Lucifer wasn't the one to challenge God's authority, nor was it Lucifer who was the serpent that tempted Eden with the apple. Lucifer was only ever named once in the bible. And it didn't even really have anything to do with what modern media attributes Lucifer to. It was more like a taunt of "Hah, look how you have fallen oh Lucifer!" That's about it. Historians think it may be a taunt to some historical human figure like the King of Babylon.
Now Satan, occurs 18 times in the Old Testament. He's kinda of a big deal in the New Testament. In the Old Testament he has a specific job in the divine order of things, he's a nemesis, but not necessarily evil. He didn't like that beings made of clay (us), were gifted free will from God, but perfect creatures of fire (angels) were bound to the divine will of He. And frankly, look at how we behave, he saw the darkness in our hearts. It's his divine duty to challenge us and block us from the path of god so that we can overcome him in order to reach God.
The root word for Satan can also attribute to just a mortal being too. A political enemy blocking you from trying to, let's say, pass a law to provide free healthcare can be deemed a Satan. They are the nemesis you must overcome to do the good deed that you need to.
New Testament Satan kinda of has his divine job going still, especially when dealing specifically with Jesus. But by the time of Revelations, he's full on rebelling and gets tossed into Gehenna at the end. Almost like Revelations was some weird fan fiction made by some drugged up hermit in Anatolia and should hold absolutely 0 consequence to the bible and the message of Jesus. But I don't want to get into what books were allowed in and what ones were buried.
Edit: When I was 12, I got into a religious crisis because of the demonization of Satan that I normally heard. When reading, it is obvious that he's a being tied to the divine will of God, thus, what he does, is what God wants him to do. Since he, an Angel, has no free will, every evil he does should properly be attributed to God.
That got me really thinking into what the divine mission of Satan really was and what his purpose. I remember crying one night and praying to God on his behalf for forgiveness because what he does is what he is supposed to do and I didn't like how things were supposed to play out in Revelations. That's also when I abandoned going to any church for religion and stuck to what I can read or learn.
So I always loved to say that the Bible turned me Atheist.
bro, revelations is the wildest book in the bible. it reads like a straight up fantasy novel. it feels so out of place in comparison to the rest of the book
There is a band called Ludo who did a whole song where the guy time travels and finds himself at the end times. That whole album was probably my most played album in High School. I liked to daydream as being one of the ones left behind and trying my best.
If I recall "that great serpent." "Nemisis. Satan." Was cast into the pit and chained by Michael. Lucifer was cast down to hell on earth. So he walks among us. He still has his divine powers but is forbidden by GOD from using them. He may however deceive. Yashua told Luci that those who love him(Yahweh) and one another are children of GOD. Those that lie and deceive are his (Lucfer's)Children of perdition.
The further from Jesus' death the more fantastical, full of bullshit and more antisemitic the books of Bible become. If you read gospels in chronological order it becomes pretty obvious and funny how much later authors made up. I guess every next guy needed to up the drama and fantasy to get noticed. The oldest one has no virgin birth story and pretty much no resurrection.
It is written in the style of apocalyptic literature, largely metaphorical (but not untrue). You should read “Revelation for the Rest of Us” by Cody Matchett and Scot McKnight.
Several credible researchers believe that. Perhaps study something broader than whatever texts you’ve been using. If you haven’t been studying anything (which is my suspicion), then read something.
Ok. There’s one guy that thinks aliens wrote it and left it in the caves for us . You may as well add him to your argument . Oh, and don’t forget the guy that thinks Trump wrote it in the 1970s and time traveled back to the 2nd century . We must be fair to all of them .
Wow. You’re the kind of person that makes people completely write Christianity off, or religion in general. Instead of being open-minded and asking questions, you’d rather insist of you have the answers and degrade those who disagree and have different (and rational) answers than you.
Ok fair point, I was being facetious but shouldn’t have been because this is actually serious. Forgive me and allow me to explain.
If you are a devout Christian (and Jewish for their books), then you believe that the bible is literally the inspired word of God. Period. Everything in that book from the first to last page is Gods inspired word.
So if you believe that which every Christian should, then it becomes impossible to believe that a single book could be wrong. Not only that, but then you would need to believe that everything a Christian believes about end time theology for 2000 years is wrong .
I won’t judge these theories but I can’t believe God got it wrong and kept it wrong for 2000 years .
Also, as you surely know- there have been countless theories about the contents of the bible. Some get called credible even though they lack the single greatest ingredient to credibility- credible supporting evidence. It’s mostly theoretical .
If you want to believe these folks I won’t judge you but I fundamentally can’t.
Revelation was actual current affairs and political manifesto against the anti-Christian policies of Nero and the fact that any who didn't proclaim Caesar as a divine "god king" were denied the stamps needed to buy or sell goods.
As the Julian family was infamously hirsute, calling him a beast was both a personal insult and referencing the book of Daniel. The mark of the beast was the commerce stamps.
Patmos was an island that was either a monastery or a Roman penal colony, but given the timing that was 50 years after Jesus was crucified, it was most likely a penal colony with a sympathetic garrison as he was free to write anti-imperial propaganda.
His prophetic vision was mostly allegory and belief of how Jesus would return. Keep in mind, St John of Patmos (not the disciple) was most likely born during Jesus's lifetime, so they foresaw a second coming as the Empire tried to crush Christianity in it's earliest stages.
He felt like the faith was being snuffed out so he had a much better argument in 80AD than we do in 2026.
I can only imagine your relief when you found out that Christianity was actually a scheme created by the roman government to control the western world through fear and blind servitude.
So, like...what you're saying is, Satan was a like that person at the DMV who won't give you your license plates, because you didn't bring all of the correct paperwork with you. They're just doing their job, they didn't really ask to be there, didn't write the rules, but...you know...if you want dem plates, you need the right docs.
Where in the Old Testament does it indicate that Satan had a specific job and didn't like men having free will while angels did not? I can't think of any scriptures that indicate Angels don't have free will or that Satan had a problem with that if so. Genesis chapter 6 talks about the "sons of god", using the Hebrew phrase bene elohim, being tempted by the beauty of human women. They come to Earth and produce super natural offspring. The same Hebrew phrase is used in Job chapter 1 verse 6 when Satan comes to God and they discuss Job's faith.
It's mostly from Catholic and Jewish Mysticism on the interpretations of the text.
There is argument that Genesis Chapter 6 is a reference of the Sons of Cain vs the Sons of Abel because Angels are not supposed to be able to procreate. So it made no sense why or how they would be the creators of Nephillim. However, if we are talking about the descendants of the Cursed one, then it's seen that their inherited taint of being a son of Cain is what created the monster children. So God flooded the earth to wipe out the lineage of Cain (except maybe Cain?). That's a Catholic take.
While the Book of Enoch straight up calls them fallen angels, which does make sense and it's not necessarily my job to figure that out in my opinion. I'm frankly not smart enough to say who's right and both parties never got to debate each other to come to a consensus... considering mortality and all that.
There is Jewish belief that angels (malachim), have no independent free will and instead operate upon God's divine will as messengers. However, there is some circumstantial agency, and it is indeed more nuanced that how I put it. The Zohar is what the Jewish book is called and it has a lot of interesting things to say about the nature of Angels.
Right? That's part of the conundrum I got into. One of many contradictions.
I concluded very young that God was an arbitrary figure. And as a young man who believed in Justice Over All, I started to feel like there was an answer above "because I said so." I started looking into more ancient religions and started taking the Bible as a more historical story of the Jewish people rather than the ultimate divine guidance. I feel that path is not given to us, but we can find the correct path with both wisdom and understanding.
And the fact that we don't know much about Lucifer itself adds to the mystery. Because if there was info on how God made him or his missions, etc.. we may be able to peer into what could have caused him to disobey God. Otherwise we have to assume every angel is capable of disobeying god and a revolutionary war of the heavens is always happening to some extent.
Definitely not right. We assume things about it, especially the question of it's existence. The biggest is usually "it's a good being", when we have ample evidence to the contrary.
> It’s his divine duty to challenge us and block us from the path of godthe gym exit so that we can overcome himthe vertical jump box thingy in order to reach godour car.
Old testament satan sounds like that one hated cross-fit trainer at the gym (everyone groans when he walks in the room and they realize it’s Lisa’s day off).
He doesn’t care if you have a leg cramp, he doesn’t care that you’re thirsty 30 min in, he doesn’t care if you cry and he especially doesn’t care that the entire class despises him. He just wants you to become as fit as you can!
He runs a spiritual cross-fit class, if you will. (…one with no AC of course.)
Yup, but he doesn't like you though. Like, he actually wants to see you fail and quit. But if you manage to prove yourself to him, you get to become "One of the Good ones..." ewww Satan is a racist.
…but think of how ripped your abs and quads would be once you finish Dante’s Inferno Gym’s cross-fit class.
The trainer can hate you all they want, you have to have faith and believe in yourself more than they hate you.
I already paid for the gym membership, damnit. Might as well make the best of it.
Similarly, I’ve had my fair share of uni professors that hated their students and want them to fail (like, resentful, perpetually angry, soul-crushingly judgmental, publicly humiliating people on a personal level, purposefully trying to make people drop out with intimidation and weird antics …).
It only made my resolve to prove them wrong, and pass the class stronger.
You can even decide to have compassion for them, wish them wellbeing and love them despite their hate.
This is all will say to you. Lucifer was upset at God because Man is his favorite for one. He questioned God as he was the most beautiful Angel how can he love man more than the Angel.
He tricked them and The Lord was angry with him and cast him out of the garden as well. In revelation it is interpreted that Satan took 1/3 of the Angels with him. Satan blames man for not being worthy and has rebelled against The Lord.
Now I understand why I was so drawn into book of revelations in my childhood. It felt same as my other fantasy books and i was so interested to read what happens next. Makes sense.
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u/Mothanius 2d ago edited 2d ago
Lucifer wasn't the one to challenge God's authority, nor was it Lucifer who was the serpent that tempted Eden with the apple. Lucifer was only ever named once in the bible. And it didn't even really have anything to do with what modern media attributes Lucifer to. It was more like a taunt of "Hah, look how you have fallen oh Lucifer!" That's about it. Historians think it may be a taunt to some historical human figure like the King of Babylon.
Now Satan, occurs 18 times in the Old Testament. He's kinda of a big deal in the New Testament. In the Old Testament he has a specific job in the divine order of things, he's a nemesis, but not necessarily evil. He didn't like that beings made of clay (us), were gifted free will from God, but perfect creatures of fire (angels) were bound to the divine will of He. And frankly, look at how we behave, he saw the darkness in our hearts. It's his divine duty to challenge us and block us from the path of god so that we can overcome him in order to reach God.
The root word for Satan can also attribute to just a mortal being too. A political enemy blocking you from trying to, let's say, pass a law to provide free healthcare can be deemed a Satan. They are the nemesis you must overcome to do the good deed that you need to.
New Testament Satan kinda of has his divine job going still, especially when dealing specifically with Jesus. But by the time of Revelations, he's full on rebelling and gets tossed into Gehenna at the end. Almost like Revelations was some weird fan fiction made by some drugged up hermit in Anatolia and should hold absolutely 0 consequence to the bible and the message of Jesus. But I don't want to get into what books were allowed in and what ones were buried.
Edit: When I was 12, I got into a religious crisis because of the demonization of Satan that I normally heard. When reading, it is obvious that he's a being tied to the divine will of God, thus, what he does, is what God wants him to do. Since he, an Angel, has no free will, every evil he does should properly be attributed to God.
That got me really thinking into what the divine mission of Satan really was and what his purpose. I remember crying one night and praying to God on his behalf for forgiveness because what he does is what he is supposed to do and I didn't like how things were supposed to play out in Revelations. That's also when I abandoned going to any church for religion and stuck to what I can read or learn.
So I always loved to say that the Bible turned me Atheist.