In the following handout, I provide one possible way of thinking about the history and status of Satan and demons in the Bible, based on early Christian interpretations. This is not the only possible interpretation, but it has the advantage of being one that harmonizes the unexpected elements of the Old Testament’s portrayal of fallen angelic powers, and which also allows us to understand some of the thoughts and motivations that led to their fall, which would otherwise appear almost inexplicable.
The basic
ideas are as follows:
1.) Satan and other fallen angelic powers
were created by God to inhabit positions of authority within his administration
of physical creation, including toward humans.
2.) Even after Satan and the others
turned their hearts away from God, they still remained in their original
offices (in the same way that God does not automatically remove us from our
roles when we sin; or—to give another example—how Judas remained one of the
disciples even when his plot to betray Jesus was already in motion).
3.) Blinded by their own pride, their
treason against God developed throughout history, without God’s overt judgment
against them (except, possibly, in one infamous incident—see the extra handout
on Genesis 6). God allowed them to remain active in their former roles.
4.) As such, these fallen angelic powers
likely thought that their areas of dominion would remain in their hands until
the Day of Judgment, and even then they may have thought that they would retain
dominion over the human souls that were in their charge.
5.) Against such erroneous expectations,
they were shocked and surprised when God’s own Son, the Second Person of the
Trinity, entered the world as a man and targeted their areas of dominion, even
before the Day of Judgment.
6.) The angelic fall thus can be
understood in two movements: first, a moral fall into sin when they turned away
from God and pursued their own ends (perhaps it was less of a consciously
blatant revolt than is sometimes portrayed, and more of a slow-moving treason
which was suddenly uncovered and judged by Christ); and second, when the fallen
angelic powers were stripped of their dominion and authority by Christ’s
victory over sin and death.
7.) Now the church continues claiming
Christ’s victory over the fallen powers, extending the Lord’s dominion where
formerly the demons held sway.
What’s the Deal with Angels? (Part 2)
The Fallen Angels
The Bible tells us that some angelic beings rebelled against God and fell, becoming corrupt. The leader of these fallen angels is called Satan (“the adversary”) or the devil (from the Greek word diabolos = “accuser”). The angels that fell with Satan may account for a third of the angelic host God had created (see Rev. 12:14). Many interpreters have seen Satan’s fall depicted in passages such as Isaiah 14:12-15 and Ezekiel 28:12-19 (though these passages are primarily descriptions of God’s judgment against the kings of Babylon and Tyre). The name “Lucifer” is sometimes thought to be Satan’s original angelic name (see Is. 14:12). The fallen angels that followed Satan (at least some of them) are referred to as demons.
Why Did They Fall?
Christian tradition holds that Lucifer’s original sin was one of pride, as portrayed in the Isaiah and Ezekiel passages. Lucifer desired to ascend to the same status as God, a sinful self-orientation, rather than remaining oriented toward God in worship and obedience. Some early traditions believe that Satan’s pride led to envy: when these fallen angels saw God’s plan for humanity take shape at the creation of the world, they resented that God’s favor was being lavished on human beings, and so they decided to take out their anger on us.
A further important question arises: How is it possible that angelic beings, created to be gloriously good and to behold the presence of God, could ever think that they could rise up against him? If God truly is omnipotent, why would angelic beings, who knew all about God’s power, think they could actually succeed in rebelling? The answer is the same for angels as it is for us: God gave us the power of free will to choose him or to choose sin, and the choice for sin is never a rational one—i.e., when we sin, we don’t usually stop to consider whether it’s a stupid idea or not, and the same is probably true of the fallen angels. Further, the blindness of their pride may have led them to imagine that they would still remain in positions of power even after God’s judgment—perhaps holding dominion over all the human souls they had dragged down with them. Like Satan’s famous line in Milton’s Paradise Lost, they may have thought it preferable to rule in hell than to serve in heaven. In this, though, they would be deluded: Scripture shows that they themselves will be punished in the end; they will not reign over the punishment of others—see Matt. 25:41; Rev. 20:10.
When Did They Fall?
The standard Christian answer is that the story of angelic creation and fall takes place before the creation of the physical universe. Essentially, the first phrase of the Bible—“In the beginning, God created the heavens…”—includes the creation of angels, as well as their fall into pride—that’s why Satan, already morally fallen at that early point in history, shows up in the Garden of Eden as the tempting serpent. This was their first “fall”—the fall into sin, in which they became corrupt, but not necessarily a fall which had yet stripped them of their power or their roles.
Despite the fact that the angelic rebellion was already in motion in Genesis 1:1, certain aspects of their original authority were still in play. For example, Satan still seems to be serving a function that gives him access to the heavenly courts in Job 1-2 (as do other “evil” spirits—see Judges 9:23; 1 Sam. 16:14; 1 Kings 22:21-22). Fallen angels still appear to exercise the positions of dominion which they were allowed to administer (see Dan. 10). Based on these passages, some early Christian traditions believed that the fallen angels continued to hold many of their original roles as overseers of human societies and testers of human faith. Further, passages from both the Gospels and Revelation might imply that the full “fall” of Satan and his angels did not occur until the incarnation and ministry of Christ (Luke 10:18; Rev. 12:1-5). Note, then: while their fall into sin came in Genesis 1, their disempowerment under God’s judgment did not come until much later.
Why Does God Allow Them to Influence Humans?
Although they were in rebellion against God, God had not completely removed them from their roles. Why would this be? The answer seems to be that God is dealing with them as he also does with us: not immediately giving us the full and final judgment of our sins, but permitting us the continued exercise of our independent wills until the time when his appointed judgment comes. Therefore, although they were fallen from God and in rebellion against him, these angelic beings may have believed that the authority they wielded would be theirs at least until the final Day of Judgment (see Matt. 8:29; 1 Cor. 2:7-8). But there was a surprise for them, something they did not see coming. They did not expect God’s own Son to enter history, break their power, and begin dispossessing them of their dominions, all well before the Day of Judgment dawned.
You can understand aspects of the angelic fall by looking at three major categories of fallen spirits, all of which are later addressed in the life and ministry of Christ.
1.) Satan – Lucifer is cast down from his high angelic authority but appears to be allowed an ongoing role (within God’s permissive will) as a tempter (Job 1-2). By successfully tempting Adam and Eve into rejecting God’s way, death is introduced into human experience, and thus Satan holds humanity in bondage to death (Heb. 2:14-15). While other angelic powers only exercise authority over portions of humanity, Satan exercises dominion over all humanity through the powers of sin and death, because by following Satan’s temptation, we put ourselves under his power (Eph. 2:1-2; 1 John 3:8). The Bible calls Satan “the prince of this world” and “the god of this age” (John 12:31; 14:30; 2 Cor. 4:4).
2.) Demons: Other lower evil spirits, or demons, attack humans directly, on an individual level. They may have been originally designed as messenger-angels sent to influence human affairs and test people’s faith (see Judges 9:23; 1 Sam. 16:14; 1 Kings 22:21-22), but the fallen ones end up abusing that role by tempting people into sin and even tormenting people for their own evil gratification.
3.) Angelic Powers over the Nations – Some angelic authorities exercise dominion over human nations (see the Greek version of Deut. 32:8, as translated in the ESV). According to early Jewish traditions, some of these angelic powers followed Satan, fell into sin, and exercised corrupt dominion over humanity instead of benevolent oversight. The idea of angelic authorities exercising dominion over the nations also fits with Daniel 10, Psalm 82, and the New Testament’s frequent references to spiritual powers, principalities, rulers, authorities, etc. These dominion-bearing angels start to accept worship from the human nations under their authority, thus turning their back on God and seeking to become “gods” themselves. Even after this moral fall into sin, however, the Bible hints that God still may have “held court” with some of these angelic powers in the heavenlies (see Job 1:6; 2:1; Psalm 82; 1 Kings 22:19-23)—a situation that appears to have changed dramatically with the revelation of God’s judgment against these fallen angelic powers during the ministry of Christ.
Jesus’s ministry directly attacks all of these
various forms of demonic dominion:
1.) By
dying and rising again, he breaks Satan’s dominion, which was exercised over
all human beings through the power of death (Heb. 2:14-15).
2.) He
shows his authority over the lower-level demons by casting them out and healing
people. Jesus himself describes his ministry as one of binding the strongman
and then plundering his house (Matt. 12:28-29)—i.e., disarming Satan’s demons
and rescuing the people who were trapped under their influence.
3.) He begins dispossessing the dominion-wielding angels by sending out his disciples to preach his gospel to the nations, thus threatening their hold on those nations (note that it was in the context of the disciples’ missionary tour that Jesus pronounced that he had seen Satan cast down—Luke 10:18). Paul says that on the cross, Jesus disarmed the powers and authorities and made a spectacle of them (Col. 2:15).
In this view, Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection formed a complete assault on all the ways that fallen angels had tried to wield corrupt authority over human beings. This is not the whole gospel—there are other aspects, too, which are even more central for us, like Jesus’s substitutionary atonement for our sins—but Jesus’ triumph over the demonic powers (called the “Christus Victor” model of the atonement) is at least part of the picture of our salvation. As 1 John 3:8 says, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.”
In the coming of Jesus Christ, the fallen angels saw clearly, perhaps for the first time, the shattering of their power and the inevitability of their doom. As already mentioned, they seemed to be surprised by this turn of events (see 1 Cor. 2:7-8). Now all that remains is their hatred for the things of God and their desperate attempts to cling to whatever power remains in their hands.
The church continues Jesus’s work of dispossessing and
disempowering the fallen angelic powers, their dominion now shattered by Christ
and the power of his gospel (Luke 10:19; Rom. 16:20; Eph. 3:10). The church’s
global mission is thus one of both evangelization and spiritual warfare. The
authority of Christians extends even to the age to come, in which it is not
angelic powers who will be granted the right to reign with Christ, but redeemed
human beings (Heb. 2:5-8; see also Rev. 5:10; 20:4-6; 22:5). Paul writes that
we will judge the whole world, including angels (1 Cor. 6:2-3). Christ will
have full dominion, and we will reign with him.