HERMENEUTICS 101: LUCIFER'S FALL AND THE FALL OF MAN

George Offerman

Now that we have gone over many of the nuances and background information on reading the Bible, it is time to take a look at the overall purpose of this Story. Using the four methods of interpretation will allow one to do an exegesis on the verses, and place particular stories, teachings, dogmas and allegories into a larger frame of reference. The parameters have to be put in place prior to any reading and exegesis of verses. So we need to start with the large picture of what the Bible is about, to understand the particular nuances of it.

The Bible in short, is the story of an Eternal God who through an act of love, created beings, both spirit and physical, with the intent of showering them with unending bliss, and ever revealing to His creation, his holiness and love, which in and of itself is an eternal process. But God instilled something called free will into both the spiritual and physical beings, which meant they needed to choose to worship God out of a free act of will, and would not be forced to do this. There was no knowledge of sin or death or destruction, except by God, and it has been God’s desire all along that this ‘knowledge’ not be accessed. But free will mandated this as a possibility, and unfortunately, the highest created being Lucifer, chose to go this route.

Because Lucifer does not have the attributes of God, his efforts to convince 1/3 of the angels to rebel most likely took a considerable amount of time. Even with his efforts and doubts about God, Lucifer still had not committed that ‘unpardonable’ sin, until the rebellion, and the attempts by the heavenly hosts to convince him otherwise went unheeded. God gave Lucifer an ‘age’ in which to settle this issue, and when Lucifer filled his cup, his ‘last call’ so to speak, the rebellion ensued. Lucifer, who is now Satan, can never be forgiven, as sin did not exist, and Lucifer existed in the perfect environment with perfect love, and no temptation from other beings. Thus, the cosmic age of sin began with the rebellion and first war in heaven

God continued with his plan to create physical beings that are described as being ‘slightly lower than the angels’. As with the angels, man Adam and Eve were placed in a perfect environment, and given all the tools necessary to have a blissful existence, with absolutely no threats of any kind and no concept or reality of death. Also, as with the angels, Adam and Eve were instructed to tend the garden, and be fruitful and multiply, but to not eat of the apple of the tree of good and evil. Lucifer’s main gripe with God is that God is a dictator, and was ‘holding back’ knowledge, and thus, disallowing beings beneath God the ability to make their own decisions and do what they want.

Satan, with God’s permission, was given one opportunity to ‘tempt’ man, and had man passed this test, Satan’s ‘age of sin’ would have ended, and he and his angels would have entered his eternal destiny immediately. So Satan took his time in studying Adam and Eve, and found their weaknesses (Satan still does this today) and exploited it through the use of word play, Curiosity, by getting Eve to think about the forbidden knowledge, and doubts about what God had actually said and instructed them to do.

Adam, as a created being, was given dominion over the whole earth. It was Adam’s territory and his decisions would supersede any other beings, provided he continued in the will of God. Adam’s choice of taking the apple, even after Eve partook of it was his free will in giving this dominion away. The recipient of this decision was Satan. Satan now had ‘rights’ over the earth, but also all of mankind as well. Satan was now prince of the earth, and as such, again had access to heaven, as the angelic realm regularly gave reports on the areas they were assigned to. (This is evidenced in the book of Job, and Jude, as well as Jesus own testimony)

Then something very unexpected occurred. God the Father stood ready to ‘execute’ Adam and Eve, when the Second person of the trinity, stepped forward to ‘offer himself’ as a sacrifice for the ‘atonement’ of this sin. The love of this Second Person of the Trinity was such that he was willing to give up much of his substance as God for the rest of eternity to save these two initially, and the rest of mankind as they came into existence. God the Father accepted this offer by the Second Person of the Trinity, and the plan of salvation, and redemption of man commenced. The Second Person of the Trinity could not stand for the prospect that man, who was exposed to evil, should suffer the same fate as a being who knew no sin when he first sinned, and was willing to redeem these fallen beings. This demonstrated to Satan, God’s ever pervasive mercy and justice, but true love for those he creates.

Satan was furious with this decision, now understanding these ‘inferior worms’ will get an opportunity totally lost to him, and hatred, rage and jealousy took over and has ruled Satan’s heart ever since. Satan was told in the garden that he would ‘bruise’ his heel, but that man would ‘crush his head’. Satan’s defeat would come through a man, who is greatly inferior to the ‘highest created being’ and this was, and is more than this egotistical murderer and slanderer can handle. The great clock then commenced, and Satan was very clear that: 1) He has limited time in which to defeat God and work on condemning as many of man’s offspring as possible and that 2) at the end of this time, Satan would be subjected to the exact punishment he has meted out to God’s created beings. Thus began the age of sin in the world.

To counter this, Satan masterminded and planted into existence, the pursuit of forbidden knowledge and the mystery religions that were (and are still) pervasive prior to the incarnation of Christ. It is in this that Satan uses (stole) images that are similar to Christianity in order to deceive the weak minded that Christianity ‘stole’ images and myths from these earlier religions, when in reality it is the other way around. Satan’s purpose in this is to get those unwilling to investigate for themselves, that it is Christianity that is counterfeiting the ‘real’ religions of old, and it takes root in novels such as Dan Brown’s series on the “Da Vinci Codes’.

By having ‘advanced’ knowledge of the salvation story and methodology, Satan has been busy making up several different ‘religions’ that twist the plan of salvation in subtle and different ways, so by the time of the incarnation, there were multiple varieties of beliefs, and Christianity looked like another offshoot of any number of mystery religions, and what appeared to be legitimate religions. There are ultimately only two religions: that of God and that of Satan. Satan has so many that people have to ‘choose’, and it is just the way he planned it. Most will fall into false religions, and thus through lack of knowledge, they perish.