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(On the results and timing of Lucifer’s fall)
Ezekiel takes up a prophecy against the King of Tyrus in Eze
28, and speaks to him concerning the monarch’s pride, saying: “By thy great
wisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is
lifted up because of thy riches.” (Ezek 28:5) We find as the oracle continues,
however, that he is not speaking merely of the human upon the throne, but about
a being much stronger, much more exalted in nature, and much older.
He says of his
audience, “Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day thou wast created till
iniquity was found in thee.” (verse 15) Moreover, Ezekiel goes on to describe
him: “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.” (verse 14) The more closely we read the
passage of Ezekiel 28, the less the individual he is describing sounds like a
human being.
In another book,
Isaiah, we find this parallel reading speaking again of a king’s pride: “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: I will ascend above the heights of the
clouds, I will be like the Most High.” (Isa 14:13,14) In fact, in Isaiah we
receive the name of the creature being spoken to, whose spirit was personified
in the king of Babylon, and again in the king of Tyre whom Ezekiel addressed.
Isaiah said, “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!”
(verse 12)
The name there “Lucifer”
is actually a Latin word, inserted into our English Bibles from later
translations. In the original Hebrew, “Lucifer, son of the morning,” is
actually Helel ben Shahar, which has the same meaning: “Light-bearer,
son of the Dawn.” It is this same being, fallen to the earth, that Yahshua
describes, “And He said unto them, ‘I beheld Satan as lightning fall from
heaven.’” (Luke 10:18) And as the revelation of the Scriptures continues, we
find the most clear description of that event in the final book of the Canon.
“And there appeared
another wonder in Heaven; and behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads
and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third
part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth... And there was
war in Heaven: Michael and His angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon
fought and his angels, and prevailed not, neither was their place found any
more in Heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the
Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the
earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And when the dragon saw that he
was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man
child.” (Rev 12:3,4a,7-9,13)
Helel, or Lucifer, was
in Heaven “until iniquity was found” in him, and then there was a war in which
he was cast to earth; Christ beheld him falling “like lightning,” and he has
been persecuting the church of God ever since.
Why does he do this?
The purpose of this article is to answer two questions about the Devil: 1) Why
is he trying to get human beings to sin? and 2) When exactly did his fall from
grace occur? Well, as to the first question, there are two main reasons. One of
them is this: “And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:
and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the
air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing
that creepeth upon the earth.” (Gen 1:26) Man is created in the image of Satan’s
enemy; Yah.
As long as we are free,
moral agents; as long as we live lives pleasing to God, we prove that Lucifer’s
original rebellion was an extremely unwise course of action. Our lives, lived
in accordance with the principles of Heaven, are joyful, successful, and
everlasting. All those things Lucifer lost when he fell; and for this cause
there exists a great jealousy and hatred between the demons and mankind. As it
is written, “And the Lord God said unto the serpent, ‘Because thou has done
this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field;
upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:
and 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.’” (Gen
3:14,15)
This prophecy was
ultimately fulfilled in Yahshua, for by His death, “having spoiled
principalities and powers, He made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them
in it.” (Col 2:15) However, that is also fulfilled in all of us, for the
command to the Christian is, “Resist the Devil, and he will flee from you.”
(James 4:7b) Thus is the enmity between Satan and the children of Light
revealed.
The second reason has
to do with the Day of Judgment. In Leviticus, we find a ceremony called the Day
of Atonement, where the sins of Israel were annually purged by the death of a
goat, representing Christ. However, the ceremony was a little more complex than
that. The ritual actually involved two goats: ‘And Aaron shall cast lots
upon the two goats; one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for the scapegoat.”
(Lev 16:8) One of the goats, as the lots declared, was “for the Lord,” and
indeed, it also represented the Lord Yahshua, for it was the one that was slain
for the forgiveness of the humans’ sin.
The other animal, on
whose head fell the lot of the scapegoat, underwent a process after the first
goat was slain. The sins were transferred unto the High Priest from the people:
“And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess
over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions
in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him
away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness: and the goat shall bear upon
him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the
goat in the wilderness.” (Lev 16:21,22)
I deal with this matter
in greater length elsewhere, but it is enough for now to explain that the “live
goat” is called the Scapegoat, which by interpretation is “Azazel,” an angelic
name meaning, “Strengthened by El.” And also, it should be noted that Satan’s
most common symbol is the pentagram, a 5-pointed star representing the goat’s
head, upon which the High Priest (Christ) will one day lay both His hands. At
that time, the scapegoat, bearing the sins of those who have confessed and
given their transgressions to Yahshua, will be sent to perish in the wilderness
of Hell, as it is written, “And the Devil that deceived them was cast into the
lake of fire and brimstone.” (Rev 20:10a)
Now, this is an
important point, that Satan will bear the transgressions only of those
who have given their sins to Yahshua. Satan suffers for only those who are
ultimately saved and have confessed their wrongdoings (Lev 16:21), and this is
the second reason why he tries to get man to fall. Lucifer is fully aware of
his final fate (Rev 12:12), and knowing that those who do NOT give their lives
to Christ and confess their sinful nature will have to suffer for their OWN
sins, he is currently in a state of “damage control.”
The more people Satan
can lead to destruction, the less will be his punishment on the Day of
Judgment. Of course, in the process he also compounds and multiplies his own
sins, becoming guilty of murder many times over; however he reasons that he has
little choice but to try and drag as many beings as he can down into hell with
him.
The two reasons,
therefore, why Satan seeks to destroy humanity is because a) Their righteous
lives demonstrate his folly, and their freewill keeping of Yah’s laws bring him
under condemnation before the intelligences of the universe, and b) He is
attempting to alleviate as much of the final judgment as he can by causing
human beings to despise the atonement of the Redeemer, and thus suffer for
their own sins.
Now, on to the second
question: When did Lucifer fall? There are three views on this, three times
during which people have theorized that the apostasy of a third of Heaven’s
angels occurred. These are: before the creation of the world, after the
creation of the world but before the creation of man, and after the creation of
mankind. The first of these is easily shown to be false. The last of them takes
some reading. The middle one is what the Bible seems to most clearly support,
although even that has been misapplied to a degree; this is not a simple matter
by any means.
The first of these is
easily refuted by simply citing several verses, most of which we have referred
to before in this essay: “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!” (Isa 14:12) Here it is declared that Lucifer was cast unto the earth,
which must have already been formed. Secondly, in the description in
Revelation, it says plainly, “And the great dragon was cast out, that old
serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was
cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.” (Rev 12:9) It
was after he was cast to the earth, and it was this same earth, that it was
written: “And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he
persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child.” (Rev 12:13)
Satan was obviously
cast down unto an already formed earth; so the question becomes: at what point
was he cast down? Was man already here? Some teach that Lucifer fell from grace
after the creation of man. The verse above, Rev 12:13, says that after he got
here, he began to persecute the woman (starting with Eve), and therefore he
must have fallen after Adam and Eve were formed. However, if we read Revelation
aright, we find that the “Woman” that Satan began immediately to persecute was “a
great wonder in heaven,” (Rev 12:1) and therefore not a human being. Lucifer’s
persecution began in Heaven, of the principle of the woman – Christ’s people,
and that includes not only human beings, but also the holy angels, for
Revelation 12:10 includes the rejoicing of the faithful Hosts when Lucifer was
cast out. “And I heard a loud voice saying in Heaven, ‘Now is come salvation,
and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ: for the
accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and
night.”
There is another verse,
taken right from our original passage, in which Ezekiel is rebuking both king
and fallen angel. “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... Thou
was perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was
found in thee.’” (Ezek 28:12b,13a, 15)
This verse seems to
indicate that Lucifer was a perfect, unfallen being, even in Eden, until he
rebelled. “And since Eden was planted after Adam’s genesis (Gen 2:7,8),” some
reason, “it means that Satan must have sinned after man was created.”
There is a basic
misunderstanding at work here, however. If I asked the average Bible student a
seemingly simple question, he or she would most likely get it wrong. The
question is: “What is the name of the garden in which Adam and Eve lived?” The
student would probably reply, “Eden, of course.” They would be wrong, as I
myself have been, before researching this issue. I may even have referred to it
as such in my articles, which are now subject to review and correction.
“Eden” is not the name
of a garden. If we read the Scriptures, it says of this first habitation of
man: “And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there He put the
man whom He had formed. And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and
from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.” (Gen 2:8,10) I
purposely skipped over verse 9, because we will return to see another vital
point shortly.
For now, though, notice
that Yah planted a garden in Eden, an already existing place, and that
the water flowed “out of Eden to water the garden.” From day 3 onwards,
Eden existed; it was simply the part of the earth with the best trees! Lucifer
was possibly in Eden before he fell; but not the garden – and that can mean two
things. What makes this confusing is that the Ezekiel verse reads: “Thou hast
been in Eden the garden of God...” (Eze 28:13a) This seems to equate the two
concepts, however it must be realized that in every other place Eden is
mentioned in Scripture, it is called “The garden of Eden,” meaning, “the garden
which was in Eden.”
To understand Ezekiel,
then, we go to context, and definitions. The word “Eden” means “pleasure.” It
is not always translated into that word in English, and has various other
readings, both in the King James version, and other subsequent ones. For
example: “Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, ‘After I am waxed old
shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?’” (Gen 18:12) That verse
actually has her asking, “shall I have eden, my lord being old also?”
Another place is: “For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; ‘The
daughter of Babylon is like a threshingfloor, it is time to thresh her: yet a
little while, and the time of her harvest shall come. Nebuchadrezzar the king
of Babylon hath devoured me, he hath crushed me, he hath made me an empty vessel,
he hath swallowed me up like a dragon, he hath filled his belly with my
delicates, he hath cast me out.’” (Jer 51:33,34) The word there “delicates” is
also “Eden,” meaning that Nebuchadrezzar (Nebuchadnezzar) had raided the land
and taken away all of its pleasures.
Secondly, the Hebrew
word “gan,” which is generally used to mean “garden,” is also not the only
definition of the word. Gan is actually a general term for “an enclosure,” or
something that is defended from the outside. The verb taken from that same
root, ganan is used in every case to denote the defending of a city and
its inhabitants from invaders. “For I will defend [ganan] this city, to save
it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David’s sake.” (2 Kings 19:34) A gan
is an area containing something precious (usually fruit trees or other food
plants in that part of the world – Isa 1:8, Deu 11:10), but not always in the
sense we take the word to mean. Verses such as 2 Kings 25:4, wherein the king’s
“garden” is mentioned as being strategically important in a military operation.
With those two things
in mind, we may read Ezekiel thus: “Thou hast been in favor, in delight;
enclosed and defended by Yah; every precious stone was thy covering... til
iniquity was found in thee.” (Ezek 28:13a, 15b)
In an entirely
different sense, we see that the phrase “the garden of God” is used in an
entirely figuratively way by the prophet Ezekiel. Many who insist that Lucifer
was in the literal, earthly, Eden, either fail to understand, or have never
read, the following passage. It also refers to the fallen angel, this time
using the vehicle of Assyria: “Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length
of his branches: for his root was by great waters. The cedars in the garden of
God could not hide him: the fir trees were not like his boughs, and the
chestnut trees were not like his branches; nor any tree in the garden of God
was like unto him in his beauty. I have made him fair by the multitude of his
branches: so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied
him. Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast lifted up thyself in
height, and he hath shot up his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is
lifted up in his height; I have therefore delivered him into the hand of the mighty
one of the heathen; he shall surely deal with him: I have driven him out for
his wickedness.” (Ezek 31:7-11)
Clearly, this is not
the literal “garden of Eden,” but a figurative expression. The passage used as
a “proof text” for a post-Adamic fall of Lucifer is therefore extremely
questionable in its applicability.
We need not change the
meaning at all, however; and still hold that Lucifer was in Eden before his
fall. To state that he was unfallen after man’s creation presents an even
bigger problem, however, as we shall soon see. Going back to Gen 2:9 which we
skipped before, we read thus, starting from verse 8: “And the LORD God planted
a garden eastward in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed. And out
of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the
sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and
the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” (Gen 2:8,9)
That very last phrase
is key; the Tree of knowledge of good and evil, man’s one temptation and test,
is mentioned as being brought forth from the garden before man was
placed therein (in verse 15). Going a bit below the surface, we find this:
Satan is the “accuser of the brethren” both in heaven and on earth, (Rev 12:10)
and that no temptation comes from Yah (James 1:13). Therefore, the only reason
there was a temptation and a test in Eden was so that man could exercise his
free will; to choose between obedience (the way of Yah) or to surrender his
trust of Yah up to the insinuations of an already fallen tempter, who
appears shortly thereafter in the form of a serpent. (Gen 3:1) Now, Adam and
Eve may have been in the garden for quite a while, we are not told how much
time elapsed before their fall, but the tree itself, and thus the temptation,
was present from the inception of the garden planted within that fertile land.
We know that Adam was
130 years old when Seth was born (Gen 5:3), but we have no dates before this;
we are not told how old he was when Cain and Abel were born. We know therefore
that there may have been as many as 100 years (long enough for Cain to have a
wife before slaying Abel – verses 4:8,17) of peace and perfect joy before their
transgression and expulsion. The tree itself was a symbol of Satan’s great
fall; and there is no way it could have been present from the very planting of
the garden if Satan had not fallen before day 6, when the garden was formed (on
an already existing earth) and man was placed within it.
The Genesis record
itself gives us a clue as to when Satan’s rebellion took place. Read Genesis 1
very carefully, and you will find an interesting fact.
Day 1: And God saw the
light, that it was good... (Gen 1:4)
Day 3: And God called
the dry land Earth... and God saw that it was good. (Gen 1:10,12)
Day 4: And God made two
great lights...and God saw that it was good. (Gen 1:16,18)
Day 5: And God created
great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought
forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and
God saw that it was good. (Gen 1:21)
Day 6: And God made the
beast of the earth after his kind; God created man in His own image, ... and
God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good.
(Gen 1:25,27,31)
Day 7 was the most
blessed of all, (Gen 2:3, Exo 20:11) but notice that a day is missing! Of the
second day of Creation, only this is said: “And God said, ‘Let there be a
firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the
waters.’ And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under
the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the
second day.” (Gen 1:6-8) It should be remembered that the “Heaven” created here
is the air and sky (where the birds fly – verse 20), and not the “Heaven” where
the angels and Yah Himself lives. Hebrews is specific that only those “things
which are seen” and are visible to us were a part of this first Creation week.
(Heb 11:3) Everything that is a part of our physical universe was made
out of the spiritual things, which were a part of the previously
existing universe (of which the pre-fall Lucifer was also a part).
On day 2, however, when
the various firmaments were separated, we find that this day was not called a “good”
one. If Lucifer’s rebellion began, then, on day 2, and ended before the close
of day 3 (which, at the end, was also declared “good”), we find that this suits
all the evidence perfectly. The angelic apostasy began after the creation-week
did, on the second day of it, and continued into day three, so that there could
be an earth for him to fall down from Heaven unto (Luke 10:18), yet was
before the creation of man, so there could be a tree of knowledge of good and
evil as soon as Eden’s garden was made; and a serpent in the garden of whose
wiles Eve was unaware.
In fact, this is the
only timeline I can find that fits all we know about the fall of Lucifer and
the temptation of man. Some who have attempted to correlate all the data have
decided that a “pre-Adamite” rebellion of Satan took place between Gen 1:1 and
Gen 1:2. They read it thus:
In the beginning God
created the heaven and the earth. (1:1)
Then, Lucifer fell from heaven and destroyed the previous beauty of the
fully-perfected world. (1:1.5 [inserted])
And the earth was [now] without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face
of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. (1:2)
This is a concept known
as the “gap theory,” which tries to reconcile the Biblical record of our
origins with the false opinion that the world is millions of years old. I will
most likely treat that issue in a separate article, including the command for
Adam to “replenish” the earth (Gen 1:28), whereas in the Hebrew that simply
means to “fill” it. For now it should be obvious that if we take the 6 days of
Creation to be a literal 6 days as Genesis says it is, and Exodus (Exo 20:8-11)
which establishes that a “week” of Creation was 7 human days, and the teachings
of Yahshua, which declared that the creation of Adam was the beginning
of the physical universe (Mat 19:4, Mark 10:6); if we take all these things to
be true, the sequence I have outlined above is the only one that makes sense:
Day 1: Light is created, and separated from the darkness.
Day 2: The heavens of the air and sky are separated from the
water-covered earth; Lucifer’s rebellion begins before the close of this day.
Day 3: Solid ground is formed, and is separated from the
seas. The earth brings forth plant life, the best of which could be found in an
area known as “Eden.” Lucifer’s rebellion concludes, and he and his followers are
cast down (bound) unto this newly-formed, life-filled planet after a fierce
battle against Michael and the faithful Host. Peace returns to heaven before
the close of that day.
Day 4: The sun, moon and stars are formed and given for “signs
and seasons.” Some of these point to Satan’s recently concluded rebellion, such
as Venus, to which Isaiah refers prophetically as Lucifer the “DayStar,” when
speaking of the presumptuous Cherub; (Isa 14:12) and even, it is said, some of
the constellations such as Scorpio and Draco.* (This is not vital to the
timeline or theology, and I myself do not know enough about it to subscribe
fully to this oft-criticized idea, but you may click here
and here or do an
internet search for more information on the theory if you wish.)
Day 5: Birds and fish (including, it seems, whales) are created,
and commanded to fill the earth according to their kind.
Day 6: Land animals are created. Adam is formed from the earth. A
garden is planted in Eden, and man is placed there.
Day 7: A day of rest. A glorious celebration of all that Yah has
made, and the institution of a permanent symbol of the spiritual rest that Adam
enjoyed, and that the redeemed sinners would later find in their Savior. (Mat
11:28)
Day 8(?): Some time after this, Yah creates an example of each
kind of animal for Adam to name, and also that he may choose a wife in order to
fulfill the command that Elohim gave him in Gen 1:28 to be fruitful and
multiply. He refers to the man as “them” in chapter one, because Eve is taken out
of Adam (Gen 2:23), so she is already spiritually a part of him. This
mystery is representative of Christ being brought forth from the Father, yet
being co-eternal with Him, having also existed from the beginning; and the
marriage thereafter is also a symbol of our joining to the Son through our
conversion (Eph 5:30-33). Adam names all the animals, but finds no suitable
companion. Eve is created specifically to be a companion for him. (Gen 2:18)
Day ?: Eve encounters the serpent, who has been awaiting his
chance to strike. (Gen 3:1-6) She is enticed to stumble at mankind’s one test,
and convinces Adam to do the same. Death and entropy are introduced into the
universe and everything begins to fall apart.
See The Sar’im Chronicles, starting with Book 1: The Empyrean War for a much more detailed record of the War in Heaven elsewhere on this website.
David.
*It should be noted
that references to constellations are not in themselves astrology, a practice
strongly condemned in the Bible. (Isa 47:13,14) The stars were given for “signs
and seasons” as Genesis (1:14) itself declares, and the book of Job contains
more than one reference to these signs in the sky, such as Arcturus (Ursa
Major), Orion, and Pleiades. (Job 9:9, 38:31,32) This once useful system has
been perverted into the horoscope we know today, which attempts to use these
patterns to foretell the future of individuals apart from genuine,
Spirit-inspired prophecy.