"But Ye Shall Die Like Men"

Have you ever wondered why God has not smote down the fallen angels, these "principalities" that rule the nations up to this time? So have I. So I conducted this little "thought experiment" as to why. Go back in time with me if you will to when God divorced Himself from the nations after the Nimrod-Babel debacle.

After the flood, human population increased over the face of the earth. Then we read in Gen 10:9 that this character Nimrod rose to be an impudent tyrant (as can be translated from the Hebrew "gibbor" and "paniym" - which are translated as "mighty" and "hunter" in the KJV), who cooked up the tower of Babel idea in defiance of the Creator. Long story short, the people were scattered and their language was confounded. After this event, we read about the table of nations assigned to the "children of Israel" in Deuteronomy 32:8. Apparently some scribes diddled with the Masoretic text here, because when the nations were divided after Babel, Israel did not exist yet. God's calling out of Abraham from Ur later was to create His own nation out of and separate from the nations which He had divorced Himself from. In the ESV (which is based on both the Septuagint and the Dead Sea scrolls) we read the verse rendered as:

"When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when He divided mankind, He fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God"

This is corroborated by Psalm 82:6. "Sons" or "children" of God always denote direct creations of God, like Adam and the angels. You and I, in the natural, are "sons" or "children" of men. As a short segue, something "technical" happens to those born again - they become sons of God.

Back to our story, we read in Psalms 82:7

"But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes."

To die like men means these are not men. These are heavenly beings who sit in the Divine Council with God (v1). We read these heavenly beings being upbraided by God in v2 for not doing the right thing as they ought to do. But why doesn't God just smite them right then and there? I'm going to suggest to you that God's calling on these divine beings  - just like with everyone else whom God calls - is without repentance. Which explains why these fallen angels are still released after their thousand year chastisement during the Lord's Millennial Reign - because their calling has not been revoked yet.

But this "ye shall die like men" prophecy, has this happened yet? Isaiah 14:13-16 alludes to Satan possessing a man (v16) who will be captured and killed in the great battle that precedes Christ's Millennial Reign. I'm going to suggest to you that these other fallen beings in the Divine Council will likewise possess leaders - "princes" - of this invasion who likewise suffer the same fate: they get to "die like men." Then they are bound a thousand years together with their ringleader.

Which explains why God rolls creation up "like a scroll" and burns it up "in fervent heat" after the fallen angels and the rebellious part of mankind are defeated in the final battle of Rev 20. This act breaks the "without repentance" aspect of the call of God to these beings, as we can parallel with God's condition for ending His call on Israel in Jeremiah 31:35-36 - when the sun and the stars will be no more. This view also explains why God is pictured as "inheriting" the nations in Psalm 82:8, even when He already owns everything. He had assigned them out to these heavenly beings, and His respecting this assignment despite their rebellion shows that God does not break or renege on His word. Which could also suggest that these beings fell after Babel (Satan clearly fell earlier).

This is not doctrine, OK, just a personal view of how the big picture could POSSIBLY look like. So, as before, take this with a grain of salt. This view may have nailed it, may have come to a close approximation of it, or might just be out in the field in the middle of nowhere. Grain of salt.