I was listening to an interview of the author of a new book called “The Lucifer Effect“. It’s a study of how good people turn evil. I’m sure it’s interesting and whatever, but it got me thinking - what is so bad about Lucifer?

Here’s the story of Him from Isaiah:

When the Lord has given you rest from your pain and turmoil and the hard service with which you were made to serve, you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon: How the oppressor has ceased! How his insolence has ceased! … How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit on the mount of assembly on the heights of Zaphon; I will ascend to the tops of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High.” But you are brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the Pit. Those who see you will stare at you, and ponder over you: “Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world like a desert and overthrew its cities, who would not let his prisoners go home?”

The prisoner thing excepted, I think that’s wonderful. It’s brilliant (he is the light bringer after all). Compare it to Rudyard Kipling’s ‘If’:

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And - which is more - you’ll be a Man, my son!

While ‘If’ is a favourite poem of positive thinkers, I’d imagine that most of them would reject any comparison of that and the story of Lucifer. But walking with kings, dreaming, and fighting on even in when you’ve lost - those are common between the two stories.

What’s greater than a being so confident of himself that he would challenge God for his throne, that he would stand up to that tyrant, shake nations - and lose - and still strive every day to take his rightful place as master of the universe? Think about it, unlike the bearded tyrant, Lucifer never makes his will reality, he never perverts nature to his desires, he never judges men for the failure of His own design, he convinces men, he tempts them, but what is important, is that he does this by respecting all that is human in them. Who is the better role model - the ambitious fallen angel, or the butcher of Sodom?

I always thought that it was plausible that if the bible were non-fiction, then it was written by the real devil (Jehovah), who in spite of all the hate he heaps on Lucifer, can’t hide the angel’s fundamental decency and justice - and of course, can’t hide his own perversion.