Has this event already happened or...

by Honesty 12 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Honesty

  is it just symbolic as many bible commentators and scholars suggest?

  How can he be restricted from heaven and still be accusing our brothers before God day and night?

  Where in Scripture does it say when Satan can no longer enter into heaven?

  Rev 12:7-12 Then war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels also fought, but he could not prevail, and there was no place for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was thrown out—the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the one who deceives the whole world. He was thrown to earth, and his angels with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:

  The salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God

  and the authority of His Messiah have now come,

  because the accuser of our brothers has been thrown out:

  the one who accuses them before our God day and night.

  They conquered him by the blood of the Lamb

  and by the word of their testimony,

  for they did not love their lives in the face of death.

  Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them!

  Woe to the earth and the sea,

  for the Devil has come down to you with great fury,

  because he knows he has a short time.
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  ButtLight

  Good point! If god is loving and forgiving, will he not forgive anyone?
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  Qcmbr

  Yes - at the beginning of the bible story - that;s why Satan was on the earth as opposed to this idea that Satan could tempt Adam and Eve and still swan in and out of heaven at will.
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  Narkissos

  Honesty,

  I'm not sure what your question means, but I feel that this text indeed refers to the traditional role of the Hebrew "satan" -- originally not an enemy of God, but a servant defending God's rights in the specific office of "accuser" or "witness for the prosecution" against men in the heavenly court (Zechariah 3; Job 1--2). From this perspective, casting the satan out of heaven is, in effect, "firing him" or making his job impossible. (Of course the whole Revelation picture makes Satan an enemy of God, in line with later Jewish apocalyptics; I'm just referring to the role of "accuser").

  That this could be read as a past "event" (as a direct result of Christ's mission) is quite possible in the early Christian context. Cf. Luke 10:18ff; John 16:11; Romans 8:31ff for more or less similar ideas.
• 

  Honesty

  Honesty,

  I'm not sure what your question means, but I feel that this text indeed refers to the traditional role of the Hebrew "satan" -- originally not an enemy of God, but a servant defending God's rights in the specific office of "accuser" or "witness for the prosecution" against men in the heavenly court (Zechariah 3; Job 1--2). From this perspective, casting the satan out of heaven is, in effect, "firing him" or making his job impossible. (Of course the whole Revelation picture makes Satan an enemy of God, in line with later Jewish apocalyptics; I'm just referring to the role of "accuser").

  That this could be read as a past "event" (as a direct result of Christ's mission) is quite possible in the early Christian context. Cf. Luke 10:18ff; John 16:11; Romans 8:31ff for more or less similar ideas.

  The WTBT$ says that Satan has been confined to the vicinity of the earth and can no longer enter heaven but where in scripture is this dogma supported?
• 

  Narkissos

  where in scripture is this dogma supported?

  Well, I guess, in Revelation 12 (seems like I still don't get it). The WTBTS is clearly wrong to link this with 1914 (if I remember correctly), but I think mainstream Christian interpretations which would link it to Jesus' time are quite tenable.
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  Honesty

  The WTBTS is clearly wrong to link this with 1914

  That is what I am getting at. They have twisted this scripture to support their crazy 1914 doctrine of deceit.
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  greendawn

  To me satan's expulsion from heaven in fact amounts to a great loss of power status and rights, it is not to be taken literally as something that falls to the ground from the sky. They will be confined to a lower less powerful realm symbolised by the earth as God's own power will fill the higher realms once held by satan and his angels.
  
  As for the war that eventually leads to their fall it probably started since the days of Jesus on earth and continues through the church to our days. Then the "child" is born.
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  moggy lover

  Hi, Honesty, I feel you are quite right in saying that the WTS have twisted the 12th chapter of Rev to suit their own pre concieved view of 1914. Although it was not always so. It appears JHoover, esq goofed because he originally said through his "faithful and discreet slave class" that the "manchild" was the Papacy, the woman, "Christendom" and the "devouring" of the child by Satan was actually the process of absorbing the child into the "apostate" Christian Church ruled by Rome. Oh... and Michael? Well don't you know it was the Pope!! These gems of wisdom are found in "The Finished Mystery" [Published in 1918, which happens to be the time when Jesus was judging the WTS with approval for the "hard hitting truths" they were publishing in His and his ''father's" name, JHoover Esq] See Pgs 188, 189

  There have always been two main seperate interpretations for the Book Of Revelation. Everyone agrees that the first three chapters are in the past and the last three in the future. But when the past becomes the future has been a subject of debate. A debate that the WTS has taken advantage of by producing its own version of events. There is the view that most of the events portrayed in Revelation happened in the past, with some historical event [the rise of Islam etc] this is called the "Preterite" [or "Past"] approach. This view was held by several of the reformers of the 16th cent. If you hold to that view then Satan would have been expelled from heaven at some time in the past

  Many Evangelical Christians had trouble with this view because it felt like an excercise in futility, seeming to arbitralily fit things into some historic event. [Not all reformers agreed with what event fulfilled a specific verse in Revelation.] These Christians felt, with some justification, that for prophecy to be prophecy, it had to have a future fulfillment. So the "Futurist Approach" was adopted. In this view much of Revelation takes place at the Great Tribulation, which is a specific period of time somtime in the future. If you hold this view, then Rev 12 is still in the future and Satan has not been expelled from Heaven yet. While the concept of Satan still having full acess to Heaven may be difficult to comprehend, it is clear as you rightly pointed out, that he is now, at this time the "accuser" of the "saints" and thus has a role to accomplish. Viewing the matter both ways I personally feel that Revelation makes best sense by regarding it as having a future fulfillment

  Cheers
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  Narkissos

  It's difficult to discern a clear chronological scenario from Revelation -- the only sure thing is that it is written from the assumption that the writer/editor and readers were living in the end times. What the following centuries turned out to be is clearly foreign to the perspective of the text.

  This being said, I think that much of it (not only the first three chapters) was considered as already past from the writer/readers standpoint (e.g. the glorification of the slaughtered lamb in chapter 5). And that the falling of the dragon/Satan was rather referring to "the beginning of the end" than "the end of the end" is pretty clear to me from the sequence of "events" in the conclusion of chapter 12:

  So when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle, so that she could fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to her place where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. Then from his mouth the serpent poured water like a river after the woman, to sweep her away with the flood. But the earth came to the help of the woman; it opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth. Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her children, those who keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus.

  There is still a lot of fighting going on after the dragon/Satan has been cast out of heaven. What is changed is that he is not anymore "approved" in his role of accuser -- he is not able anymore to separate the elect from God (a common belief in several segments of early Christianity as I pointed out earlier).