I think I’ve asked this before but I’m going to ask it again.
When do you think Satan was created, not a major point because all we have to understand was that he was created and now doesn’t see eye to eye with God, which is perhaps something of an obvious understatement.
I’m reading Josephus and he finishes his first chapter like this. “Moreover, Moses, after the seventh day was over begins to talk philosophically; and concerning the formation of man, says thus: (skipping to the ending)…He also made Eve liable to the inconveniency of breeding, and the sharp pains of bringing forth children; and this because she persuaded Adam with the same arguments wherewith the serpent had persuaded her, and had thereby brought him into a calamitous condition. He also deprived the serpent of speech, out of indignation at his malicious disposition towards Adam. Besides this, he inserted poison under his tongue, and made him an enemy to men; and suggested to them, that they should direct their strokes against his head, that being the place wherein lay his mischievous designs towards men, and it being easiest to take vengeance on him, that way. And when he had deprived him of the use of his feet, he made him to go rolling all along, and dragging himself upon the ground. And when God had appointed these penalties for them, he removed Adam and Eve out of the garden into another place.”
If Jo is “quoting” Moses then Satan, as the enemy of mankind, is created as such after he suggests Eve eats of the tree. We know that Lucifer as an angle has great power and responsibility and is prideful but could have been the “last straw” in his condemnation?
10 comments:
I suppose it could have been a big sticking point.
In this instance, Satan "won" a sort of contest with God.
But, in essence, he didn't win per se, but furthered the concept of "free will".
Adam and Eve were given the simplest version of free will in that they could eat whatever fruit they wanted except one.
But, once evil was discovered by submitting to it, free will was so much more complicated.
But, Satan was already the cast down Satan at that time that we know.
However, if you look at Job, Satan approached God, well after the Garden incident, and proposed a contest of sorts over Job.
So, Satan could still make contact with God at the time.
Jesus, however, says that he "saw Satan fall from Heaven like lightning" Luke 10:18
He was apparently referring to the fact that Satan's demons (also fallen angels) were in subjection to him and his disciples who could now cast out demons.
But, the fact is that Satan apparently was already bad from the very beginning of the Earth.
The passage from Is 14:12 tells of Satan's (aka Lucifer "morning star") fall, but doesn't make clear "when" it was.
For all we know, it could have been before the creation of the universe.
One thing we DO know, though, is that Satan was defeated once and for all by Jesus.
1 Cor 15:54 " But when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory."
Then there's the symbolic chaining of Satan found in Rev 20:2
"He seized the dragon, the old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole inhabited earth, and bound him for a thousand years,"
Of course, this refers to Satan's power being diminished due to Jesus taking away the "keys of death" from Satan as referred to in Rev 1:18.
In other words, I don't think we can ever know with certainty when Satan fell, but we do know that it was pride and he was, and in some ways still is, powerful.
The fall is a strange question as far as time is concerned because I’ve heard interpretations that state when God created the world, being the whole entire thing from the first start to the very last, and all the stuff in it in those first six days God said his creation was “good”.
Having a fallen angel in the batch wouldn’t constitute anything that was “good”. That argument would suggest that Satan had to have fallen somewhere between day 8 and the incident at the tree.
Obviously JC would have seen it because regardless of the actual time the event happened he would have been there.
Again, in the great scheme of things it may not matter that much but part of my interest in it falls back onto the whole young earth idea. If the Hebrew translation is right each one of those “days” was a real day as we experience them now and there is no room for Gap Theorists to stake their claim. That then debunks Satan falling during that time and subsequently the whole idea of the 1st, 2nd and eventual 3rd earth falls flat. Well, it falls flat outside of the obvious reason that it’s complete total crap and this helps just that much more.
Yeah, but Satan and the Angels all existed before the creation of the world...
Even though Angels are created beings, they were present and alive before the universe was formed from what I understand.
Gen 1:26 says:
"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 birds of the sky, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.'"
The word, "our" indicates that there were other spiritual beings besides God/the Godhead there at the time. Hence angels existed prior to creation.
This also lends credence to the idea that Satan's fall could have been prior to creation.
But, all in all we don't know for sure.
I always felt the “let us” and “our” was basically like God talking to himself.
Still one of the points would be when did Satan fall, our concept of time doesn’t fit very easily into God and the angels timeline though they were created beings and seemingly are subject to a world where time is relative, not being beyond time.
If the angels existed prior to the creation of the world then Satan would have still been good because, as I stated previously, everything was “good.” Plus if the angels were put here to help “tend” various aspects of our world and watch out for us what would they have done prior to us being here.
It’s all very strange and subjective to speculation to things we really can’t know about and may or may not really matter anyway.
Well, "good" is a relative term. God used the word "good" to bescribe man, but man had free choice and screwed up.
God created the angels as "good" too and with free will too. He loves the angels like he loves us, but apparently the angels only get one shot. They've already been given Heaven. If they screw that up, they're out!
So here's my question. You've got God sitting in heaven. He creates the angels and satan who isn't really satan at the time just another heavenly being.
They've got free will and all, but what makes them fall? I mean there was no satan to tempt satan.
We always say satan is the tempter, but if satan fell, then is there some other "evil" force beyond satan?
I'd also like to add that I find pleasure in this disucssion taking place under the title of a Motley Crue song
That's a creepy thought Brew...
If he was an angel in Heaven, and we all know there is no bad or evil in Heaven... and he had evil plans and thoughts, while an angel in Heaven, then by simple deductive reasoning, (not that this is how we should come to ANY spiritual conclution) We must assume that either:
a) God created evil
b) Satan created evil in spite of God's power
c) We can be tempted and have evil desires in Heaven
Just playing cast-out-angel's advocate
One question to ask is, "Is Satan Lucifer?" The short answer is no. Please see the following:
http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2215
That argument is reasonable. I don't think it's completely convincing since so many things in the Bible (Babylon specifically) are double-interpretations.
But, that particular passage isn't the only one that talks about Satan and his angels and their fall.
Rev 12: 7-9
"There was war in the sky. Michael and his angels made war on the dragon. The dragon and his angels made war.
They didn't prevail, neither was a place found for him any more in heaven.
The great dragon was thrown down, the old serpent, he 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."
In Job, Satan also went before God with the angels. God immediately picked him out and asked him where he came from.
Yahweh said to Satan, "Where have you come from?" Then Satan answered Yahweh, and said, "From going back and forth in the earth, and from walking up and down in it." Job 1:7
So, Satan was cast out, but could come before God as a diminished and lower creation.
No matter how you look at it, though, free will is God's greatest expressionof love in that he didn't make robots as His servants. He made living beings who can think and feel and reason for themselves. He extended this love to all of his servants.
Unfortunately, we are often tempted by our own evil desires.
James 1:14-15 "But each one is tempted, when he is drawn away by his own lust, and enticed. Then the lust, when it has conceived, bears sin; and the sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death."
This passage says nothing about Satan, but each man's own weakness. It's reasonable to think that Satan would have fallen prey to his own lusts, too.
With Adam and Eve, Satan just played on their lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and pride of life to get his desired outcome.
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