One of the first posts I made on my old Prophecy Blog was about the timing of Satan being cast out of Heaven. But now that my basic view of Revelation has changed to Post-Mil/Partial Preterist (with some Historicism elements) I can't simply copy/paste all that here. Plus I did diverge onto some other tangents I don't want to be a thing on this Blog.
There are two views on the timing of the Fall of Satan that can be valid and I currently haven't made up my mind which I prefer, and one of those can be further sub divided based on how you interpret Revelation. They are...
1. During the First Advent of Christ based on Luke 10:18 and/or John 12:31, 14:30 & 16:11.
2. Still yet future when Revelation was written.
But first I need to explain why the popular Pre-Creation or Pre-Adamic Fall of Satan view is 100% wrong and Anti-Biblical.
There is only one clear Hebrew Bible reference to this topic and it's in Isaiah 14 often viewed as starting in verse 12. With a second passage that I do view as possibly relevant but not in a way that helps with the timing in Ezekiel 28:11-19 (the first 10 verses were about a human ruler of Tyre the "King of Tyre") where Satan is identified with Melqart it's patron deity who's name means King of the City. In Isaiah 14 I don't view there as being any human ruler in mind, the King of Babylon is Satan from the start.
In Isaiah it is specifically something that happens contemporary with or soon after the Fall of Babylon that Isaiah started talking about in chapter 13 which was at least still future when Isaiah gave this Prophecy. At the soonest it was the destruction Babylon suffered as a result of it's revolt agaisnt Assyria in 652 BC (which is 100% what I view Isaiah 21 as being about), or you could view it as the fall to Cyrus or a further fall under Darius, or some event of the Hellenistic era involving the Seleucids, or the same event Revelation 17-18 is talking about. But certainly not Pre-Adamic.
Isaiah 14 also foretells this being who Fell from Heaven being imprisoned in "The Pit" that they will eventually be cast out of, that's obviously Revelation 20.
Revelation 12:9 and 20:2 confirm that the Serpent of Genesis 3 (that's the only thing "Old Serpent" could mean) is the same being as Satan, The Devil and The Great Dragon (which I view as Satan identified with Sobek in Ezekiel 29). But it does not need an origin story, temping Eve was itself this creature's first act of rebellion against YHWH.
Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15 are both clear that Sin and Death began with Adam's Sin, there was no prior rebellion having already messed things up. At the end of Genesis 1 God says everything is Very Good, so still no Rebellion yet.
Job depicts Satan as still residing in heaven serving as God's prosecutor and Revelation 12 agrees, that's what calling it our Accuser means.
Pagan Mythologies like having a Cosmology where there were already Wars between the gods before Human History began. Greek mythology has several from Kronos overthrowing Ouranos and then Ophion to the Titanarchy and the Gigantarchy and the war with Typhon. Egyptian Mythology had the wars between Ra and Apep as well as Horus vs Set. Babylonian mythology had Marduk overthrowing Tiamat, the Ugarit Baal cycle has Hadad rebelling agaisnt El and also in conflict with Yam and Mot. Norse Mythology has the Aseir-Vanir War and Japanese Mythology had the War of the Heavenly Kami against the Earthly Kami and the evil Kami known as Amatsu-Mikaboshi, and also Susanoo's conflict with Amaterasu which cast him out of heaven.
Judeo-Christian adaptation of this theme do not begin with something that looks exactly like Paradise Lost. We see it in Enochian Literature both in 1st Enoch and 2nd Enoch being tied to Angel-Human Hybrid Heresy. Then Wisdom of Solomon said it was by the Enyy of The Devil that Sin entered the world, an idea I believe Paul was in part responding to in Romans 5. Then we see it in Rabbinic Judaism.
"In the days before Creation, Rahab, Prince of the Sea, rebelled against God. When commanded: 'Open your mouth, Prince of the Sea, and swallow all of the world's waters,' he cried: 'Lord of the Universe, leave me in peace!' Whereupon God kicked him to death and sank his carcase below the waves, since no land beast could endure its stench." (Bavli Baba Bathra 74b; Numeri Rabba 18:22; Midrash Wayosha, 46.)
That's why Paul warned us not to regard "Jewish Fables" in Titus 1:14.
Then in Christian history some of it's first manifestations were Gnostic Heresies where YHWH is the Evil Rebel against the True Creator and Jesus is identified with the Serpent of Genesis 3. The false Two-Seedline Theory is also sometimes connected.
But eventually the "Lucifer" as a Rebel Angel who became Satan was standardized with the modern default framework being John Milton's Paradise Lost, and then Tolkien and C.S. Lewis created their fictional variations and then even later came Anime/Manga like Angel Sanctuary.
Now onto considering the two views I do consider Biblically Valid.
On my old Blog I firmly took a still yet future when Revelation was written view, I didn't much consider the John verses and dismissed Luke 10:18 as an example of when Prophets use past tense language to emphasize the certainty of something, indeed most of the Prophets I've cited here did that but it's the context that makes clear it's a Prophecy about what at least at that time was the future. The context in Luke 10:18 is different however, the context is The Disciples returning from their Mission and Jesus saying this as if He saw it happening as an effect that was caused by their actions.
Honestly I'm starting to suspect the only way to make sense of all these passage is to take a view of Revelation that is more abstract in it's timing then I'd ever considered before. A theory where Luke referred to when Satan was Cast out of Heaven and then John was talking about when he'll be Cast into the Abyss seemingly tying it to the Drama of His Passion and Resurrection.
This is a subject I'll have to return to since I don't know how to figure it all out right now, I need to think about it more. But the key thing I want to make clear here is that there was no Pre-Genesis Fall of Satan.
Whether the man child is the Church or Christ himself, it seems clear to me that, since this event follows his catching away, Satan's fall cannot precede Jesus' earthly life. This is further backed up by the fact that the believers rejoice at this fall representing the end of his ability to accuse them before God. There is thus a church by the time Satan loses access to Heaven. Revelation 12 portrays the flight of the woman into the wilderness as a consequence of Satan's fall so I'd say that determining the event symbolized by that flight pinpoints that war in Heaven.
ReplyDeleteYes I would basically agree with all that.
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