The Mystery of Lucifer

If God created everything good in creation, where did evil come from?  Before we can tackle the origins of evil, we have to get our thinking up-to-date on Lucifer.

Everybody knows who Lucifer is, right?  The Devil, Satan, mentioned throughout the Bible as the archangel who formerly led the worship of heaven, but who becomes jealous of God, leads a revolt against God, gets kicked out of heaven, tempts Adam and Eve to sin, , and now commands legions of demons to entrap frail humanity in a battle to the death with God.  Right?  Actually, none of these ideas are found in the pages of the Bible.  It’s a myth spun by medieval religious people under the influence of Aristotelian cosmology and later reinforced by John Milton in Paradise Lost and John Bunyan in Pilgrim’s Progress to explain the source and on-going allure of evil in the world.

Jesus said the devil was a murderer from the beginning and a liar (John 8:44). The devil has sinned from the beginning (I John 3:8).  So, Lucifer he was never an archangel in heaven with God.  Murderers don’t live with God (I John 3:15).  So, that means the first two chapters of the book of Job in which Satan is supposedly talking to God in the heavenly throne room is obviously a parable, a story, and not a theological fact. Yes, 2 Corinthians 11:14 says Satan can masquerade as an angel of light, but that’s not who Lucifer is. So, how do many Bible-believing Christians get the idea that Lucifer is the fallen cherub?

To begin to answer that question we go to the only verse in the Bible that actually mentions Lucifer (and that in only a few translations these days): Isaiah 14:12-15

12 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! 13 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: 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. 15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

This is from the old King James Version which was based on the awful Latin Vulgate translation done by Jerome in the 3^rd century.  The word Jerome translated as the name Lucifer is not a name at all.  It’s a word that means “bringer of light.”  It’s the same word used to describe Christ in 2 Peter 1:19 (“…until the Day Star arise in your hearts.”).  Most Biblical scholars today agree that Isaiah 14:12 is not talking about Satan.  Isaiah is speaking to a man, the King of Babylon, accusing him of having destroyed a wonderful opportunity, just like another man, this shining one, who wanted to make himself God and was brought down to death.  Isaiah is not talking about Satan, but Adam, created resplendent in the image of God, but who wished to exalt himself in the place of God and is then cut down to dirt.

Here’s another Old Testament text that is thought to pertain to Lucifer: Ezekiel 28: 12-16.

   The Lord God says,

  “You were the signet of perfection,

    full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.

13 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.

14 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.

15 You were blameless in your ways

    from the day you were created,

    till unrighteousness was found in you.

                Many evangelical scholars say this describes Satan.  This is where they get the idea of his beauty and supposed favored status and the fact that he was in Eden.  But there was another in that Garden to whom this text applies in far more exacting detail.  But reading it through the spectacles of Aristotelian cosmology doesn’t allow him to come clearly into view. 

                Adam was not created a human being like us. What do we know about him from the Genesis account?  He had face-to-face fellowship with the 2^nd person of the Trinity; they walked and talked in the Garden. Adam was perfect.  Now, follow me carefully here: whatever Jesus is now, that’s what Adam was in the Garden.  The Bible refers to Jesus as the Second or the Last Adam (see Romans 5:12-21); that is, Jesus comes to live the life of obedience required by the Father to undo the curse of Adam’s sin upon us all.  Jesus dies, but is resurrected a new kind of human, called the first-fruits, the first of many brothers and sisters.  Jesus ascends out of our visual sight, but still operates and reigns over the world from the higher dimensions of glory. Remember, heaven isn’t up, hell isn’t down, and people’s destiny is not decided by their ability to blindly believe what ecclesiastical authorities tell them.  Jesus is now reigning as the king Adam was created to be.  Colossians clearly identifies the image of God as who the risen Christ now is.  When Adam was created he existed as Christ now exists, in a higher plane of existence. Although the Hebrew of Ezekiel 28:12 is uncertain, a literal translation says “You seal up the sum,” or “you are the finished standard.”  Adam was created in God’s image in ways we can never conceive.  He was the same kind of spirit-man that Jesus now is.  The jewels mentioned in verse 13 were the stones that adorned the high priest and the king of Israel.  Adam was given dominion as Jesus now reigns with dominion.  The way these jewels reflect the light and become beautiful was how Adam was to live – reflecting in his obedience and stewardship the light of the Father for all creation. Because we’ve been taught to think of Adam as a person like us, we don’t think of him as a guardian “cherub.”  This verse is not telling us that Satan is an angel, but that Adam was made of spirit-flesh as Jesus is now and he was the guardian of all creation.  I interpret Ezekiel’s description of Adam “moving between the stones of fire” as a metaphor for Adam’s ability to break the boundaries of space-time and exist simultaneously in the higher orders of celestial holy space.  The Serpent never had the glory that was given to Adam.  Satan didn’t fall in Eden, but Adam did.

              And that brings us to another text widely quoted as authenticating the identity of Lucifer with a rebellious archangel in heaven: Revelation 12:7-9.

                      Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon
                      and his angels fought back, 8 but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them
                      in heaven. 9 And 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.

               Dispensational interpreters who make Revelation a roadmap of the end-times think this text describes a vision of something that took place before the creation.  This is the story of Satan’s fall, they say.  As I said previously, it is inconceivable that if Jesus is telling the truth that the Devil has always been a murderer and a liar, then it seems to clearly indicate that Satan was never in the presence of a holy God and that there never could be a civil war in the celestial spheres where God the Father is totally sovereign.  Aristotelian cosmology is dualistic; that is, it’s all about good versus evil and a powerful Satan frustrating the plans of God.  But this is not Scriptural and certainly not rational.  However, a slight shift in cosmology allows us to look at this text in a way that is less mystical.

               First, based purely on the text, the vast majority of the book of Revelation is pre-Christian; it doesn’t mention Jesus and speaks of the Messiah’s arrival in only abstract visionary terms.  There’s nothing in it about the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, a fact which, if it had been known by someone writing at the end of the first century as many claim, would have never gone unmentioned.  Second, studies of theology and computer analysis of language and word patterns used in the visions of Revelation match only one John  from the first century – John Baptizer.  In the early days of Jesus’ ministry, many were confused about who the Messiah was.  Many thought it was John.  In fact, didn’t Jesus say John Baptizer was the greatest human being who ever lived! (Luke 7:28).  We know that Jesus’ first disciples had been disciples of the John. There had not been a prophet in Israel for 400 years and this guy shows up proclaiming the need for salvation and getting ready.  Ready for what?  I believe Revelation chapters 4-19 preserve the visions and preaching of John Baptizer.  He had come as did the prophets of old to warn about the destruction of Israel.  The version of the book in our Bibles was compiled after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD to which was added a preface and epilogue.  I know this short explanation is not enough to convince anyone of what I am saying, but suffice it to say, everything that occurs in chapters 4-19 can be accounted for in the events of the Jewish-Roman War as chronicled by the Jewish historian, Josephus.  But let me tell you what 12:7-9 actually refers to.

                 There is and only can be one archangel.  Arch-angel means First or Leading Angel.  Throughout the Old Testament we see the 2^nd person of the Trinity referred to as the Leader of the Heavenly Army, or the Angel of the Yahweh.  John Baptizer called him Michael, a title as well as a name that means “one like God.”  So, what if Michael and his “angels” actually refers to The Messiah and his messengers (the word angel means messenger)?   We would look in the Gospels to see if this in fact happened.  That brings us to Luke 10:18.  Jesus sends out the seventy (his “angels”) and they are casting out spirits and healing the sick.  They return to tell Jesus what amazing things they have witnessed and Jesus says (and here I give a literal translation), “I was watching Satan fall like lightening.”  Jesus is probably speaking metaphorically about the collapse of Satan’s grip on mankind at the hands of his anointed messengers.  But even if you want to believe that Satan fell from heaven, according to the verb tense and the simplest meaning of Luke 10:18, it didn’t happen until 28 AD.  Jesus said in the Upper Room, “Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out” (John 12:31).  Satan didn’t fall before the foundation of the world; it’s happening during Messiah’s ministry.  Paul understood that demonic power was now restrained (2 Thessalonians 2:6).  I understand this restraint to refer to The Devil’s inability to move between the Heavenlies and time-space, but appears trapped here in our world.

                  My best study of all the texts of Scripture reveal that Satan was never in heaven with God.  (I’ll have much more to say about Satan’s true identity in the next lesson.)  The Devil was in the Garden as the Serpent.  But Adam was the only one who fell from the beautiful celestial being he was created to be (spirit-man King of creation) to something cursed and dying in a mud-body.  Genesis 2 says God breathed into some dust and Adam became a living nephesh (a Hebrew word usually translated soul).  Genesis 1:20 says God created animals with nepesh-life. Nephesh is animal life. Adam was not created homo-sapiens; he falls to homo-sapiens.  When Cain leaves the garden and takes a wife (Genesis 4:17), she is a species descended from great apes.  DNA research now confirms that humans intermarried with Neanderthals and that most people descended from Europeans may have as much as 9% Neanderthal DNA circulating in their blood.  Could this solve the age old mystery of the sons of God intermarry with the daughters of men (Gen. 6:2)?

                  Modern skeptics have a tough time understanding how God can condemn them because of Adam’s sin.  Their understanding of sin is limited to Aristotelian moralism.  The mud-body is the curse because the mud-body dies.  Sin is not primarily moral; it is existential.  It’s what we are, not merely what we do.  Understanding the created God-image that was Adam helps us understand the magnitude of Christ’s sacrifice.  He walked and talked with Adam among the “trees” of celestial Eden.  And when Adam lied and exposed his rebellion, it was Christ who said, I’ll step into time and redeem the fallen creature to its true glory.

               So, if Lucifer is Adam, who is Satan?  That’s where we turn in our next lesson.

The Mystery of Creation

Medieval Aristotelian cosmology, with its view of heaven as up, hell as down, Earth at the center of everything, and blind faith the determinant of destiny, creates a conflict between faith and science.  That feud, sustained throughout the Enlightenment, continues into our own time by perhaps well-intentioned but woefully uninformed defenders of the Bible.  The fact is: they aren’t defending the Bible at all, only their cosmology.

            A study of ancient texts shows that the Bible’s creation story probably evolved over time in response to the cultural myths of Israel’s conquerors and neighbors.  There are at least five creation stories in the Bible.  The one that appears in Genesis 1 and which most people think of first was actually written later than some of the others.  (If you believe that Moses actually scribed the words of the Torah as we now read them, I’m afraid your Bible knowledge may need some updating.  If that were so, how could Moses record his own death and events thereafter?  Ancient people understood that a tradition could date to the time of Moses without necessarily having been written by him.)   A remnant of what was perhaps Israel’s oldest creation story is preserved in Psalm 74:13-17.

You divided the sea by your might;
you broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters.
You crushed the heads of Leviathan;
you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness.
You split open springs and brooks;
you dried up ever-flowing streams.
Yours is the day, yours also the night;
you have established the heavenly lights and the sun.
You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth;
you have made summer and winter.

                Perhaps dating to the late Bronze Age, this account of a battle with sea monsters and establishing the sun, moon and seasons is very similar to another Bronze Age creation story – the Enuma Elish from Babylon.  In this text two sea monsters meet and battle, one destroys the other and from it emerge the rest of the created order.  Elements from Genesis 2:4-25 can be found in the Canaanite (or Phoenician) creation story.  Both mention four rivers that nourish the earth and the mountains covered by the waters.   This is similar to another ancient remnant of a story preserved in Psalm 104:5ff. In the Egyptian creation story told at the temple of Memphis, the Creator Ptah speaks everything into existence, much like Genesis 1.  The ancient Persians believed in a seven-stage creation with an expanse that divided the waters.  Do you see how the Israelites borrowed freely from the cosmology of their neighbors and conquerors to create their understanding of the world’s origins? The main difference was that behind all these elements was the One God who had called Abraham and rescued Israel from Egypt.  Another difference was that Israel’s God was universal and not, like other myths, localized to a single place or tribe.

                I haven’t even scratched the surface of this complex topic.  But the point I am trying to make is that the Bible updates its own cosmology.  Unlike modern fundamentalists who insist on 24 hour days in creation even though the sun isn’t created until the fourth day, our ancient ancestors in the faith did not deny foreign cosmologies as much as they made them serve Yahweh-Elohim.  And today, we need not make an enemy of science  What does it mean to say science is wrong about the fossil record and astronomy as we sit in our air-conditioned rooms lit by artificial light reading this article on computers?  We have become totally dependent on science to provide us with the basic necessities of our lives.  Why deny its power for good to inform a rational faith?  Science and faith butt heads only if you accept the medieval notion that faith is the irrational acceptance of improbability declared true by some ecclesiastical potentate – a truly Aristotelian concept.

                There are many who have written much better than I can on the agreement of faith and authentic science in telling the story of the origins of the universe (see Genesis and the Big Bang: The Discovery of Harmony between Modern Science and the Bible by Gerald L. Schroeder).  Yes, there is much inauthentic science as there is inauthentic religion.  Let’s not get distracted by the polarizing arguments for and against evolution.  Some scientists make assumptions about evolution that they want to be true, but which are not yet supported by evidence. But there can be no doubt that species change and adapt to their environment.  And when we update our cosmology of Adam to actually agree with the Biblical record, the whole concept of humans being descended from apes becomes a moot point.

                The mystery of creation is not how it happened; science tells us how it happened.  The ancient Scriptures do a remarkable job of explaining to Bronze Age people not only what happened but, more importantly, Who was behind it all.  The Hebrew word “day” doesn’t simply refer to a 24 hour period as regulated by the sun, although it does mean that.  But in the creation story the Hebrew word yom (day) is used to describe an age, much like we might read, “In the day of the Lord” or “In the day of King so and so.”  It refers to a span of time. So how might we understand the mystery of creation from a perspective that glorifies Elohim and takes into account the facts as we now understand them.

The Biblical Narrative	The New Cosmology
The First Day
In a beginning, Elohim (the Triune God) created Heavens and Earth.	The Big Bang – all matter explodes from a single molecule and expands in all directions.
The earth was without form, void, and darkness was upon the face of the depths	When the Triune God began creating the Heavenlies and the cosmos, there was nothing material, only dark emptiness.
The Spirit of God is fluttering on face of waters...God says, “Let there be light.”	The Spirit of God pulsates and concentrates enormous energy so that when the Word of God says "Light!" there is an explosion of energy.
Elohim saw the light was good. He divided the light from the darkness…The first day.	The Holy Spirit rejoices and the Word worships the goodness of God as particles and waves expand through the emptiness and make something of nothing. This is the first age that continues to the present.
The Second Day
Let there be an expanse that divides waters above and waters below. Calls the expanse Heaven.	The Triune God divides the chaos of light and matter in two and sets a barrier between higher and lower dimensions. He calls the higher dimensions Heavenlies and the lower dimensions he calls space-time. This is the second age that continues to this day.
The Third Day
Dry land appears…earth brings for vegetation	The Triune God indents the fabric of space-time and causes great swirling nebula of matter and light to coagulate and cool forming stars, planets, and upon Earth God introduces life. This is the third age that continues to this day.
The Fourth Day
Sun and moon rule the sky (they become visible from Earth’s surface)	Our Sun bathes the Earth with energy.  Seas of water form as does the Pangaea land mass. Plants propagate and proliferate.  Photosynthesis creates the atmosphere. Trees reproduce and clean the air. Day and night, the Earth rotates on its axis; seasons begin as Earth attains its orbit in space-time collapsed by the mass of the sun.  This is the fourth age that continues to this day.
The Fifth Day
Waters bring forth life …fish and birds…sea monsters	In the seas animal life begins. Species adapt to opportunity and grow.  Amphibians come on land and other creatures swarm in the air. This is the fifth age that continues to this day.
The Sixth Day
Land creatures, reptiles, animals, cattle…people	Animals adapt to their environs; some creep on the bellies, others walk and run on all-fours, and hominids walk upright. They feed off the lush vegetation and proliferate. God's final creation is a being of unified diversity, like Himself, a body made in his spirit image. And this is the sixth age which continues to this day.
The Seventh Day
God rests	And then God stopped working. This is the seventh age that has not yet occurred. (see John 5:17, Romans 8:18-25, Rev. 21:1-8)

                Genesis 1 is a cosmology of existence, past, present and future.  It depicts the inception of creative processes that continue to this day.   According to Jesus who said his Father has never stopped working (John 5:17), we are still in the sixth age of creation during which God continues creating and re-creating human life on Earth.  But there is much confusion and downright ignorance about who Adam was and what our relationship to this shadowy being is in the grand scheme of creation.

            And that’s where we turn next.