"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations." Isaiah 14:12
Perhaps this is why Christ said He saw Satan fall "like lightning" out of heaven (Luke 10:18). Can you imagine the collapse of the morning? The falling of the Day Star? The making low of the Sun? To see such an object of light and power come streaking to the ground like a grand meteor must have been something to behold. His plummet was the highest a creature could have fallen.
There is an old saying: "Corruptio optimi pessima," i.e., the corruption of the best is the worst. That which is highest hurts worse when it falls. Lewis put is this way: a bad child is worse than a bad dog, and a bad man is worse than a bad child; and we can most surely assume that a bad angel is worse than a bad man, child, or dog. This is why Satan is the evil one of our lives: he is the "corrupted best," the corruptio optimi. He once was "the seal of perfection, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty." (Ezekiel 28:12b) He was the highest creature that God had created. Do not be so surprised then that the best of creation can become the worst of it.
Do not be surprised either when the rule applies to you. If the highest in creation can fall, why not you? Be careful of delighting in successes (either physical or spiritual ones). More successes means you have gone higher, and therefore have farther to fall. No matter what happens outwardly, let us think nothing of ourselves (I Corinthians 4:7), lest we fall with the best of them.
Perhaps this is why Christ said He saw Satan fall "like lightning" out of heaven (Luke 10:18). Can you imagine the collapse of the morning? The falling of the Day Star? The making low of the Sun? To see such an object of light and power come streaking to the ground like a grand meteor must have been something to behold. His plummet was the highest a creature could have fallen.
There is an old saying: "Corruptio optimi pessima," i.e., the corruption of the best is the worst. That which is highest hurts worse when it falls. Lewis put is this way: a bad child is worse than a bad dog, and a bad man is worse than a bad child; and we can most surely assume that a bad angel is worse than a bad man, child, or dog. This is why Satan is the evil one of our lives: he is the "corrupted best," the corruptio optimi. He once was "the seal of perfection, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty." (Ezekiel 28:12b) He was the highest creature that God had created. Do not be so surprised then that the best of creation can become the worst of it.
Do not be surprised either when the rule applies to you. If the highest in creation can fall, why not you? Be careful of delighting in successes (either physical or spiritual ones). More successes means you have gone higher, and therefore have farther to fall. No matter what happens outwardly, let us think nothing of ourselves (I Corinthians 4:7), lest we fall with the best of them.
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