In his book Ancient Paganism, author and theologian Ken Johnson believes Lucifer ultimately became insane, blinded by his own beauty, power, wisdom and self-deceit. The way Johnson explains it actually makes a good deal of sense.

The Bible tells us Lucifer was literally the anointed cherub. He had more power and authority than other cherubs in his class. He was the chief of the angelic host and biblical scholars believe he led the heavenly choir and other things as well. The Bible tells us that he was essentially perfect until the day iniquity was found in him (Ezekiel 28:15).

The natural question then is what exactly caused Lucifer to begin to believe his own lies and how did he come up with those lies since no one appeared to tempt him as he did to Eve? What prompted him to turn from what was perfection?

Johnson asks, "What happened? How could a being created perfect suddenly, on his own, become corrupted and utterly sinful? In spite of all the riches and power he had, he wanted more. Ezekiel tells us he was corrupted by his own wisdom."[1]

So unless we are missing something about Lucifer that the Bible does not reveal (where some other entity acted against Lucifer to tempt him), we can assume that Lucifer became deceived by his own wisdom, intelligence and the lies he created. What is significant here is that in spite of all that he had - power, glory, anointing, etc. - none of it was good enough for Lucifer. In his eyes, he needed to reach for something more and the only thing beyond him was God Himself. Reminds me of another group of individuals in this life now attempting to direct world affairs and we'll talk about them next time.

Satan's self-deceit has to do with what is called the Doctrine of Emanations. Johnson explains this is based on the teachings of the Jewish Kabbala. Interestingly enough, it is also the foundational teaching of the modern New Age movement, as well as every other pagan religion. Here's how it works.

...if God created 100 billion people and put His spirit into each one of them, at that point the Bible would say God is still 100% God and Man is 0% God. Lucifer, on the other hand, would say at that point God might be, say, 47% God and all humans collectively would equate to 53% God.[2]

Think about that. Lucifer believed what was not true, but determined it to be true. Therefore, it was simply a matter of watching, waiting and working to overthrow God because the more God created, the less He became God, through the expenditure of His own energy and Spirit. This is biblically false, yet Satan is waiting and working to see that God becomes less and less God. So whenever Satan attempts to thwart God and loses, he still likely considers himself a winner.

More from Johnson.