Now another surprise for most readers.
Here is another bit of the missing dimension in knowledge, actually revealed
in the Bible, but unrecognized by religion, by science and by higher education.
From verse 2 of Genesis 1
on, the remainder of this first chapter of the Bible is not describing
the original creation of the earth. But it is describing a renewing of
the face of the earth, after it had become waste and empty as a result
of the sin of the angels.
What is described from verse
2 on, in the supposed creation chapter of the Bible, did occur, according
to the Bible, approximately 6,000 years ago. But that could have been millions
or trillions of years after the actual creation of the earth described
in verse 1!
I will comment later on the
length of time it might have taken before all earth's angels turned to
rebellion.
The earth had become waste
and empty. God did not create it waste and empty, or in a state of decay.
God is not the author of confusion (I Cor. 14:33). This same Hebrew word--tohu--meaning
waste and empty, was inspired in Isaiah 45:18, where it is translated "in
vain." Using the original Hebrew word, as originally inspired, it reads:
"For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed
the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain
[tohu], he formed it to be inhabited."
Continue now with the remainder
of verse 2 of Genesis 1 (the earth had become chaotic, waste and empty):
"And darkness was upon the face of the deep [the ocean or fluid surface
of the earth]. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the
light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness" (verses
2-4).
Satan is the author of darkness.
The rebellion of the angels had caused the darkness. God is the author
of light and truth. Light displays and enhances beauty, and also exposes
evil. Darkness hides both.
The verses that follow in
this first chapter of the Bible describe the renewing of the face of the
earth, yielding beautiful lawns, trees, shrubs, flowers, vegetation--then
the creation of fish and fowl, animal life, and finally man.
The Great Lucifer
But first, before coming to man,
we need to fill in the prehistory portion.
How did this sin of the angels
come to take place? How did it start?
Remember, God the Creator
preserves, improves and enhances what he creates by his government. What
he creates is created to be used. This earth was to be inhabited and used
by angels, originally.
When God placed angels--apparently
a third of all (Rev. 12:4)--on the newly created, perfect, beautiful and
glorious earth, he set over them, on a throne, to administer the government
of God, an archangel--the great cherub Lucifer. There were only two other
beings of this extremely high rank of cherub, Michael and Gabriel.
So far as is revealed, these
are the supreme pinnacle of spirit-composed beings within God's power to
create. This Lucifer was a super being of awesome, majestic beauty, dazzling
brightness, supreme knowledge, wisdom and power--perfect as God created
him! (Ezek. 28:15). But remember, there is one thing God cannot create
automatically and instantly by fiat, and that is perfect righteous character.
So God of necessity created in him the power of choice and decision, or
he could not have been a being of individuality and character.
At this juncture a truth
must be explained almost never understood. God creates in a principle of
duality. I have compared it to a woman baking a cake. When she takes the
cake out of the oven, it is not yet a finished production until she puts
the icing on the cake. When God created the earth and other planets this
system of duality was involved.
What had been created was
perfect as far as it existed up to that point. But it was not yet a finished
or completed creation. God intended the angels to add their own workmanship
to the earth's surface. He intended them to work over the surface of the
earth, to improve it, to embellish it, beautify it--in other words "put
the icing on the cake."
The same principle of duality
applies to the creation of the angels. Perfect righteous character cannot
be automatically created by fiat. The angels themselves, of necessity,
were required to have their part in the development of character, and their
creation could not be actually finished until this character had been perfected.
Lucifer, Later Satan
I want you to grasp fully the supreme
magnificence of this zenith of God's created beings. Two different biblical
passages tell us of his original created state.
First, notice what is revealed
in Isaiah 14. (This famous chapter begins with the time, shortly ahead
of us now, when the Eternal God shall have intervened in this world's affairs.
The people of Israel--not necessarily or exclusively the Israelis or Judah--shall
have been taken as captive slaves, and God shall intervene and bring them
back to the original promised homeland.) "And it shall come to pass in
the day that the Lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy
fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve, that thou
shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath
the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! The Lord hath broken the
staff of the wicked, and the scepter of the rulers. He who smote the people
in wrath...he that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, and none
hindereth" (verses 3-6).
This is NOT speaking of the
king of ancient Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar. The time is yet ahead of us--but
shortly ahead. It is speaking of the modern successor of that ancient Nebuchadnezzer.
It is speaking of the one who will be RULER of the soon-coming resurrected
"Holy Roman Empire"--a sort of soon-coming "United States of Europe"--a
union of 10 nations to rise up out of or following the Common Market of
today (Rev. 17). Britain will NOT be in that empire soon to come.
This united Europe will conquer
the House of Israel--if you know who Israel is today, and I do not mean
Judah, known as the Israelis today. All that involves a number of other
prophecies, which there is not room here to explain. (This is explained
in our free book The United States and Britain in Prophecy.)
But this "king of Babylon"
shall at the time of this prophecy have been utterly defeated by the intervention
of the living Christ in his power and glory. Continue on:
"The whole earth is at rest,
and is quiet: they break forth into singing. Yea, the fir trees rejoice...and
the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down, no feller is come
up against us" (verses 7-8).
(I want to interpose an interesting
bit of information right here. The cedars of Lebanon, biblically famous,
are almost totally cut down. Only one small clump of these trees remains,
high in the mountains. I have seen and photographed them. However, perhaps
the finest specimen of the cedars of Lebanon surviving on earth is on what
was previously our Ambassador College campus in England. We prized it highly.
It is interesting to see that this prophecy, written some 500 years B.C.,
should record the fact that these beautiful and stately trees would become
so largely felled.)
This passage in Isaiah 14
speaks of the doom of this coming human king at the hands of the glorified,
all-powerful Christ. It refers to him as Satan's chief political ruler
and military destroyer, to be totally deceived by Satan in the years very
shortly ahead of us.
Satan's Earthly Throne
Then, coming to verse 12, this human
earthly type of Satan the devil suddenly transposes to Satan himself--the
former archangel, Lucifer:
"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!" A better translation here is: "How art
thou, who didst weaken the nations, cut down to the ground." The RSV translates
it: "How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!"
This the former Lucifer did through the human political-military leader
in his power--spoken of in the first 11 verses.
The name Lucifer means "Shining
star of the dawn," or "Bringer of light," as God first created him. Now
continue: "For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars [angels] of God."
Notice, Lucifer had a throne;
he was a ruler. His throne was on earth, for he was going to ascend into
heaven. Continue: "I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation [God's
heavenly throne], in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights
of the clouds; I will be like the most High" (verses 13-14). Actually,
it is plain that Lucifer had nothing less in mind than knocking the Creator
God off his throne and becoming supreme God himself.
Apparently he planned to
put himself in place of God, over the universe!
But finally, as the context
returns again to the human type: "Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell
[Heb. sheol], to the sides of the pit" (verse 15).
From that point, the thought
returns to the human king. Lucifer was the supreme masterpiece of God's
creative power, as an individually created being, threatening, as a Frankenstein
monster, to destroy his own maker--and assume all his powers to rule the
whole universe.
Literally this prophecy is
speaking of a war in heaven to occur in our present time described in Revelation
12:7-9: "And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against
the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither
was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast
out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the
whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out
with him." And also Daniel 12:1-2: "And at that time shall Michael stand
u, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and
there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation
even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered,
every one that shall be found written in the book. And many of them that
sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and
some to shame and everlasting contempt."
Satan's rebel rule was NOT
a government based upon the principle of love--of giving, of outgoing concern
for the good of others, but based on SELFCENTEREDNESS, on vanity, lust
and greed, on envy, jealousy, the spirit of competition, hatred, violence
and destruction, on darkness and error, instead of light and truth, on
ugliness instead of beauty.
Notice here, once again,
the principle of duality. Isaiah 14:12-14 applies to a time prior to the
creation of the first human, Adam. But in Revelation 12:7 and in
Daniel 12:1 Satan at the end of the 6,000 years allotted to his rule on
earth's throne, tries once again to seize God's throne in heaven.
Lucifer a Created Being
Look now at the other biblical passage
describing this supreme angelic creation of God, in Ezekiel 28.
Actually, the entire concept
in Ezekiel 26 speaks of the ancient great commercial city of Tyre. It was
the commercial metropolis of the ancient world, even as Babylon was the
political capital. Tyre was the New York, the London, the Tolyo, or the
Paris of the ancient world. The ancient Tyre, port of the world's shippers
and merchants, gloried herself in her beauty, even as Paris in our time.
Chapter 27 carries on with
comparisons to passages in the 18th chapter of the book of Revelation referring
to a politico-religious leader to come (verses 9-19).
But coming to chapter 28,
the theme comes more completely to the time just now ahead of us, the same
time depicted in Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28 speaks of the prince of Tyre, an
earthly ruler, of whom the ancient king of Tyre was a type. God says to
the prophet Ezekiel: "Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus [actually
referring to a powerful religious leader to arise SOON, in our time], Thus
saith the Lord God; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said,
I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou
art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God:
Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide
from thee: with thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten
thee rices, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures [or "treasuries"--RSV]...and
thine heart is lifted up because of thy rices: therefore thus saith the
Lord God; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God; behold,
therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations...they
shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them
that are slain in the midst of the seas" (Ezek. 28:2-8). (Compare with
II Thessalonians 2:3-4, speaking of "that man of sin... who opposeth and
exalteth himself above all that is called God...so that he as God sitteth
in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.")
P.S All the iNFO is based on Bible and Testaments(Old and New) and gathered from different sources.