The positive definition of pride is feeling a sense of satisfaction from one’s own accomplishments, qualities, or possessions. It is when a person has dignity and self-respect. Being proud of someone for accomplishing something is not sinful pride. It is easy to cross the line from the positive characteristics of pride to the negative features. Pride can be personal and individual to a particular person, but can apply to both small and large groups.
Pride can also be negative, motivating a person to pursue selfish needs to satisfy their arrogance. When it is placed into action, it can destroy homes, love for others, and governments. Pride is like a giant boulder rolling down a mountainside. It destroys everything in its path, and no one is immune to it. Each person must look within themselves to keep this emotion under control because it will cause people to speak when they should not, act when it is inappropriate, and hurt others who are dear to them.
How could a God
of love create someone as horrible and prideful as Satan? Many who refuse to look
into what the Bible says on the
subject simply decide that God made a serious mistake in this area so maybe we
should not put our trust in Him. When God created the world, we are told that
God examined it and declared that it was good. This means that even the angelic
world did not have evil angels or demons in it at that time. By the time of
Genesis chapter three, we find that Satan, in the form of a serpent, was
tempting Eve to sin. Therefore, sometime between the events of Genesis chapter
one and Genesis chapter three, there must have been a rebellion in the angelic
world, with many angels turning against God and becoming evil. This rebellion
was led by Satan himself.
Satan
(“accuser”) was originally called Lucifer
(which means “star of the morning”). He held a high-ranking position in
the angelic host, and was anointed as a guardian cherub. Lucifer had exquisite beauty and great wisdom.
Lucifer’s heart became proud because of his incredible beauty. His pride caused
him to be thrown out of Heaven. He allowed his perfection to be his corruption.Lucifer became so impressed with his own beauty, intelligence, power, and position that he began to desire for himself the honor and glory that belonged to God alone. This pride represents the actual beginning of sin in the universe preceding the fall of the human Adam. In the Garden of Eden, Eve believed the lie that she would be like God if she ate of the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The reason Lucifer tempted her with that was because it is the very thing that he wants to be God. God wanted Lucifer to love Him of his own free will knowing in the end He would rebel against Him. Just like Jesus loved Judas knowing he would betray Him to eventual crucifixion. True love always comes with a cost. It is never free.
Once a beautiful, powerful angel of
God, he lost his former, exalted position in Heaven. When Satan fell, he did
not fall alone. Lucifer took one-third of the angels with him to overthrow the
throne of God. God created the angels long before He
created the earth. They were holy and blameless. The angelic host numbered more than ten thousand times ten thousand
(Revelation 5:11) that is a sizable group. They account for the fallen angels,
or demons that now do his bidding. As a result, Satan is a fallen, but
powerful, spirit-being with a well-organized network of demon powers to help
him accomplish his purposes of stealing, killing, and destroying. Sin
originated in the free will of Lucifer in which (with full understanding of the
issues involved) he chose to rebel against the Creator. Few things can blind anyone
better than pride.
Why would God create Satan to corrupt His good creation? Lucifer, like Adam, had a choice.
He could accept that God was God, or he could choose to decide that he would be
god unto himself. His repeated selfishness shows that he chose to defy
God and declared himself to be in charge. Lucifer’s pride led to his rebellion
and fall, but he never lost (and thus still retains) any of his power and
traits. He is leading a cosmic revolt against his Creator to see who will
be God. His strategy was to enlist mankind to join him by tempting them
to succumb to the same choice that he made – to love themselves, become independent
from God, and defy Him. The heart of the test of Adam’s will was the same as
Lucifer’s; it was just arrayed with different clothing. They both chose
to be ‘god’ to themselves. This was (and is) the ultimate ‘god delusion’.
An important aspect of being ‘smart’ is to
know whether or not you can defeat a potential opponent. Lucifer may have
had (and still has) power, but even his limited creature-power would have been
insufficient for a successful revolt against His Creator. So why risk all
and go for something he could not win? I would think that a ‘smart’ angel
would have recognized his limitations pitted against Omniscience &
Omnipotence combined and held back his revolt? So why didn’t Lucifer?
Lucifer
could only come to the conclusion that God was His omnipotent Creator by faith,
the same as for us. Let me explain. The Bible associates the origin of angels with the first week of
creation.
Picture
Lucifer being created and becoming conscious sometime in creation week (somewhere
in the cosmos). All he knows is that now he exists and is self-aware, and
there is also another Being who claims
to have created him and all the cosmos. Lucifer could only accept God’s
Word to him that He had created Him and that God himself was eternal and
infinite. And in his pride he chose to believe the fantasy that he had
birthed in his own mind.
You
might think it fanciful that Lucifer would believe that both he and God (and
the other angels) just ‘popped’ into existence. But this is the same basic idea behind the latest and greatest of modern cosmology.
There was a cosmic fluctuation of nothing – and then out of this fluctuation
arose the universe – that is the essence of modern atheistic cosmological
speculations. In other words, seeing is not believing.
Lucifer would have seen and conversed with God. But he still would have
had to accept ‘by faith’ that God had created him. Satan himself masquerades as an angel of
light. It is not surprising, then, if his demons also masquerade as servants of
righteousness. (2 Corinthians 11:14-15)
“Live together in peace with each other. Don’t
be proud, but be willing to be friends with people who are not important to
others. Don’t think of yourself as smarter than everyone else.” (Romans
12:16, ERV)[i]
[i] Sources used:
·
“How Did Lucifer Fall and Become Satan?” by Ron
Rhodes
·
“Story of Lucifer” by All about God
·
“STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART: The negative side
of pride” by
· “The Origin and Fall of the Devil” by Harvest
·
“What Caused Lucifer
or Satan’s Fall?” by Jack Wellman
·
“What is Pride? The Good
and Bad Sides” by MPP
·
“Why did God create a
Devil?” by Consider the Gospel
This post was suggested by friend and blog member,
Angela Howard. The
story of Lucifer’s fall is described in two key Old Testament chapters, Ezekiel
28 and Isaiah
14.
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