Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott
We have seen that something catastrophic happened between the first two verses of Genesis. Satan fell.
When God made the earth, as it is now, He removed it from the sphere it was in and placed it into time and space. God said, ‘Let there be light’ before He made the sun, and the moon, and the stars. Because He is light, and that light is creative light. And there are two speeds of light: there is the speed of light that operates in the heavenly realms, and the speed of light which operates here, which is slowing down (as some scientists have now suggested), although at the beginning they were the same speed. Because of Adam’s fall, the speed of light started to slow down and so time used to be quicker (if you understand what I mean). That is why the earth appears to be 10,000 years old in the biblical account, and yet it is 14 billion years old as measured by science. Time was different, time was stretched out, the heavens were stretched out.
There is a passage in 2 Peter which speaks of this period: For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water (2 Peter 3:5-6).
This is not Noah’s flood. This is talking about the original destruction of the earth, and the fall of Satan. Earth was flooded with water at that time, the first flood. That is why we then find that the Spirit of God was brooding upon the waters in Genesis 1:2.
The anointed cherub who covers
We need to see what happened when Satan fell. He was originally a covering cherub, one of those angels who covered the throne, one who cried ‘Holy, holy, holy’. When he cried ‘holy’, he was exclaiming with wonder as he received from God the revelation of His purposes.
At some point, God revealed His plan to use Man, a person with DNA, to carry the DNA of God on the earth. And God revealed that it was to be His sons in DNA who were going to inherit the earth and the heavens (rather than the sons of glory, the angels).
Instead of crying ‘holy’ this time, all of a sudden, something else started to form in Satan’s heart. He rebelled, and in his heart he was saying, ‘I want to ascend to the place where I will be like that!’
Now Satan had a reptilian form, and he was covered in stones. He was called Lucifer, the light bearer, and he was also the leader of the worship in heaven. So those stones were supposed to reflect the light of God’s glory, and he was supposed to be responsible for training Man to come into the fullness of God.
In Ezekiel 28 we can read about Satan’s fall.
Thus says the Lord GOD, “You had the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering: the ruby, the topaz and the diamond; the beryl, the onyx and the jasper; the lapis lazuli, the turquoise and the emerald; and the gold, the workmanship of your settings and sockets, was in you. On the day that you were created they were prepared (Ezek 28:12-13).
The garden of God (Eden) was connected to the earth. In Genesis it says God had a garden in Eden, and then He planted a garden east of Eden. So there were two gardens, and at that point heaven and earth overlapped. The garden of God was where God walked, Adam had access to that; it was where the Tree of Life was.
And then we read about all the stones that covered Satan’s body. You will notice that Satan had nine stones, but Man has 12 stones: the breastplate of the High Priest had 12 stones, there were 12 tribes, there are 12 foundations to the New Jerusalem, 12 fruits on the Tree of Life. The number 12 speaks of government, and Man was supposed to exercise godly government.
[Biblical numerology is really interesting: threes and sevens and tens and twelves and forties are everywhere once you start to see them, but we can’t go fully into that here.]
Then it goes on,
You were the anointed cherub who covers, and I placed you there. You were on the holy mountain of God; You walked in the midst of the stones of fire. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created until unrighteousness was found in you. By the abundance of your trade you were internally filled with violence, and you sinned; therefore I have cast you as profane from the mountain of God. And I have destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire (Ezek 28:14-16).
Heaven is on a mountain, ‘the holy mountain of God’ (v14). The whole structure of heaven is a mountain and there is a plateau on top. On the mountain there is a throne and from the throne runs a river of fire – imagine how lava flows from a volcano. There are stones that operate on that fire which are stones of revelation. I have been on that mountain and I have walked on those stones, and another time I will maybe explain what those stones are. They represent what Satan would have done to bring Man into the fullness of God.
But then unrighteousness was found in him. It was exposed because of his role as covering cherub and the revelation that God gave him. The scripture goes on to speak about Satan’s trading and about his being filled with violence.
Again, I am going to have to teach on trade and trading floors another time, because it is to do with covenant and to do with exchange. For now, let’s understand that it worked like this: Satan had information, revelation of what God was going to do, and he traded it with the other angels. Man was going to inherit the heavens, rather than the angels doing so, because the angels were all about being ministering spirits for those who would inherit salvation (Heb 1:14). All the angels were created for us, and that now became clear. When Satan discovered this revelation, he went to some of the other angels and a third of them decided they were going to receive and act on it, and they were going to seek to rule the heavens instead of Man.
Like lightning from heaven
So Satan fell, like lightning from heaven, Jesus said. As a result of his fall, Satan no longer has access to Heaven (but has not lost access to all of the heavenly realms). He has no access to the River of Life or the stones of fire, or anything else which is found in that heavenly realm.
And when he fell, ‘there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war, and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him (Rev 12:7-9).
Here Satan is referred to as the dragon (I was writing about dragons and giants a few weeks ago in a previous post). This is where the word ‘dragon’ comes from: it is a description of Satan. A third of the angels – and that is a great number – took the trade Satan offered them, and fell with him.
As I say, that was in the original creation. Satan’s activity on the earth brought down God’s judgment upon it in the first flood, which resulted in a planet that was ‘formless and void’, covered in waters over which the Spirit would hover, brood or vibrate (Gen 1:2). And in the second creation, Adam’s rebellion would give Satan access to heaven again and open some of those realms back up to him.
Related articles from Freedom ARC
- The Heavens and the Earth
- Characteristics of the Joshua Generation (#36-40)
- Trading (mini blog series)
Sons of Issachar 