Under consideration is John McArthur’s sermons on Genesis 6:1-4 which is titled, Demonic Invasion (my full review of which you can find here). I would say that his overall sermon, as in application of the text, is good and useful however, he jumps to various conclusions due to presuppositions and so ends up asserting various points.
SPIRITUAL SPIRITS
Now, in my mind he creates some problems not only by correlating demons with fallen angels but due to his ontological view of angels and employing the terms spirit and also spiritual which are not the same thing and which lead to confusion. For example, he states, “holy angels…constitute a force of spirit beings…angels are spirits” and “In the Old Testament we read about unclean spirits. Judges 9, 1 Samuel 16, 18, 19, unclean spirits, just another term to describe demons” this is a simple and common view but may not be accurate. Lastly, a hint about another issue he discusses is how Jacob wrestled with an angel since “can’t wrestle with a spirit” at least not physically.
Well, that was spirit and here are some usages of spiritual, “Angels, both holy and fallen, are the inhabitants of the spiritual world…these sons of God, these spiritual…spiritual fallen angels…Wicked spirits attracted to female creatures, wicked perverted…immaterial spiritual being, a fallen angel.”
In short, as Jesus put it “a spirit has not flesh and bone” (Luke 24) and yet, a flesh and bones physical person can be spiritual as in “he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man” (1 Corinthians 2, also see chap 15).
In my mind, ironing these issues out is of the utmost importance since, for example, mixing and matching, interchanging and correlating the terms and concepts demon, fallen angel, spirit, spiritual, etc. is a recipe for confusion as it is no recipe at all but a random mixture of ingredients.
For example, we are told of “Satan and his demons” and that “When you get to the last book of the Bible, Revelation, you find out that demons are going to have a hey day in the end of the age, the end of human history, and they’re going to literally run across the earth a force level that’s never occurred before that time and then ultimately will be destroyed by the Lord Jesus and cast forever into the eternal lake of Fire.” Yet, it is precisely within Revelation that demons are not mentioned. Yet, since John MacArthur identifies them with fallen angels then wherever they are mentions, demons are being mentioned.
SATANOLOGY
John MacArthur refers to “this force of demons, including their leader Satan who is a demon and is the chief of demons” so that he is a demon based on identifying demons as fallen angels and also identifying Satan as an angel. Now, many people use the term “angelic beings” as does MacArthur and yet, this is not a biblical term. In fact, it is a biblically redundant term as the only “angelic beings” are angels. Satan is not an angel but is a Cherub (Ezekiel 28:14): angels, Cherubim and Seraphim are different categories of being, they look different from each other, have different title, different job functions, etc. Thus, Satan is not an angels, is not a fallen angel, is not a demon.
MacArthur tells us that “the first fallen angel, the first demon to appear, Satan in chapter 3” and that “The leader of the rebellion again was the worship leader of heaven, Lucifer, who was son of the morning and very likely the highest angel, the worship leader of heaven itself, he is cast out of heaven along with the demons.”
He states this because, “according to Revelation chapter 12 when Satan fell, he took with him a third of the holy angels” which he explains as:
…in the first seven verses of Job 38 you have the angels of God surrounding God and praising God at the creation. So the angels were then created so that they could be at the creation of the material universe. And at some time very soon after that initial creation there was a massive and devastating rebellion among the angels and it resulted in a third of them being thrown out of heaven. The dragon in Revelation 12 sweeps away a third of them with his tail is the imagery there as Satan was able to lead a third of the holy angels in his coup against God in his rebellion. The leader of the rebellion again was the worship leader of heaven, Lucifer, who was son of the morning and very likely the highest angel, the worship leader of heaven itself, he is cast out of heaven along with the demons.
There are quite a few points to elucidate here. The view that Satan was heaven’s worship (music) leader is based on what is likely a misreading. Due to a translation of Ezekiel 28 as “tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created,” as the KJV has it, some conclude that this refers to musical instruments being appended to Satan’s body. However, this seems to be a reference to grooves, sockets, holes, cavitys, settings, etc. (H5345) as in a jeweler’s work and to a timbrel or tambourine (H8596): and, of course, timbrels and/or tambourines are wood setting (or plastic if they are modern) into which is built small metal cymbals and may include a covering on one side to function as a drum. This seems to have to do with the stones mentioned in in the same chapter, “Every precious stone was your covering.”
Now, the Revelation 12 issue is difficult since, for example, one sentence within that chapter summarizes Jesus whole Earthly life so that in one single version circa 30 years pass by: so what does this say about the rest of the chapter. John MacArthur states that by Genesis 6 “Satan and his angels had already fallen” however, it seems that Satan fell due to the Genesis 3 affair wherein he was curse and “he took with him a third of the” no longer “holy angels” who got involved in the Genesis 6 affair. Note that Satan did not take part in marrying women, etc. and it may be because he is not an angel and thus is very much unlike humans—we will get into this issue in more detail further along this discussion.
Falling and being cast out are different concepts: falling is something like being fired from a job function (such as Satan originally being a “covering Cherub” Ezekiel 28 again) but still appearing before God while being cast out, as in Revelation 12, means no longer being granted access before God. Thus, the “coup against God in his rebellion” in general has gone on since the fall of Genesis 3 and Genesis 6 but the actual heavenly war results in Satan and the fallen angels being cast out of heaven and unto the Earth.
John MacArthur refers to some texts to solidify the identification of the sons of God as angels, “Job chapter 1 verse 6, ‘There was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan came among them.’ We know what that is. That’s Satan in the midst of the demons coming before the throne of God. Chapter 2 verse 1, ‘There was a day when the sons of God,’ Job 2:1, ‘came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came among them to present himself before the Lord.’” Well, I think he goes too far in claiming that the text is referring to “Satan in the midst of the demons” but then again this is part of the mixing and matching problem of viewing demons as angels. My point at this point is that there is no reason to think that the Job 1 and 2 (and 38 for that matter) are fallen angels.
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