hority of Holy Scripture, that the Being who is
known among men as Jesus of Nazareth, and by all who acknowledge His
Godhood as Jesus the Christ, existed with the Father prior to birth in
the flesh; and that in the preexistent state He was chosen and ordained
to be the one and only Savior and Redeemer of the human race.
Foreordination implies and comprizes preexistence as an essential
condition; therefore scriptures bearing upon the one are germane to the
other; and consequently in this presentation no segregation of evidence
as applying specifically to the preexistence of Christ or to His
foreordination will be attempted.

John the Revelator beheld in vision some of the scenes that had been
enacted in the spirit-world before the beginning of human history. He
witnessed strife and contention between loyalty and rebellion, with the
hosts defending the former led by Michael the archangel, and the
rebellious forces captained by Satan, who is also called the devil, the
serpent, and the dragon. We read: "And there was war in heaven; Michael
and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his
angels."[4]

In this struggle between unembodied hosts the forces were unequally
divided; Satan drew to his standard only a third part of the children of
God, who are symbolized as the "stars of heaven";[5] the majority either
fought with Michael, or at least refrained from active opposition, thus
accomplishing the purpose of their "first estate"; while the angels who
arrayed themselves on the side of Satan "kept not their first
estate",[6] and therefore rendered themselves ineligible for the
glorious possibilities of an advanced condition or "second estate".[7]
The victory was with Michael and his angels; and Satan or Lucifer,
theretofore a "son of the morning", was cast out of heaven, yea "he was
cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him".[8] The
prophet Isaiah, to whom these momentous occurrences had been revealed
about eight centuries prior to the time of John's writings, laments with
inspired pathos the fall of so great a one; and specifies selfish
ambition as the occasion: "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer,
son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst
weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascent
into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit
also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I