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November 30, 2018 - February 2, 2019
Recall that in our discussion of Deuteronomy 32:8–9 I mentioned that the number of nations disinherited by Yahweh at the judgment of Babel was seventy.
Yahweh alone commands the nations and their gods. Other gods serve him.
The corrupt sons of God who currently dominate the nations will be replaced by loyal members of God’s family.
When we inherit rule of the nations with Jesus at the end of days (Rev 3:21), we will displace the corrupted divine sons of God presently ruling the nations, who are under judgment (Psa 82).
The corrupt divine sons of God of Deuteronomy 32:8 would be displaced by new divine sons of God—glorified believers.8
Believing the gospel means believing that Yahweh, the God of Israel, came to earth incarnated as a man, voluntarily died on the cross as a sacrifice for our sin, and rose again on the third day. That
Personal failure is not the same as trading Jesus for another god—and God knows that.
Believing loyalty was therefore not just academic. By definition it must be conscious and active.
WE’VE BEEN TRACKING THE STORY OF YAHWEH AND HIS PORTION, ABRAHAM’S descendants. Yahweh chose to disinherit the nations at Babel. He chose to appear to Abraham in visible, human form to initiate a covenant relationship. He chose to reiterate that covenant with Isaac and Jacob, whom he renamed Israel. And he chose to deliver Israel from Egypt.
Yahweh was not only the source of Israel’s life—he was life. Yahweh was complete in his perfections. Yahweh was not of earth, a place where there is death, disease, and imperfection. His realm is supernatural; ours is terrestrial. The space he occupies is sacred and made otherworldly by his presence.
Yahweh is the antithesis of ordinary. Humans must be invited and purified to occupy the same space.
The divine being in the garden who rebelled against Yahweh’s desire to have humans rule an Edenic world is never cast in human form.1 Unlike the sons of God in Genesis 6:1–4 who are cast as assuming human flesh and capable of cohabitation, the divine rebel of Eden does not appear to Eve that way.2
pitted the descendants of Eve against the spiritual children of the original enemy.
The wars of conquest under Moses and Joshua were supposed to cleanse the land of a competing divine bloodline and install Yahweh’s own children, his inheritance, into the place he had allotted for them.
when humanity (Israel) failed to restore God’s rule, God took matters into his own hands by becoming human in Jesus Christ.
Eden cannot come and survive without Yahweh’s constant presence—as had been the case in the original Eden. The kingdom of God cannot be built with human hands.
God himself would supply the second Adam, the son of David, the perfect ruling servant.
DIVINE COUNCIL
We are in God’s image—imagers of God—and we require social belonging that God created w/the Divine Council.
LIFE-CHANGING THOUGHT: WE ARE THE children of God, destined to displace the defeated, disloyal sons of God who now rule the nations
Jesus inherits rulership and dominion, angels do not. Angels are “ministering spirits” who serve the human believers who inherit salvation and are adopted into Yahweh’s family.
Don’t you realize that you will judge angels? (1 Cor 6:3).
the task of administrating God’s good world was ours. This despite the fact that we were lesser beings compared to God’s divine family-council.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 Thus also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual. 47 The first man is from the earth, made of earth; the second man is from heaven. 48 As the one who is made of earth, so also are those who are made of earth, and as the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly. 49 And just as we have borne the image of the one who is made of earth, we will also bear the image of the heavenly.
50 But I say this, brothers, that flesh and blood is not able to inherit the kingdom of God, nor can corruption inherit incorruptibility. 51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: we will not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For it is necessary for this perishable body to put on incorruptibility, and this mortal body to put on immortality (1 Cor 15:44–54).
When he had to disinherit humanity at Babel, he did not abandon the human race. Instead, he was so “concerned with the descendants of Abraham” (Heb 2:16) that he became a man.
Yahweh’s plan to revive the Edenic program was launched as part of his new covenant plan to become man to ensure success where Israel had failed.
Though originally given their dominions by Yahweh, the lesser elohim had governed corruptly and had not maintained loyalty to the Most High.
The lack of a clearly delineated hierarchy leaves the possibility that there are competing agendas in the unseen world, even where there exists the common goal of opposition to Yahweh and his people.28
Second Peter 2:10 and Jude 8 refer to the “glorious ones” (doksas). The term probably refers to divine beings of the council close to God’s glorious presence, since Second Temple period texts describe such beings.
Enoch 21:3 identifies Gabriel, widely described as an archangel in biblical and other Second Temple period texts, as one of “the glorious ones of the Lord.”
“angels” would denote a low-level task
When an enemy wants nothing but your defeat and annihilation, neutrality means choosing death.
For it is better to suffer for doing good, if God wills it, than for doing
withstand persecution and persevere in their faith.
spiritual cell groups secretly planted in every nation under the dominion of the hostile gods.
eliminated free will and the divine and human rebels who had abused it. Eden would be ensured and that would
Not true. Would/could of happened again.
While that would produce the desired end, the original means—free participation in God’s creation by God’s free-will agents, designed to be like him—would have been abandoned, amounting to a very flawed idea and spectacular failure. A resolution like that isn’t fitting (or desirable) for the God of the Bible. God’s original objective must come about in the way he intended.
If we (they) don’t agree with the end, the means don’t matter.
Jews living in the time of Jesus saw the nation as still being in exile.10
The Gog invasion would be the response of supernatural evil against the messiah and his kingdom. This is in fact precisely how it is portrayed in Revelation 20:7–10.11
1.Let the Bible be what it is, and be open to the notion that what it says about the unseen realm might just be real.
2.The content of the Bible needs to make sense in its own context, whether or not it makes sense in ours
3.How the biblical writers tie passages together for interpretation should guide our own interpretation of the Bible
4.How the New Testament writers repurpose the Old Testament is critical for biblical interpretation
Understand their [new testament writer] perspective of their [old testament writers]—meeting of minds.
5.Metaphorical meaning isn’t “less real” than literal meaning (however that’s defined).
Conceptual metaphor refers to the way we use a concrete term or idea to communicate abstract ideas.
