fallen angels
Definition
Fallen angels are spiritual beings originally created as holy angels but who fell from God through rebellion or sin. Biblical sources include Isa. 14:12-15 (the fall of Lucifer), Ezek. 28:12-19 (the fall of the cherub), Jude 6 (angels who abandoned their dwelling), Gen. 6:1-4 (the sons of God and daughters of men), and Rev. 12:7-9 (the dragon and his angels). In this corpus positions diverge on the identity, destiny, and ultimate reconciliation of fallen angels: Jones places them within his juridical framework of God’s ultimate sovereignty; Warnock emphasizes their current activity as instruments of darkness; Nee analyzes their strategy through the human spirit.
Uses per Author
Stephen Jones
Jones approaches fallen angels from his sovereignty theology: Satan is God’s creature, created for a specific purpose, and acts only with God’s permission. Jones makes a sharp distinction: Christ’s blood is for human beings, not angels; but God’s sovereignty will ultimately subordinate even the fallen angels:
“The fallen angels will be reconciled in the sense of being brought into subjection under God’s order — but they will not be justified or saved as humans are. Christ’s blood is for all men, not for Satan and demons. They undergo subjection, not salvation.”
(Creation’s Jubilee, Chapter 9)
Jones also discusses the Nephilim tradition (Gen. 6:1-4; Jude 6): the fallen angels who abandoned their habitation and transgressed the boundaries of their created order. This is for Jones the prototype of the spirit of rebellion that refuses to respect God’s ordained boundaries.
George Warnock
Warnock emphasizes that evil and darkness have no independent existence but are the product of the absence of God’s light and goodness. Fallen angels are not autonomous agents of evil but degenerated creatures:
“Demons are originally angels; evil is not an independent force alongside God but the absence of His light, goodness, grace, and love. Degeneration and corruption, not a second creative principle.”
(Who Are You?, Chapter 4)
Warnock connects Isa. 14 (the fall of the king of Babylon) with the original fall of Lucifer: pride and self-exaltation as the root cause. The fallen angels who fell with Satan now gather the nations for Armageddon (Rev. 16:14).
Watchman Nee & Witness Lee
Nee analyzes fallen angels from the perspective of the human spirit. The fallen human spirit is related to the fallen angelic spirit: both operate in the same spiritual dimension but now as allies of Satan:
“However dead this spirit may be toward God, it can remain as active as the mind or the body. Such persons are spiritual — active in the spiritual realm — through evil spirits, not through the Holy Spirit. The spirit of the fallen person is thus connected to Satan and his evil spirits.”
(The Spiritual Man, Part I, Chapter 2)
Cees Noordzij
Noordzij treats fallen angels through the figure of the “great dragon” (Rev. 12) as the systematic adversary of the sons of God in salvation history. The fallen angels operate through earthly powers:
“Demons tremble before Christ (Mark 3:11) — this shows His absolute authority over the fallen angelic world. The dragon and his angels are defeated but continue operating in the sphere of the present age.”
(Moses and the Way to Sonship, Chapter 8)