On Truth and Falsity

                                 Rebellion

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" because of a rebellion. Genesis 1:1 (KJB). The first verse of the Bible has often been misunderstood. In the first verse, God created Heaven, not the heavens. God created the heavens; that is, the universe, long before He created the earth and Heaven. God created Heaven as His special home where He could receive His future family saved by grace to be with Him in a beautiful home forever. God created the earth to be inhabited by humans who would be tested by sin and pain and suffering, but who would never become totally evil because God would put the desire in their hearts to sooner or later choose to return to faith in His power to save them and love for Him. Genesis 3:20; Luke 20:38; Revelation 21:5 (KJB). By doing this, God would prove to that rebel, Satan, who became totally evil, that His Love can never be annulled. I Corinthians 13:8 (KJB).

An exact reading of Isaiah 14:12-17 (KJB) relates that God cast His most beautiful creation, an angel named Lucifer, to the former earth because he rebelled against God, Apparently, God also created a race of intelligent beings, not necessarily humans, for Lucifer to rule. In His mercy, God gave Lucifer a kingdom to rule. An exact reading of verse seventeen relates that Lucifer "opened not the house of his prisoners." God must have desired that Lucifer repent of his rebellion and lead his race of intelligent beings to faith in God, and then all of God's creations would be reconciled to Him. But instead, Lucifer vowed to continue his rebellion, and he led an army of God's intelligent beings in an assault against Heaven to try to overthrow God and take His place. But Lucifer and his army were defeated, and God cast Lucifer into Hell. As a result of this war, God completely destroyed the former earth and all of the inhabitants in it. God's original destruction of the former earth is recorded in Jeremiah 4:23-31 and in Isaiah 24:1 (KJB). Jeremiah 4:27 relates that although God had reduced the earth to complete devastation, He did not intend to ever make "a full end" of the earth.

The second verse of the Bible (KJB) describes God's recreation of His desolate earth which had become engulfed with darkness and evil. Genesis 1:2 (KJB)). Water also covered the earth. The fact that water covered the earth proves that God created the universe before He ever created the earth, destroyed it, and then recreated it. The earth was "without form" because it had no goodness within it whatsoever. The earth was also a "void" because it had become totally possessed by evil. The Bible often describes evil as being "vanity" which means both total emptiness and excessive pride. Jeremiah 51:17-18; Romans 8:20 (KJB). Isaiah 40:17 describes vanity as being "less than nothing." Since the idea of nothing happens to be a real and useful idea, then whatever is "less than nothing" would have to be non-existent. The earth that had become totally engulfed in darkness and evil had become equal to non-existence. Wherever God is not, there can only be absolute nothingness.

The Bible often describes God's wrath against evil as being a burning fire. Ezekiel 21:31 (KJB). Deuteronomy 32:22 describes God's creation of Hell by His use of His burning wrath against evil. This verse also prophesies that God will use His fiery wrath against evil to "consume the earth" just before His final judgment of mankind. II Peter 3:9-13; Revelation 20:11 (KJB). In the end of the world, God will burn up both Heaven and earth because both have been tainted by evil. God will recreate Heaven and earth to be wholly righteous. II Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1 (KJB).

All of this means that in the end of the world, God will only utterly destroy His enemies which are totally evil, and He will trap the Devil and his angels in Hell forever so that they will never again be able to inject evil into His new creations. In the beginning, God cursed only Satan and all evil, not His living humans whom He creates and loves. Genesis 3:14-15 (KJB). God created Hell to consume evil and for the Devil and his angels. Matthew 24:41 (KJB). God did not create Hell as a permanent place for any living human that He creates and loves. God will cause all living humans confined to the regions of death to repent and believe in Christ as the Lamb of God of their own free will, and He will recover all their lives and recreate them to live on His new earth. Revelation 5:11-14; Genesis 3:20; Luke 20:38; Revelation 21:1-5; Ecclesiastes 3:14 (KJB).

The Old Testament prophets prophesied about the past just as much as they prophesied about the future. The prophet Ezekiel learned that the king of Tyrus in his day had a personality that was very similar to that which Lucifer had had, Ezekiel wrote about the king of Tyrus, but he used his description of the king of Tyrus to also relate the story of what happened to Lucifer. Lucifer and Satan are two different beings entirely. Lucifer retained his extreme beauty even while he ruled the former earth. God gave Lucifer the garden of Eden for him to live in while he was on the former earth. Ezekiel 28:13 (KJB). Apparently, God removed the garden of Eden from the former earth before He destroyed it, and He replanted it for Adam and Eve when He recreated the earth. Genesis 2:8 (KJB). God allowed Lucifer to go to His holy mountain on His former earth with the intent that God's presence there would cause Lucifer to repent and return to worship of God. God also allowed Lucifer to walk "in the stones of fire" which meant that God exposed Lucifer to His wrath against evil to warn him, but God did not allow any harm to Lucifer. Ezekiel 28:14 (KJB).

God loved Lucifer, and God gave him every chance to repent and return to love for God. God had created Lucifer to be perfect which caused God to become absolutely shocked and stunned when evil was found to be in Lucifer. Ezekiel 28:15 (KJB). God became stunned because He did not know that evil even existed, or actually non-existed. God's Omniscience extended only to Himself and all of His creations which were all good. Evil cannot be directly known because, in some strange way, there is nothing to know. For this reason, in His written Word, God refers to evil as being "vanity;" that is, absolute emptiness  and excessive pride. God even described vanity as being "less than nothing." Isaiah 40:17 (KJB). But God found that He could use His real and useful idea of nothing to indirectly indicate the sudden presence of evil in Lucifer and in His creations. Yet, how something which is non-existent could invade the inner being of Lucifer and cause a void inside of him which, in turn, caused him to resort to excessive pride in his attempt to fill that void by his rebellion against God remains a great mystery, even to God. II Thessalonians 2:7 (KJB).