Why and When Did Satan Fall From Heaven?

What was the reason that Satan fell from heaven?  When did this fall occur?

Pride Comes Before the Fall

Proverbs 16:19 says “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”  God declares that “I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech” (Prov 8:13) and “When pride comes, then comes disgrace” (Prov 11:2).  One thing is for sure, if a person is full of pride and lifted up, there is only one way to go and that is down.  The fact that “Pride brings a person low, but the lowly in spirit gain honor” (Prov 29:23) is contrary to the way the world thinks.  God says to the prideful person, “The pride of your heart has deceived you” (Obadiah 1:3a). This may be why a brand new believer shouldn’t be a pastor and why one of the qualifications of a pastor is that “He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil” (1 Tim 3:6).  Paul understood that pride caused conceit and when a person is prideful they become conceited and then “fall into the condemnation of the devil.”  Why did Paul associate pride with the “condemnation of the Devil?”  It was because pride was apparently the cause of Satan’s fall as we will read and this fall came long before we ever existed.

Satan’s Pride

Ezekiel seems to give a description of the fall of Satan in 28:11b-13 even though at the beginning he is writing about the King of Tyre but it is quite obvious, beginning in verse 11, that he is no longer writing about an earthy king; “Thus says the Lord God: “You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God;every precious stone was your covering,sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle; and crafted in gold were your settings and your engravings. On the day that you were created they were prepared. “

No human king of Tyre could have lived in the day when Ezekiel wrote this about someone being in the Garden of Eden so this must be referring to Satan.  The description of the precious stones are also descriptive of what the Garden of Eden was like but also what heaven is like (Rev 21).  Satan, like the angels, was created before the earth apparently existed (Job 38:4-7) and they are eternal beings, with the understanding of course that they are not like God at all Who has always existed and had no beginning.

Next, Ezekiel writes about Satan going from sinless perfection to corruption and sinfulness in 28:14-16 “You were an anointed guardian cherub.  I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God; in the midst of the stones of fire you walked. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created, till unrighteousness was found in you. 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, O guardian cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.” At one time, Satan, then known as Lucifer, was an anointed guardian cherub, perhaps the highest and greatest of all the angels that God created, full of beauty and splendor.  Maybe he took a look at himself in the mirror but the point is that his pride got the best of him and he became lifted up and rebelled against God as we’ll read later.

This is where Satan’s pride caused him to swell with pride and conceit, “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” (Ezekiel 28:17).  This refers to Satan’s being cast out of heaven and the reason was that his “heart was proud because of [his] beauty.”  He “corrupted [his] wisdom for the sake (or because of his) splendor.”  That was when God cast him “to the ground” or to the earth.  Pride literally caused him to fall or more precisely, to be cast down but he was the cause of his own downfall.

Satan’s Fall

Isaiah writes about the effect of Satan’s fall “How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God.  I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north” (Isaiah 14:12-13). Satan went so far as to declare “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’ But you are brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit” (Isaiah 14:14-15). How far is it from heaven down to earth?  Apparently a long way but Satan’s pride caused him to be cast out of heaven down to the earth, thus it was written that he fell from heaven.  The Day Star had come crashing down to earth.   He not only was full of pride, he wanted not only to take over the rule of heaven…he not only wanted to be above God…he wanted to “sit on the mount of the assembly in the far reaches of the north” (which refers to heaven). Then he declares “I will make myself like the Most High” or more than like the Most High, he wanted to be God and that’s been his desire ever since.  Satan wants to be worshiped and considered God and that’s why in the tribulation, he will cause those on the earth who have not repented and trusted in Christ to worship him.  Pride was at the root of his sin and his fall and in fact, pride seems to be the root of all wickedness, not just in Satan and the demons but in mankind in general.   When Satan was cast out of heaven, he took 1/3rd of the angels with him which may be why the Apostle John wrote that the dragon’s “tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth” (Rev 12:4).

Conclusion

If you have not been saved, then you face the same fate as Satan does and it is described in Revelation 20:10 “the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” So it will be for all those who have refused to repent and trust in the Savior as they will be “judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.  And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire” (Rev 20:13b-15).

A good book to check out: 7 Biblical Signs Of The End Times

Another Reading on Patheos to Check Out: What Did Jesus Really Look Like: A Look at the Bible Facts

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book  Blind Chance or Intelligent Design available on Amazon