The Fall of Lucifer

Exek. 28 is a chapter with parallel stories. The section about Tyre and Satan is in the context of broader prophecies about the downfall of a variety Gentile nations after Babylon had destroyed Jerusalem. God’s cleaning house! We’re going to look at the downfall of the Prince of Tyre, whose fall is so similar to the fall of Lucifer that the Lord makes parallels.

Interestingly, everything the Lord says about Satan is from the perspective of final judgment while looking back over Satan’s entire career of evil when so much of his career is still future. Yet, it’s all written as if it were past.

Plus, God doesn’t even talk about Satan in a spirit of anger or righteous indignation. All of this is given as a lamentation, which is stunning to me. He’s actually sad about the fall of Lucifer. He’s actually sad the Prince of Tyre has fallen into the same errors as Lucifer.

Ezekiel 28:11-19

Eze 28:11 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Eze 28:12 Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Eze 28:13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Eze 28:14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Eze 28:15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. Eze 28:16 By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Eze 28:17 Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee. Eze 28:18 Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. Eze 28:19 All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.

The Prince of Tyrus

“Tyrus” is synonymous with “Tyre,” which, in the Hebrew is pronounced tsor, which means “rock.” That’s what Tyre was – a giant rock of an island with this huge seemingly impenetrable wall around it. This rock of an island was off the coast of north Israel (now Lebanon), officially part of the promised land, originally assigned to the tribe of Asher by Joshua.

Later, Tyre broke away and became its own independent government. They were never brought back into the fold of Israel and were basically treated like an ally.

Tyre delivered Cedar to David for the new temple (2 Chron. 2:3). They also delivered men and supplies to help Solomon construct the temple (1 Kings 9:10-11). Both Joshua and Samuel called Tyrus a “strong city” (Josh. 19:29; 2 Sam. 24:7). Isaiah called it a “crowning city,” “whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honorable of the earth” (Isa. 23:8).

Isaiah 27 lists how Syria, Persia, Egypt, and every quarter of the ancient world laid their choicest and most precious resources at the feet of the Prince of Tyre. And this prince sat on a throne of ivory, covered with blue and purple.

The fact that he was covered in royal purple is all the Bible need say to illustrate how wealthy he was, because purple was the most expensive dye. Do you know how they got the purple dye? Murex snails. They’d get the dye from the snails’ hypobranchial glands, which was unbelievably laborious. They’d extract less than a gram of dye per snail, which is why purple dye was so astronomically expensive at the time. It’d take hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of snails in order for a prince to be arrayed in true royal purple, which informs everyone who sees him that he is one of the wealthiest men on the planet.

Also, in chapter 27, the Prince of Tyre was quoted as saying “I am of perfect beauty” because he had it all. He was a handsome devil, unbelievably wealthy, and wise in the ways of the world. The Prince of Tyre would eventually declare himself to be a god, which was what had brought about this prophecy of doom in chapter 28.

But the phrase in vs. 12, “King of Tyrus,” is interesting. Tyre was ruled by a prince, not a king. So the “King of Tyrus” must be a spiritual reference to Satan himself, the supreme ruler of Tyre. Why? Because he was the great energizing force behind all the corruption!

Plus, the downfall of the prince and region of Tyre closely parallels the downfall of Satan. So the Lord uses this opportunity to make a judgment upon both the physical and the spiritual leader of Tyre. In a tone of lamentation about the fall of Tyre, the Lord also talks about the fall of Lucifer, how perfectly he was created, how privileged he was, how beautiful he was, how powerful he was, and how he was full of wisdom. Lucifer was a perfect fulfilment of God’s intention. Lucifer, like all angels and the humans who were made a little lower than the angels, are all free moral agents, free-willed, independent in thought, yet dependent upon God for life.

Stam wrote, “The original fall of Satan may well be what our Lord referred to in Luke 10:18, when He said: ‘I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.’ Certain it is that Satan is presented in Scripture as a fallen being, not one who was created evil. Indeed, if Satan was created an evil being, how could there be any justice in his ‘judgment’ (John 16:11) or in our Lord’s ‘triumphing over’ him and his hosts at Calvary? (Col. 2:15).” (“Man, His Nature, and Destiny”; pg. 98-99)

Some might think, “Wait a minute. Didn’t God say He created evil in Isaiah 45:7? In that verse, He was talking about judgment. In time past, in the OT economy for the nation of Israel in a covenant relationship with God, God brought about evil (or judgment) upon the people as a consequence for their egregious sins, especially idolatry.

In vs. 14, the Lord declares “Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth…” Notice that he still is, a cherubim, the highest class of angels. Plus, he was, and still is, the anointed cherub that covereth. The Lord says Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth, present tense. There is only one anointed cherub that covereth and Satan is still the anointed cherub that covereth. How can this be? Didn’t Satan lose his title and his position when he rebelled against God? The Lord says in that same verse, thou wast upon the holy mountain of God, past tense. He was upon the holy mountain of God, but he still is the anointed cherub that covereth.

Satan is still what God created him to be just as we’re part of fallen man but we’re still created in the likeness of God. Yet we’re still fallen man. So too, Satan is fallen as an angel. Yet, he is still what God created him to be – the one and only anointed cherub that had been designated to be a covering. Satan is still and may always be the anointed cherub that covereth because that’s how God created him.

Here’s a question. What did it mean to be the anointed cherub that covereth? Was it a covering in the sense that he was physically stationed over the Lord’s head? That’d be impossible, wouldn’t it? Nothing is above God. These verses tell us that Lucifer was physically lower than the throne because walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire on the holy mountain of God. In fact, there are quite few verses in the OT describing the Lord as dwelling between the Cherubims, not beneath them (1 Sam. 4:4, 2 Kings 19:5, 1 Chron. 13:6). His Shekinah glory over the Ark of the Covenant was between and above the Cherubims, which is an earthly shadow of a heavenly reality, which would have to mean the Lord is between and above the Cherubims. The point is – there is nothing above the Lord. He dwells between and above the cherubims.

A covering in Scripture was designed to convey headship, authority, overseer, and protection. You may recall an article we published on women covering their heads because of the angels. We went through the story in Gen. 24 when Abraham sent his servant to find Isaac a wife. After he meets Rebekah and her family agreed to allow her to be married to Isaac, when they arrived home and she saw Isaac in a field, we read in Gen 24:65 “…therefore she took a vail, and covered herself.” Her putting on the veil in that moment was a token of modesty and subjection to her new husband. In other words, it is good for a woman (and for all of us) to acknowledge our submission to God’s ordained ruling structures for our lives. We all need and respect the power that’s on our heads. We all willfully submit to the headships God has given for our lives.

So the idea of covering in that sense was a woman wearing a veil to acknowledge the headship and protection she had in her husband.

The idea of a covering in Scripture also denotes penultimate completeness. Our sins covered by His blood is all-sufficient. It is complete. It is lacking nothing. There is a fullness to that payment made. Likewise, Lucifer, as the anointed Cherub that covereth, was in a position of headship, of penultimate fullness. He was the anointed covering over the entire heavenly host. He was head, overseer, the guardian angel over all the angels. And he was designed for that role. God gave him extraordinary beauty not to tempt him to sin but to glorify Himself. He was given extraordinary wisdom so he would be perfectly equipped to fulfill his God ordained role in Heaven. He over the angels, the head, the great overseer, and he designed to be the way he was as an ornament of God’s glory. And God loved him.

Back to Exek. 28.The Lord says in vs. 14 thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. The “holy mountain” seems to be the center of God’s power, His government, and His eternal throne. David wrote, “Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness” (Psa. 48:1). That mountain still has to be there including the stones of fire. Dispensations may change, but that doesn’t mean the geography of Heaven changes.

We’re told Lucifer walked up and down that holy mountain. Why? Because of his exalted position over that mountain, just as Satan told the Lord in Job 1:7 that he had been “going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.” Satan walked the holy mountain of God as one who owned it just as Satan walked earth as one who owned it. When God told Abram to walk around and survey the promised land of Canaan, he was essentially mimicking the way Satan walked in Heaven and on the earth as one who possessed it, but in this case it was God signaling to Satan that he was taking possession of this land for His own use.

What are we to make of the stones of fire?

I suspect the stones of fire were designed to be a warning to all the angels. Lucifer was covered with all these precious stones, but he walked by the stones of fire. Why does the Lord point this out? Because I suspect that those stones of fire were representations of the supreme sovereignty of God Himself. I’m reminded of what Paul said in 1 Cor. 10:4 when he wrote about the Jews in the wilderness. 1 Cor. 10:4, “And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.”

Fire, of course, is representative of judgment. The writer of Hebrews said, “For our God is a consuming fire” (Heb 12:29). So we have in the stones of fire symbolic reminders that God is not only unchangeable but also immovable from His authority and sovereignty. The fire was a warning of judgment to come to any angel who would dare challenge Him.

You might remember how the Lord said of Lucifer in vs. Ezek. 28:12 that he was full of wisdom. He knew exactly what those stones of fire meant. Yet, he chose to rebel anyway. I suspect this is why God chose to highlight the fact that he walked by the stones of fire because the stones of fire stood as a warning to any angel who might choose to rebel against Him. Satan knew what those stones of fire meant. He chose to rebel anyway. Just as Adam was warned of the consequence of his actions if he ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, so too, Satan was warned of the consequence of his actions if he tried to usurp God’s throne. And he was warned every time he walked by those stones of fire. The Lord said, I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Satan’s downfall put him on a path from the stones of fire to the lake of fire.

In fact, Satan’s fall is fourfold. First, he was cast out of the third heaven. Next, in the middle of the tribulation, he will be cast down to earth. Then, he will be cast into the pit of the abyss for a thousand years, and finally cast into the lake of fire.

The most interesting verses to mewas Eze 28:17 Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness...

This is about how Lucifer as a free-willed, independent agent, internalized his own vanity. His heart was lifted up because of thy beauty. Angels have thinking hearts like we do. His vanity was as much a corruption of the mind as it was his heart. His own corruption worked from the outside in. It began with his eyes being dazzled by his own beauty and the outward luster of the glory God had given him. Then he began to lie to himself about his own greatness. And his heart, as a result, was lifted up in pride.

Interesting, too, that the same process by which Lucifer was corrupted is the same process by which he tries to corrupt all of us – from the outside in through the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

In vs. 15, the Lord said, “Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.” The iniquity in him came when he willfully allowed his mind to drift toward thoughts of vanity, self-glory, all of which was self-deception, Satan believing his own lies to himself about himself. Then his heart, which operates so closely with the mind, as it does with us, his heart became lifted up in pride.

The Lord said, “thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness”. Lucifer alone was responsible for the corruption within himself of all the wisdom God had given him. Hal once pointed out on a podcast, “For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” (1 Co 4:7) Anyone who glories about himself – who do you think you are? What hast thou that thou didst not receive? Everything you are, everything you have in Christ, is given to you by God.

What Paul tells the Corinthians about the pointlessness of pride and self-glorying is the same point that could’ve been made to Lucifer. Why would you glory about yourself as if you hadn’t received everything from God Himself?

So Lucifer in this narrative of Ezek. 28, had twisted the brightness of his own glory into an excuse to glorify himself in his own mind, to reason within himself that he was greater than he was. He believed his own lies. He began to covet. He wanted to possess more than what he was already given. We know from 2 Tim. 3:3-9, the excessive love of self today leads individuals to become covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient, unthankful, unholy, etc., and all of that is perfectly embodied in the fall of the anointed cherub that covereth.

Self-deception marches lockstep with pride in every mind. Then that pride and vanity become motives to covet, to sin, and to rebel against God. John 8:44 spoke of how Satan “abode not in the truth.” He made a willful choice in his mind and in his heart to refuse to abide in the truth to glorify himself.

Just like the Prince of Tyre, Lucifer needed to see himself as a servant to those he was over and subject to God rather than superior to those he was over and subject only to his vanity.

We also find that Lucifer, like Adam, in his uncorrupted state was perfectly capable of choosing right from wrong, because Lucifer and Adam both knew there’d be consequences for choosing a path of rebellion against God. Yet, they chose to rebel anyway. Why? They chose to sin because they coveted more than what God had given them.

I loved the point Keith Blades in his book, Satan and His Plan of Evil,made about vs. 18. “Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick…” He wrote, “This appears to be a summary statement of all that Satan proceeded to do from his ‘corrupted wisdom.’ He didn’t stop at turning his wisdom against God in his own heart. He didn’t keep his iniquity to himself, so to speak. Instead, he trafficked in iniquity. He multiplied iniquities, and in a very particular way, by ‘defiling his sanctuaries.’ Evidently, he took his perverse plan and with it defiled other places to which he had access. The beguiling means by which he did this are clearly described for us in connection with this earthly realm, and it is just as likely that similar devious means and lies were presented to the angels occupying those positions of principalities and powers. He ‘sold them a bill of goods,’ so to speak, by which they, too, undoubtedly, were made to look at themselves contrary to where God had put them. In so doing, Satan convinced… angels… to join him in his revolt…”

What is said here about the Prince of Tyre isn’t just a parallel to Satan’s fall but it’s also a message to Satan himself who was the corrupting influence that brought about the pride whereby the Prince would exalt himself above God, making himself a type of Satan and the antichrist, which brought about his own doom.

The Lord said, “I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee… All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.”

[In my next post on Tuesday, we’ll analyze Lucifer’s downfall in Isaiah 14.]