Posted on 11/09/2013 9:17:25 AM PST by ComtedeMaistre
One of the strangest parts of the Bible is Job 1:6
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job+1&version=GNT
[When the day came for the heavenly beings to appear before the Lord, Satan was there among them. The Lord asked him, “What have you been doing?”]
This part suggests that Satan visits heaven. Satan, of course, began as a full time resident of heaven, before he was expelled from heaven. It seems that he retains visiting rights.
It is this passage that led Mormons to teach that Jesus and Satan started out as brothers. We do know that Lucifer/Satan was the most senior of the Angels, with more seniority than Arch-Angels Gabriel and Michael. He was effectively Number 3 in heaven after God and Jesus.
Can any freeper Bible experts explain what Satan was doing in heaven, when unrepentant human sinners whose sins are much less than Satan's, are going straight to hell without a chance of seeing heaven?
Satan started out as an angel right?
He is the accuser and he (thinks he) was taunting God
Nevermind, I see you noted that.
You have to read the whole bible to find out.
Satan, was one of God’s Angels. PRIDE made him think he could become as great as (or greater) than God.
He was cast out of heaven, but until the that time, he and the angels that followed him, were allowed in heaven. They are not there now.
They are chained (restrained) now, except for Satan who goes back and forth in the earth, looking for who he can destroy.
God knows things before they happen not because he CAUSES them to happen, but because he can see them just as you can see things as you look left and right. God can see the past and future as easily was we can look around the room.
Tehre is a lot about Angels and Man, and free will and who is to blame that I am leaving out here.
I hope you find your answers. They are there.
The whole story of angels going into rebellion does suggest that angels are not automatons, they have opinions, minds, wills of their own.
My understanding is Heaven is the perfect realm of God or where everything happens according to his will. Hell is the realm completely void of God and his will. Everywhere else like Earth or even other spiritual realms are middle ground.
God is present in middle ground, but it of course is far from perfect and it is filled with many evil characters. Thus the story takes place somewhere there (not heaven)—that is, if you were to read the story literally.
They may have been Chained there at one time. Not now.
Satan's demons also roam the earth too.
Actually, the story of the angels going into rebellion comes from the book of Enoch, not from the Bible.
And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, / And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. / 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. / And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.That event has to have been after the events in Job. The “brethren” there most definitely includes Christians as well as the prior prophets and patriarchs of the Old Testament. Also note that the evil spirits were cast down into the earth . . . as for “hell”, remember that there are four different words in the Bible that were translated as “hell” but have different meanings.
How do you know for certain that Satan was not already tagged as a rebellious angel before being cast out?
But was allowed to remain until God did what he did to him in his own time frame.
Satan could have been allowed to do both for a time: go to and fro upon the earth AND appear in a heavenly council. God would have had to allow that. And if God did, then he had a reason for it that WE would not be able to explain. Only God would know. His knowledge is infinite and we are not in possession of but a tiny part of it. Much is not told to us.
Judas Iscariot was already predicted to betray Jesus but was nevertheless allowed to remain as an apostle. Judas then went out and hanged himself.
God has a sense of timing. He sometimes strikes people dead on the spot and sometimes allows their evil to come to fruition over time.
God knew Jesus was coming to earth and would preach, minister and die to be raised to life.
He knew it from before the beginning of time, but in earthly years look how long he took to work it out.
Never try to force God into a box that we have created that we think fits God.
The order in which events appear to happen in scripture does not always have to reflect their timing in God’s terms. To God, a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day.
Or, it could have been timed as it appears to us, that first Satan was cast out, then returned during Job’s story. But again, if God allowed him to appear after casting him out, it was a one time event to make a point, and it was at God’s allowance, not a privilege that Satan still possessed.
Ergo, Satan may have limited access to some part of Heaven if and when called by God to appear before Him.
Secondly, an emissary (a lawyer, if you will) between God and Satan may have been appointed and the account in Job might have been that person and not Satan himself.
You said: “It seems that he retains visiting rights”
Meant in levity I’m sure, but Satan has no visiting “RIGHTS”. If this does take place in heaven, it’s only because God ALLOWED it, not because Satan has any “right” to be there.
Force is always at the heart of any liberal-utopian initiative.
And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it. …
And the LORD said unto Satan, From whence comest thou? And Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
No, it is a story on one man offering up his suffering to God.
BTW, God threw Satan and his angels out of heaven. I don’t think he will invite them (or even allow them) to re-enter.
They occupy hell and God is happy with that.
The devil really is out to create dystopia.
And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.and then confirmed in the Book of Enoch.
I applaud you on your mention of the Book of Enoch. Heavy duty stuff, old Enoch.
I like that.
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