The First Revolt in Heaven

Men who “live and breathe in the lighter literature of our age,” are very apt to imbibe a disrelish for the more weighty truths of God’s word. In the series of thoughts which we are called on to present, there must be truths from which the human, mind naturally revolts; because there are truths humbling to the pride of man. If in exhibiting some of these, we find fewer enchanting scenes to look upon, and fewer stimulants to an excited imagination, we shall find God’s truth and find it in its own heavenly dress.

Those great events by which the more weighty truths of God’s word are enforced, lose none of their importance in their ascending series; rather is the importance of them increased as they remount even beyond the history of our own race. In the present condition of the universe, its inhabitants, so far as they are known to us, consist of angels, men, and devils; there was a time when there were no devils. It is not permitted us to know how early the angelic race came into existence. This much has been revealed, that there was such a race prior to the race of man, whom the all-wise and sovereign Creator was pleased to regard, in some respects, with distinguishing favor. They were the elder family of the universal Father, the first-born sons of light, the first expressions of his infinite power and love. When this material universe was created, they were there; and when the Eternal and Omnipotent One “stretched out the line” upon this earth, and fastened its foundations, and raised the dome of this wondrous temple, they were probably the spectators of this wondrous work. They were a superior order of beings; not formed from dust like the first man, but spiritual in their nature and advanced to glorious dignity. They are styled “thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers,” because they are the ministers of God’s providence in the government of this lower world, princes under him, ranged in different orders, and each class acting within its appropriate sphere. It was no infected parentage from which they sprang. They were streams from a pure fountain; rays from the “Father of lights;” stars that reflected the purity and brightness of the uncreated sun.

And because they were thus exalted and holy, they were happy. Their inheritance was rich and unfading; it was the heaven where they dwelt; the love and fellowship of their Creator, and unrestrained access to this fountain of joy. Employed in services that elevated them in knowledge, holiness, and enjoyment, as high as their created natures would admit, they lived only to love and serve God, “swift to do his will, hearkening to the voice of his word.” They were more than servants; they were sons. More were they even than sons; they were princes and courtiers of heaven — illustrious and immortal spirits — attendants in God’s own chamber of presence. We have no knowledge of their numbers, except that “thousands” ministered unto the Ancient of Days, and “ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him;” and that “they are all ministering spirits sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation.”

In proportion to the magnitude of God’s plan, it was important to make an early disclosure of the great principles of his moral government. The angelic race were created under liabilities inseparable from their nature. They were to pass through a process similar to that through which all intelligent creatures pass, and stand or fall, as they sustain this appointed ordeal. They held theii* existence under law and were subjected to a probationary course, on a larger scale than that subsequently appointed to man; and their starting-point was “the high and holy place.” Exalted as they were, it was the prerogative of the sovereign Lawgiver to give law to them as his subjects; and, in the event of their disobedience, to punish them according to their desert. The divine government is, and must be impartial, and impose its obligations on every class of intelligent beings. Could we “make the tour of the universe,” we should not find a race of beings who are not bound to love God with all their hearts, and their fellow-existences as themselves; and who, in default thereof, are not subjected to penalty. It does not appear that the angelic race mingled with any other portion of the population of the universe; nor that they were freighted with any other hopes than their own; nor that in making shipwreck of their own, they involved any others beside themselves. Multitudes of them were obedient to the law, and retained their integrity; others, and great multitudes, sinned and fell.

It is a fact of some interest, that sin was not introduced into the universe by man. Fearful was the responsibility of the first sin. Man, in the progress of time, was induced to join in this foul revolt; but it was not first concocted in the human bosom. Man did not exist when the order, beauty, and blessedness which reigned throughout the divine empire, were first disturbed, and the arm of rebellion was first raised against the government ,of the Most High. This primeval revolt was the beginning of sorrows, and aimed at a radical revolution in the empire of the rightful Sovereign; but it was the work of another race. Says the Apostle Peter, “God spared not the angels that sinned.” The Apostle Jude also speaks of the angels who “kei)t not their first estate, but left their own habitation.” The particular act of sin by which they fell, is not revealed. Very many are the conjectures in relation to it; but the most we know is contained in that representation of the Apostle in which he speaks of the danger of being” lifted up ltli pride and falling into the condemnation of the devilP But whatever may have been the particular act, it was disobedience to the will of their sovereign Creator, and a transgression of his law.

There were several things that greatly aggravated their crime. They “could not sin at a lower rate,” than of set purpose and wilfully. They were angels, and there was no weakness or ignorance in their nature. They were too intelligent to have been imposed upon and deceived. They were their own tempters; for there was none to tempt them, as they afterwards tempted our first parents. There was no stumbling-block in heaven; God had made them exalted, holy, and happy; nor was the service required of them hard and unreasonable; nor could they ever do too much for Him who had made them what they were. God had not been a wilderness to them, but the dispenser of their comforts, their portion, and joy; nor could they have rebelled against him from any other spirit than a desperate determination to have their own will in opposition to his, to raise the standard of revolt, and at all hazards to establish a kingdom of their own. They forsook their Father’s house, merely from a revolting and proud spirit. They “sinned in heaven, the last place in the universe where there was any excuse for sin.” They sinned as proudly, as enviously, as obdurately, as maliciously as it was possible to sin. And they sinned in view of the most fearful consequences, without the least expectation of reprieve or hope of pardon, and with no other design than that of perpetuating their hostility to God through the succeeding ages of time, and the un wasting ages of eternity.

Such was their first revolt, — the first revolt in the universe of God. Probably there is no world in which a revolt could have taken place with more fearful results, and which could have made more exacting demands of the resources of the all-knowing and all-sufficient Deity. It was a revolt which would hold on its course for countless ages; which would be an example to all worlds; the consequences of which would be seen and spoken of in the endless future; and from whose unfatbomable depths, the voice of instruction would go up that would make the ear of him that heareth it to tingle. Well did the prophet exclaim, “How art thou fallen, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” When Babylon fell, the merchants of the earth wept and mourned over her, and the kings of the earth stood afar off, and said, “Alas! alas! that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour she is made desolate.” Thus might the intelligent universe, standing afar off, have lifted up their voice and wept over the fall of this mighty and exalted race — these bright and morning-stars, displaced and wandering throughout the vast expanse, disregarding the law which binds them to their Great Centre — falling promiscuously, and sinking to “the blackness of darkness!”

The consequences of this revolt were serious. It was a fearful fall, and a fearful punishment. God measures the punishment of sin by its ti’ue and proper demerit; and therefore we are told that “he spared not the angels that sinned.” Though angels he did not spare them. Though his first-born children, though so munificently endowed and highly exalted, though so holy and happy, he could not endure such a revolt as this. Though they were the most exalted of his creation, and the noblest image of their Creator, and though, if any creatures can be dear to God and the objects of his love, they were so endeared; yet sooner would he abandon his throne than not exact from such deliberate, scornful, and malicious rebels, the utmost they deserved. He was the God of love; but there were others to be cared for beside these reckless traitors to his government. He had no malice in his bosom, no spirit of revenge to gratify, and no pleasure in their death; yet well did he know that any departure from strict justice in this early instance of rebellion, would be an impeachment of his rectitude, a blow against his government which it could never survive. His truth, his justice, his holiness, and all the glory which illuminated heaven, would have vanished into night, had he hesitated to execute his law, and reward these early and invincible offenders, every one according to his deeds.

The process with them was summary and decisive. He began the work of punitive justice by banishing them from heaven. Distinguished as they were, since they would be disobedient and rebellious, heaven was no place for them; they could no longer remain in that holy and happy world, and companions of that holy and happy society. Their sin was a complete and everlasting forfeiture of all the blessedness of that glorious state and place. Heaven was too pure and holy to contain such offenders; for there shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth. They, must go out. They must depart accursed. They could not be suffered to be there to awaken diggust and abhorrence, nor to become the tempters of the unfallen. And this decree was executed without delay. There was no inquiry instituted; no trial, and no defence. God saw the crime, and he cast them out. He gave them no space for repentance; for the first sin he cast them out, without allowing them time or opportunity for a second revolt this side their everlasting retribution.

Not only did God banish them from heaven, but he cast them down to hell. There was no such place as hell in the universe, until the fall of the angelic race. Then it was the mighty Architect laid the foundations and built the walls of this lurid, fiery prison, and there treasured up his magazines of wrath. Far away, where the light of mercy never shines, did he fit up those dark and melancholy regions — that wretched state of existence — that world of desolation and despair, the very thought of which awakens anguish, and fills the mind with horror.

This horrid, everlasting hell now became the habitation of these fallen spirits. They left their own habitation of holiness and joy for this deep dwelling of pollution and wickedness, of mourning, lamentation and woe. They were driven from the face of God into the burning lake; and now, that many a thousand century has passed away, there they still lie engulfed in flames, and

THE FIRST REVOLT IN HEAVEN. 24Y

the smoke of their torments ascends forever and

ever.

This may seem to us a severe sentence. But God will vindicate this procedure in that day when he shall judge the world in righteousness. We are told in the Scriptures, that he “delivered them to chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgments What the judgment is, to which they are thus reserved, we learn from the more explicit representation of the apostle Jude, “The angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great dayr Creatures may not hold the great God accountable; but the great God holds himself accountable even to creatures. His plans are vast and comprehensive plans. The fact here revealed is, that the fallen angels are bound over as criminals, and reserved to take their public trial at the day of judgment, when the sentence will be openly pronounced, and finally executed. I say finally executed; for, though their doom is inevitable, for wise reasons God defers the extremity of their punishment. Other parts of the sacred writings instruct us, that these apostate spirits are still invisible agents in this world; that they are conversant with men; exert their power and influence upon the human mind; and as “roaring lions, go about seeking whom they may devour.”. God is pleased to enlarge the bounds of their prison, and give them, for a time, the opportunity of employing their power and malice in opposing the purposes of his love to men, and in attempting their destruction. But they cannot go beyond the length of their chain. They are prisoners of justice, and bound over to the judgment. On that great and last day, when the mystery of God shall be finished, and that Saviour, whom these apostate spirits refused to acknowledge, shall be exalted and glorified; when the trumpet shall sound, and the voice of the archangel shall awake the dead; God shall call them forth to receive their doom, to be judged and sentenced to woes as fearful as was the distinguished rank from which they fell.

Such was the first revolt in the universe, and such its penal consequences. And while it is among the “first things” recorded in the sacred volume, it was recorded for our instruction. The first great moral lesson it inculcates is, that sin yvoduces a great and deplorable change in the character and condition of its perpetrators. This is not mere theory, based upon the nature of sin and the character of a perfect moral government; it stands out before us in melancholy history. The angels who kept not their first estate, once belonged to the highest, holiest, imd most happy order of beings in the universe; now, they are the most abject, the most base, and the most miserable.

Once, they were amiable and lovely, worthy of confidence, the ornament and comfort of a pure society, and resplendent jewels in the bright crown of heaven; now, they are malevolent spirits, lying spirits, unclean spirits, tormentors, murderers, and foul devils, roaming over the earth like so many ravening wolves, or shut up in their impure and odious prison. Once, they were the examples and patrons of all that is holy and excellent; now, they are the subtle, indefatigable, and vile tempters to evil, spreading sin, misery, and destruction, as far and wide as the length of their chains permits them to rove. From angels, lovely and honored, refulgent with the beauties of holiness, and happy as their Maker’s love could make them, they have become horrid, hateful, miserable devils. “Fools make a mock at sin.” Yet this is its accursed work. It never, in the end, does better than this. The man who trifles with sin would do well to think of the guilt and punishment, the horror and despair which are its consequences and punishment.

Another lesson plainly taught by this revolt is, that there is no inconsistency between the perfect goodness of God and the everlasting punishment of all lolio revolt from his authority. Not a few have thought that the infinite goodness of God would not allow him to make even the vilest and most ill-deserving of his creatures eternally miserable. Instead of this, would it not be more logical to say, that if God is good, then whatever he does is consistent with his goodness? All objections against his conduct are objections against his goodness. His character and his conduct nnist be in keeping with each other; so that when once fiicts teach us what his conduct is, we cannot avoid the infei’ence that it is consistent with his character. It does not appear to us a difficult matter to show a priori that goodness punishes; but the a posterio7’i argument is still stronger when we can show that goodness has punished. The man is a fool whose logic leads him to quarrel with facts. If we inquire whether a being of perfect goodness can inflict endless suffering on the incorrigible; our inquiry is answered, not by theory, but by facts. One fact outweighs a thousand theories. The fallen angels are lost. There are no devils in heaven. God has already cast them into hell, there to remain forever. I say forever., because when time shall be no more, the sentence will be pronounced, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into evcrlastinrj fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.” There is not an argument in favor of the doctrine of universal salvation, which is not repelled and refuted by this solemn and affecting fact. Is it said that no sin can deserve eternal punishment; the assertion is contrary to fact. Is it said, that God is too good thus to punish; this is also contrary to fact.

Is it said that his mercy will not suffer him thu3 to punish; this is also directly in the face of this plain fact. Is it said that these apostate spirits sinned with peculiar aggravation, that they became real devils, and though they may be eternally punished, this affords no proof that any of the family of Adam will fall under a like condemnation? This is giving up the whole argument, and conceding at once to the position that it is not inconsistent with the perfect character of God to punish some of his creatures with everlasting destruction. And if not inconsistent with his character to punish them, why should it be inconsistent with his character to punish the incorrigi])ie of our fallen race? Did he “not spare” these once exalted, once lovely, once beloved attendants on his throne; and will he spare abject, rebellious, incorrigible men? Did he cast these once glorious and glorified inhabitants of heaven down to hell; and will he not cast into hell incorrigible man who is a worm, and the son of man who is a worm? What a death-blow is such a fact as this to all the presumptuous hopes of impenitent men! The truth has been revealed, and it must be proclaimed, that “the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.” Those who live and die in sin, cannot hope to be spared, if God did not spare the angels who fell. Though they were dear to him as the bright seraphs who were once around his throne, he will cast them down.

Another lesson taught by this first revolt is, that no being is safe unless he is upheld by God. It is very difficult to conceive how angels fell, unless they were dependent on God for their continued integrity. And did not God mean to teach us this truth, by their fall? Who may affirm that his power was not as necessary for their preservation as for their original existence? What were they unsupported by him? and what power but his could perpetuate their integrity? They were not incorruptible, though once uncorrupted. Nor let the truth be forgotten, that their melancholy fall teaches us that no created mind and no created holiness in the universe can live without God. God alone exists, and is holy, uncaused and unsustained. Left to themselves, the holiest are unsafe. So long as they retained their integrity, angels were kept by divine power. It is this that has kept Gabriel from falling, and keeps him now. It is this that kept Paul and keeps him still. Angels and saints are kept in holiness only by the effectual power of God. Proud man boasts of his free agency; but there is no free agency in the universe that is safe, unless it is in God’s keeping. Man’s is safe only when he is humble. His dependence on all-powerful grace is one of the sweetest truths of the Bible, and is most deeply felt when he has most of the spirit of that sacred book. Take from us om- dependence on God, and we must despair. Who can hope to lecome holy without him, if, without him, angels fell? Who, without him, can hope to be preserved in holiness, if angels were not thus preserved?

Another lesson taught by this revolt, is the inscrutaUe sovereignty of God in the dispensations of his grace. All the angelic race were probably created at the same time. They had great capacities for holiness and happiness, were all perfectly holy and happy, and equally beloved by God. And in this high, holy, and happy state, they remained for a period of time unknown to us. But there was a moment when they began to differ, and some of them remained angels and others became devils. And in these two different characters they have remained ever since, and will remain, throughout eternity. Who does not in this single fact see and adore the inscrutable, and yet the holy sovereignty of the Most High f Why this difference? Why were some upheld, and others left to themselves and permitted to fall? And after they had fallen, why was a Saviour provided for an inferior race, and not provided for those who were once so exalted, and holy, and happy, and honored? O, it is past finding out! Why was it? Hell asks the question, Why f Earth responds to the dark inquiry, Why f And heaven answers; and says to all the unhallowed curiosity of the created universe, Be fitill and know that I am God! Have I not a right to do what I will with mine own? Hath not the potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and anothei’ nntx) dishonor? I veil my face here, and bow in silence at his throne. This is his royal prerogative as the Creator and owner of angels and men. “Who art thou, O man, that repliest against God!” The sovereignty of God, therefore, is not only a doctrine that is taught in Scripture, but is founded in fact, and acted out in the history of a race besides our own. It is no theory, but a series of facts, designed to wake up the slumbering minds of men, and fix them upon his deep designs, manifold wisdom, and wonderful government. Nor is it a mere theory with which so many contend, but a series of facts, with which, when they contend, they are only fighting against God.

Another lesson which the revolt of angels inculcates is, the high vantage-ground occupied by the human family under the Mediatorial reign of Jesus Christ, compared vnth the purely legal economy to which the angelic race were subjected. We are sometimes tempted to complain that we were not created angels. Let us be thankful that we are Tnen. How long the period of probation allotted to angels continued, God has not been pleased to reveal. It is not, however, until after the resurrection and ascension of Christ, and after his exaltation to “be head over all principality and power,” that we hear anything about “elect angels.” And are we not justified in concluding that God stands pledged to keep those who did not join in the first revolt, from falling at some future time. Their confirmation was the reward of long-tried obedience. For four thousand years it is probable they thus remained probationers and during the whole of this period, one sin would have exiled them from heaven, and cast them down to hell. Nor was the issue of their probation dependent on the integrity of some one of their number, less likely to fall than others; each individual of that angelic race was to stand or fall for himself. Where then is the man who, under a clear view of these responsibilities, does not see that he has privileges above the angelic race?

More than this. When the angels fell, they fell irrecoverably and without hope. No mediator was found to “take upon him the nature of angels.” No Saviour was thought of, and no glory of the Lord shone round about that fallen race to soothe their fears and tell them of the mighty Deliverer. But he who “took not on him the nature of angels,” in boundless condescension and love, clothed himself with the “seed of iVbraham.” The dark and immeasurable ruin that spread before our race after the fall, was lighted up, not by some faint and twinkling ray of hope, hut by the “Sun of Kighteousness” rising with “healing in his beams,” and in full-orbed glory. The door of life, shut by the first man, was opened by the second. The condemnation is for one offence, the justification is from many.

Nor is this all. The angels, though created holy, had, as we have already seen, no promise that they should not fall. But man is confa’med in holiness from the hour he first believes in Jesus Christ; and from that hour is in an infinitely more safe condition than angels before their apostasy. They held all their holiness and happiness by an uncertain tenure; while believers in the gospel hold theirs upon a surer covenant and upon “better promises.” The irrecoverable fall of angels is the only instance of irrecoverable falling from grace on the records of the universe. Man fell, but man was restored; believing man has the promise that he shall never so fall as finally to be cast away. “If when they were enemies they were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall they be saved by his life.” When God gave them to his Son, before the foundation of the world, the guaranty was given to him, that they “should never perish” — that “none should pluck them out of his hand” — and that of all which he had given him, he should “lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.” Who then will utter the inconsiderate wish, O that I had never been born of woman! So thought not the proud seraph who fell. No work of God interests the angelic race so much as this great work of redeeming mercy. They were astonished spectators of the creation and fall of man; and they are admiring spectators of his recovery. Let the reader be reminded, that the tidings of mercy denied to fallen angels, are proclaimed to man. We may not say to angels as we may to sinners of this fallen race, that there is One who is able and willing, and faithful to save them. Men have a hirthright to the offers of this redemption, because they are men. Like Esau, there may be those who profanely “sell that birthright” for a “mess of pottage;” and hereafter, like angels that are fallen, seek a place for repentance, and never find it, “though sought carefully and with tears.” O then, by the terrors of that day in which they shall be judged; by the glories of that heaven which they despised, and can never regain; by the riches of that grace never offered to them, be entreated to fall down before that Saviour, and own him as your Lord and King.

What suppose ye those fallen spirits think of marHs rejection of such offers of mercy? And what, suppose ye, those unf alien ones think of man’s hesitation and delay to accept the mighty Saviour? Were they permitted to stand in the place of those of us who are ambassadors for Christ, how would they plead with the infatuated sons and daughters of men, by all the folly, and ingratitude, and eternal agony of their apostate and lost companions, to beware how they “neglect so great salvation!” And do they not thus minister? Happy in being humble and obedient, like their divine Lord, they are even “now in the midst of this fallen world as one that serveth.” They hover over the pillow of the thoughtless sinner, when he sleeps; they hover around the sanctuary where he worships; they hover over the volume that he reads, to see if there be no repenting prodigal that may be setting his face toward his father’s house. Even now, as the reader closes the present chapter, they wait to see if they cannot discover some victory of the cross over ignorance, sorrow, and sin — some sighings of a broken and contrite heart — some dawnings of hope — some babe-like lispings of the new and everlasting song — some one returning sinner, whose repentance will fill them with transport, and heaven with praise.