers traditions.¹³ One of these scholars, John Reeves, argues that 

… this particular text obviously refers to the angelic insurrection that took place in the days of Jared, the father of Enoch. The prisoners in this “second heaven” are in fact those Watchers who violated the divinely decreed barriers separating heaven and earth by taking human wives and fathering bastard offspring, the infamous Giants….¹⁴

Another scholar, James VanderKam expresses a similar conviction when he remarks that the angelic group depicted in chapter seven “remind us of the Watchers and their mutual oath to commit the deeds that led to their imprisonment in 1 Enoch 6-11.”¹⁵

VanderKam’s suggestion that the theme of the angels “plotting together” found in 2 Enoch 7 might allude to the Watchers’ council on Mount Hermon and their mutual oath is important. The Watchers tradition reflected later in the text in chapter 18 further strengthens the possibility that the authors of the Slavonic apocalypse were familiar with the early Enochic tradition of the bounding oath taken by the Watchers on the infamous mountain.¹⁶

Another important detail that hints to the possibility of the presence of the Watchers tradition in the passage is that the angels choose to ask the patriarch about interceding with God. This request for intercession before God appears to allude to the unique role of the seventh antediluvian hero reflected already in the earliest Enochic booklets where he is depicted as the envoy bringing petitions of intercession to God on behalf of this rebellious angelic group. John Reeves suggests¹⁷that the petition pressed upon the exalted patriarch by the imprisoned angels in 2 Enoch 7 is reminiscent of the language found in the Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 13:4)¹⁸ where the Watchers ask the patriarch to write for them a prayer of intercession.¹⁹ From 1 Enoch 13:6-7 we learn that this prayer was prepared by the seventh antediluvian hero and later was delivered by him in a vision to the Creator.²⁰

All these features demonstrate that the authors of the Slavonic apocalypse appear to be well cognizant of some peculiar details of early versions of the Watchers story and were using these various characteristics of the early Enochic template in their depiction of the group of incarcerated angels in chapter seven, thus implicitly hinting to their audience at the angels’ identity as the Watchers.

Finally there is another piece of evidence that further confirms the identity of the mysterious imprisoned group as the Watchers. Although the angelic group kept under guard in the second heaven is not directly identified in chapter seven as the Watchers, this chapter connects the unnamed angels with another celestial gathering which the patriarch will encounter later in the fifth heaven. 2 Enoch 7 anticipates this encounter when it explains that the group in the second heaven “turned away with their prince and with those who are under restraint in the fifth heaven.” Later upon his arrival to the fifth heaven the patriarch sees there another angelic group which his celestial guides identify as Grigori(Slav. Григори)²¹ – the Watchers. During that identification a reference is also made to the group in the second heaven which puts this group also in the category of the Watchers: “These are the Grigori (Watchers), who turned aside from the Lord, 200 myriads, together with their prince Satanail. And similar to them are those who went down as prisoners in their train, who are in the second heaven, imprisoned in great darkness.” Later, in 2 Enoch18:7, when Enoch himself addresses the Watchers he tells them that he saw “their brothers” and “prayed for them.” These details again appear to be alluding to the group in the second heaven who earlier asked the patriarch to pray for them.²² As we can see the two angelic groups in the second and fifth heavens are interconnected by the authors of the apocalypse through the set of cross-references situated in both chapters.

Traces of the Adamic Template

We began our study by mentioning that the Watchers account situated in chapter 18 exhibits the clear features of Adamic tradition when it names Satanail as the leader of the fallen Watchers. In the light of this later reaffirmation, it is also possible that the subtle traces of the Adamic template may already be present even in the description found in chapter seven. 

A close look at chapter 7 demonstrates that along with implicit traces of the Enochic traditions of the fallen Watchers the passage also exhibits some familiarities with the Adamic mythology of evil by recalling some features of the story of Satan’s fall.

One of the pieces of evidence that catches the eye here is the peculiar title “prince” by which the passage describes the leader of the incarcerated angels. Already Robert Henry Charles noticed that although the passage found in chapter 7 does not directly name Satanail as the leader of the rebellious angels, the reference to the fact that they “turned away with their prince” (Slav. с князом своим)²³invokes the similar terminology applied to Satanail later in chapter 18:3 which tells that the Watchers (Grigori) turned aside from the Lord together with their prince ( Slav. с князем своим)²⁴Satanail.²⁵ Charles’ suggestion appears to be plausible, and in the light of the identical formulae attested in chapter 18 it is possible that the Sataniel tradition is already present in 2 Enoch 7. If it is so, here for the first time in the Slavonic apocalypse the chief negative protagonist of the Adamic lore becomes identified as the leader of the fallen Watchers.

Another possible piece of evidence that hints to the presence of the Adamic mythology of evil in 2 Enoch 7 is connected with the motif of the imprisoned angels bowing down before Enoch. Both recensions of 2 Enoch 7:4 portray the incarcerated angels in the second heaven as bowing down before the translated patriarch asking him to pray for them before the Lord. 

I previously argued²⁶ that this tradition of angels bowing down before Enoch appears to stem from an Adamic mythology of evil²⁷ since it invokes the peculiar details of the Satan story attested in the Primary Adam Books²⁸and some other Jewish, Christian and Muslim materials.²⁹ In order to clarify the Adamic background of the Watchers tradition found in 2 Enoch 7 one should take a short excursus in the later Enochic developments reflected in the Hekhalot materials. 

In the later Enochic composition, known to us as the Sefer Hekhalot or 3 Enoch, the Adamic motif of the angelic veneration similar to 2 Enoch also appears to be placed in the context of the Watchers tradition(s). Thus, 3 Enoch 4 depicts the angelic leaders Uzza, Azza, and Azael, the characters whose names are reminiscent of the names of the leaders of the fallen Watchers,³⁰ as bowing down before Enoch-Metatron.

There are scholars who view this motif of angels bowing down before Enoch found in Sefer Hekhalot as a relatively late development which originated under the influence of the rabbinic accounts of the veneration of humanity.³¹ Yet, there are other researchers who argue for early “pseudepigraphical” roots of this Hekhalot tradition of the angelic veneration of Enoch. One of these scholars, Gary Anderson, previously noticed the early pseudepigraphical matrix of this peculiar development present in Sefer Hekhalot and its connections with the primordial veneration of the Protoplast in the paradigmatic Adamic story where Satan and his angels refuse to bow down before the first human.³² Moreover, some conceptual developments detected in 2 Enoch also point to early pseudepigraphical roots of the tradition of veneration of Enoch by angels. Scholars previously suggested that the Adamic motif of angelic veneration was transferred in the Enochic context not in the later Hekhalot or rabbinic materials but already in 2 Enoch where the angels are depicted as bowing down several times before the seventh antediluvian hero. Besides the previously mentioned tradition of the imprisoned angels bowing down before Enoch found in chapter seven there is another, even more explicit appropriation of the motif of angelic veneration, found in 2 Enoch 21- 22 where God tests angels by asking them to venerate Enoch. These chapters depict Enoch’s arrival at the edge of the seventh heaven. There, God invites Enoch to stand before him forever. The Deity then tells his angels, sounding them out: “Let Enoch join in and stand in front of my face forever!” In response to this address, the angels do obeisance to Enoch saying, “Let Enoch yield in accordance with your word, O Lord!”³³ Michael Stone previously noticed that the story found in 2 Enoch21–22 is reminiscent of the account of Adam’s elevation and his veneration by angels found in the Life of Adam and Eve.³⁴ Stone notes that, along with the motifs of Adam’s elevation and his veneration by angels, the author of 2 Enoch appears also to be aware of the motif of angelic disobedience and refusal to venerate the first human. Stone draws the reader’s attention to the phrase “sounding them out,” found in 2 Enoch 22:6, which another translation of the Slavonic text rendered as “making a trial of them.”³⁵Stone notes that the expression “sounding them out” or “making a trial of them” implies here that it is the angels’ obedience that is being tested. Further comparing the similarities between Adamic and Enochic accounts, Stone observes that the order of events in 2 Enoch exactly duplicates the order found in the primary Adam books. Stone concludes that the author of 2 Enoch 21–22 was cognizant of the traditions resembling those found in Armenian, Georgian, and Latin versions of the Life of Adam and Eve. He also emphasizes that these traditions did not enter 2 Enoch from the Slavonic Life of Adam and Eve, because this form of the tradition does not occur in the Slavonic Vita.³⁶

Keeping in mind these remarkable parallels it is now time to return to the tradition of Enoch’s veneration by the incarcerated angels found in chapter seven of 2 Enoch in order to further explore its connection with the Adamic story of angelic veneration.

Several details of the story from 2 Enoch 7 seem also to be alluding to the Adamic template:

a. In 2 Enoch 7, similar to the Adamic accounts, the sin of the imprisoned angels is disobedience to the Lord’s commandments.

b. The agents of the rebellion are a group of angels with “their prince.” This recalls the information found in the Adamic accounts where not only Satan, but also other angels under him, refuse to venerate Adam. As we remember, the longer recension of 2 Enoch 18:3 directly identifies the prisoners of the second heaven as the angels of Satanail. 

c. Finally, in the text the imprisoned angels bow down before a human being (Enoch). An additional important detail here is that the patriarch is addressed by the fallen angels as a “man” – “a man of God.” The combination of the motif of angelic bowing with a reference to the human nature of the object of veneration is intriguing and again might point to the protological Adamic account where some angels bow down before the human and others refuse to do so. 

II. 2 Enoch 18: The Watchers in the Fifth Heaven

Traces of the Enochic Template 

It is time now to proceed to the second textual unit dealing with the Watchers traditions situated in chapter 18 of the Slavonic apocalypse. In the longer recension of 2 Enoch 18 the following description can be found: 

… And those men took me up on their wings and placed me on the fifth heaven. And I saw there many innumerable armies called Grigori. And their appearance was like the appearance of a human being, and their size was larger than that of large giants. And their faces were dejected, and the silence of their mouths was perpetual. And there was no liturgy in the fifth heaven. And I said to the men who were with me, “What is the explanation that these ones are so very dejected, and their faces miserable, and their mouths silent? And (why) is there no liturgy in this heaven?” And those men answered me, “These are the Grigori, who turned aside from the Lord, 200 myriads, together with their prince Satanail. And similar to them are those who went down as prisoners in their train, who are in the second heaven, imprisoned in great darkness. And three of them descended (соидошася три) to the earth from the Lord’s Throne onto the place Ermon. And they broke the promise on the shoulder of Mount Ermon. And they saw the daughters of men, how beautiful they were; and they took wives for themselves, and the earth was defiled by their deeds. Who … in the entire time of this age acted lawlessly and practiced miscegenation and gave birth to giants and great monsters and great enmity. And that is why God has judged them with a great judgment; and they mourn their brothers, and they will be outrages on the great day of the Lord.” And I said to the Grigori, “I have seen your brothers and their deeds and their torments and their great prayers; and I have prayed for them. But the Lord has sentenced them under the earth until heaven and earth are ended forever.” And I said, “Why are you waiting for your brothers? And why don’t you perform the liturgy before the face of the Lord? Start up your liturgy, and perform the liturgy before the face of the Lord, so that you do not enrage your Lord God to the limit.” And they responded to my recommendations, and they stood in four regiments in this heaven. And behold, while I was standing with those men, 4 trumpets trumpeted in unison with a great sound, and the Grigori burst into singing in unison. And their voice rose in front of the face of the Lord, piteously and touchingly.³⁷

Already in the very beginning of this passage the angelic hosts situated in the fifth heaven are designated as Grigori (Slav. Григори),³⁸ the term which represents “a transcription of the Greek word for the Watchers.”³⁹ Unlike in chapter 7, where the identity of the celestial gathering remains rather uncertain, here the authors of the text explicitly choose to name the angelic group. The text then provides some details of the angels’ appearance. When the Slavonic apocalypse describes them, an intriguing comparison is made about the size of these angelic hosts, who are depicted as beings “larger than the large giants” – a reference which might also invoke the Giants traditions – a conceptual trend which in early Enochic booklets is often intertwined with the Watchers story.

The text then describes the Watchers’ faces as being dejected, emphasizing also their perpetual silence. Enoch, who appears to be puzzled by the view of this silent and depressive angelic company, then asks his angelic guides about their strange dejected looks and their non-participation in the angelic liturgy. In response he hears the story that further provides the array of crucial motifs that invoke the memory of the account of the Watchers’ descent as it is described in the early Enochic circle. Two significant details here are the references to the number of the descended Watchers as two hundred (myriads)⁴⁰ and the designation of the place of their descent on earth as Mount Hermon (Slav. Ермон/гора Ермонская). It is well-known that the numeral two hundred in relation to the descended Watchers is attested already in the Book of the Watchers – one of the earliest Enochic booklets, whose text also locates the place of the Watchers’ descent at Mount Hermon.⁴¹

2 Enoch 18:4 then supplies another portentous detail by describing how the Watchers broke the promise on the shoulder of Mount Hermon. The reference to the “promise” (Slav. обещание)⁴² that the Watchers “broke” on the shoulder of the infamous mountain is intriguing and appears to hint to the early Enochic tradition of the binding oath taken by the Watchers. The passage found in chapter 6 of the Book of the Watchers(1 Enoch 6:3-6) unveils the motifs of mysterious promises and curses with which the rebellious angels decided to bind themselves, thus securing their ominous mission and fellowship.⁴³

The descriptions of the Watchers’ transgressions provided in 2 Enoch 18 are also noteworthy. The references to the Watchers’ marriage to the human women, the procreation of the race of monstrous Giants, the enmity and evil that this infamous bastard offspring created on earth – all these features again betray the authors’ familiarity with early Watchers and Giants traditions attested already in 1 Enoch7.⁴⁴ It is also curious that 2 Enochspecifically emphasizes the sin of interbreeding (miscegenation) (Slav. смешение),⁴⁵ an important sacerdotal concern of intermarriage that looms large in the early Enochic circle. 

Another typical “Enochic” detail of chapter 18 is the reference to God’s sentencing the Watchers under the earth “until heaven and earth are ended forever.” This motif also appears to stem from the early Enochic lore where the fallen Watchers are depicted as imprisoned under the earth until the day of the final judgment.

All aforementioned details point to familiarity of the authors of the Slavonic apocalypse with the features of the original Enochic template.

Yet, despite the efforts of the authors of the Slavonic apocalypse to harmonize the plethora of early Enochic motifs into a coherent symbolic universe, the Watchers’ account reflected in chapter 18 appears to be not entirely without contradictions. One of the puzzles here is a discrepancy about the location of the angelic group encountered by the patriarch earlier – the incarcerated rebels, whose memory is invoked again and again in chapter 18. 

Thus, in 18:3 Enoch’s angelic guides connect the Watchers in the fifth heaven with the angelic group in the second heaven depicted earlier in chapter 7:

And similar to them are those who went down as prisoners in their train, who are in the second heaven, imprisoned in great darkness. (2 Enoch 18:3)

Later, in verse seven, Enoch himself reaffirms this connection between the two angelic groups when he unveils to the Watchers in the fifth heaven the sad destiny of their rebellious brothers in the lower realm:

And I said to the Grigori, “I have seen your brothers and their deeds and their torments and their great prayers; and I have prayed for them. But the Lord has sentenced them under the earth until heaven and earth are ended forever.” (2 Enoch18:7). 

It is apparent that both passages about angelic rebellious groups in chapters 7 and 18 are interconnected by a series of allusions and familiar motifs intended to persuade the reader that both groups are interrelated and now are separated because of their previous deeds. Yet, 2 Enoch 18:7 exhibits a clear contradiction when Enoch reports to the Watchers in the fifth heaven that God has sentenced their brothers “under the earth.”⁴⁶ Several scholars previously noticed this topological discrepancy about the exact location of the second group of Watchers. ⁴⁷Reflecting on the textual contradictions about the location of the imprisoned Watchers, one of these scholars, John Reeves, observes that 

2 Enoch is peculiar in that it places the prison for the incarcerated Watchers in heaven itself. This transcendent location contradicts the explicit testimonies of other works where these rebellious Watchers are held; viz. beneath the earth (1 Enoch 10:4-7; 12-14; 88:3; Jub. 5:6, 10; 2 Pet 2:4). Moreover, a later passage in 2 Enoch is simultaneously cognizant of this latter tradition: “And I said to the Watchers, I have seen your brothers, and I have heard what they did; … and I prayed for them. And behold, the Lord has condemned them below the earth until the heavens and the earth pass away …” The reference in this text is surely to the imprisoned Watchers that Enoch had previously encountered in the second heaven. But here, while touring the “fifth heaven,” the imprisoned Watchers are spoken as being “beneath the earth”!⁴⁸

It is possible that the discrepancy pertaining to the location of the imprisoned angels can be explained by the topological peculiarities of the Slavonic apocalypse whose main theological emphasis is centered on the ascension of the translated hero into the heavenly realm. Yet, possibly cognizant of the various early traditions of the patriarch’s tours into other (subterranean) realms, where Enoch observes the places of the punishment of the rebellious Watchers, the authors of the Slavonic apocalypse try to reconcile (not always seamlessly) these earlier traditions with their ouranological scheme.⁴⁹ In this respect the phrase “I saw a darkness greater than earthly darkness”⁵⁰ used in the description of the incarcerated angels in the longer recension of 2 Enoch 7:1, deserves some additional attention. It appears that this phrase strives to underline the otherworldly, possibly even subterranean, nature of the darkness encountered by the patriarch in the second heaven. Clearly the text wants to emphasize that it is a darkness of another realm by comparing it with “earthly darkness.” Later, in verse 2 this comparison with the earthly darkness is repeated again, this time in the portrayal of the angels’ appearance: “And those angels have the appearance of darkness itself, more than earthly darkness.”⁵¹

Traces of the Adamic Template 

Besides the references to the Enochic template, the passage from chapter 18 also reveals also the authors’ familiarity with the Adamic mythology of evil and the peculiar details of its demonological settings. Moreover, it appears that the interaction between the two paradigmatic templates in 2 Enoch can be seen not merely as an attempt at mechanical mixture of the elements of both trends but rather the progressive movement toward their organic union when the mutual interaction is able to generate a qualitatively different tradition which is not equal anymore to their initial parts. Thus one can see here the consistent effort to “fuse” two mythological streams into a new coherent ideology – an enormously difficult creative task carried out masterfully by the authors of the Slavonic apocalypse. One of the crucial signs of such qualitative transition can be seen in the literary destiny of the main protological and eschatological opponent of the Adamic tradition – Satan(ail),⁵² who is now invited into the new unfamiliar entourage of the rival mythological trend, where he is being fashioned as the leader of the rebellious Watchers.

“These are the Grigori, who turned aside from the Lord, 200 myriads, together with their prince (с князом своим) Satanail….” (2 Enoch 18).

The fact that this identification represents not just an accidental slip of the pen or an interpolation, but a sign of the consistent and well-designed theological strategy of the text becomes evident if we compare the description found in chapter 18 with the Watchers tradition found in chapter 7. There again the group of the incarcerated Watchers is described by the authors as the rebellious group who turn away with their prince:

These are those who turned away from the Lord, who did not obey the Lord’s commandments, but of their own will plotted together and turned away with their prince (с князем своим)… (2 Enoch 7).

Both passages are interconnected through identical Slavonic terminology since the leader of the rebellious angels in both cases is designated as a prince(Slav. князь).⁵³ It appears that in the theological tapestry of the Slavonic apocalypse, chapter 7 plays an important role by serving for its readers as a sort of a preliminary initiation into a new mythology of evil - the demonological setting where both, the identities of the Watchers and their new leader Satanail are still concealed, thus anticipating their full conceptual disclosure in the later chapters. 

But how really novel and original was this conceptual move for the Enochic trend? It should be noted that the leadership of Satan over the fallen Watchers is unknown in the earliest Enochic booklets. Yet, in the late Second Temple Enochic text, the Book of the Similitudes, one can see the extensive appropriation of the Satan terminology, both in the generic and in the titular sense.⁵⁴ One of the instances of the “generic” use of such terminology can be found in 1 Enoch 40:7 where the term “satans” appears to designate one of the classes of angelic beings⁵⁵ whose function is to punish⁵⁶ or to put forward accusations against those who dwell on earth: “And the fourth voice I heard driving away the satans, and not allowing them to come before the Lord of Spirits to accuse those who dwell on the dry ground.”⁵⁷

The first possible steps towards the transitional template in which Satan becomes the leader of the fallen Watchers might be discernable in theSimilitudes 54:4-6 where the “hosts of Azazel” are named as the “servants of Satan”:⁵⁸

And I asked the angel of peace who went with me, saying: “These chain-instruments – for whom are they being prepared? And he said to me: “These are being prepared for the hosts of Azazel, that they may take them and throw them into the lowest part of Hell; and they will cover their jaws with rough stones, as the Lord of Spirits commanded. And Michael and Gabriel, Raphael and Phanuel – these will take hold of them on that great day, and throw them on that day into the furnace of burning fire, that the Lord of Spirits may take vengeance on them for their iniquity, in that they became servants of Satan and led astray those who dwell upon the dry ground.⁵⁹

Scholars argued that the term “Satan” was used here not in the generic but in the “titular” sense.⁶⁰ If it is so this portentous conceptual development is relevant for our study of the Sataniel tradition found in the Slavonic apocalypse, since it might provide additional proof that the extensive adoption of Adamic mythology of evil in 2 Enoch was not a later Christian interpolation, but a genuine Enochic development possibly stemming from other late Second Temple Enochic booklets.

Yet, despite its promising nature, the origin of the Satan tradition found in the Parables remains clouded in mystery. It is really difficult to discern from this terse and enigmatic passage found in the Similitudes 54 if the authors of the book did really have the knowledge of the full-blown Adamic template, including the story of the angelic veneration, or if they were merely borrowing the titular usage of Satan from the biblical materials. Scholars previously noticed this peculiar tendency of the Similitudes for the extensive and open adaptations of some biblical titles in relation to Enoch - a novel development in comparison with the earliest Enochic booklets whose authors deliberately tried to maintain distance from the “biblical” books.⁶¹ In the light of these developments it is possible that titular usage of the name “Satan” similar to many of Enoch’s titles found in the Similitudes might have here biblical roots. Nevertheless, it remains intriguing that the extensive appropriation of Satan terminology is found in such a transitional Enochic booklet as the Parables, a text which similar to the Slavonic apocalypse, tries to dramatically enhance the exalted profile of the seventh antediluvian patriarch leading this character into the entirely new, one might say “divine,” stage of his remarkable theological career by identifying him with the preexistent son of man.

Now it is time to return to the Slavonic apocalypse where the mutual interaction between two mythologies of evil appears to be exercising a lasting influence not only on the story of the Watchers but also on the account of the negative protagonist of the Adamic stream - Satan(ail) who is now acquiring some novel features from the Enochic tradition. 

The longer recension of 2 Enoch 29 elaborates the story of Satanail’s fall by enhancing it with some new intriguing details. It describes that after his transgression (described there as the violation of the ranks of the angelic hierarchy in an attempt to exalt himself) Satanail was cast out from heaven with his angels.⁶² The text further unveils that after his demotion “he [Satanail] was flying around in the air, ceaselessly above the Bottomless (Slav. бездна).”⁶³ This reference to the Slavonic word бездна, (which more precisely can be translated as “pit” or “abyss”) as the place of punishment of the fallen angel, invokes the memory of the Asael/Azazel story from 1 Enoch 10 where the leader of the fallen angels is thrown by the angel Raphael into the subterranean pit.⁶⁴

Here again one can see the profound dialogue between two formative traditions of the fallen angels that alters or enhances the features of the original templates, reshaping the stories of their infamous heroes.

Verse 3: "Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee: With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures: By thy great wisdom and by thy traffic hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches: Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God; Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness. They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas. Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? But thou shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth thee. Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD".

Now these are the verses that we're particularly concentrating on tonight: "Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying", you see the distinction, it's another word from the Lord - there's something different here. "Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus", verses 1 to 10 was the Prince of Tyrus, now it's the King of Tyrus, "and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee. Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffic; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more".

I don't need to tell you that Lucifer is alive and well in our 21st century world. I think that is self-evident by the fruit of his spirit that we see round about day by day

I don't need to tell you that Lucifer is alive and well in our 21st century world. I think that is self-evident by the fruit of his spirit that we see round about day by day. The world, indeed, as the scripture teaches, lieth in the lap of the wicked one. In our particular generation today we can look around and we perceive, rightly, that there is a revival in evil. We see Satan worship at an all-time high - I'm told that it's the fastest growing religion in the United States, and I suspect it's the same here in the United Kingdom. We see Spiritism, never off our televisions, clairvoyants, horoscopes, fortunetellers - it's in our magazines, our periodicals and our newspapers. Witchcraft - recently, when I was in America, I went to one of the biggest bookshops there were, and I went to the religious section looking for Christian books - hoping, in so-called Christian American, that I would find some - and most of the books that were there were on Spiritism. Witchcraft, astrology - you name it, there is a revival in the arts, the black arts of darkness.

It's ironic - I think it's more than ironic, I think it's providential - that we're looking at this subject tonight, in the light of the fact that the film 'Harry Potter' was released on Friday evening past. You may wonder why I'm referring to Harry Potter - surely it's an innocent story, it's an innocent novel for children? Well, if you even look at Harry Potter and look at the hype that is around about it at the moment, I think even that would put a question mark on it. The fact of the matter is, in our society today, whether it's through Harry Potter, or through horoscopes, or through Satanism, or Paganism revived: the Devil wants everything in society to be under his control, and he will stop at absolutely nothing. He is ingenious in his methods and in his organisational skills.

I want to say tonight, publicly, that Harry Potter is an evil book. Be under no illusion about it. You don't have to go into it too much - and we'll not have time this evening to go into it - save to say that the author herself, J. K. Rowling, researched into occult, into paganism, into spiritualism, in order to be as authentic as she possibly could in the book. She incorporated these things into this book, so that they could be believed. If you looked at this woman's life history, J. K. Rowling, you find out that as a student she studied Mythology at Exeter University in England. The philosophies that she found in paganism, neo-paganism, and Satanism of the past centuries, she has incorporated into the story of Harry Potter. Now, the reason I'm telling you this is to warn you about this book, and to warn your children about it - but more than that: I want you to see the ingenuity of the devil, the cleverness of how he brings a society round under his control and under his influence.

Do you know that the publicity of this particular book has brought together three of the biggest companies in the world? Maybe you don't know that Coca-Cola are sponsoring this book. Mattel that makes most of the toys that you see advertised on the television screen with regards to films, that relate to films, they are also a co-advertiser of Harry Potter. Then you have WB - Warner Brothers - they're looking after the film side of it. So this is not just a Christmas fad and faze that we are going through, it's not like the Teletubbies, that after a few months or a year this will be off our screens. Three of the largest companies in the world have committed themselves to continue to bombard us with Harry Potter memorabilia and advertising. One hundred million of these books have been sold already - in 200 countries and over 40 languages. You've seen it on the news, that children all over our world are devouring these books - some of them are 700 pages long! Now in the computer age that we are living in, that is nothing short of supernatural - in my opinion - how you can get children today, who wouldn't read a comic, to read a 700 page long book! It's nothing short of magic.

This book has now been recommended to schools in the United States, and they have recommended that it be read by the teacher audibly. The reason why it can be recommended in schools in America is because Scholastic, the organisation that publishes this book in America, is the biggest seller of educational books to all schools in the United States, and has been for over 80 years. It is using its influence to get this book into the schools. It's ironic, isn't it, that you aren't allowed to pray in a school in America? You aren't allowed a Bible-based message in any shape or form, or lesson, in a school in the United States - but children are allowed to be taught witchcraft through this book.

I want you to see the ingenuity of the devil, the cleverness of how he brings a society round under his control and under his influence

I was horrified recently to find out that from the Harry Potter website, you can be linked to other websites that teach you occultic practices, spells, divination, and all manner of evil. I was further horrified to find out that the Pagan Federation of America has now appointed a youth officer - why? They claim it themselves: 'Because of the flood of enquiries since Harry Potter was published'. Children, boys and girls, contacting the Pagan Federation, being led to it from this book. 'Oh, but it's innocent. It's just fantasy'. 'Lucifer' means 'Light Bearer', 'The Brilliant One', 'The Shining One', and he still today has the capacity of charming people as an angel of light. The point why I am raising this tonight is that Satan has a plan for the ages, just as God has a plan for the ages, Satan has a plan - and I believe in our society, at this moment, Satan more than ever is concentrating on our children! I believe that he is pushing, in our generation more than ever, again for an explosion of godlessness onto the stage of history that this world has never witnessed, or never will witness again.

The problem is: people, and sadly God's people too, are ignorant of his devices. As Hosea the prophet said hundreds of years ago: 'My people are destroyed through lack of knowledge'. Satan is numbing the church to his devices around, so much so that professing Christians have now written books recommending Harry Potter to young Christian boys and girls! We are numb to his activities in the church, we have been numb to his activities in our home life, in education, in social pleasure, and more than ever my friends it is necessary for the church of Jesus Christ to get back to basics. The philosophical question that is bandied about the halls of universities through every age are these three: 'Where we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going?'. I want us to ask those three questions of Lucifer tonight, and the answers I believe are found in Ezekiel 28.

The purpose of this study this evening is that we would know our enemy. We need to know him if we're going to fight him, we need to know him. To do that we need to trace his origins, and not only go to his beginning, we need to follow his life story right to his end. Satan is described in the Scriptures as a thief, a murderer, a liar - in fact our Lord described him as the Father of lies. Can I say this this evening: he doesn't like his cover being blown! He likes to appear as a little childish story. I can testify to that personally. When I was in Portadown Baptist one Sunday evening I had planned, I believe being led by God, to preach on Genesis chapter 3 on the Serpent*, and how the Serpent controls people's lives. No-one knew I was preaching on the subject, it hadn't been advertised in the paper or even in the church. I came down to the church early that evening for the prayer meeting before the Gospel meeting, only to find that right across the car park satanic symbols had been graffitied right across the ground. There was a large board left in the middle of the car park with Satanic hexes and blasphemous statements and cartoons of Satan that would have sent a shiver up your spine. No-one knew - but he knew!
*This message is available on our Gospel Sermons page.

Satan has a plan for the ages, but what he doesn't want us to know is that he is hastening to a judgement and a doom. He is going to get his just desserts. Scholars, some of them, say - and some Christians say: 'Surely Ezekiel 28 is simply about the King of Tyre, are you not reading into it a little bit?'. First of all, some of those liberal scholars don't even believe in a personal Devil - you have to understand that, and be careful of the books that you are reading. They don't believe in a person called the Devil - it's an evil influence in society, it's immorality, but it's not a person. Yes, verses 1 through to 6 speak of the Prince of Tyre. It speaks of his pride, it speaks of his wisdom and his wealth, and God says to him: 'Though you think you're a god, you're only a man'. So He's definitely talking about a man when He speaks of the Prince of Tyre. Then in verses 7 to 10 He speaks of the judgement and destruction of the Babylonians, and indeed the Prince of Tyre. So what we see in verses 1 to 10 definitely is King Ithobaal II of Tyre - there's no doubt about that.

It is not unusual for God to address Satan through another person, He has done it already in the Scriptures and we see that He is doing it here again

But I hope you have seen that there is a transition in this text, you cannot ignore it, and you see from verses 11 on to verse 19 that the author, the prophet, moves now beyond an earthly scene and he talks not now about the Prince of Tyre, but about the King of Tyre. It seems, you will see it clearer as we go through this study, that the King of Tyre is the spirit influence that animates the Prince of Tyre. Indeed, the fearful thing about this text is that it is Satan himself - the real force of wickedness behind the Prince of Tyre. If you think this is far-fetched I would draw your attention right back to the Garden of Eden in chapter 3 of Genesis verses 14 and 15, where it was the first occasion that God addressed the Devil through another person, the Serpent. God spoke to the Devil through the Serpent. I take you to the New Testament, and go to Matthew's gospel chapter 16 verse 23 and you see there that Peter, who had just confessed that Christ would be the Rock, and the statement that he had made that He was the Son of God would be the Rock on which the church was built, and in the next breath the Lord is turning around cursing Peter - not cursing Peter, but the spirit behind Peter, because the spirit behind Peter was trying to dissuade Him from going to the cross. The Lord addressed Satan through Peter: 'Thou savourest the things that are of man, and not of God, Get thee behind me, Satan'.

So, it is not unusual for God to address Satan through another person, He has done it already in the Scriptures and we see that He is doing it here again. Let us look at this passage tonight and judge whether this appears to be a description of a mere human prince or a spirit operating behind him. I believe, if you look carefully, you will see first of all - as it says on your study sheet - his beginning. It speaks of this person of this spiritual being in verse 12, God says: 'Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty'. Now, let's look for a moment at this person. God says that he is full of wisdom, he is perfect in beauty. In verse 15, if you look at it, it says: 'Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created'. So he is all-wise, he is perfect in beauty, and he is absolutely morally blameless. You're not going to try and tell me that this is the Prince of Tyre that is full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty, and morally perfect, and God's going to judge him in the next few verses? No man has ever been described like this, at least no man born in sin and shapen in iniquity - for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. This cannot be a mere Prince or King!

If you look at verse 13, God says: 'Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God'. Some people have said: 'Ah, that's Adam them! Adam was in Eden, the garden of God'. If you read on in this verse it says: 'Every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created'. Was Adam arrayed in jewels from the tip of his head to the tip of his toe? Of course he wasn't! This isn't speaking of Adam, this is speaking of something greater. This spirit being is described as being bejewelled with every stone fitted in beautiful settings of finest gold, and the only time you find these jewels mentioned again in scripture is in the book of Revelation, where the saints of God who stand in the glories of God and worship God are covered in these same jewels! This great angelic leader, this spirit being, is covered in the same - a mass of brilliant colour. I was trying to imagine this today in the study - from the tip of his toe, jewels and diamonds sparkling; and you look at him, a technicolour of absolute brilliance!

One thing that we know about gems and diamonds and precious stones is that they have no light of their own. If you take a diamond into a dark room you will see nothing. But they reflect another's light, and this is speaking spiritually of this creature - he is one who reflects another light. His beginning was, and I say it to you tonight, to reflect the very Light of the universe - the Light of God. It may have been that in the beginning, before his fall, he was given charge over creation - I don't know, the word of God doesn't tell us. One thing is for sure: when was the Prince of Tyre in Eden? He was never in Eden!

I believe this means that in eternity past, before earth existed when there was the angelic creation, this individual spirit being - Lucifer - had the responsibility to hover over and guard the very throne and presence of Almighty God. He covered God's presence!

Verse 13 says 'the workmanship of his tabrets and his pipes' - and that's musical language, that's a musical instrument. Musical instruments were originally created, I hope you know, to be a means of praising and worshipping God. But what God is saying here is that Lucifer had no need of musical instruments, for - if you like - he had a built in organ to praise God, he had his own pipes and his tabrets. The prophet is saying that Lucifer, because of this beauty, he was a musical instrument. He himself was an instrument of praise and glory to God. He didn't look for someone to play the organ, he was not just singing a doxology, he was a doxology to God! That would lead us to believe that this Lucifer was in charge of praise in heaven. You can see the picture beginning to be painted of his person.

Then we see further, in verse 14, his privileges. He is described: 'Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth...thou wast upon God's holy mountain'. Now let me say this: in the Old Testament Scriptures there were only three types of people who were anointed. There was the prophet, the priest, and the King. Certainly God would never have referred to the King of Tyre as being anointed, there was nothing holy about that man! But this spirit being is described as being the guardian cherub, the anointed cherub. Now a cherub, and we've learnt this in our studies, is an awesome angelic being whose purpose is to protect God's holiness. You remember when there was the fall in the Garden of Eden, and man sinned, there was a cherubim stood before the gate of the Garden with a fiery sword to make sure that they didn't get in and eat of the Tree of Life and live forever in their sin. He was guarding the glory and indeed the holiness of God, they vindicate God's righteousness, they protect and defend God's mercy - and indeed they execute God's government within the word of God.

I'd like to cast your mind back to the book of Exodus, where the children of Israel were told to build an Ark - not Noah's Ark, but the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark was to sit in the Holy of Holies, and Moses was told by God in Exodus 25 and verse 20 that God's glory, the Shekinah that we've already looked at in this book, it would dwell and His presence would hover between the cherubim on the top of the Ark. I hope you're seeing the picture. In Exodus 25 the presence of God hovers above the cherubim, and here we have this vision of this cherub who is called 'The Cherub That Covereth', 'The Cherub That Guardeth'. This is a fearful thing, a fearful being that's symbolic of the holy presence of God, of God's inapproachability. It's amazing! Do you know what this means? I believe this means that in eternity past, before earth existed when there was the angelic creation, this individual spirit being - Lucifer - had the responsibility to hover over and guard the very throne and presence of Almighty God. He covered God's presence!

If you look at verse 15 that would prove that to us I think: 'Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise' - and at the end of verse 16 - 'O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire' - Hebrews says our God is a consuming fire. It means that Lucifer was in the very presence of God walking over the fiery coals of God's presence, hovering over, protecting the presence and holiness and righteousness of God. He was anointed in this place of great authority, and the amazing thing to me is this: he probably had unrestricted access to the glorious presence of God.

If you look back at Ezekiel chapter 1, it will remind you of the awesome character of these cherubim. We saw a graphic picture of them in verse 10 of this chapter, where it says: 'The likeness of their faces', they had four faces, 'the face of a man, the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle'. They bore the likeness of a lion, a calf, an eagle, and a man - and you remember looking at how those four faces reflected the absolute completeness of the nature of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, prophetically how Matthew in his gospel presents our Lord Jesus as a King like a lion, the King of the jungle. Mark's gospel presents Him as the Servant King, the calf like the ox, the serving animal of the field. Luke's gospel presents Christ as the perfect man in His humanity and in His humility, and that's the face of the man again in the cherubim. Then the face of an eagle, that speaks of the skies, speaking of His divinity.

Pride is a deadly enough sin to destroy the most powerful, wise, holy and awesome being that has ever been created - how much more do we need to make sure that we are not walking independently of the Lord in self-righteousness, self-sufficiency and pride?

Please see the significance of this: apparently Lucifer was created, among other purposes, but one purpose was to demonstrate the earthly work of Christ as pictured in the four Gospels - the glory of Christ's humanity, deity, servitude and kingship! Imagine that. I think you would agree with me that all of this taken together is just a little bit too impressive for the Prince of Tyre - do you not think? That is his beginning, his person, his privileges, and then we look at his downfall where it all went wrong, and its cause. The cause of his downfall is found in verse 17, where God says: 'Your heart was filled with pride because of all your beauty'. This is the first sin, and the self-creation of the first sinner in all of the universe. The people say: 'Why did God create the Devil?', God didn't create the Devil, God created a perfect, moral, spiritual, glorious being! The Devil created the Devil when he sinned, and when his heart was inflated with pride.

We can see this in a parallel passage, if you turn to Isaiah chapter 14 which is the other Old Testament passage of Scripture that gives us a look into the life story of Lucifer. Isaiah 14 and verse 12, God says again: 'How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north' - look how many 'I wills' there are in verse 13 and now in 14 - 'I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit'. In 1 Timothy 3 and verse 6 Paul the apostle was instructing the church that when they appointing elders they were to beware of not appointing a novice, that's one who is perhaps newly saved or immature in their faith, or perhaps a young man that has not matured yet. When he was instructing the church he plucks an example out of the history in the beginning of Lucifer's life story, and he says it's not to be a novice: 'lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil'. He's citing the sin of the Devil: he was lifted up with pride, he fell into condemnation.

Pride is a deadly enough sin to destroy the most powerful, wise, holy and awesome being that has ever been created - how much more do we need to make sure that we are not walking independently of the Lord in self-righteousness, self-sufficiency and pride? We must make sure, as God's people, that we are dependent upon God, that everything is handed into the hands of God. What we need to face is the question: are we living in Satan's sin of self-dependence, or are we puffed up with self-importance? We need to remember that we are only sinners saved by grace, and whatsoever we have received we have received from the hand of God and there is nothing in ourselves!

Its cause was pride, then its consequences - it's alluded to in Ezekiel, and in the final verses 16 to 19, how God would put fire into his bosom and make a fire come out of him. The Lord Jesus himself, proving His pre-incarnate state, as the Word of God, the Son of God in eternity past, said: 'I beheld Satan, as lightning, fall from heaven'. The consequences of Satan's pride was that he was cast out of heaven, and the further consequences where that he went into the Garden in the person of the Serpent and he tempted Eve and tempted Adam, and then - by their sin - sin came upon all men, and death came by sin. We are in the mess tonight that we are, because of Lucifer, and because of our forefather's sin. What consequences!

That is his downfall, and then we come thirdly to his present activity. What is he doing now? That's his past, his beginning, his downfall. Well, I've split it into two: his present activity geographically and practically. Geographically simply means his realm, the realm in which he moves. Geographically he moves in the realm of the earth, and especially in the realm of the air - that is the scene of his tireless activity. Paul tells us in Ephesians 2 and 2: 'Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience'. He's described as the 'Prince of the power of the air'. After creation, as we've looked, he entered into the serpent - beautiful creature that it was - he beguiled Eve in the Garden by his subtlety, and he secured the downfall of Adam and indeed the downfall of the whole human race through Adam. Adam was made the manager of God's creation on earth, but Adam through his sin handed over the management and the jurisdiction to the Devil. Because of that this world system is the Devil's realm, this present world that we live in is organised upon Satan's principles, it is the bride that he tried to present to Christ in Matthew 4 in his temptation - a  horrible bride, an adulterous generation of a bride, but it was all he had to offer!

'Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God'. Are we flirting, are we courting with the world? We cannot, as God's people!

He is the prince of this system, he's described in 2 Corinthians as the god of this world, and as the prince of the power of the air he is the head over all principalities and powers, all of the demonic kingdom and realm - he is the chief captain! Do I need to say to you tonight, as God's people, that just because of this we need to be separate from the world? Is that not plain enough? If this is the Devil's realm and the Devil's system? Is that not why James said to that church: 'Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God'. Are we flirting, are we courting with the world? We cannot, as God's people!

That's his activity geographically, his realm. Then there is his activity practically, and I call this his remit - what he does in this world. I've narrowed it down to two things, apart from all that we have already mentioned. There is execution and there is accusation. Execution, because to him - under God now, God permitted this - was committed the powers upon earth of death. Satan was given by God, or allowed to have I should say, by God the powers of death - and you can see that, if you don't believe me, from Hebrews 2:14. When Christ died and rose again he took away from Satan the power of death that he had. Execution, and then there is accusation, because although Satan was cast out of heaven, Satan still has access to heaven. Satan still has access into the presence of God, you can see that from Job chapter 1 - but he is called, in Revelation, the accuser of the brethren. He is the one who comes before God and sees your sins and accuses you of your sins in the presence of God. He has been permitted by God, for a short season, a power allowing him to sift or to test believers to make them stronger.

That is, practically, his remit. I want us in the closing moments of our meeting to look at the end of Lucifer's life story. We look at first of all, his final destiny in the Saviour's victory. We've gone very quickly over Lucifer's life story and his history from the beginning, to what he is doing now, and you could categorise it all and put the title over it all: 'Satan against the saints'. He is warring against God, and warring against God's people right throughout time. But my friends, I want you to see that there is another agenda in history, there is another plan and that is God's plan - and that is the plan that will prevail! In Genesis chapter 3 we see that plan being given birth, in verse 15 God said: 'I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel'. God promised, right in the beginning, a Saviour. That Saviour came, praise His name, and in Matthew's gospel we see His temptation, and He was the first man ever - now you listen to this carefully - who had nothing in Him to be attracted to the temptation of the Devil. Don't you think He could have fallen! There was nothing of the prince of darkness in Him! He defeated him, then He died, and in dying death He slew. Then He rose, and in rising He brought captivity captive and gave gifts to men. Before He rose He gave a glimpse of His present ministry when He told Peter: 'Peter, Satan hath desired to sift thee like wheat, but be of good cheer: I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not'.

Oh, praise God tonight, we have an Advocate - if any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous! 'He that commiteth sin is of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning; but for this purpose the Son of God was manifested that He might destroy the works of the devil'. We overcome him by the blood of the Lamb and by the power of our testimony. Oh, isn't it wonderful that in the Saviour's victory the Devil's destiny is sealed!

We overcome him by the blood of the Lamb and by the power of our testimony. Oh, isn't it wonderful that in the Saviour's victory the Devil's destiny is sealed!

Finally, his destiny is also sealed in scripture's prophecy. I believe at this moment in time, as Satan has done in the past, he is trying to finally defeat the forces of God in the universe. He is trying to wreck the kingdom of God. All through time he has tried to do this through men, right back to Adam in the very beginning in the Garden, through to Cain who slew Abel, through to Nimrod who was a mighty hunter in the sight of God and an abomination to God, through the Pharaohs of Egypt, through the Herods - one in particular who tried to wipe out the line of Messiah. It was Satan's plan to get rid of God's seed! All those attempts failed, he has tried it through present day kings and leaders, and also in the past - to take the field, to conquer good and bring godlessness to reign on the earth. Down through time that's what he's been trying to do, to set the stage for a showdown between God and the forces of evil - and one day, and I believe very, very soon, God will allow him to take the stage. The church and the Holy Spirit's influence in the church will depart through the rapture, and the Devil and the Devil's man will take the stage. God will allow it! Do you know why God will allow it? So that there is a showdown, so that there is a grand finale, and so that He can finally put to an end the kingdom of Satan and set up the kingdom of God on the earth.

You don't need to look far tonight to see that the spirit of antichrist is already working as we speak. Very soon Satan will personify that spirit of antichrist in his man of sin. It's amazing, the parallels, isn't it? Just look at the King of Tyrus, a ruler controlled by the Devil, and there is a ruler coming to this world who too opposeth, exalteth himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Sure, we today can look ourselves at leaders and kings in our world, and we can even now perceive the promptings of Satan in their actions and in their politics. We despair at times, don't we? We ask the question: 'Why is there such unrighteousness in society? Why is there such injustice in the legal system, and corruption in the government?'. I'll tell you why: because the men that rule this world are only puppets in the hand of principalities, and powers, and minions of Satan.

If you looked at Daniel 10, we don't have time, but you see the man of God, Daniel, upon his knees in prayer for three full weeks - and then Gabriel, the angel of God, comes to him and brings the answer. But Gabriel tells him: 'You know, your prayer was answered the first day you were on your knees, but the Prince of Persia, the Kingdom of Persia, withstood the angel of the Lord'. Later on Daniel had to wrestle again with the Prince of Grecia - is there a better commentary to what we studied in the book of Ephesians not so long ago, chapter 6: 'We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places' - that's why we're to put on the whole armour of God, that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil, those who work through wicked spirits in the heavenlies, the world rulers of this darkness - and it's already working!

One day soon Satan's anointed will come forth! Hallelujah, we'll not be here. The sad thing about it all is that some of our loved ones will. After seven years of tribulation where antichrist will be manifested, and the great tribulation of God's wrath will pour upon this earth in all of its ferocity, there will be the battle of Armageddon - and that battle of Armageddon will be the battle between the seed of the Serpent, antichrist, and the seed of the woman, Jesus Christ! Hallelujah, then the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming, that antichrist!

Satan, your time is almost up! Glory to God!

I've got to do it, we can't go home without looking at Revelation 19. If you want to go home you can - Revelation 19 verse 17, and let this rejoice your heart my friend, this is his destiny: 'I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great. And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army', that's the Lord Jesus, 'And the beast', the antichrist, 'was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone' - hallelujah!

Verse 1 of chapter 20 says again: 'I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season'. Listen: at that moment, then shall the end be of this world system - finished! There will usher in a thousand year reign of Christ on the earth, and at the end of those thousand years there will be a final ditch effort of the Devil to overthrow God. And when the thousand years were passed, verse 10 of chapter 20: 'The devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever'.

Do you want to hear something? 'Then they shall know that I am the Lord'. Do you remember the two demons in the two possessed people of the Gadarenes, where the Lord spoke to them, do you remember what they said? They cried out saying: 'What have we to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of God? Art Thou come hither to torment us before the time?'. Satan, your time is almost up! Glory to God! His doom is sealed, his last chapter is written, and the word of God has blown his cover! My friends, forsake the world tonight for it's for the fire, and turn to the cause of Christ and the cross!

Lord Jesus, we worship Thee as the King of kings and Lord of lords - the Victor, the Captain of our salvation, but the soon coming Deliverer of Israel and of this world. We bless Thee that Thou wilt reign, Satan will be bound - and, Lord, sin will no longer reign in mortal bodies, in our mortal bodies at least. There is a day coming when a new heaven and a new earth will be ushered in, and we will be with Christ. We can say, down here, that will be far better. Amen.

The seventy-two returned with joy and said, 'Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.' ¹⁸  He replied, 'I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. ¹⁹  I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. ²⁰  However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.'" 

Pretty heady stuff when demons obey your commands!

The Seventy disciples have returned, 35 or 36 teams of two who had fanned out into the villages of Judea to heal the sick and preach that the Kingdom of God is at hand. And now they return, pair by pair, and the common theme from group after group during their informal debriefing is: "Wow! Even demons submit to us in your name!"

Even Demons Submit to Us in Your Name (Luke 10:17)

"The seventy-two returned with joy and said, 'Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.'" (10:17)

 When you think about it, this is pretty exciting. We know that Jesus had given explicit power to cast out demons to his Twelve Apostles (Matthew 10:1; Mark 3:15; Luke 9:1). But this is a different group. These aren't just the select group of Twelve; these are other followers with a different calling, yet they are invested with authority over demons, too.

Sometimes you hear the argument that miraculous powers were reserved to Jesus and his Apostles, and when the last Apostle died, miraculous powers died out, since they were for another age in order to establish the faith. Now that the New Testament is written, these teachers contend, we don't need miracles, and that is why we don't see them in our day. Unfortunately (or fortunately!) neither the Bible nor church history over the last 2,000 years supports this. Certainly, Apostles were known for their signs and power (2 Corinthians 12:12), but miracles were seen among other disciples and preachers in the New Testament age. The Early Church Fathers are peppered with credible accounts of miracles. And if some of the accounts in the Middle Ages and in our own day seem a bit farfetched, many others are sound, credible, factual, authenticated accounts of God's miraculous power.

In the Name of Jesus (Luke 10:17)

The power is not in the individual but in Jesus. What the Seventy disciples discovered was that "demons submit to us in your name." That is, when they command demons using the name of Jesus, the demons obey them, in the same way that they obeyed Jesus when he had commanded them to be silent or to come out.

If I were to go to a billionaire's New York bank, stand in line for a teller, and when it was my turn ask for $1 million dollars from the billionaire's account, the teller would say (politely, I hope), "Sir, I have no authority to give you those funds. I am sorry." But if I removed a check from my pocket signed by the billionaire himself, she would smile wanly, excuse herself for a few minutes to make sure the check was authentic, verify my identity, and then give me $1 million in cash. The difference is in the authorization granted by the billionaire's signature, power to transfer funds "in his name."

A Power of Attorney is similar. A number of years ago my elderly mother granted me a Durable Power of Attorney to make legal and financial decisions on her behalf. Her witnessed signature at the bottom of the document grants me authority to act on her behalf, in her name.

The Apostles had been upset when someone who hadn't been travelling with their band had begun to cast out demons in Jesus' name (9:49). Now the Seventy found they could exercise power in the spirit-world in the name of Jesus.

One of the most delightful stories in the Book of Acts is set at the gate of the temple in Jerusalem about 3 pm one afternoon. There, next to the gate, sat a man crippled from birth who begged there, hoping to find people going to or coming from worship, who might be in a particularly benevolent mood. He was an aggressive beggar, not content to sit silently. One day when Peter and John came to pray, the cripple asked them for money. They looked his way and made eye contact. From experience, the cripple knew this was a good sign. Eye contact meant intent to give alms. He could almost feel the coins in his outstretched palm. 

But then Peter told him, "We don't have any silver or gold to give you. But we'll give you what we DO have: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." At that, Peter took him by the right hand and helped him up. And the man, finding his legs suddenly strengthened, began to walk -- he had never in his life walked -- and jump -- he had never before jumped. 

One of the lessons we disciples must learn from this is that there is power in the spirit world in the name of Jesus. Peter and John had learned this. We must learn it, too. 

I Saw Satan Fall Like Lightning from Heaven (Luke 10:18)

"He replied, 'I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.'" (10:18)

Though the tense of the Greek verbs is of some interest here,³⁷⁶ the real issue is whether Jesus is speaking of a vision he has seen of Satan's fall or is speaking symbolically. Though this is a subject of intense scholarly debate, we can simplify it by observing that nowhere else does Jesus experience ecstatic visions, so it is likely that he is speaking figuratively.³⁷⁷

Jesus seems to be referring to the same event of casting out Satan from heaven that John records in his Revelation:

"And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down -- that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. 

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
'Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God,
and the authority of his Christ.
For the accuser of our brothers,
who accuses them before our God day and night,
has been hurled down. 
They overcame him
by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
as to shrink from death. 
Therefore rejoice, you heavens
and you who dwell in them!
But woe to the earth and the sea,
because the devil has gone down to you!
He is filled with fury,
because he knows that his time is short.'" (Revelation 12:7-12)

This is a complex allegory of the Fall of Satan couched in the terminology of the Archangel Michael defeating the great dragon.

But when does this event take place? When was Satan cast out of heaven? When was Satan bound? (Matthew 12:29) By the time of Jesus' temptation? Or at the Sending Out of the Seventy? At the death of Jesus? (John 12:31; 16:11; cf. Hebrews 2:14). At Jesus' resurrection when he conquered death and the grave?

I don't think we can precisely place the Casting Out of Satan chronologically, but affirm that this was the purpose of Jesus' whole ministry. 

"The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work." (1 John 3:8) 

Rather than single out the Return of the Seventy as the time Satan was cast down, I think we can conclude that Jesus sees in the successful mission of the Seventy an evidence of the defeat of Satan.

Authority to Trample and Overcome (Luke 10:19)

Jesus sees them as part of the battle against the evil one. The decisive action may have taken place when Satan was cast down, but the war isn't over. The air war is won, but the ground war is still very real, and the ground troops are continuing to mop up scattered forces of demons.

"I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you." (10:19)

Snakes and scorpions, of course, were ever present dangers, especially in the Sinai desert. 

"He led you through the vast and dreadful desert, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions" (Deuteronomy 8:15) 

Of the 25 species of snakes found in Syria and Palestine, four are deadly poisonous, five are somewhat poisonous, and the rest are harmless.³⁷⁸ There are twelve species of scorpion found in Palestine. All scorpions have front pincers like a lobster, and a curved tail that can be whipped forward, tipped with a stinger containing a very painful (and occasionally fatal) poison. 

Together, serpents and scorpions represent the dangerous and poisonous power of Satan's forces. Satan himself appears in the first book of the Bible as a snake in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3; cf. 2 Corinthians 11:3), and in the last book of the Bible as the defeated serpent foe (Revelation 12:9; 20:2). 

Jesus' disciples can trample (Greek pateō) on these serpents and scorpions. The verb pateō means "to set foot on, tread, walk," then to tread heavily with feet, with implication of destructive intent, trample."³⁷⁹ In each case it used in the New Testament, it refers to the activity of the conqueror, trampling on the defeated city (Luke 21:24; Revelation 11:2), or trampling the winepress, which is symbolic of the enemy's blood spilled in battle (Revelation 14:20; 19:15). This warfare and trampling of the serpent by man is prefigured in God's judgment on the serpent in the Garden of Eden: 

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." (Genesis 3:15)

The point of the verse is the authority (Greek exousia) Jesus has given his disciples to trample (Greek pateō) on and over all the power (Greek dunamis) of the devil. While it is acknowledged that the devil and his forces have power, that is, ability and means, Jesus' disciples have exousia, which is, "potential or resource to command, control, or govern, capability, might, power."³⁸⁰ Jesus' disciples have the absolute backing of God Almighty for their part in this war. That is what "authority" means in this case. 

Nothing Shall by Any Means Hurt You (Luke 10:19b)

The verse concludes, "... and nothing shall by any means hurt you" (10:19b, KJV). It promises that nothing shall hurt the disciples in this conflict. The verb is Greek adikeō, "do wrong or unjustly," but with the specific meaning of, "to cause damage to or mistreat, injure."³⁸¹

Even stronger is the Greek construction. This clause contains a double negative, Greek ou me. With a double negative in English, one negative cancels out the other, and the clause becomes positive. But in Greek, a double negative intensifies the negative and states denials or prohibitions emphatically.³⁸² I think this double negative is well rendered by the KJV's rendering, "nothing shall by any means hurt you."

But in what sense are disciples protected against the vicious attacks of their temporal and spiritual enemies? In what sense shall nothing by any means harm them? Jesus says a similar word in the context of being witnesses in the last days of terrible persecution. 

"You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. All men will hate you because of me. But not a hair of your head will perish. By standing firm you will gain life." (Luke 21:16-19)

These three verses seem to contain a contradiction. How can a disciple be put to death, and still not have a hair on his head perish? Jesus is speaking about spiritual safety. The disciples may suffer injury and death, he seems to be saying, but nothing can really harm their essential being.³⁸³

What a promise! We can come up against principalities, and powers, and spiritual wickedness in high places, and though they may be able to kill our bodies, they cannot sever us from God. Our protection is absolute. Satan is not out of control and all powerful, but bound; he can do no more than God allows.

Two other passages along this line have brought much comfort to believers in the midst of spiritual warfare. The first is the firm promises found in Psalm 91, and though you'll be blessed by the entire Psalm, note these verses:

"If you make the Most High your dwelling --
even the Lord, who is my refuge -- 
then no harm will befall you,
no disaster will come near your tent. 
For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways; 
they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. 
You will tread upon the lion and the cobra;
you will trample the great lion and the serpent.
'Because he loves me,' says the Lord, 'I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. 
He will call upon me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him. 
With long life will I satisfy him
and show him my salvation.'" (Psalm 91:9-16)

The other passage is from the Apostle Paul, who, as a witness for Christ had faced imprisonment and death on many occasions. He didn't pretend he was invulnerable; he just magnified the power of Jesus' love:

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: 
    'For your sake we face death all day long;
    we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.'
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:35-39)

Though our bodies are mortal, our spirits are fireproof in Jesus!

Rejoice that Your Names Are Written in Heaven (Luke 10:20)

And that is the point of Jesus' final saying to his disciples in this context:

"However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." (10:20)

The Seventy returned from their mission all excited and abuzz about their power over demons. But Jesus helps them put the whole matter in perspective. Power over demons, as wonderful as it is as a harbinger of the Kingdom of God, is nothing compared to the immense privilege the disciples have of salvation.

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'" (Matthew 7:21-23)

God is not nearly as impressed with miracles as we humans. The very greatest value is belonging to God. Our abilities, our deeds, our spiritual gifts gain us no standing with God. Rather, Jesus says, "Rejoice that your names are written in heaven."

Throughout the Bible we see references to God inscribing his people's names in his book (Exodus 32:32; Psalm 69:28; Isaiah 4:3; Daniel 12:1; Hebrews 12:23). But in the New Testament we see the wonderful phrase, "the book of life," that is, the book that contains the names of those who have been granted eternal life (Philippians 4:3; Revelation 3:5; 13:8). One of the most awesome passages in the entire Bible occurs near the end of the Book of Revelation:

"Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire." (Revelation 20:11-15)

The issues are very much life and death. There is no in between. We are not to gloat or pride ourselves on our relation to God. It is a gift -- grace, pure and simple. And our relationship of forgiven and adopted children of God has been purchased at a very great price, by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our sins. This gift is so simple that we may well take it for granted. We may be entranced with the demonic or the power-gifts of the Spirit, and turn our eyes from this gift.

But the greatest gift of all is for my name to be written down in "the Lamb's book of life" (Revelation 21:27). My name is in his trophy book, bought by his blood. I am secure now in the Father. My name has been recorded for Life.

How about you? Jesus died for your sin, but have you believed in him as your exclusive and only way to God? Have you received him and his words? Have you decided to follow Jesus -- no turning back? If so, then a wonderful thing happens. He forgives your sin -- wipes it away, never to be held against you again! His Spirit enters you and ignites spiritual life within you. And he directs that your name should be inscribed in his book, the Lamb's book of life.

That is what is of supreme value, dear friends -- your name written in his book for Life. There's an old gospel hymn about this: "There's a New Name Written Down in Glory."

If you're not sure that your name is written in heaven, then why don't you pray, and ask God's forgiveness for all your sins. Ask him to cleanse you, come into your life, and make you one of Jesus' disciples all your life. If you haven't done this, do it right now -- and then contact me³⁸⁴ and tell me about it.

But he is also designated by many other titles. He is:

• Abaddon, Apollyon, the great dragon, the old serpent, the deceiver of the whole world (Rev. 9: 11; 12:9),
• the adversary (1 Pet. 5:8),
• the accuser of our brethren (Rev. 12:10),
• Beelzebub (Mt. 12:24),

• Belial (2 Cor. 6:15),
• an enemy (Mt. 13:28),
• the evil one (Mt. 13:19),
• the father of lies, a liar, a murderer (Jn. 8:44),
• the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4),
• the ruler of this world (Jn. 12:31),
• the prince of the power of the air (Eph. 2:2), and,
• the tempter (Mt. 4:3).

By way of definition the devil maybe said to be:

“A created but superhuman, personal, evil, world-power, represented in Scripture as the adversary both of God and man” (Sweet 1915, 2693).

Satan in the Old Testament

The Hebrew term satan etymologically denoted “adversary,” being related to a verb suggesting the idea of “lying in wait.” The word was frequently used in a very general sense of adversary.

In Numbers 22:22 it is even applied to the messenger of Jehovah who opposed Balaam. The general usage is usually indicated by the absence of the definite article. When the article is used, e.g., “the adversary,” it becomes a proper name and thus denotes the personal devil.

Satan in the Garden

Our first knowledge of Satan is derived from the temptation account in Genesis. Numerous attempts to refute the historicity of this narrative have been attempted. Professor Melancthon Jacobus speaks to this very point:

“That there was a real serpent in this transaction cannot be doubted any more than we can doubt the real history throughout. Here, where the facts speak, further explanations are not necessary, nor fitted to the time of the beginning. (1) The real serpent is contrasted with the other animals, (vs. 1). (2) In the New Testament allusion is made to a real serpent in referring to the history, (2 Cor. 11:3, 14; 1 Jn. 3:8; Rev. 20:2). Yet (3) that there was in the transaction a superior agent, Satan himself, who only made use of the serpent, is plain from his being referred to as ‘the Old Serpent, called the Devil and Satan,’ (Rev. 12:9) — ‘a murderer from the beginning,’ (Jn. 8:44). Satan is also spoken of as the arch seducer, who is even transformed into an angel of light,’ (2 Cor. 11: 14). The reference may be to this event. Almost all the Asiatic nations hold the serpent to be a wicked being that has brought evil into the world. – Von Bohlen, a Ind., i., 248. Some have sought to turn this history of the temptation into an allegory. But it wears the same aspect of historical detail as the rest of the narrative” (1866, 112).

Satan Tempts David

The divine record of Chronicles declares: “And Satan stood up against Israel, and moved David to number Israel” (1 Chron. 21:1). Here again Satan is seen in his role as a tempter and enemy of God’s people.

Some have claimed a contradiction between this passage and 2 Samuel 24:1 where it is stated that Jehovah moved David to number Israel. There is no discrepancy, however, for a combining of the verses simply shows how God employed Satan as the agent to punish His people for their sins.

Satan Afflicts Job

Satan is given more prominence in the book of Job than in any other Old Testament book. No less than fourteen times he is mentioned in the first two chapters.

Again, modernism has attempted to explain away these historical incidents. Andrew Zenos of the Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Chicago alleged that

“The apparent incongruity of a person (i.e., Satan) with such a frame of mind consorting with the other ‘sons of God’ in the courts of heaven, giving an account of himself to, and speaking on familiar terms with, God, disappears when the narrative is seen to be constructed, not as a picture of realities, but as a vehicle of moral teaching” (Jacobus 1926, 811).

Such a view totally ignores the facts and reads prejudicial opinion into the sacred text.

Satan: Adversary of Joshua

Satan appears as an adversary of Joshua the high priest in Zechariah 3:1, 2. Joshua, clothed with filthy garments that symbolized the sins of the whole nation (of which he was the representative) stood before the messenger of Jehovah.

Satan was at his right hand (cf. Psa. 109:6) to be his adversary. The accuser was not allowed to speak though, rather, “Jehovah said unto Satan, Jehovah rebuke thee, O Satan ....”

The central message of this vision (1-10) was to show that Jehovah’s people, conditioned upon a true reformation, could again enjoy prosperity. But:

“Satan was ready to challenge the Lord’s own institution for the forgiveness of sin, to deny the right of God to pardon the sinner. He seeks to overthrow the Throne of Grace, so hateful to him, and to turn it into a seat of judgment and condemnation” (Laetsch 1956, 422).

Certainly the complete story of the devil’s horrible character is not presented in the Old Testament.

Enough is given though to warrant the conviction that he is truly a malicious being. The New Testament brings into full focus his anti-godly designs.

Satan in the New Testament

The following New Testament references will suffice to underscore our previous affirmations regarding the unscrupulous intent of the Adversary of God and man.

Satan Tempted Christ

As the serpent seduced Eve (Gen. 3:6) through the manifold channels of lust of the flesh, lust of the eye, and the vainglory of life (1 Jn. 2:16), so he sought to solicit Christ to sin similarly (Mt. 4:1-11).

Interestingly, he is denominated “the tempter” in that narrative. The Greek term is peirazon, a present tense participle literally expanded, “the always tempting me,” which suggests his characteristic activity.

Had the devil succeeded in causing Christ to sin, the Lord could not have served as the spotless sin offering (2 Pet. 1:19; 2 Cor. 5:21), and the entire human race would have been forever lost!

Satan’s Affliction on Mankind

Disease, infirmity and death are ultimately the responsibility of Satan. How? By his introduction of sin into the world, he brought about such woes and hence, he is really the murderer of the human family (cf. Jn. 8:44).

This is why it is said that a certain Jewish woman, who had been afflicted with an infirmity for eighteen years, was bound of Satan (Lk. 13:16), and Peter declared that Jesus went about doing good “healing all that were oppressed of the devil” (Acts 10:38).

Satan: Enemy of the Apostles

The New Testament represents the devil as a deadly foe of the apostles of Christ, who by their saving message, opposed his work.

The Lord informed Peter: “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked to have you, that he might sift you as wheat” (Lk. 22:31).

Many commentators have over-looked the fact that the pronoun “you” (humas) is plural, revealing that Jesus was issuing a warning regarding all the apostles. Yet, recognizing the special weakness of Peter, the Master adds: “but I made supplication for thee (sou, singular) that thy faith fail not”

Moreover, Paul’s thorn in the flesh was a “messenger of Satan” (2 Cor. 12:7), and when the apostle would have visited the Thessalonian brethren, Satan hindered him (2 Thes. 2: 18).

It must ever be remembered, though, that the devil can only do what he is permitted to do by God. This will be discussed later in more detail.

Satanic Influences Christ’s Disciples

Satan “put into the heart of Judas Iscariot” the dastardly notion of betraying the Lord Jesus (Jn. 13:2), and later entered “into him” (Jn. 13:27) thus, causing him to consummate the darkest deed of all history.

So captivated by the Deceiver was Judas, that Jesus once plainly called the wayward apostle a “devil” (Jn. 6:70). Judas, however, did not consider himself a mere passive pawn at the disposal of Satan, for he unmistakably acknowledged: “I have sinned in that I betrayed innocent blood” (Mt. 27:4).

Additionally, when Ananias lied and misrepresented the amount of his gift to the early church, Peter inquired:

“Ananias, why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Spirit” (Acts 5:3). And yet the apostle further asks: “How is it that thou hast conceived this thing in thy heart?” (vs. 4).

Satan cannot overpower us (Jas. 4:7), but he will gladly cooperate in the destruction of our souls!

Where Did Satan Come From?

Though the Bible gives no detailed account of the origin of Satan, sufficient suggestions are found to draw some reasonable conclusions. The devil did not exist eternally, hence did have an origin, as the following indicates.

Satan is not Deity

It is certainly clear that Satan is not of the nature of deity. Deity is all powerful (Gen. 17:1). Deity cannot be restrained (Job 42:2).

On the contrary, however, the devil is clearly not omnipotent as evidenced by the following:

• His power to afflict was limited (Job 1:12; 2:6).
• When rebuked by the messenger of Jehovah, he had to remain silent (Zech. 3:2).
• His authority over world kingdoms was “delivered” to him (Lk.4:6).
• He had to ask for the apostles (Lk. 22:31).
• He can “snatch” no one from the Lord’s hand (Jn. 10:28).
• When resisted, he flees (Jas. 4:7).
• When cast into hell he will be powerless to resist (Rev. 20:10).

Moreover, Scripture plainly affirms that He that is in us (i.e., God) is greater than he (i.e., Satan) that is in the world. (1 Jn. 4:4).

So, to sum up: Deity is all powerful. But Satan is not. Thus, he is not of the deity class.

Satan was created

All things and beings that are not of the deity class are the result of creation:

“[F]or in him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers” (Col. 1:16).

This would include Satan as he originally was. It might be mentioned also at this point that all created things had their origin at some time during the creation week of Genesis 1. This Moses states in Exodus 20:11:

“For in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is ....”

This included the great host of angels. Incidentally, the angels:

“must have been created at the very beginning of the first day of creation, for Job 38:6, 7 tells of their singing and of their shout of joy at the creation of the earth” (Whitcomb 1972, 43).

Satan’s Fall

All things, as they were originally created, were good. “And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31).

“By the application of the term ‘good’ to everything that God made, and the repetition of the word with the emphasis ‘very’ at the close of the whole creation, the existence of anything evil in the creation of God is absolutely denied, and the hypothesis entirely refuted, that the six days’ work merely subdued and fettered an ungodly, evil principle, which had already forced its way into it” (Keil 1864, 67).

This means that the being known as Satan was not created as Satan (i.e., as an adversary). He was created good, but he became bad.

If Satan was created good, but is now evil, it is obvious that he fell. The Bible seems to indicate that the devil was the very first sinner.

John wrote: “The devil sinneth from the beginning ...” (1 Jn. 3:8). W. E. Vine says:

“There is stress upon the phrase ‘from the beginning.’ Sin began when Satan first sinned” (1970, 56). See also Guy N. Woods’ commentary on this passage.

There are several indications in the Bible that a rebellion occurred in heaven at some remote period of antiquity. In the book of Job, Eliphaz says of God: “He puts no trust even in his servants; And against his angels he charges error” (4:18). Barnes noted:

“Language like this would hardly be employed unless there was a belief that even the holiness of the angels was not incorruptible, and that there had been some revolt there among a part, which rendered it possible that others might revolt also " (1852, LXIII).

Two passages in the New Testament speak of such a rebellion.

“God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast them down to hell, and committed them to pits of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment” (2 Pet.2:4).

Jude writes:

“And angels that kept not their own principality, but left their proper habitation, he hath kept in everlasting bonds under darkness unto the judgment of the great day” (Jude 6).

Angels were obviously subject to some kind of heavenly law, for they sinned and sin is transgression of law (1 Jn. 3:4). All evidence points to Satan as the instigator and leader in this revolt. Also, let it be noted that not all of these rebellious spirits were confined in a place of punishment (cf. Eph. 2:2; 6:12).

In 1 Timothy 3:6 Paul prohibits a novice being appointed an elder “lest being puffed up he fall into the condemnation of the devil.”

There is some discussion among scholars as to how the genitive tou diabolou (of the devil) should be taken. Some see it as subjective in the sense of “the devil’s trap of condemnation” into which the novice falls. The expression “snare of the devil” in verse 7 is relied upon as support for this view.

More likely, however, the words “of the devil” ought to be taken as an objective genitive, suggesting the sense, “Lest he be involved in the condemnation which the devil incurred,” or the “judgment pronounced on the devil” (Nicoll n.d., 114).

ALford, Wiesinger (in Olshausen), and others strongly argue that krima(judgment, condemnation) in verse 6 can only be used of a judgment into which the devil came. If this be correct, we have here a specific allusion to Satan’s original fall.

Perhaps a word should be said about certain passages which are thought to shed light on Satan’s fall, but which, upon closer examination, are hardly conclusive in that regard.

Is Satan Lucifer?

Isaiah 14:12 contains a reference to “Lucifer” (KJV), an epithet of the king of Babylon (vs. 4). Jerome and others of the church “fathers” took this to be a reference to Satan and such a notion is popular today, but there is no evidence of an allusion to the devil in this passage.

Is Ezekiel’s lamentation over the king of Tyre a reference to Satan’s fall?

Some have asserted that Ezekiel’s “lamentation over the king of Tyre” (28:11-19) is a picture of Satan and his fall in Eden. But as Ellison notes:

“Those who implicitly hold this view have generally little idea of how unknown it is in wider Christian circles, or of how little basis there is for it in fact” (Ezekiel: The Man And His Message, p. 108).

Satan falling as “lighting from heaven”

When the seventy disciples returned from a preaching tour they declared: “Lord, even the demons are subject unto us in thy name.”

He replied: “I beheld Satan fallen as lightning from heaven” (Lk. 10:17, 18).

Though some see this as a reference to the devil’s initial apostasy, Plummer says:

“The aorist [tense of the verb “fallen”] indicates the coincidence between the success of the Seventy and Christ’s vision of Satan’s overthrow ...; it refers to the success of the disciples regarded as a symbol and earnest of the complete overthrow of Satan" (1969, 278).

Michael’s war with Satan

In Revelation 12:7-9 John sees a vision of war in heaven between Michael and his angels and the devil and his angels, the result being that Satan was cast down to earth.

In harmony with the nature of the book and its general context, this is a symbolic description of the battle between the church of Jesus Christ and the forces of Satan. That it does not refer to a fall back near the beginning of time is clear from the fact that Satan was “cast down,” or overcome, “because of the blood of the Lamb” (12:10, 11).

It is not impossible, though, that an ancient conflict might have formed the basis of the imagery here employed, even though the reference is not specifically to such an event.

Satan’s Mission

The devil’s self-appointed mission, very simply stated, is to destroy the human race in hell. It is little wonder he has been denominated by inspiration as the “Destroyer” (Rev. 9:11).

He attempted the ruin of humanity by the temptation of Christ (Mt. 4:1-11), and the seduction of His holy apostles (Lk. 22:31). Though that plan failed (with the exception of Judas — Jn. 17:12), he now nevertheless “as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (2 Pet. 5:8).

How is he working today?

But how does this Enemy work today? Satan was permitted to operate in a very limited way supernaturally during former ages of history (as in the case of demon possessions of the first century – Mt. 12:22-29; cf. Ex. 7:11, 22; 2 Thes. 2:9).

Apparently, this was for the purpose of enabling the Lord and His disciples to demonstrate the superiority of divine power over Satanic power.

Today, however, he cannot operate in a miraculous fashion.

If the devil could miraculously dominate men today, there would be, as Rubel Shelly has observed, “a manifest ‘imbalance’ of spiritual power among men with the scales tipped to Satan’s advantage” (Occultism, p. 7).

Professor L. M. Sweet affirms that there is no evidence:

“that Satan is able to any extent to introduce disorder into the physical universe or directly operate in the lives of men .... On the contrary, it is perfectly evident that Satan’s power consists principally in his ability to deceive. It is interesting and characteristic that according to the Bible Satan is fundamentally a liar and his kingdom is a kingdom founded upon lies and deceit” (1915, 2694).

The New Testament affords evidence aplenty for this. For instance, the Deceiver:

1. Delights in blinding the minds of the unbelieving that the Light of the gospel should not dawn upon them (2 Cor. 4:4).
2. To accomplish this he does not hesitate to transform himself into an angel of Light, along with his ministers who pretend to be ministers of righteousness (2 Cor. 11: 14,15).
3. When people are inclined not to believe the truth, the devil takes the gospel from their hearts (Lk. 8:12).
4. He is full of trickery. He has his snares (1 Tim. 3:7), and employs his “wiles” — “a deliberate planning or system” (Eph. 4:14; 6:11; Vincent 1900, 392).
5. Those converted from the power of Satan unto God are thus turned from darkness to light (Acts 26: 18).
6. Accordingly, Christians must constantly be on guard “that no advantage may be gained over us by Satan: for we are not ignorant of his devices” (2 Cor. 2:11).

Though we must never underestimate the power of Satan, it is equally certain that we must likewise never overestimate him.

By employing the same weapon as used by Christ — “It is written” (Mt. 4:4, 7, 10) — we can become “more than conquerors through him that loved us” (Rom. 8:37).

Jehovah can grant us victories over the Destroyer and his kingdom (Rom. 16:20; 1 Jn. 5:4), and by His might, we take courage and press on!

Satan’s Destiny

The Lord Jesus Christ will be completely victorious over Satan.

He was manifested “that he might destroy the works of the devil” (1 Jn. 3:8). The eternal punishment of hell" is prepared for the devil and his angels" (Mt. 25:41). And into that horrible place he will be cast and be “tormented day and night for ever and ever” (Rev. 20:10).

The promise of Genesis 3:15 will then be totally fulfilled:

“He [the woman’s seed, i.e., Christ] shall bruise thy [the serpent’s] head.”

What great rejoicing will then occur!

Genesis 1:31 says, “God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” God did not create anything evil. It was all very good.

Then, suddenly when chapter three opens, there is this serpent. And he is clearly evil. He is calling God’s Word into question. Genesis 3:1: “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” He is devious and deceitful and destructive.

God had told Adam in Genesis 2:17, “The day that you eat of [this tree] you shall surely die.” But the serpent says in Genesis 3:4-5: “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Therefore, Jesus says of him in John 8:44 that he is both a liar and murderer:

“He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

Satan, That Ancient Serpent

Who is this serpent? The fullest answer is given in Revelation 12:9: “The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.”

So, the serpent in the garden is the devil (which means slanderer), and Satan (which means accuser), and the deceiver of the whole world. Jesus calls him “the evil one” (Matthew 13:19) and “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11). The Pharisees call him “Beelzebub, the prince of demons” (Matthew 12:24). Paul calls him “the god of this age” (2 Corinthians 4:4) and “the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2).

That’s the one we meet in Genesis 3. He is already evil, already a deceiver, already a murderer when he appears in the Garden of Eden. In Genesis 3:15, God speaks to the serpent and pronounces judgment on him: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

Notice that at first it looks like the warfare will be between two offsprings: “between your offspring and her offspring.” But in the next words something different is said: “He shall bruise your head.” Who is “he”? Answer: the woman’s offspring. Who is “your” (“he shall bruise your head”)? Answer: the serpent himself, not his offspring.

The Crushing of Satan at the Cross

The day is coming, God says, when you(not just your offspring) will be defeated and removed from the earth. The offspring of this woman will crush you (see Romans 16:20 and Hebrews 2:14). That decisive blow was struck by Jesus Christ, the perfect offspring of the woman, when He died on the cross. This is one of the reasons why the eternal Son of God had to become a man—because it was the offspring of the woman who would crush Satan.

Colossians 2:14-15 describes what God did for those who trust His Son: “[The record of debt that stood against us] he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.”

When Christ died for our sins, Satan was disarmed and defeated. The one eternally destructive weapon that he had was stripped from his hand, namely, his accusation before God that we are guilty and should perish with him. When Christ died, that accusation was nullified. All those who entrust themselves to Christ will never perish. Satan cannot separate them from the love of God in Christ (Romans 8:37-39).

The Insurrection of Satan

But where did Satan come from? And why does God tolerate his murderous activity? In Genesis he just appears. Between the perfection described in Genesis 1:31 (“behold, it was very good”) and the appearance of evil in Genesis 3, something happened. The good creation was corrupted.

The little books of Jude and 2 Peter in the New Testament give us clues as to what happened. Jude 1:6 says, “The angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.” And 2 Peter 2:4 says, “God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment.”

It appears, then, that once there was a host of holy angels. And some of them, including Satan, “sinned,” or as Jude 1:6 says, “did not stay within their own position of authority.”

In other words, the sin was a kind of insurrection, a desire for more power and more authority than God intended. So Satan originates as a created angel who, with other angels, rebel against God, reject Him as their all-satisfying king and joy, and set out on a course of self-exaltation and presumed self-determination. They do not want to be subordinate. They do not want to be sent by God to serve others (Hebrews 1:14). They want to have authority over themselves and exalt themselves above God.

The Origin of Satan’s Sin

So we ask now again: Why? How could this happen? There is not an easy answer. In fact, the ultimate Biblical answer creates more questions. So it seems that in this age, while we “know in part” (1 Corinthians 13:12), some people find help in saying that the angels had free will and God could not exert enough influence to keep them adoring Him. But I don’t find that idea helpful. It simply doesn’t answer the question: Why would a perfectly holy angel in God’s infinitely beautiful presence use his free will to suddenly hate God?

A Failed Approach

This idea—that God was helpless to prevent this rebellion because of the self-determining wills of sinless angels—is not a solution to the problem. It doesn’t account for why perfectly holy beings would use their wills to despise what they were created adoring. And it doesn’t fit with the rest of what the Bible says about God’s rule over the devil.

The Biblical Approach

My approach to answering the question of how to think about the origin of Satan’s sin is to read the whole Bible with the question: How does God relate to Satan’s will? Is God helpless before the will of evil powers? Is there a power outside Himself that limits His rule over them? Or is God presented throughout the Bible as having the right and the power to restrain Satan anytime He pleases? And if so, why doesn’t He just destroy him?

God’s Sovereign Sway over Satan

Though Satan is called “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31), Daniel 4:17 says, “The Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will.” And Psalm 33:10-11 says, “The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart to all generations.” Yes, Satan is the “ruler of this world,” but the ultimate one—God—holds final sway.

God Governs Satan’s Every Move

From cover to cover the Bible presents God as governing Satan and his demons. He has the right and power to restrain them any time He pleases.

I conclude, therefore, that God permitted Satan’s fall, not because He was helpless to stop it, but because He had a purpose for it. Since God is never caught off guard, His permissions are always purposeful. If He chooses to permit something, He does so for a reason—an infinitely wise reason. How the sin arises in Satan’s heart, we do not know.

God has not told us. What we do know is that God is sovereign over Satan, and therefore Satan’s will does not move without God’s permission. And therefore every move of Satan is part of God’s overall purpose and plan. And this is true in such a way that God never sins. God is infinitely holy, and God is infinitely mighty. Satan is evil, and Satan is under the all-governing wisdom of God.

Why Not Wipe Out Satan?

Why, then, does God not simply wipe Satan out? He has the right and power to do this. And Revelation 20:10 says He is going to do it someday. Why didn’t He cast him into the Lake of Fire the day after he rebelled? Why let him rampage through humanity for centuries?

The ultimate answer is that all things were created through Christ and for Christ (Colossians 1:16). The Son of God, Jesus Christ, will be more highly honored in the end because He defeats Satan through longsuffering, patience, humility, servanthood, suffering and death, rather than through raw power. And the more highly honored the Son is, the greater the joy of those who love Him.

For the Fullness of Christ’s Glory

The glory of Christ reaches its apex in the obedient sacrifice of the cross where Jesus triumphed over the devil (Colossians 2:15). Jesus said, “Now [in my final hour] is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him” (John 13:31). Paul said, “We preach Christ crucified … the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:23-24). Jesus said to Paul about Satan’s thorn in Paul’s side, “My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Rebellion and Fall:

1) Before He Created the Universe, God Existed: Before Satan, before angels, before the creation of mankind, there was God. The triune God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) has always existed independent of man, angels, the universe, or even time itself.

The Word [Jesus Christ] existed at the very beginning, and there was reciprocity between the Word and God [the Father]. This One both existed and enjoyed reciprocity with God from the very beginning.  Everything came into being through Him, and without Him, nothing has come into being which has in fact come into being.
John 1:1-3

This fact is an extremely important one to keep in mind, because as believers in Jesus Christ, we need to remember that for all his terrible power, Satan is still only a creature, operating entirely within the universe of time and space which God has created, and is therefore entirely subject to God's sovereign will and omnipotence. By way of contrast, however, our infinite Lord is in no way whatsoever limited by or dependent upon this finite environment of time and space so essential to our existence and to that of all His creatures, Satan and the fallen angels included:⁽²⁾

God, who created the universe and everything in it, even He who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples our hands have made, nor is He ministered to by the hands of men (as if He needed anything from us) – [on the contrary], He is the One who gives life and breath and everything else to us all.
Acts 17:24-25

In terms of relative power, therefore, any conflict between our infinite, omnipotent Lord and Satan along with his coterie of angelic subordinates cannot even be termed a “contest” in any reasonable sense of that word. Should it please God to annihilate the devil and his minions, He possesses the power to do so in an instant without the slightest effort. That God has not done so says much about the awesome character of the God with whom we have to do. Satan is allowed to exist, allowed to rebel against the generous Lord who made him, and his rebellion is allowed to run its course, precisely because God loves us so much. For the supreme love that God the Father has for us as demonstrated in the sacrifice on our behalf of His only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, can also be seen in His determination to let us, to let all His creatures, choose whether or not we wish to follow Him of our own free will. Although God loves all His creatures with a perfect love, He does not force any of them to love Him back. When history finally comes to an end, the only creatures, men and angels, who will be with Him forever are those who have chosen it. 

In its simplest expression, creature history (angelic and human) is a chance for each of us to demonstrate conclusively whether we are with God or against Him, whether we want to accept and respond to His amazing love (and spend eternity with Him), or instead to reject His love (and spend eternity apart from Him). For us in the world today, that choice is made very simply in the decision to become a follower of Jesus Christ through faith, or instead to reject the indescribable gift of His Son who died on our behalf. The angels, however, have already made their choices, and it is a measure of the genius of our Lord that it is by means of that very rebellion of His arch-creature Satan, that . . . 

    1) He validates our choice of Him (despite satanic opposition, we still chose Him, so that choice must be genuine),

    2) He demonstrates His love for us (Satan's seduction of Adam brought us all under sin and thus necessitated the sacrifice of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, an act that is the very embodiment of His love), 

    3) He furthers His own glory in the process (allowing Satan's rebellion to run its course only serves to validate God's condemnation of the devil). 

Had we not come through the fiery testing supplied by the devil and his corrupt world-system, we would never be able to appreciate God's marvelous provision for us and His deliverance of us from all our earthly trials (2Tim.4:18). Only by allowing us to experience His grace in the midst of the devil's world, can God bring us to the fullest understanding and appreciation of His love for us, while at the same time leading us to a full and genuine love for Him. Thanks be to God for His ineffable and unsearchable wisdom!

2) God's Creation of the Universe: Although He was under no obligation or necessity to do so, God did in fact create the universe we behold today. Before time, in an instant of time, He created time and space and all matter from nothing.⁽³⁾ He did so to provide us with a temporal and material environment in which we, his creatures, might exist. This then is the purpose of the present world and its creation: to give us and His angels a home and a habitation in which to exercise our free will. God is spiritual and infinite, and has no existential need of the finite universe. But He made all things – for us, for our benefit, that we might come to seek Him, to know Him, to choose to follow Him, and to love Him, for He first loved us (Acts 17:26-27; 1Jn.4:19). Much as we human beings desire to share our lives and our love and so bring children into the world, so our heavenly Father has prepared the heavens and the earth for us, His children, for our benefit – and for His glory. We are not toys, pets or automatons – we are His offspring (Acts 17:28). The fact that He sent His one and only Son to share flesh and blood as we do, so that He might die in our place, and that we might have eternal life is incontrovertible evidence that His creation of us and of all that we see, far from being an accident, flows instead directly from the matchless wisdom, purpose and love of our God and Father.

3) God's Creation of Angels: Since Christians today are constantly being bombarded by false information about angels through our popular culture, it will be helpful to take a moment to consider the biblical perspective. Overall, angels are not particularly prominent in the Bible. Mention of them does not even occur at all in about half of the books of the Bible, and a little reflection (or investigation) will show that they are seldom the focus of events in any biblical narrative. There is a very good reason for this. God has given the Bible to mankind as the standard of faith and practice here in the world; that is to say, scripture explains how God is dealing with us, and only tangentially examines His dealing with angelic kind. This point is important, because it is no secret that excessive fascination with angels and their activities (especially that which runs far beyond the legitimate information contained in the Bible) has been and continues to be a major stumbling block to believers and unbelievers both, drawing their attention away from the saving knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (about whom there is so much to learn) and from the other doctrines of scripture to a world of fancy instead (i.e., mis-information about angels and their activities). All this is not to say that some knowledge about the angelic realm is not important and necessary, but the Bible approaches the subject of angels very much on a "need to know" basis: it does not tell us all we would necessarily like to know, but it does tell us all we should know to understand God's plan for the world and for us.⁽⁴⁾The actions, functions and organization of angels, elect and fallen, are treated in part 4 of this series, but it will be of use here to outline some of the basic principles discernible from scripture that have an immediate bearing upon our present study:

a. Angels are an order of creature apart from mankind:

Everything in the heavens and on the earth was created by Him (Jesus Christ), things invisible as well as those visible – whether thrones, authorities, rulers or powers, everything was created through Him and for Him.
Colossians 1:16

One of the more pernicious misconceptions of contemporary, conventional wisdom about angels is the completely fallacious and harmful notion that angels are departed human beings. Nothing could be further from the truth. Scripture is clear about the fact that angels preceded man in God's creation (Job 38:6-7), and that mankind was originally created with less glory and power than the angelic creation (Ps.8:4-5).⁽⁵⁾

b. Angels are finite beings: Despite their obvious present superiority, as created beings, angels are also dependent upon time and space. Though more powerful (2Thes.1:7; 2Pet.2:11), mobile (Gen.28:12) and knowledgeable (2Sam.14:20) than mankind, they are neither omniscient (Matt.24:36), nor omnipotent (Rom.8:38), nor omnipresent (Dan.10:13).  Angels are often described as the "host of heaven" and otherwise compared to the innumerable stars (e.g., Job 25:3; Ps.103:20-21; Is.40:26 w. Lk.2:13), but although they are a highly organized group and quite numerous it should be understood that they are finite in number, however large that undisclosed number may be (Deut.33:2; Ps.68:17; Dan.7:10; Heb.12:22; Rev.5:11). 

It has been debated over the centuries whether angels are spiritual or material, and the common opinion has, more often than not, come down in favor of the former on account of such passages as Hebrews 1:7 & 14. Indeed, angels, as depicted in scripture, are not subject to many of the material restrictions under which we labor. They apparently do not grow old, or hungry or tired. They can, on occasion, even enter into human bodies (as in cases of demon possession: Lk.8:26-39), and are, for the most part, completely invisible to us, even as they go about their work in our world (or mischief as the case may be). These and other facts speak to the immaterial aspect of their nature. However, angels can at times appear in bodily form (as in the case of the announcement of Christ's birth: Lk.2:8-15), and can also affect the material world with great power (consider the angels who control the winds: Rev.7:1-3). These further facts, taken in conjunction with their subordination to time and space discussed above, make it clear enough that angels, though "spiritual" in substance, are not excused from being vulnerable to certain material restrictions and restraints as well. For example, they can be confined and made subject to the compulsion of God's judgment (as in the case of the final disposition of the fallen angels: Matt.25:41). 

A brief consideration of the future, post-resurrection bodies we are destined to receive (after the pattern of our Lord, Jesus Christ) will be helpful in this connection.⁽⁶⁾ Man is a spiritual, as well as a material creature (more about this in part 3 of this present series), but while our present body possesses an earthly materiality, we are told (and shown by the example of Christ in resurrection) that our coming body will possess a heavenly materiality. As the apostle Paul puts it, "[the human body] is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body" (1Cor.15:44). Now we know from the example of Christ that this "spiritual" body is still a body in every sense of the word: Jesus was still discernible to His disciples, talked, walked, even ate with them; and when doubting Thomas finally saw Him, Jesus commanded him to "thrust your hand into My side" – in no small part to demonstrate the true materiality of our Lord's new "spiritual-body". Corporeality, the possession of a true body, is thus a hallmark of the human being, before and after resurrection. Such is not the case for the angels, however. In Luke 24:39, our resurrected Lord appearing to His frightened disciples assures them that "a spirit (pneuma – the same word used for angels in Heb.1:7 & 14) does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." This absence of true corporeal substance on the part of the angels is at the root of many of the differences between us: our spirits are willing, but our flesh (now) is weak and a major source of the temptations that confront us, temptations to which the angels are oblivious (for example, they have no need for money). In a curious way, however, the very absence of sensual experience that only a true body can supply was apparently no small contributing cause in the fall from grace of many of Satan's angels (see section IV below).

c. Angels are temporarily superior to mankind in many ways: Having established that angels are creatures too, and that they are not possessed of infinite power and ability, it is important to acknowledge that this power and ability of theirs is considerable, especially in comparison to mankind. First and foremost, angels are not subject to death (Lk.20:36), nor do they reproduce (Mk.12:25), leading us to the conclusion that their number has been the same since their collective creation. That is not to say, of course, that the fallen angels will not be subject to separation from God forever and eternal punishment (an event which, in the case of human beings, is termed the "second death": Rev.20:14 w.Matt.25:41). So while mankind is enjoying a sequential residence on earth (generation following generation), angelic kind has been experiencing a continuum of existence in heaven, even before the creation of Man. This longevity, combined with the fact that they are not subject to the restraints and necessities of time and space that encumber mankind, undoubtedly contributes to their superior knowledge and wisdom. Yet we should point out that, by its very essence, the angelic nature is superior to our present earthly human nature in terms of appearance, intellect, power, mobility and authority (2Pet.2:11). Such, however, will not always be the case, for just as our Lord (who is our precursor in the resurrection) is superior to angels in every way, including all aspects of His humanity (Heb.1:4 - 2:18), so also we are destined to share that superiority with Him in our resurrection (1Cor.6:3; Heb.2:5).

d. Angels are similar to mankind in several important ways: Despite their present, relative superiority to mankind, as fellow creatures of God, angels share some important attributes with us. Like us, they possess personality and individuality (as evidenced, for example, by joy: Job 38:4-7; Lk.15:10; desire: 1Pet.1:12; and choice: Jude 6). And like us, they are created to serve and worship God for His glory (Ps.103:20-21; 148:2; Matt.4:11; Heb.1:14; Rev.4:8). As in the case of human beings, this service and worship is not compulsory, but something God desires from angelic kind of their own free will (exactly as He desires our free will allegiance to Himself through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ). This proposition implies what is elsewhere in scripture made very clear: while most angels have chosen to continue following and serving their Creator, some have rejected Him, and are destined to face the consequences of their action (Matt.25:41). These two groups of angels are traditionally referred to as elect and fallen angels (based upon 1Tim.5:21 and Is.14:12respectively). As to the fallen angels, we know from specific scripture references (e.g., Job 4:18; 2Pet.2:4; Jude 6) as well as and from their association with Satan (whose fall we shall explore below) that their "fallen" status is not the result of some arbitrary decision of their Creator; rather it is a direct result of their own, individual choices to reject Him and His authority. This moral accountability, then, is the most important similarity between angels and humans: we have both been given an existence wherein the primary issue is our choice to follow (or reject) God. 

The differences between the characterof our choice and their choice is entirely explainable by the differences in our respective natures. Angels, originally existing in a holy state, made their decisions long ago, before the creation of Man. We human beings, however, are limited as to life-span (not to mention our geographic, intellectual and physical constraints). Even more significant is the fact that we are born sinful, and as a result must choose to turn away from sin toward God (through faith in Jesus Christ) in order to be saved. The angels, by contrast, were all created holy, and, as a result of this quite different circumstance, faced a very different choice: to remain loyal to the Lord of the universe, or to choose instead to turn away from God and join in Satan's sinful rebellion.

God's ineffable wisdom shines through pellucidly in this distinction of choices presented to us on the one hand and to our angelic fellow creatures on the other. Angels are by nature such that their ultimate decision of whether or not to stay faithful to God seems to be the sum of themselves from eternity past to eternity future. That is to say, they are not subject to the temporal restraints, limited knowledge and deceptiveness of the flesh that produces in us the capability of "changing our minds" (whether towards repentance or apostasy). The very longevity, intellect and ability which angels possess apparently produces a certainty and resolution of decision-making that is largely unaffected by historical developments. As human beings, we have all experienced the change of perspective which the passage of time can produce – a factor of our gradually increasing knowledge, experience, and, one would hope, wisdom. Angels, vastly superior in intellect and knowledge at the point of creation, have already logged thousands of years of existence – and that without experiencing the process of maturing and aging. This is not to say that angels are incapable of learning or of being surprised by the unfolding of God's plan in human history, but it does seem to indicate that their perspective is more universal, spiritual, even eternal – it is a perspective little changed from the beginning to the end of time on account of their unique nature. Angelic decision-making seems to encompass or "straddle" time in a way we temporal creatures cannot fully appreciate. Therefore angels (who started out perfect and either were confirmed in their loyalty-perfection or lost it when they rebelled and fell) seem to have made their decision about the Lord once and for all. They do not experience "changes of heart" in the way we human beings sometimes do, turning to the Lord (or, sadly, away from Him on occasion), precisely because their nature is different from ours. So while these fellow creatures of God share with us the fact that the central issue in their existence is to choose for or against the Lord, the manner in which they have done so in the pre-human past is thus different from the manner in which we now do so in human history.

Indeed, the idea that we can change our minds (repent), and, more importantly, that God has found a way to accommodate our repentance and to provide for our deliverance from sin is a source of surprise and fascination to the angels (e.g., 1Tim.5:21; 1Pet.1:10-12).  For just as we would have a difficult time seeing things from the angelic perspective, so angels cannot fully appreciate our human point of view, not being creatures of spirit andbody as we are. And how could they? They are creatures for whom repentance is an existential impossibility (as is "backsliding"). Whereas, in the case of Man, we start imperfect and in need of help (salvation, as provided through Christ's sacrifice). In the process of "working out our salvation" a number of twists and turns may very well take place. Being subject to a finite, temporal life, to pressures and temptations that are part and parcel of being in the flesh (especially the corrupted flesh), being under fire from the angelic dimension (would Adam and Eve have sinned without Satan?), and being limited in our knowledge under the best of circumstances (especially compared to the angels), we find ourselves in a very different position from our angelic brethren – not perfect creatures who must refrain from choosing the wrong path, but imperfect, already condemned creatures who must choose to accept the gracious gift of life in Jesus Christ and persevere in our walk with Him in order to lay hold of eternal life. 

This difference in our natures, in the essence of our free will choices, and therefore in our perspectives about God's dealings with us is critical for a proper understanding of His treatment of angels and men respectively. For it helps to explain the testimony of the scriptures to the effect that angels are actually learning about God from observing the unfolding of His plan of salvation on earth:⁽⁷⁾

1. As seen from their observation of the life of Jesus Christ:

[Jesus Christ], who appeared in the flesh, was vindicated by the [Holy] Spirit, was revealed to angels (i.e., was observed by them), was preached among the nations, was believed upon in the world, was taken up in glory.
1st Timothy 3:16

2. As seen from their witnessing the progress of believers:

I charge you before God [the Father], and Christ Jesus, and the elect angels, that you keep to these [commands] without partiality, doing nothing out of favoritism.
1st Timothy 5:21

3. As seen from their desire to know about God's plan of salvation:

Even as they foretold this salvation that was to come to you, the prophets of old diligently investigated and inquired about this [gift] of grace, being eager to discover the precise time the Spirit of Christ within them was signifying as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories [of salvation, among other things] that would follow [the cross]. For it was revealed to them that in prophesying these things, they were not so much serving themselves as they were you – and these same things have now been proclaimed to you through those who gave you the gospel through the Holy Spirit, sent from heaven – even angels want to look into these things.
1st Peter 1:10-12

Elsewhere, we are told that the apostles were made "a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men" (1Cor.4:9), that "because of the angels" women should maintain a sign of authority on their heads (1Cor.11:10), that there is "joy in heaven" over every repentant sinner (Lk.15:10: i.e., from the angels; cf. Lk.12:8-9; Rev.3:5), but that those who reject Christ to worship the antichrist will be tormented "in the presence of the Lamb and His holy angels" (Rev.14:10). Moreover, it is quite significant that angels are recorded as present at all the major events in the life of Christ: His birth (Lk.2:13-14), temptation (Matt.4:11), resurrection (Lk.24:4), ascension (Acts 1:10-11), and return (2Thes.1:7) – a fact which underscores angelic interest in this the most crucial phase of God's plan.⁽⁸⁾

Thus angelic interest in human affairs transcends the completion of their duties and ministries on our behalf (e.g., Heb.1:7 & 14). As they observe human beings escaping the slavery of sin, choosing for God and trusting Him in spite of all opposition, they are "learning" something very important about Him: they see His righteousness, His justice, His power and His love in the mission, sacrifice and victory of Jesus Christ and its effective transmission to believing humanity. 

God's faithfulness to us through and on the basis of the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ, while essential to our salvation and subsequent spiritual growth, also carries an important "lesson" for the angels. We learn about the faithfulness of God by experienceat salvation and afterwards; the holy angels, however, have never had need of salvation, nor have they ever been hungry or thirsty, nor have they ever been in danger or experienced the fear and the grief of death. Because their nature exempts them from most of the pressures that so define our human existence, they cannot learn about the faithfulness of God personally, but can only do so by observation of His great love and mercy to us here on earth as we are bombarded by the devil's attacks. Angels exist by Christ and for Christ, but can only fully appreciate Him (and the Father) by actually viewing the sacrifice of the cross and the playing out of God's plan in perfect faithfulness to human beings who choose to believe. 

Thus it is that angelic observation of the working out of God's plan of salvation in human history, both strategically (i.e., the provision of salvation through Christ's incarnation, death, resurrection, ascension, session and return) and tactically (i.e., the imparting of salvation to and support of the progress of individual believers) is a necessary ingredient in God's destruction of the works of the devil and in His ultimate restoration of harmony and order to His creation (1Jn.3:8):

1. As seen from the ultimate consummation of all elect angelic and human kind in Christ:

[The Father] has made known to us the mystery He has willed according to His own good pleasure which He purposed in Him, [Jesus Christ], for administering this [present] fulfillment of the epochs (i.e., "these last days"; cf. Heb.1:2; 1Pet.1:10): namely the incorporation of all things in Christ, things in heaven, and things on earth.
Ephesians 1:9-10

2. As seen from the ultimate demonstration to angels through the Church of God's ineffable wisdom in sending His Son to die for us:

This gracious favor has been given to me, the least of His saints: to give to the gentiles the good news of the indescribable wealth [that is in] Christ, and to enlighten everyone as to how this mystery (once hidden from the ages in God who created everything) is now being administered, so that the enigmatically intricate wisdom of God might be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms through the agency of the Church.
Ephesians 3:8-10

3. As seen from the ultimate reconciliation of all heavenly matters through Christ:

For it was [God's] good pleasure for the fulfillment [of His plan] to reside entirely in [Christ], and so through Him to reconcile everything to Himself (having made peace through Him, through the blood of His cross) – whether things on earth, or things in heaven.
Colossians 1:19-20

The three passages above explain (among other things) the effect of God's plan of salvation on angelic affairs: by observing the sacrifice of Christ and God's resultant calling of the gentiles through the formation of the Church of Jesus Christ, the angels learn about 1) Christ's authority and centrality in God's plan (Eph.1:9-10); 2) the breathtaking wisdom of God's plan in sending Christ and calling out the Church (Eph.3:8-10); 3) the ultimate effect of God's plan in reestablishing complete harmony and peace in heaven and on earth based upon Christ's sacrifice (Col.1:19-20).

The point made by the last passage treated above, Colossians 1:19-20, calls for some comment. One element in this angelic "instruction by observation of human history" is, no doubt, the complete refutation of Satan's deceptive (and self-deceptive) assertion of God's inability to confront his rebellion, an assertion used in the first instance to deceive fellow angels and win them to his cause (see section IV below), and in the second to deceive and ensnare mankind (an operation still very much in progress: see part 4 of this series). Based upon what we know of the fall of Satan and his present modus operandi, we would not be far wrong in reconstructing the essence of this false assumption as follows:

I and my followers shall be free of God's retribution, because if God were to destroy us or otherwise eternally punish us, the completeness and harmony that a God-like universe demands would be forever lost, because . . . 

    1) God cannot replace us (no completeness), and

    2) God cannot rehabilitate us (no harmony),

    3) therefore God cannot punish us.

How ironic it is that Satan, who knew much better than we the awesome power of God, has been relying all along on the character of God to protect him from the wrath of God! No doubt he thought to put God in an insoluble dilemma: either tolerate the breach in universal order and harmony or rend unity and peace forever by crushing Satan. Satan counted on God's tolerating evil rather than taking an irrevocable step that would permanently mar His creation.  But Satan, who should have had a better understanding than anyone else in the universe of the ineffable wisdom of our God (who planned the beginning and the end of all things before time began and who is therefore incapable of being surprised), failed to take this paramount consideration into account. The present working out of the Father's great plan of salvation in the person of Christ is demonstrating this very fact to Satan and his followers:

1) Replacement: Elect mankind is, in effect, replacing fallen angelic kind in God's universal order (Lk.10:17-20; 1Cor.6:3; Rev.20:4). Though aware of God's ability to produce other creatures, Satan seems to have assumed that such an action could prove futile, because, if given the requisite free will, these new creatures would react similarly to the angels. However, elect human beings (who choose to be saved) are a perfect complement to elect angels (who chose not to sin) and a fitting replacement for the fallen angels who would not choose to be reconciled to God. 

2) Rehabilitation: Beyond the issue of choice is the issue of opportunity. Satan also must have reasoned that God would not be able to provide a means to expiate sin. Therefore no rehabilitation (or salvation) of angels would be possible. But the Father's plan of salvation for mankind through the blood of Jesus Christ – God becoming Man – was an event the devil never anticipated. Through the analogy of mankind, the angels are seeing first hand that if any fallen angels would have repented (an action contrary to their nature as we have seen), God could have provided the means of restoring them to Himself, as indeed He has done for sinful mankind at the highest price of all: the sacrifice of His only Son on our behalf. 

3) Satan's Conclusion: The false assumption that God would be unable to restore harmony and completeness to His creation has thus been refuted by His creation and salvation of elect mankind. By making and saving Man through Christ, the Father has, in effect, knocked both props out from under Satan's assertion that God would be unable to punish him for his rebellion. The reconciliation of human beings to God throughout time, paid for historically by Jesus Christ, and picking up momentum as we draw ever nearer to the end of things, has clearly given the lie to Satan's confident assertion. These are surely things even angels want to look into (1Pet.1:12). 

This discussion of the original satanic rationale (expanded upon in section IVbelow) helps to explain Satan's dogged opposition to the inexorable plan of God as it has been working in the lives of men since our first parents were expelled from the garden. For God's deliverance of us through Christ and His promise to us of eternal life in Christ demonstrates unmistakably to all angelic kind that He can and He willand He is replacing Satan and his followers, the end of which is eternal punishment for their unrepentant rebellion against the One who made them. For as it says in 1st John 3:8, Christ appeared "to destroy the works of the devil". Satan thus badly misjudged God's wisdom and ability relative to both angels and men, failing to fully understand that the ultimate working out of His love, justice and truth would inevitably result in redemption or replacement, justification or rejection, and reconciliation or punishment (as has transpired for mankind through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ):⁽⁹⁾

God's goodness overflows with love, providing grace for sinful Man: 

though evil says a loving God can't condemn,

He did condemn His Son that we might live,

redeeming us in love with the blood of Christ.

God's holiness overflows in justice, offering mercy to sinful Man:

though evil says a just God can't forgive,

He did forgive us, by condemning His own Son,

making us righteous through the blood of Christ.

God's faithfulness and truth overflow in life, producing peace with God for sinful Man:

though evil says that a God of integrity can't restore us,

He did make peace between us through His Son,

reconciling us to Himself and granting us eternal life on the basis of the blood of Christ.

e. A balanced perspective on angels: When discussing the topic of angels, their similarities to us and differences from us, it is important that we keep in mind both their present superiority to us, and their eventual subordination. Angels are not to be disrespected (Lk.10:20; 2Pet.2:10-12; Jude 8-10; cf. Rom.13:7), but neither are they to be worshiped (Rev.19:10; 22:9; cf. 2Ki.17:16; Jer.19:13; Col.2:18). This tandem of caveats is especially important in regard to fallen angels. Possessing as they do all the attributes and history discussed above, Satan and his angels are formidable adversaries; and yet at the same time we must keep in mind that they are not the only angels: God counterbalances their evil efforts with the work and ministrations of His holy, elect angels. Therefore, although we are to have a healthy respect for the Adversary and his potential to oppose us (2Cor.2:11; Eph.6:11; 1Pet.5:8), we are not to be unduly terrified by him and his minions. And while we are to have an awareness and appreciation for the positive function of the elect angels on our behalf, we are not to be inordinately fixated upon them (especially since both their persons and their work are invisible to us). In neither case should we "go beyond what is written" in the Bible about angels, whether through excessive fear of Satanic influence or an exorbitant fascination with the ministrations of the holy angels. After all, it is God whom we are to fear, God whom we are to love and follow, and it is upon God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ our Lord that we are to fix our gaze while here in the devil's world.

Only do not rejoice in this, that the spirits obey you. But [rejoice] that your names have been recorded in heaven.
Luke 10:20

II. Angelic Pre-History:    

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:1

1) The Creation of Angels: At some undisclosed time following His creation of the heavens and the earth, God created the angels (Ps.148:2-5; Col.1:16). That is to say, at some specific point between the original creation of Genesis 1:1 and the restoration of the earth described in Job 38:4-7 (see section IV below)⁽¹⁰⁾which followed God's judgment of Satan, God created all angelic kind. He created them holy (Deut.33:2; Ps.89:7; Mk.8:38; Lk.9:26), giving each of them distinct duties and definite domains in which to exercise their delegated authority (Col.1:16; Eph.6:12; Heb.1:7 & 14; Jude 1:6).

2) The Realm of Angels: The realm of angels is often assumed to be the heavens, and to a certain degree this is true, at least at this present time: a) they are often called "heavenly hosts" (1Ki.22:19; Ps.103:20-21; 148:2; Lk.2:13); b) angels are invariably present on the heavenly scene (1Ki.22:19; Job 1:6-7; 2:1-2; Lk.15:7 & 10; Rev.5:11); c) and angels are often identified with the stars of heaven (Job 38:7; Is.14:12 &13; 40:26; Rev.1:20; 9:1-2). Since elsewhere in scripture stars are literally stars (cf. Gen.1:16b), it is likely that this designation is a reference to angelic spheres of authority (cf. Eph.1:20-21; 3:10; Col.1:16). Fallen angels, for example, are termed "wandering stars" in Jude 13 (in a comparison to false teachers where the reference to "blackest darkness . . . reserved forever" recalls the lake of fire in supernatural darkness prepared for the devil and his angels; cf. Matt.8:12). This term is reminiscent of their failure to "keep their own domain", i.e., choosing to interfere with human affairs in Satan's behalf, they abandoned their ordained, heavenly realm, (Jude 6).⁽¹¹⁾

3) The Three Heavens: What exactly is meant, then, by heaven? When we speak of the heavens in biblical terms, we are referring to the three-fold division of the cosmos beyond the earth: a) the earth's atmosphere ("the sky"); b) the universe at large (i.e., "space"); c) the "third heaven", the abode of God (or simply "heaven", as it is customarily termed). 

The Hebrew word for "heavens" is shamayim (שמים), a noun whose form is, significantly, dual in number (i.e., "two" of something as opposed to a single unit, or multiple units beyond a pair).⁽¹²⁾ The dual of the Hebrew word shamayim perfectly reflects the reality of the two distinct parts of the heavens (sky and space) in one continuum. We may refer to these as the first heaven (the atmosphere) and the second heaven (the universe beyond earth) respectively.

However in verse fourteen of Genesis chapter one, the raqiyah, or firmament, is now the place of the sun, moon and stars. Significantly, the exact Hebrew terminology used in verse fourteen is raqiyah-hasshamyim, "firmament ofthe heavens". The difference is a substantial one, for it suggests that these shamayim, or "heavens", are in some sense distinct from those referred to earlier. From our earthly perspective as we look up at the night sky today (and how much more so in 1400 B.C.), the heavens that surround us (i.e., the atmosphere) and the heavens above (i.e., space, or the universe) appear as one continuum. The dual of the Hebrew word shamayimperfectly reflects this reality of two distinct elements (sky and space) in one continuum. These are the first heaven (the atmosphere) and the second heaven (the universe beyond earth) respectively and collectively.

The third heaven, on the other hand, is the abode of God. In 2nd Corinthians 12:2-4, the apostle Paul describes a man "snatched up" to this "third heaven"; in verse four, the location is also referred to as "paradise", a word which in biblical terms suggests the presence of and fellowship with God (see below). This third heaven is also referred to in the Old Testament as the shamey shamayim "heavens of the heavens", a Hebrew idiom for "highest heavens" (Deut.10:14; Ps.148:4; cf. Eph.4:10). Thus, in the Bible, all three parts or levels of the heavens (the sky, the universe, and the abode of God) can be and often are called "heaven" individually and collectively without the various authors of scripture feeling any need to distinguish the three, as this concept of the three-fold division of the shamayim was apparently well understood in biblical times. Angels are capable of entering all three sections of the heavens, but a word must be said at this point about their reasons for doing so.

4) The Operational Sphere of Angels: For a variety of reasons, for example their occasional association with the stars (see above) and their apparently hierarchical organization (cf. Matt.26:53; Eph.1:20-21; 3:10; Col.1:16; 1Thes.4:16; Jude 9), we conjecture that angels have spheres or authority and certain duties in the second heaven (the universe at large), although the scriptures do not provide an exhaustive account of these (cf. also Jude 6). We know more about their journeys to the first heaven and their ministrations on God's behalf to mankind (in the case of the elect angels), or their attempts to carry out Satan's designs against mankind (in the case of the fallen angels). These ministries (and satanic operations) will be treated more fully in part 4 of this series, but suffice it to say at this point that angels are actively conducting operations here on earth, although it is not at present their primary sphere. Jacob's vision of the famous "ladder" which revealed multitudes of angels ascending to heaven and descending to earth illustrates clearly enough that the elect angels do not remain upon the earth at all times, but rather return to heaven at certain intervals (Gen.28:12; cf. Jn.1:51). Even Satan, described in Ephesians 2:2 as "the prince of the power of the air", that is "the ruler whose realm of authority is the atmosphere" (Greek aer, referring to the first heaven and thus stressing his temporary, limited authority over the earth), does not remain here at all times, but on specified occasions assembles with the other angels in the presence of God, the third heaven (Job 1:6; 2:1; and cf. 1Ki.22:19).

Angelic assembly before and fellowship with God in the third heaven is important and revealing. It should not be surprising that, in addition to their actions here on earth and in the universe at large, the angels are frequently to be found in the presence of the Lord. For they are His angels (Gen.28:12; 32:1; Ps.103:20;Matt.26:53) and logically therefore assemble where He is (Deut.33:2; 1Ki.22:19; Job 1:6; 2:1; Ps.82:1; 89:5 & 7; Matt.18:10) to worship, serve and attend Him (1Ki.22:19; Dan.7:10; Rev.5:11-12). The angels (the elect ones, at any rate) have always and will always follow this pattern, even with the return of the Trinity to earth at the end of human history (Heb.12:22; Rev.21:12; cf. Rev.21-22). Therefore what determines the place of angelic assembly is not the particular level of heaven, but rather the presence of God. And just as the elect angels always assemble in His presence, so when this present short and temporary era we call human history is concluded, believing humanity will likewise assemble in the presence of the Lord for all eternity. After all, the Greek word ekklesia (which we translate "church") means "assembly". This place of assembly will ultimately be the new earth and, specifically the new Jerusalem (Rev.21-22; see the link: The New Jerusalem). What is most pertinent to our current study is that the original place of angelic assembly was likewise not in heaven, but rather on the pristine, original earth.

5) Eden: the Original Home of Angels and Ultimate Home of Elect Mankind: Eden is most commonly associated with the garden in which God placed Adam and Eve. And while Adam and Eve's Eden was certainly one Eden it was neither the first nor the last "paradise" (as is obvious from passages such as Ezek.28:13; Lk.16:19-31; 23:43; 2Cor.12:4; Rev.2:7; 22:2).

a) Etymology: As far as meaning is concerned, "paradise" and Eden are functionally almost synonymous. Respectively, Eden is the Old Testament and paradise the New Testament term for the place of the pleasurable presence of God. Eden (Hebrew 'eden, עדן) means "pleasure" or "delight". In a similar way, "paradise" (Greek paradeisos, παράδεισος), a Persian word first used in Greek by the historian Xenophon, meant originally "the king's private preserve", a unique and "delightful" place.⁽¹³⁾ Thus it was quite a natural thing to substitute the term "paradise" as a Greek equivalent to the Hebrew phrase "the garden of Eden/delight".⁽¹⁴⁾ What, then, is so pleasurable about Eden-paradise? Nothing less than the presence of God, in whom is all joy and delight (Ps.21:6; 27:4-6; 84:10)!

b) The Illustration of the Tabernacle: The construction of Israel's tabernacle helps to explain and illustrate this relationship between Eden-paradise and God's manifest presence. It will be recalled that the layout and furniture of the tabernacle are patterns or types, "a copy and shadow of the things in heaven" (Heb.8:5). Time does not permit a thorough discussion of all the symbolism and detail of the law here, but a brief discussion will be useful, for the tabernacle is itself a picture of the present "Eden", that is, the third heaven where God is currently in manifest residence (Lk.23:43). 

Entrance into the tabernacle is not permissible without first passing the altar (where the blood sacrifices depict the saving work of Christ on our behalf in various ways; cf. certain cases where there is an actual placing of the hand on the victim's head) and the laver (where the symbolic washing away of sin on the basis of the sacrificial work of Christ is clear enough; cf. John's water-baptism). The only way to get into the tabernacle (heaven) is through the blood (of Christ) and appropriate cleansing (forgiveness on the basis of Christ's sacrifice). The rituals ordained for the high priest on the Day of Atonement give an especially vivid picture of the restoration of a way into the presence of God, into the Eden-delight of His company. He is behind the veil that separates the holy place from the holy of holies, a place entered only once a year by the high priest in a picture of the ascension of Jesus Christ to the throne room of the Father. The blood of the sacrifice represents Christ's work, while the "mercy seat" with its two golden cherubs represents the Father's throne (described in 1st Chronicles 28:18 as a "chariot", the form of the throne of the Lord as we know from e.g., Ezek.1:4-28), and His acceptance of Christ's work. It is also significant to note that the veil separating the holy place from the holy of holies, replete with embroidered cherubim (the protectors of the holiness of God from anything profane), was split from top to bottom immediately after the death of our Lord opened the way for us back into fellowship with the Father (Matt.27:51):

(19) Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence in this entrance of ours into the [heavenly] holy of holies by the blood of Jesus, (20) an entryway through the [heavenly] veil [of separation] which is new⁽¹⁵⁾and alive and which He has consecrated for us, that is [through the sacrifice] of His flesh (cf. Heb.10:10; 10:18), (21) and since we have [this] great high priest over the household of God, let us approach [the throne of grace (cf. Heb.4:16) to pray] with a truthful heart in complete faith, (22) our hearts sprinkled [clean] of [any] bad conscience and our bodies washed with pure water [of the Word (cf. Eph.5:26)].
Hebrews 10:19-22

In the passage above, the writer of Hebrews makes clear the analogy between the tabernacle and the throne room of heaven. The earthly holy of holies, where the mercy seat resides atop the ark of the covenant, is an unambiguous type of the Father's throne, and therefore a symbol of the presence of the Father. Until the efficacious sacrifice of Jesus Christ, His Son, there was no admittance for sinful man into His holy presence, but now all who accept Jesus Christ do have that access on the basis of the work of the one who "split the veil" sacrificing His own body on our behalf. Before the sacrificial death, resurrection, ascension and session of Jesus Christ at the right hand of the Father (Ps.110:1; Rom.8:34; Eph.1:20-22; Phil.2:9; Heb.1:3; 12:2; 1Pet.3:22), those who died in the Lord were conveyed not to heaven, but to "Abraham's bosom", the pleasurable part of sheol located beneath the earth (Lk.16:19-31; and cf. 1Sam.2:6; 28:15; 1Ki.2:6; Job 11:8; Ps.139:8; Is.7:11). By His victory at the cross, however, Christ won a literal "access" into the Father's presence, so that paradise is now to be found in the third heaven (1Pet.3:18-19):

I know a man, [a believer] in Christ – fourteen years earlier such a one was snatched up to the third heaven (in his body perhaps, or out of it, I don't know – God knows). And I know that this man (in his body perhaps, or out of it, I don't know – God knows) was snatched up to paradise, and heard inexpressible words which are not permissible for a man to speak.
2nd Corinthians 12:2-4

The tabernacle, then, is a picture of the third heaven, with the ark and its mercy seat representing the throne of the Father in the holy of holies (cf. Rev.5:11-12), and with the veil and its embroidered cherubim representing the separation between God and mankind which was rent in two by the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ (Matt.27:51; Mk.15:38; Lk.23:45; cf. Heb.10:20).

The holy place, the larger of the two rooms in the tabernacle, is also representative of the fellowship between God and sanctified believers in paradise. Like a new garden of Eden, there believers who have passed over to be with the Lord enjoy the inexpressible pleasure of fellowship with the Trinity (cf. Ex.29:44-45), an event foreshadowed by the three articles contained in the holy place (Ex.25:23-40; 30:1-10). After accepting Christ's sacrifice at the altar on our behalf and after being cleansed from our sins at the laver through His work, we enter the holy place containing the golden table, the golden lampstand, and the golden altar of incense (gold being a symbol of divinity). In one sense, these three articles are reminiscent of the blessed provisions of the tree of life enjoyed by Adam and Eve in the garden before the fall: the shape of the golden lampstand recalls the appearance of the tree of life (Ex.25:33-34)⁽¹⁶⁾; the bread of the presence on the golden table recalls its fruit (compare the twelve loaves of Lev.24:5-9 with the twelve crops of Rev.22:2; and cf. the analogies of manna and communion); and the incense from the golden altar recalls its fragrance. But it is in their depiction of Jesus Christ, the true "tree of life" (Jn.15:1-8; Rom.11:17-24), that these three articles have their most profound significance; in heaven, we are destined to enjoy the benefits of the tree of life (Rev.2:7; 22:14 & 19) because of our Lord Jesus Christ, the One who died on a tree to give us access to the eternal life the tree of life represents (1Pet.2:24): 

• The Bread: The "bread of presence" on the golden table is a picture of Christ the Bread of Life (Jn.6:35: "I am the bread of life") being offered by the Father (Jn.3:16).

• The Light: The light emanating from the golden lampstand is a picture of Christ the Light of the world (Jn.8:12: "I am the light of the world) being empowered by the Holy Spirit (Is.11:2; Rev.1:4; and cf. Lk.4:18, the anointing oil of the Spirit). 

• The Aroma: The incense rising from the golden altar directly before the veil of the holy of holies is a picture of Christ in resurrection ascending to heaven (Jn.11:25: "I am the resurrection and the life") having providedthrough His sacrifice a fragrant aroma of salvation most acceptable to the Father (Eph.5:2; cf. Heb.1:3).

All of us blessed to die in the Lord are privileged to enter and abide in the tabernacle-paradise of God, where we shall begin to enjoy His fellowship forever more. These three articles also speak to God's eternal provision for us in the paradise to come: 1) the bread speaks of physical sustenance and life, eternal life; 2) the light speaks of spiritual illumination and truth, divine truth; 3) the incense speaks of physical and spiritual joy, everlasting joy. In the tabernacle of heaven, all our needs will be provided for as we fellowship with the Trinity for all eternity because of the sacrifice of Jesus and our decision to follow Him in this life. Thus the tabernacle is effective shorthand for the eternal bliss that should be our focus in this life, as well as the means to achieving it through acceptance of the sacrifice of Christ.

As illustrated by the tabernacle, therefore, Eden (or paradise) is the place where God fellowships with sanctified mankind. It is a place of delight because there is no greater joy than communing with God apart from sin and the troubles of the world we now know. But despite the trials and tribulations that are inevitable for believers in the devil's world, it is also important to note that in this place that is certainly no paradise, God has nevertheless always made it possible for those who would seek Him to "walk with Him" (Gen.5:24). Moreover, in the days of Israel, He dwelt amongst the congregation of believers (Ex.25:8), and today He and His Son dwell in the hearts of those who have believed and so received His Holy Spirit (Jn.14:23; 1Cor.3:16-17; 6:19; 2Cor.6:16). Our fellowship with God now is a foretaste of the bliss and delight of the restored Eden to come, when "the dwelling of God" shall "come to men" (Rev.21:3 & 21:22). It remains to consider in a comprehensive manner all the manifestations of Eden-paradise, in order to lay a sure foundation for our discussion of the original fall of one of God's creatures from that perfect fellowship, namely that of Satan.

6) The Seven Edens: As the foregoing discussion has indicated, the biblical terms Eden and paradise are synonymous for the place of perfect pleasure in fellowship with God. These words, therefore, have, as we have already seen in brief, a wider range of application than the garden in which God placed Adam and Eve. Common factors in every place that bears the name paradise (or Eden) include delightful sights and sounds, enjoyable work or worship, physical and spiritual wholeness, and, most importantly, the presence of and fellowship with God Himself. Seven distinct paradises may be distinguished in scripture. They are all perfect places God has established for communing with His creatures, dating from angelic pre-history to the end of time:

    a) The Perfect Original Earth: The first Eden is particularly germane to our present study, as it was the original place of meeting between God and angelic kind. It was from this first Eden, the earth in its original pristine perfection (not to be confused with the restored earth, home to Adam and Eve's garden of Eden),⁽¹⁷⁾ that Satan was expelled.⁽¹⁸⁾ This much is made clear by Ezekiel 28:13, where God declares of Satan, "you were in Eden, the garden of God".⁽¹⁹⁾ This first paradise, the place of God's throne and God's presence, was, interestingly enough, not in heaven but on earth (on the "mount of assembly, the recesses of the north": Is.14:13; cf. Ezek.28:14 & 16; Ps.48:2 compared to Mt. Zion). Since this point will prove to be an important one, some of the other references in the context of Isaiah fourteen need to be considered in brief: 

        1) "fallen from heaven" in Isaiah 14:12 looks forward to the events of Revelation 12:9 (as does Ezekiel 28:17b: "I threw you to the earth"); Satan is expelled from this original paradise before the creation of man, but he will not be expelled from heaven until the appointed future time (cf. Job 1-2).

        2) "I will ascend to heaven" in the first part of v.13 is better translated "heavenward", meaning to the top of the mount of assembly, the place of God's throne on earth directly above the "stars" (i.e., the other angels; cf. Job 25:3; Ps.103:20-21; Is.40:26 w. Lk.2:13).

        3) "above the tops of the clouds" in v.14 confirms the earthly location of this mountain which is so tall and imposing that it rises above the clouds, though located on the earth.

There are also a number of important points of similarity between this original lofty location of God's throne and Mount Zion in Jerusalem:⁽²⁰⁾

        1) It is a holy mountain (Is.14:13;Ezek.28:14 & 16), and so is Mount Zion (Is.56:7; 57:13; 65:11; Ezek.20:40).

        2) It is high and lofty (Is.14:13-14), and Mount Zion is likewise destined to be raised above all other mountains (Is.2:2-3; Ezek.40:2; Mic.4:1; Zech.14:10). Note that the New Jerusalem appears to have this same superior elevation as the source of the river of the water of life which flows from before God's throne (Rev.22:1-2).

        3) As the seat of God's throne, it is at the center of the universe of that time (Is.14:13-14; Ezek.28:13-16), just as Jerusalem is described as the "center of the world" (Ezek.38:12; cf. Ezek.5:5), and will be the ultimate place of God's residence (Rev.21-22).

        4) It is described as "Eden, the garden of God", just as the New Jerusalem, the ultimate Eden, will contain the river of the waters of life and the tree of life (Rev.22:1-4).

    b) The Interim Third Heaven: After Satan's rebellion, the universe, naturally and from its original creation a place of light, was "blacked out".⁽²¹⁾ We have no way of knowing how long the Lord left Satan and company in fearful anticipation of immediate judgment before restoring the earth and the universe. We can assume, however, that there was still a place where He made His presence known for fellowship with the elect angels. This would most likely be in heaven, given the devastation of planet earth as an initial judgment upon and restraint of Satan's activities (a situation to be described in part 2 of this series). When restoration of the earth does occur (along with the new Eden), we do in fact find the elect angels in God's presence, filled with joy as they observe the event (Job 38:4-7).

    c) The Garden of Eden: The garden of Eden in which God placed Adam and Eve is by far the best known of the seven paradises. In part 3 of this series, we shall cover the purpose, creation, and fall of Man in detail. Like the other Edens, it was a place of fellowship with God (Gen.2:16-17; 2:19; 3:8), a place of physical and spiritual delight (Gen.2:9), and a place of enjoyable occupation (Gen. 2:15; 2:19-20; n.b., sweat and effort only exist after the fall: Gen.3:17-19). Attempts to fix a location for the garden based on the description of the rivers in Gen.2:10-14 (a difficult task when the significant geographical alterations that must have been wrought by the world-wide flood of Genesis chapter seven are considered), often fail to take into account that the mention of "Cush" (Gen.2:14) can be (and most probably is) a reference to the land of the Kassites (modern day southern Iraq),⁽²²⁾ or that for the rivers to flow downhill, the location would have to have been elevated (as Jerusalem is).

    d) Paradise: Believers who die in the Lord since His ascension to the presence of the Father go to be with Him where He is, in heaven (Jn.12:26; 14:1-3; 17:24; 2Cor.5:8; Phil.1:23). However, before the resurrection, ascension and session of our Lord Jesus Christ, pre-cross believers were not admitted into the third heaven, but were instead taken to a provisional paradise in the heart of the earth which Jesus calls "Abraham's bosom" in the parable of Lazarus and the rich man (Lk.16:19-31; cf. 1Sam.28:15; 28:19; 2Sam.12:23). , and "paradise" in his reply to the penitent thief on the cross (Lk.23:43). The reason for this temporary separation (albeit in a place of blessing) was the prior requirement that sinful Man be redeemed before entering into the presence of God (a promise in which these Old Testament believers had put their faith, but one which would not be fulfilled historically until the cross). That is why, after the expulsion from Eden of Adam and Eve, God stationed His cherubs at the entrance to the garden, namely, to deny mankind access to the tree of life when sin made further direct communion with Him impossible without prior redemption from that sin (Gen.3:24). There could thus be no admittance to direct fellowship with God, before or after death, until Christ should pay in full with His precious blood the redemption price of sinful mankind (Heb.1:3), and thereby win access for us once more into the presence of the Father (Rom.5:2; Heb.10:19-22; 1Pet.3:18). 

Hades:   The abode of the Old Testament dead is often referred to by its Hebrew name sheol,  שאול (New Testament "Hades"), alternatively translated in the English versions as "hell" or "the grave"(cf. 1Sam.2:6; 28:15; 1Ki.2:6; Job 11:8; Ps.139:8; Is.7:11). As Luke 16:19-31 indicates, sheol (hell or Hades) is composed of several compartments: 

        1) the place of the saved (Abraham's Bosom, the place of blessing where Lazarus and company resided before Christ's ascension).

        2) the place of the unsaved (sheolproper, or "torments" where the rich man finds himself).

        3) the Abyss (not in the parable but elsewhere in Luke), the place where certain of the fallen angels are presently incarcerated (Lk.8:31; 2Pet.2:4; Jude 6; Rev.9:1-11; 20:1-3).⁽²³⁾

It is to this interim Eden that Jesus refers when on the cross He tells the believing thief "today you will be with Me in paradise" (cf. Lk.23:43; our Lord's proclamation to the angels imprisoned in the Abyss, part of His descent into sheol or "hell", referred to at 1Pet.3:19). While hell proper and the Abyss hold fast their inhabitants even today, the blessed occupants of Abraham's Bosom were brought to heaven to be with our Lord in the wake of His ascension to the Father (compare Ps.68:18 and Eph.4:8-10 with Jn.12:26 etc.; see also part 5 of the present series).

    e) The Present Third Heaven: Deceased believers currently reside in the third heaven, the paradise, as we have seen, referred to in 2nd Corinthians 12:4. This "heaven" is the place of the Father's throne, and is also called the "heaven of the heavens" or "highest heavens" (Deut.10:14;Ps.148:4; cf. Eph.4:10). Its location and character are the same as the interim third heaven (treated above under point b.), with the important exception that it now serves as paradise for all who die in the Lord since His ascension to the Father's right hand. First and foremost, we can take great comfort in the fact that our destiny in the next life is inextricably linked to that of our Master, Jesus Christ. He has promised us unequivocally that we shall be where He is, which, at this present time, is at the Father's right hand (Ps.110:1; Rom.8:34; Eph.1:21-22; Phil.2:9; Heb.1:3; 12:2; 1st Pet.3:22):

Whoever serves Me, must follow Me; where I am, there My servant will be also. Whoever serves Me, My Father will honor.
John 12:26

Don't let your heart be troubled. Believe in God, and believe also in Me. There are many rooms in my Father's house. If there weren't, I would have told you. For I am going in order to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I shall come again and take you to Myself, so that where I am, you may be also.
John 14:1-3

Father, as to those You have given to Me, I want them to be with Meso that they may see the glory You have given to Me, because You loved Me before the foundation of the world.
John 17:24

And so we take heart, preferring to be away from the body but at home with the Lord.
2nd Corinthians 5:8

I am torn between the two [alternatives], desiring to depart and to be with Christ, for that [condition] is better by far.
Philippians 1:23

When we do depart this life to be with the Lord "we shall not be found naked", that is, entirely disembodied, but a blessed habitation awaits us in the third heaven (2Cor.5:3; see the Greek text), an interim body to serve us until the time of our resurrection (see Peter #20for details), one in which we shall be visible as the persons we have always been (Rev.6:9), one capable of speaking (Rev.6:10), of wearing clothing (Rev.6:11), of worshiping God (Rev.7:9-10), and of experiencing all the joy of communion and fellowship with Him and with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (Rev.7:15-17).

This joy is impossible for us to comprehend at present, but from the time of our transfer to the third heaven (probably, as in the case of Abraham's Bosom, conveyed there by angels: cf. Lk.16:22), there shall be no more unhappiness of any kind, only the bliss of eternity in the presence of the Lord (Rev.7:15-17; 21:4). 

    f) The Millennial Jerusalem: When Christ returns at the 2nd Advent, He will establish His kingdom and rule the entire world from Jerusalem (e.g., Zech.8:3; 9:9; 14:9). As the capital of the Messianic Kingdom, Jerusalem will be the preeminent city on earth, even in a geographic sense, on the supernaturally elevated Mt. Zion (Is.2:2-3; 24:21-23; 52:2; Ezek.40:2; Mic.4:1; Zech.14:10). The conditions that will obtain in the millennial Jerusalem will make it a veritable Eden restored:

The Lord will have compassion on Zion, and compassion on all her ruins, and He will make her desert like Eden, and her wilderness like the garden of the Lord.
Isaiah 51:3

In that blessed "favorable season" to come (Is.61:2), the curse on the earth will be removed (Gen.3:17-19; 5:29; cf. Rom.8:19-23) and conditions similar to the garden restored (Acts 3:21). Comparable to the tree of life ofGen.2:9, and to the "tree(s) of life" in the final New Jerusalem (Rev.22:2), the millennial, Edenic Jerusalem will also be provided with trees that share the same purpose of imparting spiritual as well as physical blessing (cf. Is.41:19; 55:12-13;Ezek.34:27; 36:8; Rev.22:2):

And on the bank of the river gorge on both sides will spring up every sort of food-producing tree. Their foliage will not wither, nor their produce fail, but every month they will yield a new crop, for they will be irrigated by the waters flowing from the sanctuary; their produce will serve as food and their foliage as medicine.
Ezekiel 47:12

And it is not only in the tree of life that the millennial Jerusalem will resemble Edens past and present, for the river on whose banks the trees described above will flourish will share important qualities with the rivers of Genesis chapter two and with the "river of the water of life" of Revelation chapter twenty-two:

        1) a central source: Just as water flowed out of the garden of Eden, so the millennial river of living water will rise from a fountainhead at the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem (Ezek.47:1-12; Joel 3:18; Zech.14:8), a very similar scene to that of the river of the water of life in Rev.22:1-2.

        2) a fertile effect: The river is associated with agricultural fecundity and abundant fisheries in Ezekiel 47:1-12, while Joel 3:18 connects the fountain with the blossoming of the land in general (cf. a similar symbolic reference in Is.66:12: "I will extend peace to her like a river and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream").

        3) a life-giving influence: The river is one of "living water" in Zechariah 14:8, a title which, in light of Revelation 22:17, suggests the spiritual blessings it will confer (see also Jer.2:13; Is.55:1).

The Kingdom of Heaven as it will be set up by Christ following His 2nd Advent presents a unique situation in its capacity as the sixth Eden, for, unlike the garden of Adam and Eve or the final paradise, New Jerusalem, it (and the rejuvenated earth) will be home to a mixed population that will include individuals both imperfect (people of various spiritual states still in their natural bodies) and perfect (resurrected believers). The righteous rule of Christ (Ps.2:9) will suppress the effects of the sin nature so pronounced in our experience (e.g., crime and war), and the result will be a veritable heaven on earth, an environment as perfect as possible (given the limitation that it will contain imperfect human beings), a world overflowing with blessing in its sights and sounds, its prosperity, and in the physical and spiritual wholeness, flowing forth from Jerusalem:

Beauty of the Rejuvenated Earth:

The wolf will dwell with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the kid, and the calf with the lion and the fatling together, with a little boy leading them.
Isaiah 11:6

Your eyes will gaze upon the King in His beauty, and you will see the land expanding out [before you].
Isaiah 33:17

The desert and arid land will rejoice, and the wilderness will exult and burst into bloom like a crocus.
Isaiah 35:1

I will make rivers spring forth on the barren heights, and fountains in the valleys. I will fill the desert with pools of water, and the arid places with springs of water.
Isaiah 41:18

The mountains and hills will let out a cheer and the trees will clap their hands. Instead of thorns, cypress will grow, and instead of thistles, myrtles.
Isaiah 55:12

Prosperity and Happiness:

Enlarge the place for your tent. Let your tent curtains stretch wide and don't hold back. Lengthen your ropes and strengthen your stakes. For you will burst forth on the right and on the left. Your offspring will possess the nations, and the deserted cities will be inhabited.
Isaiah 54:2-3

Your gates will be open always, day and night they will not be closed, so that the wealth of the nations may be brought to you, and their kings led before you.
Isaiah 60:11

You will feast on the wealth of the nations, and boast in their riches.
Isaiah 61:6

I am about to extend prosperity to her like a river, and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing torrent.
Isaiah 66:12

Raise a joyous shout, Daughter of Zion. Shout for joy, Israel. Be happy and exult with all your heart, Daughter of Jerusalem.
Zephaniah 3:14

For there will be prosperity for what is sown: the vine will yield its fruit, and the land will bring forth its produce, and the sky will give forth the [necessary] moisture.
Zechariah 8:12

The wealth of all the nations round about will be gathered up, their gold and silver and clothing in abundance.
Zechariah 14:14

Physical and Spiritual Wholeness:

The mountains will bring forth prosperity for the people, and the hills righteousness.
Psalm 72:3

"Come let us go to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that He may teach us of His ways, and that we may walk in His paths."
Isaiah 2:3

And the Lord will create over Mount Zion and over all her assemblies a cloud – one of smoke by day, and of a shining flame of fire by night. For there will be a canopy above the glory [of His presence, covering it] entirely. It will be a shelter from the heat by day, and a refuge and hiding place from the storm and rain.
Isaiah 4:5-6

To His dominion and its prosperity there will be no limit or end. He will establish it and lay its foundation on David's throne and over his kingdom, in justice and righteousness, now and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.
Isaiah 9:7

You will joyously draw water from the fountains of salvation.
Isaiah 12:3

Justice will dwell in the desert, and righteousness in the cultivated fields.
Isaiah 32:16

I will rejoice over Jerusalem and be filled with joy for My people. The sound of weeping and the cry of distress will no longer be heard in her. No longer will there be there any infant that perishes in his youth, nor any old man who fails to live out his days in full. For a man will be accounted but a youth, should he die at a hundred, even the sinner a hundred years old who suffers this curse.
Isaiah 65:19-20

The Lord their God will deliver them on that day (for His people are to Him as a precious flock, like jewels in a crown set prominently in His land). For how fair and beautiful they will be. Grain will make the young men flourish and new wine the young women.
Zechariah 9:16-17

In that day a fountain will flow for the house of David, [to cleanse] from sin and impurity.
Zechariah 13:1

The Most Profound Blessing of All: The Presence and Personal Rule of Jesus Christ (see also Ps.2; 45; 48; 72; Is.2:1-5; Ezek.48:35; Dan.7:14; Zech.14; Lk.1:32; Rev.19:11-20:6):

For a child is born to us, and a Son is given to us. Dominion shall rest on his shoulder, and His name will be called "He whose counsel is wondrous", "Mighty God", "the Father of Eternity", "the Prince of Prosperity".
Isaiah 9:6

In those days and at that time, I will make a Branch of righteousness sprout forth for David, and He will accomplish justice and righteousness on the earth.
Jeremiah 33:15

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, too small to be numbered among the clans of Judah, from you I will bring forth the One who is to rule over Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, even from the days of eternity.
Micah 5:2

Thus says the Lord: I will return to Zion and dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. And Jerusalem will be called "the City of Truth", and "the Mountain of the Lord, the Mountain of Holiness".
Zechariah 8:3

Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion. Shout [for joy], daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your King will come to you. Righteous and victorious He is; humble and riding on a donkey, even on a colt, a donkey's foal.
Zechariah 9:9

And the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day the Lord will be the only One and His name the only name.
Zechariah 14:9

[see now also in CT 6: The Millennial Reign of Jesus Christ]

    g) The New Jerusalem: Most of what we know about the ultimate, eternal state, the last Eden, is from the book of Revelation (chapters 21 &22). But the new heavens and the new earth, the location of the New Jerusalem (Rev.21:1-2), are well known throughout scripture. In contrast to the new heavens and new earth, the biblical principle of the transience of human life (e.g. Is.40:6-8) applies with equal force to the present "old" world in which now we live:

For this world in its present form is passing away.
1st Corinthians 7:31  NIV

The world and its lust are passing away.
1st John 2:17

Satan's rebellion, the fall of Man, and the sin which has marred all of human history (and which was judged in Christ on the cross) has made necessary the complete destruction of the universe in which we now dwell (Ps.102:25-27;Is.34:4; 51:6; Hag.2:6; Matt.24:35; Heb.1:11-12; 12:26-29; 2Pet.3:10-13; Rev.20:11). For our eternal abode, where we will be with God forever, He has in mind a place where there is no longer the slightest taint of sin or rebellion, where only righteousness dwells, that is, the Father's kingdom, the "new heavens and new earth" (cf. Is.65:17; 66:22; 1Cor.15:24):

And the present heavens and earth have been reserved for fire by that same word (of God), preserved for the day of judgment and the destruction of godless men. Let not this one fact escape your attention then, beloved, namely, that one day is like a thousand years in the Lord's eyes, and a thousand years like one day. The Lord is not delaying in the fulfillment of His promise (as some think); rather He is exercising patience for your sake, being unwilling for anyone to perish, but desiring all instead to come to repentance. For the day of the Lord will come like a thief, a day in which the heavens will depart with a roar, the very elements will ignite and dissolve, and the earth and everything which has been done upon it will be laid bare [for the Lord's inspection]. Since all these things are destined to disintegrate in this way, [consider] what sort of [Christians] we ought to be, [devoted to] holy and godly conduct, as we wait with eager expectation and apprehension the advent of the day of God. For on that day the heavens will burst into flame and dissolve, and the elements will catch fire and melt. But we are awaiting new heavens and a new earth just as He promised – [a world] where righteousness dwells.
2nd Peter 3:7-13

It is significant to note that this ultimate paradise will not be "in heaven", but on the new earth, when the New Jerusalem descends from heaven (Rev.21:10). As creatures created to dwell on the earth, it makes perfect sense that earth, not heaven, should be our final home. And as the original Eden was on earth, a place where God communed with the angels until sin entered the picture through Satan's fall and rebellion, it should also come as no surprise that the Father Himself will reside with us in the ultimate paradise (Rev.22:3).⁽²⁴⁾ The New Jerusalem will be a true paradise in every sense of the word (Rev.2:7). It will contain the tree of life (Rev.2:7; 22:2), and the river of the water of life (Rev.22:1 & 17). God will be present there in person and we will enjoy fellowship with Him (Rev.21:3;22:3). Finally, this ultimate Eden will be a place of exquisite beauty (Rev.21:9ff.), where the pain and suffering of this life will be a distant memory (Rev.21:4). In this way, everything will come full circle for humanity. Having lost paradise in the first instance, because of the sacrifice of Christ and the grace of God we are destined to reclaim it in the end; and, as is frequently the case where the wisdom, grace and majesty of God are concerned, what we will have in the end will be far better than Adam and Eve had in the beginning: a glorious New Jerusalem which will far outshine the glories of the garden, and an eternity of perfect communion with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in our new, perfect bodies, with no further possibility of sin.

    h) Our Own Personal Eden: Tribulation we will have as long as we live on this present earth, under Satan's sway (Jn.16:33). But as believers in Jesus Christ, we can – in spite of pain and privation – begin to enjoy the most important benefit of paradise here and now, that is, communion and fellowship with our God. The Holy Spirit is like the river of life springing up within us, our pledge of eternal life (Jn.7:37-39; cf. Jn.4:14; Is.55:1). Our Lord Jesus Christ is within us too (Jn.14:20; Rom.8:10; 2Cor.13:5; Eph.3:17; Col.1:27). He is well known to us as the Branch (e.g., Jer.23:5), and the true vine in whom we bear fruit (Jn.15:1-8; cf. Rom.11:16-24; see also Ps.1:3; 52:8); He sacrificed Himself for us on a tree (1Pet.2:24), that we might forever enjoy the right to the tree of life (Rev.2:7). And we have been promised by Him that if we love and obey Him, the Father too will fellowship with us (Jn.14:23). So that even on this sinful earth, our bodies, imperfect as they are at this present time, are temples of the living God (1Cor.3:16-17; 6:19; 2Cor.6:16; Eph.2:21-22; 1Pet.2:5), with whom we are always free to enjoy communion, the greatest blessing of paradise right here in the midst of the devil's world (cf. Ps.36:7-9; 46:4):

Happy is the man who does not walk in the path of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers. His delight, instead, is in the law of the Lord, and he meditates on His law day and night. He will be like a tree planted where the waters divide, which will yield its fruit in its season, and whose leaf will not wither.
Psalm 1:1-3  (cf. Jn.15:1-6)

[see now also in CT 6:  New Jerusalem and the Eternal State]

III. Satan's Original Status:

We return now to the original paradise, that primordial angelic Eden, to a time before Satan had rebelled from God and had fallen from his privileged status. What we know about Satan in his pristine state comes mainly from the testimony of Isaiah (chapter fourteen) and Ezekiel (chapter twenty-eight).⁽²⁵⁾ When we consider in some detail the information contained in these two chapters, we can arrive at a rather vivid picture of Satan's situation before he rejected God. In anticipation of the points about to be covered, suffice it to say that the devil was the preeminent creature in the universe before his fall, and each of the various characteristics described below call attention to specific aspects of this preeminence. Satan is described by these two prophets as: a) the "morning star" and "son of the dawn"; b) one who sealed up perfection; c) full of wisdom; d) exemplifying beauty; e) in Eden; f) adorned with precious stones; g) equipped with timbrels and pipes; h) anointed; i) a cherub; j) one who "covers"; k) on the holy mountain of God; l) walking amidst the "stones of fire":

    a) Morning Star (Is.14:12): This title speaks of Satan's role in reflecting the glory of God (cf. Job 38:7, where all the elect angels are described as "stars of the morning"). The Hebrew heleyl (הילל literally, "shining one"), was translated in the Greek Old Testament as "light bearer" and by the Latin Vulgate as "Lucifer". "Morning star" (or "day star") is an apt rendering of this title, for it betokens a heavenly body so brilliant that it can be seen even in daylight. As the prime creature of the primordial Eden, a place without darkness (for darkness did not exist before Satan's fall), Satan was the foremost representative of God's splendor, mirroring, for all angelic kind to behold, the brilliant glory of their Creator. It is a tragic irony that through his own choice he has now become the ruler of the domain of darkness (Eph.6:12; Col.1:13). Far from reflecting God's glory, he now opposes it in every way, but his ultimate destiny is to have his own light extinguished forever (Jude 6, 13). In contrast to Satan, our Lord Jesus Christ, the new Morning Star (2Pet.1:19; Rev.2:28; 22:16; cf. Num.24:17; Is.9:1-2; 42:6; 49:6; Matt.2:2; 2:9; 4:16; Lk.2:30-32; Jn.1:4-5; 8:12; 9:5), is the perfect reflection of the Father's glory (Heb.1:3).

    b) Sealing Perfection (Ezek.28:12): "Sealing perfection [or proportion]" is a literal rendering from the Hebrew and can be expanded to the meaning "the one who puts his seal on harmonious-proportion" or, better, the "touchstone of symmetry" (that is, norms and standards of all kinds as seen from the divine point of view). That is to say, Satan, in his un-fallen state, could be looked to as one who upheld, embodied and represented perfect divine standards. It is a tragic irony that he is now the prime example of all that is wicked, wrong and anti-God. In contrast to Satan, our Lord Jesus Christ is the One who died to satisfy the Father's righteous standard regarding our sin (2Cor.5:21; 1Pet.2:24).

    c) Filled with Wisdom (Ezek.28:12): This epithet is clear enough: Satan did not reject God out of ignorance. To the contrary, he was the wisest of God's creatures until he perverted that wisdom (Ezek.28:17). It is a tragic irony that Satan corrupted this wisdom and so became the "father of lies", the adversary of God's wisdom and truth (Jn.8:44). In contrast to Satan, our Lord Jesus Christ is the very wisdom of God (1Cor.1:24).

    d) Exemplifying Beauty (Ezek.28:12): This phrase, also used of the beauty of Jerusalem at Lamentations 2:15, is often translated "perfect in beauty", but more precisely means "summing up" or "comprising the totality of beauty" (the Hebrew chaliyl, כליל, meaning an all embracing wholeness). As originally created, Satan was the very model of pulchritude, the most magnificent creature in the universe, demonstrating to all who viewed him the beauty of God that must lie behind such an exquisite act of creation. It is a tragic irony that through his rebellion he has become the author of and agent behind all the ugliness and abominations that infest this present world which is his realm, an infestation so repulsive that it will not be cleansed without a universal conflagration that completely destroys the devil's world (cf. 2Pet.3:10). In contrast to Satan, our Lord Jesus Christ will reign forever in the unparalleled beauty of the New Jerusalem (Rev.21-22).

    e) In Eden (Ezek.28:13): As we saw above (section II, 6, a), this "Eden" is the pristine, original earth before its renewal in Genesis 1:3 and following. Though he was the premier creature in a utopian setting, Satan was not content. It is a tragic irony that through his rebellion he has exchanged a perfect environment for eternal residence in the lake of fire, and is leading his followers to share his fate (Matt.25:41). In contrast to Satan, our Lord Jesus Christ has prepared a place for us (Jn.14:1-4), a place whose wonders will outstrip even those of that first Eden (Rev.2:7).

    f) Precious Stones (Ezek.28:13): The precious stones mentioned in this verse are indeed additional manifestations of Satan's beauty, but it is likely that they also mark him out as the one who represented the angels before God. The nine stones mentioned in this context bear a striking similarity to those placed on the high priest's breastplate (Ex.28:17-21; 39:10-14).⁽²⁶⁾In the Exodus context, each of the stones represented one of the twelve tribes of Israel and bore its name inscribed on the gem. Exodus 28:29states that Aaron (i.e., the high priest) shall wear the breastplate with the stones inscribed with the twelve tribes "over his heart" whenever he enters the Holy Place "as a continual memorial before the Lord"; the verse also calls the breastplate so equipped "the breastplate of judgment". Each of Israel's tribes is thus a precious jewel in God's sight, and was represented before Him in this fashion whenever the high priest entered into the presence of God. Moreover, the breastplate also served the practical function of acting as a means of communication from the Lord in designating specific tribes for specific tasks.⁽²⁷⁾ What we see in Ezekiel's representation of a very similar apparatus on Satan, therefore, should be seen as fulfilling a similar function. As the "anointed cherub who covers" (see below), Satan would have been continually in the presence of the Lord as the prime representative of angelic kind in the same way that our Lord Jesus Christ (symbolically represented by Israel's high priest) has been continually in His presence as the "last Adam" (1Cor.15:45) and "the Son of Man" (e.g., Jn.9:35) since His ascension.⁽²⁸⁾ It is a tragic irony that Satan, who formerly represented his angelic brethren before the Lord would go on to corrupt many of them, thus leading them to eternal punishment (Matt.25:41). In contrast to Satan, our Lord Jesus Christ is our guide to eternal life (Heb.2:10; 12:2; n.b., the Greek word archegos in these two verses is better rendered "leader" or "guide" than "author", as some of the versions have it), having paid the price of admission for us with His blood.

   g) Tabrets and Pipes (Ezek.28:13): The KJV's rendering of these next two Hebrew words is, though archaic in terms of its vocabulary, essentially accurate (not so many more modern versions, including the NIV, which try to take these words as meaning settings and mountings for the jewels mentioned above). We may, if we wish, substitute "tambourines" and "flutes", but the essential meaning is the same: from the day of his creation, Satan was endowed with a golden musical apparatus, instruments of percussion and wind, that made him uniquely qualified to sing the praises of God. It is a tragic irony that Satan, a creature specifically designed for praising God, should devote his existence to cursing Him instead, and suffer the consequence of being eternally cursed himself. In contrast to Satan, Christ became a curse for us (Gal.3:13; Rev.22:3), that we might exist for the praise and glory of God (Eph.1:6; 1:12; 1:14).

    h) Anointed (Ezek.28:14): The word translated here as "anointed" (mimshach) and the word for Messiah (meshiach) come from the same Hebrew root (משח, mashach) and are very close in meaning. Both indicate "to be consecrated through the process of anointing". In ancient Israel, it was the custom to anoint with oil both priests (Ex.28:41), and monarchs (1Sam.10:1; 16:1 & 13) at the inception of their offices. Such anointing marks God's choice of the individual in question, and is symbolic of His power and support. The oil of anointment itself represents the Holy Spirit (cf. 1Sam.16:13), whose guidance, encouragement and enlightenment would be especially important for those commissioned by the Lord for spiritual or temporal governance (i.e., Ps.51:11). This appears to be the meaning in our context. Satan was not anointed with a literal oil, but was given a special measure of the Holy Spirit to aid him in his capacity of supreme angelic being. This anointing marked him out as God's number one creature. It is a tragic irony that Satan, having been thus commissioned into such a unique position of trust, giving him such an incomparable opportunity for fellowship with and assistance from God, should betray that trust and reject Him entirely, only to seek his own aggrandizement. In contrast to Satan, Christ (whose name means "anointed one") accepted the Father's commission without reservation, humbling Himself to the point of death on the cross for our sakes, that we might receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for faithful service to the true Messiah.

    i) Cherub (Ezek.28:14): There is a considerable difference between the image conjured up by the word "cherub" in our culture and the creatures designated by the biblical word cherubh (כרוב). Biblically speaking, cherubs are among the highest ranking and most privileged of the angels, for they are blessed with extraordinary access to the presence of the Lord. What we know of Satan's unique, pre-fall status as a cherub is to be garnered from the description of the cherubs who replaced him (described elsewhere in scripture).⁽²⁹⁾ Cherubs take the lead in worshiping God (Is.6; Rev.4:8b; 5:8 & 14; 7:11-12; 19:4), act as intermediaries for God in His regal manifestations (Rev.6:1-7; 15:7), and, perhaps most significantly, control access into His presence and fellowship (a duty most strikingly evident from their guarding of the "way to the tree of life" after Man's expulsion from the garden: Gen.3:24). Not surprisingly, therefore, the cherubs are usually seen in close connection with the throne of God, that is, as we have seen above, His mobile "chariot-throne" (represented by the "mercy-seat" above the ark of the covenant; cf. Ex.25:17-20). God sits "enthroned" between the cherubs (Ps.80:1), and it is there "between the cherubim" that He met with Moses (Ex.25:22). The seraphim of Isaiah chapter six, and the "living creatures" of Revelation (especially Rev.4:6ff.) are representations of these same creatures. In all of these instances, the creatures depicted are multi-winged angels, closely associated with God's throne, engaged in worshiping Him as they shield (and sometimes propel) His chariot throne. Though some would make the living creatures and seraphs separate orders of angelic beings, it is more likely (given their identical functions and similar descriptions) that these additional names are merely alternate designations for this highest angelic rank. For instance, the living creatures, whose multiple faces bear an undeniable similarity to the cherubs of Ezekiel, praise God with the refrain "holy, holy, holy" in the exact manner of the seraphs of Isaiah (Is.6:3; Rev.4:8b). The Hebrew word seraph (שרף) means "burning ones" and this designation matches well the description of Ezekiel who notes that "the appearance of the creatures was like burning coals of fire or like torches" (Ezek.1:13; for this fire imagery compare Deut.4:24; Ps.104:4;Ezek.1:4; 10:2; 28:14; Rev.4:2-6).⁽³⁰⁾These unique angels, then, guard the throne of God, protecting His holiness against all that is profane, controlling access to His presence (compare their depiction on the veil that guarded the holy of holies of the tabernacle: Ex.26:1, 31). It is a tragic irony that Satan, having once been entrusted with this guardianship of God's holiness, should now, by his own treachery, be fated to an eternal existence shut off from the presence of God, seeking in the meantime to deny mankind access to the Father which was once his special prerogative. In contrast to Satan, Christ by His loyal fulfillment of the Father's plan in sacrificing Himself for us has gained for us access into the holy place, past the cherubim, and into the presence of the Father (Rom.5:2; Eph.2:18; 3:12).

   j) He Who Covers (Ezek.28:14): The primary reference for this passage is Exodus 25:20, where the cherubs who stand above the mercy seat of the ark of the covenant (the representation of God's throne) are said to spread their wings and "cover" the seat (the same Hebrew verb, sachach, being used in both contexts). This same verb is also used of the veil "covering" the holy of holies (Ex.40:3; 21). The main idea here is one of "shielding" or "protecting" as can be seen from the use of the word in the Psalms (e.g, Ps.5:11; 91:4; 140:7). Satan's original position can thus be described as that of the ultimate "imperial guard", charged with warding off all that is profane from the exquisite holiness of God (the function now, as we have seen, of numerous cherubs). It is a tragic irony that Satan's position as a bulwark against the profane has been altered by his own rebellion into that of a promoter of all that is detestable to God's holiness. In contrast to Satan, Christ kept Himself completely chaste from sin, so that in fulfillment of the Father's plan He might "become sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (2Cor.5:21).

   k) On the Holy Mountain of God(Ezek.28:14): This is a reference to the perfect, original earth (see section II.6.aabove). Satan's place in the pristine perfection of God's original creation was compromised by his rebellion and he has thus exchanged this blessed habitation for the ultimate condemnation of the lake of fire (Rev.21:10). In contrast to Satan, Christ, by enduring the condemnation of the cross on our behalf, has opened the way into the true holy of holies for us, that is, into the presence of the Father, and has thus forever vouchsafed our place in the ultimate restored paradise (Heb.6:19-20).

    l) Walking Amidst the Stones of Fire(Ezek.28:14 & 16): Mentioned only here in scripture, the "stones of fire" would appear to be memorial stones, along the lines of the gems on the high priest's breastplate (see section III.fabove). But in contrast to the collective reference of the gems on the breastplate (as with the gems worn by Satan), these "stones of fire" seem rather to represent the remembrance of individual angelic beings before the Lord. We see parallels for this function in the foundation jewels of the New Jerusalem (one for each apostle: Rev.21:14-21), and in the "white stone" that is given to everyone who "overcomes": a name is written on this stone "which no one knows save he who receives [it]" (Rev.2:17). The fact that the very memory of Satan will be obliterated (i.e., "I will destroy you from the midst of the stones of fire" in v.16; cf. the use of 'abhadh here and inDeut.12:3 & Is.26:14) argues for this interpretation as well. The stones, then, would serve, for angels, a purpose similar to that of the "book of life" for believers (cf. Ex.32:32; Dan.12:1; Lk.10:20; Rev.20:15). That these stones should be "fiery" is perfectly understandable when we consider the natural affinity of angels with fire as described elsewhere in scripture (Ps.104:4; Is.6:6; Ezek.10:2). It is a tragic irony that Satan should abandon his special place amidst these memorials to the Lord's personal remembrance of every holy angel and embark instead on a mission of alienating from God as many angels and men as he could. In contrast to Satan, Christ offered Himself as a memorial before the Father to bring to repentance and salvation to all of mankind (Eph.5:2).

Conclusion: Satan was the top-ranking angelic creature, blessed with extraordinary offices and privileges which were never to be paralleled again (except in the person of Christ). His preeminent status begs the question of why he would jeopardize (let alone renounce) such an exalted status. The sad truth is that all these benefits and blessings were not enough for Satan. He wanted more, wanted the only thing with which he had not been entrusted: rulership of the universe. It was not enough for him to be guardian of the throne of God; he wanted to occupy it as well.

IV. Satan's Character, Sin and Fall:

    1) Satan's Character: As Ezekiel 28:15 states in unequivocal terms, Satan was created "blameless". This is a critical piece of information, because through this scripture we are assured that his decision to sin was not some inevitable action originating with God, but was instead a free-will decision on Satan's part. Satan was created without sin, and with no necessity to sin. He and he alone is the one who bears the complete responsibility for all the trouble he has brought upon his fellow angels, upon humanity, and upon himself. God bears none of the blame for Satan's fall. Satan took the opportunity of using the free will God gave him to reject God and follow instead the path of evil. 

As is the case with all of us, Satan's decision to eschew God and all that is good and true, meant that he would necessarily follow the path of evil and of the lie. Make no mistake – there is no middle ground. Ultimately, no one is entirely independent in his actions. We only choose the master we will serve, be it good or evil, the truth or the lie, God or Satan. Thus the issue of choice which confronts human beings today is in its essence the same as the one which confronted Satan before human history ever commenced. Like that primeval super-creature, we too must choose whether we will follow God, accepting the truth He has made available to us, or reject Him, accepting instead the devil's lies. 

The issue of choice in Satan's case is of the utmost importance (as indeed it is with every one of God's moral creatures). Satan had to be given the chance of rejecting God and His truth just as Adam and Eve were, just as you and I are. Without the opportunity of rejecting truth in a tangible and meaningful way, there would be no genuine choice, no true free will. A situation where His creatures praise Him and follow Him simply because there is no other option is clearly not what God desires or intends. The essential free will God has provided to His creatures is inextricably bound up with the choice of accepting or rejecting Him, but the choice is real and legitimate nonetheless. According to any other scenario, we would be little more than robots, and morally indistinct from the animals.

God's provision of free will to His creatures has not been effected without stupendous cost. Endowed with the option of rejecting Him, all too many angels and humans have availed themselves of this dubious opportunity. And the loss is not ours alone: to redeem sinful mankind from the disastrous decisions of our first parents, God the Father would have to pay the ultimate price in the death of His own dear Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, on the cross. The ultimate victory, of course, will belong to God, as all will eventually acknowledge Him, whether from choice or from necessity (Is.45:23; Rom.3:19; 14:10-11; Phil.2:10-11).

Though originally blameless, Satan made the mistake of using his freedom to choose "freedom from God". But such a prospect is wholly illusory: "freedom from God" means in truth only slavery, captivity to sin and death, and so to Satan (Heb.2:14-15 cf. Is.14:17; 61:1; Jn.8:34). For "to whatever you give your allegiance, to that you are enslaved" (Rm.6:16; cf. 2Pet.2:19). As L.S. Chafer has observed, the issue for us all is "independence from God" or "oneness with God": as creatures we can never actually attain the former, but are free to choose the latter. Satan started with a pristine and blameless character, but in declaring his independence from God, he embraced the lie perforce, and become the very father of it (Jn.8:44).

   2) Satan's Sin: In Paul's instructions to Timothy regarding the necessary qualifications of pastors, he concludes the section by warning that the candidate should not be a neophyte (i.e, one newly in the faith and spiritually immature). Otherwise, Paul says, the man might easily "become puffed up (i.e., blinded by arrogance) and so fall into [the same] condemnation as the devil [did]" (1Tim.3:6). In Paul's caveat here, pride, that is, an unwarranted sense of superiority, creates a breeding ground for further sin. This was certainly so in Satan's case. His exorbitant pride over the qualities and attributes given him by God (Ezek.28.17) led to further corrupt thinking and plotting (Is.14:13-14; Ezek.28:17b), and finally to action: full scale rebellion against God. The substance of this corrupt thinking, a pattern of thought completely divorced from reality, especially given God's graceful generosity to him and the absolute folly of opposing the Creator, is recorded for us by Isaiah:

For you said in your heart, "I will ascend heavenward. I will set my throne above the stars of God. And I will take my seat on the mount of assembly on the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High God.
Isaiah 14:13-14

All five of these famous "I wills" of Satan speak to the same objective: replacing God's rule over the universe with his own. However, we can glean some specifics about Satan's intentions from each:

"I will ascend heavenward": Not "to heaven" as we have seen (see section II.6.a above). The primordial Eden, it will be remembered, was on earth. Furthermore, the "heights" of the mount of assembly were apparently dizzyingly high so as to make this expression quite apropos (see "above the heights of the clouds" immediately below, and compare the massive dimensions of the New Jerusalem, some fourteen hundred miles high: Rev.21:16).

"I will set my throne above the stars of God": These "stars" are the other angels, as we have seen (cf. Job 25:5; Ps.103:20-21; Is.40:26 c. Lk.2:13). There is no indication that Satan had any such throne. He was instead the cherub-guardian of God's throne, a throne which he sought to usurp. His current throne, or rulership of the world, will be held only temporarily (Lk.10:18; Jn.12:31).

"I will take my seat on the mount of assembly on the sides of the north": See 6a above for similarities between this description and Jerusalem. Here Satan imagines his moment of installation as supreme ruler in the place of God.

"I will ascend above the heights of the clouds": As with "stars", "clouds" too has a double meaning, refering both to height and to the other angels (for clouds are often used to describe the assembled armies of God: Dan.7:13; Matt.26:64; 1Thes.4:17; Heb.12:1; Rev.1:7). This thought reprises the first "I will" and acts as a solemn asseveration of the plan contained in the first three "I wills". In non-poetic language it is equivalent to "Yes, I will indeed do this thing."

"I will be like the Most High God": This is the essence of Satan's plan and his desire, directly expressed without further equivocation. The statement, a prophetically inspired quote of Satan's actual thinking, removes any doubt about the fact that he was indeed aware of the consequences of his actions. Satan meant to replace God and so take all His glory to himself. As is so often the case in human experience, this pattern of thinking eventually led to action and to overt sin, thus bringing about Satan's rebellion and fall.

    3) Satan's Fall: If chapter fourteen of the book of Isaiah describes the development and expression of Satan's mental state, culminating in his launching of a rebellion against God, Ezekiel chapter twenty-eight describes the process of putting his arrogant plan into practice, albeit in largely reverse order, tracing the matter backward at first from the result to the cause (vv.15-17), before more fully explicating the charge against Satan in verse eighteen. It will be helpful to translate and briefly analyze these verses in their order of occurrence before moving on to a full consideration of Satan's coup d'état, his revolutionary platform, and the scriptural names given to him which mark out his character for all to see, branding him as the deceiver and opponent of the Lord God Almighty he truly is.

Your heart became haughtybecause of your beauty, [and so] you destroyed your wisdom on account of your splendor. So I cast you to the earth, and I made a spectacle of you before kings.
Ezekiel 28:17

Arrogant pride, attributed specifically to Satan's high esteem for his own appearance, is at the root of the thought pattern whose course we saw Isaiah chronicle. Persistent and obsessive preoccupation with his own loveliness over time had a corrupting influence upon Satan's whole mental attitude, neutralizing, then effectively destroying his conscience, his character and his wholesome fear of God (cf. Eph.4:19; 1Tim.4:2). The judgments described in the second half of the verse are perfectively future, that is, it is a fate so certain (since it has been decreed by God) that it is described as already having happened. The first half of the judgment, being "cast to earth", will be carried out during the second half of the tribulation, the so-called "Great Tribulation" (Rev.12:7-13). The second half of the prophecy, becoming a "spectacle before kings", refers to Satan's final disposition into the lake of fire (Rev.20:10). Satan destroyed the wisdom God had given him and ungratefully rebelled against God, therefore God will destroy him. He who would be king shall be humbled before God's appointed royalty by the King of Kings (cf. Rev.21:24).

In your extensive conspiring, you were filled with wickedness, and you sinned. So I cast you from the mountain of God as one profaned, and I blotted out [your memory] from among the stones of fire, O covering cherub.
Ezekiel 28:16

Satan's conspiracy is first explicitly mentioned here, that is, his active attempt to carry out his plan of the five "I wills". The Hebrew word rachal (רכל), translated here as "conspiring", has the two-fold meaning of repetitive motion ("trading" or "trafficking") and of slandering. In the context of Satan's activities, it fits our notion of conspiracy quite well. Once arrogance had led to perverted thinking (v.17), these mental attitude sins blossomed into the overt activity of canvassing his fellow angels for support, slandering God in the process, an activity characterized by Ezekiel as "wickedness". Satan was attempting to besmirch God's reputation to gain adherents and further his own goals, but God here declares another fitting judgment on Satan: the future obliteration of any remembrance of him, let alone his reputation, and his physical expulsion from the place he feign would occupy as ruler of the universe.

In all your ways you were perfect from the day of your creation until unrighteousness was found in you.
Ezekiel 28:15

In the abundance of your iniquity, in the unrighteousness of your conspiring, you profaned the sacred places entrusted to you, so I made fire come out of your midst which devoured you, and I made you like the dust of the earth in the eyes of all who beheld you.
Ezekiel 28:18

These two verses, one at the head of this section, and the other at the end of it, both treat Satan's sin and fall in summary form. Verse fifteen takes a subjective viewpoint: Satan was made perfect – God is not to blame for his rejection of God. Nevertheless, by his own actions he became "unrighteous", that is, unqualified for eternal contact and residence with God because of sin. Verse eighteen sums up from an objective viewpoint: Satan's conduct is described as "iniquity" (Hebrew 'aven, עון, a strong word for egregious and presumptuous sin and the guilt it incurs); this activity is further described as a lack of righteousness here too but the word 'avel (עול) is now applied not to Satan himself (as in verse fifteen), but to his deeds, namely, his conspiratorial actions. Once again, the future judgment is described as already having occurred, its eventuality being so certain as to be without doubt. Satan will actually be cast into the lake of fire following Christ's millennial reign (Rev.20:10). Entrusted with the guardianship of the innermost shrines of the Lord, Satan betrayed and polluted his trust, therefore God has decreed that Satan himself shall be desecrated, his pollution incinerated in eternal fire.

    a) Satan's Coup d'État: As would-be usurper of God's throne, Satan found himself in a delicate position. When he conceived his nefarious ambition, he was on his own. Even in his unparalleled arrogance, he must have realized that he would need help if he were to be successful in his attempt to dethrone the Lord of the universe. Satan did have some advantages, however. As the preeminent and highest ranking angelic creature (not to mention the most impressive), Satan had considerable influence and authority over the other angels. None would be likely to rebel from the Lord instantaneously on Satan's say-so, but, with proper preparation, it might be possible to sway some of his fellows. Satan's plan was not to overthrow God by force (for such a course of action was a complete impossibility, as even Satan with his inflated sense of self saw clearly enough), but rather to effect a coup d'état: by winning over the allegiance of the angels, Satan thought to present God with a fait accompli which He would be powerless to reverse. For if the angels were to choose Satan over God, the devil seems to have felt secure that this fact in itself would protect him from divine retribution. This conclusion about Satan's thinking and strategy is, in fact, necessary, unless of course we are to assume that the devil really felt he could overpower God with a band of rebellious angels (and surely the wiles that the preeminent of all of God's creatures has demonstrated during our own human phase of history show clearly enough that Satan was smarter than that). But why should Satan feel secure from the wrath of an omnipotent God against whom he planned to rebel, simply because of some success on his part in seducing other angelic creatures into following his lead? 

The answer to this difficult question lies in Satan's false perception of God's character. Satan realized, of course, that God had the power to crush him and his rebellion instantly and effortlessly. What Satan was counting on, however, was not that he would be able to oppose the omnipotence of God, but that God would be forced, by His own perfect integrity, to refrain from annihilating Satan and his followers. Even as the devil claims today that a truly loving God cannot punish His own creatures and still be consistent with His love,⁽³¹⁾ so in eternity past Satan outrageously staked the success of his traitorous ploy on God's own character. The universe at that time, populated as it was with its numerous angelic inhabitants, was a perfect, harmonious whole. Would God, could God really rend its fabric so drastically and unalterably by condemning Satan to destruction (along with the plethora of angels he was absolutely certain he could convince to follow him)? Satan must have reasoned that without some opportunity for reconciliation, and without some means of replacing what would be lost and thus restoring the perfect whole, his condemnation would be inconceivable because it would be completely inconsistent with the loving, fair, perfect God he knew. But neither of these two necessities would be possible. Reconciliation (and therefore restoration) would be impossible because 1) there would be no way to expiate treason against God, taken as it would be in complete knowledge and understanding of the implications, and 2) by their very nature as we have seen above (I, 3d), the angels who would choose for Satan would do so unalterably once and for all. Replacement also seemed to be an impossible option, inasmuch as angelic kind (as important and meaningful to God as everyone of us believers are: witness the memorial "stones of fire" as treated above) was created corporately and simultaneously: it would seem to have been inconsistent with God's character to begin a new round of partial creation to "patch up" and repair the damage done by the devil.⁽³²⁾ No action God could take in response to the planned rebellion (at least as Satan summed up the situation) would redound to His glory. In the devil's reasoning, therefore, God would find Himself boxed in by the insurrection he was planning, and would be forced by His own perfection to leave Satan be as the universe's new de facto sovereign.

As delusional as Satan's thinking seems to us now (as we have reconstructed it here), the devil, originally the wisest of God's creatures, had a point. We can see, after all, from God's gracious handling of our own first parents' sin that reconciliation and restoration (and the replacement of a rebellious angelic element with an obedient human one) flow from the very core of who and what our God is. Indeed, none of this has been a mistake, or an afterthought, or a successful minor repair in our present universe – in all that has happened since the original creation of Genesis 1:1, the Lord's plan has proceeded apace in its perfect, inexorable way. Our creation, and the grace God has shown to us in sending His only Son Jesus Christ to die for us and thus restore us (thereby replacing Satan and his legions) have always been central to His plan. For by saving us through this his matchless grace and the gift of His Son, God has thoroughly exposed the devil's lie and gloriously proven His character for all the universe to see. 

Satan's arrogance did not prevent him from making a largely correct assumption about the character of God, that He was just and fair. Yet Satan's arrogance blinded him to the obvious fact that no creature could ever anticipate what the Lord Almighty might do in justice and fairness. By creating mankind, and by offering us the choice of salvation through Christ, God is demonstrating to the angels this justice and fairness, as well as the boundless depths of His love: for all who would be reconciled, there is no limit consistent with His character to which He will not go to reconcile them – even to the point of giving His own Son over to death; for all who would remain alienated from Him, He is perfectly able and justified to find others who will choose for Him (and to pass judgment on those who will not). And this last point is more than replacement: the salvation of human beings and our wedding together to Jesus Christ who has Himself come to share our humanity constitutes a restoration of far more than what was originally lost. Oh the ineffable and unfathomable wisdom of our God, who heals what is broken into something stronger, and replaces what was lost with something better! For in the new heavens and new earth where we shall all dwell with Him forever, the blessings which once were will be multiplied beyond our comprehension because of God's boundless love for us His faithful creatures in Jesus Christ His Son.

It is evident from the events that followed the conception of his plan that Satan was indeed able to bring a large proportion of angels over to his way of thinking about God's probable reaction to any such coup d'état (an appropriate name for an overthrow of authority based not upon a contest of relative force, but rather political intrigue). For before any of the angels followed him, they would need to be convinced of the prospects of success: had they instead been certain of swift and immediate retribution from the Lord Almighty, it is fair to ask how many would have voluntarily enlisted into Satan's cause. There had to be something more, however. Satan's own motive of universal rulership is clear enough, but his potential followers would have to be wooed. Paradise, after all, could not have been so terrible as to force them into a rebellion against God for its own sake, and the obvious fact that, in spite of Satan's assurances, at least someelement of risk would be involved in betraying God could not have been lost on them. Satan needed a platform, one persuasive enough to convince his contemporaries to throw in their lot with him and take the risk of eternal condemnation.

   b) Satan's Revolutionary Platform: It is apparently a condition common to angelic and human kind alike to want what we don't have, especially if we cannot have it. The original example of Adam and Eve vis-à-vis the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is sufficient evidence for this (not to mention the roughly six thousand years of human history since). Perhaps even more important than convincing his would-be followers that rebellion against God would be safe and meet with success was the necessity of a positive platform, a goal that could tempt his audience and incite their lust. But what do angels lack, and what could they possibly want? They are not affected by the elements, as we are, not plagued by disease or the ravages of time, not in any need whatsoever that might incite the lust for acquisition that so inflames mankind. Yet it is precisely in that fact which liberates the angels from all the cares and concerns we humans feel so intensely that Satan found his chief selling point, the prime inducement to his fellow spirit-creatures to gamble their eternal futures and bind their fate to Satan's forevermore: the very fact that angels lack physical bodies. 

While we humans possess both a spiritual and a material part, angels, as we have seen, are primarily spiritual creatures (see I, 3c above). The absence of true corporeality (such as we possess) is in many respects a blessing (sparing the angels the pain, suffering and tears which are the common heritage of mankind since the fall), but it seems to have left many of the angels wondering what might have been. For while human beings had not yet been created when Satan launched his campaign to unseat God, it will be remembered that the original paradise from which Satan and his followers fell was on earth (see II, 6a above). And though this is neither the time nor the place to discuss the fossil record that has been such a stumbling block over the years to pure biblical faith, we can at least observe that much of that record no doubt hearkens back to the era we are presently discussing. For the pristine, original earth, though not described in scripture, is unlikely to have been a barren desert. God creates only perfection (cf. Is.45:18). In the absence of other information, we would do well to assume that this original paradise was a wonder to behold in every way, fully furnished with all types of vegetation and, most significant for our present study, an entire complement of animated (if not morally responsible) creatures as well. We can expect that such an order of creation would have piqued angelic interest. For though angels can affect material, they cannot have the rich experience of the material that creatures who are both material and spiritual can have. Without possessing a body, it is impossible to experience the sensual life of the body. 

Now from everything we know about the angels from scripture, possession on their part of the bodies of animals and of humans is contrary to the will and the law of God in every way. Satan observed the curiosity and interest of his fellows and applied the universal principle of sinful motivation treated above: they didn't have bodies and, moreover, were forbidden to possess the bodies of other creatures; therefore they wanted them, wanted to experience first hand the sensual, corporeal life "that had been denied them" (according to satanic propaganda). Clearly, God was not going to stand by and allow a wave of possessions contrary to His commands (much less any program of breeding and genetic manipulation that may be evidenced by the hominid portion of the fossil record: see part 2 of this series). The only way to "escape" the rather pure spirituality God had "inflicted" on them was to fall in behind a new leader and take what they wanted in defiance of God.

In the event, God rained down complete destruction on the world of that time (as we shall see in part 2), but it is interesting to note that there are a number of biblical passages which demonstrate that the lust of Satan's followers for bodies which most approximate their own essential shape is still very much alive:

1. Angels have no strictly material bodies of their own: Without taking possession of the bodies of other creatures, angels are unable to fully experience the material world in any sensual way (see II, 3b above). Paul's list of "bodies" in 1st Corinthians chapter fifteen mentions "heavenly bodies", but by this he clearly means the planets. Significantly, he does not mention angels. We have also seen above many passages that stress the spiritual (and hence non-material) nature of angels (Heb.1:7; 1:14; 2:14-16[esp. v.16]). This radical difference from human (and animal) kind helps to explain how it is that angels can occasionally be called "gods" (i.e., having more in common with the spirituality of God than the materiality of Man: Ps.8:5; 82:1 & 6). Angels are not "flesh and blood" as we, in our material part, clearly are (Eph.6:12). When our Lord appeared to His disciples and was taken for a ghost, He commanded them to "touch Me and see that a spirit (pneuma) does not have flesh and bones as you see Me having" (Lk.24:39). The word He used, the Greek pneuma (πνεῦμα), is the same word used for angels wherever they are deemed "spirits" (e.g., Heb.1:7& 14). No stronger confirmation could be asked to show that angels are different from us in this main, crucial point of corporeality (and, therefore, in the enjoyment of all that is sensual).

2. The Serpent of Genesis 3: It is no accident (and by now should come as no great surprise) that when we first encounter Satan in scripture, he has taken possession of a material creature, the serpent. We can assume from the context that this especially "subtle" creature was Eve's special pet, and a perfect vehicle for the devil's seduction. Given the nature of the prehistoric fossil record, we might well wonder whether his choice of the serpent is also due in part to an earlier angelic fascination with reptiles (see part 2 of this series). But was his possession of the creature necessary to accomplish his goal (any more than his possession of Judas was: cf. Lk.22:3)? What we can say is that possession of the bodies of material creatures is part of Satan's normal modus operandi, and indicates that this is more than something the fallen angels "have to do" to accomplish their nefarious purposes. Rather, it is something they dearly desire to do.

3. The Angelic Infiltration of Genesis 6: As both Jude 6 and 2nd Peter 2:4 make clear, "the sons of God coming in to [mate with] the daughters of men" was a Satanic attack of immense proportions which violated God's ground rules for the resolution of the angelic rebellion in human history (see part 5 of this series where the Gen.6attack is treated in detail). The direct mixing of angelic and human seed is clear-cut proof of the desire on the part of Satan and his followers to attain the (for them) unattainable: corporeality.

4. The Legion of Demons and the Swine: In Mark chapter 5, when Jesus cast the demon legion from a single man, these fallen spirits "begged" Him to "send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them" (v.12). There is very little to explain their motivation for this request until we accept that these satanic angels, being deprived of their human home, were desperate to regain some material adobe, be it ever so mean.

5. The Wandering Spirit (Lk.11:24-26): The return of the "wandering spirit" to the man he had previously possessed is a likewise telling case that only fully makes sense when we take into account the "addiction" the fallen angels have to the corporeality which, as part of our nature, we understandably take for granted. The demon goes through desolate places seeking "rest" (i.e., another willing subject to inhabit), but when it is disappointed in this hope, it returns to its "house" (Greek oikos). The terminology used here is significant, for in 2nd Corinthians 5:2, Paul calls our coming resurrection body, the super-material home in which we shall spend all eternity with the Lord, a "dear-house from on high" (Greek oiketerion, the diminutive of the very word used for house above being used in a [grammatically] familiar sense). Ourmaterial abodes, the bodies that house our spirits now and then, are given to us by God, but it is the devil's plan, and his prime inducement to his followers, to take by force the homes that properly belong to others.

Satan's false gospel to the angels who fell in with him was one of "deliverance" from their non-sensual state. He found them curious about the experience of material existence, and inflamed this curiosity into outright lust and rebellion, so that they became obsessed with the possession of material bodies, and addicted to the experience (in the same way that many of our fellow human beings are destroyed by drugs). Therefore, the widespread and dishonest trade of Ezekiel 28:16 & 18 is better translated "canvassing" or "campaigning". Satan found his issue and seduced a large part of angelic kind with it. In this his activity is quite similar to that of Absalom in his conspiracy to overthrow his father David, the rightful king. We are told that Absalom used to get up early in the morning and go out to greet all who came to Jerusalem for adjudication, praising whatever case they might have (regardless of the justice of it) and swearing justice for all, if only he were to be made "judge" (2Sam.15:2-6). By flattery and such false promises, Absalom "stole the hearts of the people away" in very much the same fashion that Satan must have done. The temptation to follow such an attractive leader who was promising them so much (and the assurance of the safety and success of their cause) proved more than many of the angels could resist.⁽³³⁾ Satan always strikes the weakest point in our defenses, and there is always a weak point. Adam and Eve had bodies, but no such vast knowledge as the angels possess, so Satan appealed to their desire for such; the angels had vast knowledge, but no material bodies, and that is where the devil chose to strike. Undoubtedly, the angels had no more real need for material bodies any more than our first parents did for "knowledge of good and evil". Rather than to trust God for what is truly needed, however, it is an all too common creature reaction to decide for ourselves that what we do not presently have is absolutely essential, and to assume that somehow we are being "deprived by God" (though He is really only looking out for our best interests in keeping us from things which are essentially harmful to us).

Conclusion: God's Reaction: How would God react to such high treason against His person and His legitimate rule? When our series continues, we shall chart the unfolding of His perfect divine plan as He disposes of Satan and his rebellion in a breathtaking way, gaining more and more glory at every step and bringing about for His faithful creatures even greater blessing in the end than obtained in the beginning:

* God's judgment on the original earth and its restoration (in Part 2: The Genesis Gap).

* God's creation of Man and Satan's aggressive response (in Part 3: The Purpose, Creation and Fall of Man).

* God's suspension of summary judgment, and Satan's nefarious world-rule over the course of human history (in Part 4: Satan's World System: Past, Present and Future).

* God's ultimate replacement and final judgment of Satan and his followers (in Part 5: Judgment, Restoration and Replacement).

[Go to: The Satanic Rebellion part 2: The Genesis Gap]

---

Notes:

1. Part 2B of Essential Doctrines of the Bible: Eschatology: The Study of "Last Things" is available as an overview on this topic. 

2. For a more detailed look at the essence, nature and character of God, see Part 1 of Essential Doctrines of the Bible: Theology: the Study of God.

3. This ex nihilo creation, as it is conventionally termed, is discussed in detail in Part 2 of this series, The Genesis Gap.

4. In Lk.10:20, our Lord gives us the proper perspective: "But don't rejoice over this, namely that the [evil] spirits obey you; rather rejoice that your names have been written in heaven."

5. For the distinction between angels and mankind, see also 1Cor.6:3; Heb.1:14; Heb.2:16; 12:22-23. 

6. For a detailed treatment of the resurrection, see the Peter series, lesson #20. 

7. For a more detailed discussion of the topic of angelic observation in the context of Christian testing, see the Peter series, lesson #22. 

8. See L.S. Chafer, Systematic Theology (Dallas 1947) v.2, p.26 for more references.

9. See Part 1 of Essential Doctrines of the Bible: Theology: the Study of God.

10. God's destruction and restoration of earth pursuant to Satan's rebellion is discussed in detail in The Genesis Gap, Part 2 of this series. 

11. Fallen angels are also connected by scripture to the stars in their capacity as demons masquerading as "gods" (Deut.4:19; 17:3; Acts 7:43). It should be noted, however, that believers are also occasionally referred to as stars to emphasize heavenly approval in the face of satanic persecution (Dan.8:10-13 & 24 [not NIV]; 12:3; Phil.2:15; Rev.12:1 & 4 [where both are meant]). 

12. Although most western scholarship currently argues that the form is plural (the Hebraic tradition considers the form dual: cf. M. Mansoor's grammar), the justifications usually given for this conclusion strain credulity in light of 1) the obvious dual-type formation of the word, and 2) the biblical usage (where "two" heavens of sky and atmosphere repeatedly occur). It is no doubt due to a reluctance to accept that the Bible might indeed give a correct picture of the universe's construction that has rendered the questionable hypothesis (of reading shamayim as plural) a widespread one.

13. Compare the Hebrew pardes, used at Neh.2:8; Eccl.2:5; Song 4:13. 

14. So the LXX, and later the New Testament. 

15. Literally, "newly slain" or "freshly slaughtered". 

16. The lampstand or menorah is meant to represent the almond, the ultimate of the "best fruits of the land" (Gen.43:11), and, significantly, the form taken by Aaron's rod when it budded (Num.17:8). 

17. See Part 2 of this series, The Genesis Gap, for a detailed discussion of the destruction of the original earth and its restoration as depicted in the seven days of Genesis chapter one. 

18. See Part 5 of this series, Judgment, Restoration and Replacement.  The commonality of names is deliberate, indicating that the newly created human race is meant as a direct replacement for Satan and his angels (just as the new garden of Eden on the new earth replaces the old Eden on the old, original earth – see Part 2 of this series for details). 

19. The applicability of Isaiah chapter fourteen and Ezekiel chapter twenty eight to Satan will be discussed during a complete exegesis of these passages beginning in section III below. 

20. Whether the primal, angelic Eden was located at the same exact spot as the now and future Mount Zion is an open question. For instance, Mount Sinai is also called "the mountain of God" (Ex.4:27). However, Mount Sinai is a mountain of judgment (Gal.4:21-34; Heb.12:18-24), not of grace. When Abraham was instructed to sacrifice his son (Gen.22:2), it was to Mount Zion that God directed him for this foreshadowing of the gracious sacrifice of Jesus Christ (cf. 2Chron.3:1). In any case, it seems probable that along with the other three earthly Edens (the garden of Adam and Eve, millennial Jerusalem, and the New Jerusalem), this primal Eden is also to be located within the confines of the sacred territory of Israel-cum-New Jerusalem (compare the dimensions of Num.34:1-12 with the proportionally expanded ones of Rev.21:15-16). 

21. See Part 2 of this series, The Genesis Gap, for a detailed discussion of God's judgment upon the original earth and universe as a result of Satan's rebellion. 

22. cf. 2Chron.20:16; Nimrod, son of Cush, operates in Babylonia, not Ethiopia. See "The Rivers of Paradise," by E.A. Speiser, in Festschriftv Johannes Friedrich (Heidelberg 1958) 473-485.