30-Disputations on the 6, 000 Year Old Biblical and Historical Character of Fallen Lucifer

 Dr. MA Petillo

Though troubles assail us, and dangers affright,
Though friends should all fail us, and foes all unite,
Yet one thing secures us, whatever betide,
The promise assures us, "The Lord will provide."
The birds, without garner or storehouse, are fed;
From them let us learn to trust God for our bread:
His saints what is fitting shall ne'er be denied
So long as 'tis written, "The Lord will provide."
When Satan assails us to stop up our path,
And courage all fails us, we triumph by faith.
He cannot take from us, though oft he has tried,
This heart-cheering promise, "The Lord will provide."
No strength of our own, and no goodness we claim;
Yet, since we have known of the Saviour's great name,
In this our strong tower for safety we hide:
The Lord is our power, "The Lord will provide."  (TH, 79).

1.  The devil is not a self-existent being.  That is, only the Triune God is self-existent: from everlasting to everlasting.  Rather Satan is a mere creature who was created good, because a holy Triune God alone could created him to glorify Himself alone in His ultimate purpose of doom and cosmic justice in God's design of his punishment in eternal hell through His outworking meticulous providence in the supreme end of cosmic justice because of God's holy choice alone in His supernatural design for his eternal destruction.  God acted RIGHTEOUSLY according to His good pleasure in causing the fall of Lucifer by removing His outstretched arm upon His changeable will to bring about God's pursuit of justice for His glory alone in sentencing Satan and his fallen angels to doom.  Why did God do this?  God turned Lucifer and his angels over to sin because of His matchless glory alone in deciding whatsoever He pleases.  He decides according to His glory, because He always does what is right in every way.

2.  Before the fall of Lucifer he had a mutable will subject to change in his state of perfection as a real creaturely angel of God.

3.  The devil choose to rise above God in spite and cosmic pride that caused his fall.  Why?  In the final analysis, God removed His hand from certain creaturely angels and they fell into rebellion.  That is, God foredetermined everything but the devil is responsible for his cosmic rebellion.  God has right to do what He pleases with His creation because He is righteously supreme and sovereign, but any sin lies with His fallen creatures who are subject to change and commit spiritual sin.

4.   The Triune God alone is not subject to change, because He is supremely immutable.  God's infallible Word never changes, but creaturely human sinners change.  That is, we believe in always reforming, but the written Word never changes.  Some would say David says to hate your enemies, but Jesus says to love your enemies.  Has something changed?  Its possible in some sense to have a sinner's hatred of fallen man that is outside of God's love through Jesus and His teachings of loving enemies.  I do not suggest to love Satan or your fallen angels, but we are called to love our enemies who have wronged us without cause.  The Bible is consistent truth and there is harmonious divine truth throughout the Old and New Testaments.

5.  Satan is spiritually and historically the being of outer darkness.

6.  Satan has been turned over to cosmic rebellion by God, because God owns the right over His creation to do as He pleases.  How is anyone to question a holy God who never fails to do what is right?

7.  Satan seeks to do as he pleases, but he is on a supernatural leash by a holy God and he is restrained to do whatsoever he is limited to do.  He does not possess all-powerfulness.  This does not mean he is not more powerful than fallen humans.   In fact, he possess creaturely power but not self-existent power.  His cosmic limitations lay with chains of restraint of a holy God.

8.  Are you blinded to suppose that God is not in control of Satan?  Do you not suppose there would be far more meaningless evil if he was not restrained by a holy God?  God restrains Satan, but it does not mean He partakes of His spiritual criminality.  God is working together all things even Satan for the good of God's people.  This does not mean faithful Christians should turn to Satan.   Rather it means what Dr. Luther would say that Satan is the "Lord's devil."  Does this mean Satan is FOR a holy God?  By no means!  It means Satan furthers his plan of self-deception in waring against a holy God because he thinks he is greater than the Triune God.  Satan's sin is not the fault of a holy God, but the fault of himself.  If fallen man tries to sin by being in place of God through doing evil that good may come, it is evidence of being a evil way of a demi-god.  Are Christians committing this sin by submitting to Puritan and Reformed discrimination in joying to God about suffering for His sake alone?  Surely no!  The sin lays with those who persecute Christians not the Christians themselves.  Remember it is possible to go to be burned and yet not have love, but on the matter of Satan he has a kind of love that is not of God.  That is, it is a rebellious love of spiritual treason and cosmic idolatry.  It simply means he loves his sin and he will fight for it.  He is consumed with the damned love of his intentional self-glory and treasonous self-deception through his own fault alone in pursuit of God and human beings to worship him as a self-existent God when he is merely a creature made by a holy Triune God alone.

9.  Satan comes to undo God's salvational work.  For example, he came to destroy St. Peter but Jesus Christ prayed to the Father in his behalf.  You might say I know the devil well.  Shall we call this an absurdity to say such a thing?  Satan comes to undo what can never be undone.  It is impossible for anything in this fallen world to undo the unbreakable peace of God through Jesus Christ in justification by faith alone (Rom 5:1).  Is Jesus' prayer limited to St. Peter?  Isn't the case with St. Peter an example of all of God's converted elect children?  It is surely the case!  Jesus prays for all of us who are in Christ alone as He did with St. Peter.  That is, He prays in our behalf to the Father.  Some Papists would argue the supremacy of Peter against providential examples.  Shall I dare to ask where does that place them when Satan comes to destroy them?  Christ really does pray for us when Satan comes that our faith may not fail.  True Christians have faith in the final analysis, but it can be seriously weakened because of the spiritual deadness of our fallen natures.  The Bible says we can be faithless while He is faithful.  It does not mean a faithless reprobate pleases God.  There is a vast difference between a faithless true child of God due to a violation of the moral law and the faithlessness of a reprobate.  Does the prayer of Jesus presuppose a conditional salvation?  No, no!  The prayer of Jesus is an encouragement to eternal security because predestinarianism is a supernatural encourgament for spiritual belief. 

10.  This warning should be to all: never negotiate with the devil.  What happens if you fall into sin when dealing with the real presence of the devil?  Its as simple as repent and believe the all-exclusive Cross of Jesus Christ.  He accuses the people of God night and day.  He does not regard the divine satisfaction of the Cross but the reality of it forces him to flee, fail and faultier.  The world does not love the offense of the Cross.  Satan hates the forgiveness of the Cross.  The offense of the Cross never means such a one as Satan is pardoned, but only God's elect people alone in Christ alone.  Rather the world adds to the Cross, because by nature humans hate heavenly love.  How much more the devil?  The offense of the Cross comes to those who see and are yet blinded and who are blinded and yet see.   That is, they see the truth of God's forgiveness through Himself alone, but they are blinded because God has blinded and hided the gospel from them due to original sin and actual transgressions.

11.  Satan loves atheists and agnostics that explain away his real 6, 000 to 10, 000 year old existence, but fallen man is so blindly deceived that he would accept earthly treasures by appearance from the devil but rationalize in their thought life, cosmic treason through self-deceived villainy against a holy God.

12.  Satan loves when humans get things from him, but claim it was all of there doing.  He loves to also see Christians fall into sin, trample the Son of God underfoot and grieve the Spirit of holiness by intentionally sinning through knowing he forgives.  It is true that if such a real child of God fall into sin in this way, he will still forgive.  Again remember the words of St. Peter: do not use your unbreakable state of grace as a cover-up for treason.  Those who limit God's mercy find themselves outside of God's mercy.  Remember beloved: there will always be forgiveness for God's people alone in Christ alone. 

13.  Satan uses God's divine predestinarian purpose as a TOTALLY illegitimate cosmic excuse for sinning with license and free admittance into heaven, but he intentionally fails to perfectly obey a holy God with maleficent malice, intentional deceit and a pursuit of endless destruction.  By outward appearance it seems like Satan is free without God's restraining Hand, but the devil is restricted in his cosmic abilities and freedom.  The sin of Satan lays with himself for evil in his cosmic license, but the plan of God is either for the ultimate purpose of mercy or wrath in the final outcome of election and damnation of the sons and daughters of Adam.

14.  Satan influences fallen humanity to turn away from a holy God.  That is, he causes the non-elect reprobates to commit cosmic sin, but he causes pre-converted and converted elect to commit treason.  It does not matter in one sense if the devil is involved in that every person must take full responsibility before a holy God for what they have done, but there is a sense where in his ultimate maleficence he wants to be blamed so no one will make "peace" with God in repentance (because he hates repentance), but at the same time he excuses his sin as a false deity.  He thinks of himself "I can do as I please."  He takes the statements of Scripture that speak of God's eternal self-existence as the Supreme Potter of Rocks and supreme sovereignty but uses it for his own evil ends with the intent to dishonor, destroy and replace a holy God.

15.  Satan instigates evil among his fallen angels and the sons and daughters of Adam.  He also sought to have the impeccable Christ fall into sin, but it was not that Jesus could really fall into sin yet it was a meaningful test in God's foredetermined plan.  However, it was because he is so full of idolatrous pride in knowing the perpetuity of Jesus as the Christ that he sought to undo the undeniable.

16.  Satan seeks the worship of fallen man, because he loves to further self-deception and supernatural idolatry.

17.  Satan is the cosmic, supernatural and spiritual deceiver.   Does Satan in a sense "win" when the pre-converted elect fall into sin?  It is no doubt a furtherance of satanic evil, but God is even working out the sin of His pre-converted elect children for their ultimate good without claiming evil is good or good is evil.  No devil can have victory in light of the predestinarian and foredetermined God of the written and infallible Scriptures.

18.  Satan is the father of lies.  That is, he is a being overflowing with the furtherance of lies.  It does not mean he cannot speak truth, but there is no Incarnate Truth in him.  That is, there is no spiritual or heavenly or salvational or victorious life in him.   No one should get the idea that if he can speak truth that somehow sinners should listen to him or even question him.  I suggest to you that if you get some kind of truth from Satan it is meant for your ultimate destruction.  It does us no good to argue with the devil.  If he attacks continue in repentance and faith before a holy Triune God alone, but also if necessary I see no reason why to avoid quoting a Scripture to resist him so he may flee.  Remember the devil is chained, but do not invite him into your Christian living.  Check out this gospel song on how sinners have fallen into his trap:  Keith Green - No One Believes In Me Anymore

19.  Satan is the Christians' ultimate, cosmic and supernatural adversary.  He hates the Spirit's work of conforming sinners to the image of Jesus Christ in progressive sanctification.  His answer is to hoop over the fence instead of pursuing a way of life in the narrow way of Jesus Christ our all-sufficient Redeemer and Creator.

20.  Satan hates the exclusivity of Jesus Christ in Acts 4:12.

21.  Satan hates that the instrument of justification is faith alone in Eph 2:8-9 but that such a heaven-born faith is the evidence of God's freedom in Jn 1:13 and Rom 9:11, 16.

22.  Satan hates the unified imputed divine righteousness of Jesus Christ alone in Phil 3:9 and Romans chapter 3 and 4.

23.  Satan hates the free work of the Spirit in sovereign monergistic spiritual rebirth in Tit 3:5 and John chapter 3.

24.  Satan disguises himself as a angel of light.  That is, in his rebellion he turned perfection on its head and committed cosmic sin.  It means in essence he distorts God's way for wickedness.  Satan comes at people without cause like he did with the real and ancient person of Job.  Satan is a master at the furtherance of sin.  He wants by outward appearance to be pardoned.  It is a lie from hell because he really wants access beyond the gates of heaven to destroy it.  It is surely true that Satan hates divine punishment in the place of hell, but through a wickedness of his fallen nature he seeks and longs for a cosmic self-destruction in which he has wicked pleasure in the satisfaction of destruction.  It is a folly and futile satisfaction.  Rather the only satisfaction will be is God's divine RIGHTEOUS judgment against him and his fallen EVIL rebels!  I must submit that the moment he is inflamed with the real flames of the place of hell this thought of the pursuit of self-destruction will be quenched (though never REALLY changed) by the real punishment of hell in the presence of a holy God and His elect angels.  Hell is not a place where God changes sinners, because the only place He changes sinners is at the Cross.  Hell is a place of unrestrained evil where only the idolatrous damned inherit eternal fire.  There are some that dare to say that some will spend time in hell and be released.  Those that think this way fail to understand the nature of sinners and God's never-ending punishment.  The outcome of hell is not so God finds another way to free sinners! If the residents of hell came back to earth, they would still live a life of cosmic damnation and rebellion.  It goes beyond correction, because it is a death that never dies.  Jesus' resurrection is a death turned backwards, but to have the goodness of Jesus a sinner must have the Spirit's spiritual application in spiritual rebirth devoid of waters of baptism.

25.  Satan loves to cause doubt.  He knows God's written Word is true, because He turned it on its head and quoted Scripture against Jesus Christ in the real history of His temptation.  He never got Jesus Christ to doubt because He is Incarnate Jehovah (God the Son) who cannot ever engage in sin, but his pride tells him to go after the eternal King when he already knows his cosmic treachery and supernatural madness and blind insanity (without some way to excuse him).

26.  There is a sense where Satan loves a type of psychology that wallows in excusing his crimes.  He furthers this with self-piety, self-gloom and self-doom.  He loves a furtherance of lingering in outer destruction and the pursuit of reckless and abominable pleasures that know not God nor obey His gospel.

27.  Satan afflicts believers in Christ through the pseudo-science of parapsychology in the furtherance of the out right lies of the occult.

28.  Let us not be unaware of his cosmic schemes!  He comes within the church, but he is also furthering the interests of men outside of the church.  Dear Christian, do not further the interests of men because it is the interests of Satan.  Rather further the interests of God alone like believing the all-sufficiency of the Cross of Jesus Christ.  The agnostic asks, how can there be different world religions if there is a real God?  If there is a force for good who is a self-existent Triune God, isn't there also a force for evil (who we know is a mere but powerful and evil creature)?  It is true that God foredetermined everything through second causes (but sometimes He works above them for His good purpose because he is all-powerful), but the perpetuity of His outstretched arm in allowing Satan and fallen man to cause false religions refines the truth of God for God's people in working all things for their ultimate good.   Its not that we should encourage errors, but God is at work and He does whatsoever He pleases.  The hymn that comes to mind is "Have Thy Own Way, Lord."  I suggest to you that this is the ultimate design of Jesus as He comes with a drawn cosmic sword to divide the divine truth of God from the errors of the villains of fallen man.

29.   Satan is bound and assigned to the place of eternal hell.  Nothing can change this because God is unchangeable.  The holy Lord is the injured and innocent party in light of His superlative, perfect and sinless holiness, but fallen man and the evil one cause sin that violates His Triune Majesty.  God is working out His purpose without regard for the mere opinions of men, because He seeks what is right: namely, the exaltation of His transcendent glory.  In a sense, God does not feel pain like we do, but it is expressed in an anthropomorphic sense (in using human expressions).  There is no doubt of the many infallible proofs that teach us about the history of the real crucified self-existent Savior Jesus Christ!

30.  Watch out!  There may come a time when you need help.  Where would you go except to the Lord?  Do not be like king Saul who went to a medium, because he was desperate.  But in the case of Frodo and Sam Wise in Lord of the Rings, did they sin in some sense by having Gullum as their "guide" to destroy the ring in the lake of fire at Mordor?  It was not Gullum's intent to destroy the ring, but keep it for himself.  It really shows the cross-purposes between God's little children and Satan's minions.  We are called to do the best we can (though it adds nothing to Christ alone in how we are right with God) to cast our sins of death in the lake of fire in honoring Jesus Christ alone to the glory of God the Father, but sometimes the path is so dark that it could not be previously imagined.  One day God will cast death and hell into the lake of hell.  It means Jesus has the victory!

See, the Conqu'ror mounts in triumph;
See the King in royal state,
Riding on the clouds, his chariot,
To his heav'nly palace gate:
Hark! the choirs of angel voices
Joyful Alleluias sing
And the portals high are lifted
To receive their heav'nly King.
Who is this that comes in glory,
With the trump of jubilee?
Lord of battles, God of armies,
He has gained the victory;
He who on the cross did suffer,
He who from the grave arose,
He has vanquished sin and Satan,
He by death has spoiled his foes.
Thou hast raised our human nature
In the clouds to God's right hand;
There we sit in heav'nly places,
There with thee in glory stand:
Jesus reigns, adored by angels,
Man with God is on the throne;
Mighty Lord, in thine ascension
We by faith behold our own.  (TH, 211).