In our last post, we briefly examined the first angelic rebellion mentioned in Scripture- that of Genesis 6 and the sons of God. Today, we are going to examine two other possible angelic rebellions.
2. Psalm 82...and another rebellion?
If you read my post on the divine council and the sons of God, you might remember this passage (if you haven't read them, here they are: part 1 and part 2). According to Psalm 82, the role of the sons of God was to govern the nations. Some of them have been governing wickedly, so Yahweh tells them, "I said, 'you are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you; nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.'" (vv6-7). Yahweh tells these wicked sons of God that they are going to be judged, and through that judgement they will fall and die.
There are many things to point out in this passage, but first lets ask this question: Could this be a reference to the judgement of the sons of God/Watchers in Genesis 6? I really want it to, because it would create less problems, but Scripture is not nice and neat sometimes. As much as I have tried to make it fit in reference to Genesis 6, it won't. Here's why:
1). Psalm 82 is a reference to the wicked governance of the sons of God over the nations they have been assigned to.
2) According to Deuteronomy 32:8, this allotment of the nations to the sons of God happens at the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11; Genesis 10 is the table of nations).
3) According to Jewish and Christian tradition in 1 Enoch, the Genesis 6 sons of God are judged around the time of the flood, thus they were never assigned nations.
It just doesn't fit.
So where does this leave us? With another possible angelic rebellion; that's where. It is these wicked sons of God that Micheal the archangel is battling in the book of Daniel. But how and why did they rebel? You might get tired of me saying this, but again- I don't know. We are not told the answer to this question in Scripture. If i had to speculate, I would say that Satan lead these sons of God astray, along with other angelic beings, which is how he gathered his army of angels that is presented in the New Testament. Which leads to my next point. But before we transition, let me raise a few other points about Psalm 82:6 that will raise even more questions.
The text seems to indicate that these beings are going to die. If so, it opens up the possibility that angelic beings can die. This is part of their judgement. Could this death mean spiritual death like the second death in Revelation? Possibly. If so, then it is referring to them being cast into the lake of fire with Satan. However, we have to remember that the ancient Hebrews who read this passage probably understood physical death. This has lead many interpreters to do all they can to avoid asserting that Psalm 82 is talking about human rulers, but as we have seen before, there is too much evidence to the contrary.
3. Where did all the other fallen angels come from?
In the book of Ephesians, Paul lists various ranks of evil spirits, "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." (6:12). Paul uses these same categories elsewhere in his writings (Colossians 1 and 2; Romans 8). From what we gather from Paul and Jewish tradition, both good and evil angels were divided in ranks. We also saw that this was the case in the Old Testament. There were three tiers to the divine council. Yahweh was the first tier, the only authority. Under Him were the sons of God, who had a ruling function. Then under the sons of God were the messenger angels, like Gabriel.
Since the evil angels are varied in rank, and are different supernatural beings, this begs the question, when did they rebel? We see the the specific rank of the "rulers" (sons of God) rebellion mentioned in Psalm 82, but nowhere else in the entire Bible are we presented with where these other fallen angels came from. Yet one thing we know for certain, is that with the coming of the Messianic Kingdom, Satan and his angels lost their place in heaven, and are now roaming the earth and seeking to cause destruction (Revelation 12).
This leaves us with three options: 1). We are just left to infer that they rebelled at some point by the leading of Satan. 2) They were created evil, or maybe neutral with the capacity to chose good or evil. 3) It's not important to even consider, since God has given us no information on it.
There may be more options, but I can't think of any at this point. So, pick one of the three.
In closing, it seems like the Scripture lends us the possibility of at least two or three angelic rebellions. I don't have the answers as to why God allowed it to happen this way, or even how it happened. All we know is that it did happen, and it was God's sovereign will for the purpose of His glory.
In our next post we will be looking at the origin and activity of demons.
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