When Did The Satan First Sin?

[00:00:05] Speaker A: Pastor Michael We've been in a season on all things related to the spiritual realm. And so today's question is, when did the Satan first sin? [00:00:15] Speaker B: I appreciate that you called him the Satan, which the accuser. Go back to the last episode. All right, so most people think that Satan and the demons fell sometime before the Garden of Eden. And I want to be clear that's a possibility. I think there's a more compelling. And I want to make a case for this view that what Genesis 1 and 2, the story it's telling is not just the fall of Adam and Eve, but it is also the story of the fall of Satan himself. So when you read the story, you got to be asking yourself the question, why would God take the darkest, most demonic figure in all of creation and put it inside of a garden and then say Adam and Eve? [00:00:56] Speaker A: Hey, here you go. [00:00:57] Speaker B: And so the idea that you're getting is that this was the place where Satan fell and Adam and Eve fell. So what I want to do is I want to take a few minutes and I want to kind of just walk through kind of a rare passage that most people aren't aware of. But I think it gives us a ton of insight into this. And it's in the book of Ezekiel, chapter 28. And so what Ezekiel 28 does, verses 1 through 10, it talks about this real historical figure called the Prince of Tyre. T Y R E Tyre was a trading partner with Israel. Uh, and Israel was not supposed to have the kind of relationship with, with Tyre like they did. They their rampant, their idolatry was just disgusting. Everything was just rampant. It was just a kind of a vile place. So Israel and Tyre are not supposed to be working and collaborating together, but you can kind of see Israel is falling. And so in chapter 28 of Ezekiel, verses 1 through 10, it's all about the Prince of Tyre. But then in, in verse 11, it shifts to the King of Tyre. And what becomes really, really clear in the text is that behind the prince, the physical human prince, was a spiritual, dark, demonic king. And as you kind of read the description of the king, you realize that it was Satan himself who was the spiritual power behind the physical king of tyre. So 1 through 10 is the prince of Tyre, the human king. And then verse 11 is where we pick up, and I'll start in verse 12, because this, I think, is the most helpful about the king of Tyre, Satan, the spirit behind the physical king. It says you were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. And right away, here's what we see, we see Satan's created design. He was designed to be beautiful, mesmerizing. He was designed to be good. God infused him with unusual knowledge and wisdom and insight. And so Genesis says that he was more crafty. Right. This is that idea that this is. This is actually a good word or it can be a bad word, but the idea is that he put him in the garden and you have one of the most intelligent creatures in all of the angelic creation. In verse 13, we actually learned something really important about the King of Tyre. It says this, and this is how we know it's Satan says, you were in Eden, the Garden of God. Interesting. So the physical King of Tyre was not in Eden. Now we're at the King of Tyre. And so here's what we see. In the garden, you have the devil who had not fallen yet, it would seem now, when you think about, like, the devil in the garden. Okay, so, Ryan, what comes to your mind? What picture, what image? [00:03:33] Speaker A: A snake, actually. Not slithering because it wasn't on its belly yet, but, like, potentially with legs, walking around and, like, trying to look for opportunity to deceive or be crafty. Like, that's kind of the image I had at least maybe growing up. [00:03:47] Speaker B: Yeah. So, like, it's easy to assign to it some sort of reptile with legs because he lost his legs. He's talking, he's looking around, trying. He's tricky. He's evil. [00:03:56] Speaker A: Some type of evil intent. [00:03:57] Speaker B: Yeah, there doesn't seem to be evil intent right away. He's there and it's good. And he has access. And he has access to God because the Garden of Eden is God's home and he has access to Adam and Eve. And so there's nothing weird or unusual. There was nothing in the serpent that would have set Eve or Adam to be like, wow, this guy's dangerous. Verse 13 describes his appearance. And this is really beautiful. Every precious stone was your covering. Sardius, topaz, diamond, beryl, onyx, Jasper, sapphire, emerald carbuncle. And crafted in gold were your settings and your engravings. Verse 13 also says, on the day that you were created, they were prepared. And so God infused Satan with the Satan. We don't know his original name, but infused him with unbelievable beauty. And then verse 14 it says, and this is, again, we're just doubling down on the fact that this is not a physical prince, this is an actual spirit king Satan. It says, you were an anointed guardian cherub. God says, I placed you. You were on the holy mountain of God. In the midst of the stones of fire, you walked. And that's a description of other angels. And the mountain of God is God's home. That would have been Eden. [00:05:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:15] Speaker B: And then verse 15 takes an ugly turn. So remember, where is he? He's beautiful. He's Satan, he's in the garden. And then it says, you were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till unrighteousness was found in you. So it's interesting as you take Ezekiel 28, you have this beautiful, wise, knowledgeable angel with, let's just say, leadership in the presence of God in God's home in Eden. And then while he's in Eden, something happened. And this is supposed to take us back to Genesis 1 and, and 2. [00:05:48] Speaker A: That's so helpful, I think too, when we talk about studying Scripture because we look at other parts of Scripture to inform our understanding of other things. And so, like, it's important that we take the whole council of Scripture to get our understanding of all these things, because you don't necessarily see all of this. In Genesis 1 and 2. We get to Ezekiel 28, which is hundreds of years removed from the Eden account. And that's really helpful. [00:06:14] Speaker B: It's progressive revelation. You don't get everything at once, but God progressively reveals more and more and gives you the insight you need later to understand kind of the full complexity of what was happening earlier. [00:06:24] Speaker A: So bring us back to the Garden of Eden. What does this mean for the Satan and the garden? [00:06:29] Speaker B: Yeah, so what? It means a few things, but one, I want you just to remember that in the garden, our temptation is going to be to assign ugliness to Satan in the garden. And it would appear that he was not ugly, he had not fallen yet. So when you watch the interaction between Satan and Eve, you're watching his first sin, if you will. I want you to look at this. In Genesis, chapter three, verse one, it says, now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. Again, in our brain, I think sometimes we picture like a python or maybe a gardener snake running around. And the word here, nahas, is interesting because I want to bring you forward. So we're going to jump around a little bit. But to understand that word, we have to jump forward to the book of Isaiah, because Isaiah does what Ezekiel does. It points back to the garden a. [00:07:26] Speaker A: Little bit, gives more context and it. [00:07:27] Speaker B: Gives more clarity on what kind of nahas it is, because nahas could mean a whole bunch of things. So here's how Isaiah 27. One describes this. And that day the Lord, with his heart and great and strong sword will punish. And here's the word leviathan. He's called now the fleeing serpent leviathan, the twisting serpent. And he will slay the dragon that is in the sea. So we don't totally know what the leviathan is, but he's called a dragon. He's huge, he's enormous, he's the scariest of all the water creation, if you will. Now we're getting an idea that whatever the nahas was, because he's also called the serpent and the dragon and et cetera. So we're now realizing this actually might have been a very, very large serpent, leviathan, almost dragon like. It kind of expands your notion of the story because typically you read their cartoons and you're like, it's this little snake just jibber jabbering. And so the leviathan is a fast moving, petrifying sea monster that made people afraid to go into the ocean because if you ran into him, he just wreaked havoc and destruction everywhere he went. And then the Bible takes the same imagery of the serpent, who is the leviathan, who is the dragon. And now at the end of the Bible, in Revelation 12, 9, it says the great dragon was thrown down that. Look at this ancient serpent, interesting. Who is called the devil. And Satan, the deceiver of the whole world, he was thrown down to the earth and his angels were thrown down with him. So now we have the serpent, who is also called the dragon, who is also called the Satan, who is also called the devil, and who, Isaiah took that all the same vocabulary and called him the leviathan. So now we're getting this picture that whatever was in the garden was beautiful. It felt safe, enormous. So this idea that God would create the chief of angels, beautiful, first or second in command of all the angelic realm, and that he's a little snake, probably not the right image that we have. Interesting. And so, I mean, what happened? [00:09:41] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. What did happen? [00:09:43] Speaker B: We're going to go all the way back to Ezekiel 28 in the abundance of your trade. You were filled with violence in your midst and you sinned. What's interesting in Ezekiel 28, when he says this, where is the serpent? Where is the king of Tyre? He's in the garden. That's the context. He's in the garden and he sins. And it says this. So I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God. In other words, he was fired as an angel and he was kicked out. So you Go back to your question. When was Satan's first sin? It would appear when you read Genesis 1, you're reading the first sin. And we kind of have to understand that this isn't just a little snake. This is probably a huge, beautiful, remarkable, safe dragon, if you will. Not dragon in the sense of, like, I don't know, our current mythology, you know, like Chinese mythology, whatever, but like something huge that was rooted in the sea and. And so God kicks him out and fires him and sends him away and makes him ugly. Exposes the outside, makes the outside look like the inside, if you will. He became as ugly on the outside as he became on the inside. Yeah. So he says in verse 17 of Ezekiel 28, I cast you to the ground. I exposed you before kings to feast their eyes on you. I brought fire from out of your midst. I consumed you and I turned you to ashes on the earth in the sight of all who saw you, and all who know you among the peoples are appalled at you. You have come to a dreadful end and shall be no more forever. I mean, he just took away all of his splendor and beauty. Verse 16, it says, I destroyed you, O guardian cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. [00:11:24] Speaker A: That really reframes, I'm sure, a lot of people and my understanding of what it could have looked like and gives some context for the fact that, yes, that was a dark day in history for humans, Adam and Eve, but also for one of God's created angelic beings and set the course and trajectory for all of human history. [00:11:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Another question for another day. Well, then, when did the rest of the angels fall? Another day. [00:11:50] Speaker A: That's a good question.