Douglas, I really like your thread and I support your statement that Lucifer was a holy Angel. Brother Smaller, for some reason thinks Lucifer was created evil. That surprises me because I have a huge amount of respect for his knowledge. Never the less, I believe he is wrong. Here's why....
James 1:13 "Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God," for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.
1:14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
"
he himself tempts no one."
There are many "seeming" surface contradictions in the scriptures. The above being one,
which is in fact exactly "countered" by another scripture.
How so?:
Genesis 22:1
And it came to pass after these things, that
God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.
When faced with these surface contradictions we should be able to see that both statements are fully TRUE, yet without understandings, they will be in seeming conflict/contradiction.
So tell me my friend, how would you propose to solve this riddle?
I will tell you in advance that it is easily solved/entirely harmonized. And there are many others, likewise in conflict on the surface.
Not only these Scriptures, but in the beginning of creation. God observed that everything that He created "was good".
Was the "deceiver" in the garden good? Was the knowledge of "evil" good?
It is only when we see Gods Hands upon these matters can they be so. Personally I would not brand the deceiver/deception of himself, good. Nor the knowledge of evil, good. I recognize that in Gods Hands even these can and do work for the good when taking into account the Sovereignty of God upon them.
Lets look at the statement of Isaiah about Lucifer....
Isaiah 14:12 "How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!
14:13 You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north;
14:14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.'
"Day Star" and "son of the Dawn" sure doesn't seem to be an evil Angel here!
First of all we should recognize that the "entity" being spoken to WAS in the Garden of Eden.
Ezekiel 28: (KJV)
12 Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God; Thou sealest up the sum,
full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
13
Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
14
Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
There are only 3 cast members in said Garden. God, Man and the tempter/deceiver. We know the identity of the first 2, God and Man (Adam and Eve.) So who might Lucifer be if we connect this very simple dot? Uh, yeah, the deceiver, the tempter. And this is pinpointed, showing that it was/is Lucifer
that weakened the nations and:
16 They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that
made the earth to tremble, that did
shake kingdoms;
17
That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?
Can this be anyone but Satan? We know that the unbelievers are prisoners of the god of this world who blinds the minds of them. 2 Cor. 4:4. They ARE in Satan's prison, locked up with him reigning over their minds. Acts 26:18 shows us that the unbelievers ARE 'under the power of SATAN.'
Paul's dictate from Jesus was to TURN people from that power, of Satan. This is the power that we are TURNED from by faith in God in Christ, to REIGN over same. Each believer is to so reign over this enemy.
The great difficulty is always going to be "where is our enemy?" In order to reign over an enemy that enemy is "under our own feet." Romans 16:20, just as this enemy and his own are under Jesus' Feet, as a footstool, being made so by God. (too many scriptural citings to even begin this study in this thread, but a short version, here: )
1 Corinthians 15:24
Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father;
when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.
Those who think they have 'the power' of freewill might best give it up to Jesus instead because that's where we're all Headed.
Do we see HOLY attached to Lucifer or Satan, the tempter, the deceiver anywhere in Isaiah or anywhere else in the scriptures? That term is not to be found and does not exist.
Satan was set as a covering, a covering of deception in the flesh,
in order to KILL all natural mankind via sin. And yes, this does serve Gods Exact Purposes for that entity and his class of associates.
But because these are unseen, and few believers are even able to connect the sin/deception/lusts and eventual death of their own natural person to the workings of the deceiver in their own flesh, they will not perceive these matters. And in fact they CAN not because of the imposed blindness that bad actor brings.
Yet to some, it will be openly transparent, when they "tell the truth." 1 John 1:8, 1 John 3:8, the entire chapter of Romans 7, Romans 9, Romans 11, 2 Cor. 12:7, 2 Tim. 2:20-21 ALL point directly to this connection of the deceiver, the tempter in the flesh, to SIN indwelling the flesh.
So here, right here, you have your KEY to unlocking how it is that God tempted Abraham,
because it was not "just Abraham" involved. When you see it, you will have harmony. But to see it with Abraham one must see it for their own SIN in the flesh as of the TEMPTER first or they CAN NOT SEE it.
Guaranteed.
Could it be that at some point the Angels were given a choice?
No. Holy Angels can not change their stripes nor can wicked deceiving angels change their stripes. They were both made according to Gods Purposes. And one entity class of them can not tell the truth, are deceivers and killers, by Divine Design.
Revelation 22:11
He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and
he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.
Lets say, When Lucifer got it into his pea brain, "I will take over the realm of YHWH." At that point in time, YHWH gave all the Angels the choice to either follow Lucifer or to stay faithful to the Godhead, Elohim. Apparently, 1/3 of the Angels rebelled with Lucifer and the rest is history.
The account of said war is here:
Rev. 12:
9 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.
The stars that were drawn from heaven are/were not Satan's messengers. They were ALL cast out. And INTO the "earth" not on it, IN it. Satan is also termed the "prince of the power of the air, the spirit of disobedience." Air is in exact reference to our "thought" realm, as signified in Mark 4 and in the other seed parables. They are the fowls of the air who 'SOIL' our thoughts via their various deceptions and they STEAL Gods Words from minds and hearts. They are the "real" robbers and thieves in the scriptures. Not robbers and thieves we see with our eyes.
When Jesus said this He was absolutely telling us a fact:
John 10:8
All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them.
Unfortunately when Jesus said "the sheep did not hear them" Jesus is speaking of the thieves and robbers stealing the Word from hearts, not being heard, not Himself. ALL who came before Jesus were thieves and robbers because the THIEVES stole from every single persons heart prior, and since!
The thieves and robbers were/are INTERNAL in ALL flesh.
That deceiver was cast "into" Adam from day 1 of man, as the deceiver, the tempter, the blinding party in the flesh/hearts of all mankind.
Never HOLY.
No one can make the tempter in the flesh behave OR make "only good decisions." It is impossible. Paul ascribes to this fact many times in many ways, showing that the sin indwelling his own flesh, the evil present with him had a mind of it's OWN. A resisting mind. Romans 7:7-25. In there he terms the sin indwelling his own flesh
"no longer I," twice, for emphasis.
It's time to recognize that we ALL have works of darkness to cast off. And these are courtesy of our enemies in the flesh. We are even advised
HOW TO cast off these works of DARKNESS in very exacting fashions, in Romans 13.
