PT 1. Spiritual Warfare – Isn’t Lucifer another name for Satan? NO!!! Now lets get it right

This may stir the pot a bit, but I feel its important to know who the enemy is and who it is NOT. I am doing a series on spiritual warfare and feel it is absolutely Necessary to know your enemy in order to defend yourself family and friends from his destruction and lies!

Lets discuss this..See the next notes in this 3 part series: Know your enemy!

1. Isn’t Lucifer another name for Satan?
2. Was the devil an angel?
3. Spiritual Warfare – How to win!

So…here we go…

Isn’t Lucifer another name for Satan?

No, NO, NO

Friends, every since I can remember, I have been informed the devil was once the chief angel(Angel is questionable, see my note Was the devil an angel) named Lucifer, who was in charge of the heavenly choir or band. He was eventually kicked out of heaven for wanting to be equal to or above God.

Well, …Through research and study, this is what I found. There is nothing in the Bible that says the devil was ever an angel, or that his name was ever Lucifer.

The facts…

Isaiah Chapter 14

We must begin by noticing that the whole of Isaiah chapter 14 is a taunting speech, or poetic prophecy of the downfall of the king of Babylon, and NOT Satan. (Is.14:4) The one to whom this is written is a “man”, the king of Babylon, and not a fallen angel. (Is. 14:16)

The location of this prophecy is the city is Babylon, not heaven. The time of this prophecy is hundreds of years before Messiah, not a time frame before Adam!

It is interesting to note that the word “lucifer” was never originally in the Bible. (Is.14:12) KJV It was in 405 A.D., Jerome translated the Hebrew and Greek into Latin, the Vulgate. The Hebrew word “Heylel” carries a meaning of “brightness”, symbolic of the morning star.

The King James translators did not translate “heylel”; they just carried the word “lucifer” from Jerome’s Latin. In 1667, John Milton wrote a fictional (that means made up) book, “Paradise Lost” depicting “Lucifer” as an angel that sinned and was thrown out of heaven. The two ideas have grown together over time to the point where the lie has more followers than the truth. Webster’s Dictionary defines “lucifer” as a match ignited by means of friction (as in a dark room), and not Satan’s name.

You will find that many Bible translations have discovered this mistake and removed the word “lucifer”. The NIV translates “O morning star, son of the dawn”. The revised version says, “O Day Star, son of Dawn”. Young’s Concordance uses, “shining one”. The Bible never states anywhere that lucifer was Satan’s name, or that he was ever an angel!

There is no verse that says Satan is, or ever was, an angel of light. It says, he “seeks to disguise himself” as an angel of light. (2 Cor. 11:14)

Most of Isaiah Chapter 14 has a number of figures of speech used to tease the king of Babylon. His ego is taunted. His pride was crumbling, and his kingdom destroyed. There is nothing talking about Satan here.

again broken down….

The name Lucifer was applied to Satan by St. Jerome and then to the demon of sinful pride by Milton in “Paradise Lost”. This was a fanciful development of an original reference confused in translation. “Lucifer” is the term originally used by the Romans to refer to the planet Venus when that planet was west of the sun and hence rose before the sun in the morning, thereby being the morning star.

The word appears to have entered the religious lexicon when the original Hebrew word “heyleyl” (meaning morning star, or literally, “shining one”) was translated to “Phosphorus” (the Greek word for Venus as the morning star) in the Septuagint, and then translated into “Lucifer” in the Vulgate (from the Greek Septuagint). One passage in which this occurs is Isaiah 14, which taken as a whole, is a parable, or prophecy of denunciation against the Kings of Babylon, specifically Tiglath-pilneser (circa 716 BCE) In verse 12, the prophet characterizes the arrogance of Tiglath-pilneser as if the king had thought himself fit to appear in the sky as the morning star, but has fallen to earth, being brought low by the vengeance of the Lord against those who would exalt themselves and persecute the Lord’s people (i.e., the Israelites).

The word “Satan” is from a Hebrew word, “Saithan”, meaning adversary or enemy; in original Jewish usage (see the book of Job), Satan is the adversary, not of God, but of mankind; i.e., the angel charged by God with the task of proving that mankind is an unworthy creation. Thus Satan is not in opposition to God but in fact doing His will. Later, the concept of an evil power ruling an underground domain of punishment for the wicked became fixed in Christian doctrine. In such a doctrine, elements of the Graeco-Roman god Pluto/Vulcan/Hephaestus, the Underworld, and various aspects of Nordic/Teutonic mythology may be traced.

From a supposed reference to this passage in our Lord’s words. ‘I beheld Satan fallen as lightning from heaven’ (Lk 10:18), in connection with Rev 9:1-11 (the language of 9:1 being in part probably derived from this passage), Lucifer came in the Middle Ages to be a common appellation of Satan. The star of Rev 9:1-11 is a fallen angel who has given to him the key of the abyss, from which he sets loose upon the earth horribly formed locusts with scorpions’ tails, who have, however, power to hurt only such men as have not the seal of God on their foreheads. But this angel is not actually identified with Satan by the writer of the Apocalypse. The imagery in Is was no doubt suggested by a meteor, and possibly it was so in Rev also. (2)
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1) Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology & Legend.
2) F.H. Woods, “A Dictionary of the Bible Vol III”. ed. James Hastings. New York. Charles Scribner’s Sons: 1908. p. 159.

Lets discuss this…On to the next not in this 3 part series: Know your enemy!

1. Isn’t Lucifer another name for Satan?
2. Was the devil an angel?
3. Spiritual Warfare – How to win!