Did God create Devil

Did God create a devil?
What does the Bible actually teach?To find out let's look back to the very beginning. Open your Bible to Genesis 1:1. "In the beginning God ...." God was before all. The next word in the King James version is "created." "God created." He created the heaven and the earth.But the very next verse says this: "The earth was without form, and void." The Hebrew words for "without form, and void" are tohu and bohu. Translated into English they mean chaotic, in confusion, waste,and empty.When God created the heaven and the earth, did He create this earth originally in a state of confusion? Did He create it all topsy-turvy and chaotic?I Corinthians 14:33 that "God is NOT the author of confusion."Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened [margin, "sunk"]? or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" (Job 38:4-7.)Notice Isaiah 45:18. "Thus saith the Eternal that created the heavens;God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it,he created it not is vain." "In vain" is an inappropriate translation.In your Bible, if you have the marginal references, you will find inthe margin a preferable translation, "waste."In Genesis 19:26, the same Hebrew word hayah is used which is translated "was" in Genesis 1:2. (See also Genesis 2:7 and 9:15.) Andthere it is translated into the English word "became." In the firstthree chapters of the Bible, and many other places where you find theHebrew word hayah, in almost every case it denotes a condition that was different from a former condition. In other words, the earth"BECAME" chaotic. It had not always been that way. Plainly the word"was" (hayah) here has the meaning of "became." The Rotherham translation of Genesis 1:2, out of the original Hebrew language, is this: "Now the earth HAD BECOME waste and empty." It hadn't always been that way. In Jeremiah 4:23, Isaiah 34:11, and in other places in the Bible, you find the same words, tohu and bohu, meaning "chaotic"and "in confusion." In every case that condition is a result of sin.The original Hebrew word there is TOHU. This Hebrew word is the identical word used in Genesis 1:2, meaning "confusion," or"emptiness," or "waste" -- a result of disorder, a result of violation of law. In Isaiah 45:18 we have the plain statement that God created the earth NOT tohu, that is, not in confusion, not in disorder. But inGenesis 1:2, the earth was (because it had become) chaotic and in confusion! Then it became that way after it was created. Now, what could have caused that confusion -- that disorder? What sin could have wrecked the earth and brought it into the condition in which it was found in Genesis 1:2?Next, let's turn to II Peter 2:4: "For if God spared not the angels that sinned ...." Here is the sin of angels mentioned.Now read the next verse, "And spared not the old world," between Adam and Noah, "but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly."There it mentions the sins from Adam to Noah, and it mentions the physical destruction to the earth as a result of the flood, a chaotic,physical condition brought about on the earth by the sins of those men.Was there a chaotic condition brought about on the earth as a result of the sins of angels? The sin of the angels is mentioned first, and it occurred first! There was a devil already there in existence by the time Adam was created. So the sin of the angels happened before the creation of man.Now quickly turn over to Jude. In the sixth verse, you read this: "And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation [they had a place where they lived, a habitation, and state, and they left it], he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day." Notice! It is the sinning angels who are reserved in those chains under darkness,restrained from light, restrained from truth until the judgment of the great day.The devil is the leader of fallen angels, as you will find in a number of places (John 12:31; Matt. 12:26; 25:41; Rev. 12:9). In IICorinthians 4:4 the devil is called "the god of this world." He is the king or the prince of the evil world that we live in today Then in verse 12, the type -- this human king of Babylon -- lifts to the arch-antitype, Satan. Satan is to be removed and bound after the Messiah's coming. Ezekiel's prophecy, to be described later, reveals that he is the former archangel cherub, Lucifer.So continue, verse 12. "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer,son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High" (Isaiah 14:12-14). The 15th verse returns to the human king.Notice, this former archangel had been placed as ruler over the angels that sinned. He had a throne. He said he would exalt his throne above the stars (angels) of God. It already was exalted above the angels on earth -- the angels that sinned with him. Now he was going to exalt it over GOD'S ANGELS in heaven. He was going to invade God's heaven,knock God off the throne of the universe, and rule the whole universe!We learn much more about this cherub who became Satan in Ezekiel 28.Here, beginning verse 1, the human prince of Tyre is referred to,wealthy (chapter 27), surrounded by perfect beauty, saying in his vain heart, "I am a God," -- "I sit in the seat of God" (verse 2) --compare with II Thessalonians 2:3-4.Compare also Ezekiel 27:7 with Revelation 18:16. All these refer to the same system. However, Ezekiel 26 refers to the ancient Tyre, as a forerunner or type of the present and yet future system. Then, as in Isaiah 14, the human type lifts to the satanic antitype in Ezekiel 28:12:"Son of man, take up a lamentation [dirge] upon the king of Tyrus[Tyre] ...." The whole prophecy of chapters 27 and 28 refers, not to the ruler of the ancient city of Tyre (as does chapter 26), but to an important personage, in Satan's hand, of our time -- and immediate future -- just before the coming of the Messiah to remove Satan and bring in world peace. Therefore the prophecy points to the END of this great personage ruling spiritually over nations -- as well as to Satan's removal from swaying mankind on earth. Now, beginning with verse 12, and on to the middle of verse 17, it speaks of Satan himself.So, continue: "... And say unto him, Thus saith the Lord Eternal; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering... the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes [music] was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created."here was happiness, peace, joy on earth. Of Lucifer, the Moffatt translation reads: "From the day you were created, you lived a perfect life, till you were discovered doing wrong" (Ezek. 28:15). GOD DID NOT CREATE A DEVIL, but a beautiful, perfect superangel. But God did give to His angels free moral agency -- minds that were free to think and reason -- the right of free choice."Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so,"answers God. In Exodus 25:17-20, you will find the description of the very throne of God in heaven, from which He rules the entire vast limitless universe. On this throne are two cherubim -- superarchangels -- whose wings spread out and cover the throne. This personage, then, is the former Lucifer, who was at the very throne of the universe, thoroughly experienced in the Government of God over the universe. Now he is pictured as being on earth. But he had been,formerly, at the very throne of God, as the next words plainly say:"... Thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity [lawlessness] wast found in thee."