The Spirit of Death?

Are there spirits of death?


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GoldenKingGaze

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In angelology and demonology, is there a spirit of death or spirits, a kingdom of death or is death a force in the universe like entropy, not of God?

Is death of God or Satan?

Does death depend on fallen Lucifer, from inception to now and onwards? Depending on this fallen angel, never relenting?

Are there spirits of death that are not fallen angels?

Who was the angel of death in Exodus, acting on the first born in Egypt?

Looking at the Pascal Mystery, Jesus victory over darkness and death and 1 Corinthians 15:55. Apostle Paul speaking to death.
 

The Liturgist

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This is a complex subject. Some theologians in the traditional churches have regarded death as a mercy so that human beings would not exist in perpetuity in our fallen state (note that this was not an argument for annhilationism), but ultimately there is a connection between death and evil. “The wages of sin are death.” Since humans sin continuously, we continuously sign our own death warrant, but since God the Holy Trinity is infinitely merciful, being a perpetual union of three uncreated persons, God conquered death through the Father allowing His only begotten Son and Word, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, to take on our entire human nature, sanctify it, and by rising from the dead, trampling down death by death.

We must rejoice in this rather than embarking in the novel theology of dispensationalists and chiliasts like Hal Lindsay, who argued in one book of his I read, distastefully, that Satan is the ruler of this world, an idea which from the perspective of the early Church, is deeply wrong; the devil is our adversary and tempts us, but God permits this for our benefit, and the devil has already been defeated and the Paschal Homily of St. John Chrysostom, which is such a good sermon it is preached in every Eastern Orthodox church on Pascha, St. Chrysostom describes Hell as despoiled. Christ is the Lord of Lords and King of Kings; his reign endureth forever, whereas sin and death will cease through the providential guidance of God, the ministrations of His angels, and the intercession of the Church Triumphant, the Saints in Heaven, especially our blessed Lady Theotokos, the ever virgin Mary, who was chosen to give birth to God.

Now regarding your question, in Exodus an “angel of death” occurs in the first Passover striking down the firstborn of the Egyptians so that Israel would be freed. This should be interpreted as prophecy for the supreme Passover, when the Uncreated Firstborn of all Creation, God the Son, allows himself to be put to death in order to put death itself to death. Thus, without denying the historicity of Exodus, like all of the Old Testament, it contains a prophecy of the Gospel: the Egyptians in this case represent death, the consequences of the sins of the sons of Israel; a Paschal lamb representing Christ is slaughtered, and his flesh and blood, representing the Eucharist, nourishes the Israelites. Just as through the Pasch the Israelites were freed from bondage to the consequences of their sins, the Egyptian subjugation, we at Pascha, or Easter, and every time we celebrate the Eucharist, participate in Christ’s victory over death, partaking of His body and blood in order to be freed from the consequences of our sins, enslavement to death, and instead become sojourners in this world on our way across Sinai, learning from God and being prepared to be taken by Him, and then raised again unto life everlasting in the Promised Land, the World to Come.

I can’t figure out which answer to your question would be correct, because since death is a consequence of evil, which I believe to be destruction as a result of disobeying God, and thus identical to sin, we cannot say God created it. Nor am I even comfortable saying that God uses it, although He has struck down evildoers, this is not an annhilation and another belief of the early church, the Harrowing of Hell, teaches that Christ led out of Hades any souls who desired salvation, after preaching, so really God is the destruction of death, an inevitable consequence of free will (or human nature, for those of a Reformed determinist view) which the entire Economy of Salvation, one of two central action of God for humanity, the other being our Creation, delivers us from. God created us to live forever and has provided the means for our perfection, our theosis, and Christ commands us to be perfect even as our Heavenly Father is perfect. It seems reasonable that God, being perfect, has set us on a perfect trajectory eschatologically speaking.

The idea of a war between life and death however is a borrowing from Zoroastrianism, and entered Christianity through Gnosticism, and we have to flush it out, because the victory of life is not a future event but already happened in 33 AD. Since that time Christians, and perhaps, we can pray, everyone else*, has simply been making an exodus from corruption to paradise.

*We can hope and pray, and probably should pray, for the salvation of all men, and indeed this is one of the first petitions in the Litany of Peace that opens the Byzantine and Armenian liturgies and has also found its way into Lutheranism and occasionally Anglicanism. This is a hope for what the theologians of the early church called Apokatastasis, the restoration of all things. It is wrong however to assert that all must be saved because it negates the principle of free will; some people would chose to reject God. CS Lewis explained this particularly poignantly with his statement “the gates of Hell are locked on the inside” and explores this theme poignantly in his Christian novella, The Great Divorce, which I think will be remembered among the best works of Christian literature, reminding people of Patristic theology as expressed in the writings of the Cappodacians and St. Athanasius, the hymns of St. Ephrem, and the homilies of St. John Chrysostom. It is not a technical work of theology like the Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas or The Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith by St. John of Damascus, or CS Lewis’s own brilliant masterpiece Mere Christianity, but rather a reflection on the addictive properties of sin and why people might chose, or from a Calvinist or determinist perspective, be so depraved, in either case owing to a lack of the grace of the Holy Spirit, as to return to Hell or remain therein even when presented with the opportunity to ascend. But the early church also tended to believe in prayers for the dead, which most traditional churches today practice.

I have come to adopt a non-Calvinist approach but in the case of my response to this eschatological question determinism is not an impediment, and thus I sought to write this reply to accomodate Calvinist contributors to the Traditional Theology forum like our dear friend @hedrick , who is also well versed in Patristics and the Traditional Theology of the early church.
 
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hedrick

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I’ll give you Calvin’s view, from a commentary. God never intended humans to live on this earth forever. If Adam hadn’t fallen, humans would have moved into eternity in a positive way. Because of that fall, the nature of the passing changed, to something painful, to be feared. So there’s a sense in which God created death, but not death as it is now. While I consider the Fall mythological, I think there’s something to this.

While a war between life and death may be Zoroastrian, Paul saw sin and death as in some sense powers, to be defeated by God.
 
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GoldenKingGaze

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There then is the question, of Lucifer, and his attempt to become equal to God, by himself or by stealing from God, or by somehow obtaining God's power, in that creating death for God? Or God punished Lucifer with death? Death was there before the great fall, or it is a curse by the works of fallen angels?

From the Gospel:
Come He sent His Son, we will kill Him and the vineyard will be ours.
 
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GoldenKingGaze

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I’ll give you Calvin’s view, from a commentary. God never intended humans to live on this earth forever. If Adam hadn’t fallen, humans would have moved into eternity in a positive way. Because of that fall, the nature of the passing changed, to something painful, to be feared. So there’s a sense in which God created death, but not death as it is now. While I consider the Fall mythological, I think there’s something to this.

While a war between life and death may be Zoroastrian, Paul saw sin and death as in some sense powers, to be defeated by God.
Sin originates with Lucifer or Heylel.
 
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