Is God’s will always done in heaven, if there was war in heaven?

The passages

Matthew 6:10

Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven”.

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

Psalms 103:20–21

The angels “do his commandments”; they are his ministers “that do his pleasure”.

Bless the Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word. Bless ye the Lord, all ye his hosts; ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure.

Revelation 12:7–10

In John’s vision “there was war in heaven”; the dragon and his angels lost, were cast out, and heaven proclaimed God’s kingdom.

And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.

The objection

Jesus taught his disciples to pray that God’s will would be done on earth “as it is in heaven”, as if heaven were a place of perfect obedience. Yet Revelation 12:7 says, “there was war in heaven”, with the dragon and his angels fighting against Michael. If there was rebellion and war there, God’s will was not always done in heaven.

The answer

The war in heaven is itself God’s will being done. In Revelation 12 the fighting is done by “Michael and his angels” against the dragon, and the dragon “prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven” (12:8). The result is a loud voice in heaven: “Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God” (12:10). The angels who fight are carrying out God’s will, as Psalm 103:21 describes them: “ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure”.

When Jesus teaches the prayer “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven”, he points to the glad and complete obedience of those who serve God in his presence, which earth is to share. He does not say that no creature in heaven ever rebelled. Revelation shows what happens to rebellion there: it cannot stand, the rebels lose their place, and heaven is called to rejoice (12:12). So heaven is where God’s will is done, both by those who obey him and in the defeat of those who do not.

It also matters what kind of passage Revelation 12 is. The chapter opens with “a great wonder in heaven”, a woman clothed with the sun (12:1), and the war is part of a vision in signs about the conflict between Christ and Satan. It is not a report that God’s throne was ever out of his control.

Still open

Christians differ on what the war in Revelation 12 depicts. Some see the first fall of Satan and his angels before the world began; others, such as the Cambridge Bible, see Satan’s defeat through Christ’s death and exaltation, since the victory is won “by the blood of the Lamb” (12:11); others see a battle still to come at the end of the age. On every view Satan loses, and the prayer of Matthew 6:10 stands.

From the classic commentators

it is better, perhaps, to think of the words as pointing to the unseen hosts of heaven, the ministering angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect. That all wills on earth should be brought into the same entire conformity with the divine will as theirs, is what we are taught to pray for.Charles John Ellicott (ed.), Commentary for English Readers, on Matthew 6:10 (1878), at Bible Hub