Doctrine of the Angelic Conflict, part 6 – The first sin. Eze 28:12-17Title: Doctrine of the Angelic Conflict, part 6 – The first sin. Eze 28:12-17
3. God’s greatest angelic creature made to be closest to Him and most beautiful and gifted and the tragedy of arrogance.
The Angelic Conflict is the result of “star of the morning, son of the dawn, anointed cherub who guards God’s person as precious” falling in arrogance, rejecting God’s reconciliation and challenging God’s +R and +J.
Ezek 28:11 Again the word of the Lord came to me saying,
Ezek 28:12 "Son of man, take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, 'Thus says the Lord God, "You had the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
This is evidence to the fact that God created the beings of the spirit world in ranks and orders, putting this anointed spirit at the top. If we examine the words carefully through a lens we will see that he was a king, a prophet, and a priest.
Lucifer upon his creation was placed by God as the highest, most beautiful, most powerful and wisest of the creatures of God.
Ezek 28:13 "You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was your covering: The ruby, the topaz, and the diamond; The beryl, the onyx, and the jasper; The lapis lazuli, the turquoise, and the emerald; And the gold, the workmanship of your settings and sockets, Was in you. On the day that you were created They were prepared.
Principles: Evil had a beginning and it will have an end.
The other principle of importance is that that which shows Lucifer’s magnificence from the moment of his creation. He awoke in the first moment of his existence in the full-orbed beauty and power of his exalted position; surrounded by all the magnificence which God gave him. He never had known a lesser moment.
Lucifer never saw himself as anything less than exalted above all angels by God and had no experience or other witness of the result of opposing God’s will.
He saw himself as above all the hosts in power, wisdom and beauty. Only at the throne of God itself did he see more than he himself possessed.
Certainly there was no outward evidence that would show him the futility of opposing a second will to that of God. There was no example of sin in the universe.
Ezek 28:14 "You were the anointed cherub who covers, And I placed you there. You were on the holy mountain of God; You walked in the midst of the stones of fire.
Continuing to devise the pre-fall existence of Lucifer, it says that he was put on the holy mountain of God.
“mountain of God” – a ruler of God’s creation “anointed” – elected to king “covers” – the priestly function of guarding God’s preciousness.
An anointed cherub who guards the things of God as precious indicates Lucifer as a king and a priest unto God, placed there or elected by God, and as such he led the other angels in worship of God.
Lucifer is the first kingpriest, yet due to his opposition, he was replaced first by Melchizedek and then forever by the humanity of Jesus Christ.
His place, his sanctuaries [verse 18] are described by stones and fire upon the mountain of God, and yet we see something very similar.
Ezek 28:14 "You were the anointed cherub who covers, And I placed you there. You were on the holy mountain of God; You walked in the midst of the stones of fire.
Eze 1:26 shows the station of the cherubim just beneath the glory of the throne made of sapphire and in Ex 24:10 we see TLJC with sapphire under His feet on a mountain of fire.
One could argue that Moses was a leader of Israel and a priest and therefore a type of the permanent replacement of the rebellious angel – the humanity of Jesus Christ.
Some argue that this makes Jesus Christ only to be a creature like satan, in the same station as satan. I would say again, books written for grownups shouldn’t be talked about by children. Yes the humanity of Christ was created, it had a beginning at the virgin birth, but the soul of the humanity of Jesus Christ is divine in origin and inseparable from the deity of the same one. The mystery of the hypostatic union, clearly taught in the Scripture, is to be mixed with faith and not debated by small minded creatures in their small arena of rationalization.
So we see in Israel, mimicked what once was in the past when there was but one will in God’s the universe and one high priest, king, and prophet or communicator of God’s word to all His creation. At Sinai you have a mountain, cloud [glory], sapphire, and fire describing where God is and where He communicates His will to Moses so that Moses may communicate that will to all of Israel. Lucifer was given the same privilege.
tabernacle
And not only with Moses, but with the family of Moses, Aaron, we have the line of high priests having full access to the Holy of Holies which represented the third heaven and where the Shekinah glory dwelt. The Tabernacle was set up to represent the three heavens; earth’s atmosphere, the stellar universe, and the abode of God. Lucifer had access to all three just as the high priest did. Every time satan saw this it was a reminder of what he lost and how easily he was replaced and even replaced with a creature which was far less of a specimen then he was.
I quote Barnhouse from The Invisible War: We thus see that he stood between God and the creation. All of his authority was derived from God and God worked through him. Here, in the presence of God, Lucifer brought the worship of a universe of creatures and received those commands from the Almighty which, as the prophet of God, he transmitted to the worshiping creation. All was order, all was harmony. There was only one will in the universe and that was the will of God. Only one will. That fact constitutes the difference between eternity and time. In eternity there is none but the will of God; in time there is more than one will. [end quote]
Time will end, yet while it goes on there will always be conflict. Christians trying to clean up the devil’s world are wasting their time and they are promoting the cause of the one who wants to be like the Most High.
No need to get all crazy like much of the human race does over the dire condition of the earth or the people on it. Rebellion, evil, and sin have only existed in God’s universe only recently and it only lasts but a minute amount of time when compared with eternity, past and future. However, in the very small span of time that God has graciously given to you, you can have an eternal impact by bringing glory to the character, essence, and integrity of God.
Ezek 28:15 "You were blameless in your ways [one will that lined up with God’s will – Righteousness] From the day you were created, Until unrighteousness was found in you.
The unrighteousness, the first sin, was the sin of pride. The detail of this thinking, which was in him before it became an overt act of rebellion, as it always is, is revealed in Isaiah 14in the five “I wills” of satan. We will get to that.
He never ascended to anything, he was never promoted; at his creation he was given this exalted position and never knew anything less.
Yet given choice in his soul, a volition, it would necessarily come to the best of them that something else might be possible. It wouldn’t happen right away since no one had ever done it or spoken about it, nor was it ever a thought in anyone, so Lucifer would go along, possibly for millions of years without the thought ever entering his mind, but then, one day, while the angels are worshipping and he communicating and they are entranced by his words and are responding back to him with reverence and joy over their great God does it enter his mind, “Couldn’t they be saying such things about me?” It would only take the smallest thought of it, just the possibility of it.
The reason for the fall was the first instance of arrogance in the universe which was in his own heart.
There is something about getting closer to the presence of God, each step closer means bowing lower.
John 3:30 He must increase, but I must decrease.
Being closer to God than any other angel meant the satan had to bow lower than any other angel, just as a mature believer must do in our time. There is a warning here. At some point this can begin to backfire if arrogance is allowed to take hold of the heart. Satan was the most beautiful, the smartest, the greatest singer, the greatest priest to God. The mature believer knows more doctrine and therefore more about God than 99.999% of the people on the planet. Satan was greater than all the angels and the only one greater than him was God. The mature believer is most likely the most spiritual guy in the room, in any room, and the only one more spiritual than him is Jesus Christ. This is the cross road of bowing lower or wanting more, and satan wanted more.
For a sinner, like all of us, the closer you get to the light the more glaring are going to be your dark attributes of your old nature. This can cause rebellion in the heart of the believer. Many have touched the barrier of SM only to turn back in arrogance in a great fall of reversionism.
James 4:8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
Drawing closer to God means more faith, more tests, more humility, more obvious flaws [not more flaws, more obvious become their nature] that will not leave, more submissiveness to His will, more responsibility, and a greater height to fall from – all of which open more areas for arrogance.
Matt 28:19-20 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."
Acts 1:7-8 He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.
No one was closer to Christ at this time than these 11 men – think of it, eleven out of the population of the whole world. And what were they told to do, sit back, relax, I’ve won, grab a beach and an umbrella drink and soak up rays until I return? No, they were challenged to the end of themselves. They would do more work, have more responsibility, need more wisdom and more humility, with more tests and more obvious understanding of their flaws that would stand in the way [there’s nothing like setting out to do something in the service of God and fall flat on your face because of the OSN – you gonna quit?], as well as a greater opportunity for arrogance as they would become incredibly popular and honored among many though despised by more.
When you’re young in the faith, what do you have to be proud about? Certainly you can’t be proud of your wisdom, that is if you’re honest enough to know that you don’t know. Yet when you do know and you do see and you recognize that others don’t then you have something to be arrogant about. Be careful with wisdom since it can be used to evil as well as good.
Satan knew more about God then anyone and he turned it into evil in an effort to attack God’s essence. |