Supernatural: What the Bible Teaches about the Unseen World And Why It Matters

by Michael S. Heiser

Without free will, concepts like love and self-sacrifice die. If you are merely programmed to “love,” there is no decision in it. It isn’t real. Scripted words and acts aren’t genuine. Thinking about this takes me back to the last of the original Star Wars movies, The Return of the Jedi. The spirit of Obiwan Kenobi tells Luke his father, Darth Vader, “is more machine now than man.” And yet, in the end, we find that isn’t true. Vader saves Luke from the emperor at the cost of his own life. He wasn’t just a programmed machine. His decision came from the heart, his humanity—his own free will.

In Luke 10 he commissioned seventy more people to heal and cast out demons (Luke 10:1, 9, 17). That number wasn’t accidental. It’s the number of nations listed in Genesis 10—the nations God cast aside at the Tower of Babel event and placed under the dominion of lesser gods (Deut. 4:19–20; 32:8–9).

The identification of the “rock” Jesus referred to has been debated for centuries. The key to understanding the term is the area’s geography. Caesarea Philippi sits in the far northern region of Bashan. In Old Testament times, this area was thought to contain gateways to the realm of the dead. Caesarea Philippi sits at the foot of a mountain. The “rock” is that mountain. The “gates of hell” marks the very place where Jesus and his disciples were standing.

Among the intentions of Jesus was to show people what Eden had been like, and what life with God would be. In God’s family and God’s rule, there will be no disease and physical imperfection. There will also be no hostile powers. God’s ultimate kingdom is bigger than a garden, wider than Israel. The kingdom will be global. It will include all nations. And it will be everything Eden was—heaven on earth.

Salvation is not gained by moral perfection. It is a gift that comes by grace, through faith (Eph. 2:8–9). That in turn means salvation cannot be lost by moral imperfection. What is not at all gained by performance cannot be lost by poor performance. Salvation is about believing loyalty—trusting what Jesus did to defeat Satan’s claim and turning from all other gods and the belief systems of which they are a part.

The implications are startling. Most of us are familiar with Jesus’ statement, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:20 LEB). But viewed in the context of the Old Testament idea of sacred space, that statement means that wherever believers gather, the spiritual ground they occupy is sanctified amid the powers of darkness.

Peter used that story as an analogy for Jesus. The point he wanted to get across was that when Jesus died, he descended to the realm of the dead and had a message for the fallen divine beings there. When they saw Jesus enter the place of the dead, they were likely to think their fellow demons had won and they would be getting out of jail soon. Instead, Jesus told them they wouldn’t see him for long—he would rise again. It was all part of God’s plan. They hadn’t won—they were still under judgment and as doomed as ever. That’s why this odd passage ends the way it does, with Jesus “gone into heaven” and seated “at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him” (1 Pet. 3:22).

In essence, baptism was a loyalty oath and a message to the demonic powers (as well as any people present) of just whose side you were on in the spiritual war. Ancient Christians understood this better than we do today. Early church baptismal rites included a renunciation of Satan and his angels because of this passage.

First, understand that believers are holy ground, the dwelling place of God’s presence—the glory of the Old Testament. Do we live like it? Israelites and the believers of Jesus’ day felt an ever-present need to be different from unbelievers. The goal wasn’t to be deliberately odd so unbelievers would hope to avoid contact. Israel was to be a “kingdom of priests” and “a holy nation” (Ex. 19:6). Living the way God wanted his children to live led to fruitful, productive, happy lives. Israelites were to attract people enslaved by enemy gods back to the true God.

These truths are easier to understand than to live out. Though redeemed, we are fallen. To live these truths, we need our minds and hearts tuned to why we’re here, living as foreigners in our own world. Like Jesus, we are not of this world—in it, but not of it (John 8:23; 1 John 4:4). That contrast, and our status, will become even sharper once we get a handle on just what it means to be children of God.

Throughout the Old Testament, those people who were not Israelites lived in territory that had come under the dominion of the lesser gods to whom God had assigned those nations at Babel.

As Christians, we’ve probably heard many times that we need to be like Jesus. We certainly do. But when we hear that, we tend to process it only in terms of being good, or maybe “less bad.” We turn what’s actually a nearly inconceivable idea—that we will one day be as Jesus is—into a performance obligation.

Rather than feel guilty about how much we aren’t like Jesus, and pledge in our hearts to “do better,” we need to let the blessing of what he did, and will do, rewire the way we think about being like him. We can turn Christlikeness into a task we must perform lest God be angry with us, but that’s bad theology. It turns grace into duty. Or we can be grateful that one day we will be what God is thrilled to make us—what he predestined us to be (Rom. 8:29)—and live in such a way that people enslaved to dark powers will want to join us in God’s family. One perspective looks inward; the other looks heavenward.

The Christian life now is not about the fear that we will fail to keep happy the One who loved us while we were still enslaved to darkness. The Christian life is really about grasping two concepts: our adoption into God’s family—which means Jesus is our brother, and that God loves us like he loves Jesus—and our purpose in God’s plan to restore his kingdom on earth. We are, and will be, God’s new divine council. He is our Father. We are his children, destined to live where he lives forever. We are his coworkers, tasked with helping him release those still owned by the lord of the dead and held captive by unseen powers of darkness. That is what the Bible is about, from Eden to Eden. That is your destiny. Your life now is not ...

Our participation in God’s kingdom isn’t predetermined, in this sense: We are not mere robots performing functions programmed for us. That violates the whole idea of being God’s imager, his representative. We were created to be like him. He is free. If we do not have genuine freedom, we cannot be like him—by definition, we would not be like him. We are free to obey and worship, or rebel and indulge ourselves. And we will reap what we sow. Our sowing is not programmed.

Predestination and freedom work hand-in-hand in God’s kingdom rule. His purposes will never be overturned or halted. He is able to take sin and rebellion and still accomplish—through other free representatives—what he desires. As C. S. Lewis once said of God (in the book Perelandra), “Whatever you do, He will make good of it. But not the good He had prepared for you if you had obeyed him.”

Do other gods exist? If they do, does that make much difference in how we understand the Bible? What does it mean for our faith if we presume the unseen world described in the Bible is actually real—not just the familiar and accepted parts, but the unusual and often-ignored parts?