When did Satan get cast down (fell) from Heaven?
QUESTION:
In the Biblical timeline of the creation account, when did satan get “cast down” (Fell) from Heaven?
ANSWER:
This is a detail not specifically addressed by any one passage that gives us an exact year and time. However, there are some clues hidden in passages such as penned by Peter:
“ For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;”
2 Peter 2:4 ESV
We do know that Satan was at some point filled with the (Ezekiel 28) “abundance of his trade”… leading to his “act of violence”…. leading to him defile the heavenly tabernacle during his duties as the “guarding cherub”. This seems to be reasonable to put this event on the timeline somewhere around the creation of the world and the creation of man. The curious part of this study is that you will see that God foreknew that he would do this and had measures in place it seems for when Satan would do this. BUT… this defiling of the heavenly tabernacle was the true original sin. God then sends His own son to offer himself as a blood atonements as our great high priest in Heaven as human and cleanses the Heavenly Tabernacle after his death on the Cross - once and for all cleansing it for us and eternity. (aka: first born of the dead - first human to be able to walk into God’s presence and dwell with Him…setting the stage for us to follow Him)
You then see Satan in the Garden of Adam (as opposed to the “Garden of God” which the Garden of Eden was a copy) on earth attempting to blaspheme the image of God still while he’s been given dominion of the earth and God roles out his perfect plan through the seed of man.