DCW week 5

Week 5 DCW

Good morning all,

We’ve been at the Divine Council Worldview for a number of weeks now and it seems like people are digging it. We’re starting to see some of the strings come together and connections formed about how the supernatural world works.

Last week we had a bit of a question-and-answer session and I think we were able to close up some gaps. If you haven’t had a chance, go back and watch that on the Facebook.

Phil asked a question last week that I thought deserved a longer answer and so today we’re going to look at Demons and Satan.

I think he asked something like, is Satan the guy in Genesis?

I think I’ve said for a few weeks now that Demons are not part of the elohim. They’re not pure supernatural beings that came directly from Yahweh’s Divine Council in heaven.

They are in fact, the disembodied spirits of the Giants, Nephilim, Rephiam, whatever you want to call them. We took a look at a passage from 1 Enoch that actually spells this out. And I expressed that during Jesus’ day, this was an uncontested truth or the ancient world.

Now I’m hoping I’ve proved my point, but just in case I want to look at a few misnomers in the modern church. How many of you have heard something like “when Satan fell, he took 1\3 of the angels in heaven.”? This happened after the Garden of Eden, and this is where we get our demons roaming the earth.

Probably all of us. I know I have.

I’m gonna push on some boundaries here. Nowhere in scripture does it say that happened immediately after the Garden of Eden, After the fall of Babel or after Noah’s flood narrative.

Do you know where we get this? It’s a combination of Revelation 12, and 9. We’re gonna look at 12 here.

Revelation 12:1-10

The Woman and the Dragon

12 A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. 2 She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. 3 Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. 4 Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. 5 She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.” And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. 6 The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.

7 Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8 But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 9 The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

I know this is apocalyptic literature, but let’s dig into this a bit.

What is this talking about?

This is actually a reference to the birth of the Messiah. Satan is spelled out here as the Dragon set to eat the messiah upon his birth, if not for the intervention of Yahweh and saving him. Jesus flees into the wilderness for 3.5 years (Egypt).

The quote in verse 5 comes from Psalm 2:

1 Why do the nations conspire

and the peoples plot in vain?

2 The kings of the earth rise up

and the rulers band together

against the LORD and against his anointed, saying,

3 “Let us break their chains

and throw off their shackles.”

4 The One enthroned in heaven laughs;

the Lord scoffs at them.

5 He rebukes them in his anger

and terrifies them in his wrath, saying,

6 “I have installed my king

on Zion, my holy mountain.”

7 I will proclaim the LORD’s decree:

He said to me, “You are my son;

today I have become your father.

8 Ask me,

and I will make the nations your inheritance,

the ends of the earth your possession.

9 You will break them with a rod of iron;

you will dash them to pieces like pottery.”

10 Therefore, you kings, be wise;

be warned, you rulers of the earth.

11 Serve the LORD with fear

and celebrate his rule with trembling.

12 Kiss his son, or he will be angry

and your way will lead to your destruction,

for his wrath can flare up in a moment.

Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

This great battle that we see in Revelation, takes place after the coming of the Messiah, Jesus.

So the stars falling from heaven, this comes after, at least the birth of the Messiah.

Revelation 12:10–12 (NIV)

10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:

“Now have come the salvation and the power

and the kingdom of our God,

and the authority of his Messiah.

For the accuser (Satan) of our brothers and sisters,

who accuses them before our God day and night,

has been hurled down.

11 They triumphed over him

by the blood of the Lamb

and by the word of their testimony;

they did not love their lives so much

as to shrink from death.

12 Therefore rejoice, you heavens

and you who dwell in them!

But woe to the earth and the sea,

because the devil has gone down to you!

He is filled with fury,

because he knows that his time is short.”

This is the story of when Satan, as we know him, actually fell.

What do I mean by that. Well, the first introduction we have to Satan as a character in scripture is in Job. He’s referenced often in the first 3 chapters of the book. However, in Job, Satan is not a name. The word is always preceded by a definite article. In this case (Ha) which means “the” and the word is Satan. Always. Hebrew is like English. We don’t use a definite article to reference a proper name. So, Ha Satan means the accuser, or the adversary. It’s literally a legal term for a position like the prosecutor.

It’s clear from the text in Job that The Satan is part of the Divine Council and he’s just doing his job. At least initially. The book begins with a description that The Satan is running around the world, basically gathering evidence. Yahweh actually proposes the great nature of Job. He says, “have you considered my servant Job?” The Satan counters saying basically, he’s just faithful to you because you blessed him. If his life was ruined, he’d curse you. Yahweh says bet, and the antics ensue.

The next time we see (Ha) Satan is in the book of Zechariah. This book, like Revelation is apocalyptic vision. But in short, it describes another courtroom seen.

Zechariah 3:1–2 (NIV)

Clean Garments for the High Priest

3 Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. 2 The LORD said to Satan, “The LORD rebuke you, Satan! The LORD, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?”

Joshua (Yeshua, Jesus) the high priest is standing in the courtroom of Yahweh, with The Satan literally spelled out in the text – to accuse him (Joshua), and an Angel of the Lord on the other side.

Again, still with the definite article and still hanging out in the Divine Council of Yahweh.

Tracking the next part is a bit tricky. We know that at some point in the second temple period, perhaps while the Septuagint was being translated, the definite article is dropped, and Satan becomes a proper name. Almost every book in the NT makes this clear.

What we don’t know is what exactly happened in Heaven that made this take place. Satan crossed a line and became the embodiment of his role. He decided to overstep and start prosecuting without Yahweh’s authority. He decided he could do it better than Yahweh.

By Revelation 12 the titles and names are clear. Satan, the adversary has become this elohim’s proper name. He is also the Red Dragon, and the Serpent.

I don’t have all the answers here. This scenario makes for some difficult reading.

It’s clear at the Fall, in Genesis, that the serpent is cursed to roam the earth. Through his sin, he has effectively allowed death to enter the earth and he is therefore Master of It.

We know from several verses that the Earth is under Satan’s exclusive domain until Christ comes.

His crime was usurpation of Yahweh’s throne.

Isaiah 14:12–15 (NIV)

12 How you have fallen from heaven,

morning star, son of the dawn!

You have been cast down to the earth,

you who once laid low the nations!

13 You said in your heart,

“I will ascend to the heavens;

I will raise my throne

above the stars of God;

I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,

on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon.

14 I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;

I will make myself like the Most High.”

15 But you are brought down to the realm of the dead,

to the depths of the pit.

So Satan’s on earth, cast down to the pit. Yet somehow still maintains his role on the Council as the Adversary? We know in Job that he’s been down on earth but comes back in to check in with Yahweh. Or the definite article is there to let us know that in fact, this is not Satan, but (Ha) satan, someone that has taken the role of adversary, perhaps to fill a seat vacancy. We don’t really know. Like the Revelation 12 verse, Isaiah is describing prophecy, but in this case prophecy that has not yet taken place. The fuller text shows that this fall comes after the Jews are freed from Babylon. Yes, I mean Babylon this time.

Satan seeks to take Yahweh’s throne. It doesn’t work, and he is cast out of heaven because of it. Isaiah, along with Revelation shows us that there were, in fact, multiple elohim rebellions. The Garden, the tower of Babel, and the flood and at least one more during or shortly after Jesus’ life.

But it seems like Yahweh knew that Satan the individual, was up to no good from the beginning.

All of the NT shows Satan as a specific elohim character that wants to replace Yahweh. An evil elohim that is the Father of Lies, the Great Tempter. References are made to him also being the serpent from the Garden Narrative. Satan, the serpent was the first and greatest rebel. He corrupted humanity because he didn’t like humans. Yet it seems he was able to bounce between the stations of heaven and earth until Jesus.

Luke 10:17–20 (NIV)

17 The seventy-two returned with joy and said, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”

18 He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. 19 I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. 20 However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

We’re gonna get into Jesus pretty soon. But the important part to this conversation is that Jesus “saw Satan (the morning star) fall like lightening.”

We’ve probably been taught that this is a reflection of Jesus supernatural origins and Jesus saw this when he was still in heaven. That he saw this at the beginning of time. That’s not what the text here shows. This is in reference to Isaiah and Revelation, but the timing is contemporary. This would go along with Isaiah that Satan’s fall would be a future event and Revelation’s that it would be during, or shortly after Jesus’ birth.

Jesus actually saw Satan fall, so he was, at least, partly in heaven this whole time. This would, of course, mark the beginning of his defeat at the hands of Jesus.

The other option is that throughout the OT the references to (Ha) satan, are not all the same character. As the verbiage would conclude, it was merely a job description of a spot on the Divine Council.

The name Satan we see manifest in the NT came about as a formal declaration the writers decreed for ease of use in describing the same character given his various descriptions. Basically, OT ha satan and NT Satan are not all the same being.

Throughout scripture the prime evil one is given a variety of names that we agree too, like Satan, the morning star, ect. But other names, Beelzebub, El Shadeen, Asmodeus, Azazel, Behemoth, make reference to evil supernatural powers that are most likely not Satan.

The name became so, as a testament to Yahweh’s earliest adversary.

So are we all sufficiently confused?

Satan is the one in the Garden. He may or may not be the one in Job. In the NT, when someone refers to Satan as an individual, that is of course correct. However, some of the OT can be ambiguous. Several places in the OT refer in English to demons. However, demons is a Greek word. There is no equivalent in Hebrew. For some reason, probably during the creation of the Septuagint, many different beings got lumped under the title demon. However, some of the names used in Hebrew tell us these are not the Demons we mean when the NT calls them out.

El Shadeen is most likely a territorial elohim. Beelzebub is also an elohim, Azazel same thing. The word El is short for elohim, and that’s how we know these are not disembodied spirits, like the ones we see in the NT. They’re more powerful. They’re full force elohim. Not the half-blooded Nephilim offshoots. Both are still running around the earth. But there are far more demons than wicked elohim. In an effort to reconcile everything, the modern church has simply made all these names a reference for Satan. That’s not true. It’s not what the ancient church believed and it’s not what the Jews believed at the time of Christ.

The language here gets a little confusing and I think this is partly why we have lost much of this information in the modern church. We know scripture to be true, but that leaves us to reconcile the pieces of information we have and try to make sense of it all.

Here’s my best guess after spending a lot of time reading the source material and arguing with a bunch of scholars, who are very well versed on this stuff. We all have questions, there is absolutely not a universal consensus on this topic, but here’s the closest we came to tying up all the ends.

Satan was the guy in the Garden. He got a demotion, in the form of the curse in Gen 3. That demotion put him in a position more like his nature. The Divine Council role of ha satan. He roamed the earth, cursed and used his position to “report” on humans. All while up to shifty behavior while he did it. Yahweh of course was aware of all this. Job is his attempt to put this to the test. Which Satan, in his roll as ha satan, fails. But it was not until Jesus, that Satan was fully kicked out of heaven, never to return.

Questions? Comments? Contrary opinions. As I said, some of the people I speak with have been at this for 30 years and we’re still working it all out.