Just as the Bible speaks about God and man, it also speaks about Satan. We should not forget that immediately after man was created, God put him in front of two trees: one was the tree of life, and the other was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We have mentioned repeatedly that the tree of life denotes God and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil denotes Satan. Therefore, in the very beginning of the Bible we see these three characters: God, Satan, and man. The entire Bible is a record of the things concerning these three characters. Therefore, in reading the Bible, we should not only know the things concerning God and the things concerning man, we should also know the things concerning Satan. If we have a good grasp concerning these three lines—the line of God, the line of man, and the line of Satan, the Bible will become crystal clear to us. Now we will look at the line of Satan. In this line the points that require our attention are numerous and somewhat complicated.
Originally, Satan was created and anointed by God.
Cherubim have the highest position among the angels in the heavens, and in particular, Satan was an anointed cherub (Ezek. 28:12-15); thus, he was unquestionably the highest among the angels. Jude 9 says, “Michael the archangel, when he contended with the devil and disputed concerning the body of Moses, did not dare to bring a reviling judgment against him but said, The Lord rebuke you.” From this we can see that even Michael’s position was lower than that of Satan. Therefore, Satan’s position was very high. Ephesians 2:2 also says that Satan is the ruler of the authority of the air.
According to the Scriptures, the anointed cherub, the archangel, was originally set by God to be over the universe, the preadamic universe. In Luke 4:6, Satan said to the Lord Jesus that the glory of all the kingdoms of the inhabited earth had been delivered to him. We should realize that Satan could not deceive the Lord Jesus, nor did the Lord Jesus refute his word. What Satan said was a fact. Therefore, we should ask, “When was this glory delivered to him?” The Bible does not speak of it being delivered after Adam was created, because Satan fell before Adam was created. Therefore, this delivery must have occurred before Adam was created.
Satan was once a created and anointed cherub, appointed by God to rule over the former universe. At one point, however, he rebelled against God and became Satan, God’s adversary, due to his pride. This is clearly shown in Ezekiel 28:15 and 17 and Isaiah 14:13-14.
Revelation 12:4 shows that when Satan rebelled against God, one-third of the angels under him followed. Ephesians 6:12 says that these rebellious angels are forces of evil in the heavenlies. Furthermore, Ephesians 2:2 says that Satan is the ruler of these evil spirits, these forces of evil in the air. Therefore, when Satan rebelled, some of the angels under him also rebelled; these rebellious angels became the evil spirits in the air, the rulers and authorities of the air, with Satan as their leader.
According to the record in the Bible, the unclean demons and evil spirits who are upon the surface of the earth and in the waters of the sea must be a group of living creatures who were under Satan in the preadamic world. When Satan rebelled against God, they followed him and also rebelled against God; thus they came under God’s judgment of destruction by the flood and became the unclean demons and evil spirits, who today are on the earth and in the sea. Matthew 8:32, Mark 5:9-13, and Luke 8:2 all speak of the demons on the earth.
We need to see these three groups: Satan, the fallen angels under him, who became the evil spirits in the air, and the demons on the earth and in the water. We should not regard demons as angels, nor as humans who died. They are something different. According to the Scriptures, we can infer that they must have been a group of living creatures under Satan in the preadamic world, who became demons through their rebellion and God’s judgment.
The preadamic universe was delivered into the hands of the cherub, the archangel. But the universe was defiled and destroyed because of his rebellion. This can be seen in Job 9:5-6 and Genesis 1:2.