We all know the character of the first sin that entered the world, which has made it a scene of violence, corruption, sorrow, death and judgment; it was disobedience. Pride and independence had led Satan, the prince of this world, to disobedience, and thus brought him to fall. That once exalted and bright angelic spirit, whose name was “Lucifer” or “Day Star,” and “Son of the Morning,” had said in his heart, “I will ascend into heaven; I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. ... I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High” (Isa. 14). He was perfect in his ways from the day that he was created, till iniquity was found in him. And what was his iniquity? “Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty; thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness; I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee” (Ezek. 28:1717Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee. (Ezekiel 28:17)). There is no doubt that this passage from Ezekiel refers not merely to the then king of Tyre, but to Satan, the prince of this world, of whom the prince of Tyre is a figure. Tyre represents the world as to the “lust of the eyes” (in commerce and traffic); Sodom, as to the “lust of the flesh”; Nineveh, as to the “pride of life”; Babylon, as to spiritual or religious pride and whoredom.
That sin of disobedience turned that beautiful “covering cherub” into the arch deceiver, and “that old serpent” and his bright fellow-angels into “wicked spirits” — “rulers of the darkness of this world.” The fall of Satan and his angels took place before he, as the serpent, tempted Adam and Eve in the garden. And after God had commanded the light to shine out of darkness, and finished “the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them,” it was again the same spirit of disobedience that led to the fall of another number of those bright angelic beings. They “kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation” and are “reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day” (Jude). They “saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose” (Gen. 6). Their offspring were the “giants in the earth,” a race characterized by self-confidence, pride and self-will.
Strength and Obedience
After these solemn accounts of the fall of those once-perfect, heavenly beings, it is a relief to turn to the same divine record as to the character of the good angels, so beautifully and concisely given at the end of Psalm 103. We find they “excel in strength” and “do His commandments.” Unlike their fallen former companions and fallen mankind, where strength and disobedience go hand in hand, there is strength combined with obedience. But there is a third characteristic given us in this psalm as to those bright angelic beings; they “excel in strength”; they “do His commandments”; they are also “hearkening unto the voice of His word.” Their obedience is not a lukewarm, mere dutiful obedience, but it is an obedience of the heart. They “hearken,” that is, they incline their ears, not only to “His word,” but to “the voice of His word.” Their hearts, as well as their ears, love to hear the voice of their divine Sovereign, and they take an interest in everything that concerns His glory. As to creation, “the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God [that is, the angels] shouted for joy” (Job 38:77When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? (Job 38:7)); as to salvation and redemption, “which things the angels desire to look into” (1 Peter 1:12); also, they may be engaged in learning in the church “the manifold wisdom of God” (Eph. 3). With them it is the same hearty obedience to the will of God, the same heartfelt interest in all the counsels of His divine will, even where the objects of those counsels belong to a fallen and rebellious race and even though they themselves remain but “ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation” (Heb. 1:1414Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation? (Hebrews 1:14)). There is no envy with those blessed attendants at the heavenly courts above, where everything is perfect and every heart has but one object and motive — the glory of God and His Christ and to do His will, hearkening to the voice of His Word.
J. A. Von Poseck, adapted