Subject: Does Satan Really Exist? |
Bible Note: Hi Dr. B, It seems the difference between you and I is that you do not take the plain meaning of the text as the intended meaning. But once we ignore the plain meaning, where does it end? We can then attach any meaning to any text, without any regard for what God meant. But that will not lead us towards Divine Revelation. In my opinion, your analysis of Ez 28 goes through a lot of convolutions to try to avoid a simple truth. But that's ok, because you don't need that passage to prove the existance, identity, and activity of Satan. That is where Rev 20, and others, come in. I have examined your posts regarding Ezekiel 28, and I do not agree with your analysis. If you read the entire book by Newton, "Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St John", you are to be commended for your tenacity! I too have it on my shelf and have read it. Newton and others have taken a preterist view or prophecy. And you do this, you have to allegorize much of Scripture that does not textually allow itself to be rightfully allegorized. While you have pointed out that there is a particular referrence (to stars) that may be figurative (and that not without the solution to the figure being given in the Bible, as we know "stars" can also refer to celestial beings*), that is a far cry from proving "huge tracts" are figurative. C.S. Lewis had an interesting thought, I think it was in "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader"(?)- One of the characters was as Star, and when the little boy protested, "He can't be - stars are huge balls of burning gasses!". He was answered "that may be what stars are Made Of, but that is not what stars Are." Interesting thought. Anyway, regarding Ez. 28:18-19 "you will cease to be forever" (NASB) - this is a slightly interpretive translation, this passage is more literally translated "you will be nothing forever". "and never shalt thou be any more." KJV "and thou shalt nevermore have any being." ASV "And shall be no more forever" NKJV "and thou art not -- to the age" Youngs The Hebrew translated "nothing" and "no more" is also translated variously as "not found", "unsearchable", and does not neccessarily mean to cease to exist. One example is Saul looking for his father's donkeys. "They were nowhere" didn't mean they ceased to exist, just that Saul couldn't find them. So there is not contradiction. I apologize if I mis-spoke, I was not intending to give the impression that I though Rev 20 taught the creation and fall of Satan, those things are taught elsewhere, of course. You say that the Revelation is a book of symbolic prophecy. I agree with you to the extent that it names what things are symbols, and that the Bible tells us what those symbols mean. Unless you can present a clear, grammatically correct, lexically authoritative, contextually harmonized, and doctrinally sound presentation of why we should take a narative or declaratory passage of Scripture to be anything other that what presents itself to be, I will stay with the plain reading of the text. To do anything otherwise is to put oneself as the judge over Scripture, and far be that from me. Love in Christ, Mark |