Where Did Satan Come From?

Satan

Satan, Lucifer, Beelzebub, Son of the Morning, the Devil has many names. The Devil is a powerful and mysterious being. Who is Satan? Who believes in him? Where did he come from? There are many questions that I had about Satan at the beginning of this report.

Where did Satan come from? According to the Christian Bible it is clearly taught that the Devil and the other demons are spiritual or angelic creatures created by God in a state of innocence, and that they became evil by their own act. It is added that man sinned by the suggestion of the Devil, and that in the next world the wicked shall suffer eternal punishment with the Devil. Satan and the other demons are part of an angelic creation, and their natural powers do not differ from those of the angels who remained faithful. Like the other angels, they are pure spiritual beings without any body.

What was the fall? Who was Satan before the fall? The biblical book Ezekiel says that Satan was the perfect angel. You (referring to Satan) were the seal of resemblance, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. You were in the pleasures of the paradise of God; every precious stone was thy covering; the Sardis, the topaz, and the jasper, the chrysolite, and the onyx, and the beryl, the sapphire, and the carbuncle, and the emerald; gold the work of your beauty: and your pipes were prepared in the day that you were created. You a cherub stretched out, and protecting, and I set you in the holy mountain of God, you have walked in the midst of the stones of fire. You were perfect in your wave from the day of creation, until iniquity was found in you (Ezekiel 28:12-15). The prophets, Isaiah, and Ezekiel, thought that Lucifer held a very high rank in the heavenly hierarchy. God's right hand man in a sense. Some theologians say that the Devil was the foremost of all the angels. Ezekiel described Satan as the "model of perfection", "full of wisdom", and "perfect in beauty."

Why did the Devil fall? As Ezekiel 28:12 tells us, Satan was perfect when he was created. The Bible also tells us that humanity was created a little lower than the angels. Yet neither Satan nor any of the other angels were given rule over the earth. Rather, Adam, a being Satan must have considered less than himself, was given this power. It's easy to see why Satan was led to sin. Satan's pride was his downfall, he became jealous of man. Eventually, Satan developed a plan that he must have felt would deliver to him the position he believed should have been his originally. He decided to deceive the humans in the Garden into disobeying God's direct command (Genesis 3:14). After having proven mankind unworthy of the leadership position God had placed them in, Satan in his arrogant pride must have thought God would see that he should be given authority over the world in their place (W.H. Kent).

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree of the garden'?" And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.' " Then the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate (GENESIS 3:1) (NKJV) (Bryan T. Huie).

Although Satan apparently believed that the downfall of mankind would benefit him, it actually turned out to be the worst thing he could have done. God was not pleased with his role in man's disobedience, and He was cursed for his deviousness.

So the LORD God said to the serpent: "Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel (GENESIS 3:14) ." (NKJV)

What do other religions believe about Satan? The Christian and Jewish Satan are pretty much the same. The Islam Satan is slightly different however. Satan had a unique name, "Iblis", and he had been highly ranked amongst the angels, due to his loyal service to Allah in the past, before the creation of Adam (man) (Britannica #542).

according to the Qur'an (the basic source of Islamic belief), the purpose of Satan was to test man (Adam) by giving him authority to choose between 'good' and 'evil'. It is the incorrect use of this authority, which results in evil. It seems that the Jinn are also given the same authority. Iblis became