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God’s Entourage
Children often ask, “what was there before the world?”
The answer most Christian adults would give is that GOD was there.
That is true but incomplete.
God has company.
And I am not talking about the other members of the Trinity.
The heavenly host existed before creation
The Biblical answer is that the heavenly host was with God before creation.
In fact, they witnessed it.
What God says to Job is clear on that:
when God laid the foundations of earth, the “sons of God” (beney Elohim) were there, shouting for joy.
But who are the sons of God?
They aren’t human.
This is before the creation of the world.
We might think of them as angels, but that is not really accurate.
The sons of God (beney elohim) are not human beings but rather part of a divine hierarchy; not angels or archangels
the unseen realm has a hierarchy, something reflected in such terms as angels or archangels.
This hierarchy is sometimes difficult for us to discern since we are not accustomed to looking at the unseen world in that way.
like a royal household.
But an Isrealite would have been able to see this and the terms would have helped.
beney elohim vs mal’ak
the sons of God is a phrase used to describe divine beings with higher level responsibilities or jurisdictions — the term we use for Mal’ak - angel- has a lesser task.. delivering messages.
In Job 38, the sons of God are referred to as “morning stars”.
That name description is found outside the Bible in ancient texts from the Biblical world and time.
Ancient people thought the stars were living entities.
Their reasoning was simple.
Many stars moved.
That was a sign of life to the ancient mind.
Stars were the shining glory of living beings.
The stars also inhabited the divine realm.
Literally - in the sense that they were off the earth.
The ancients believed that divine beings lived far away from humans in areas humans could not go .. the heavenlies.
Morning stars are the stars one sees over the horizon just before the sun appears in the morning.
They signal new life — a new day.
The label works.
The original morning stars, the sons of God, saw the beginning of life as we know it - the creation of earth.
Right from the start, God has company
Other divine beings, the sons of God.
Most discussions of what’s around before creation, omit the members of the heavenly host.
That’s unfortunate, because God and the sons of God are the first pieces of the mosaic.
Already a challenge
We’ve barely made it to creation so far, and already we have uncovered some important truths from Scripture that have the potential to affect our theology in simple but profound ways.
Their importance, if it isn’t clear yet, will be soon.
Sons of God, divine not human
they witnessed creation long before people were created.
They are intelligent nonhuman beings.
They are also divine (supernatural if you would, this is a word choice issue).
the language is metaphorical, but they exist and are created beings.
Label “sons”
it is a family term, and that is important.
God has an unseen household.
The logic is the same as that behind Paul’s words in Acts 17 … all humans are God’s offsprings .. household.
God has created a host of nonhuman beings who domain is not in our ability to see (unless God chooses).
Because He created them God calls them his sons … his household.
A lot is not clear about them
they are divine… with God before creation… what does that mean?
how do they relate to God?
God’s Household
Pharaoh (Egypt) means great household.
This arrangement of the ruling families was and is common.
and the messengers are at the lowest status.
The sons of God were administrators.
This is simply the way things are arranged and it should not surprise us that we arrange ourselves in reflection of how God arranges heaven.. remember
the word elohim appears twice here…okay elohim is a plural word, in Hebrew you make a masculine word plural by adding - im
While the word is plural … its meaning can be either plural or singular.
Most often in the text (2,000 times) it is singular referring to the God of Isreal.
So the first must be singular (his)
second must be plural — in the midst
elohim … beney elohim
God is “most high”
the sons of the Most High are clearly called elohim and the Most High is clearly the God of Isreal…
the text is not clear whether all the elohim are under judgement or just some of them.
The rule of nations they exhibit in this Psalm we will cover later...
NOT A PANTHEON
we have many translations of the Bible that avoid even the idea that it might be but Elohim can be seen as a place locator … the supernatural… and God is Unique
We should not camouflage what the text says.
People do not need to be protected from the Bible.
GOD ALONE
psalm 82 is not teaching polytheism at all..
Divine Beings are not Human
some take Psalm 82 as God talking to other members of the trinity which is heresy since if true one of them is corrupt....and they have authority that has failed over the earth… REJECT THIS
Others argue that the sons of God are Jews… this is as flawed as the trinity view.
At no point in the OT were Jews put in authority over other nations.
The opposite is true — they were to be separate from other nations.
See Gen. 12: 1-3
humans are by nature not disembodied.. elohim is a place of residence term, humans are embodied elohim are not
But the real issue is reconciling the “human view” with other text talking about a divine council of elohim
the assembly is in the heavens, humans not so much… there is no reference to a human council in the heavens… and if there are no heavenly beings than this Psalm is nonsense....
Look at these texts
humans or not?
fairly clear if are honest
not polytheism
many say these means Isreal moved from polytheism to theism …this goes to the word elohim....
let’s look at texts that use it
(Lord God — Elohim)
1,000 of times it is GOD
god — elohim, ELOHIM
god =elohim
Would any Isrealite, a biblical writer really think that the deceased human dead were equal to GOD… no.
It is not a set of attributes but a definer of supernatural… there is no warrant for saying that it is a pantheon.. God is always MOST HIGH, LORD
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