Who is the prophet talking about here? It is about Tyre, but, he mentions the prince of Tyre first ( many scholars believe this is the city and the human king) and then turns to the king of Tyre ( same scholars believe this is Satan, just as in Daniel the angel told Daniel that he would have been there sooner but the prince of Persia resisted him, suggesting a spiritual being is ruling over the human king). If this is Satan being spoken to by the prophet then it tells us he was a guardian cherub (possibly guarding at the throne of GOD) and tells of his glory and beauty and wisdom. It also tells of his pride and then fall from grace. My question then is this... If Satan was in the garden of Eden as a cherub, and was perfect (as the scripture says) could his rebellion and fall have begun from the time he deceived Eve into eating the forbidden fruit, who, then shared it with Adam and brought sin into this world?
Ezekiel 28
- Thread starter Dave F.
- Start date
In chapter 28, we find the judgment of the prince of Tyre and Sidon. The prophecy looks beyond the local ruler to the one behind the kingdoms of the world-Satan.
In verse #2 we have the viceregent of Satan..."Because thine heart is lifted up and thou hast said.....I am God". This is a picture of the anti-Christ. The prince of Tyre says......"I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of seas".
I believe that this prince of Tyre represents the religious ruler aspect of the Antichrist.
Now......the serpent was just the form that the devil chose to take--at that time a beautiful and innocent-looking creature. Satan knew that God's angels would have warned Adam of the enemy (remember that there had been war in Heaven before Satan had been cast down to this earth), and that if he had appeared as a noble angel, Adam and Eve would have been on guard and wary of him.
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 Bible is clear that Satan had sinned already prior to his disguised appearance in the Garden of Eden.
As already partially quoted in the question:
1 John 3:8..........
"He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. "
Jesus also alluded to this in John 8:44......
"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."
The fact that the devil "sinneth from the beginning," is "a murderer from the beginning," and is "the father" of lies implies he was the first to commit these sins.
So then, Yes, Satan, also called the Devil, the great dragon, and "that old serpent," was the first to sin, sinning before being cast out of heaven and entering the Garden of Eden where he next tempted Adam and Eve to sin.
Verses 13 to 15 suggest Satan was in Eden, and was perfect till iniquity was found in him. I can see how this could also apply to the anti-christ and his kingdom as well to a point. Satan was not created as evil, for God looked at all His creation and declared it as good. I think that suggests that Satan didn't fall until after creation. Possibly because he felt that all other creatures were beneath him and for him to have to serve man was more than his narcissistic attitude could handle.
The Scriptures in Ez. 28 describe why Satan fell, but they do not say when the fall occurred.
Jesus, said that He witnessed Satan’s fall, and He mentions it in Luke 10:18: .........
“I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.”
Now of course, as Jesus is eternal, we still do not know when that took place.
We do however know that the angels were created before the earth as seen in Job 38: 4-7.
We also know that Satan fell before he tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden in Gen. 3:1-4.
Satan’s fall, therefore, must have occurred somewhere after the time the angels were created and before he tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Whether Satan’s fall occurred hours, days, or years before he tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden, Scripture does not say.
Young earthers would say "hours". Old Earthers would say "Millions of years". Bottom line is, we do not know!
So Genesis 3 tells us how Adam and Eve were deceived. It would seem as though Satan had already fallen, but, nothing is written as proof of that. It would also seem that the serpent was a willing participant with Satan in tempting Adam and Eve or that Satan had disguised himself as the serpent, however it would be overly harsh of God to have punished the serpent if he had not actually done anything wrong. We are still faced with scripture that seems to say that Satan was in Eden and was perfect until sin was found in him. Am I misunderstanding this?
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.
15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
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.
15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
Looking at it very carefully, Scripture does not say "perfect until sin was found in him."
Verse #13 says ........."Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God".
Verse #15 says.........." Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee."
"Hast been" & "Was" is past tense and indicates a time before Eden. When he rebelled against God he was removed as a good angel and
according to Is. 14:12 removed to the ground = Eden & then he tempted Eve.
"Thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire" is not Eden so it must be heaven.
Isiah tells us in 14:12 .......
"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!"
All of that from Ezekiel's time would have been past tense, just as it is from Isaiah. Satan fell before either of those prophets existed. You say scripture does not say until sin was found in him, but, isn't iniquity another term for sin? I have had someone explain the gap theory to me and I am not sure I can get behind that theory biblically. This person says it explains why the earth was formless and void, and that Genesis is a story of recreation of earth, again I find no evidence for this theory. Either I am misunderstanding this scripture or Satan's fall began in Eden. I have found commentary that said God was being sarcastic when he spoke this about the king of Tyre. Another one said that the Eden mentioned here is in heaven, just as the temple is a copy of God's temple in heaven so Eden here on earth was a copy of God's garden in heaven. It seems there is alot of confusion over this chapter and who it is talking about and where this happened.
Technical terms. Whereas sin deals with the action or lack of action that is wrong, iniquity deals more with the character or nature of the act.
Satan fell because of the sin of Pride. That had to happen 1st or he would not have fallen.
The "GAP" theory was popular back in the 50's and 70's for only one reason and that was to try and correlate the recent discoveries of dinosaur bones to the 6000 K year old Scripture record of creation when science said it was 5 billion years.
You have seen right here the effort to explain this by those who say that the dinosaurs lived with Adam and Eve. That is the ONLY explination possible when we reject the 6000 K year old creation story.
The young earthers actually reject all of the scientific methods used to come to the old age date.