There is no “Devil”

Ok friends, I know this one may be quite controversial, but if you haven’t figured it out yet, that’s kinda the whole premise of this blog; to show that some of the things we believe as Christians are not only NOT biblical, but are completely fabricated doctrines made by men.

Now if you grew up in the tradition I did, you may be cringing at the title of this post, but before you throw the stones of judgement give me a chance to explain what I am talking about and show you that I’m not some demon possessed guy out here who’s purpose is to destroy the Kingdom of God, because we all know “the devil’s greatest deception is convincing the world that he doesn’t exist,” at least that’s what I was taught my whole life. But let’s just see what we can discover about this one we call “the devil.”

Now before we open up the text, let me just ask; is the devil a fallen angel who used to be the worship leader in heaven?

My entire life this is what I was taught; that Satan, or the devil, used to be the highest of the arc-angels, the most beautiful angel God ever created. The theory evolved as I grew older and because of verses found in Isaiah taken out of context, I was taught that Satan, the fallen angel, was literally made with instruments spliced into him, as if he literally had pipes and strings somehow integrated into his body.

Now I know this just sounds ridiculous, but I seriously believed that before Satan, or Lucifer (which would have been his “angel name”) fell from heaven that he was some beautiful, part instrument angel that led the song service in heaven, and that upon being cast from heaven when he rebelled against God and took a third of the heavenly angels with him, he lost his status and form he had in heaven, as well as the angels he took with him, which became the demons Satan now controls and commands to torture us who believe.

Now let’s just leave that lunacy behind us for a sec and see what is ACTUALLY said about this guy, Satan or “the devil.”

Like usual, we are going to dive into some scripture. The passage I want to dissect tonight is the passage in Ezekiel where the modern teaching of “the devil” comes from.

If you would, turn in your Bibles to the book of Ezekiel, chapter 28, verses 11-19 (see what I did there. 😉 Here we have Ezekiel, at request of “The LORD” recording a “lament against the King of Tyre.”

The King of Tyre was also known as the King of Babylon, as ancient Tyre was, in fact, Babylon. In this “lament” we find Ezekiel outlining who this king is and some of his characteristics. Let’s take a look at some of what is said about this king.

Now, I’m not going to quote it, but this chapter actually starts out with Ezekiel declaring that although this king professed to be a god, that he was in fact “just a mortal man…” but we will let that slide and pretend like this doctrine destroying sentence is not there and see what the rest of this passage says.

Verse 12 tells us that he was, “the signet of perfection,^[a]
full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.”

So we know this was a dashing fellow. So far no reason to think this is talking about some fallen angel whom God cast down to the earth, but let’s continue.

Verse 13 begins, “You were in Eden, the garden of God;”

“Wait! He was in Eden? Well this MUST be Satan! Because we all know the devil was the serpent in Eden that tempted Adam and Eve to sin! AH HA!”

Well, wait just a minute. What was Ezekiel’s profession again? Oh, that’s right! He was a prophet! And if you know anything about prophets, you know that they use allegorical language to describe their point.

This can be seen in every prophetic writing, and if we try to take all these allegories literally we will walk away with quite a colorful theology indeed.

The book of Revelation tells us that there will be crazy demon insect hybrids that come from a bottomless pit and seven headed dragons. Are we supposed to take that literally? Only if we are going to stay consistent in believing that all that the prophets wrote was to be taken as literal. Luckily that’s not the point of these prophecies, as we will continue to see in the future, as I will most definitely be covering all these subjects in future posts, but for now, back to Ezekiel.

So if we don’t take it literally, how should this be understood? Well let me submit to you the idea that Ezekiel, being an educated Jew, knew very well the legend of Eden, and so would have had the idea that before the fall, there was a state of “perfection” that man existed in. So can we assume that by Ezekiel saying, “you were in Eden..” that what he’s saying is that this King of Tyre once “had it good?” That the state in which this king began his rule was to be likened to Eden, and could be considered near perfection? Maybe eh?

Moving on.

The next verses explain how this guy was adorned in all these beautiful precious stones, which I’ve also heard taught that this means Satan is not only walking around with instruments sticking out of him but he also is made out of all these earthly rocks, which just adds to the lunacy, but i digress.

Verse 14: You were an anointed guardian cherub.
I placed you;^[d] you were on the holy mountain of God;
in the midst of the stones of fire you walked.
¹⁵ You were blameless in your ways
from the day you were created,
till unrighteousness was found in you.

“Look see!! He was a guardian cherub!” Again, this is allegorical language. This earthly king could be likened unto an angel in the eyes of his subjects, that’s all that’s being said here if you understand the way in which this is written; not to be taken literally.

Let me stop here for a second and ask; what is the current theology on Satan? Is it not that he was an angel that became prideful and so wanted God’s position and to be worshiped instead of God? And once he was found out was cast to the earth with a third of the angels? That’s what we were all taught at one point or another right?

Guess where that teaching comes from… right here.

This is literally the ONLY place this idea has come from. There is a small section of 2 or 3 verses in Revelation where it says that “the dragon” which we are supposed to assume is “the devil” sweeps a third of the stars from the sky at the birth of the Messiah, but that of course doesn’t fit with our doctrine on Satan as most of us were taught that Satan fell before the creation, which is how he ended up in Eden, or at least sometime during the creation week, but definitely not at the birth of Jesus.

But ya, seriously, the whole doctrine on the devil being a fallen angel comes from this one passage, as it is mentioned nowhere else in all of scripture. So the way we interpret this right now is going to turn out to be very important in sculpting our idea of what or who exactly the devil is.

Let’s continue.

Verse 16: In the abundance of your trade
you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned;
so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God,
and I destroyed you,^[e] O guardian cherub,
from the midst of the stones of fire.

Question; what exactly, if he was once an angel in heaven, was the devil “trading” in heaven? Pokemon cards? Was he not only the worship leader in heaven but also in charge of business, assuring that God got all of His Amazon orders in a timely manner? Or are we reading about a human being, a king who would have been involved in trading with other nations and kingdoms? Most likely the latter.

Whatever the case, it seems that he would be “cast down” or lose his position of lofty rule and would ultimately be destroyed, which is exactly what happened to the King of Tyre.

Verse 17 goes on: Your heart was proud because of your beauty;
you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor.
I cast you to the ground;
I exposed you before kings,
to feast their eyes on you.
¹⁸ By the multitude of your iniquities,
in the unrighteousness of your trade
you profaned your sanctuaries;
so I brought fire out from your midst;
it consumed you,
and I turned you to ashes on the earth
in the sight of all who saw you.
¹⁹ All who know you among the peoples
are appalled at you;
you have come to a dreadful end
and shall be no more forever.

So there we have it. This guy went to his ultimate destruction because of his pride and arrogance. Now I know we have all been taught that this also applies to Satan, who fell from heaven because God “found pride in his heart.” But don’t you see now that the ONLY reason we think this is because of this passage right here. Like I said above, this is where the bulk of our doctrine on Satan comes from.

So I bet I know what you’re thinking right now, “Well, how does Rhett know that this isn’t talking about the devil? It kinda sounds like it is.”

Let me show you.

Like as is the case with most Christian mythology, all one must do is read the surrounding verses, or in this case, the next chapter. The proceeding chapter from 28 is a “Prophecy Against Egypt” and herein we will find some most interesting information.

I’m not going to expound on this chapter as this post is already much longer than any of my previous posts, but to sum it up, and please go read this for yourself as well, Ezekiel likens “Pharaoh, King of Egypt” to a “dragon” of the Nile. So there it is folks, in black and white for all to see; the King of Egypt is a sea serpent. Yup, if you believe the King of Tyre is a literal fallen angel then staying consistent you must also believe that the King of Egypt is a sea serpent, just waiting for the pour soul who kneels at it banks to be his next victim.

Obviously the King of Egypt was not a literal sea serpent, so why should we believe that “the lament against the King of Tyre” is talking of a literal fallen angel, a devil we have come to call “Satan?” We shouldn’t. This is Christian mythology that we have been trained to interpret a certain way so as to uphold an ancient belief passed down to us by our Christian forefathers.

There is soooo much more to say on this subject, and I think I may continue on this subject in the next few future posts as it is a fascinating revelation when it is understood in it’s fullness.

We still have the teachings of Jesus associated with this subject to scrutinize as well, not to mention the writings in the Epistles of Peter and John, but for now let us end here.

So I hope this has been eye opening, if not at least something to think about. You don’t have to walk around thinking there’s a physical, or not so physical, disembodied, evil angel out to get you. The Bible does not teach this, only Pastors do, and those who do not fully understand the context in which these passages are written.

Whew!! Thanks for reading guys, and till next time,

Rhett

P.S: There is also a passage in Isaiah that the Church pulls from to support their doctrine of the devil, where, again, an earthly king is likened to heavenly visions, and this is the place we get the name “Lucifer” and it is the ONLY place we see this name. We will get into this passage next time, so DON’T CHANGE THAT DIAL!!!

😉