2 Corinthians 11:14, The Origin of Lucifer, part II of III

//Continuing our discussion from yesterday about the origins of Lucifer, we reach today’s verse written by Paul. What we’re about to uncover is a fascinating instance of “scripture interpreting scripture” to arrive at the conclusion that the Lucifer of Isaiah 14 (the only place in the Bible where the name Lucifer is used) actually refers to Satan. We’ll do this by examining New Testament texts, written many hundreds of years after Isaiah died. Paul starts us off by informing us that Satan masquerades as an angel of light, similar to the Morning Star of Isaiah.

Then we have Luke 10:18, where Jesus exclaims that he “saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” Recall yesterday’s verse: “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!” Could this be coincidence?

Next we come to this story in Revelation about the dragon:

“And there was war 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.”

Again, this sounds a lot like Isaiah, doesn’t it? It’s easy to conclude Isaiah was talking about Satan when he used the name Lucifer … though as we discussed yesterday how the name Lucifer didn’t exist in scripture until after Christ arrived, and the translation into Latin.

All this begs the question: If we have used scripture to interpret scripture, fitting the pieces together like a puzzle, erroneously interpreting Isaiah’s writings to be about Satan, then what did Isaiah 14 mean in the first place? We’ll answer that tomorrow.