DCW-Spiritual Warfare

Good morning One River,

Last week Cheryl gave us a brilliant summation of our series on the Divine Council Worldview. She mentioned that she, personally, is now seeing all kinds of things pop out of scripture. Things that she sees in a different light than she ever has before.

I’m hoping all of you find yourselves having that experience. I personally, think it’s pretty clear that this was the perspective of the Jewish population throughout the OT and that this was Jesus’perspective while he was alive.

There are supernatural beings throughout the cosmos. The descriptions go far beyond the mere idea of Angels and Demons that we were probably taught growing up. I’m truly thankful that many of you are starting to see the scriptures in a new light. Yahweh’s cosmic plan is to unite a natural and supernatural family under one roof.

Often, we come to a point where we have to ask,” Ok, so what do I do with this information?” Here’s where we come to this point. Now, as I’ve said before, and I mean it. Not everything we learn in scripture has a 1 to 1, life application quality. And I can’t presume to know fully how everything you learn from week to week may impact you and may be personally relevant to your spiritual walk with Jesus.

But I do think this study of the Divine Council has some real-world applications for us individually and for the Christian body as a whole.

Firstly, I want to remind you. I think I’ve said this before, I know these last few months have been like drinking from a fire hose. But believe it or not, this was nowhere near a comprehensive study on this topic. If you want to get into it deeper, I can suggest some excellent resources. But I think we hit most of the high points over the last few months.

There are several scholars that have written extensively about the Divine Council. Most of what we’ve looked at comes from Dr. Michael Hieser, with my own personal spin on it. However, in my opinion, Hieser falls dreadfully short when it comes to the practical nature of ‘what do we do now’ with the Divine Council.

This week we’re going to start looking at Spiritual Warfare. I’m going to share some of Hieser’s conclusions, which I believe is PART of the answer. But I think there’s more to look at here.

In short, we’re going to look at two versions of Spiritual Warfare. The micro expression, and the macro expression.

The Macro Expression, or big picture of the divine council, I think is a little simpler, so we’ll start there. In essence, the Macro expression of the Divine Council view is that it all ends with humanity properly expressing the Great Commission.

The Great Commission

16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

We’re all very familiar with this text. This is Jesus’ final words in Matthew. It’s here he gives us our marching orders. It’s this, and only this that we must do until He returns.

Let’s start at the beginning, Jesus meets the eleven. At this point Judas has done himself in. We’re down to eleven disciples. They go and meet Jesus on a mountain, as instructed.

It may seem like we’re back in some familiar territory here. Why a mountain? Well, mountains, or high places connect us with God. It’s fitting that the Apostles’ final encounter with Jesus in the Book of Matthew would be on a mountain.

It’s here they would feel both spiritually and physically close to Jesus.

Tradition tells us this mountain is Mount Arbel. It stands about 1300 ft over the sea level landscape and sits just to the West of Galilee. (slide)

From the top of Arbel the disciples were treated to a panoramic landscape view of, not only Galilee, but the surrounding territories. (slide)

In fact, my speculation is that Arbel was chosen specifically because, from its top, the disciples could see about 80% of the life journey they’d spent the last three years on. Jerusalem was probably a little too far to see, but all of Galilee, Nazareth, Mt Hermon, and most of the northern territory of Israel would have been visible from here. This would be the greatest hits tour for the boys. Since Jesus had something to tell them.

This would have been a visual reminder of their journey with Jesus. The second point is that it’s a mountain. Well, 1300 ft. But a high place none the less, and what are high places for? The worship of gods.

The very next sentence in the Great Commission is “When they saw, they worshiped him;” This is a fitting location for Jesus’ final speech to his faithful disciples. They worshipped him, and he didn’t stop them from doing so. His divinity in this case is recognized and accepted….at least by some.

The final piece of that sentence after the semicolon is “but some doubted.” Now we’re all familiar, I think, with Thomas and his doubting. But if we’re chronologically honest, this Commission from Christ would have to have taken place after Thomas’ encounter with the risen Christ. Thomas is the only one called out in the Gospels by name as a doubter. But here, we see the word “some”. Some had doubts. The Greek is clear here. It’s plural. More than one, still had doubts about Jesus.

They still can’t wrap their heads around the idea that Jesus was not going to lead them to and earthly military victory. We know these guys have just spent 40 days with Jesus, after his death and resurrection, walking around the countryside and they still don’t believe. We know this because Luke tells us at the beginning of Acts that after Jesus leaves, the Apostles went and hid in a room until the Holy Spirit showed up.

Now on to the Red-Letter part of the passage. I believe God inspired scripture. I believe it turned out just as He wanted. That said, sometimes I wonder if the order of certain passages would be better with a slight rearrangement. This is one of them.

We have all memorized some version of this section:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

The takeaway from this, for most modern readers, is our personal and corporate call to action.

We have been taught to study this as something called missiology. This is the study of the work of the missionary movement of the church.

What if I told you this was a relatively new interpretation for this passage. Sometimes when we read scripture, we forget that those chapter headings and subheadings are not actually part of the text. They’re something we added later to make the sections easier for us to go through.

No one called this “The Great Commission” until the mid 1600’s and it didn’t really catch on until Hudson Taylor began using the term in the mid 1800’s. Most of our understanding of the Great Commission is a modern take on the message, and I think it’s the wrong take.

I want to read something from an article I recently read.

What I realized both from my exegetical work, and somewhat confirmed by this historical find, was that for the first 1600 years of the greatest exponential mission-driven expansion of the life of church, this passage was read and understood as the trinitarian foundation of ecclesiology, not as fanfare for missiology. The disciples, as the apostolic authority of the soon-to-be-Spirit-empowered-Church, are called together in order to be drawn into, to be called into, the on-going mission of the triune God.

Jesus commissioned these eleven on that mountain in Galilee to ‘make disciples’ through initiation into the embodied life of God in the church by baptism in the triune Name and through teaching what they had learned from Jesus about faithful obedience. This is not a passage about sending the disciples out to buck the system, take on the world, and save the universe. The ‘Great Commission’ doesn’t begin here, or at Pentecost, or with Paul, or when a Christian today decides on a mission agency to give to or go with. The ‘Great Commission’ began long, long ago in the hidden depths of God’s own being.

The triune God is eternally a commissional God. The mission of the Father was the sending of the Son. The mission of the Son in the incarnation was to reveal the life of the Father. The Spirit’s mission is to bear witness to the Son through the Church. Contrary to the opening mantra of Star Trek, there are no ‘strange new universes where no one has gone before’. God has been there. God has been at work from before the beginning. God goes before us into our future, and into the tomorrows of the world. These eleven disciples and all who have believed their witness (John 17:20), the Church, the Body of Christ, are commissioned to indwell, declare and demonstrate God’s love for the world.

This is really a text about the commissioning of the Church to share God’s life and, in the power and reality of that union with Christ by the Spirit, to share in joy of God’s on-going mission to the world. The early church, the patristic Fathers, and for over 1600 years the Church recognized that this final passage of Matthew focused first on who Jesus is. Because God is good, because Jesus is risen from the grave, because the Spirit is poured out, God’s people are called to let the world know the good news of a victorious Saviour and the very presence of God in the world by the Spirit. Jesus is saying, as you ‘go along your way’ (a good translation of the usual ‘Go ye’), with the power of my very Spirit, be heralds of this Good News. Alert people to recognize and submit to my Lordship through inauguration into my Body, and nurture their fitness for my unrivalled reign in their lives!

Does this help us reframe things? Does this take some of the pressure off of us in the realm of “Evangelism”? The Great Commission, is God’s commission, not ours. Yahweh has been working this out since the foundations of the earth were laid. We are called to spread the message of His good news wherever we may go. Share them message of his church by the power of the HS. Jesus is the risen lord. Be at peace. The world will not rise or fall by your efforts. Just tell people about what Jesus has done for you.

We HAVE NOT been saddled with a mission to run to the far corners of the earth in a desperate attempt to jump start the apocalypse so that Yahweh will return and put this whole system to rest.

We look at verses like “You are in this world, but not of this world.” And jump to the conclusion that it somehow means the earth is evil and we should focus solely on the idea of “getting to heaven”. The Great Commission is just to get to the finish line. This is actually one of the named heresies. It’s called Manichaeism. The world is not evil. It’s Yahweh’s great creation. Something He constructed as a step to bring his two families into existence and a necessary place for the two families to converge.

That first verse that Jesus speaks “Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”

This is the key to the entire thing. We try to put too much emphasis on the last three sentences, “Our Part.” But this, here is the meat.

Do you know where this comes from?

Daniel 7:13–14 (NIV)

13 “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

This is Jesus telling us. I’ve done it. I’ve completed this prophecy. All authority on earth. All the Deuteronomy 32 splitting of the earthly kingdoms to be ruled by wicked elohim is finished. I have all the power now. The “work” is done.

For all our great intellectual work on things like the Lutheran Sola’s; scripture alone, God alone, Grace alone. We are still trying to make this thing about us. Oh, God needs me to carry his message.

No, No he doesn’t. In the nature of the infant, parent relationship, what exactly does the parent “NEED” from the infant? And make no mistake, we are all still infants in the LORD’S presence.

He loves us. He cares for us. He allows us to participate. He says “as you go along your way” tell everyone about me. Tell them what I have done for you. Show them the gift of my Spirit in your life and invite them to join.

Yahweh loves us, He loves both his families. He wants them to come together. But make no mistake, He’s not relying on the infant to pay the mortgage.

What is it Jesus says “Come, come and see.”

Cheryl likes this analogy so I’m going to use it again. Jesus is driving the car. He’s inviting you to come with him. The Commission is God’s commission, not yours. Get in the car. You can come along, but you’re not invited to drive. Put on your seatbelt and keep your fingerprints off the windows. Daddy’s taking you to work today.

When it comes to the Macro expression of Spiritual warfare. God has already fought and won the battle and the war. All authority on heaven and earth now rests solely in the hands of Jesus. There is nothing left to be said or done on the matter. The victory is assured. In the big picture theater, we have no role of any kind on the subject. Yahweh already won the war.

On the practical day to day you may ask “but what about demons and elohim? Are they not still interfering with our lives?

Yes, yes, they are. But they know how this ends. They know that Jesus already won. Right now, their mission is to simply drag it out as long as possible. For the wicked the term victory has taken on a new meaning.

They know the passage we read last week. They know Revelation 20:11–15 (NIV)

The Judgment of the Dead

11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. 12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. 13 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. 15 Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

So, with this to look forward to. What would you do in their place. You know conclusively you’ve already lost the war. You know your fate is death. At this point the objective is simply to hold out as long as possible. Fight and disrupt with everything you can. Because you’ve lost. And your reward is utter annihilation and death.

In America we have this romanticism with last stands. We love to watch these valiant warriors fight unwinnable fights. Throughout history we love battles like Masada, and the 300 Spartans at Hell’s Gate. We’ve fictionalized it and made stories and movies around it. We hold out hope that somehow, this time, they’ll win. Or at least make it out alive.

This may be the mindset of the wicked elohim and demons. I don’t claim to know. They may be hoping beyond hope. But we know how those stories end. In Masada the Jews killed themselves to keep from being captured by the Romans. At Hell’s Gate the 300 were ultimately killed.

It was over before it started. They lost. They kept on fighting, merely so they could continue to live for as long as possible. The King’s proclamation already went out. The sentence is death.

Right now, they’re clinging to the fight merely to continue to survive. That doesn't mean they’re not dangerous. If anything, it means the contrary.

But make no mistake. This is their last stand. This is the 72 Jews holding out in a walled-up community, Fighting off the entire Roman army. This is the 300 Spartans fighting 1M Persians. Only They’re fighting against Jesus, Yahweh and the Spirit. So the odds aren’t quite as even for them.

In the Macro, the Spiritual War is over. Jesus won.