Hierarchy of Spirit Beings

So demons were created as such??
All the others you mention are created beings. satan is refered to as the annionted cherub, befor his fall, as you stated.
As for your statement "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me" indicates that there are other gods!", doen not indicate any such thing. Man has been extremely good at making his own gods since tha fall. I know satan is called the god of this world, & also the prince, but I don't see where you get the other lords & gods from. But I am still learning.
As for the contention over Moses body, was satan still a cherub at that time?
Also what about archangel, where would he/they fall?

 

There is only one God, if there were others how could you know you were worshipping the right one.
People make their own gods out of a lot of different things, statues, money, etc. Thats what it means, which is what it says in the rest of the bible, working all together it all makes sence.

 

Aren't my questions hard enough??or are they too hard??!!

 

O.K. & Thanks. Like I said I'm still learnin!
Eastons Bible Dic. states that archangels are " the prince of angels". Know where they came up with that? Also where do you see some of them fell seeing the word itself is used only twice.
1 Thess.4:16 & Jude 1:9
Also I just looked in the Strongs & they define the term as "chief angel". If so wouldn't they be higher up the chain?
Also if I understand right, it wasn't that Michael couldn't withstand satan, but would not put himself in position of judging him. The Lord rebuke thee.
Now I'm not being rude if I don't respond till later...Its 2am & past my bedtime but I'm gonns study more on this!!
Again Thanks!!

 

Good post Dr. Bob. I have read the Bible speak of other gods, and other types of spiritual beings, but I had never been able to reconcile them to so clearly to their hierarchal position before this.

Thank you so much for sharing this so succinctly.

Laurenda

 

Dr. Bob,

Have you ever read Pseudo-Dionysis' heirarchy of being?

Grace and Peace, Danny

BTW, heirarchy of being buys into a Platonic understanding of ontology. Do you really want to go there? My guess would be no.

 

Dr. Bob,

The question that I am posing is whether or not the scriptures actually do this or if your attempts at providing a heirarchy are not simply neo-platonic without your knowing.

A heirarchy of beings is based upon an ontology of emanation, which the OT does not support. The very idea of levels of being beyond the divine, human, animal, plant, rock is difficult to pull off.

Grace and Peace, Danny

 

I've bee talkign with some people and I'm not sure I agree with you on some things here Dr. Bob, perhaps you could clairify.

First off the Bible never really tells us is Michael could have one on his own:

Jud 1:9 Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.

He choose to call on God, as everyone in submission to God would have done in such a situation whether they could win or not.

The second thing is your assertion that the verse "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me" means that there are physically other gods other then God. Man makes gods out of idols all the time, that does not mean that there are a class of being such as a god, only that we put things in our lives that take the place of the true God and become a god to us. How do you deal with such verses as:

"Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts;
I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God" - Isaiah
44:6

"Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and
have declared it? ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea,
there is no God; I know not any." - Isaiah 44:8

"I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded
thee, though thou hast not known me: That they may know from the rising of
the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and
there is none else." - Isaiah 45:5,6

"Tell ye, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who hath
declared this from ancient time? who hath told it from that time? have not I
the LORD? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour;
there is none beside me." - Isaiah 45:21

Thanks,

Bryan

 

Dr Bob

Hmmmm. Very interesting topic, I must say. I have always wondered about some of the language the OT uses being somewhat polytheistic in nature, esp. the "other gods" from the 10 commandments.

I have always found the plague events described in Exodus to be quite dramatic in terms of showing how the LORD dealt with a race and culture infatuated with worshipping perverse sensuality and twisted "gods" like the Egyptians had concocted. I think many people miss the irony and the definitiveness of what we are told actually happened: the LORD really slammed all of the major Egyptian deities one by one and did it in a way that completely belittled the things over which they were said to have been in dominion on Earth, all to prove that beside Him "there is no other."

To say that there are other gods is both accurate and inaccurate. We make gods out of many things, spiritual and carnal. Civilization is rife with a history of manufactured deities from all time periods and all cultures. Perhaps some of these man-made deities were, in fact, portals for unholy, fallen spirit beings to exercise some sort of destructive, Satanic influence over mortals (as in the case of the ancient Egyptians). Then again, perhaps others were nothing more than primitive, inanimate charicatures carved from wood and stone and never harmed anyone who had no chance to learn of the one true God. What is certain, at least in the case of the latter, is that we shall never know.

Even today the religions of the world have their own hierarchies of false deities who are an abomination to the holiness of God. I am confident there is great evil behind "Allah", and would say that even had there been no 9/11 due to the blasphemous teachings found in the Quran. There's no shortage of gods in Hindu, or Shinto, or in several other world religions, either, so I think it's fair to say that the polytheism that's alluded to in the OT is still present thousands of years later. True, beside the LORD of hosts there is no other . He is the only true God and He is One. But just look around and you'll see a plethora of reasons for that language and the phrase "other gods" that is just as relevant for His followers in our age as it was for His followers, the Hebrews, in theirs.

Have a happy Memorial Day! Remember those who died in service to our country.

 

I always thought that there existed three orders of angels

Seraphim
Cherubim
Nephilim

and that these orders had angels which filled the roles of dominions, powers, virtues, and that the angels that filled those roles were more powerful then their brethren. And that the head of these orders were the archangels

Satan - and his order of angels fell

Ive never researched this thoroughly - but thats what I thought

 

Hey, I'm just shooting in the dark here, and I'm no Hebrew scholar, but the discussion about the meaning of the first commandment is troubling me. We see throughout the OT God working within the customs of an established world system to bring about change and call out people to serve Him. God obviously doesn't shun the customs of the world; it's almost as if he's having to speak down to Israel on a level that they will understand throughout the OT. The very idea of polytheism permeated the time of Moses, especially in Egypt. Was it not the Israelites who were living in Egypt for 400 years, a nation that attributed godhood status to cats, cows, et al?

This being established, would it not stand to reason that by saying we should have no other gods before God, he was either referring to the demonic forces that seek only to drag man into Hell with them by posing as gods of power, or just the general, abstract concept of a god?

Just a thought, and I'm interested to hear your responses.

 

Dr. Bob, I honestly haven't studied this to a point in which I would be 100% confident in my knowledge...however from what I do know, I think levels 2 and 3 are the same thing. I would argue that the pagan Gods, such as Dagon, Baal, Ishtaar, Zeus, possibly the Prince of Persia, are most likely the more powerful of the fallen angels(probably Cherubim or Seraphs actually). Otherwise you're arguing that Satan isn't really, ummm, for lack of a better term the "leader" of the evil realm. There would be an evil with even more power than Satan, and I don't think that's accurate.

What do you mean by beasts? Am I correct that you are ONLY referring to the creatures of Revelation 4? The beasts (Revelation 13, Daniel 7) are all simply symbols of nations or kings, not really celestial beings.

BTW, I also disagree that Satan is more powerful then Michael. He might be, but we're not certain. The point of Jude 9 was not that Michael wasn't able to defeat Satan, but that he refused to slander even the Prince of Darkness himself.

Just out of curiosity, are you getting some of this from the Apocrypha?