Issued: 4/4/23

PLEASE NOTE:  Because Bible versions sometimes differ from each other in crucial ways, the version quoted here will be the one that best clarifies the point being made.  For a quick comparison between versions, please go to: http://www.biblehub.com.

   All bracketed material may be authorial comments, attempts at proper syntax, or minimal rewordings of Scripture for the sake of clarity and continuity.  These emendations will not be italicized.

   The “/” will be used to signify “and/or.”  The symbol “↔” is used to connect verses corroborating each other and so establishing doctrinal truths (Matthew 18:16↔2Corinthians 13:1).

   In differentiating between Yahweh of hosts [later Jesus] and Yahweh the Most High God, lower case letters have been used when discussing the former; upper case letters are reserved for the One and Most High God.  Since Jesus was at pains to differentiate himself from God the Father, we have followed his lead here.

   The term neo-Christians will be used to differentiate between false Christians and Jesus’ true followers.

   Satan embodies the exact opposites of everything Jesus is and stands for:  As Jesus pointedly remarked, “the prince [i.e., commander, god] of this world has nothing in me” (John 14:30↔2Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 2:2).  Whereas Jesus is Light (Genesis 1:3; John 1:7-9, 8:12), Satan is Darkness (Genesis 1:3); and so are their respective progenies (John 1:4-5, 12:36↔Matthew 16:18; Luke 16:8; Acts 26:18; Ephesians 5:8; 1Thessalonians 5:5).  Whereas Jesus is the symbolic Sun of Righteousness (Malachi 4:2↔Revelation 22:16), Satan is the counterfeit ‘sun’ worshipped through a plethora of solar gods—especially the Roman Sol Invictus, to this day worshipped on Sundays.  Whereas Jesus’ empire is of life and peace everlasting (Isaiah 9:6-7), Satan’s is one of death with a prophesied end (Hebrews 2:14; Revelation 20:7-10).  Whereas Jesus is the Author and Perfecter of faith (Hebrews 12:2), the homicidal Satan (John 8:44) is the author and implementer of war. 

   Although there is no Scriptural record of homicides before Abel’s murder (Genesis 4:8), the phrase, “murderer from the beginning” in John 8:44, suggests Satan may have been complicit in that deed by stoking the envy festering in Cain’s heart.  This Genesis narrative set the template for vengeful acts by ‘family members’—in the comprehensive sense Jesus used it [i.e., relatives, compatriots, co-religionists, etc. (Matthew 10:36)]—against men they had a grudge against; to wit, Esau against Jacob over firstborn rights (Genesis 25:32; Hebrews 12:16); tribal Patriarchs against Joseph (Genesis 37:11) and priests against Jesus (Matthew 27:18) for envy; and partisans of every ilk against Jeremiah (Jeremiah 38:4), Jesus (John 11:49-52), and Paul (Acts 21:21, 23:12,14,21, 24:2-8, 25:2-3).  In all cases transgressors tried to deflect blame by rationalizing actions contrary to divine norms.  Satan may have set the ball rolling by snuffing off Abel, but his mortal minions keep kicking it to this day by ongoing killings.

The Prototypical Warmonger

   When after Creation did Satan become evil?  Ezekiel tells us Satan was “blameless in all his ways until evil was found” in him (Ezekiel 28:15); no definitive timetable is given.  As a Cherub he had important place among the angelic host in God’s “holy mount.”¹  His presence both in Eden prior to the Fall (Ezekiel 28:13, 31:8-9) and on earth post-eviction, where he was some sort of surveyor reporting back to Yahweh of hosts (Job 1:7, 2:2), tells us he was able to commute between heaven and earth.  The last we hear of him in Heaven is in Zechariah 3:1 while engaged in his favorite pastime:  Striving to damn human souls (Revelation 12:10).  We last hear of Satan on earth is in Luke 4:1-13, 10:18, trying to trip Jesus and falling down from Heaven, respectively.  Once on earth, he set up headquarters in Rome (Revelation 2:13, 18:2). 

   Though reputed seal of perfection, wisdom and beauty (Ezekiel 28:12), there came a time when personal attributes were no longer enough for Satan:  He lusted after the external one of exercising authority over creation (Isaiah 14:13-14).  For that he must have envied Yahweh of hosts’ position as the Most High’s proxy God, the former ostensibly also a Cherub² but exalted above all angelic beings (Hebrews 1:13-14).  Satan could attempt nothing against the All-Mighty, Supreme Deity; but if a peer [Satan was a Cherub as well (Ezekiel 28:14)] amongst the heavenly host had been given stewardship over creation, why not rattle things up and wiggle himself into power-sharing?³

   In Eden Satan’s beauty and rank went to his head, perhaps because other angels envied his dazzling attributes (Ezekiel 28:13, 31:8-10,17-18).  Though Yahweh publicized this undignified display of angelic behavior in Job 4:18, Satan appears to have gathered a sizable following in his putsch for power⁴—the sort of MO every historical power-grabber has relied on.  A case in point was Abimelek:  He appealed to the ‘us-versus-them’ mentality; sweetened the prospects with hard cash; and secured a base group by default bereft of moral constraints (Judges 9:1-6; Proverbs 29:12),⁵ with himself as head honcho, naturally—a MO much in vogue in contemporary, American politics.

   Then Satan zeroed in on Woman as the weakest link in the human chain of command.  Now, the Satan who spoke to her, though called “serpent” in Genesis 3:1, was not the tree-hanging, mamba-like snake of Renaissance imagination, but a formidable being with killer looks (Ezekiel 28:13).  The fact that religious art depicts him as bat-winged reptilian does not mean that Satan metamorphosed into the bogeyman of Roman Catholicism:  He remains gorgeous to this day—perhaps the reason why his human progeny places a premium on and worships physical beauty.  Significantly, God did not want His Messiah to exploit that advantage (Isaiah 53:2).

   The epithet “serpent” is Scripture’s way of evoking the predatory behavior of real snakes:  Satan was the proverbial snake in the grass [i.e., betrayer, back-stabber], capable of mesmerizing others with his presence, and of inflicting mortal wound.  It is also Scripture’s way of referencing his many serpent-like roles in verses like Isaiah 30:6 [flying snake]⁶; Ezekiel 29:3 [great dragon, king of Egypt]; Revelation 20:2 [dragon, the ancient serpent]; and as the empowerer of the dragon-like, seven-headed beast that persecuted and killed the saints:  The un-holy Roman Empire (Revelation 13:1-7, 17:12-17).

   What had Satan promised Eve?  Equality with God in terms of wisdom (Genesis 3:5); any notion of power-sharing was off the table.  Once Woman got Man to switch masters and they were evicted from Eden, Satan scored his first significant victory:  Securing a role in the wielding of divine power.  How so? Because in a disrupted order of things there was need for a punisher, since God’s angelic stewards were by nature incapable of personally inflicting harm.  Yahweh of hosts would still hold Satan in check (Exodus 12:23; 1Chronicles 21:15,27; Job 1:12, 2:6), still any human transgression had to be dealt with:  The Most High had gone on record stating that in His domain, the guilty would never go unpunished (Exodus 34:7; Jeremiah 46:28; Nahum 1:3).

   Following this benchmark, Satan’s Plan B went into action:  Like a continuous drip eroding underlying material, he set out to weaken Yahweh of hosts’ grip over humanity by mobilizing powers at odds with his (Daniel 7:25, 8:24-25, 10:20; Revelation 12:15-17).  Now that the Most High’s gloves were off, Satan could build up his global empire of death ‘east of Eden’:  The world as we know it (Isaiah 14:6,20; Hebrews 2:15; 1John 5:10).⁷ Under Satan’s ruling style wars and genocide became the historical norm:  It had to be so, because outside the goodness and perfection of Creation only their opposites could prevail—exploitation, imprisonment, enslavement, loss of property, and every form of expression of man’s inhumanity to man (Leviticus 26:17,22,25; Deuteronomy 28:25,32,48-50,53-57,68; 2Kings 8:11-13; Isaiah 13:16, 14:16-17,20; Hosea 13:16; Nahum 3:10).  1Samuel 8:1-20 illustrates the synergy between people and their chosen leaders after rejecting divine rule, plus outcomes to be expected.  Nothing new here:  It is the stuff and staple of human history.

   Scripture does not tell us either when Satan formulated his final objective:  “I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God. I will sit on the mount of assembly, in the far reaches of the north” (Isaiah 14:13-14).  The “stars” he is referring to are angelic beings surrounding and bearing [Cherubim?] God’s throne (Psalms 99:1; Isaiah 37:16; Ezekiel 1:22-27);⁸ so when Satan says “I will raise my throne” above the Cherubim, he is talking about a throne other than the Most High’s, Who Satan could never hope to oust.  Be it said in passing that the “fiery stones” in Ezekiel 28:14 also refer to Cherubim, who like all angels, according to Psalms 104:4↔Hebrews 1:7 are servants of God made to look like “flames of fire.”

   There came the time when Satan put ambition into action and chose to play his hand.  Not coincidentally, the Yahweh of hosts who presided over all angels had become incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth, so that his heavenly post was momentarily vacant.  No better time than to attempt regime change; hence the war described in Revelation 12:7-9.  The Archangel Michael was Jesus’ second-in-command;⁹ so that while Jesus was on earth, Michael spearheaded the war which booted Satan and his minions from Heaven.  What means were deployed or ‘weaponry’ used in this war, we are not told.

   The war described in Revelation 19:11-21 with Jesus as Commander-in-Chief is a symbolic recap of all this victories throughout the centuries, easily demonstrated by verses 20 and 21.  Revelation 19:20 takes place after Armageddon, where God Himself personally incinerates the opposition (Revelation 20:9), so He effects the destruction He has reserved for Himself and forbidden any of His subjects to wreak (Deuteronomy 32:35; Romans 12:19).  Revelation 19:21 deals with the bodies of the unrighteous dead littering the world after Jesus’ second coming and Judgment Day, their rotting corpses feeding the maggots that will crawl all over Satan while he remains chained for one thousand years (Jeremiah 25:33; Isaiah 14:11; Revelation 20:2).  Since Armageddon takes place one thousand years after the former events, it can be seen that Revelation 19:20 and 19:21 do not reference the same war outcomes.

The War to End All Wars

   Revelation 20:7-10 presents Armageddon in abridged form.  After the Millennium has elapsed, all the unrighteous from Cain to those who fell dead following Judgment Day will be resurrected:  The second resurrection that Daniel (Daniel 12:12), Jesus (John 5:29), Paul (Acts 24:15) and Revelation 20:6 [“second death”] talk about.  We are then told that Satan “deceives” them to wage one last war against Heaven’s enclave (Revelation 20:8), a text that leaves some gaps unanswered that we must fill from other sources.

   Obviously the world has undergone great changes (Revelation 16:18-20↔Psalms 18:15; Isaiah 13:13, 24:18-21); and Revelation 20:9, “They went up over the width of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city,” suggests a battlefield unlike any other in history.  The “beloved city” has got to be the Heavenly Jerusalem, which will not descend upon earth until after Armageddon has been fought and everything from land to cosmos has been made anew (Revelation 21:1-3,10).  If we remember that Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36↔Revelation 19:16), and that the natural and the spiritual cannot coexist on the same plane (1Corinthians 15:46), it goes without saying that a holy sanctuary like this City could not contaminate itself by coming into contact with Satan’s empire of death and corruption.

   So when Revelation 20:9 tells us that Satan’s army “surrounded” the Heavenly Jerusalem, what are we being told?  Not that the forces of evil actually closed in upon the City’s walls, but that they gathered below it while separated from it by some sort of ‘restricted airspace.’  We find this notion in Jesus’ parable about the rich man and the leper in Luke 16:19-31, where Abraham tells the rich man in the torment of Armageddon, [of which the Catholic notion of hell is a spin], “between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us” (Luke 16:26).

   We find then that in this parable, Abraham and the leper are staring down from Heaven onto those burning below, a vantage point previously introduced in Isaiah 14:16-17 and Ezekiel 28:17, where ‘kings’ looking down reference the redeemed in Heaven¹⁰ pondering about Satan’s fate during the Millennium.  Please note that both Isaiah 14:15, “you shall be brought down…to the depths of the pit,” and Genesis 7:11, “the fountains of the great abyss burst forth, and the floodgates of the sky were opened,” reference the same chasm between heaven and earth, established in Genesis 1:6-8 to separate the spiritual realm from the earthly one.

   But where specifically is Armageddon’s battlefield?  Zechariah 14:3-4 provides the answer:  “Then Yahweh will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fights on a day of battle.  In that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south.”  Where have we heard about this valley?  In Jeremiah 7:32:  “‘Days are surely coming’  says Yahweh, “when it will no more be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of Slaughter:  for they will bury in Topheth until there is no more room.”

   Topheth was located in the Valley of Hinnom, the Aramaic Gehenna referred to by Jesus in Matthew 10:28:  “Rather fear Him Who is able to destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.”  Who is Jesus talking about?  The Most High God Whose fire from Heaven will consume all adversaries (Hebrews 10:27,31; Revelation 20:9).  Pay attention to detail:  God is destroying both the soul and the body, meaning the unrighteous resurrected during the second resurrection and who will undergo a second death at Armageddon (Revelation 20:5-6)—all of which prove false Catholicism’s dogmas of Purgatory and Hell as destinations for disembodied souls.

   Now the Valley of Hinnom surrounded Jerusalem on the west and southwest, and Topheth was the location therein where child sacrifices were offered to the god Moloch.  To the east of Jerusalem was the Valley of Jehoshaphat [Heb., ‘Yahweh shall judge/has judged,’ now known as the Valley of the Kidron], the place where the fates of nations will be decided (Joel 3:2,12,14; Zechariah 14:2).  The Mount of Olives sits on the east side of Jerusalem across the Kidron Valley; according to Zechariah, this mount will split across from east to west, so that the northern half will move north and the southern half will move south, creating between them the valley of Slaughter where Satan’s armies will be incinerated.  Again detail:  There has been much talk about a nuclear confrontation concerning Israel; but in these prophecies, Scripture is telling us that Armageddon will be waged in an area which does not yet exist.

   What essentially do we have here?  The familiar methodology of Scripture:  Historical events in real-life locations [shadow] foreshadowing the defining future event of mankind [substance]:  The end of the present order as we know it and the permanent eradication of evil.  Men worshipped Moloch at Hinnom?  God will burn Moloch and his worshippers nearby.  Satan led Judas to betray Jesus on the Mount of Olives?  What better place to exact payback from Satan and all of His Son’s betrayers?

   Joel 3:2 reads, “I will gather all the nations [by allowing Satan to do so (Revelation 20:8)] and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat, and I will enter into judgment with them there.”  Why Jehoshaphat?  To link us back to the battle of 2Chronicles 20, where this king of Judah [Jesus’ tribe (Hebrews 7:14] and his people faced a vast army of enemy nations, yet did not have to wage the fight.  “Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army, for the battle does not belong to you, but to God…You need not fight this battle…Yahweh set ambushes against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir who had come against Judah, and they were defeated. The Ammonites and Moabites rose up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir [destroying them].  And when they had made an end to the inhabitants of Seir, they helped to destroy one another…When the men of Judah came to a place overlooking the wilderness, they looked for the vast army, but there were only corpses lying on the ground; no one had escaped” (2Chronicles 20:15,17,22-24).

   Bottom Line: Jesus and the redeemed will watch the destruction of their enemies from the ramparts of the Heavenly City (Psalms 58:9-11).  None of them needs spill human blood or take human life:  The Most High will take care of business.

   How do we know that some particulars of this battle match events at Armageddon?  Easily; first by the ‘weather report’ in Joel 3:15, “The sun and moon will grow dark, and the stars will stop shining,” which tallies with Zechariah 14:6-7’s, “On that day the sources of light will no longer shine.  It will be a unique day which is known to Yahweh—not day, and not night; but it will come to pass that at evening time there will be light”; and second, by the report of enemy forces killing themselves in Zechariah 14:13: “It will happen in that day that a great panic from Yahweh will be among them; and they will each seize the hand of his neighbor, and his hand will rise up against the hand of his neighbor.”

   We know that immediately before Jesus’ second coming, the cosmos will be disposed of (Isaiah 34:4, 51:6, Matthew 24:29; 2Peter 3:10; Revelation 6:12-14);¹¹ so that on that blackness Jesus’ rainbow will appear [no sun, folks!], the heavens will part open and unbelievers will run for cover when ‘non-existing’ Jesus appears very much alive (Matthew 24:30; Revelation 6:15-17).  Thus both Joel and Zechariah are talking about a future time when there will no longer be any celestial bodies illuminating earth.  Which begs the question about the “light” at evening time:  The fire from Heaven zapping enemy forces?  Possible, given Zechariah 14:12:  “This will be the plague with which Yahweh will strike all the peoples who have fought against Jerusalem:   their flesh will consume away while they stand on their feet, and their eyes will consume away in their sockets, and their tongue will consume away in their mouth.”  Which in turn reminds us of what?  “Pangs and sorrows will seize them. They will be in pain like a woman in labor.  They will look in amazement one at another.  Their faces will be faces of flame” (Isaiah 13:8), as well as Proverbs 5:11-14.

   One last point for the ‘science-minded’:  How can all the resurrected unrighteous since Cain fit inside the valley of Slaughter?  Well, the same way that seven pairs of clean animals and one pair of unclean ones from all the air-breathing species of the world fitted inside Noah’s Ark (Genesis 7:1,8,21-22).  Men think in terms of physical laws and realities; but for the One Who created such laws, for Whom nothing is impossible (Luke 1:37), subverting those laws must be child’s play.  How such impossibilities are accomplished we are not privy to; but the fact that Scripture goes out of its way to highlight them, which in some respects render it harder to believe, must in some way be God’s way of using faith to call science’s bluffs.

Closing Advice to the Wise

   In a way human wars are games of musical chairs:  Unseating opponents to occupy their places.  Leaders get the bulk of the spoils; fighters get different degrees of trickle-down perks—much like in Ponzi Schemes.  What men are asked to do in wars goes to the heart of Jesus’ question:  “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life?  Or what will a man give in exchange for his life” (Matthew 16:26)?—though here he was talking about immortal life being forfeited for the sake of earthly glory.  And even to Paul’s in Romans 6:16:  “Don’t you know that when you present yourselves as servants and obey someone, you are the servants of whomever you obey, whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness?”  A choice must be made between obeying God or men, leading to mutually exclusive outcomes (Romans 6:23).

   Nevertheless that choice is an individual one and the onus of the person who makes it; this does not preclude us from being sensible about it.  When rallying behind leaders, show preference for equal-pay (Matthew 20:13-15), profit-sharing (Romans 8:17; 2Timothy 2:12-14) compensators like Jesus (Matthew 20:13-15) rather than ‘me first, last, and only’ egocentrics like Satan. For any human being prioritizing ‘number one’ over supporters more than likely regards them as strings of zeroes.

¹ This “mount” is stock and parcel of several prophecies, both in symbolic and factual forms.  It is the symbolic stone that toppled Nebuchadnezzar’s statue and became a great mountain which filled the whole Earth (Daniel 2:35)—meaning both the kingdom of God and the actual mountain atop which the Heavenly Jerusalem, God’s dwelling place on earth, will sit in a new order of things (Isaiah 2:2-3, 11:9, 56:7; Revelation 21:1-3,10).

   The fact that this mountain fills the whole earth jibes with Revelation 21:1:  There was no longer any sea.  Since all bodies of water in the natural world eventually empty into the sea, and they are symbols “for peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues” (Revelation 17:15) separated by the sea, any sea no longer plays a role in a kingdom where human barriers no longer exist.  The objectives here are unity and oneness in God (Galatians 3:28; Ephesians 4:3-6).

   But there is another way of looking at this.  Both Isaiah (14:13-14) and Ezekiel (28:14) speak of this mount as if existing above the visible world, in Heaven “in the sides of the north” (Isaiah 14:13-14).  North from where in Heaven is an open question; but there is no doubt that the Holy Spirit, through Isaiah, is telling us that such a mountain now exists.  If we look up we see nothing; the James Webb Space Telescope registers nothing; but then neither we nor it see the “storehouses of the hail” which God has reserved for the day of battle and war (Job 38:22-23; Revelation 11:19, 16:21).

   We are told they are up there, just as the floodgates of heaven poured down and drowned the world of antiquity until they were closed again (Genesis 7:11, 8:2).  Which suggests what?  That what we perceive up there with our senses and instruments is not the whole picture; and that there is more to ‘reality’ that meets the eye.

² See the parable in Ezekiel 17.  The first eagle [standard symbol for angels (Matthew 24:28), collectors of the righteous at Jesus’ second coming (1Thessalonians 4:17); Revelation 8:13) is Yahweh of hosts, whose ‘plantings’ [i.e. men (Isaiah 5:7↔Psalms 92:12-14; Matthew 15:13)] turn away from him to reach out to Satan, the second eagle.

   How do we know this?  From the colorful feathers of the first eagle, evocative of Yahweh of hosts’ personal identifier:  the rainbow (Genesis 9:13; Ezekiel 1:28; Revelation 10:1).  Please note that the wings of the second eagle are not colored (Ezekiel 17:7).

³ Isaiah 22:15-24 bears witness to the division of power Satan finagled for himself, to be rescinded with his demotion following Jesus’ crucifixion (Matthew 28:18; Revelation 1:18).

⁴A third of the angelic host (Revelation 12:4)?

⁵ Do not fail to overlook the symbolism of trees used by Jotham in presenting his case against Abimelek (Judges 9:8-15).  Trees as symbols for men recur throughout Scripture (Isaiah 5:7, 60:21, 61:3; Ezekiel 31:3-6; Matthew 3:10, 15:13; Mark 8:24; Luke 23:31; Romans 11:16-24).  That being said, symbolic trees are also used to discourse on Satan’s hold over angels in Eden (Ezekiel 31:8-10,17-18). 

⁶ CONJECTURES:  An oblique reference to Quetzalcóatl, the flying, feathered serpent that was god to Mesoamerican cultures?  Or to sea-dwelling dragons of Asian cultures (Psalms 104:25-26; Isaiah 27:1; Ezekiel 29:3-4), with body parts of unclean animals—i.e., shrimp-like eyes, dog-like noses, whiskers like those of catfish, manes similar to lions’, snake-like tails, scales like a fish, and claws like a hawk (Leviticus 11:10-19,27,41)?  Dragons were also thought to control the weather—those natural catastrophes called ‘acts of God’?

   Since all the world was populated by descendants of Noah’s children (Genesis 10:5,32), and with Mosaic norms practiced in Genesis [Genesis 4:4, 7:2], orally transmitted post-Flood yet codified in Leviticus, could it not be possible that clean/unclean animal attributes found expression—albeit in corrupted forms—in gods across world mythologies (Romans 1:19-23)?

⁷ Which set the stage for the return of Jesus’ nation (1Peter 2:9-10; Revelation 5:9-10) to the true Promised Land from the east (Joshua 3↔Revelation 16:12; Ezekiel 44:1-2; Micah 2:3). 

⁸ In customary Scriptural fashion, the name Yahweh is interchangeably used to refer to Yahweh the Most High King, Jesus’ Father, and Yahweh of hosts the Redeemer, Jesus himself (Isaiah 44:6↔Exodus 23:20-21).  Since by his later admission Jesus imitates what he sees the Father do (John 5:19), it is not surprising that Yahweh of hosts acts in ways similar to Yahweh the Most High.

   Note John’s remark that Jesus’ voice sounded like the roar of many waters (Revelation 1:15), which not only links us back to Daniel 10:6 but also to Ezekiel 1:24:  “When they went, I heard the noise of their wings like the noise of great waters, like the voice of the Almighty, a noise of tumult like the noise of an army.”

   The point behind all these similes is that Jesus’ voice sounded thunderous; but most significantly than the Almighty referred  to by Ezekiel was Almighty Son, Yahweh of hosts (Revelation 1:8), and not Almighty Father, Yahweh the King (Isaiah 44:6).  Jesus is Almighty by virtue of divine empowerment and personal merit (Matthew 28:18↔Isaiah 22:15-23; Revelation 1:18), which is the reason why both Father and Son, both all-powerful, utter the same declaration:  I the first and I the last; I am the Alpha and the Omega (Isaiah 44:6; Revelation 1:8,17-18, 22:13).   Which does not mean they are the same person:  Jesus has a God he is subordinated to (John 7:16, 12:49; 1Corinthians 15:24-28; Revelation 3:12) but the Most High knows no higher up (Deuteronomy 32:29; Isaiah 44:8, 45:5). 

   In Isaiah 37:16 Hezekiah is praising Yahweh the Most High, Who alone is God over all the kingdoms of the earth (Daniel 5:21).  Obviously He sits higher than the angels who attend and surround Him.  No man has seen God’s form (John 5:37); and the only feature Scripture highlights is His white hair, symbolic of His agelessness (Daniel 7:9,13).  Daniel describes His throne and the Cherubim [“wheels”] moving Him about as if made of fire, which links us both to Ezekiel 1:13↔Ezekiel 28:14 [“fiery stones”] and Hebrews 1:7.  However, Ezekiel is referencing Yahweh of hosts, not the Most High Yahweh.

   Therefore, Yahweh of hosts comes not in a spaceship as is so foolishly argued, but enthroned above Cherubim like the Most High is (1Samuel 4:4).  We know this because of the rainbow surrounding the throne (Ezekiel 1:28), Yahweh of hosts’ identifying sign given Noah (Genesis 9:13); a reminder to him of the eternal covenant between the Most High and men that Abraham’s family of faith would endure (Genesis 9:15-16).  Again, this Yahweh is speaking to Noah and his children directly (Genesis 9:1), so he could not have been the never heard Most High (John 5:37).  And to confirm the rainbow as emblematic of the Angel God, Yahweh of hosts/Jesus, we have Revelation 10:1.

   But that is not all.  Yahweh’s description in Ezekiel’s (1:26-27) matches Daniel 10:5-6’s and Revelation 1:13-16’s, with the added connection of the crippling effect his presence has on Daniel (10:8) and John (Revelation 1:17)—a device previously used to connect his manifestation to Moses (Exodus 3:5) and Joshua (5:15).  Note that in Exodus the God inside the burning bush is the Angel God of the Patriarchs (Exodus 3:2,6↔Genesis 48:15-16), whereas in Joshua he is presented as the Prince/Commander of the heavenly host↔Isaiah 9:6.  Again, this Yahweh speaks directly to Moses and Joshua.

    Revelation 1:14 adds a touch:  The Son is depicted as sharing the Father’s white hair, which should not surprise us since he is the image of the Invisible God (Colossians 1:15); and insofar as hair, eyes, noses, torso, feet, etc., are concerned, these are the self-same features they chose to impress upon Adam, who was made in their image (Genesis 1:26).

⁹As stated before, Jesus was on earth when he witnessed Satan’s fall (Luke 10:18); so he could not have been the Michael in Heaven victorious over Satan’s army (Revelation 12:7).  Because in Zechariah 3:1-2 Moses’ advocate was the Archangel Michael (Jude 1:9), yet he is called Yahweh therein, a misconception exists that Yahweh of hosts, the pre-existent Jesus, and the Archangel Michael are one and the same person.  But Daniel 10:13,21 puts that notion to rest:  Daniel’s interlocutor was none other than Yahweh of hosts (Daniel 10:5-6↔Revelation 1:13-15); and he was talking about Michael as his subordinate, aide-de-camp.

   Again Yahweh of hosts/Jesus was imitating His Father’s methodology (John 5:19).  Yahweh the Most High chose His only begotten Angel/Son, Yahweh of hosts/Jesus (Psalms 2:7; Colossians 1:15; Revelation 3:14), to be His mediator between Him and men (1Timothy 2:5).  Likewise the Angel God Yahweh of hosts chose Moses, one of Jesus’ harbingers (Deuteronomy 18:15↔John 5:46), to be the mediator between him and Aaron (Exodus 4:16); so that when it came to a second-in-command in Heaven, Yahweh of hosts chose Michael as his advocate to plead Moses’ cause (Zechariah 3:1-2↔Jude 1:9).  That Zechariah calls Michael “Yahweh” follows the pattern between Father and Son (Exodus 23:21).

   Please note that in Zechariah 3:4-6 Michael is called an angel; and that from Zechariah 3:7-10, he is quoting what he heard directly from Yahweh of hosts.  This face-to-face exchange between Master and obedient servant is exactly what took place between Father and Son (John 12:19) and between Yahweh of hosts and Moses (Exodus 33:11; Numbers 12:8; Deuteronomy 34:10).

¹⁰See Revelation 5:10.

¹¹Scripture’s way of indicating there are no inhabited worlds or extraterrestrial life anywhere in the universe; not only because it would be unjust to destroy them if not corrupted by Satan, who is delimited to our planet, but also because if the cosmos can be removed as prophesied, what scientific instruments perceive it to be cannot be the real thing.  This dismissive attitude jibes with Paul’s advice to avoid the snare of scientific discussions (1Timothy 6:20-21); though it may also be God’s tit-for-tat against enlightened minds who pooh-pooh His unempirical faith (2Thessalonians 2:11-13; Hebrews 11:1,6).