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Satan?! A biblical timeline… not so much

9 years ago

471 words

I’m posting the answers to some questions I received a while back… Hope you enjoy. If you have any questions you think I could answer please let me know

The question I received was, “Was Satan kicked out of Heaven before God created the earth?”

First, let me say that there is very little systematized doctrine concerning Satan in the Bible. In other words, Satanology, which is related to Angelology because Satan is a fallen angle, is not a huge topic compared to many other theological topic. The Bible does not spend much time discussing the details of the history of the Devil. Instead, the biblical authors focus on the nature and character of God’s adversary.

The authors of the Bible were far more concerned with God so we should follow the example and spend a proportionate amount of time on these two. It is not wrong to have questions about Satan but it is sinful to dwell on the Devil instead of dwelling on the glory of the Creator God. Likewise, we must also settle with not knowing much about the subject and assume (I believe correctly) that the details are not that important. So, my first answer to the question is probably. Let’s look at what we do know about this topic.

First, Satan was an evil force when Adam and Eve were on the earth so his nature/disposition/etc had already gone from good to evil. I’m not sure kicked out of heaven is a good description of what happened. When Jesus said in Luke 10:18 that he saw Satan fall from Heaven like lightening he was not talking about that time but more likely using a phrase that meant the demise of a king. The phrase is used in other ancient literature (the Hurrite Pantheon) and it always speaks of a lesser god being defeated by a more powerful one.

Second, we see Satan in the Bible having access to God. If you look in Job 1:6 and following Satan speaks to God. He might not be “in Heaven” but he still has access to God, that’s pretty big.

Last, we see Satan being “cast down” in other passages and you can only be cast once when you are talking about something like trying to overcome the Lord.

Therefore, Satan was stripped of his angelic/heavenly host title before Adam and Eve where on the earth, but who knows when. As far as being kicked out of heaven, we should take that more as humiliation and defeat.

The Devil real and dangerous. We must focus on Christ and the Lord who raised him from the dead to protect us from this horrible enemy. If you want to read a more detailed perspective on Satan and his character you can click here for a good article.

God Bless,

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