“When did God create the angels? When did they fall?”

QUESTION: When did God create the angels, and when did they fall?

ANSWER:When God questions Job, He begins with questions about the creation of the earth. In 38:7 (NIV) God indicates that “the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy” when He laid the foundations of the earth. This would indicate that the angels were created before the earth.

Angels are intelligent beings of a higher order than man. When our Lord became man He “was made a little lower than the angels ... because He suffered death” (Heb. 2:9). God’s angels in heaven, being spirits, do not reproduce (Mt. 22:30) and are deathless, for they do not have bodies. For Jesus to be able to die (death being the separation of soul and spirit from body), He had to stoop to take a place in creation that was lower than angels.

Since Satan appeared in the Garden to tempt mankind, it is obvious that angels fell before man was created. Revelation 12:4 seems to indicate that one-third of the angels followed Satan in his fall, in his rebellion against God. Isaiah 14:12-17 and Ezekiel 28:12-19 refer to this fall. The indication in these passages and 1 Timothy 3:6 is that pride caused Satan to fall. Ezekiel 28 shows us that Lucifer’s (Satan’s original name) wisdom and beauty made him proud of himself. Isaiah 14 further shows his pride and audacity, the passage leading us to understand that He was grasping for the place God purposed for His Son.

The fact that Scripture does not tell us when hell was created, but that it was made for the devil and his angels (Mt. 25:41) would further indicate that the fall of Satan and his angels took place before man’s creation. While Scripture repeatedly mentions angels, “ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation” (Heb. 1:14), it gives us very little detail about them. It warns against the worshiping of angels and “intruding into those things ... not seen” (Col. 2:18 KJV). So while we appreciate angels and their ministry, let’s not focus on them, but on the One whom they and we rightfully worship and adore.

By Eugene P. Vedder, Jr.