Bible Study 1: Nephimil, Fallen Angels, and Demons

Demons in the NT, where they come from, why we should care, what does scripture say?

Im not a basketball fan, im more into football but not too much

But ifi were to say, who is the goat, MJ or LeBron, how would y'all answer?

or Football Tom Brady or Peyton Manning, who is the goat?

Okay, but here's the question though… I said goat….

So how did you even know what i was talking about? I just said goat.

let them answer

Yeah, it's goat. - Greatest of all time. - Okay, so that's an acronym, right?

It's a word that is known for something else.

And so the big question is, is like, how do we get that?

How do we know that?

Well, it's our culture, our context.

Can you imagine 150 years before this, or maybe 200 years after this, people could be hearing this conversation and literally thinking about a four-legged animal.

There's a four-legged animal named MJ, you know?

So I say that to say that our words matter.

There's a old quote by a poet and basically says this, that our words build worlds.

— so like, if our words are actually building worlds, then you and I are forced to inhabit the worlds that we're building.

So in other words, what we're saying matters, right?

It's building a framework and a structure because we have to relate to these words.

So one of the things that happens often is we look at something in the New Testament and we look at Jesus and his interaction with demons

And we kind of have this instant thought of who these demons are.

So what do you think th generic everyday Bible reader person thinks demons are?

or what do you think they are? Lets hear some theories

hopefully someone says they're fallen angels

The average person thinks that they’re fallen angels.

And so I'm gonna say something… and y'all might panic, but just stay with me

We're gonna work through the text.

If you're an ancient Israelite and you live in the second temple period, which is the context of which the gospels are being written, and you heard the word demons, you would probably say, oh, I need a little bit more.

And so you'd be looking for context around that word.

And one of those context phrases is unclean spirits or evil spirits.

NOw if you were talking to someone who lived in second temple period, they would say, oh, you're not talking about fallen angels….

You're talking about this incredibly important event that took place all the way back in Genesis six.

So like for example I say “for god so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son…”… whats the first thing that comes to your head? j316

ya. so when an ancient person heard the phrase unclean spirit, their minds immediately went to Genesis 6.

Now, y'all, what happened in Genesis six? - The flood. -

…and what necessitates the flood?

let them answer

The Nephilim.

Okay, what are the Nephilim?

How should we be thinking about them?

I get passionate about this because…like, there's not a vacation Bible school for this, right?

Where the theme of the vacation Bible school is gonna be Nephilim. Like, they're not thinking, you know, they'll do the flood.

They're happy to do the story of Noah and the flood.

It's like, this is weird.

Let me just read, you know, Genesis six, I'm reading from the Christian standard Bible.

Genesis 6 (ESV)

When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God (It's bene Elohim) saw (The Hebrew word saw is actually used in the Garden of Eden when Eve looks and sees the fruit of the same word. It's the same word that's also used of the horrific scene where Dinah is actually raped. It's actually the same word that's often used of a forceful taking of something that you were not supposed to have. So the context of this is actually pretty significant.)

I actually think you could make a theological argument that this is the origin of sex trafficking.

The sons of God come in, they see something that's beautiful, they desire that, that's what it says, to see and desire.

When those two Hebrew words are put together, it's always a negative context.

It's forceful taking of something that did not belong to them.

And so what do they do?

Now this is my speculation, but I think that there's an unholy alliance that takes place between the fathers of these daughters.

What do we know about marriages back then? talk about it.

I think the fathers think they're gonna get something out of this. like power or something.

that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the earth BOTH in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

So why is the Nephilim conversation important for this kind of weird transition to the New Testament and the gospels? And why are these demon encounters that Jesus has important?

have them answer

Well, it's really important because the cause, what necessitates the flood is actually the presence of these Nephilim.

The Old Testament refers to them as Nephilim.

They also refer to them as Gibborim, these giants.

That's where we kind of get the Greek word, gigantes, from. (Giants)

It's also, they're also referred to as Anakim and Refaim.

All these words are working together to communicate that it is a specific type of being.

And this type of being is the production, my language here is very precise and important, the production of an unholy alliance, a production of something that is unclean.

So what is it?

It is angelic beings forcing themselves upon human women and bearing children that are hybrids.

This is antithetical.

I don't know, we read Genesis, right?

Anybody see any record of Nephilim being created by God in Genesis?

No.

Right?

Genesis one, two, and three?

No, it's not there.

Okay, so now we get this gap.

And the gap is what happens to these giants, right?

Well, this flood comes and the flood kind of wipes them out.

It kind of destroys them.

And then we get to the New Testament.

But one of the things that's really important for us is to recognize that the Bible has details inside of the text that lets us know that the biblical authors are being informed by culture.

They're being informed by other writings of their time.

So we did this with the goat, right?

What if I said, "Hey guys, where were you on 9/11?" - Yeah. - Seventh grade. - Seventh grade. - Yeah. - School. - College. - College, I know. - Maybe eighth grade. - We're the same boat. - I was in math class. - Yeah. - I was a fourth grader. (all laughing) - Yeah, there you go, yeah.

So like, I just had some letters, 9/11. - Yeah. - So how do I know? - That's good. - The context lets me in.

In the New Testament, when Jesus has these encounters with these demons, let's get to a specific passage that we can just kind of jump into the text and see it.

We can go to like Matthew 9, 32 through 33.

It says, "As they were going away, "whole day, demon oppressed man, "who was mute," this is such an interesting detail, "was brought to him.

"And when the demon had been cast out, "the mute man spoke, and the crowds marveled."

You have another one in Matthew 10.

"And he called to him his 12 disciples "and gave them authority," a song by Jesus, over, look at this phrase, unclean spirits, "to cast them out and to heal every disease "and every affliction."

You have another one in Luke 7.

"In that hour," just talking about Jesus, "he healed many people of diseases "and plagues and evil spirits."

Here's something just very fascinating.

The New Testament uses the phrase evil spirits at least eight times, but the more popular phrase is the phrase unclean spirits, and that's over 20 times.

That word demon or demonion, it is a categorical phrase.

So for instance, I can say, "Hey," we can look at all of our shoes and be like, "Hey, we'll have Nikes," or the majority of us have the Nikes.

Annalise, you've got the Blazers, right?

I've got some Terminators.

Gigi, what you rocking for? - Jordan 1s, Jordan 1s. - Yeah, okay, there we go.

Now, I said Nikes, but underneath it, they're sub, right, like you can specify.

The same thing is happening in the Gospels.

So when the word demon is used, I'm only on, it's like, okay, cool, but exactly what demons are you talking about?

Well, we have the characterization, evil spirits.

Well, where do evil spirits come from?

This is where we have to go into the mind of a second temple Jewish Israelite person who is living around that time, and instantly in their brain, they're going, "Look at Enoch."

Like, "Oh yeah, we've heard about all of this." (laughing) "Look at Enoch," right? - You don't hear that?

"Look at Enoch." (laughing) - Okay, so people panic, and I know you guys get this, right?

You guys get this.

People panic, right? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Is he?

Where'd he get his PhD from?

They're gonna like, they're gonna chat.

They're like, "What?" - Look at Enoch, it's not canon. - It's not canon, right?

Okay, but is it fair to say that the biblical authors did not live in a bubble? - Yeah, right, yeah. - Right?

Like, isn't it fair that they lived?

There were social situations that are happening in their lifetime, and there was other writing that was around.

Paul is consistently quoting poets, Greek poets, that are around.

Peter and Jude actually quote the book of Enoch.

So if scripture itself has an understanding of the world around it, it feels like if we're to hold God's word high and be faithful stewards of the text, just like scripture calls us to in Timothy and Titus, we ought to take into full consideration all of the things that are accessible to us.

And we apply a proper hermeneutic, a proper way of how we read the scriptures, or how we read things that are not part of scripture.

So I'm not gonna read the book of Enoch.

This is just Joel personally.

I don't read the book of Enoch like it's the Naren word of God.

That's not the purpose of the book of Enoch.

What the book of Enoch does do for me, though, is give me some great historical information.

It gives me some hyperlinks to be like, wait a minute, this exact word was used in these exact ways.

Biblical authors are using the exact same words in the exact same ways.

That is filling in some gaps over here. - Hey guys, we're gonna get right back into this episode, but I wanted to take this moment to invite you to subscribe to our Patreon.

We have several videos and we're talking about some of these topics and even newer topics that we're diving deeper on.

You don't wanna miss these conversations.

Head over to Patreon right now, subscribe. - Well, how does the book of Enoch describe evil spirits or unclean spirits?

This is Enoch 15, eight through nine.

And now the giants, we talked about them.

This is synonymous with the Nephilim, who are produced from the spirits and flesh shall be called evil spirits upon the earth.

And on the earth shall be their dwelling.

Evil spirits have proceeded from their bodies.

This is their human body dies.

Now the evil spirits proceed from the bodies because they are born from men and from the holy watchers is their beginning and primal origin.

They shall be evil spirits on earth and evil spirits shall they be called.

So I'm just like, just building kind of the case here. - Come on, come on. - Okay, if this is true and I'm gonna argue that it is true and there's plenty of scholarship, you can look at Lauren Stuckenbroek and a neat read and Mike for sure in his book, "Unseen Realm and Demons" that trace out all these details, right?

If this is the case, when Jesus, that y'all this is fascinating.

When Jesus goes in the New Testament and he meets with the demon, specifically an unclean spirit, these demons quake.

They panic.

They are absolutely freaking out.

Look at Mark five.

It says this, here's Jesus.

They come to the other side of the sea, to the region of the Gerasenes.

As soon as he got out of the boat, a man with an unclean spirit came out of the tombs and met him.

He lived in the tombs and no one was able to restrain him anymore, not even with the chain because he had often been bound and shackled but torn the chains apart and smashed the shackles.

No one was strong enough to subdue him.

Night and day among the tombs on the mountain, he was always crying out and cutting himself with the stones.

This is not a positive scene. - Yeah. - Yeah. - This is horrific, right?

When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and knelt down before him.

Look at the details of the text, right?

The physical posture before the Messiah.

And he cried out with a loud voice.

What do you have to do with me?

What he calls him?

Jesus, son of the most high God.

And he begs him, I beg you before God, don't torment me.

For he had told him, come out of the man, you unclean spirit.

What's the context of this?

The book of Jubilees actually talks about this, another Second Temple book.

It talks about how one of the consequences for these unclean spirits is that they're gonna roam the earth in torment and in agony until the Messiah comes to cause judgment.

So just think about this. - What? - Wow. - This is wild, right?

You've got these unclean spirits. - Wow. - The spirits of the deceased Nephilim, Giborim, they are, they're homeless.

They're homeless.

They are in torment because they have felt what it meant to be inhabited, embodied.

Now they're disembodied spirits.

They can't, right?

But what's fascinating is these spirits can actually possess humans.

Why?

Because they were embodied before. - Got it.

Cool. - Okay.

So why do they-- - Amazing. - I mean, this is-- - Cool info, cool info. - No, I can't. - You're very cool. - I'm fascinating. - This is like coming out of the fire hydrant, right? - Come on, come on. - So again, I just want us to think like from a just rational logic standpoint, why would evil spirits want to inhabit bodies?

Because they're in torment when they're not in, they knew what it meant to be in bodies before. - Yeah, that's good. - Right?

And so now they're roaming aimlessly.

Now here comes Jesus.

And in this moment, I actually have this strong suspicion that the moment Jesus sets his foot on the scene, actually in the moment he takes his first breath as a baby in a manger, the supernatural realm is on red alert.

They're freaking out.

They're like, he's here.

The anointed one is so-- - Seriously. - We tried to stop him but-- - They're so cold. - I mean, I grew up in one of my older house when I was younger.

You turn the light on in the middle of the night and about 30 roaches would go. (all laughing) So the light comes on, darkness is exposed, and it begins to flee.

So you're right.

It's like now I'm being seen. - Exactly.

And then this is just the last thing and I'm curious what you guys think.

And then this is-- - What is the one thing that Jesus does?

Like of all that Jesus does, pretty much everything that Old Testament prophets, judges, characters, figures do.

Healing the blind, supernatural kinds of healings that deal with the weather, all that kind of stuff has been done of Old Testament prophets.

Like the Spirit of God has come upon them.

This is the one thing that Jesus does.

It is never tested.

It is never communicated.

It is never prefigured in the Old Testament demon exorcism.

That's the one thing that is exclusive to Jesus.

Why?

Because Jesus is the King.

When he comes onto earth, he is cutting off heads. - Wow. - And the heads are the heads of these evil spirits, these demonic beings.

And it is, he's putting the entire cosmic world on notice. - On notice. - On notice.

And then look at what Jesus does.

He gives this power and this ability to his disciples.

And he sets them out to do the thing that he himself is the only one as the King of the cosmos to be able to have the authority and the power to do.

And so it's, again, it's like, Joel, why care about this?

And well, should I not call them demons anymore?

Well, actually I'm not so concerned about the terminology as so much about the story.

Because demon, diamonion, is a categorical term, like I mentioned.

So you're right in saying that, but I think precision matters.

That noticing that the majority of the time, the New Testament authors, they're calling them unclean spirits or evil spirits is a dot, it's a hyperlink to the origin story of Genesis 6 to let us know that what Jesus is doing is an undoing of the despoiling of the peace of God's good creation.

And Jesus is so good, he cares so much that he's not just gonna do this abstractly as if like, you know, I'll just pick and choose.

No, no, he's going back to the very origin stories of the rebellion of humanity and going like, I'm gonna deal with that issue.

They've been waiting for this long.

Okay, I've got them now, you know?

And so that's what I think is what's happening.

And why we should care about demons not being fallen angels.

We're gonna have a different episode, we're gonna talk about fallen angels.

Paul has very precise terminology for fallen angels in the New Testament.

In a precise term, powers, authorities, principalities, and powers and structures. - So I have a question.

You were saying that these Nephilim demons, their judgment is to roam the earth.

And Luke, that same story, these demons say, do not cast us into the abyss. - Right. - In a way kind of saying that some of them are there, or like, what is your take on that? - Okay, so, oh, this is so good.

So who are the fathers, or who's the parent of the Nephilim?

Sons of God. - Yeah. - Okay, very important detail.

The Genesis six sons of God are not free.

They're not out roaming around hanging out. - Yeah. - Right, we're gonna talk about this in a different episode when we talk about Deuteronomy 32 world.

The Genesis six sons of God are in chains, in Tartarus. - Tartarus. - In Tartarus, yes.

So Tartarus is the Greek word for Hades. - Yeah. - Okay. - You're gonna take me, I'm gonna go real deep. - Please do. - Let's hit it, that's what we hear. - The ancient Hebrews understood Sheol, which is the residence of the dead, the place where the dead would go, as two parts, two chasms.

One, and I'm gonna use the Greek terms for it, 'cause it's a little bit easier and clearer.

One is the depths of Hades, and the other is Abraham's bosom.

This is the Luke passage, right?

When the whole thing with Lazarus is happening.

Exactly.

They're getting this idea from somewhere.

Who is in the depths of Hades?

Well, Peter and Jude let us know who is in the depths of Hades.

These, actually I have the text. - Jude 1.6 or? - Yeah, let me, yep. - Oh man. - Yeah, 2 Peter 2.4. - Oh, okay. (laughing) - This is good. - This is Peter.

"For if God did not spare the angels who sinned," this is Genesis 6, "but cast them into hell," the Greek word here is Hades, "and delivered them into chains of utter darkness to be kept for judgment."

In 1 Peter, it talks about Jesus, who goes to proclaim the gospel to the spirits, right?

So like the whole question of what's happening with Jesus on Silent Saturday and Holy Saturday, Jesus is ambient silent. (laughing) He's not, there's no silence in the cosmic world that Jesus is doing.

His physical body goes into the grave because Jesus is still under.

He willingly in divine humility submitted himself to the full totality of the incarnation.

So what is required of Jesus in order to, in obedience, fulfill this Passover land that he is?

Well, his human body would go into the grave, right?

But his spirit would have to go somewhere.

Where does the spirit go?

It goes to where the righteous, that of the Old Testament were waiting.

This is why David in the Psalms, David's like, "Don't abandon me in Sheol."

Right?

This is, Peter actually quotes David in Acts 2.

And so what does Jesus do?

Jesus is going to Hades.

He preaches the gospel.

He's proclaiming his victory.

That Greek word, eangelion, it can mean to deliver good news or to proclaim to celebrate like a king celebrates.

So I just wanna give you guys a scene.

This is what the scene is.

They're in the pits.

There is the depths of Hades, which is the holding place for these evil angelic beings, right?

They're in bondage.

And then there is a resting place for the righteous dead of the Old Testament.

They're not in the same place that these finally, but they are being held captive by death.

And hey, there's captivity here.

And they're waiting.

This is why Abraham, Jacob, why Joseph cares about his bones, right?

When Joseph was like, he's dying, and he's looking at his bones like, "Y'all, you left me in a pit one time.

Do not leave me in the pit of Egypt, right?

Take my bones with you."

Why is this?

Because the ancient Hebrews understood that their spirits went somewhere.

The place where their bones were buried mattered because it actually helped to determine where their spirit would reside.

And so here's Jesus proclaiming the gospel, proclaiming the good news, and then he leads them out of Hades. - That's crazy. - So the abyss and Hades are interchangeable words? - They're two separate places.

And so right now, huh? - They can see each other. - And they can see each other. - I'm like Lazarus, I can't come to you, you can't come to me. - Yeah, exactly, exactly.

And this is, and just think, being these fallen angels of Genesis 6, and you're like, "Oh no."

Not only is Jesus whooping the body, the spirits of our kids, right?

Now the people that we were in, you know, like at least we thought Hades got them.

They're in a better place than us, but you know, now he just, they're still trapped.

Now he went there and he let them out. - Okay, other question. (laughing) - Real quick, it's so funny.

So a lot of y'all before knowing when I got saved, PJ was my youth pastor for a while.

And I remember an Easter message.

It was one of those things.

Well, kudos to you, you know, those things like, you teach all these things, and you wonder if people ever remember.

I'll never forget PJ teaching this.

And if you listen to that last episode, it was like, PJ was a youth pastor teaching like end times and demons and spiritual stuff.

And we were all like, you walk in and it's like lightning sounds and all this stuff. - Repent. - And I remember this Easter youth Sunday, and I actually, I've quoted this a ton of times and just never credited you, but. (laughing) You heard me ever say this.

It was PJ.

And to your point, Joel, he would say, you know, man, when Jesus breathed his last breath, body went into the tomb and would always, and I used to get hype listening to this.

He would always, PJ would always say, yeah, he went down, embarrassed all of the evil spirits and essentially paraded people.

And I just was like, I thought that was just like the dopest illustration.

It's like, well, what happened during that time?

It was like, man, he went and prayed.

He went and whipped the demons that, whooped their butt down, you know, and took, it was wild.

So like the actual illustration or the picture of taking the keys back essentially. - That's what Revelation says, right?

That he's got the keys of Hades in his hand.

How did you get the keys of Hades in his hand? - Well, that's the thing.

When you explain Hades though, like just giving this perspective that you've given us so far, it unlocks so many scriptures.

Like this is what people want to know because they read the word and have no concept of perspective, just like the goat example, 9/11.

They don't know any of this.

So now when you say Hades and these disembodied spirits and then Matthew 16, 18, you're Peter upon this rock, I'll build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail.

Pointing back to Genesis 6 again.

You're like Jesus, everyone around there is knowing what he's doing.

The entire time he's saying, I've come to undo and restore everything that the enemy tried to do back then, which is pervert God's creation. - That's right. - That's all he can do. - That's right. - I mean, this is like a key to unlock so much. - Yeah, and so, and I want to go back and answer your question specifically.

So what is my take on why do these unclean spirits, like why are they fearful?

Why do they go into the pigs?

Why do they go into the water?

Like what's happening?

The location of, now I want to be clear.

So I really, really care about theological honesty.

And so for me, I'm going to do my very best to be like, okay, here's what I can, like I really feel like the scriptures are just like point us to that we can build a foundation for.

And there are other things I'm going to say, like this is a bit more speculative.

There's second temple literature writing, and there's some thoughts that lean to this, but take it and process it with the Lord, process it with your pastor.

Ask for the spirit to give you guidance on this.

This is one of those things I would say.

The way that the ancients understood the sea was also, one, it's the place of chaos and destruction, right?

So we think of the sea today and we're like, hey, that's a great place to do a boat trip.

No ancient Israel is like, I'm doing that for fun, right?

That's the place of, that's why Jesus on a sea is calming the storms.

Everything has meaning, a double meaning to it, right?

The sea, the way that it understood was also a gateway into the abyss, into that place.

Some of these beings, like the Genesis 6 beings, don't get the opportunity to come in and out.

They're bound there, right?

But the pain and the agony of getting into that abyss and going into that place of torment is excruciating.

So my speculation here is the reason why Legion asked this is because they would rather be embodied by something than nothing and while they're embodied by something, they could then go through that passageway, right? - Wow. - And so that's what I think is probably happening. - That takes me to the Revelation verse of Apollyon is the king over the abyss.

And then the beast comes out of the abyss.

So are these all just the fallen angels coming back?

I guess, right? - Yeah, so this will take us into like a whole, some of our other episodes.

So here's one of the things that I think is happening.

Part of this also is your eschatology.

So I wanna be also clear on that one is that different people have different eschatological frameworks of how they're understanding interpretation of the names and the situations and the structures.

But I think the benefit of having this conversation is that it gives, regardless of what end times, that word eschatology just means end time study, eschatos meaning last, what it does, the benefit is, no matter what camp you're in, it's gonna give us common language.

It's gonna give us a common origin story to look at.

So you can still have disagreement in terms of how this is fleshed out, but you can be like, wait a minute, there's an origin story that we should be pulling from.

So in the book of Enoch and the book of Jubilees in Second Temple literature, for instance, Satan is referred to as Mastema, right?

In the book of Enoch.

Well, that's a Hebrew play on words of Satom, which comes from Satan, Satom.

So you're starting to see a name being leveraged and utilized as a descriptor for a being underneath that.

When we talk about the origin story of Satan, I'm gonna talk a little bit about why all this is important.

I think titles are used in ways, and this is again speculation on my part, because I don't think the scriptures give us a taxonomy on exactly like this demon is this general, and this demon is this lieutenant, this demon, like I don't see that.

What I do see is clearly there's infighting even in the demonic realm.

They're trying to get their own position.

They're trying to get their own power.

And in so doing, I actually think the names can actually change at times.

It's kind of like masks that are being handed out and passed around.

That's what I think is happening. - Wow, good.

It's amazing. - That's good stuff. - Yeah. - That's a lot of stuff. - Have you heard anything about, this is some of the questions we get, is the book of Enoch, and then there being two different Enochs? - Yeah, yeah.

So yeah, so typically the book of Enoch is split into two parts, book one and book two.

Book one from an archeological kind of literary, if you do like go into textual criticism, and you're really like evaluating the authenticity and how much like reliability we can get, book one is highly authentic, highly reliable.

Book two gets into some speculation.

You know?

So the original sources that we have for it are much more damaged.

So one of the things that you can find is in your commentaries and when you're reading it, this is like a pro tip that I wish that they taught everybody, but apparently you don't get taught this until you're in your PhD work, which is when I learned about it.

I'm like, I can't figure this out.

And Mike one day was like, Joel, it's because, and this is what he said.

You'll read a text and all of a sudden there'll be a parentheses.

And there'll be other, right?

The reason why there's a parentheses is because there is a fragment missing.

So it's either the lettering is damaged, so we don't know what it is, or they're missing letters because of the damage.

And so that scholar who's doing the translation work is going in and based off of their scholarship, how the sentence is used in different places, they'll input what they think, right?

So just the amount of brackets in that second book is much higher than that first book, just because of the text criticism piece of it. - Awesome, good job. - That's good to know. (laughing) - Definitely. - That's, man, that's wild.

That's a lot.

Man, I appreciate you saying, and as you're hearing these things, it's things that you can go to the Lord about, pray about, talk about with your pastor, navigate these things with the Holy Spirit.

It's these things, though exciting to talk about, and I don't know about y'all, I've learned and put verbiage into a lot of awesome things, it still isn't the end all and be all.

And so don't get so wrapped up in these topics that essentially you miss Jesus.

So that's not the goal or the hope. - Get all points to him, yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. - And so, man, we have a ton of episodes. - This is the beginning. - Oh, we just started.

I'm like, I need more. - This is, we're gonna get into a lot more.

I don't know if anybody else has any other questions or anything regarding that.

I know we touched briefly just Dr.

Heiser and everything that he's done.

What is one thing when it comes to y'all's relationship?

You were just like, man, what's one thing that you got from him?

Maybe the most awesome piece of information, maybe the best way that, or the best thing he's taught you to see or view the scripture or interpret scripture or either or, however you wanna kind of address that. - Yeah, I think, you know, Mike and I had a lot of disagreements as well.

Mike's an Old Testament, or he was an Old Testament scholar.

There was kind of a purist when he came to the Hebrew, it's gonna come up when we talk about Satan.

So I'll telegraph that a little bit.

But one of the things that Mike taught me was how important humility is in how we approach the scriptures.

And for somebody as learned and as just had the credentials that he had, Mike would consistently be like, hey, what do you think about this?

Or I just came across this and I'm not quite sure what to do with it.

And I'm like, you, you have all, like, no, Mike, you tell us what to do. - Right. - And one of Mike's favorite statements and I've adopted as my own now is that Mike's like, hey, I never had a new thought.

Like if anybody's like listening to this right now and you're like, wow, Joel had all these new amazing thoughts.

No, I did not.

There are no new thoughts that are coming from me.

All I'm trying to do is be like, hey, God has given us all of his thoughts already.

That's what theology is.

It's just thinking God's thoughts after him.

And I'm just trying to go and retrieve these ancient thoughts that have been neglected for a long time.

And so I'm grateful for what you guys do in faith and friction, because you are retrieving truth for us that is readily available.

And we just need trusted voices.

Like you guys to help us process through it.

Mike said something he would say, his role is to collect dots, connect dots and communicate them.

And that's kind of- - One more time, one more time.

I like that.

I like that. - His goal was to collect dots.

They're all in these different places, connect them together, see how they work together and then communicate them out.

I think Mike was the best collector of dots 'cause he had all of the primary, he knew where to go, right?

And so a lot of my work has actually been trying to, all the years of research that he's done is say, okay, he's already kind of collected all of these.

Now I'm kind of working on connecting and communicating.

And so, yeah. - Did you grow up Christian? - Yeah, so my grandparents, I did.

But a unique story, my grandparents were missionaries in India.

And so they were converted during the British Raj.

So basically the Brits kind of came over, took over India, took our gold and then gave us our land back.

That's, we can cut that if you don't want to cut that.

But one of the amazing things that happened in that whole process is the gospel came forth. - Come on. - Right, like this is what happens.

The gospel comes forth.

And this British missionary family, the slaters came and they shared the gospel with my grandfather and my grandfather was saved.

And I just kind of grew up, very rare for an Indian to grow up in a Christian household. - Were you introduced to this stuff?

Like the meat of the word early?

Or was this something like the Nephilim talk? - So if you want to know real, like the real answer to this, Chichirar, I think Chichirar is still in that group.

We're in a group from a mutual friend that's the Marvel comics, the deal. - Yeah, on IG. - Yeah, the real truth is I'm such a nerd.

Like my nerd level has been true from day one.

And that is, I've always been fascinated by superheroes.

I've been fascinated by Greek mythology. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. - I used to watch the Hercules and Xena shows from back in the day.

You know what I'm saying? - Me too, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I love that. - What the thing? - Yes, I love her. - She didn't even know what the fuck I was doing. - Yes, the guy she knew. - Oh yeah, oh yeah. - I love her. - So here's the thing that was crazy for me all.

I realized there is no new thought.

They're not thinking up new things.

The story of the Titans, the story of Hercules, there are all these things.

These all have roots in the biblical text.

They are actually plagiarizing the Bible.

And they can't figure out how to make sense of it.

So they just created new stories based off of what they knew is like, there were these things called the sons of God.

How do we make sense of hybrid, half God, half human, Hercules, Perseus, Achilles, you know?

Like that's how we make sense of it.

So for me, that was probably the beginning is that God I think has always wired me to, I just love that.

And then it was until much later, probably, honestly, probably not until seminary, where I was working on my MDiv and I was really struggling with the phrase sons of God.

I always viewed the phrase sons of God as being human rulers. - Do. - Yes.

And then I met this guy named Michael Heiser.

We both worked at a Bible software company.

And I would go into his office and try to debate, can you imagine the punk arrogant kid, - Debating Michael Heiser. - Right, debating him like, I don't think so.

And he just lovingly humbly walked me under through the process.

And then I was like, wait a minute, the sons of God are angelic beings.

I have to rethink pretty much everything. - Everything. - You know?

And so that was my more academic journey into this.

And then my dissertation, I have three full chapters on God's household being a two family household, both a supernatural household and an earthly household that comes together and eat. - Do you watch ancient aliens? - I do. - Okay. - So you like connect the dots there? - I do. - I'm glad you said that.

That's a question I have.

Cause you are a blurry creature fan, right?

You've been on, yes. - They're my guys.

Shout out to Luke and Nate. - Shout out to two blurry.

So my question is, what do you, what is your opinion on aliens?

And maybe what we're about to see. - Yeah.

My opinion is that the world is longing to define and identify things that the scriptures have already communicated. - Come on. - That's so true. - This is why we as believers ought not to be the second third coming off the bench, like the sixth man trying to play this game.

Y'all we should be all stars.

Like we're already in the game.

It's like Space Jam, the first one, not the second one. - Right, right. - You know?

Like, no.

Okay.

And there's a reason for this, that what a lot of people are experiencing, it's actually an, in my, this is my view, an in-breaking of the cosmic and natural world together.

The thing is that there are examples throughout all of scripture of this in-breaking taking place, right?

This is Elijah with a servant, they're on a mountain.

And all of a sudden it's like the army, the earthly armies are there and everybody's panicking.

And the servant's like, we're gonna die.

And Elijah's like, Lord, would you open his eyes?

And his eyes are open and he sees the heavenly host all around him.

Right?

Imagine that same scene happening now.

What would we say?

Those are aliens.

Well, not necessarily.

Not at all.

And so I think, but and, and, not a but and.

We have to recognize that in the cosmic realm, there is good and there is evil. - Correct. - And this is why like Peter, Paul, like they're, they're very clear with this.

Test the spirits.

Right? - Yeah. - Like nobody's running around.

The idea of Satan being in red with a pitchfork, and you know, like that is the most absurd, like the enemy loves that. - Yeah. - The enemy loves that caricature of him.

Right?

Really, this is beautiful.

There's a TV show on Netflix called Lucifer.

I'm not, I'm not gonna like promote it and say like, that's an awesome show that you should watch.

But I do think from a theological standpoint, they probably get the persona of Lucifer better than anything else that I've seen.

He's like this studly guy who owns a nightclub and he's devil incarnate. - Yeah. - Like, there you go.

Got it.

Like, that's, that's about, that's about right.

So I would say that there are words and what we're seeing and experiencing is the in-breaking of the cosmic and the earthly together.

We just need to be very wise in understanding, is this of Yahweh or is this of the enemy?

And really the barometer for that is, is it the exaltation of the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus?

Anything less than that, I'm playing with it. - It's good. - Yeah. - So good. - And I think that's why it's important we have these conversations.

You said something important.

You said the church has to give context to all this.

Because when all this starts happening, I mean, just imagine a revelation that the world gets of this grand story without the biblical context.

And they're seeing, these are aliens.

It makes sense how the enemy would try to deceive.

And if they say, look, we're aliens and we, you know, Jesus was one of us or whatever, this deception can come unless the body of Christ can go, no, look, this is what happened, Genesis 6.

I think what you're doing is so vital for the body of Christ.

Because it gives you a perspective on everything.

Like just what you taught today made me see scriptures differently.

In my mind, I'm thinking, oh, that makes sense.

That makes sense.

Because it's the right angle on things.

And so I think more of the body of Christ needs to know this stuff. - Definitely. - We gotta be people of light.

We need to know what's happening. - Yeah, I think the mantle's been passed to you, the double portion of Dr.

Heiser.

So it's so good, this information. - So good. - It just causes you to dig deeper into the word of God, which is amazing. - Which is great.

Final question.

So talking about unclean spirits and evil spirits and differentiating and understanding the context of the sub parts of a title, if you would, how should the body of Christ think about that in modern day time?

'Cause you see, like you mentioned earlier, Jesus essentially being the first one on the scene to perform an exorcism.

And then empowering disciples to do that.

And you see different places in scripture where he sends them out and they report back and like, man, they're casting out, they're doing the thing.

And I mean, we probably agree commonly widespread that you don't really hear that as much.

It's not like common conversation where somebody's like, yeah, man, well, I was at the supermarket yesterday and man, this man had an unclean spirit in him.

And I just had to show it what's up, exercise that authority by the power of the Holy Spirit.

You don't hear that.

And there's some bodies and people that would argue that that's not relevant for today.

And so whatever, I mean, whatever you have, what's your framework or what do you think the body of Christ's framework, perception, what should they be focused on?

How does that look for us now? - I'll start with the question for you guys.

And this is the question.

What part of my statement is not cosmic here?

That we believe in a Jesus who is God incarnate, came to earth through the womb of Mary, through Immaculate Conception, lived a perfect life, conquered sin and death through death itself, rose again on the third day and ascended into heaven. - Right. - That part. - Okay. - That's amazing. - So is it, so like to our friends who are listening that are just like, you just don't know.

A friend told me to check out this podcast and watch this on YouTube.

And I just don't know like how to think 'cause I grew up in a context that didn't, I just wanna like encourage you, like the very foundation of our faith is built on the cosmic reality of Christ. - Yeah. - That's good. - Right? - That's good. - Okay, and look at how Jesus deals with this.

Jesus is intentional with how he disciples his followers.

He gives certain disciples the training.

He calls all the disciples to do certain things.

He's very pragmatic almost because he doesn't want, I mean, there's a story of this.

I was coming back like we couldn't cast out these demons.

He's like, well, this requires purring fasting.

Like he's teaching them, right, what to do.

So here's what I would say to that.

We have to also recognize that God is species unique in the sense that he is God and nobody else is like him.

He's the only one who's omniscient.

He's the only one who's omnipresent.

He's the only one who's omnipotent.

Like all those things in all places, all powerful.

The enemy is not that.

Supernatural beings are not that.

They're limited and this is very important.

I want anybody who's got any fear in their heart to hear this.

They are limited in space and time and they're running around with a fatally mortal wound on their body.

And that mortal wound was caused by Jesus on the cross.

They know their time is up.

Their only option at this point is to bring as many of the image spirits of God down as they possibly can.

Now, they also have to be wise and efficient how they do their work, right?

So I believe that many of these beings, both unclean spirits and the fallen sons of God are working in systems and structures in order to make the most damage.

There's a reason why sex trafficking has gone out of control.

There's a reason why pornography has gone out of control.

Addictions of all kinds.

Think about that.

Think about the systems and the structures that are perpetuating the growth of these kinds of things in the multi-billion dollar industry.

This is horrific and it is absolutely unwise and I would go so far as to say foolish for us as believers to believe that there is not a supernatural element to them, right?

So there's that part.

And then there's another part, you know, we come from weird different backgrounds and experiences, but you know, I think we've all heard stories of overseas or like in India or wherever it might be, like biblical events taking place.

Like a person who is actually possessed and having somebody come in and having the demon cast out, you know, of them.

And so I think it takes a lot of wisdom and I think it takes all of us as believers to test the spirits, to pursue spiritual maturity, to pursue spiritual transformation so that we are equipped and ready if and when God calls us into whatever scene it might be that we're not caught like surprised trying to figure out what to do.

But I think sometimes the tendency can be to see a demon across every side or every corner, you know, versus just like, okay, let's frame this appropriately.

And the framework is they're limited in time and space.

They've gotta be very efficient and in that they're extremely dangerous.

So let's not be deceived. - Oh, that's good.

That's good.