Isaiah 14; “¹²How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! ¹³For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north. ¹⁴I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High”

As indicated in Part 2, it was Origen Adamantus one of the early Christian theologians, born in about AD 184 who spent first half of his career in Alexandria near Egypt, died 254 AD, He was the first to spiritualize Isaiah 14, to mean Satan theologically speaking. Otherwise it wasn’t so from the beginning.

Look at this ;

Isaiah 14:12 (NCV)  “King of Babylon, morning star, you have fallen from heaven, even though you were as bright as the rising sun! In the past all the nations on earth bowed down before you, but now you have been cut down”.

Here in this passage Isaiah is actually talking about a king in Babylon. It is also said that the image of the morning star fallen from the sky is generally believed to have been borrowed from a legend in Canaanite mythology.

So, if you go by what we have seen as it relates to Jesus and John previously, it was simply the dominion mandate and the greatness of the empire that was given to the king of Babylon by God that made him a ‘morning star’ because he was A SERVANT OF GOD. Maybe you don’t know that also. Here it is;

Jeremiah 25:8-9 “⁸Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Because ye have not heard my words (see 15:4) ⁹Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the LORD, and Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, MY SERVANT, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and an hissing, and perpetual desolations”.

So when we read;

Isaiah 14:13 “For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north.” This then was the sin of this king.

But he was merely a human being claiming divinity (Isaiah14:16-17 “Is this the man who shook the earth…the man who made the world a desert…?”) without knowing that God just elevated him because of the sins of the children of Israel against Him.

So essentially, Isaiah 13 – 14 is an oracle against the pride-filled Babylonian Empire, whose spirit is well demonstrated in Nebuchadnezzar’s arrogant boast, see it here;

Daniel 4:30 “The king spake, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty”?

But he forgot God chose him and so His anger was kindled against him for this pride;

Isaiah 47 “⁶I was wroth with my people (Israel), I have polluted mine inheritance, and given them into thine hand (Nebucahdnezer): thou didst shew them no mercy; upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke. ⁷And thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever: so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end of it. ⁸Therefore hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children: ⁹But these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood: they shall come upon thee in their perfection for the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great abundance of thine enchantments. ¹⁰For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness: thou hast said, None seeth me. Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee; and thou hast said in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me”.

Did you see that? The whole of Daniel 4, is God’s threat against the pride and arrogance of the king, similarly in Isaiah 13 – 14.

Now it’s perfectly acceptable to say that a passage like Isaiah 13 – 14 has a message for arrogance and pride wherever and in whomever it shows itself. But to say it’s talking about an angel who rebelled against God in some far away years is not scriptural and very unbiblical no matter who is proclaiming that.

But what is it that Nebuchadnezer did not acknowledge? It is that God gave him the dominion to take Israel into captivity.

Jeremiah 25 (MSG) “⁸The verdict of God-of-the-Angel-Armies on all this: “Because you have refused to listen to what I’ve said, ⁹I’m stepping in. I’m sending for the armies out of the north headed by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, my servant in this, and I’m setting them on this land and people and even the surrounding countries. I’m devoting the whole works to total destruction — a horror to top all the horrors in history”.

So now, how was he cast out and what does it mean to be cast out?

Often times the casting down of Satan from heaven as found in Revelation 12:7-10, is linked with Isaiah 14 that will are dealing with by the preachers and supposed Christian faith. But that cannot stand if we say; Satan’s dethronement from heaven was pre-historic. Revelation 12 itself shall be dealt with fully.

Let us quickly look at other passages where the word cast down is used, and to whom it was applied before we look at Revelation 12.

Capernaum, was cast down

Matthew11:23-24; “²³And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day ²⁴But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee.”

NOTES:

 “Which art exalted to heaven”. This is an expression used to denote great privileges. It means Capernaum; a city with her inhabitants thereof were peculiarly favoured with instruction. The city was prosperous. It was successful in commerce. It was signally favoured by its wealth. But above all, it was significantly favoured by the presence, the preaching and the miracles of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here He spent a large part of His time in the early part of his ministry.

In Capernaum and its neighbourhood, he performed His chief miracles. That is why it is said that she was exalted to heaven. Meaning the exaltation to heaven speaks of the manifold presence of the Lord in a location or sphere.

BROUGHT DOWN = katabibazo, kat-ab-ib-ad’-zo to cause to go down, i.e. precipitate:–bring (thrust) down.

Meaning Capernaum will lose this exalted position because of her heart of unbelief, and the departure of the Lord from there. Very simple!

This we know has been strictly fulfilled. In the wars between the Jews and the Romans, Chorazin, Bethsaida, Capernaum, etc., were so completely desolated that it is difficult to determine their former situation.

ISRAEL was cast down

In Lamentation 2:1; we read “How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!”

“How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud”

The women in the eastern countries wear veils, and often very costly ones. Here, Zion is represented as being veiled by the hand of God’s judgment. And what is the veil? A dark cloud, by which she is entirely obscured.

To be covered… with a cloud – means to be covered with the darkness of disgrace.

The beauty of Israel speaks of His Temple.

“His footstool” speaks of the Ark of the Covenant. That is the temple with the ark (compare 1 Chronicles 28:2; Psalms 99:5; 132:7; 32:7|).

They once had gloried, venerated the ark more than in the God whose symbol it was.

“Cast down from heaven unto… earth, (just like Capernaum in Matthew 11:23) means to be dashed down from the highest position of prosperity to the lowest misery.

While “the Beauty of Israel was the beautiful temple” (Psalms 29:2; 74:7; 96: Isaiah 60:7; 64:11). But now the Lord allowed the Chaldeans to destroy it.

Cast down – that is, thrown them down from the highest glory and honour, to the meanest degree of servitude. Can we see the meaning of being cast down?

Now, how was Nebuchadnezzar cast down”?

Isaiah 14:12-16; “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!”

Same thing, he was brought down from the realm of glory, the position the nation occupied with him as her king to the realm of shame.

So, Daniel interpreting the king’s dream of the image to him said; Daniel.2:37-38

“³⁷Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath GIVEN THEE A KINGDOM, POWER, and STRENGTH, and GLORY. ³⁸And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold.” (compare Jeremiah 25:7-8).

Therefore we see that the one that was cast down in Isaiah 14 is the pride-filled Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, who had cast down many nations. That is, he who had destroyed and enslaved many nations. Nothing to do with a spirit being called Lucifer, up in the heavens somewhere in some years back.

In verse 13, we are told; “For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven”

If he was in heaven with God as we are made to believe, why was he intending to ascend to heaven, which level of state of heaven was he then? His thought was simply his ambition to rule the world, in other words, I will rule the world like God.

Look at this again;

Daniel 2:37 “You, O king, are the most powerful king on earth. The God of heaven has given you the works: rule, power, strength, and glory. 38 He has put you in charge of men and women, wild animals and birds, all over the world — you’re the head ruler, you are the head of gold” (MSG).

This is what led to his pride and the intents of his heart.

So, to be cast down is simply to be dethroned from the position of authority and power. Therefore the removal of king Nebuchadnezzar from power was his being cast down from heaven. Not where he live with God somewhere up in the sky yonder.

May we cast away all those babyish concepts and infantile dogmas and embrace the truth of the word of God.

To be continued…