What’s the difference between a fallen angel and a demon?
For a great many believers, the answer is: nothing. They’re the same thing. “Fallen angel” and “demon” are just two labels for the same rebellious spiritual beings, the ones who followed Satan in his rebellion and now roam the earth causing trouble. That’s the version I absorbed from culture, from sermons, from movies, and from the general religious atmosphere permeating the places where I grew up.
But when I started digging into the text seriously, that answer fell apart in my hands. And what replaced it changed the way I read the Gospels entirely.
I enjoyed this post, it resonates with my understanding. The one thing mentioned that clashes with the popular concept of dead "christian" people floating around in heaven right now is the fact that once embodied, spirits are in torment without a physical body. We are embodied creatures by definition and so we must also be in torment without a body.
If the dead are with Christ right now, (who has a body by the way) how is it we are told that Christ has to come down for his people with a loud command, then the dead believers will wake up, be resurrected first, then the bodies of the ones alive will be transformed and both groups will meet Christ in the air, and only SO we will be always with the Lord... (1 Thessalonians 4:16 and 1 Corinthians 15:52)
You've hit on something I haven't really talked about publicly but I think is of vital importance to understand.
I do not believe that we go immediately to heaven when we die. Human spirits are not floating around in heaven. There are all of two humans in heaven: Elijah and Enoch.
The Old Testament is full of explicit statements about Sheol, where dead humans reside. And Jesus' story about Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16 supports it. Though this is often interpreted as heaven, the text does not support that. It presents Sheol (Hades in Greek) as a place with two distinct sides, one that is cool and pleasant (ie: the paradise that the thief on the cross was promised) and one that is torment.
Dead humans go to Sheol, we don't go straight to heaven. And there are two different ways that this is supported by 2 Corinthians 5:8 and Philippians 1:23
First, Christ (like the Father) is omnipresent. He is (or at least can be) present everywhere in the universe at once. So I see no reason to think that He isn't present in Sheol (on the paradise side at the very least) in a similar way to how He is present with believers in this world.
At no point in any book, any chapter, any verse does any biblical writer say that believers in Christ go straight to heaven when we die.
Second, there is a possibility that the dead in Christ in a spiritual state are no longer subject to the physical dimension of time, so then the passage of however much time between death and the return of Christ would be virtually meaningless.
Personally, I find the second answer quite abstract and I don't think there's enough evidence to support it (though it certainly could be true). But we know Jesus is omnipresent. That's how He can be there "where two or three are gathered in my name."
So we can be with Christ in death (though I don't think this state will involve the deeply intimate relationship we will have with Him after the resurrection) while still having something major to look forward to in the resurrection (beyond just being joined to our glorified bodies).
Thank you brother Kevin for the kind reply, happy to see we are on the same page. I lean more on the not being aware while dead. I assume if I die it'd be like when I fall asleep, for me time does not exist even though life goes on around me (...the dead know nothing...Ecc 9:5) Next I know I hear the alarm of the trumpet and I'm refreshed in the morning of the new creation.
I am the oppinion that the Lazarus and the rich man is an alegory to make the point that the dead coming back to preach would not remove evil from humanity, not an actual description of sheol.
In the end it doesn't really matter as long as we might attain the resurrection for life. We are preserved by the heavenly record and in the mind of God and by grace I trust he will remember us for good. This is what the good thief on the cross asked Jesus: remember me when you come into your kingdom.
I do think it's slightly more complicated than that, but you may have a point.
I don't think Lazarus and the rich man is merely a parable though. One of the standard features of such stories is that characters don't have names. While it certainly is allegorical, I think it's also literal (as most biblical allegories tend to be).
So, between that and the raising of Samuel I believe that we probably do mostly sleep but I also think there are periods of wakefulness and possibly even certain people who remain conscious.
Obviously I don't claim to know the details and there's no Scripture I can point to for clear evidence. But I think the hints are there.
But you're absolutely right. At the end of the day, what we believe about the state of the people residing in Sheol doesn't make that much difference. Certainly not as much as understanding the escapism of going straight to heaven when we die is a falsehood based on Greek dualism.
Naming the beggar may have had some significance to the audience but in my mind it does not overcome the impossibility of the story, where in sheol souls have body parts without resurrection. A soul (nephesh) is a body with breath (spirit) in Hebrew thought. The Samuel story appearing through a seance is strange and unique in that he is called an elohim, so not sure if it's enough to generalize that human souls live without a body in sheol. That concept is pagan, not Hebrew.
Also, I am not advocating for soul sleep either. This is also an alegory, because actual sleep is a human in a body that is not aware. Death is the return to chaos, just as it was before our birth. But there is a record in the mind of God and a wish he has for our existence in his kingdom that was there at our first conception and I believe in the same way we can be born again at the resurrection by the same mind (spirit) of god.
I enjoyed this post, it resonates with my understanding. The one thing mentioned that clashes with the popular concept of dead "christian" people floating around in heaven right now is the fact that once embodied, spirits are in torment without a physical body. We are embodied creatures by definition and so we must also be in torment without a body.
If the dead are with Christ right now, (who has a body by the way) how is it we are told that Christ has to come down for his people with a loud command, then the dead believers will wake up, be resurrected first, then the bodies of the ones alive will be transformed and both groups will meet Christ in the air, and only SO we will be always with the Lord... (1 Thessalonians 4:16 and 1 Corinthians 15:52)
You've hit on something I haven't really talked about publicly but I think is of vital importance to understand.
I do not believe that we go immediately to heaven when we die. Human spirits are not floating around in heaven. There are all of two humans in heaven: Elijah and Enoch.
The Old Testament is full of explicit statements about Sheol, where dead humans reside. And Jesus' story about Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16 supports it. Though this is often interpreted as heaven, the text does not support that. It presents Sheol (Hades in Greek) as a place with two distinct sides, one that is cool and pleasant (ie: the paradise that the thief on the cross was promised) and one that is torment.
Dead humans go to Sheol, we don't go straight to heaven. And there are two different ways that this is supported by 2 Corinthians 5:8 and Philippians 1:23
First, Christ (like the Father) is omnipresent. He is (or at least can be) present everywhere in the universe at once. So I see no reason to think that He isn't present in Sheol (on the paradise side at the very least) in a similar way to how He is present with believers in this world.
At no point in any book, any chapter, any verse does any biblical writer say that believers in Christ go straight to heaven when we die.
Second, there is a possibility that the dead in Christ in a spiritual state are no longer subject to the physical dimension of time, so then the passage of however much time between death and the return of Christ would be virtually meaningless.
Personally, I find the second answer quite abstract and I don't think there's enough evidence to support it (though it certainly could be true). But we know Jesus is omnipresent. That's how He can be there "where two or three are gathered in my name."
So we can be with Christ in death (though I don't think this state will involve the deeply intimate relationship we will have with Him after the resurrection) while still having something major to look forward to in the resurrection (beyond just being joined to our glorified bodies).
Thank you brother Kevin for the kind reply, happy to see we are on the same page. I lean more on the not being aware while dead. I assume if I die it'd be like when I fall asleep, for me time does not exist even though life goes on around me (...the dead know nothing...Ecc 9:5) Next I know I hear the alarm of the trumpet and I'm refreshed in the morning of the new creation.
I am the oppinion that the Lazarus and the rich man is an alegory to make the point that the dead coming back to preach would not remove evil from humanity, not an actual description of sheol.
In the end it doesn't really matter as long as we might attain the resurrection for life. We are preserved by the heavenly record and in the mind of God and by grace I trust he will remember us for good. This is what the good thief on the cross asked Jesus: remember me when you come into your kingdom.
I do think it's slightly more complicated than that, but you may have a point.
I don't think Lazarus and the rich man is merely a parable though. One of the standard features of such stories is that characters don't have names. While it certainly is allegorical, I think it's also literal (as most biblical allegories tend to be).
So, between that and the raising of Samuel I believe that we probably do mostly sleep but I also think there are periods of wakefulness and possibly even certain people who remain conscious.
Obviously I don't claim to know the details and there's no Scripture I can point to for clear evidence. But I think the hints are there.
But you're absolutely right. At the end of the day, what we believe about the state of the people residing in Sheol doesn't make that much difference. Certainly not as much as understanding the escapism of going straight to heaven when we die is a falsehood based on Greek dualism.
Naming the beggar may have had some significance to the audience but in my mind it does not overcome the impossibility of the story, where in sheol souls have body parts without resurrection. A soul (nephesh) is a body with breath (spirit) in Hebrew thought. The Samuel story appearing through a seance is strange and unique in that he is called an elohim, so not sure if it's enough to generalize that human souls live without a body in sheol. That concept is pagan, not Hebrew.
Also, I am not advocating for soul sleep either. This is also an alegory, because actual sleep is a human in a body that is not aware. Death is the return to chaos, just as it was before our birth. But there is a record in the mind of God and a wish he has for our existence in his kingdom that was there at our first conception and I believe in the same way we can be born again at the resurrection by the same mind (spirit) of god.
Grace and peace brother!
A thoughtful and clear explaination on angels and demons. Well done.
Thank you!