Was Satan an angel?

It appears there were at least two falls of angels; one was he whom we call Satan — when man was made, Satan tempted man through Eve. Those ordinary evil angels, of which we read in the Bible from Genesis down to Revelation, are not under everlasting chains at all. They are roving about the world continually, and so far from being in chains of darkness, in "tortures" as it is called here, they are allowed access to heaven. You will see that in a very marvellous way in the history of Job. A great many believers do not believe in the book of Job. You will see there "the sons of God" referred to. What is meant by "the sons of God" there? Why, the angels of God. The angels of God appeared before God. We learn from this that they have access, and include not only the good angels but also the Satanic angels. Satan was a fallen angel, but still he was an angel, and when "the sons of God" came, Satan was there too. So that it is evident, from the Book of Revelation more particularly, that Satan will not lose that access to the presence of God until we are actually in heaven. It has not come to pass yet. People have an extraordinary idea in their heads that whatever access Satan had before that time, he lost it — either when our Lord was born, or when our Lord died — but there is nothing of this in the Epistle to the Ephesians, where, on the contrary it is expressly stated that our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against wicked spirits in the heavenlies. We are not like the Israelites fighting against Canaanites. Our Canaanite is a spiritual enemy in heavenly places, that is, Satan and his host of demons or angels.

But, as we have seen, these are not at all the sins that are referred to here. There is a marked difference. There is a character of iniquity that these angels fell into on earth, and so a distinct difference in their doom. These angels fell into a very peculiar iniquity, which is in a general way spoken of in Peter, but in a special way in Jude. They were put under chains of darkness and not allowed to stir out of their prison. They are not the angels that tempt us now. They did their bad work just a little time before the flood. That fact gives the matter a very solemn character. If people want to know how it was done, that I do not know; but you are called upon to believe, just as much as I am. What Genesis 6 does say is that there were "sons of God" upon earth at that time who acted in a way contrary to everything in relation to God, and which was so offensive to Him that He would not allow the earth to go on any longer, and this is what brought on the flood. No doubt too there was also a general iniquity in mankind that brought the flood upon them. Man was very corrupt and man was vile, but besides that there was this awful violation of the marks that divide the creatures of God in some mysterious manner. Hence God completely destroyed the whole framework of creation, and put an end to them and their offspring, so that every one of them perished. That is what took place then. Of course, you will tell me that they could not perish absolutely. No, I admit that these angels could not perish any more than men such as you; but this is what God did with those angels that behaved in that tremendously wicked manner. They became prisoners, they were put under confinement, not like Satan and his host that tempt us to this day, but these particular angels were not allowed to tempt men any more. They had done too much, and God would not allow these things to go on any longer, therefore there was this mighty interference at the time of the flood, and not only the things that generally inflict men. These are the words, "Angels that kept not their first estate." Their falling was a departure from their first estate. In this very case Satan had not done so, nor had the angels that fell with Satan. But it was quite another kind of iniquity that caused the flood. These angels left their own habitation and preferred to take their place among mankind to act as if they were men on earth, and accordingly, God has now reserved them in everlasting chains under darkness until the judgment of the great day. Nobody can say that this is true of Satan and his host, but if people should think this, I do not see how they can read these verses and give such a meaning to them. Satan will be cast into the bottomless pit for a thousand years, but their years do not run out until the judgment of the great day comes. Then they will be judged everlastingly.

But John 8:44 supposes neither the measureless depths of eternity nor the commencement of creation, when vast periods preceded the time of man's earth. It means in time, though before man was formed. "From the beginning" is pointedly distinct from "in the beginning" either in its highest applications to the being of the Word or in its use to convey the entrance of creative energy. The devil was not always, but an angel that, inflated or lifted up with pride, fell. He had no standing in the truth and became a murderer as well as a liar, its father (cf. 1 Tim. 3). Thenceforward (ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς, from a beginning of this dark and baneful kind) he was a murderer. His hatred was against man, and especially in enmity to God against Him Who deigned to become man for God's glory and to deliver man. See also 1 John 3. Clearly it is impossible to make ap arches mean from all eternity, which would deny the devil to be a creature and simply that God made him originally a devil, instead of his being an angel like others that kept not their own original state.

Now he gets much stronger, and looks at the source of the mischief. "He that doeth sin is of the devil." He had shown the source of the blessing; now he looks at the ultimate source of sin. It is not merely what Adam and Eve did but what the serpent infused into their hearts. What has the devil been about ever since but adding to the sin of the head fresh unrighteousness for each of the race? Here, it is said, "He that doeth sin is of the devil." He is the leader that man belongs to. He may boast of his ancestors, but there is another who was not literally his father; but fallen man has made Satan practically his god. So scripture calls him the god of this age, and the prince of the world. How true it is "He that doeth sin is of the devil"; not as flung out in man's haste, but nothing less than the truth of God. Not only is he a sinful man, but "he is of the devil." "For the devil sinneth from the beginning," that is, from the time that he was not content to be an angel of God but set up independently of God in his pride. From that moment was his beginning as the devil. This of course was after the time when he was created an angel.

Here again we see that "From the beginning," does not mean "In the beginning." This is said of the Word, the Son, in eternity before the creation, or as "In the beginning" of Gen. 1:1, pointing to God's action, not His being. "From the beginning," no matter how or where it occurs, is from the time that the person spoken of manifests himself. "From the beginning" of Christ was from the time when Christ manifested Himself. "From the beginning" of the devil was when he manifested not his angelic qualities but his pride against God first, and his malice afterward, the sure effect of pride in others also.

But evil never came from God — only from the creature once innocent, now fallen, that kept not his first estate, but chose to do his own will and have his own way. An angel did this first. Man was misled by him who, straying and exalting himself, beguiled others both in heaven and on earth. That creature is called Satan — the Devil. All efforts to get rid of this fact have proved utterly vain, so much so that the boasted lights of antiquity fell consequently into one or other of these notions: either that God is everything, which denies sin; or, secondly, that there is no such being as God at all; while both cases led to worshipping ever so many false gods. Witness now the two greatest philosophers of Greece who have exercised perhaps the largest and most enduring influence over civilised men outside the Bible — the one the head of Pantheism, the other of Atheism. There is what man's thought ends in when it is logically carried out. Man in his fallen estate may reason God away; yet he excludes God, not from his conscience, but in his reason; for at the bottom of the man's heart who does so there is the uneasy feeling that what he sees around him did not grow like a potato — least of all, he himself and his fellows. He feels that, though fallen, he is a moral being who will have to give an account of his action; and to whom but to God — the One who made him and all things?

"From the beginning" is always in time, not before it, to whatever epoch or period, person or thing it may be applied. Take the earliest application, as said of the great angel who fell: "the devil sinneth from the beginning" (1 John 3:8). It was not even the beginning of his existence as an angel, but only as a fallen one.

Now, we read of one in the book of Job who, when "the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord," "came also among them." He is expressly called Satan, and is a true "devil" according to the meaning of that word, "a false accuser."

These "sons of God" are spoken of by Jehovah in the same book as present when He laid the foundations of the earth (Job 38:7), and therefore are certainly not men but angels. Among these angels then the accuser comes, as one of them: surely not a man among angels, and hardly a personification of sin.

From the presence of the Lord he goes forth to exercise manifest superhuman power against Job within divinely ordained limits. He is here clearly an angelic, yet a fallen and evil being.

Only God could reveal what is written in this section, and faith recognises it must be seriously considered. The sons of God presented themselves before God. These sons of God are angels, though the designation can be true of men also, as in Genesis 6:2 which evidently refers to the line of Seth in contrast to the line of Cain; and in Galatians 3:26, where all believers today are said to be sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus. In all of these cases the son's place is to represent the Father, though in Genesis 6:2 they failed to do so. The sons of God here in Job 1:6 appear to be unfallen angels, for fallen angels are not sons of God. Satan came among them, though not one of them.

H.A.I. — In that chapter in Ezekiel the Spirit of God is addressing a man, the prince of Tyre. Beginning with verse 12, He is addressing one who cannot be a mere man, because he had walked in Eden, the garden of God. He calls him a “king,” and he controlled the prince of Tyre. I believe it carries us farther back as to Satan than any other scripture — not the first information as to Satan that we have in the Word of God, but it carries us farthest back. What brother B refers to, is in verses 12 and 13: “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. 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.” Also, in verse 15, “Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.” And “Thy heart was lifted up because of thy beauty” (ver. 17).

C.C. — That shows what an exalted creature he was — a creature remember. He is not omniscient; he is not omnipresent; he is a creature, and originally was the most exalted creature. I believe he was the archangel. Another has been promoted to his place after his fall, but he was then the chief angel.

We do well, I am sure, to recognise that the spiritual forces arrayed against us are very great. Realizing this, we shall never speak lightly or slightingly of the devil. The very archangel, Michael, would not do that, and he is evidently the greatest of the heavenly dignities. I suppose the reason of it was that the devil, .though now a fallen potentate, was in his original condition one step higher than Michael himself. It is generally believed that in Ezekiel 28:11-17, under the type of the king of Tyre, there is an allusion to the devil in his unfallen condition. If he was "the anointed cherub that covers," he was in the very nearest position to God Himself. He aspired to be as God, and then he fell. In the presence of such power as this, what was Simon Peter?

In dreadful contrast with these worshiping servants, these "sons of God," we see one utterly unlike them in moral character, though having a spirit-nature like themselves. Indeed he was once morally like them, the very chief of them all (Ezek. 28) — the "covering cherub" that shadowed the throne of Jehovah. But "how hast thou fallen, O Lucifer, son of the morning!" Dazzled with his own glory, wilfully forgetting the creature-place which he must ever keep, he has fallen into pride ("the condemnation of the devil"), by which he became the bitter, eternal enemy of all that is good, and of God Himself.

Revising ordinary views of Satan in the light of this scripture, we find that while morally fallen he still has access into God's presence, can still present himself along with the "sons of God." So far from being shut up in hell, or even confined to earth, we see this shameless apostate taking his place there as though it were still his right. The time is coming, and that ere long, when he shall be cast out of heaven to earth (Rev. 12:7-12), to tarry there but a short time, and then to be bound a thousand years in the bottomless pit (Rev. 20:1-3); and finally, after leading another brief outbreak of apostate men, will receive his eternal retribution in the lake of fire (Rev. 20:10).

How great is the patience of God! He has tolerated Satan's malignity and scheming through all the sad centuries of fallen man's history — permitted him indeed to tempt our first parents in their innocence — and allows him to make his accusations and insinuations that there is no good, before His very face. But all is permitted to bring out lessons for eternity. Satan is surely heaping up added wrath for himself, and meanwhile his very malice can but serve God's righteous purposes of blessing, as we shall see in Job's case.