Supernatural Session 10

Session Review

The Big Picture

The scene in is of Babel, with the people of the world gathered to worship from the top of a tall structure. When God said, “Let us go down and confuse their language” (11:7), we are reminded of what he had said as Adam and Eve left the garden of Eden: “Now they have become like one of us” (3:22). The “us” in each case suggests that God was bringing the situation to the attention of someone else. And in both cases God sends the offending people out, or away from where they had been living. These scenes introduce the idea of cosmic geography, where God used land—physically defined borders, inherited rights of ownership, even the dirt in its fields—to tell the story of his people and their ultimate salvation. Supernatural carefully describes the critical moment after the Tower of Babel incident in which God apportioned or divided the world to the interests and powers of created spirits. This theme of spirit-controlled land influences a surprising number of Old Testament narratives and conversations, coming to full bloom in the ministry of Jesus Christ. It is critical to appreciate this in light of upcoming chapters.

The God who valued physical land also valued the physical human body. Ancient civilizations presumed that gods or spirits did not normally inhabit the flesh of humans (“the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh”; nkjv). Yet we read of numerous examples of God appearing in human form, often for the purpose of explaining his will to someone facing a critical decision. It was God’s way of taking personal interest in people who so often needed a personal touch. We still need this today. I recently heard a man say, “I struggle with the concept of God … but I do believe that Jesus lived, died, and rose again to be the Lord of the world. I can understand and believe that.” He was describing how cosmic geography works. God has, through Christ, come to re-own that which he already owned: this physical home we call Earth.

The Main Idea

The sooner we understand the largest story in the Bible, the sooner we can appreciate its smaller sub-stories and individual plot lines. There is, of course, some debate in trying to identify the largest story of the Bible. Is it Adam and Eve, and the deeds of their offspring? Or is it their sin, their eating of the fruit, that led to the pain and death which we now experience daily? Many would say the Bible is about Jesus, and our privilege of going to heaven if we believe in him. While all of these are important themes in the Bible, I believe that the principal story of Scripture is Abraham’s loyalty to God while refusing to worship the spiritual forces which sought his destruction. The story of Abraham eventually finds fulfillment in the Messiah. All the smaller parts of the story will find their proper expression through Abraham, his family, and their relationships to God and the gods.

How does this relate to our study about the spiritual world? Recall where the story of Abraham is placed: immediately after the worldwide flood and the subsequent apportionment of lands and peoples to the authority of created gods (; ; ). The Psalmist recalls these combined incidents as when God “sat enthroned at the flood” (), delegating his leadership over creation by commanding the stewardship of gods within it. When Abraham is called by God to turn away from his worship of the god of the city of Ur (; ) we are drawn into a story with fascinating possibilities: What will it mean to follow one elohim over another? What is Abraham’s elohim like? Will this man get any land out of the deal—especially when leaving his home behind? Will his family continue his legacy of worshiping this elohim? Or, more important, will Abraham’s elohim reward him and his family for their loyalty, and if so, how?

Digging Deeper

We have the privilege of knowing how Abraham’s story goes. His family, the nation of Israel, will make the mistake of thinking that their God would not abandon them or their land even if they started to worship the gods of other nations. They were wrong. They exchanged God’s “good laws,” meant for their physical and moral benefit (), for the ways of gods who hated the very humans who worshiped them (; ). On account of their disloyalty, Israel was sent to suffer in exile, forced to live under the authority of the gods now recognized as liars () who “could not save” after all (). The country of Israel now sat quiet and abandoned. The land and its people went fallow, awaiting the day when God would restore their fortunes and faithfulness.

The fact that Jesus may have appeared in the Old Testament adds depth to this larger story. Israel had been taught by precept and experience that God would save his people through designated human intervention. Remember that God values the personal touch! Whether through a judge, a king, or an anonymous woman dropping a millstone from a window (), Israel had consistent reason to believe that God would physically come to its rescue. He did many times. God’s ultimate promise of salvation, however, was always connected with Israel’s restored fidelity. “Afterward the children of Israel shall return, seek the Lord their God and David their king, and fear the Lord and his goodness in the latter days” ( nkjv adapted). We notice that David, long dead, was the hope of Israel along with God. We will study at a later point this concept of binitarianism, or the honoring of God alongside his appointed Messiah.

Knowledge in Action

You have probably heard that idolatry comes in all sorts of colors, including the love of things, pride, or that promotion at work. In this sense the second commandment (“You shall not make a graven image”) has been interpreted in light of the tenth (“You shall not covet”). But is this what idolatry meant to the original writers and readers of the Bible? Not at all. In each of its biblical occurrences, the sin of idolatry describes the worship of a real deity through the use of a physical manipulative made of stone, metal, or wood. It led to what Paul called “fellowshiping with demons” (), recalling the singular sin that led Israel into exile. It would likely come as a complete surprise to Moses or Paul that a car (or a camel) could be considered an idol. This reservation of the original meaning of idolatry will be important as we continue forward in our study, especially as we take into account the New Testament writers’ pleas to avoid it. They believed that the gods were still very active during the period of the church (, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” nkjv), and so should we.

One of the questions which has likely come to mind while reading Supernatural and this study guide is how the term “monotheism” is supposed to work. Traditional orthodoxy requires the belief in only one God. So how are we to also believe in other gods if there is only one? To be clear, monotheism does not disallow belief in the gods of the first commandment, provided we clarify our terms. Notice how we apply the capital “G” to the phrase “only one God.” We do this to distinguish between the creator elohim (God) and the created elohim (god/s). Biblical writers, who had no capital letters to work with, could speak of both one god or many, depending on their desired emphasis. For example, Israel’s elohim was “above all elohim” (), meaning that he stood apart, beyond, and distinct from all other divine beings. Having said that, however, the writer also believed that his God was a unique elohim among other elohim (, “He is to be feared above all gods” nkjv). Israel’s God was an elohim, but none of the other elohim compared to him. Monotheism is thus a matter of comparison, a declaration of the Creator’s uniqueness and his exclusive claim upon Abraham’s family in all matters of authority, power, and worship. We can be monotheists and believe that other elohim exist.

Discussion Questions

• To hear tell it, Satan currently has authority in our world. What physical evidence do we have that this is true? Or is this something that can only be understood by faith?

(ESV)

By Grace Through Faith

2 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—

• What difference would it make to your understanding of the Bible if Jesus appeared in the Old Testament? How would it make the story different, especially in the Gospels?

• How have your heard others define idols? Why do you think that idols have become identified with cars and boats and money?

MISUNDERSTANDING IDOLATRY

The biblical prophets love to make fun of idol making. It seems so stupid to carve an idol from wood or stone or make one from clay and then worship it. But ancient people did not believe that their gods were actually images of stone or wood. We misread the biblical writers if we think that.

What ancient idol worshippers believed was that the objects they made were inhabited by their gods. This is why they performed ceremonies to “open the mouth” of the statue. The mouth (and nostrils) had to be ritually opened for the spirit of the deity to move in and occupy, a notion inspired by the idea that one needs to breathe to live. The idol first had to be animated with the very real spiritual presence of the deity. Once that was done, the entity was localized for worship and bargaining.

This is easily proven from ancient texts. There are accounts, for example, of idols being destroyed. There is no sense of fear in those accounts that the god was dead. Rather, there was only a need to make another idol.

Paul’s warning in , alluded to previously, reflects this thinking. Earlier in the letter, he told the Corinthians that an idol had no power and was, in and of itself, nothing (). While Gentiles had other lords and gods, for believers there was only one true God. But in chapter 10, he clarifies that he also knows that sacrifices to idols are actually sacrifices to demons—evil members of the spiritual world.[1]

• In this discussion of cosmic geography, consider the idea of a “haunted” place. Have you ever experienced what you take be a haunted location? What does the present lordship of Jesus Christ have to say about the idea of so-called haunted places?[2]

[2]

[1] Heiser, M. S. (2015). The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible (First Edition, pp. 35–36). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

[2] Johnson, R. (2015). Supernatural (A Study Guide). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.