The Trees of The Garden of Eden

I want to talk about a few controversial issues related to the matter of the Trees of The Garden of Eden.

First, many Gap Theorists and Preterists believe it was not physical Death that began when Adam eat the forbidden fruit.  And they insist that him not dying within 24 hours is proof of that, since God said "in that day".  To answer that, I'll quote from Wikipedia.

Robert Alter emphasizes the point that when God forbids the man to eat from that particular tree, he says that if he does so, he is "doomed to die". The Hebrew behind this is in a form regularly used in the Hebrew Bible for issuing death sentences.^[4]

I also want to address what "Knowledge of Good and Evil" means.  First of all it's never called the "Tree of Knowledge" without qualification, it's a certain type of Knowledge.

Also from Wikipedia.

The phrase in Hebrew: טוֹב וָרָע, tov wa-raʿ, literally translates as good and evil. This may be an example of the type of figure of speech known as merism, a literary device that pairs opposite terms together in order to create a general meaning, so that the phrase "good and evil" would simply imply "everything". This is seen in the Egyptian expression evil-good, which is normally employed to mean "everything". In Greek literature, Homer also uses the device when he lets Telemachus say, "I know all things, the good and the evil" (Od.20:309-10).^[1]

This seems to only further back up the perception that this narrative is vilifying knowledge.  But other Bible passages encourage learning, like Paul saying 'Study and be diligent".  Or the entire book of Proverbs.

Another detail from Wikipedia.

In Rashi's notes on Genesis 3:3, the first sin came about because Eve added an additional clause to the Divine command: "Neither shall you touch it". By saying this, Eve added to YHWH's command and thereby came to detract from it, as it is written: Do not add to His Words (Proverbs 30:6).  

I wish I'd known this when I wrote my "Yea Hath God Said" study.

Biblically the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil doesn't come up again outside of Genesis 2 and 3.  The Tree of Life does, but still rather rarely.

Most notably is it coming up in Revelation, in chapter 2 verse 7, and a a few times in chapter 22, verses 2 and 14.  Where it is seemingly depicted as something only those in New Jerusalem have access to, which becomes the foundation of the Conditional Immortality doctrine.

Problem with that doctrine is as special as the Tree is, nothing here says only those Eating from it live forever.  At the same time contrary to popular assumption some access to it may be available to those not permanently living in New Jerusalem.  It's leaves are for "the Healing of the Nations", plural, New Jerusalem is one Nation, the Kingdom Jesus rules directly.  It could be only Citizens of the City can eat the Fruit, but the Leaves are for all.

Genesis 3:22 implies the Tree of Life could have prolonged Adam's life after he'd fallen.  But I don't see that as proof that was it's main purpose.  Clinging to this idea frankly can lead to a conclusion that even Yahuah's immortality is dependent on The Tree.

Proverbs (3:18; 11:30; 13:12; 15:4) uses the term "Tree of Life" but in English at least it seems to not be refereed to with a definite article.  Most interesting is that Wisdom is called "a Tree of Life".  I have been of two minds about who Wisdom is, I've viewed her both as The Holy Spirit, and as Jesus.  Since those two are ultimately the same since I believe in The Trinity, that distinction isn't to important.

There are other ways the word translated Life in reference to this Tree has been translated.  The same word is used to call Yahuah the Living God in Deuteronomy 5:26.  Going back to Proverbs, and the perception that the Genesis narrative is calling knowledge bad.  Perhaps the Tree of Life is the Tree of Divine Wisdom.

There is a theory out there that the Tree of Life and Tree of Knowledge are the same.  Genesis 2:9, could be read that way, as the "and" doesn't have a direct basis in the Hebrew, it could be describing two titles for the same Tree.  I at first saw Genesis 3:22 as an obvious problem for that.  However the word "also" can also mean again.  So maybe it could still be read as referring to only one Tree, and God wanting to prevent continued eating of the Tree while Adam was in his fallen state.

Taken again from Wikipedia.

According to the one-tree theory proposed by Karl Budde, in his critical research of 1883, he outlined that there was only one tree in the body of the Genesis narrative and it qualified in two ways: one as the tree in the middle of the Garden, and two as the forbidden tree. Claus Westermann gave recognition to Budde's theory in 1976.^[4]
Ellen van Wolde noted in her 1994 survey that among Bible scholars "the trees are almost always dealt with separately and not related to each other” and that “attention is almost exclusively directed to the tree of knowledge of good and evil, whereas the tree of life is paid hardly any attention."^[5]

Interestingly the idea of both Trees being the same seems to be the Islamic view.

See also: Tree of life (Quran)

The Quran never refers to the tree as the "Tree of the knowledge of good and evil" but rather typically refers to it as "the tree" or (in the words of Iblis) as the “tree of immortality”.^[18] Muslims believe that when God created Adam and Eve, He told them that they could enjoy everything in the Garden but this tree, and so, Satan appeared to them and told them that the only reason God forbade them to eat from that tree is that they would become Angels or become immortals.

 In the Quran Allah does not refer to it directly as the tree of life or immortality. He only referred to it as the tree; Satan was the one who called it the tree of immortality to trick Adam and Eve.

I'm not sure entirely what to make of all this.  But I feel I have firmly drilled holes in the logic of both Conditional Immortality and the notion that Physical Death was always something Adam was capable of.

If they are the same Tree, why was eating it bad then but not in the Future when we're Resurrected?

Possibly because we'll have been cleansed of Sin in The Blood of Jesus by then.  That the "knowledge" in question wasn't knowledge we were never meant to have, Adam and Eve just weren't ready for it yet.  Remember God knew what was going to happen.

But I'm still ultimately undecided.

The False doctrine of Two Adams

I've talked about the Gap Theory before on this Blog.  Starting with my Fall of Satan post.  Where I discussed it's ancient's precedents.  But the key difference between the Ancient and Medieval versions, and the more Pseudo-Scientific version that emerged in the late 18th Century.  Is where the Gap is.

The idea of a Gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 you won't find in any pre-modern concepts.  Instead the Gap was usually placed between Genesis 2:3 and 2:4.  It's tied to the idea that the Adam of Genesis 1 and the Adam of Genesis 2 were not the same Adam.

Sometimes there is an attempt to gain New Testament support for such a doctrine by quoting when Paul called Jesus the Last Adam, saying the first Adam created was the last to enter our world.  However Paul was just talking about typology here, Jesus is another Adam because as in Adam all die, so in Jesus all shall live again.

In Kaballah and Gnosticism and other mystical traditions.  The Genesis 1 Adam is often called something like Adam Kadmon.  He might be a sort of Cosmic Man, or an ancestor of the gods like Izanagi.  Philo of Alexandria linked Adam Kadmon to the Logos.  But there may also be versions where he's just the progenitor of what we would now call a Pre-Adamic race.  Adam Kadmon is also sometimes defined as being the pre-incarnate Messiah.

There are two main philosophical ideas that are important to understanding the Creation of Adam, being made in God's Image, and being made from the Dust of the Earth.  But when you make the Adam of Genesis 1 and the Adam of Genesis 2 separate, those two ideas no longer refer to the same creation.  Genesis 1's Adam is the Image of God, and Genesis 2's is made from the dust of the earth, with the word for earth being Adamah.  This is how the Genesis 1 Adam can become a Cosmic Man, or tie into a Platonic idea that our world is just in inferior replication of a Spiritual realm.

This two Adam theology can also be analogized to Egyptian mythology.  Where the Genesis 1 Adam could be identified with Atum, who's name has a phonetic similarity to Adam, and who has some Cosmic Man traits with the Sun being one of his eyes.  And every soul was believed to come from his Ka.  While the Genesis 2 Adam could be identified with Geb/Keb/Seb, who's name has a similar meaning to Adam, Earth.  And who had a son named Seth and another son who was murdered by his brother.

Today the standard Young Earth Creationist approach to explaining how the allegedly separate Creation accounts fit together is to call Genesis 2 starting in verse 4 a more detailed account of part of what happened on day 6.  I kind of lean toward that still, but have considered that the day refereed to in Genesis 2:4 could be the Eight Day.   But I will never consider any compromise that has death before Adam Sinned in Genesis 3.

This dual Adam theory can also play a role in false belief systems where Jesus does have a Pre-Existence but is a created being, like the Jehovah's Witnesses and Origen.  It may not always be brought up in such systems, but the door is there to say that the Genesis 1 Adam is Jesus.  And that's the main reason I'm uncomfortable with making Genesis 2 the eight day, because it leaves that door open.  But I would never use that Adam was created "male and female" in Genesis 1 as an argument against that, since I have argued Jesus has a Feminine aspect.

Yet on the other hand I tend to oppose the Pre-Exstence of Human Souls in general as much as I support the Pre-Existence of Jesus.  So I also wouldn't like saying Genesis 1 was the creation of Adams' Soul and Genesis 2 of his body.  That can also lead to Gnosticism.  So that's a second reason to not go with the 8th Day theory.

The idea that Genesis 2 starting in verse 4 is the Eight Day of creation, is one I'd consider only in the context of how that might fit Traducianism. The view that Adam's was the only Soul/Spirit directly Created by God from scratch, just as obviously his Body was the only one directly created by God from scratch.  And that other souls are formed from the Souls of their parents, just as their bodies are, basically that Souls reproduce like bodies do.  And Eve was cloned from Adam.  A view I'm kind of leaning towards at the moment.

When studying these issues you'll find the word "Creationism" used with a different meaning, referring not to belief in a literal interpretation of Genesis.  But to belief that each individual Soul/Spirit is directly created by God from scratch at the conception or birth (or somewhere in-between) of every individual person.

But either way, Jesus individual Pre-Existence is because He is God, it's part of how He's distinct from other humans.  In John 1 The Word created everything, while in Genesis 1 Adam was the last thing created on Day Six.

I want now however to address those who think viewing most of Genesis 2 as more details on Day Six is somehow an absurd torturing of the text.

It makes sense when you understand that Genesis was mostly much earlier accounts edited together by Moses.  Genesis 25 records the Death and Burial of Abraham before the births of Jacob and Esau, even though the timeline based on math from this same chapter tells use they were born before before Abraham died.  Genesis isn't always strictly chronological.

Genesis 2:4 says "These are the generations of the Heavens and the Earth".  Occurrences in Genesis of "These are the generation of..." are often taken to indicate a change in the Pre-Mosiac source text, though I think they may not quite account for all of them.  There seems to be disagreement on if these verses should mark the end of the previous section or beginning of the next section.  Either way, we have one right here where it should be.

If you want to consider how these doctrines might play a role in the End Times deception.  The Two Beasts of Revelation may be an attempt to echo two Adams.  The second Beast comes from the Earth, and then gives life to the Image of the first Beast.  Either way, I have already considered how The Image of the Beast doctrine could tie into an attempt to make "The Antichrist" a counterfeit "Last Adam".  In my Which Beast is actually in control post, and my Can Sunday Worship be the Mark of the Beast post, where I explain that if you want to tie the Mark to a day of the Week, it should be the Sixth Day not the first.

Update December 7th 2017: The Image of God

In 2 Corinthians 4:4 Paul calls Christ the "Image of God".  That is an aspect of the Jesus as Genesis 1 Adam argument I wasn't aware of before.  And now it's enough to totally recalibrate how open I am to it.  And he says it again in Colossians 1:15.

However, Genesis 9:6 uses the phrase "Image of God" for the Adam who's blood is shed when you commit murder.  So that ties that title to the same Adam we descend from.  So what Paul is talking about is probably still just in the context of Jesus as the Son of Adam.

Update August 10th 2018: Genesis 5 also makes it difficult to separate the Genesis 1 Adam and Genesis 2 Adam.

And Psalm 8 clearly talks about the Dominion given to Adam in Genesis 1 and attributes it to Enosh Ben Adam from Genesis 4 and 5.

Gnostic Eschatology

A lot of the things you first think of when you think of Gnosticism are merely cosmetic elements that were not universal (not even all Gnostics were pretending to be Christian).

It is not actually required for Gnostics to view the Yahweh of the Old Testament as an Evil Demiurge, or that there are other gods above him.  Nor to make the Serpent good.  But such things certainly were and even still are common.

It's not too hard to turn Biblical Christianity into Gnosticism with only a few key heresies.  The Greek New Testament uses many of the same key words and phrases the Gnostics later used.  Just like modern JWs and Mormons and other cults uses the same terminology Evangelicals use, but they mean different things by them.

Logos and Sophia are used largely because they are accurate Greek translations of Old Testament concepts, The Word and Wisdom.  Both the terms "Archon of the Kosmos" and "God of this World" used of Satan by Jesus in John and Paul respectively, are used in Gnosticism for the Ialdobath.

The core tenet of Gnosticism is disdain for the physical world.  The Bible tells us the Earthly realm has been corrupted by The Fall.  But it will be Restored in the End in Revelation 21-22.  And those who are Saved will be perfected in The Resurrection.

Gnosticism however views the Physical world as inherently Evil, and our Physical bodies as a prison.  So denying a literal Bodily Resurrection of all Believers is key to them.

This is of course what Amillenial and Full Preterist eschatology requires.  Denying a literal Resurrection.

One Preterist website I had studied talks about how the Resurrection is only spiritual, it's about freeing the Souls of the Saved from Sheol only.

And they tied into that a belief in either The Gap Theory or the Extended Day Theory, I don't recall which one.  They insisted physical Death was always Adam's destiny, the Fall only caused spiritual death.  And some Christians even consider theories that Adam didn't have a physical Body before the Fall.  That idea is refuted to me by him saying Eve was made of his Flesh and Bone, but I do think it's possible Blood (as we currently define it) didn't exist before The Fall.

Augustine of Hippo was both the key popularizer of Amillenial eschatology within the Church, and one of the first to reject a literal interpretation of Genesis.  He came out of Gnosticism, and was open about still revering the Platonic Philosophy from which Gnosticism was derived.

I should add of course you can be Futurist and Premillennial and still hold a Gnostic outlook, if you Believe the Resurrection is only Spiritual, which I have seen examples of.

It's funny how Dan Brown in The DaVincci Code sought to create a narrative of modern Roman Catholicism and the Gnostics as arch rivals.  Brown did not comprehend Gnosticism at all, his version of them was the opposite on this very key defining trait.  (The hardcore ancient Gnostics denied Jesus had a physical body, so their Jesus certainly didn't have sex or have children).  The Vatican meanwhile is pretty Gnostic thanks to how much of Augustine they canonized.

Problems I have with the Extended Day Theory and the Gap Theory

This is supplemental to my Fall of Lucifer post.

The Hebrew phrase translated in Genesis 1:2 "without form, and void" simply means it was unformed and unfinished. In Genesis 1:1 God Created all Matter as well as both Time and Space, but in verses 3 on He refined and perfected the details.

Chuck Missler likes to say the Gap Theory comes from Isaiah 45:18 "he created it not in vain" saying the "in Vain" part is one of key words in Hebrew of "without form and void". This is merely referring to when the 6 days are over however. When " God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good". To me that assessment would be absurd if Satan had already fallen and there had already been death.

Chuck also likes to claim that phrase is an expression of Judgment, but that's only based on later usages in different contexts.

Jeremiah 4:23-26 is however the real linchpin of the Gap Theory view of that phrase.

I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.  I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly.  I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.  I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the LORD, and by his fierce anger.

The word for 'man" used here is "Adam" so they take it as meaning Pre-Adamic, so there was a Pre-Adamic civilization. But all "there was no man" means here is these cities are now uninhabited because they've been judged and their populations are dead or gone.

Those who want to see this as being about some Ancient Pre-Adamic cataclysm are ignoring the rest of the Prophecy, which mentions, Jerusalem and Judah and Ephraim and Dan. This is an End Times prophecy about the future Judgment upon our Age. All the destructive imagery here is parallel to things said in Revelation.

Another issue is the use of the term "refill and replenish". We today are used to the prefix "re" meaning doing it again or doing it over, but it didn't always mean that in 1611. But more importantly that's not what the Hebrew says, the Hebrew phrase simply means to "fill and populate", no Hebrew equivalents to the "re" prefix are used.

My objection to both the Gap Theory and the Extended Day Theory and any Old Earth model is not simply about anything in Genesis, it's primarily New Testament.

Romans 5:12 "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned"
I Corinthians 15:21 "For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead."

Meaning as I said when discussing Satan's fall, nothing bad ever happened before Genesis 3.

On the subject of the Extended Day theory, there are also those who like to suggest using all kinds of technical facts about the relativity of Time, (like that time has been slowing down) to claim that all the supposed Old Earth evidence from Secular Science is in fact completely compatible with a literal interpretation of Genesis.

There may indeed be some good insights to learn from studying those issues. But what's important to keep in mind is two things.

1. The claim made by secular science about history is different in more then just how much time passes, even the order things were created is different. The Big Bang Theory claims the Sun must've existed before The Earth. Also the development of Life on this Planet is incompatible, life didn't start in the ocean Biblically.  And Genesis even says the Moon was created before the Sun.

I personally get really annoyed when people making Extended Day Theory arguments go all "how could it be a 24 Hour Day if the Sun and Moon weren't there the first few days?". But even more annoyed when people who aren't even Christians say that just to mock Young Earth Creationists, because it betrays their own principles.

The Sun, Moon and Stars are only part of how we measure a Day, what a Day actually is is the Earth's rotation. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." I believe right on Day One The Planet Earth existed, was already a sphere and was already spinning. If anything I might accept that days were shorter originally as the Earth's rotation has been slowing.

Some of you might want to argue this just means the Earth as in the element, and not specifically our planet. But Hebrew had different words for Earth (so did Greek and Latin actually), the Earth element is Adamah, which Adam was made from. Genesis 1:1 uses 'erets.  Erets can be used of Land as in land masses in addition to the planet.  But not of the element.

2. Really derives from 1, and I'd already talked about it anyway, but it's worth repeating. Any interpretation of how to fit Genesis with Science that has anything human or animal die before Adam's Sin is heretical. Meaning if your going to believe that Dinosaurs went extinct long before Man came into existence, your view is UnBibical.

To me all the supposed Evidence for Millions or Billions of years is all B.S. anyway, I honestly don't think I'd buy it even if I wasn't a believer. But addressing those things is for others more scientifically educated them myself.  I recommend Kent Hovind and Ken Ham, and also Creation Wiki.

Satan's fall and the War in Heaven is a Future event not a past one

It's amazing to me how many Un-Biblical ideas are casually believed even by many Fundamentalist Christians simply because Society has conditioned us to believe it.

The idea of a War in Heaven sometime before Adam's fall or even creation is a Gap Theory connected false Doctrine mainly popularized by secular western fiction.

When I say it's a Pagan idea it's because various Pagan mythologies have myths of various wars between the gods (Sometimes newer gods overthrowing older ones) or of a god being cast out. Greek mythology as the Titanarchy, the Gigantarchy, Cronos overthrowing Ophion, the brief usurpation of Typhon, and the casting out of Hēphaistos. Egyptian mythology has Amon's war with Apep and Set overthrowing Osiris to later be overthrown by Horus. Norse mythology has the war of the Vanir and the Aseir.  Japanese mythology has Susanoo being cast out of Heaven and then the war between the Heavenly Kami and the Earthly Kami.  And so on.  And for the Pagan Canaanites just look at the Baal Cycle.

But it's insertion into Judeo-Christian tradition somewhat begins with Jewish Rabbis attempting to incorporate the Mesopotamian Combat Myth of Marduk killing Tiamat before Creation into the Genesis narrative.

"In the days before Creation, Rahab, Prince of the Sea, rebelled against God. When commanded: 'Open your mouth, Prince of the Sea, and swallow all of the world's waters,' he cried: 'Lord of the Universe, leave me in peace!' Whereupon God kicked him to death and sank his carcase below the waves, since no land beast could endure its stench." (Bavli Baba Bathra 74b; Numeri Rabba 18:22; Midrash Wayosha, 46.)

Rahab is a name that does come from The Bible, Psalms 87 & 89, and Isaiah 51:9 (distinct in the Hebrew from the Rahab of Joshua which often looks the same in English).  It's used by many modern Christian Gap theorists combining their Gap Theory with Ancient Astronaut theories as the name for a Planet or Civilization in the supposed Pre-Adamic world that was destroyed by Satan's Rebellion.

The standard view among normal scholars is it was a nickname of some sort for Egypt.  I do think it plausible there was once a Planet where the Asteroid Belt is, but I think The Flood would be when it's destruction happened.  Even if it is another name for Satan, these are possibly all prophetic passages.  Isaiah certainly is, many Psalms are ambiguous on if they're prophetic or not.

Rahab is used in other passages actually, but in those the KJV translates it rather then treating it as a name.  Isaiah 30:7 is the basis for linking it to Egypt, there it is translated "strength".  Job 9:13 and 26:12 translate it "proud".

Pagan mythologies even already had the idea of a Pre-Adamic race.  In Sumerian mythology the Igigi were who the gods originally meant to be their slaves, but they stopped obeying so the Adamu were made instead.  Greek mythology has three races of Man made before the current one was made from the earth, Golden, Silver and Bronze.  The Fae of Celtic religion have been thought of this way sometimes too.  There is also some Extra-Koranic Islamic legends about Pre-Adamic races.  But before that, the Jinn are also treated as a Pre-Adamic race.

Now the use of it in modern Evolution comprise makes these people the "ape men" and "cave men" alleged from the fossil record.  While the more classical idea was the previous races were better then us, not unlike Tolkien's Eldar.  The way it attacks The Bible remains the same, Death before Adam's Sin.

The Gap theory also has ties to Gnosticism.

The Bible only ever discuses in detail the Fall of Satan is Prophetic books, Isaiah 14:12, Ezekiel 28:13, and Revelation 12.

Only one isolated verse appears to place it in the past, Luke 18:10 "And I beheld Satan as lighting fell from Heaven". But God often uses past tense language in reference to future events(commonly known as “prophetic perfect”; example, Isaiah 53; 21:1-10).  Jesus is God The Son made Flesh, He came from Outside time, He's seen all of History already play out. He know the beginning from the end and the end from the beginning.

Job demonstrates that Satan still has free access to Heaven, and he's still serving that function in The New Testament, hence why he's called the Accuser. The only difference Post-Cross is that now believers have an Advocate in Jesus. 1 John 2:1

The big problem with this false view to me is that it conflicts with the important fact that Adam's sin is the origin of Sin and Death. (Roman 5:12, 1 Corinthians 15:21). Genesis 3 is the origin of Sin, it's not just the first Sin Adam or Eve committed, I believe it's the Serpent's first open act of rebellion against God as well. We don't need a Prequel Trilogy to explain how The Serpent became a sinner.

The Fallen Angels did not all fall at once. The first group to fall are the ones from Genesis 6, who are now imprisoned in the Abyss. Then after the Flood more began to fall. I suspect there may be some not fallen now who will fall before the end.

Satan is also still the "Archon (Prince or Ruler) of the World" (John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11) as well as the "God of this World" (2 Corinthians 4:4). Some think the John verses mean he ceases serving as that at the Crucifixion (Preterist and Amillennial thinking), but the Corinthians verse shows he still is, and Ephesians also shows his servants still rule the World behind the scenes. Jesus did purchase the World with his Death and Resurrection, but he doesn't actually take it until His Return.

Isaiah 14 is a continuation of 13, it's still the same Prophecy. It affiliates Satan's final doom with the final Doom of Babylon, which is yet future, (Revelation 17 and 18). But the exact timing I feel requires Revelation 12 to figure out.

Revelation 12 presumably begins as a summery of all History (but I interpret it all as End Times), the Woman being Israel, the War in Heaven begins not only after The Man Child's birth but also after his ascension/rapture. after the Woman/Israel has fled to her hiding place in the Wilderness, which as we know from Matthew 24 is triggered by the Abomination of Desolation. When it says he caused a 3rd of the stars to fall from Heaven, I believe that's referring specifically to the Angels who fell in Genesis 6 who are now in Tartaros.

In other words it's the Final Week.

A lot of people believe Satan will indwell in "The Antichrist", but I see no Biblical basis for that either. Many End Times Christian movies and books like Left Behind and Revelation/Tribulation, and The Omega Code virtually make The Devil and The Antichrist the exact same character. But in my view Revelation 13 and 16:13 clearly paint The Dragon (Satan), The Beast of the Sea (Antichrist) and Beast of the Earth (The False Prophet) as three distinct individuals, acting as a sort of counterfeit Trinity, with the last leading the world to worship both of the other two.

Revelation 19 and 20 give The Antichrist and The False Prophet a very separate fate from The Devil, their cast into the Lake of Fire after the Battle of Armageddon, their the first individuals ever sent there.  Satan is then bound in the Abyss/Tartaros for 1000 years and then after sparking one last rebellion he's cast into the Lake of Fire.