God-Complex – Isaiah 14:3, 12-20

I had a fellow ask me how I would respond to someone who thought God had made a mistake when He created Satan.  Here is the sarcastic answer I gave:

We joke about God creating mosquitos by mistake, but somehow this question feels quite serious. After all, Satan is our arch enemy and the one who would destroy our soul. If God is so incompetent to create such a creature, then He isn’t much of a God. If He made that mistake, I don’t see how He can be trusted with anything. Never mind that He was brilliant enough to create a universe that has worked so perfectly and amazingly, or that He was smart enough to make the simply wondrous human being.  If He blundered in this area, then we are surely smarter than He is, just a little behind (well, a lot behind) the learning curve as far as figuring out how to make universes and other big stuff like that.

Isaiah prophesies about a man who had a God-complex like we can get.

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 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; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’

But you are brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches 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 did not let his prisoners go home?’  All the kings of the nations lie in glory, each in his own tomb; but you are cast out, away from your grave, like a loathed branch, clothed with the slain, those pierced by the sword, who go down to the stones of the pit, like a dead body trampled underfoot.  You will not be joined with them in burial, because you have destroyed your land, you have slain your people.  (Isaiah 14:3,12-20 ESV)

After Assyria conquered the northern kingdom of Israel and threatened Judah, a new super-power, Babylon, became powerful enough to overthrow Assyria.  Isaiah, writing before the rise of Babylon, predicted that Babylon would conquer Judah and send her into exile.  But here he paints the future deliverance of Israel from Babylon by describing the taunt song they will sing about the king of Babylon.

Using satire, those who return from exile will highlight how exalted the king of Babylon thought he was and how far he fell from power.  Like other kings of the day he viewed himself as a deity, hobnobbing with the gods in their assembly meetings on high.  But he ended up in Sheol, at once viewed as the grave where bodies rotted and the nether world where departed spirits roamed.

Other kings whom he overthrew will also taunt him from their perch in Sheol.  Though their bodies are honored in sacred graves, the king of Babylon’s body is dishonored with no grave because of his evil and destructive life.

Some have interpreted this song as being about Satan and his fall from heaven, but the passage clearly says it is about the king of Babylon and calls him a man (v16).  However, this king’s self-exaltation is actually the belief of all who rebel against God, Satan being merely the first.  We want to be our own God, ruling our own lives as we see fit.  We often arrogantly put ourselves on a par with Him, even superior to Him, when we question the wisdom of what He has done and believe we could have done better.

Discussion Questions

1. What is the highest in elevation you have been (excluding a plane ride)?
2. How do you explain that so many world rulers have represented themselves as gods?  Do they really believe it or is it a conceit to get more submission from their people?
3. What world rulers can you think of who did not experience a big fall from power?
4. Why does God not permit the ruler of Babylon to received honor in his grave?
5. How is Satan’s attitude similar to men like the king of Babylon?
6. How have you at times felt you knew more or better than God about something?