HOW OLD IS SATAN?
Like a miner digging for gemstones, I once came across this funny but intriguing inquiry once on Twitter, and I couldn’t but wonder. The person was trying to joke around by asking for an answer, but I noticed not a single person who tried replying his tweet gave an intellectually or religiously clear reply. So, I took it upon myself as a personal challenge to seek it out and give the closest answer possible to this. I started digging.
But before I go on to reveal what I have found in this article, I will like to quickly say that to be able to offer any reasonable answer at all, a person that will attempt this question and provide a rejoinder must be familiar with the world religions that identify and believe that Satan is in fact a real being; with confirmation from their sacred Books. And as far as I know, three of the world’s religions namely Judaism, Christianity and Islam actually believe in a character called Satan and in his existence. And these three Religions all agree that he is the mastermind, as he initiates and projects all kinds of evils existent and experienced by people in the world. They all agree that he is the Father of lies, evils, mischief, and Ruler of other Evil Spirits in this World. If that has been established, then we can go ahead and try to see how we can give a satisfactory answer to a witty question posed. And to make things clear, I will be tending towards Christianity, with the evidences shown in The Holy Bible in addition with some other scientific and geological theories for this version of my answer.
Who is this Satan?
Sometimes called The Devil, he was first revealed in Genesis, the first book in the Bible. But there, he was mentioned in passing and shown as a spirit which possessed a serpent to act; nothing else personal was presented about him. Later in some other books after this, we could see many other deeds ascribed to him along the way. But there is a particularly very interesting one worthy of note in the Book of Job, Chapter 2 that showed more about his personality. Let us take a look:
One day the members of the heavenly court came again to present themselves before the LORD, and the Accuser, Satan, came with them. “Where have you come from?” the LORD asked Satan.
Satan answered the LORD, “I have been patrolling the earth, watching everything that’s going on.”
To a casual reader, this may seem to be of no significance. But for this particular material, it put things into perspectives a bit. This place not only exposed who Satan is as a kind of person, it indicated that he is a being that has much physical resemblance with the members of the Heavenly Court, and that he was able to keep his identity hidden until he was discovered by the LORD’s eyes Himself. Even Angels, with all their power, insight and intelligence didn’t know who he was, just because he bore same resemblance as them as he had been since his inception. And from what the LORD said to him, it showed Satan as someone who used to be part of the Heavenly Court before. Let’s not forget that this same Bible established that God and the Heavenly Court represent all that is good, kind, and benevolent. So how did Satan, who used to be part of them, now became evil and then be called as “The Accuser”, is yet another mystery we must reveal along the way. We will look at more written evidences from the Bible to also clear this mystery.
The passage that further really send us on a course of real discovery is in the Ezekiel, Chapter 28 verse 12 - 17. Let’s look:
12 “Son of man, sing this funeral song for the king of Tyre. Give him this message from the Sovereign Lord:
“You were the model of perfection,
full of wisdom and exquisite in beauty.
13 You were in Eden, the garden of God.
Your clothing was adorned with every precious stone;
red carnelian, pale-green peridot, white moonstone,
blue-green beryl, onyx, green jasper,
blue lapis lazuli, turquoise, and emerald—
all beautifully crafted for you
and set in the finest gold.
They were given to you
on the day you were created.
14 I ordained and anointed you
as the mighty angelic guardian.
You had access to the holy mountain of God
and walked among the stones of fire.
15 “You were blameless in all you did
from the day you were created
until the day evil was found in you.
16 Your rich commerce led you to violence,
and you sinned.
So I banished you in disgrace
from the mountain of God.
I expelled you, O mighty guardian,
from your place among the stones of fire.
17 Your heart was filled with pride
because of all your beauty.
Your wisdom was corrupted
by your love of splendor.
So I threw you to the ground
and exposed you to the curious gaze of kings.”
From here, we may likely think God was just addressing the King of Tyre, who was a mere mortal king. But a further gaze at the message showed that God was just using that message to the King as an example of what had happened to another being whom God had elevated; Satan. And if this has been realized, we see that the passage corroborated the fact that Satan was indeed in the Garden of Eden and part of the Heavenly Court; it gave us some insight into his creation, his rank then in the Heavenly Court, and what led to his dismissal and how that relates to Earth. This place clearly established that before Earth was formed, he was already in existence. And this is what will take us back to the real big question begging for an answer.
How old is Satan?
The concept of time and season was created by early men from the movement of the Sun. Since men began to form Civilizations, and Agriculture started fully to sustain the large human communities, there was a need for men to understand the length of days, predictions of weathers, seasons and even climates over a long period of time. Men began to gaze at the skies, night and day, watching formations & movement of clouds, stars shining at night, sun rises and sun sets for clues to this and establish their answers. It was because of this new knowledge they kept obtaining day after day that bore the need for men to start writing what they knew down, to pass the insights to the coming generation for sustainability of the same. Historians called this period in the History of the World as Threshold 8.
If there was not the Sun, that ever burning Star in our sky, the Time concept would have been a very strange topic to broach, and there won’t be anything to measure the length of moments with. Early Egyptians, Mayans, Chinese, Arabs, Galileo Galilee, Albert Einstein, Late Professor Steven Hawkins, and other great minds in the human race have studied and exclusively brought light to this matter of Time and Space Relativity just to show us that indeed we are not alone in this world. And they have also shown that our own Sun is not the only burning star in the Universe; there are many other more like it; giving heat, light and control to other worlds.
From a little study of Astrophysics, focusing on the movement of the Earth and other planets around the Sun in the Solar System, it has been established that “length of time” is a concept relative to each world that is found in the Solar System and the Universe. Early men have agreed to measure the length of time by the rising and setting of the Sun and also the changing pattern of the Moon in the night sky. This means the rising and the setting of the Sun on Earth means a day has passed, and so it is for other planets. Here on Earth, 365 days makes a year. But on Mercury, another world away from ours, it takes just 88 days for the planet to complete its orbit (a year) round the Sun. In Mars, a year is 687 days; and so on it varies with other worlds too. I hope you put this to heart.
After long years of consecutive research, dating of different rocks and traveling to other heavenly bodies like the Moon from one generation to another, it has come to light that the age of the Universe from its birth which the Scientists tagged “The Big Bang” is about 400 billion “Earth Years” by measurement. And following the same timeline and School of thought, they have been able to pin point that the Earth is about 4.567 billion years old. This showed clearly the age of our world.
Recall that the Bible asserted that Satan (called Lucifer in the Heavenly Court) was born before Earth came to be. So this means he is definitely older than this Earth, which the Scientist say is 4.567 billion years old. That means this being is quite really old! No wonder a part of the same Scripture referred to him as the “Old Dragon.”
To put this matter to a clear rest, the truth of the matter is, we may not be able to establish exactly how old Satan is. This is simply because he is a spirit. Man has not yet been able to glean into any written material that could show mortals on how to know the age of spirits or about the date or time when Satan was born. But at least we know clearly through the Holy Book that he is older than the Earth. And Earth as established by the scientist is 4.567 billion years old. That clearly said, without any iota of doubt, shows that Satan is 4.567 billion years plus some yet unknown years old.
But before I go on to reveal what I have found in this article, I will like to quickly say that to be able to offer any reasonable answer at all, a person that will attempt this question and provide a rejoinder must be familiar with the world religions that identify and believe that Satan is in fact a real being; with confirmation from their sacred Books. And as far as I know, three of the world’s religions namely Judaism, Christianity and Islam actually believe in a character called Satan and in his existence. And these three Religions all agree that he is the mastermind, as he initiates and projects all kinds of evils existent and experienced by people in the world. They all agree that he is the Father of lies, evils, mischief, and Ruler of other Evil Spirits in this World. If that has been established, then we can go ahead and try to see how we can give a satisfactory answer to a witty question posed. And to make things clear, I will be tending towards Christianity, with the evidences shown in The Holy Bible in addition with some other scientific and geological theories for this version of my answer.
Who is this Satan?
Sometimes called The Devil, he was first revealed in Genesis, the first book in the Bible. But there, he was mentioned in passing and shown as a spirit which possessed a serpent to act; nothing else personal was presented about him. Later in some other books after this, we could see many other deeds ascribed to him along the way. But there is a particularly very interesting one worthy of note in the Book of Job, Chapter 2 that showed more about his personality. Let us take a look:
One day the members of the heavenly court came again to present themselves before the LORD, and the Accuser, Satan, came with them. “Where have you come from?” the LORD asked Satan.
Satan answered the LORD, “I have been patrolling the earth, watching everything that’s going on.”
To a casual reader, this may seem to be of no significance. But for this particular material, it put things into perspectives a bit. This place not only exposed who Satan is as a kind of person, it indicated that he is a being that has much physical resemblance with the members of the Heavenly Court, and that he was able to keep his identity hidden until he was discovered by the LORD’s eyes Himself. Even Angels, with all their power, insight and intelligence didn’t know who he was, just because he bore same resemblance as them as he had been since his inception. And from what the LORD said to him, it showed Satan as someone who used to be part of the Heavenly Court before. Let’s not forget that this same Bible established that God and the Heavenly Court represent all that is good, kind, and benevolent. So how did Satan, who used to be part of them, now became evil and then be called as “The Accuser”, is yet another mystery we must reveal along the way. We will look at more written evidences from the Bible to also clear this mystery.
The passage that further really send us on a course of real discovery is in the Ezekiel, Chapter 28 verse 12 - 17. Let’s look:
12 “Son of man, sing this funeral song for the king of Tyre. Give him this message from the Sovereign Lord:
“You were the model of perfection,
full of wisdom and exquisite in beauty.
13 You were in Eden, the garden of God.
Your clothing was adorned with every precious stone;
red carnelian, pale-green peridot, white moonstone,
blue-green beryl, onyx, green jasper,
blue lapis lazuli, turquoise, and emerald—
all beautifully crafted for you
and set in the finest gold.
They were given to you
on the day you were created.
14 I ordained and anointed you
as the mighty angelic guardian.
You had access to the holy mountain of God
and walked among the stones of fire.
15 “You were blameless in all you did
from the day you were created
until the day evil was found in you.
16 Your rich commerce led you to violence,
and you sinned.
So I banished you in disgrace
from the mountain of God.
I expelled you, O mighty guardian,
from your place among the stones of fire.
17 Your heart was filled with pride
because of all your beauty.
Your wisdom was corrupted
by your love of splendor.
So I threw you to the ground
and exposed you to the curious gaze of kings.”
From here, we may likely think God was just addressing the King of Tyre, who was a mere mortal king. But a further gaze at the message showed that God was just using that message to the King as an example of what had happened to another being whom God had elevated; Satan. And if this has been realized, we see that the passage corroborated the fact that Satan was indeed in the Garden of Eden and part of the Heavenly Court; it gave us some insight into his creation, his rank then in the Heavenly Court, and what led to his dismissal and how that relates to Earth. This place clearly established that before Earth was formed, he was already in existence. And this is what will take us back to the real big question begging for an answer.
How old is Satan?
The concept of time and season was created by early men from the movement of the Sun. Since men began to form Civilizations, and Agriculture started fully to sustain the large human communities, there was a need for men to understand the length of days, predictions of weathers, seasons and even climates over a long period of time. Men began to gaze at the skies, night and day, watching formations & movement of clouds, stars shining at night, sun rises and sun sets for clues to this and establish their answers. It was because of this new knowledge they kept obtaining day after day that bore the need for men to start writing what they knew down, to pass the insights to the coming generation for sustainability of the same. Historians called this period in the History of the World as Threshold 8.
If there was not the Sun, that ever burning Star in our sky, the Time concept would have been a very strange topic to broach, and there won’t be anything to measure the length of moments with. Early Egyptians, Mayans, Chinese, Arabs, Galileo Galilee, Albert Einstein, Late Professor Steven Hawkins, and other great minds in the human race have studied and exclusively brought light to this matter of Time and Space Relativity just to show us that indeed we are not alone in this world. And they have also shown that our own Sun is not the only burning star in the Universe; there are many other more like it; giving heat, light and control to other worlds.
From a little study of Astrophysics, focusing on the movement of the Earth and other planets around the Sun in the Solar System, it has been established that “length of time” is a concept relative to each world that is found in the Solar System and the Universe. Early men have agreed to measure the length of time by the rising and setting of the Sun and also the changing pattern of the Moon in the night sky. This means the rising and the setting of the Sun on Earth means a day has passed, and so it is for other planets. Here on Earth, 365 days makes a year. But on Mercury, another world away from ours, it takes just 88 days for the planet to complete its orbit (a year) round the Sun. In Mars, a year is 687 days; and so on it varies with other worlds too. I hope you put this to heart.
After long years of consecutive research, dating of different rocks and traveling to other heavenly bodies like the Moon from one generation to another, it has come to light that the age of the Universe from its birth which the Scientists tagged “The Big Bang” is about 400 billion “Earth Years” by measurement. And following the same timeline and School of thought, they have been able to pin point that the Earth is about 4.567 billion years old. This showed clearly the age of our world.
Recall that the Bible asserted that Satan (called Lucifer in the Heavenly Court) was born before Earth came to be. So this means he is definitely older than this Earth, which the Scientist say is 4.567 billion years old. That means this being is quite really old! No wonder a part of the same Scripture referred to him as the “Old Dragon.”
To put this matter to a clear rest, the truth of the matter is, we may not be able to establish exactly how old Satan is. This is simply because he is a spirit. Man has not yet been able to glean into any written material that could show mortals on how to know the age of spirits or about the date or time when Satan was born. But at least we know clearly through the Holy Book that he is older than the Earth. And Earth as established by the scientist is 4.567 billion years old. That clearly said, without any iota of doubt, shows that Satan is 4.567 billion years plus some yet unknown years old.
Profound!!
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