Hesed Unlimited

Surprise Endings: Jesus and Lucifer

If the ideas I have presented are true, and all creation will be returned to the Creator, then we might be surprised to discover the final destinies of two very important figures: Jesus and Lucifer. In traditional theology, as many of us have been taught, Jesus lives forever as the King of Heaven, and Lucifer (Satan) spends eternity in the Lake of Fire. However, the truth, as I see it, is quite different. Let's start with Lucifer first. Son of man, lift up a lamentation for the king of Tyre, And thou hast said to him: Thus said the Lord Jehovah: Thou art sealing up a measurement, Full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. In Eden, the garden of God, thou hast been, Every precious stone thy covering, Ruby, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, Sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle, and gold, The workmanship of thy tabrets, and of thy pipes, In thee in the day of thy being produced, have been prepared. Thou art an anointed cherub who is covering, And I have set thee in the holy mount, God thou hast been, In the midst of stones of fire thou hast walked up and down. Perfect art thou in thy ways, From the day of thy being produced, Till perversity hath been found in thee. By the abundance of thy merchandise They have filled thy midst with violence, And thou dost sin, And I thrust thee from the mount of God, And I destroy thee, O covering cherub, From the midst of the stones of fire. High hath been thy heart, because of thy beauty, Thou hast corrupted thy wisdom because of thy brightness, On the earth I have cast thee, Before kings I have set thee, to look on thee, From the abundance of thy iniquity, By the perversity of thy traffic, Thou hast polluted thy sanctuaries, And I bring forth fire from thy midst, It hath devoured thee, And I make thee become ashes on the earth, Before the eyes of all beholding thee. All knowing thee among the peoples Have been astonished at thee, Wastes thou hast been, and thou art not--to the age. (Ezekiel 28:12-19 YLT) I'm beginning with this reference first to give an insight into Satan's form before his fall. He didn't start out as an evil character. In fact, he had many wonderful attributes. First, the Almighty Yahweh declares “Thou art sealing up a measurement…” This means that Lucifer completed the number of angels- he was the “icing on the cake”. To use another phrase, he “broke the mold”. In other words, there was no other angel equal to him, and there never could be. He was full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. At one point he is even called “god”. (In the KJV it doesn't read that way, but I've found that the Young's Literal Version is usually a much better translation, and that's what I'm using here). In addition to his incomparable personal attributes, he also held a very lofty position. He abode in the “holy mount” in the midst of the “stones of fire”. We can only speculate about the exact details, but it seems fairly certain that this is a place of great honor. There is something interesting about the phrase “stones of fire”. You may recall that we ourselves are called living stones. Is it possible that these fiery stones are not inanimate objects, but instead are really living creatures? Then, compare this to Isaiah's vision (Isaiah 6:1-3) of the Seraphs (literally, “fiery ones”) who stood above the temple. Their position indicates that they are a covering, just as Lucifer is called a “covering cherub”. Putting all of this together makes a pretty interesting picture. Here is Almighty Yahweh, in His heavenly temple built of living, fiery stones, covered by fiery Seraphs of whom Lucifer is the chief. This would be a lofty position indeed. In his exalted position, Lucifer enjoyed great power and authority. Read this passage from Isaiah: How hast thou fallen from the heavens, O shining one, son of the dawn! Thou hast been cut down to earth, O weakener of nations. And thou saidst in thy heart: the heavens I go up, Above stars of God I raise my throne, And I sit in the mount of meeting in the sides of the north. I go up above the heights of a thick cloud, I am like to the Most High. (Isaiah 14:12-14) Certainly the phrases that are quoted here betray an extreme pride, but the fact that Lucifer could even utter these things (“Above stars of God I raise my throne”, “I go up above the heights of a thick cloud, I am like to the Most High”) means that he was in a category all by himself. I'm sure that if he was anything like any of the other angels, these statements would be absurd. Keep in mind, too, that he was able to persuade a third of the heavenly angels to follow him (Revelation 12:3-4). These angelic beings must have believed that Lucifer was at least equal in some respects to the Creator of all. He must have been incredible to behold. Admittedly, these accounts in Ezekiel and Isaiah also say a lot about the future judgment of Satan, and it's not a pretty picture. However, there's more beyond that. Unfortunately, most Christians focus too on the wickedness of Satan and how much he deserves God's judgment. I think most believers relish the idea of the Devil being tormented eternally. I'm sure a major source of this enmity comes from our Adamic nature. It is very understandable that Adam would blame Satan for the fall and want to see him punished fully. But if we look at things through the eyes of Christ, we will see that Lucifer/Satan has been, from beginning to end, a tool that Yahweh has used for our ultimate blessing. There are mysteries that, when they are revealed, will make us realize what an awesome thing God has done, and how He could not have done it without such an awesome instrument as the Devil. We Christians need to spend less time blaming Satan and much more time learning to abide in Christ. After all, Jesus said that the prince of this world has nothing in Him, and if we abide in Jesus, then the same is true for us. Amen? But regarding the Devil and his ultimate fate, there is a principle of God that applies. When God restores something, He likes to make it better than before. An example of this in the material realm comes from the book of Job. The Lord allowed Satan to rob Job of all his material possessions. But when God restored everything to him, he was twice as wealthy. Another example comes from our own redemption. Before the fall, we were carnal, not in the evil sense that we know now, but carnal in the sense that we were innocent children of flesh. Now that we've been restored, we are children of God! Our restored state is far superior to our pre-fall state. When we apply this principle to the fall of Lucifer, it gives us a hope for something that will give God glory in an awesome way. Instead of joining with Adam, crying for the destruction of Satan, let's join with Christ and look forward to the time when Satan is restored to a position even higher than he enjoyed as Lucifer. This will bring glory to God in several ways. First, the fact that the Creator could make such a creature will bring Him glory. But even more, to compare this creature, so astounding and majestic, to the One who created him, we would understand even more clearly how no comparison is even possible because of the great disparity between the two. God is so much higher than anything in creation that the loftiness of any given creature merely underscores the loftiness of the Creator. So this is the first surprise ending: the restoration of Lucifer to a position higher than his first state, but without the pride that caused his original fall. Now, let's talk about Jesus. As I said in the explanation of the great circle of creation, everything came from God, and everything will return to God. The circle will not be broken. As everything was before creation, so will it be in the end. Okay, so what was it like before creation? Well, before creation God existed by Himself, the one true Reality. But what form did the great “I Am” have? This is where I'm going to clash with traditional Trinitarian theology. First, just to avoid any misunderstandings, I do believe that Jesus is God in the flesh and that the Holy Spirit is God within us. Having said that, I will say this. Basically, God in His ultimate form is singular, not triune. He has taken upon Himself a triune form in His dealings with creation, but this is a temporary state, and will cease to be when creation is returned to its source. And so Jesus, because of His relationship to creation, will return to His source. There was a time when Jesus didn't exist, and unfortunately many Christian teachers have missed this truth by overlooking some important facts. But it's quite simple to prove. Jesus is a two-part being, right? He's God and man in the same person. Now what can we say about these two natures? The truth has been obscured because of the teaching of eternal torment and eternal physical existence. But if we return to the truth, that nothing physical will last forever, then the difference between the two natures is clear. God is eternally existent and man has a limited existence. These truths apply to Jesus Himself. The God part of Jesus is eternal, but the man part of Jesus has limited duration. Let's read something from John's Gospel: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; this one was in the beginning with God; (John 1:1-2) John is talking about the “Logos”, which is the utterance and thoughts of God, and according to John, God Himself. Now let's read a few verses later: And the Word became flesh, and did tabernacle among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of an only begotten of a father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14) Notice the phrase “the Word became flesh”. This is the point when Jesus came into being. Before that, there was just the Word, or the Logos, who is fully God. But when the Logos became united with sinless flesh, Jesus came into being as equally God and man. Do you see the distinction? It is so important, and yet so often overlooked. The Word is eternal God without beginning or end. Jesus, however, had a beginning when the Word assumed flesh. And anything that has a beginning must have an end. That end, of course, as I've said before, is not an end like we westerners think of, where you're going in a straight line and you suddenly run into a wall. No, it's an end that comes from a circle being completed. A completed circle closes a circuit and allows power to flow and energize the entire system. Here's another example from scripture: in whom we have the redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of the sins, who is the image of the invisible God, first-born of all creation, (Colossians 1:14-15) Now some interpret this to mean that Jesus is just called “first-born” because He has supremacy like the first-born of a family. I disagree. There are plenty of words that describe supremacy without referring to birth. I believe that the author of this letter meant exactly what was written: that Jesus was born first, before anything else in creation. Now I'll try not to lose anyone here, so please stay with me. Jesus' body that He had on earth was not His true body. If it was, then He couldn't be the first born, because in earth's history there were many people born before Him. But we read intriguing clues all throughout scripture that seem to point to Jesus' higher existence. For instance, He was “slain from the foundation of the world”. And John tells us that we will “see Him as He really is”. Jesus tells the Jewish leaders that “before Abraham was, I am”. These phrases suggest very strongly that Jesus has a body that transcends our own time/space continuum. And yet, for our benefit, He also assumed an earthly body so that we could see and participate in what the Father was doing. This may be hard to understand, and if you're wondering how Jesus could be in two bodies at the same time, you need to understand the nature of time. Time in the higher realms is different from time on earth. The two times run along different lines that are basically perpendicular to each other, like the x and y lines of a graph. The two times have nothing in common, so you can't compare one to the other. For the most part, existence in one place is independent of existence in the other. An actor in a play has two existences- the character in the play and the actor in the real world. The time of the real world transcends the time of the play. In the same way, Jesus' true form transcends earth time, but He can put Himself into earth time at any time or place He chooses (which is a good explanation for theophanies). Just think of angels and how they appear in human form on earth from time to time. Does an angel come out of Heaven and lose angelic form during these manifestations? Not at all! The angel doesn't leave Heaven, but merely intersects the earth realm in a form that appears human. But before I go too far with things, let me share one more passage: neither through blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, did enter in once into the holy places, age-during redemption having obtained; (Hebrews 9:12) The writer of Hebrews compares the annual sacrifice of the high priest with the one time sacrifice of the High priest, Jesus. In the Old Testament ceremony, each year the high priest sacrificed a lamb, and he sprinkled the animal's blood on the tabernacle and the people and himself before entering into the Holy Place. Also, we're told that the earthly things are a figure of the heavenly things (Hebrews 9:24). In the same way, Jesus offered a single sacrifice in the heavenly Tabernacle, having first sprinkled the Tabernacle and Himself with His own blood. In essence, Jesus the High Priest, in His heavenly body, took the blood from His earthly body, and sprinkled it on the Tabernacle and Himself before entering the true Holy Place. This doesn't mean that the cross was some kind of illusion. I believe that the suffering He experienced was very real. And yet, referring to 1 John 3:2, I believe His true form transcends what was visible on earth. Now that I've digressed about as far as humanly possible, let me get back to the subject of Jesus' beginnings. Jesus is a combination of the Word and flesh. By definition, He is the visible manifestation of the invisible Father. With no body, there is no Jesus- just the Word. And that's all there was in the beginning. When the Word became flesh, the Son came into being, and so God assumed the nature of Son and Father. When Jesus returns to the Source of all things, the Son will cease to exist and so the Father character of God will cease also. What about the Holy Spirit? Although it is true that God is spirit, the Holy Spirit is a specific manifestation of God who is subordinate to Jesus. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to comfort us in His absence, and I believe that He (the Holy Spirit) will be superfluous when we are united with our Savior. So, in the end, I believe all things will be returned to God, who will be all in all, God alone, not as Father or Son or Holy Spirit, but simply the great “I Am”. And Jesus will have been the vessel who brought it all about. In fact, in a way, the entire creation will have been one gigantic vessel into which God chose to pour Himself.