A third of the angels fell too…
Doug
As you might imagine, I have something to say about this too,
Let pretend for a minute that only 1% of all creation followed Satan into abject destruction.
Now, let's look at the pertinent verses in
Rev 12:
4 And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth.
Then later we learn,
7 And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war, 8 and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. 9 And the great dragon was thrown down, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
First I point out that all these sinful people were
FLUNG, THROWN DOWN to the earth. The word for flung or thrown down is
balló: To throw, cast, put, place and is the same word used both verses 4 and 9,
to fling down. Checking the commentaries on these verses I find that this throwing down involves some hostility, animosity and violence as you might assume when the holy Army of GOD threw Satan down to the earth but which we should look at more closely to the 1/3 of angels that Satan flung down in verse 4.
Why would Satan, just before the most important fight in his life when he needed them the most, hatefully and violently cast down so many sinful angels??? They must have been sinful or he would have no power over them and they would have been fighting with YHWH against him. So why reject them as fighters in his war???
No one has ever suggested a better idea than these sinful angels were the elect who fell into sinful rebellion over YHWH's contention that the Satanic reprobate must be banished to hell for the sake of HIS heavenly family...
Thus they were indeed sinful but they were no supporters of Satanism having put their free will faith (ie, pre-sin) in YHWH as their GOD and Saviour and as
Jn 3:18 tells us,
no believer is condemned for their sin, ie they fit the aspect of the elect.
SO, while we have 1/3 of the angels under satanic control for sinfulness we just might NOT have them as damned and joining him in hell!!!
Possibly as few as only 1% of creation is hell bound, NOT 1/3 of all of creation or even 1/3 of all of the angels !!!
So now you can speculate on how big or small the number of people in hell might be but at least over 1/3 of sinners will join us in the heavenly marriage!!!!
As to where on or in the earth we are while we wait for our time to be sown into mankind, there are fewer clues but we do have the teaching of
Ps 9:17 Berean Standard Bible
The wicked will RETURN to Sheol—all the nations who forget God. This tells us that the reprobate people of the evil one,
Matt 13:36-39,
RETURN to Sheol when they die as humans to where they were held before being sown into the earth into mankind. Other verses say believers join GOD in heaven at death without any reference to where they waited for their turn as men but this is quite clear about the reprobate.
And, for those who only read the kjv, their rendition of shuub as
to turn aside into is the opposite of
to return which is the only way shuub is used in the rest of the kjv references to this word.