Is Satan a Reality or a Myth? Was there a War in Heaven? Who is Michael Referred in the Bible?

In the Bible, there are two books which keep intriguing Christian scholars for quite some time due to the immense scope they provide for speculations. 

The first one is the Book of Daniel which is part of the Old Testament Bible and the second one is the Book of Revelations, which is part of the New Testament and also the last book of the Bible.

Do Christians Really Follow Jesus?

[Picture Courtsey: Sunil Mathew]

Both these books contain some shrouded revelations about some mysteries, some events and some personalities about which the readers can only speculate. Let me quote some of those statements that are relevant in this context:

The first one is from Chapter-10 of the Book of Daniel. In verse 12 of this chapter, it is written like this:

Then he continued, “Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael,one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia. Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future, for the vision concerns a time yet to come.”

Chapter-12 of the Book of Daniel  begins like this:

“At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered.  Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.  Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.  But you, Daniel, roll up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge.”

Now let me take your attention to Chapter-12 of the last book of Bible, the Book of Revelation: In verses-7 to 9 we read like this:

Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back.  But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

Carefully reading this much, we can safely deduce a few things as given below:

1. Bible does not elaborate much about the personality named Michael, except that he is introduced as one of the Chief Princes and he has angels under his command. This implies that Michael was not a human being, but an invisible celestial personality.

2. There is another Prince who is referred as the prince of the Persian kingdom who was preventing the narrator for nearly 21 days from reaching Daniel (if you read preceding narrations in the book of Daniel carefully, you could perhaps realize that it was an angelic revelator who was explaining certain mysteries to Daniel in his vision). The angelic narrator tells Daniel that it was the the Chief Prince, Michael who helped him to overcome the resistance of the prince of Persia. Obviously, the personality referred here as the Prince of Persia is not a human being, but an invisible celestial personality and he too was a kind of prince or a ruler. But the personality referred as Michael was one of the Chief Princes and powers greater than the former.  

3. For some reasons, the angelic prince of Persia and the celestial Chief Prince, Michael were not in agreement to each other.

4. There was some kind of a war in the celestial world or heavens. The war was between the dragon or Satan and his angels and Michael and his angels.

5. The Satanic group was not any match to the powers of the Michael's group and thus, the outcome of the heavenly war that happened long ago was not in favor of the former. Consequently, the former group was removed from the heaven ( or heavenly worlds) and confined to earth. Perhaps on earth they got some powers  of celestial superintendence over the kingdoms of human beings. The prince of Persia as referred may be such a celestial personality. 

6. The celestial group which got castigated and confined to earth after the war in the heavens have been somehow leading the whole world (of humans) astray (away from the right path).

The whole Bible is a collection of books with several accounts that depict the history of human evolution over the centuries with human progress towards civilization. The Biblical narrations take a small sample of human communities of the Hebrews, Persians, Arabs, Greeks, etc settled around the Babylonian region as the subjects for detailed discussions. Objectively it shows how the human concepts progress towards the understanding of the spiritual empire of God and the relationship between God and man. The Bible, for a serious student is a collection of several books containing immense study material that exposes truthful treasures of knowledge that matters humans and their relationship with God. Unlike many other religious books, the human authors of the bible books from the past had written what they wanted to communicate to others in a simple manner without the use of fantasies or imaginative exaggerations.

Nevertheless, the Bible is a book of records written by human beings who lived during a long span of time covering several centuries with the last included book authored some 1900 years ago. The authors of the bible books were people who believed in the existence of an unseen God who mysteriously maintained a relationship with humans as a father through his messengers and angels. Bible books are indeed recorded history of human civilizational struggles giving human trials, tribulations and achievements with God as the central theme.

Yet, human civilization had been passing through centuries of dark ages. Humans in general have been in existence as brutal savages fighting and killing each other for the silliest of reasons. Humanity in humans have been developing very slowly. Even in the modern times, we cannot say that we are fully civilized peoples who have acquired divine qualities of universal brotherhood. We lack the qualities of divine love to a great extent.

In my opinion, we are not able to acquire the divine brotherhood of love due to various reasons. Some of these are due to our own weaknesses in assessing truth from falsehoods. 

To add to this problem is an external invisible force that is working against the divine plans. Remember what the Biblical narrations above stated. There is the presence and nefarious activities of invisible castigated celestial princes and angels on earth that have been happening without the humans not realizing much directly.

Humans with weak mind qualities easily fall prey to these nefarious forces  enhancing the problems of earth. Besides there are human beings who themselves have mind qualities that are similar to the castigated angels. They knowingly or unknowingly work against the divine plans of God. Simply stated they work against the divine human quality of love and compassion or twist the real meanings of love and compassion in their own ways.

It is not my intention to go in to a scholastic commentary of the Bible narrations that I mentioned above. There are several such articles and essays by Bible theologians all of whom giving their commentaries from their own studies and thoughts. 

Nevertheless, as a layman reader, let me point out some of the thoughts that come in to my mind in this context:

1. The Bible contains writings of several persons who lived several centuries ago. Perhaps their writings contain thoughts of their own mixed with certain truths that they received within their minds as provided by some divine communication channels. These writers of the books of the Bible lived thousands of years ago when the human knowledge, culture and civilization were vastly different from the present. There is also a possibility of several missing links. With the advancement of human knowledge in the field of science, it is quite natural that atleast a few modern human minds desire for some clarifications to the contents of the ancient religious texts lest they discard them as pure nonsense originating from the minds of the ancient underdeveloped humans.

2. The depictions of the Bible with regard to the war in heaven, Satan and Michael and their relations to God are not very clear. The modern human mind could discard these as myths unless their inner curiosities are not satisfactorily addressed.

3. The Bible narrations with regard to human history and human evolution seem have some contradictions  with the evolved scientific knowledge of the present day.

4. Languages and meanings have changed much in the last several centuries which necessitates some kind of authentic knowledge that would supplement our knowledge about the Bible contents and perhaps remove our wrong notions authentically.

5. If God exists and has been a kind of guiding force for the authors of the Bible books, would it be erroneous to think that God would not act to remove human misconceptions at a later era?

The 20th century humans are fortunate (only if they so desire!) that they have now a celestially authored and humanly published book that is capable of removing human doubts and misconceptions about the role of humans not only on earth but also in the whole of the universe. 

The beauty and the reality is that God exists and He is eternal and loving to all His creations, even for the lowly humans. God is not hiding from humans. On the contrary, it is the human inherent limitations that prevent humans from comprehending the infinite God of the Universe. That inherent limitation coupled with the confusions caused by some lesser creations of God causes humans to go astray from God.

I have gained much insight on this from this new book. The Bible and for that matter most of the religious texts contain truths coupled with exaggerations and errors crept in due to the inadequacies of human minds. But just as we comprehend more of a book with the help of a good dictionary or an encyclopedia, these texts become more understandable with the help of the guidance provided by this 20th century guide book whose contents come from several super human minds. The only requirement for a human being to enhance his or her knowledge is an open and seeking mind devoid of preconceived notions!

Let me now reproduce below a couple of statements from this superior explanatory book which now gives a kind of complimentary clarification to what have been written in the Bible :

“There was war in heaven; Michael's commander and his angels fought against the dragon (Lucifer, Satan, and the apostate princes); and the dragon and his rebellious angels fought but prevailed not.” This "war in heaven" was not a physical battle as such a conflict might be conceived on earth. In the early days of the struggle Lucifer held forth (talked) continuously in the planetary amphitheater. Gabriel conducted an unceasing exposure of the rebel sophistries from his headquarters taken up near at hand. The various personalities present on the sphere who were in doubt as to their attitude would journey back and forth between these discussions until they arrived at a final decision. 

"But this war in heaven was very terrible and very real. While displaying none of the barbarities so characteristic of physical warfare on the immature worlds, this conflict was far more deadly; material life is in jeopardy in material combat, but the war in heaven was fought in terms of life eternal".

There are much more things to be learnt. For paucity of space and time I am not venturing to write all those. Let me tell you in brief what I learnt now with the help of the new book:

1. Lucifer had been  a celestial prince or ruler. He is not just an angel, but was a celestial administrator vested with divine powers to rule material worlds on and behalf of his superior divine administrators all of whom under the general delegation of powers according to the never changing laws of the Supreme Creator God of the Universe . There are innumerable lower order angels under his command. To be precise he was the celestial ruler of hundreds of evolutionary planets where human life flourished. Satan was his immediate administrative assistant. They also had the planetary princes for each of the material worlds under their command, including our earth of the solar system. Innumerable numbers of subordinate celestial personalities for various functions worked under them such as the so-called angels. 

2. Michaels are an order of Divine Sons of God who are delegated with the powers to create and organize material universes from the non material energy sources of the universe originating from God. Innumerable orders of intelligent celestial beings execute the task of creation under the overall supervision of the Creator Sons of God. The material creation domain of each Michael is too huge that it in itself is called a local universe which could contain millions of stars, dark bodies, barren planets and planets that can sustain and evolve material life. There could be over 10 million such material life sustaining planets in one local universe. 1000 local universe spaces constitute one super universe and the whole of the known space is divided in to 7 super universe regions. As mentioned in the Bible, there is a Michael who is the Creator of the universe space in which our earth belongs and he is the Chief Prince or the Chief ruler of this universe space. As such, Lucifer, Satan and other such subordinate celestial rulers gained their authority from this Michael. Just as our universe space have a creator prince originating from God the first source of everything, there are other such creator princes for other material universe spaces.

3. Michael is not an angel, but a divine creator and ruler directly originating from God. He is the creative head of material universe spaces and the living beings that are contained within those spaces. All the 7000 universe spaces have a Creator Son of God as their respective Chief. Thus, what the Bible says as, Michael-one of the Chief Princes- is right. The creative chief prince of a universe space, later becomes the Sovereign Ruler of that universe space, after he fulfills certain divine stipulations. Our earth belongs to such a universe space where such a Michael reigns. He is our Sovereign Lord.

My dear readers! I have written this only to point out to you about the vast knowledge that exists that would enhance our minds and enable us to find out the real purpose of human lives. But for that we need to open out our rigid minds a bit and be receptive to new thoughts and information that our heavenly father so kindly provides us. At the same time we should realize the dangers of external sophistries that play around to hoodwink us from realities and truths. Remember, the expelled celestial prince and his associates are still doing their subtle acts to distract humans from God. He will keep doing that for some more time till he is fully prevented from doing so.

But we have God given powers to distinguish truths from untruths provided we honestly desire so. When we do not use that judiciously we get immersed in mind confusions caused by the mixture of truths and untruths. That causes us to depart from divine paths.

That is what the dethroned prince who is now roaming on earth wants.

Do You Have the Mind Capacity to Explore the Fifth Epochal Revelation to Mankind?

Those of my readers who are familiar with this blog site would perhaps know that the contents of this site are essentially written taking inspiration from the massive information that is contained in my favorite book of life guidance.

It is impossible for a blind person to comprehend knowledge presented through visual inputs.

It is impossible for an illiterate person to understand knowledge presented through literature.

It is impossible for a person who has not learnt science and mathematics to comprehend the advances of science or to understand scientific research papers authored by scientists.

It is impossible for a person who has not learnt the Chinese language to read and comprehend a passage written in that language.

We, human beings, however advanced we might be, have limitations in various degrees. Only a fool would say that he or she knows everything! 

The reality is that we all know something to some extent but not everything to the full. Our information, knowledge and mind capacities vary from person to person. None of us are perfect or infinitely knowledgeable. 

Those who are among us who have acquired a relatively higher level of knowledge as compared to the rest of others at some stage of their knowledge acquisition would come to a point when they begin to realize the extreme limitation of their capacities and knowledge. 

At that stage they tend to become humble and their egos begin to vaporize.

Perhaps that would be the stage when they intelligently and logically begin to realize the presence of the Infinite Intelligence that pervades our planet and the space.

It becomes amply clear to them that everything around us including we humans are created with extreme intelligence and planning. They would start realizing that we are not any random accidents of space and time.

At that point, perhaps, the intelligent man would  not disagree with his inferior cousins in accepting God Almighty as the Infinite Intelligence behind all creations of nature. 

Having agreed so, the intelligent mind of man keep wondering why the Almighty God has not come to the vision of human kind.

Is God hiding from the vision of man? 

Why does He not reveal Himself? Why does He not remove the confusion of man? Intelligent men and women perhaps might ask.

Many human authors, thinkers and writers have been exploring the mysteries about God for centuries. 

They postulated their theories, philosophies and theologies.

Modern science thought of doing it alone without God coming into picture at all. 

So, sometime in modern era, science got separated from God consciousness or spirituality. Science was something for searching and discovering the realities of the world and the universe and not for searching imaginary existences. Some of the scientists argued and the majority agreed.

The outcome was a permanent public divorce of science from the quest for God while many scientists kept their God consciousness intact in private.

That enhanced the great confusion of modern man in understanding the universe, their own origins and their relationship with their Invisible Creator.

In that great confusion, the human kind got divided over their Creator. The creatures begin to argue, fight and kill each other in the name of their Creator who remained as a mystery for them. 

It was like the quarrelsome children of the combined family when the head of the family went outstation!

They knew the existence of the father who built up the family and provided for their existence. But still they quarreled because they knew the father would not come to punish them!

But has God left His human children for ever? Is He hiding from them? Doesn't He love his creatures? Doesn't He want His children feel about His ever presence?

God is not hiding. God has only become incomprehensible for His finite children of time and space. Finite humans are incapable of comprehending their infinite creator!

Yet, God as a loving father, has been compassionate and loving all the time. He has been providing several ways to make His finite creations understand Him and reciprocate His love. 

God has provided a direct link to the minds of all humans to understand him. He had provided external links as well.

He has been making arrangements to make his finite children understand his plans about them.

God has been revealing Himself and His plans to human kind by several means.

Divine revelations are part and parcel of human history.

For the thoughtful intelligent humans of the present era too, God has arranged to reveal Himself and His plans in greater details.

And that is the content of the book which is introduced by its authors as the Fifth Epochal Revelation to human kind. 

Unfortunately, human mind is not so mature in general to distinguish between truths and truths mixed with clever untruths.

Human mind gets confused when exposed to truths and untruths and get shaky to pick the truths from the myriads of untruths.

The minds of all humans have not reached to the basic minimum capacity level to distinguish between truths and untruths.

So the Fifth Epochal Revelation would appear as untruths to a good majority of humans.

When they are forewarned of mysterious deceptions that might force them out of their existing spiritual concepts and beliefs, these innocent humans get all the more confused and scary.

They get too scary that they would not even dare to open the book which, in their innocent but biased opinion, might contain information that destroy their souls for ever! 

Yet they do not find it much of a problem to read and immerse themselves in a devilish fiction book containing texts depicting vulgarity and cruelty!

What a pity!

Did God create them to be foolish idiots not capable of using their pretty intelligent brains properly?

Of course, not! Yet it is a reality of human existence.

The reasons are several and it would continue this way for some more ages till all humans develop to equitable mind capacities!

But for those who have reached to better comprehension levels, the fifth epochal revelation is something for a serious exploratory study.

It is a great facilitating revelation to read and contemplate to come out of human confusions. I feel honored and privileged that I got the opportunity to do that.

Did you read this much?

Did you get any clue to what this fifth epochal revelation be? 

If not and if curious, explore this site to find out more about the great book containing immense knowledge direct from divine sources now available to the intelligent and broad minded humans of modern times.

Read and contemplate to check whether it is really of value or not!

Put your mind to test to establish its truthfulness and probable origin.

When you do it, you would perhaps become a transcendent human being!

But it is purely up to you. You alone! I honor your free-will.

[Also Read : The Urantia Book-the Fifth Epochal Revelation - article by Behzad on the Iranian website www.FarsiNet.com - an interesting site worth exploring by those who seek goodness!]