Fallen Angels

    In my presentation last Friday in Bible Literature course, I talked about Genesis 1:1~2 and the gap theory. Some believe there's a long age between verse 1 and 2 based on a different version of translation. And today I wanna talk about the fall of angels. Before discussing something happened between verse one and two, we must discuss something about the angels. 

    When did God actually create angels? As the matter of fact we cannot be sure when exactly they're created. However, we do know they're created prior to the foundation of the world. In my presentation I mentioned that in Genesis 1:1~2 God makes it clear that its Him that created time and space. Nevertheless, God's not limited by time, for "With the lord, a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day." (2nd Peter 3:8). As for the creation of angels, Job might give an implication for when they're created. It says that when God was creating the world, angels were worshiping Him. Also, God didn't mention anything about angels during His seven-day creation. Moreover, we all know the serpent that deceived Adam and Eva in the garden of Eden is Lucifer, aka.Satan, the fallen angel, meaning the fall of Satan was before humans were created. Some might argue that everything including angels were created in the six days of creation based on the words in Exodus 20, "For in six days God made Heavens, Earth, and sea, and EVERYTHING in them; he rested on the seventh day........" (MSG). However, the word "heaven" here is a plural word. It's said there're three heavens, the first, the second and the third. The first heaven is the sky we can see aka. the atmosphere, and the second is the universe we see at night. The third heaven is beyond our universe and not able to be observed by any telescope we have today, which is also called "the heaven of heavens". Angels were created and existed in the third heaven. (Because when they're created, God hadn't created the first and the second yet.) Therefore, the focus of heavens both in Genesis and Exodus are upon the earth. And the fall of Angels should be upon the third heaven which was before the creation of the so-called universe.To put in a nutshell, the "everything" mentioned in Exodus 20:11 should not include the things upon the third heaven. Though we would never know exactly when, it could be a day before God created the world or billions of years before, it's clear they're created before us. 

    But what God created them for? If we take a look at the original, the word angel is "malawk" in Hebrew, meaning "messenger". They're created to deliver messages. Another function of angels mentioned in Bible is to worship God, as mentioned in Revelation. However, those who were created to worship God and deliver messages for Him fell. That's also known as the fall of angels. 

    When did the angels fall is still unknown and a controversial issue. Since we've known that angels were created prior to the seven-day creation and there's a long age between verse one and two, it's "pretty likely" (I didn't say it must, as Bible doesn't say) that the fall of angels occurred in that period. And those angels who got corrupted bred and had offspring with humans (written in Genesis) aka. "Nephilim" ("im" is a plural ending in Hebrew) which I would like to talk more about next time. What's interesting is that after those angels fall with Satan, they're not barred from heaven. In Job it records that Satan could still talk to God directly. To sum up, the most interesting thing I figured out after doing tons of research upon it is that, those corrupted angels are actually going to have another rebellion against God in the future. Because in Revelation 12:7-9 mentions about a war that happens in heaven.But that will be after the return of Jesus Christ. If you're interested in this topic or have different points of view toward this, feel free to discuss with me here. (As long as you're a Christian and really are willing to "discuss"...)