Carol Swenson
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Hard Sayings of the Bible
What Is the Fall of Satan? (Luke 10:18)
When we think of the fall of Satan, we tend to be more influenced by John Milton than by the Bible. In Paradise Lost Milton describes Satan and his angels being ejected from heaven and falling down to hell back in the primeval past, before the creation of the human race.
Him the Almighty Power
Hurl’d headlong flaming from th’ Ethereal Skie
With hideous ruin and combustion down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire,
Who durst defie th’ Omnipotent to Arms.
It would be difficult to find biblical authority for this picture, however. The reader of the kjv may think of Isaiah 14:12, “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” And in truth the poetic imagery in which Lucifer’s fall is depicted has been borrowed by the traditional concept of the fall of Satan. But Lucifer, son of the morning, is “Day Star, son of Dawn” (rsv). The prophet is proclaiming the downfall of the king of Babylon, who occupied such a high place in the firmament of imperial power that his overthrow can be compared to the morning star being toppled from heaven. In the Old Testament Satan, or rather “the satan” (the adversary), is chief prosecutor in the heavenly court, and when he fills this role he does so in the presence of God and his angels (Job 1:6-2:7; Zech 3:1-5).
So when Jesus speaks of seeing Satan’s fall from heaven he is not thinking of an event in the remote past. He is thinking of the effect of his ministry at the time. He had sent out seventy of his disciples to spread the announcement that the kingdom of God had drawn near, and now they had come back from their mission in great excitement. “Why,” they said, “even the demons are subject to us in your name!” To this Jesus replied, “I watched how Satan fell, like lightning, out of the sky” (neb). It is implied that he was watching for this when suddenly, like a flash of lightning, it happened; Satan plummeted—whether to earth or down to the abyss is not said.
Jesus may be describing an actual vision that he experienced during the mission of the seventy—not unlike the vision seen by John of Patmos, when, as he says, war broke out in heaven and “the great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray” (Rev 12:9). When Jesus’ messengers found that the demons—malignant forces that held men and women in bondage—were compelled to obey them as they commanded them, in Jesus’ name, to come out of those people in whose lives they had taken up residence, this was a sign that the kingdom of God was conquering the kingdom of evil. Many of the rabbis held that, at the end of the age, God or the Messiah would overthrow Satan. The report of the seventy showed that Satan’s overthrow had already taken place, and Jesus’ vision of his fall from heaven confirmed this. John’s Patmos version of Satan being ejected similarly indicates that his downfall was the direct result of Jesus’ ministry. So too, when Jesus says in John 12:31, “Now the prince of this world will be driven out,” the adverb now refers to his impending passion, which crowned his ministry.
The downfall of Satan may be regarded as the decisive victory in the campaign; the campaign itself goes on. Hence Jesus’ further words to the exultant disciples: “I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions, and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you” (Lk 10:19). The “snakes and scorpions” represent the forces of evil; thanks to the work of Christ, his people can trample them underfoot and gain the victory over them. The imagery may be borrowed from Psalm 91:13, where those who trust in God are promised that they “will tread upon the lion and the cobra.” Paul uses a similar expression when he tells the Christians in Rome that, if they are “wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil,” then the God of peace will soon crush Satan under their feet (Rom 16:19-20). The wording here harks back not so much to Psalm 91 as to the story of man’s first disobedience, where the serpent of Eden is told that its offspring will have its head crushed by the offspring of the woman (Gen 3:15).
Finally, the seventy are directed not to exult in their spiritual achievements (that way lie pride and catastrophe) but to exult rather in what God has done for them. To have one’s name “written in heaven” is to have received God’s gift of eternal life.
Posts: 6787 | From: Colorado | Registered: Dec 2007
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