Christian Churches of God

No. 223

Lucifer: Light Bearer
and Morning Star

(Edition 1.0 19970807-19970907)

The term Lucifer is attributed to Satan as a name. The term has become personalised and has taken on a negative sense. Similarly, the term Morning Star has been attributed to Christ in a personalised fashion. When the Bible appears to refer to Satan as Day Star or Morning Star and to Christ as the Light-bearer, which is the sense of Lucifer, people apply the names in this personalised way and come to the wrong conclusion. Some have even gone to the extent of confusing Christ with Satan.

Christian Churches of God

PO Box 369, WODEN ACT 2606, AUSTRALIA

Email: secretary@ccg.org

(Copyright © 1997 Wade Cox)

This paper may be freely copied and distributed provided it is copied in total with no alterations or deletions. The publisher’s name and address and the copyright notice must be included. No charge may be levied on recipients of distributed copies. Brief quotations may be embodied in critical articles and reviews without breaching copyright.

This paper is available from the World Wide Web page:
http://www.logon.org and http://www.ccg.prg

Lucifer: Light Bearer and Morning Star

The term Lucifer is attributed to Satan as a name. The term has become personalised and has taken on a negative sense. Similarly, the term Morning Star has been attributed to Christ in a personalised fashion. When the Bible appears to refer to Satan as Day Star or Morning Star and to Christ as the Light-bearer, which is the sense of Lucifer, people apply the names in this personalised way and come to the wrong conclusion. Some have even gone to the extent of confusing Christ with Satan.

The Jews do not fully understand what is happening with the texts in the Old Testament because they reject Messiah as Morning Star.

The Soncino renders Isaiah 14:12 as:

How thou art fallen from heaven O day-star, son of the morning!

How art thou cut down to the ground, that didst cast lots over the nations.

The Soncino interprets the phrases as follows.

12: day-star [Or, 'Lucifer' (light-bearer). The morning-star (son of the morning) under the name of Istar was worshipped by the Babylonians, and Nebuchadnezzar's days of power and glory are well represented by their comparison with the shining star.] Arbarbanel points out that this star, namely Venus, is the heavenly prince of Babylon.

cast lots. To determine the day on which the respective nations shall render service (Rashi). Others render, 'thou didst slay the nation’ (Targum, Ibn Ezra, Kimchi).

The Septuagint (LXX) renders the text:

How has Lucifer that rose in the morning fallen from heaven.

Here it is personified by the use of the term Lucifer in the English from the KJV application. The term ho 'Eosphoros ho proianatellon is rendered as Lucifer that rose in the morning.

This translated the Hebrew words meaning How (SHD 349) you have fallen (SHD 5307) from the heavens (SHD 8064) o shining star (SHD 1966) son of the morning (SHD 1121 and 7837) (see Green’s Interlinear). SHD 1966 (hyll) is the word heylel. It means the morning star or the day star from the sense of brightness in halal (SHD 1984) meaning clear and hence to shine with clarity. It has positive and negative applications in that it can mean to boast or to glorify, to glory, to give light. It can mean to feign madness in the negative application. In the sense that it is used in a positive sense and applied in the form as it develops in heylel (SHD 1966), it is as Morning Star or Day Star.

This terminology goes back also into ancient mythology and represents a function of rulership. With the Babylonians, it was attributed to the Ishtar-system in the evening as the Evening Star representing sexual love, and the Morning Star represented Ishtar as goddess of war. This was reflected in the triune system as employed by Babylon (see the paper The Golden Calf (No. 222)).

The theology is thus representative of the cosmology of the heavens and concerns rulership.

In the Greek New Testament, the term rendered day star in English is actually phosphoros (in 2Pet. 1:19) in relation to Christ in the KJV, but rendered as morning star in the RSV. Both versions avoid the real sense, which is light bringer as Phosphoros. Lucifer is the Latin translation of this word.

The Light-bringer and the Morning Star or Day Star are ranks and not names. Therein lies the key to the confusion.

In Revelation 2:28 the rank is extended to the elect in the form of astera ton proinon rendered morning star. This form is again found in Revelation 22:16 as the aster ho [l]ampros ho proinos referring to Christ explicitly and as morning (proinos, SGD 4407) star (aster, SGD 792).

Lampros (SHD 2986) means bright; hence: the bright and the morning star.

The names have the same derivation and yet they refer to two distinct beings. Thus we are speaking of a rank and function which is held by Satan, and which is to be assumed by Christ at the Advent.

This rank or function can be further demonstrated by its application in the Hebrew, from Job 38:4-7.

The words are SHD 1242 and 3556. The words are rendered the stars of the morning. There were at least two of these beings and seemingly more.

Thus we are dealing with Christ, Satan and other members of the Host. Hence, it is obviously a rank or function shared by a number of individuals.

The words are kokawb (SHD 3566) meaning a star as round or blazing and, hence figuratively, a prince, and also boquer (SHD 1242) meaning the morning or break of day.

SHD 3566 is derived also from the sense of 3522 rolling derived from the unused root meaning to heap up; or 3554 kavah in the sense of blazing or burning.

These beings performed a function that was derived linguistically from the sense of blazing as a star in the morning or morning star, which was the brightest of the stars, namely Venus. The Babylonians also applied this to their deity as we see above. The words in verse 7 are rendered in the LXX as translated by Brenton as: When the stars were made, all my angels praised me with a loud voice.

The words are derived from the Greek (here Romanised): Ote egenephesan astra, enesan me phone megale pantes aggeloi mou.

The term in the Hebrew means morning stars; it is structured in the MT as follows:

… when sang (SHD 7442) together (SHD 3162) the stars of (SHD 3556) the morning (SHD 1242) and shouted for joy (SHD 7321) all (SHD 3605) the sons of God (SHD 1121 and 430).

The LXX translated all the sons of God (kowl bene Elohim) as all the angels of God. The word kol or kowl (pr. kole) is the derivation of the word whole and its use here means literally the whole of the sons of God. So there were multiple entities understood as being sons of God.

The rendering of the text when sang together the stars of the morning in the LXX as when the stars were made is understood as being the creation of these stars after the creation of the sons of God. Thus the ranks were created after the entities, and these positions were symbolised by the stars themselves which formed part of their dominion.

This is also the sense of the transfer of the power of the position of morning star from Satan to Christ, and then its distribution to the Church as co-rulers or co-heirs.

The explanations that seek to make Christ and Satan ‘one’ or to deny both are Morning Stars strikes at the understanding of this transfer of power and the role of the elect at the Advent.

q