Who is Lucifer?

The word name is defined as, “The title by which anyone is known.” Satan is a name that means “adversary” in Hebrew. The name Lucifer is used in Isaiah 14:12, and is synonymous with “shining one.” The Douglas New Bible Dictionary states, “The similarity of the description with that of passages such as Luke 10:18 and Revelation 9:1 has led to the application of the title Lucifer to Satan.”

The Watchtower Society, however, has introduced “new light” which contradicts the long-standing Christian belief that the name Lucifer refers to Satan. In the September 15, 2002 issue of the Watchtower (p. 30), the Society says that because the subject of Isaiah 14:12 is a “proverbial saying against the king of Babylon,” then “clearly, ‘Lucifer’ refers to a human, not to a spirit creature.”

Certainly, the Babylonian king may have had some of the same aspirations and qualities as Satan. The similarity between the two is highlighted in Isaiah 14:13-14, which says, “You said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” However, the one actually making these blasphemous statements cannot be the king of Babylon. The king of Babylon has never “fallen from heaven,” or “been cast down to earth,” as Isaiah 14:12 describes. In other words, what the king of Babylon said in his heart that he would do, Satan had already tried to do.

Ezekiel 28:1-2, 11-17 is another comparison of Satan with an earthly ruler. These verses state, “The word of the LORD came to me; ‘Son of man, say to the ruler of Tyre, this is what the Sovereign LORD says: In the pride of your heart you say, I am a god; I sit on the throne of a god in the heart of the seas…” Ezekiel 28:11 continues the lament to the king of Tyre: “You were a model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty, you were in Eden, the garden of God…You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for I so ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God…Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth.”

While it may be true that the king of Tyre aspired to be a god and to sit on the throne of God, he was never anointed as a guardian cherub in the Garden of Eden, nor was there ever a time when he was on the holy mount of God. Satan, however, had been in the Garden of Eden and he had been on the holy mount of God. He is also the one who had been thrown down to earth. Jesus verified the fact that Satan had been cast down when he said in Luke 10:18, “I saw Satan fall like lightening from heaven.”

The similarity of the statements made in Isaiah and Ezekiel, together with Jesus’ own words in Luke, make a much stronger case for the conclusion that the name Lucifer is, in fact, a name describing the spirit creature known as Satan.