The Fall before the Fall
… so also the Messiah, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him.
Hebrews 9:28 HCSB
In ‘Disaster From Disobedience 2’ we considered the ‘In the beginning’ creation narrative. Genesis continues with the creation of man. We know that the fall of mankind and our expulsion from Eden will follow, but consider first an earlier significant event, the fall of angels.
Luke 10:
… “Lord, even the demons submit to us in Your name.”
18 He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a lightning flash.
19 Look, I have given you the authority … over all the power of the enemy; nothing will ever harm you. 20 However, don’t rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
Christ Jesus instructs followers of what only the Son of Man from before creation can know. Angels disobeyed God, Creator and Master of all He Created.
Yet witness here Christ’s authority over fallen angels. Demons submit to God by the Apostle.s command in Christ’s authoritative Name.
Angels – Other Beings who Serve
Angels were created also to serve God. When? We can’t be certain, but we do know that it was prior to the fall of man. And like us, they were also given freedom for obedience.
I suppose it is possible that angels and man were created at the same time, since Adam and Eve may have lived many years in Eden until the fall. Yet the presence of the serpent in Eden would seem to indicate an earlier creation of angels.
Like mankind, some angels rebelled against the purpose for which the Lord God created them. God created angels as several, specific types of spirit-creatures. Angels are not the spirits of those who have died, but were created as beings in heaven. And like the creatures of earth, not all angels are alike.
Picture angels as many individual and diverse spirit-beings just as the creatures of this Earth vary. Visualize their lives in a real and existing, unseen dimension, separate of this visible place.
Unlike the Lord, no spirit rules over the day or fills flesh with the power of life! Angels are messengers for good or for evil, depending on who they serve.
The Fallen Star
Satan is just one of the disobedient angels of darkness, posing falsely as hope for mankind.
Returning briefly to a time after the fall of Jerusalem, the Prophet Isaiah had predicted Israel’s return after seventy years of captivity. Isaiah also interestingly described hell and the fall of Satan.
Isaiah 14:
12 “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!
13 For you have said in your heart:
‘I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God…
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,
I will be like the Most High.’
15 Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol,
To the lowest depths of the Pit…
Disaster is not punishment for sin, but consequence of the fall.
Job chronicles several conversations between the Lord and Satan. Here Satan comes before the Lord asking for permission to inflict evil upon Job, even though God sites Job as blameless. The common scene is Satan as prosecutor, accusing and condemning the criminal to death for some sin; even tempting man to turn again God and follow his own demise into eternal punishment.
Job 1
6 One day the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them. 7 The Lord asked Satan, “Where have you come from?”
“From roaming through the earth,” Satan answered Him, “and walking around on it.”
Beware of the tempter
Beware of what you cannot see, for Satan roams the earth for the prize of sinners tempted into disobedience against God.
Satan rules unseen spirits and principalities of darkness. Whether original sin, where the tempter is mentioned as the serpent or in Isaiah, where Lucifer appears as false light, Satan seeks disobedient sinners.
Even now that prince of devils opposes righteous men and women who seek to serve God and Christ faithfully.
8 Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? No one else on earth is like him, a man of perfect integrity, who fears God and turns away from evil.”
9 Satan answered the Lord, “Does Job fear God for nothing? 10 Haven’t you placed a hedge around him, his household, and everything he owns? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But stretch out your hand and strike everything he owns, and he will surely curse you to your face.”
The entire saga of Job begs the question from his wife, his friends and the reader, “Why would God allow this to happen to ‘a man of perfect integrity, who fears God and turns away from evil?’”
The Lord even permits Job to question the intentions of the Almighty! However the LORD answers Job and the readers at length.
HE IS THE LORD! … and man is not.
Nor is Satan, or angels; kings or idols. God IS God and we are not. Yet we would do well to remember the tempter’s appeal to our own desires, even as in Eden and since the inherited evil of ‘adam.
Angels who serve God
Much more is written of angels serving the fallen prince of the darkness and angels who remain messengers and worshipers of the Lord God.
Though our series addresses our disobedience, let’s close with a brief description by a Prophet of spirits near to the Living God. And like other descriptions of heaven, our mortal minds can barely take-in the immense glory of the scene.
Ezekiel 1
4 I looked, and there was a whirlwind coming from the north, a huge cloud with fire flashing back and forth and brilliant light all around it. In the center of the fire, there was a gleam like amber. 5 The likeness of four living creatures came from it, and this was their appearance:
They looked something like a human, 6 but each of them had four faces and four wings. 7 Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet were like the hooves of a calf, sparkling like the gleam of polished bronze. 8 They had human hands under their wings on their four sides. All four of them had faces and wings. 9 Their wings were touching. The creatures did not turn as they moved; each one went straight ahead.
10 Their faces looked something like the face of a human, and each of the four had the face of a lion on the right, the face of an ox on the left, and the face of an eagle. 11 That is what their faces were like.
Their wings were spread upward; each had two wings touching that of another and two wings covering its body. 12 Each creature went straight ahead. Wherever the Spirit wanted to go, they went without turning as they moved…
Throne of the LORD
25 A voice came from above the expanse over their heads; when they stopped, they lowered their wings. 26 Something like a throne with the appearance of lapis lazuli was above the expanse over their heads.
On the throne, high above, was someone who looked like a human…
Read on if you like, or read other descriptions of the awe of the Lord and of the heavenly servants which include angels.
Man is fallen and sin has consequence. Next, we will return to the fall of man.
To be continued…
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