Supernatural Session 2

Supernatural  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  39:12
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Council Structure and Business

The gods of Psalm 82:1 are called

“sons of the Most High [God]”

later in the psalm (v. 6).

The “sons of God” appear several times in the Bible, usually in God’s presence (as in Job 1:6; 2:1). Job 38:7 tells us they were around before God began to fashion the earth and create humanity.

And that is very interesting. God calls these spiritual beings his sons. Since he created them, the “family” language makes sense, in the same way you refer to your offspring as your son or daughter because you participated in their creation. But besides being their Father, God is also their king. In the ancient world, kings often ruled through their extended families. Kingship was passed on to heirs. Dominion was a family business. God is Lord of his council. And his sons have the next highest rank by virtue of their relationship with him. But as we’ll discuss throughout this book, something happened—some of them became disloyal.The sons of God are also decision makers. We know from 1 Kings 22 (and many other passages) that God’s business involved interacting with human history. When God decided it was time for wicked Ahab to die, he left it up to his council to decide how that would happen.The divine council meetings in Psalm 82 and 1 Kings 22 are not the only ones related to us in the Bible. A couple of them determined the fate of empires.In Daniel 4, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, was punished by God with temporary insanity. That sentence was handed down by

“the decree of the Most High” (Dan. 4:24)

and

“the decree of the watchers” (Dan. 4:17).

Watchers was a term used for divine beings of God’s council. It referred to how they were ever watchful over the affairs of humanity; they never slept.

These biblical scenes of divine council sessions tell us God’s council members participate in God’s rule. In at least some cases, God decrees what he wants done but gives his supernatural agents freedom to decide the means.Angels participate in God’s council as well. In the original languages of the Bible, the terms translated

angel

in the Old and New Testaments actually mean messenger. The word angel is basically a job description. Angels deliver messages to people. We’ll learn more about angels and their duties—‌as well as the other duties of God’s council members‌—‌later in the book.

Why This Matters

Your reaction to everything you’ve read in this book up to this point may be something like, “Fascinating stuff—I’ve never seen that in the Bible before. But what implications does all this information have, if any at all, for my daily life and the way my church functions?” And the answer is, the truths presented in this book have everything to do with our understanding of who God is, and how we relate to him, and what our purpose is on earth. To help clarify that, I’ll conclude each chapter with a section like this one that unpacks the practical implications of that chapter’s truths.In this chapter, we’ve discussed how the Bible describes God’s cosmic administration and what insights those descriptions give us into God and, ultimately, how God relates to us.
First, God’s heavenly family business is a template for how he relates to his earthly family. We’ll discuss that further in the next chapter, but here’s an example: You might have been wondering why God needs a council anyway. God shouldn’t need help doing anything, even in the spiritual world. He’s God! But the Bible is clear that he uses lesser beings to get things done.He doesn’t need a divine council, but he chooses to make use of one. And he doesn’t need us either. If he chose, God could just speak out loud to all the people who need the gospel, give everyone all the encouragement they need to turn to him, and call it good. He could persuade people to love others by putting his voice into their heads. But he doesn’t. Instead, he uses people—you and me—to get the job done.
Second, God could just predetermine events to make everything turn out the way he wants. But he doesn’t. In the story of King Ahab, God let his heavenly assistants decide how to carry out his will. In other words, he let them use their free will. That tells us that not everything is predetermined. And that’s true not only in the unseen world—it’s also true in our world.In the Bible, the unseen world has structure. God is CEO. Those who work for him are his family. They share dominion. They participate in how the company runs.Amazingly enough, the Bible talks the same way about humanity. From the very beginning in Eden, God created humanity to rule the earth with him. God told Adam and Eve, “Have many children, so that your descendants will live all over the earth and bring it under their control” (Gen. 1:28 gnt). Adam and Eve were the children of God—God’s earthly family. God wanted to live with them and let them participate in making the whole world like Eden.That’s a familiar concept to most readers. What isn’t so apparent is that Adam and Eve weren’t the only members of God’s family in Eden. His divine family was also there. Eden was where God lived—and where God lives, so does his family. We think of heaven as a place where we’ll live with God and his angels—his divine family. That’s the way it was originally intended to be, and the way it will be. It’s no coincidence that the Bible ends with heaven come back to earth in a new, global Eden (Rev. 21–22).To understand our destiny, we need to go back to the time when God’s two families occupied the same space. We need to go back to the garden.[1]
[1] Heiser, M. S. (2015). Supernatural: What the Bible Teaches about the Unseen World—And Why It Matters. (D. Lambert, Ed.) (pp. 17–25). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

One Small Change, One Big Difference

The Big Picture

Surveys taken within the past decade show that three-fourths of Americans believe in the supernatural world of God and angels. Christians heartily embrace the concept of the supernatural, presuming that the Bible’s description of spirits, demons, and miracles must be true in order for Scripture to have any consistent meaning.
However, we do face a challenge. Our modern, Western Christian culture seems content with an approach to the Bible which tends to tame or quiet its supernatural element. Think of the story of Noah and the ark, with its pairs of animals streaming to the boat. Every child can picture this. But it’s not so easy to recall the odd event which led up to it. Preachers are tempted to skip over the sons of God marrying the daughters of men (Gen 6:1–4)—whatever that means—hoping to get to the more sensible story of the flood. As a result, what the writer wanted to accomplish may be lost because we’re uncomfortable with what appears to be a super-natural moment in the story. We can only imagine how this harms the meaning of the Bible on a larger scale.
Supernatural and this study guide will challenge your thinking concerning the supernatural world of the Bible. At the heart of this challenge is a simple question, which sets in motion all that is to follow: Are the “gods” of the first commandment (“You shall have no other gods before me”) real, personal beings? For whatever reason, most readers of the Bible have not given this question serious consideration. You may have never thought it to be a question at all. Regardless, consider this book as your unique opportunity to experience the Bible with the view that gods actively live in the heavens and function as gods do. This challenge will be as fascinating as it is enjoyable, and it will result in a deep appreciation for the full story of Scripture.
A quick illustration may help get us going. Imagine a wife overhearing her husband talking on the phone. She first gets suspicious, then jealous, as she hears him share intimate conversation. Finally, she has had enough and grabs the phone to confront the caller. To her surprise, no one is there. He had been speaking to a dial tone.
In this light, consider what God meant in (Dt 6:14–15).

You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you— 15 for the Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God—lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Dt 6:14–15). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

Deuteronomy 6:14–15: “You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are all around you—for the Lord your God is a jealous God—lest the anger of the Lord your God be aroused against you and destroy you from the face of the earth” (nkjv adapted).
Would the Israelites have been tempted to worship what only amounted to a dial tone? Or would they have faced temptation to worship real gods in Canaan?

The Main Idea

The challenge in accepting the reality of “gods” begins by demystifying the concept. We must immediately appeal to Hebrew and Greek, the original languages of the Bible. English simply will not do. Let’s review what we read in the opening chapter of Supernatural: The most common word in the Old Testament for “God” is

elohim

appearing about 6,200 times. We come upon this word immediately in Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning elohim created the heavens and the earth.” The Bible opens with a clear and certain claim that one elohim created the entire universe. But more work remains to be done.
Who or what is an elohim? It’s actually a broad title (not a name) which can be translated as “God,” “god,” “godhead,” “spirit,” “deity,” “divine being,” or “strong one”—with each option carrying its own theological agenda. Variants of this word appear in languages throughout the ancient Near East, suggesting that elohim and its meaning was borrowed from secular societies which predated Israel and Moses. Other nations talked about their elohim all the time, often in very loving and appreciative tones. Like our word “Dad,” which we use as a title for the man we know and honor, people in the Bible and other pagan cultures speak about “their elohim” or “the elohim of my fathers/land” with regularity.
So how do you know where the word elohim appears in an English Bible? Generally, you can follow this rule: Wherever you see the word “God” or “god” or “gods” in your Old Testament, you can be confident that the original reads elohim. Easy enough. The challenge begins in trying to decide whether “God” or “god” or “gods” should be used when translating elohim. More details will follow later. For now, just remember that when we speak of “God” or “gods” in the Old Testament, we’re actually talking about the single Hebrew word elohim. (In the New Testament, the Greek word for “God” or “god” is theos.)
Does this prove that the gods of the first commandment are real? No, we have more work to do. But the very fact that “God” and “god” are the same word in Hebrew or Greek should lead us to presume in the reality of each elohim/theos until we discover evidence otherwise.

Digging Deeper

Jesus encouraged us to pray, “May your will be done on earth as it is done in heaven.” This sounds as if God’s will is already being accomplished in a heavenly or spiritual world before being accomplished in our own. Could it be that Jesus knew that a society of spirits existed above us, actively engaged in doing God’s will? It certainly seems so, and it is just this kind of text that we will be looking at throughout our study—texts which give us reason to appreciate the reality of the spirit world and the society they likely enjoy. As you read the references included in this guide, notice that some of the quietest narratives in the Bible depend on spirits functioning as a society among themselves before affecting human beings on earth.
It would be helpful to confront a common question before we get further into our study: What is an angel, especially in relation to a god? Most people believe these words refer to very different things, causing them to say, “I can believe in angels, but not in gods.” It is here that a large-scale change needs to be made with regard to how we think of angels.
For example,

Psalm 97:7 says, “Worship him, all you elohim,” demanding that the gods worship their creator, the God of Israel.

When the New Testament quotes this verse in Hebrews 1:6, the writer says it this way:

“Let all the angels [Greek, angeloi] of God worship him.”

Where elohim, or “gods,” appear in Psalm 97, “angels” appear in Hebrews 1. Very simply, we will find that angels are gods, and that gods can sometimes function as angels. Again, more on this later.

Knowledge in Action

Henry Ford was famous for his automobile assembly line, but behind the scenes he depended heavily on the mechanical engineering skills of his friend Charles Steinmetz. On one occasion, Ford’s assembly line ground to a halt for reasons no one could understand. In a panic, Ford asked Steinmetz to see if he could make the necessary repairs.
Steinmetz was happy to help his friend, and it wasn’t long before the assembly line was up and running. Ford was pleased, of course, until he looked at the bill—Steinmetz wanted $10,000.
“Charles, you can’t be serious,” Ford complained. “You tinkered in there for about ten minutes.”
“You’re right,” Steinmetz admitted, “I made a mistake.” He took the bill and changed it to Tinkering: $10. Knowing where to tinker: $9,990.
This story reminds us of the challenge in understanding the Bible. We make an adjustment here, an interpretive move there. Sometimes the changes we make are large, but more often they’re small. As we make adjustments to our interpretations, we try to keep track of how the Bible reads differently, and hopefully more clearly, when applying one change and possibly dispensing with another. It’s like test-driving a car. We read the Bible hoping that someday, with time and care in the process of making trial runs with its multiple dead ends and periodic successes, we will experience a smooth running story of Scripture that hugs every curve and climbs every hill with ease.
Think about the challenge that awaits you. This study and Supernatural propose what is actually a very small change—a small tinkering with the text, if you will—but one which will likely have far-reaching results: Do other gods exist? And what would the Bible sound like if they did?

Discussion Questions

• To date, what effort have you given to considering the question, “Are the gods of the first commandment real?” What are the reasons behind your answer?

• The story of 1 Kings 22 was discussed in chapter 1 of Supernatural. Did you read this story before? If so, how did you interpret what was going on?

• We will be discussing the concept of idols in coming sections of our study. But what are your initial thoughts about them? Why do you think idols have played such a major role in religion, and how are they related to the concept of a god?

• On the front end—before getting into the meat of our study—what do you predict will change in your interpretation of the Bible if small-g gods do exist?[2]

[2] Johnson, R. (2015). Supernatural (A Study Guide). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
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