on 4 May 2023
Dear all at IPC,
We began to look last month at Christ’s victory over the Devil and I want us to think a little on the origin of the devil.
William Still says: “The Bible indicates the origin of the Devil more by hints than by direct statements”.
One of the things that we as Reformed Christians in the west struggle with is the whole realm of the unseen. We are reluctant to talk about angels even though the gospels are full of them. At every major point in Christ’s life, angels are present. Angels have a personality and intelligence. We are told in scripture that angels rejoice and worship and desire. There are times when they assume a physical body like we see at the resurrection of Christ, but ordinarily they are spiritual beings. The bible speaks of heavenly angels, good angels, elect angels but also bad angels and angels that sinned and have fallen.
Angels are creatures and so like all of creation have been made by God and for God. There weren’t rogue cells that escaped from a divine laboratory that gave birth to the devil. He came into existence at God’s command. Everything that God created was good (1 Tim 4:4, Gen 1:31). The word angel means messenger or minister and so God created him with that intention that he might do good and carry God’s message.
We are told in Job 1 and 2 that Satan was one of the angels, but we also learn in the prophetic vision of Ezekiel 28 speaking of the devil:“Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendour”.
And Isaiah 14 takes this development further:“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.”
Now admittedly these passages raise as many questions as they answer, but we are being told something of immense importance and significance. There is pride at the heart of the devil’s fall. Ezekiel is telling us the devil was unwilling to take his rightful place as created, he grasped at glory which was not his but belonged to God alone. He sought to exalt himself over God, he wanted his authority. It was flagrant ambition but fundamentally, pride!
Isaiah 14 uses the language of a fall. Again the picture is of one who is conspiring pridefully to a place that is not his. There are echoes of Genesis 3 where human beings are promised if they eat of the fruit they will be like God. Or Babel in Genesis 11 and the building of a tower that reaches to the heavens. Are these not echoes of a previous fall? Psalm 2 pictures the kings of earth and rulers banding together against the Lord’s united. Is Psalm 2 mirroring what took place amongst the angels?
In the New Testament Peter sheds more light – “God did not spare [the] angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment.” (2 Pet. 2:4)
And Jude 6 informs us: “The angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.”
Jesus tells us in John 8:44 “He’s been a murderer from the beginning”.
Before the creation of the world and the fall of man, there was a fall in heaven, there was a rebellion. Satan is the leader of a band of rebel angels.
In seeking to understand the origin of the Devil we are at the very limit of our understanding, trying to grasp the ungraspable and know the unknowable. There are many questions
about why does God allow the devil to exist? Why did he create knowing our world would fall into sin?
We know that with the advent of sin and evil we are able to grasp and understand something more of the love, grace, mercy and holiness of God in a way that we would not have been able to if we had stayed in our state of perfection. But still we do not know fully the reasons. We are creatures who cannot fathom the ways of our creator. We must humbly accept we do not know the answers to many of our questions. But that is not where we must end.
Wonderfully the story of Bible tells us that there was one who came into this world who was not proud, who did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made himself nothing taking the very nature of a servant (Philippians 2 ). The Son of God appeared to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8). The devil is defeated, he is chained, the authority he does have is very limited, and his time is nearly up.
The origins of the devil are not absolutely clear, but the end of Satan certainly is. Defeat!
Your minister and friend,
Paul