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[Ebola Nugget]

I can understand angels can have free will, since some angels like Lucifer chose seperate from God. Now for those angels residing in heaven, in the presence of God, do they have free will? I guess another question could be, what does free will look like without sin? Perhaps free will in itself is evil?

[jimwalton]

First of all, we don't know that Lucifer was an angel. Most scholars don't even think that the Lucifer of Isaiah 14 is to be equated with Satan. But we don't know if Satan was an angel, either. We have no backstory on Satan.

Yes, we assume they have free will, though the evidence is slim. Rev. 22.9 could be interpreted to mean they *choose* to stay obedient. Jude 6 seems to indicate they could choose to obey or rebel. Most of the time we see angels they are carrying out the will of God, and we don't see them acting on independent initiative (Heb. 1.7, 14).

What does free will look like without sin? When a personal being chooses to submit to a higher authority, he consents to serve and not act on his own initiative. In other words, he uses his free will to abandon his right to it.

> Perhaps free will in itself is evil?

Not in the least. Free will is, by definition, neutral: you are free to be good or evil, choose right or wrong. Free will that is only evil is not free. It's a self-contradiction.

[Mr. Kaplan]

I thought of another scripture that maybe adds some backstory on the angel that becomes known as Satan the Devil. There is a prophecy in Ezek. 28, whose first part seemed to apply only to the King of Tyre (a lot of the same verbal imagery as used in Is. 14, where God again is speaking prophetically but to to the King of Babylon). But from vs. 12 on, many feel applies more to the unnamed Cherub (who is later ID'd as Satan the Devil) than to Tyre's King. So here the devil is then identified as an angelic or spirit creature—cherub—as the words found in Jude 1:6 indicate that other rebel angels joined him. What do you think?

[jimwalton]

Thanks for joining the conversation. It's true that Ezk. 38 has far more primeval imagery than Isaiah 14, and many commentators through the years have thought that it applies to Satan, for three basic reasons:

1\. The king is in the garden.
2\. The king is identified as a cherub.
3\. The passage alludes to a fall from a blameless condition.

And yet there are some serious problems with this understanding.

1\. There is no indication in the OT that the Israelites believed Satan was in the Garden of Eden. No OT passage ever equates or even relates serpent = Satan. That doesn't happen until the NT, so it's not likely that Ezekiel intended that meaning.

2\. Scripture never suggests Satan was ever a cherub. The cherubim are a very special class of being with specific functions. There is no basis for speculating that Satan was once among the cherubim, and there is no reason to think any ancient Israelite would have recognized this as a metaphorical allusion.

3\. Nowhere does the OT portray Satan as a fallen being. Again, that didn't come until the NT.

So, in light of OT theology, the interpretation of this being Satan is difficult to maintain. Instead, the king of Tyre, like Isaiah 14, was guilty of obscene pride. He was the guardian of extensive natural resources, but we corrupted by his station, his wealth, and his power, and he is judged for his sin.

Walton, Matthews, & Chavalas, in The IVP Bible Background Commentary (Old Testament) say, "From early on in church history there has been an interpretive tradition that understood this passage as an account of the fall of Satan. Though this same type of interpretation in Isa. 14 was fervently denied by well-respected exegetes such as John Calvin (who bluntly ridiculed it), it has persisted into modern times. From a background standpoint, it must be noted that Satan is never portrayed as either being a cherub or being with the cherub in the garden in any passage of Scripture. Furthermore, Israel's understanding of Satan is far more limited than that found in the NT. Even in Job (1.6), Satan is not a personal name, but a function. "Satan" does not become identified as the personal name of the chief of demons until about the second century BC, and he does not take up his position as the source and cause of all evil until the unfolding of Christian doctrine. Consequently, the Israelites could not have understood this passage in this way, and no NT passage offers a basis for departing from the Israelite understanding of the passage. In the context, it is a metaphorical description of the high stewardship entrusted to the prince of Tyre (as significant as the cherub’s role in the garden). Rather than treating this sacred trust with reverence and awe, he exploited it to his own benefit—as if the cherub of the garden had opened a roadside fruit stand. He was therefore discharged from his position, relieved of his trust, and publicly humiliated."

[Mr. Kaplan]

In looking at your response, the one thing that strikes me is that it seems your belief is that the OT and the NT are works by differing authors. I see them as one united communication, from one author who inspired various ones to write down and preserve His thoughts, principles, history, prophecy etc. as in 2 Tim. 3:16 "All" referring definitely to OT (perhaps even the finished gospels. So, your 1st point (that "it's not likely that Ezekiel intended that meaning") is invalidated sort of b/c perhaps it didn't even matter what Ezekiel knew or didn't know - he was one of the ones referred to in 2 Pe. 1:20, 21, men who spoke by means of the Holy Spirit. Even Daniel - as he wrote what he wrote makes mention that he hadn't a clue what it was he was writing about (Dan. 12:8-10 leads me to think it is now not then, that these things are understood. The angel that decided to rebel against God's authority was likely to be of high rank - although I thought the angels around the throne of Almighty God were not Cherubs, but Seraphim or Seraphs, and would likely hold "higher office" than Cherubs (ditto Archangel), b/c he was the angel/spirit that God chose to "cover" or look after the goings on of physical creation...apparently, he was close to God , who thought him capable and deserving of that honor. That is how I always viewed it. Paul himself explains that even in his day, he saw things through a "hazy mirror" and even as that applies to all imperfect humans, we understand more now than they did then in many instances, as was prophesied in Daniel and other places.

The IVP Commentary seems to disconnect both testaments by ignoring what Rev. 12 states about the "original serpent" "called devil and satan", and what those words (d & s) mean. That means, obviously, that God gave him this new nomenclature and (I like to think b/c of the traitor's pride and arrogance) erased any ref to his real or original name from the bible completely - there is no name for him to be found there.
In conclusion, just b/c the nation of Israel didn't have all the facts, doesn't mean that what the entire bible teaches doesn't apply. To this day, Jews that I have shared Jer. 31 (about the new covenant, and removing the Jews - from the 1st century onwards - from any special 'covenant relationship' with Him); why would it be different then? God did not and has not, and will not reveal anything until the correct time (whether it was Jesus with his close disciples, or Daniel, or Abraham or Moses - even the Angels don't know what is going down or how exactly He will complete His activity regarding physical creation (in 1 Pe. 1:12 it allows the fact that the prophets of old did understand one thing at least - that the words written did not apply in the fullest sense to themselves. But notice the B part - even the angels desire to bend over and look carefully at the outworking of God's purpose. All I mean, after all that, is that your basic premise - that the OT/the people of Israel did not explain/understand the things we do today by H.S., does not invalidate that from being the case, as in Ezek. 28.

[jimwalton]

The OT and NT are different authors, written in different contexts with different audiences in mind. We have to understand the books in their original context, and what matters is what the author meant by what he wrote (and how the people who read it understood what he was saying). In that sense the OT and the NT were very different documents, and we can only understand their true meanings by considering the authors' intent.

In another sense, of course both the OT & NT were God-breathed and are in perfect corroboration with each other. My point, however, is that revelation is progressive, and what we find out later in the NT was unknown to the audience of Ezekiel, and so Ezekiel could not have possibly intended what you attribute to him, and his audience would never have understood it that way. Therefore we have to look through those same eyes.

What you end up doing, however, is retrofitting the NT into the OT, which is not legitimate exegesis. For instance, the prophecy of Isaiah about the young maiden giving birth is taken by Matthew and invested with new meaning: the VIRGIN shall conceive. That was not Isaiah's intent, his meaning, or anything to do with Isaiah, and we understand that. Attributing it to Jesus is still appropriate in the NT era, but we don't take that and retrofit it into Isaiah, claiming that a young girl of Ahaz's harem was pregnant as a virgin and gave birth to a divinely-conceived child. That's not how biblical interpretation works.