Divine Council 101: The Bible’s Spiritual World Explained

Hey everybody, welcome to the AC Podcast. This is Steve and I have a very special guest

with me today. Somebody that I've been really hoping to get to speak to in person. I guess

this isn't exactly in person, but this is the next best thing. So I have on the line all

the way from Charlotte, North Carolina, we have Dr. Joel Mudamale. So let me give you

a quick introduction, Dr. Mudamale or Dr. Joel, as is often referred to. He's a theologian

and Bible teacher with a PhD in theology who frequently speaks at conferences, churches

and other events. He is the director of theology and research at Proverbs 31 Ministries and

co-hosts that therapy and theology podcast with a licensed counselor, Jim Kras and co-host

Lysa. I'm going to get this wrong, but you can correct me Dr. Joel. At least at least at

church, church. Okay. Yeah. Good. Awesome. It sounds very interesting by the way. He authored

the hidden piece, finding true security, strength and confidence through humility published

in 2024. And some fun facts. He's an avid coffee drinker. You're welcome Starbucks. He loves

Air Jordan Retro ones. He's from Chicago and for those of you sneaker nerds that should

tell you everything you need to know about Dr. Joel. And his all time favorite theologian

is none other than St. Augustine of Hippo. Dr. Joel, welcome to the AC podcast. Thanks, Steve.

I'm so excited to be talking with you. And I do wish we were in person together. But we're

just talking offline that maybe we can have, you know, figure out how to make that happen here

shortly. Yeah. At some point. And we've we've been wanting to have Dr. Joel out to our

conference. It's just just logistical. He hasn't worked up, but we'll see what happens in the

future, especially for those of you who are aware that AC is looking to expand into the US.

With the help of our friend Harry down in California there. So who knows? Who knows? This

just might happen. Now before we get started, I always want to sort of humanize our guest in the

eyes of the audience or in the ears of the audience. So at the risk of sounding really

philosophical, who is Joel Mudamale? Yeah. That's a good question. So if you're listening to me,

you might not know this, but if you are to see me, I'm Indian. My parents immigrated from India

from Hyderabad in their early 20s. I was born and raised in the Chicago land area. You know,

grown up as a child of immigrant parents in Chicago was quite a journey. And it was a very special

part of my life. My grandparents are missionaries in India. They have been in ministry for over 65

years in India. And so kind of unique for an Indian kid to essentially kind of have the story of

Jesus always around him. So that has just been kind of my witness and my testimony. A lot of

friends growing up that were Hindu, Buddhist, atheist, different positions on the religious spectrum.

But for me, the story of Jesus and the Bible was so crucial for every part of my life.

I went through a season of rebellion, real serious severe rebellion through high school.

And really, I kind of just said, the Lord rescued me and saved me. And I just felt this deep

call to ministry. Got to start. This is a funny story. I got to start as a worship leader.

And so I used to lead worship. And really along the way, Steve, I think I just got really

passionate about the words that we sing. What are we singing? Why are we singing them? Are these

works true of the biblical tax? Are they true? Theologically, start to get kind of consumed with

the ancient hymns, loved them. And really, long story short, I realized what I was really passionate

about was actually theology. I was actually really passionate about like the biblical text, you know.

And so there's a great quote about what theology is from a 17th century astronomer, Johannes

Kepler, who simply said, you know, theology is simply thinking God's thoughts after him.

And so for me, that's just kind of been my journey. A husband, my wife, Bernie and I have

been married for 16 years. We're going on 17 years. We've got four kids, Liam, Levi, and Lucas

are three boys, 14, 13, and 11. And then on Valentine's Day, six years ago, we welcomed our

baby girl, Amelia Jane, who I have nicknamed congratulations. Yeah, I became for MJ after the

great special period of all time. So there's my Chicago roots that are coming back out. But man,

if you were to just ask, like, I'm a marvel nerd. I love marvel and comics. I still love playing

that small. I was thinking, because when you first at MJ, I was thinking Mary Jane from Spider-Man.

Underbed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We can talk about that about culture and context later on in this

conversation, I'm sure, and how crucial, you know, that is even in understanding and reading

the biblical text. But yeah, that's kind of a snapshot. If you just want to summarize why I'm

a Bible nerd, I just, I just really do love the Bible. Wonderful. And my hope and my vision

really is, I've done academic work, but I really have this deep desire that the ivory tower of

theology that often is, you know, just isolated up there, unattainable, you know, ought to actually

be accessible to the everyday average Bible reader. And so that's kind of my passion. I am more of a

collector, a connector and communicator of theology. I rely heavily on the scholars that are

doing primary research, and I kind of love interacting with their work and, you know, connecting and

doing a bit more of a biblical theological work to communicate those in the grand scheme of

the story of Scripture, and then how it ought to apply to our lives. Oh, that's wonderful. One

topic that I've been really wanting to discuss is the Divine Council view. And part of the reason

is that at AC, we get quite a few questions come in from various followers of our ministry who

just want to know more about it. Others feel a little confused by it. And some others are skeptical

about, is this orthodox or is this just completely heretical? What is going on here? So there's a lot

of a lot of questions surrounding the Divine Council view. So let's start here, Dr. Joel, what

is the Divine Council view? For those who are maybe encountering this term for the first time,

can you break it down for us? I think that's a really great question, Steve. And in fact,

the Divine Council sometimes is often considered a new or novel theological invention, a modern

theological idea, maybe from some modern scholars or theologians who have seen something in the

text and they're trying to systematize it. And yet it's actually not. It is something that was

well understood in Second Temple literature in the Hebrew culture of the biblical time period.

And so what this idea is, I'll give kind of a big 30,000-foot idea in just layman's terms,

and then maybe we can look at a couple passages that lay this out explicitly. But the Divine Council

worldview is an idea that God is king. God is king of heaven and earth, and all kings have kingdoms

inside of the kingdom or citizens, and the king typically always has a royal court. The royal

court is made up of trusted individuals that are tasked on mission and vocation, and they have

responsibility. They're subjected underneath the king, and yet they are, and I think often of

Second Corinthians chapter 5 of the Apostle Paul, who says that you and I are ambassadors of Christ,

it's this idea of the ministerial reconciliation, and we are representing the high king of heaven

and earth. And so we find these interesting passages in the Old Testament particularly that present

God as a king amongst a heavenly host. And so we have to ask ourselves, why would God be intentionally

portrayed through the biblical text as a king amidst a heavenly host? Are these throwaway

statements, ideas that are just for fun, or do they hold a crucial understanding for how we

ought to see the work of God in and throughout creation? And so you have a passage like Psalm 82,

which is one of my favorite passages to kind of look at the Divine Council worldview. I'm going

to read the passage. It says that God, that first instance of God is Elohim, it's singular, the

construction of the word is plural, but it's singular here, and it's referring to Yahweh, the

uncreated creator. So God has taken his place in the Divine Council. In the midst of the Elohim,

the God's, he holds judgment. There's a bunch of nerdy Hebrew grammar things here, but essentially

you can't have a single individual in the midst of anything other than a plural assembly. And so

that's where you get the sense that you have a single God in the midst of the gods. So you're

reading from Psalm 82, is that right? Yep, yep, Psalm 82. And there, there's a very clear

mission of Divine Council. Yeah, the, you know, the Hebrew phrase there is Elohim, but so God has

taken his place in the Divine Council. In the midst of the God's, he holds judgment. And now this

is God's speech. This is what God is saying to these members of the Divine Council and that word

there for the gods is once again Elohim. And now we're going to talk about Elohim later on,

but the idea is that we have the uncreated creator who has taken his place amongst the Divine

Council. He's the king. He's sitting. And now this is a judgment scene. The king is about to

take some people to task because of their irresponsibility and their wickedness. So what is their

irresponsibility? This is what Yahweh says to them, how long will you judge unjustly and show

partiality to the wicked? And then he says, this is what you're supposed to do. Give justice to the

weak and the fatherless to maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute to rescue the

weak and the needy to deliver them from the hand of the wicked. And then it goes out of the direct

speech into commentary and talking about these individuals, they have neither knowledge nor

understanding. They walk about in darkness. All the foundations of the earth are shaken. And then

it goes back into direct speech. God said, Yahweh says, I said, you are Elohim. And then really

interesting, the familial language for these Elohim is, you are sons of the most high, which is a

synonymous related term to another phrase, sons of God, which in Hebrew is Beneha Elohim. And so

here you have a description of these beings as sons of the most high, all of you. And then here's

the consequence. Never the less, when the contrast is being made with humanity, and never the less

like men, you shall die and fall like any prince. And then at the very end of this, Steve is a

brilliant little line here that I think is so important. It's again, this last line is Yahweh,

I think, saying to another Elohim who's kind of offstage, it says, arise, oh God, arise,

judge the earth for you shall inherit the nation. So who is the one who judges the earth?

Who is the one who inherits the nations? Right. Yeah, this is very fascinating.

I think it would be worth just slowing down here, just appreciate the kind of royal image,

the kingly image, because I think when, especially in the West, Protestant evangelicals,

especially when we think about God, we almost have this too individualistic of a view. We imagine

God, perhaps before the creation of the world, existing just in the trinity in the Godhead,

Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but there's no one else. But I think this imagery of, okay, you know

what? He is a king. And what does a king have? He has his court. He has, he's not alone, right? It's

not this atomized view of who God is. But it's almost like there is, there are others with him.

Now, this is where I think a lot of people get concerned, especially for those who are very

committed to the historic biblical orthodoxy. Yeah. Because to them, it sounds like, so are you

saying there are other gods? Are you now committing, you know, to yourself, to polytheism? Yeah. Yeah.

So how would you hash that out? Because it seems to me like a lot of it revolves around the word

Elohim. Elohim. Yeah. Okay. So a couple of things. I want to just tie the bow on the divine

counsel idea. Because some people might be able to say, no, you're good. Some people might be like,

well, are you proof texting just from Psalm 82? To which I'd say no, Psalm 82, I think is the one

of the clearest examples of that. But you have a passage like Psalm 89 in verse six that says,

and this is exact what you're talking about, Steve, for who in the skies can be compared to the

Lord? Who among the heavenly beings is like the Lord? A God greatly to be feared in the counsel

of the holy ones. So Psalm 89, and there's actually so many other Psalms every time you hear the phrase,

the Lord of hosts is an idea of an image of a king, a royal warrior king in the midst of a

holy assembly, a divine assembly. You have the opening pages of Job, Job chapter one that has the

sons of God that present themselves to God in a throne room scenario. One of these spiritual

beings is the Hassatan, the accuser, the adversary, who has kind of a judicial responsibility tasked with

identifying evil in the world. But that scene, I want to focus on that scene, that scene of God

as king amongst a royal court is actually made explicit in Job one, same in Job chapter two,

where there's a second scenario of that. And then the other one, and it goes directly to once again,

what you were saying, is Job 38 verse seven that says, when the morning stars sang together,

this is talking about the beginning of all of creation. This is kind of where God has been silent

for basically 37 chapters. Job has been pontificating the chaos of his life. His friends have been

knuckleheads all the way through this. And you've got this dark sense of silence. It'll finally

in chapter 38, Yahweh steps in and it's like, I got you. Now you've done all your thinking and

pontificating and processing and speculating. Let me just kind of take you to task. And there's actually

a brilliant scholar. His name is Eric Ortland. Eric wrote a great book on a commentary kind of a

biblical theological commentary on Job. I think it's called piercing Leviathan is the name of it.

Essentially he points out in the Hebrew grammar, while you and I would kind of look at this and even

the way I was kind of describing it would be like, oh man, God's about to take this dude to task.

There's something subtle that's happening here that is reflective of a good father who as a

rhetorical device invites his children into conversation. And so even late into Job 38 is the

evidence of a good God who's asking us to consider. And here's what he says in terms of like when

the foundations of the earth were first created, verse seven, when the morning stars sang together

and all the sons of God, the Bene Elohim shouted for joy. Why I think this is really important

is because this identifies these sons of God, Bene Elohim, prior to the creation of humanity.

That's right. So it is incongruent, right, incoherent in order to read into this human rulers or humanity

as the ones who are shouting for joy because they weren't created yet. You know, to all of this,

you're absolutely right. Some people are going to start to panic a little bit and say the other

passage is 1 Kings 22, 19 through 23, which is another explicit scene where the prophet Micaiah,

he describes the Lord seated in his throne with a multitude of heavenly beings that are standing

all around him. And that's a different scene. But the question and the concern, and I think this

is a valid good question to ask is does this now suggest or imply that God is one among many

other spiritual beings and they are equitable in nature or maybe God is superior, right? Like he is

a higher being and yet still ontologically similar to these other spiritual beings to which I would

say no, absolutely not. And my doctoral advisor, who is my second reader, and really an individual who

I would say didn't pioneer the divine counsel, but pioneered a retrieval of the divine counsel

worldview as something that we should really highly consider as a guy named Dr. Michael Heiser.

And I think Mike. Yeah, Mike was brilliant. Sadly, as I was finishing my dissertation, I submitted

chapter three and Mike was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. And so I actually was

the very last PhD student that he supervised and finished through the end. And my first reader is

a brilliant New Testament scholar by the name of Dr. Patrick Shreiner. Patrick Dunne has done

incredible work on the ascension, is run commentaries on acts. And so Patrick, I was actually Patrick's

first PhD student that he minted. And so kind of interesting. I'm like bookending the careers of

these brilliant scholars. And one of the things that Mike said that I think is really important

as a little catchphrase to this is that the term in question is the term Elohim. So the Hebrew word

Elohim is what you and I would translate in English as God. Now the word itself is grammatically

plural, but the distinction between if we're talking about many or one is based off of context.

And even sometimes what happens, especially when it's talking about Yahweh, when Yahweh is being

referred to as Elohim, and the article is placed in front of it. So you have the God similar to

like colleges now, you've got Ohio State. If anybody who went to Ohio State, they already are

annoyed at me because they're like, no, no, we're not a Ohio State. Ohio State, you know,

it says like you are the one. So this was Mike's statement. Mike would say that Yahweh is Elohim,

but no other Elohim could ever be Yahweh. In other words, I think this is where we need to slow

down because this can get a little bit abstract here and it's really easy to lose people.

So what I'm hearing you say is Elohim is a word that's being used to refer to

just supernatural beings in general. But when we're talking about this work can also be used to

refer to Yahweh God, but that is not to say that Yahweh God is just like other supernatural beings

that he is somehow same in nature, but just greater in degree. We're saying, no, he is a unique,

he's a category of his own, but we use the word Elohim to refer to Yahweh God as well as other

supernatural beings. Yeah, this is where our English language is a bit flat. You know, we depend

highly on context and even our kind of modern ideas that we implant into English words can

sometimes mess us up a little bit. So for instance, we get caught up by the English word God and

we would maybe be able to clearly see a distinction between a capital G God. I think this is how,

like we would say, it's like Yahweh is capital G God, but all these other Elohim are lowercase

G gods, but the problem still is, well, are they ontologically the same to which I would say no.

So the Hebrew word Elohim is a term that describes place of residence. The place of residence,

it is a term that describes often the majority of the time disembodied spiritual beings.

Disembodied spiritual beings. For instance, it's referred to as Yahweh, the uncreated creator,

Genesis 1, it's referred to the gods of the nations, Exodus 12, 12, Joshua 24, 20, it's

referred to angelic beings, the sons of God, Psalm 29, 1, Job 16, it's referred to as demonic entities.

So evil beings, Deuteronomy 32, 17 is an incredibly important one that places Elohim

right next to the Hebrew term Shadeem, which is where we get demons. It's also interestingly

referred to the disembodied human dead. This is the term that's used in first Samuel,

2013, of the Shade or the ghost of Samuel, who comes up out of the grave. This is the whole

which of Endor scene. It's use of the angelic work in Genesis 35, 7, and it is rarely, and to my

knowledge, the only time it's kind of ever used in this way, it is used of rulers or judges.

Extremely rare found in Exodus 21, 6, and so of the seven categories, kind of that I've listed

out, six of the seven categories, the overwhelming majority of the instances of Elohim is a place of

residence term that is used of disembodied spiritual beings. So who is God? God is Spirit, right?

That's what John tells us. God is Spirit. So from a linguistic standpoint, yeah, God is Elohim.

However, God is not Elohim in the same way, the same degree, the same ontological existence,

as any other Elohim. And this is where we retain monotheism. This is not an invitation into

polytheism. That's not how the Bible portrays it. You've got the Shema of Deuteronomy 64.

Hero Israel, the Lord our God is one. You've got passages like Isaiah 44, 6 through 8, where

you know, this oracle of Isaiah where it says, I'm the first and I'm the last. Apart from me,

there is no God or Isaiah 45, 5 through 6. I'm the Lord and there is no other. Apart from me,

there is no God. Point of clarification, this is not a denial of the existence of other supernatural

beings. It is a declaration of non-comparability. It's a declaration of non-comparability. And while

Mike would say that Yahweh is species unique or that Yahweh is Elohim, but no other Elohim is Yahweh,

I would say this way. Yahweh is the uncreated Creator. He's the uncreated Creator, which means

Yahweh is categorically, ontologically distinct in every category because he has no beginning

and he has no end. He's uncreated. Every other created thing, everything else in all of human

existence is different fundamentally because they have an origination point. They are created

by God. And so now some people would be like, well, why is this important? You know, why are we

spending so much time talking about this? To which I'm a little bit empathetic for, I don't want

us to miss like, like, don't miss Jesus in all of this. Don't miss the victory of Christ's and

death. And you and I are called to spiritual maturity, like the scriptures themselves are an

invitation to know an unknowable God, which is like, wow, what an incredible opportunity that we

have. And I think it equips us, particularly from an apologetic standpoint, to be able to now

distinguish clearly with other religious frameworks that would want to leverage and utilize

this concept and this idea of multiplicity of spiritual beings and just place Christianity as

one amongst the many. You know, out of my Hindu friends would be like, oh man, we're all, we're all

one. This is karma. Like we're all, you know, to which I'm like, no, we fundamentally differ

in this one area. And in fact, I think that this is a tactic of the enemy in order to blur

these lines rather than creating the distinction while also creating space for the reality of

actual spiritual beings that are malevolent that absolutely hate you and I.

Last time, on Can I Trust the Bible, we visited Egypt to investigate missing gospels and the

reliability of ancient documents. Now, we're headed to Turkey and Italy to confront one of the most

misunderstood events in history, the Council of Nicaea. Western Andy here, we are in Lake

Isnic, the modern site of the ancient city of Nicaea. Was this a secret room where politicians voted

on the Bible's contents? Did Emperor Constantine invent the Divinity of Jesus to unify a fractured

empire? Or were these beliefs already etched into the walls of the early church? We're here in Rome

at Palantine Hill where the Alexa Mano's graffiti was discovered. This is about 100 years before any

of the events of the Council of Nicaea even took place. So any accusation of that being invented

is basically blown out of the water. Since you brought up Hinduism, I thought it was really

interesting because when you brought up Psalm 82, you know, you are gods, right? I know just

immediately I was thinking of, yeah, this would be a great apologetic for a Mormonism because a lot

of Mormons like to leverage that and say, see, you and I are gods because Jesus said that even he

he quotes this and John, yeah, yeah, in John. And so that means you and I are like, basically we

are same in kind with with God. We just different degree. We can become gods. But if the divine

Council view and the word Elohim is properly understood, it's actually an apologetic against

Mormonism. And then you brought up Hinduism, which wasn't an angle that I wasn't really thinking of,

but that also makes a lot of sense. Now, I was just wondering that since you brought up

Jesus, we want to start moving in that direction. But one thing that I really found

helpful about the divine Council view is its explanatory scope, meaning it helps us make sense

of a lot of these passages that really puzzle us in a lot of ways. So I'm thinking of things like,

you know, I mean, you already mentioned why is the accuser in the presence of God in the book of

Job or, you know, who who are the Nephilim in Genesis 6? Or what about first Peter 318 to 20 where

Jesus is preaching to the spirits that are bound in prison? Like what do we make of all of these

things? So maybe let's take a couple of those and see how the divine Council view caches all of

this out. Yeah, you know, you have passages like in Ephesians. I wrote my dissertation on Ephesians

to 18 through 22 and so spent a lot of time kind of looking at how Paul understood the spirit realm

particularly. My argument, Steve, kind of from a thesis standpoint in my dissertation is that

while Mo, actually, I know, because I read every any commentary that was accessible I had to read.

So there was a lot of time reading through all the commentaries on Ephesians. And, you know,

the vast majority, 99% of them all want to draw on a background, a backdrop of the temple of

Artemis and the Greco-Roman culture that Paul is dealing with. Now, I would say yes, absolutely.

And I want to add, Paul is a really good Jewish boy. Well-trained. So I don't think Paul is one

dimensional, you know, I think he is like a linguistic cultural sociological ninja. Like, he's a master,

you do, do, do, do, do, out there. And one of the things that he's doing is I believe he's drawing

on an ancient hebraic story that predates the Artemis cult and the, and the temple of Artemis,

one of the wonders of the world. And he's actually drawing back to the Tower of Babel.

He's drawing to the Tower of Babel, which the Tower of Babel in Genesis chapter 11 is a ziggurat

temple tower. For you and I today are modern enlightenment, you know, post-enlightenment movement,

modern 21st century. We look at the natural order and we often de-mythologize or

despiritualize how the ancient reader, the ancient individual, conceived of these things. And

there's this biblical conception called accommodation that, you know, got accommodates as he

divinely inspires and gives his words to human authors, you know, a kind of joke about this with

the Bible. Often people like the Bible is a book. I'm like, no, the Bible is not a book,

the Bible is a library. You know, exactly. It's like you've got 66 different books, 40 different

authors across three consonants, three languages, some 2000 years. I mean, by the way, the Bible

in itself is a miracle. Like if you were just like from an apologetics standpoint, I kind of

find it fascinating and I'm not trained as an apologist. So like I'm punching well out of my

weight class, even trying to talk about this with you, Steve. Like you're the one who should be

teaching, teaching on this. But I, when I'm talking to my apologist friends, I'm just like,

man, just the Bible, like the, the internal evidence inside of the scriptures. We're talking

about time where there ain't no Wi-Fi, there's no Facebook, there's no way to communicate and to leave

like, you know, like, hey, you, you deal with this flood story, you deal with this serpentine imagery

and let's collude together to, it's like none of that is there, you know? I mean, if this was a

conspiracy, it would be one heck of a conspiracy. Somebody who can manage what goes on, you know, over

almost 15 centuries of these writings being written and compiled and all of those things. And

it's just, it's just unrealistic to, to suspect any kind of conspiracy here. But yeah, this is

just really fascinating. Yeah. And so my point in that is that God doesn't see it necessary. And

sometimes people will get stressed out with me on this and I understand, I understand like

this may be a bit challenging, but maybe just hear me out on this. I personally don't view,

and there's other scholars and theologians that would agree with me. The Bible, particularly

Genesis chapters one through 11, one through 12, it's not trying to prove science to us. God is

less concerned about trying to prove science to us as he is utilizing through Moses who I'm a

traditional, so I believe Moses wrote the first five books of the Old Testament through the hand

of Moses being inspired by the spirit of God is giving us a polemic, an argument against the

competing creation myths, the creation stories of the time, particularly the Numa leash, the story of

the Kalu. You've got these narratives that are being strung along to deceive God's people. And so

here becomes like, hey, by the way, where they call it, the best form of flattery is plagiarism

or something like that. The enemy is not trying to recreate the wheel. They're not trying to create

new brand new stories. They're actually trying to take the one true story and corrupt that one true

story. It's like make it look good, smell good, feel good, but then have that as a deception.

And why is this all important to what we're just talking about? Because the way the ancient

Israelites and in the New Testament, the Greco-Roman culture, the way they viewed the world was a

particular cosmology, a particular cosmological understanding of the way the heavens and the earth

operated. So today, when we look at an object like the mountains, we think of the mountains as a

fun place for you and I to go on a hike maybe to take a selfie, you know, like for us, that's the thrill

of it. In the ancient world view, they look at the mountains and they go, my goodness, the mountains,

that's the meeting place of God. That's the meeting place of the gods. This is where heaven and earth

meet. You know, this is the imagery that's actually being presented to us that at the peak of

the mountains is where the divine counsel is held. The base of the mountain is like this pathway

to and fro, you know, the middle part. Yeah. Which by the way, then, you know, you should look at the

story of Exodus where now God's people are being consecrated and where is this all happening?

It's at the foot of the mountain. And Moses goes up the mountain to encounter God and how that

then informs what we see with Jesus' transfiguration, which happens on a mountain where now the three

disciples, Peter, James and John, now they are seeing Christ glorified and who's there, Moses

and Elijah. And this is a meeting place. Right. And so there's a lot that we can miss if we don't

appreciate those sort of the ancient cosmology and how they understood things. So I think this is

this is really important just from a genetic standpoint, how we interpret the Bible. Yeah. And

I mean, so I go through a lot of this in my book, The Unseen Battle, which is what, you know, we pull

basically my dissertation, we turned into an academic leaning book, but my goal is for it to be

accessible for the everyday average readers. So you can get a lot of heavy theology, you can get a lot

of footnotes, you can get original language stuff. And then I include a bunch of side bars in there

along the way just to give your brain a little bit of a mental break from the exegesis and the

cultural analysis. And we deal with some of these things of the ancient Hebrew cosmology.

What do Christians do with tarot cards? Like, should we read second type of literature, you know,

like, like, how do we deal with literature that's not part of the canon of scripture and kind of

deal with all of this? And so in The Unseen Battle and the first three chapters, particularly,

I deal with this issue of cosmology and mountains because Eden is on a mountain. Eden, like Eden,

the garden of God is on a mountain. You've got two rivers that run down from it, right? You've

got, you know, Isaiah and Ezekiel placing Eden on the holy mount of God. And so you've got this

sense and, or, and actually the, the scholar who's, and I think some of the most significant work

on this is that in G.K. Beale, a biblical theologian, and G.K. Beale is brilliant. He wrote a book all

about the temple and the mission of God where he re-communicates to us that Eden is the archetype

temple. Eden is the first temple of God. In fact, the very court coordinates and construction of

the temple of God is based off of an Edenic vision. You know, this is why you have Cherubim and

Jellic figures who are engraved onto the doorposts and onto the actual, you know, furniture and

and the temple itself because you have Cherubim, here's pure place outside of Eden to protect Eden

after the after the fall. The ancient Hebrew cosmology and the Greco-Roman understanding. So

many Ephesians, when Paul talks about the heavenlies, Ben Weatherington did a really great job of

trying to outline what this could mean. It could mean, you know, the heavenlies is just the natural

sky. It could mean that the heavenlies is the unique location where God resides. Or it could be that

the heavenlies is the general space where spiritual supernatural beings find their locale, which makes

sense of that third view, which makes sense of Ephesians that says, you know, you've got the prince

of the power of the air. You've got Satan who's here. You've got these angelic beings who are fall

in malevolent who are working through systems and structures, Paul's language is power in

authorities or archaic Susia, Dunamas, Thornite, Thrones. And so why is all of this important? It helps

us to retrieve how the biblical writings themselves are understanding what's taking place. And so when

you have in Job, the Hasatom, the accuser who shows up, we think in our brain, well, how can a

evil figure show up in the presence of God? There's a couple of things about this. One,

and this would be Mike's position. And a lot of Hebrew scholars would point this out. Some doubt

of whether we're actually talking about Satan as in Lucifer or the angelic being who's cast out,

the Hasat, the nakaash of Hebrew of Genesis, chapter three that comes into the garden of Eden.

There's a little bit of doubt here of whether we're talking about the exact same ontological being,

from a purely kind of Hebrew grammar standpoint. Anytime you have the article in front,

we're not talking about a personal name, we're talking about a title often. So that's the accuser.

The accuser. In some of your Bible transitions, it'll say, the Satan, I remember when I was

first kind of like getting into this as a high school kid, I read a Bible translation that said

the Satan. And I was like, there's a typo. There's a typo in my Bible. That doesn't make sense.

Well, yeah, it does with the Hebrew grammar, right? And then sometimes they'll say the accuser

or the adversary. So you'll have that. Me personally, I'm a biblical theology guy. I have no problem.

This is an area that Mike and I differed on. I have no problem looking at Genesis to revelation

and seeing the unraveling of the story of scripture and reading back into that individual,

a satanic kind of figure, you know, that we're supposed to pull out of that. By the way,

this is how the enemy works. Like the enemy loves to be the accuser. He loves to bring up your

past sin in front of you. Like he loves to try to cripple you with shame and sin. And this is

what God does. God's like, I've got you. I'm going to cover you in my blood. Like I'm going to

cover you in the blood of Jesus. Like the accuser can go, but the accuser actually has no authority

over you. I have ultimate authority. And while you might experience pain in the moment,

which is a reality of just a fallen world, real sin, maybe even an enemy who is working against you,

there is still a beautiful future for you, whether you realize it on this side of eternity or not.

In the story of Job, things get really good for him. In some of our stories, things don't get really

good for us. We will experience pain. We will experience the just tragedy of death and death is

but a gateway into the new heavens and the new earth where we will experience the goodness of God.

Do you remember the first time you heard the gospel that moment when someone spoke the good news

of Jesus Christ into your life? Maybe it was a friend, maybe a stranger, maybe your mom,

whoever it was and whenever it happened, that moment shaped who you are today. It's how you came

to love Jesus. And it's why you love people the way you do because the God who created everything

sent his son to die in your place. And then he sent someone else to share that good news with you.

And now it's your turn. Your turn to be that someone for someone else. And we're here to help you

step into that calling because it's sharewordglobal.com slash AC to find out.

Thank you for that. We're running low on time here. So I want to ask a couple more questions

that in some ways kind of try to tie this all together. Before we get there though, I'm just

curious because this passage in 1 Peter 3, 18 to 20, what is up with that? Because that's one

actually I remember reading Unseen Round by Mike Heiser. And that passage he mentions very

specifically where he went to this church and they were going through 1 Peter. And then

when it came to the time for the pastor to preach on this particular passage,

he just skipped over it saying it's just too weird. And Dr. Heiser never went back to that

church because he was really looking forward to some exposition on this. Like what are these

spirits and chains? Like what what is going on here? And I think him really delving into the divine

councils. You actually helped make sense of this. So can you just quickly hash that out for us

before we move on to the last question? Yeah. I mean, there's not going on here. I actually

deal in the Unseen Battle, I have an entire sidebar that gets into this in detail. So if people

are like, wait, I need more, I need footnotes, I need the scholarship behind it, check it out

in the Unseen Battle. Essentially what's happening here is the Bible presents the underworld,

the Hebrew term for the Sheol. In the New Testament, we get the Greek term Hades. And the conception

of this underworld is a separation of categories where you have one locale for the righteous dead

of the Old Testament. We call this Sheol, we call this Hades. Then there's another locale.

And this locale is still Sheol, it's still the underworld. And it is separated but reserved for

fallen supernatural beings that have gone into full-blown rebellion. We could call this place the

depths of Hades. And so this is actually what's happening in, I'm just going to pull this up for

us so that we have it. This is what's happening in Jude. So if you go to the book of, or the letter

of Jude, Jude talks about this in Jude chapter, it's not just one chapter, Jude verse 6, it says,

and the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority but left their proper

dwelling, he has capped in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great

day. And so that sentence right there is actually an echo. There's some debate on whether this is a

direct quote or not a direct quote. I think this is a direct quote of actually the Inakic tradition

of the book of Inak, which was a second temple literature book that was in the writing,

that was in the time. In precision, it's actually three books. The first book is the book of the

watchers, the second two books are kind of whack and wild. They come much later in dating and much

less reliable in a lot of ways. And yet you find both Jude and Peter who either echo or quote

this Inakic tradition. Well, what is this Inakic tradition? It's actually exploring what took place

in Genesis chapter 6 with the sons of God, the Bene Elohim, who see the daughters of man, see them,

desire them, take them for themselves, and in so doing the production of this unholy union is the

Nephilim, the mighty man of old, right? The Hebrew term for Nephilim is a highly contested word.

In quite frank, frankness, we don't know what that term actually meant. And that's why I think

it's good that English translations just transliterate the Hebrew term versus trying to come to

this definition. Exactly. Now, the idea is it comes from the Hebrew verb na'fall, which means

fallen ones, or to fall, the Septuagint translates na'felim as gigas as giants. The bottom line is that

these beings are massive, they're huge, and it's incongruent to me. So I hold a supernatural view

that the sons of God are spiritual beings, and they have an unholy union with human women,

and this is the precursor to the flood. The Inakic tradition suggests that this whole deal happens

on another mountain, Mount Herman, wild, and not only does it happen on Mount Herman, but there's

a consequence for these angelic beings where they're transgression. So what is the consequence

that they're sent in chains and put into the depths of Hades? And so that's where their locales,

these specific beings, these beings are distinct and different from Deuteronomy 32, 8, and 9,

which describe a different group of sons of God who are given to the nations of the world

as stewards. These sons of God of Genesis chapter 6 are put in chains and placed in

tartarists. They're placed in the depths of Hades. And so with that in mind, keep in mind also that

there's this constant theme throughout the Old Testament where the people of God are very concerned

with where their bodies are laid. Joseph is like, hey, by the way, his uncle had brothers, don't leave

me in Egypt. My bones, only my bones in Egypt take me with them. They don't mess me up. You

mess me up in the first place. Don't do it again. Take my bones and bury with my fathers. This is

where the patriarchs, they care about where they're buried. They care about Moses. This is actually

a whole issue with Moses and this fight that happens over the body of Moses in the New Testament.

Moses technically dies outside of the Promised Land. And so there's this idea of cosmic geography

that's also taking place. And so with Genesis 6, the sons of God transgress. And when they

transgress, they're placed into this pit as punishment. In the Old Testament, the people of God

care about where they're buried because they want to be in the domain of the Lord. And they care

about being in in shi'ol where the righteous stead of the Old Testament go. There's a different

place for the unrighteous stead. This is why David cries out. It's quoted in Acts chapter 2,

you're not going to leave your holy one. I know God, you're not going to leave your holy one

in in shi'ol that you're going to rescue the anointed one. And so when you get to a passage,

like let's look at 1 Peter, it says 1 Peter 3, 18, a certain 18 for Christ also suffered

once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God being put to death

in the flesh but made alive in the spirit in which he went and proclaimed. The Greek were there

comes from the word Caruso, which means to announce or to herald. It's an interesting word,

to announce or to proclaim to herald to the spirits in prison because they formally did not obey

when God's patience waited in the days of Noah. Well, what is the days of Noah? That's Genesis 6,

while the ark was being prepared and it goes into and then goes into baptism and all this other

stuff. And then at the very end, it talks about in 22, who has gone into heaven and is at the right

hand of God with angels, authorities and powers have been subjected to him. So contextually,

throughout this, you have a supernatural reading, really, of Genesis 6. And then you have a passage

in Ephesians 4 and then I'm going to, I just want to get to the text because I don't want people

to be like, you're just making stuff up so fast. Ephesians 4 verse 8, therefore it says,

when he talked about Jesus, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts

to men in saying he ascended, what does it mean? But that he had also descended into the lower

regions, the earth. He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens

that he might fill all things. Okay, so what's happening? In the Old Testament, if you were a follower

Yahweh, you would go to the place of the righteous dead of the Old Testament in the depths of Hades

where these angelic beings were left in prison. Think about Jesus' vocation in ministry. Many New

Testament scholars point out that Jesus and the gospels is retelling the story of Israel. He's

reliving the story of Israel and all the faithlessness of Israel, Jesus is faithful. This is prior to

the establishment of the New Covenant. When does the New Covenant actually come into existence? I would

make the argument that the New Covenant is actually established upon the ascension of Christ.

Upon the ascension of Christ is when we step into this New Covenant experience with the spirit of

God now in dwells inside the children of God. So when Jesus dies on the cross and he goes into the grave,

where is he? This physical body is there, but where is he? Well, where do the righteous

dead of the Old Testament go? They go to Shio. So where does Jesus go? I view that he goes to not

hell. This is where things get sideways. Not hell. Hell is associated with the Greek word

Gehenna, which was like a physical place, the Valley of Hennome or child sacrifice. Like that's

the image that's given of the final resting place. Now, I know there's a whole bunch of debate on

the nature of hell. We can talk about that some other day, but we're not talking about hell. We're

talking about Shio or Hades. In Matthew, you have this parable, the story that's told of the rich man

and Lazarus and the rich man gets stuck in Hades and yet in the place of the unrighteous dead

and yet Lazarus like can talk to them. There's like a conversation that can happen. So there's

no awareness of what takes place. So my summary in all of this is Jesus is still under the old covenant.

He is actually fulfilling all the laws. So when Jesus dies, he would go where the righteous

there, the Old Testament would go. He would go to Shio. But if there's a relational awareness

between what's happening for the righteous dead and the unrighteous dead, who else are in

this place? The fallen sons of God in prison. So what does Jesus do while he's in Shio? He's

announcing his victory. That's what Peter is saying. Peter is saying that he proclaims to the

spirits. It was promised the Proto-Iangalian. Remember that one? Genesis 3, 15, 16, that the serpent

would strike the heel, but the seed of the woman singular seed would crush the head.

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That's right. Happened. I did it. Happened. All right. And now watch me bust down the gates of

Hades. And I'm going to take a train of captives with me who are the train of captives, the righteous

dead of the Old Testament, so that now when you and I pass, we do not go to Hades. My view is that

we actually go to Paradise, to Eden, to the place where God resides, where Jesus resides.

This makes sense of Hebrews 13. There's a great cloud of witnesses that is cheering us on.

How do we get from a garden in Genesis 3 to a garden city at the end of revelation?

And Jesus is announcing to the spirits proclaiming to them his victory. This is not about offering

them repentance. This is not about offering them like a second chance. This is actually an affirmation

of Psalm 82. Arise, Elohim, inherit the nations for they are yours. And so Jesus is saying,

by the way, that judgment that happens to all evil, malevolent spiritual beings has been

enacted and executed at the cross. You know, this is so helpful because the last question that I

was going to ask you, which you actually handled very well just now, is how does the divine

council view then give us a fuller picture of the cross? Because I guess in Protestant circles,

especially a lot of what we understand that the cross accomplishes has to do with guilt

and innocence and the forgiveness of sins and so on. But what we're seeing here is that there

is that. We're not denying that, but there is also much more that is happening in terms of the

the relations of the cosmic forces, right? Going all the way back to Genesis and what happened with

the sons of God that have fallen and so on. And now here's Jesus going down to the place of the

dead, place of the unrighteous, proclaiming his victory, right? These beings that are waiting

that final judgment, right? And so there is this kind of victory over the evil cosmic forces

in the universe. And so I think there is a lot more going on than just, I shouldn't say just,

I mean, forgiveness of sins is a pretty big deal. Right. But I think we sometimes, when we focus on

that sort of forensic, almost like legal side of things too much, we miss out on that fuller picture

of that world story. What is God doing in this world through Jesus Christ? Yeah, I would say,

yeah, forgiveness of sins, but for what? For what purpose? This is where, again, our 21st century

modern post-enlightenment hyper-individualistic society does a little bit of damage to us when we

think about our mission, our vocation as it pertains to the gospel. Look at Colossians chapter 2,

verse 14, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands, this he

set aside, nailing it to the cross. Verse 15, he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put

them to open shame by triumphant over them in him. So what happens at the cross? The cross is the

free offer of forgiveness for all who would turn away from their sin, bend me and return to

King Jesus, right? The cross is also the means by which the dark powers are disarmed of their power

and their authority and their legal claims to humanity because of sin and death. And then this gets

to what is the purpose of spiritual warfare? This is where, Steve, I depart a little bit from some

of the maybe charismatic movements or some of the other views when it comes to spiritual warfare.

I like to distinguish between normative and non-normative, between normative and non-normative.

What is spiritual warfare all about? Spiritual warfare has been is and always will be about the people.

Every battle always has a prize and the prize of this unseen battle has always been about the

image barriers of God. And so how do we fight this battle? Here's how we fight it. We do exactly what

Jesus told us to do. Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them, by the way, an image

of cosmic allegiance, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. And so this

should propel us. The dark powers can no longer blind the nations with the goodness of the gospel.

This is second Corinthians chapter 5 of the Ministry of Reconciliation. Now along the way,

are you going to encounter evil? 100%. Anytime the gospel advances into dark places,

demons shudder. They expose themselves. But there's a difference. I think this is important. There's

a difference from seeking out demons for the sake of demons to do exorcisms and all this other

stuff versus saying, no, my primary prerogative given to me by Jesus himself is the proclamation

of the gospel. And along the way, that's the normative task. Along the way, is there going to be

need for deliverance? Sure. Is there going to be need for even demon exorcism? Absolutely.

Is there going to be need to deal with unclean things? You bet. But we have to keep the first

things, the primary things and not get as Lewis often, Lewis describes CS Lewis in the

screw tape letters, not have an obsession with the things of the spiritual that we miss Jesus.

You know, he uses the terms magician and materialist, like the enemy loves for us to be consumed

and obsessed with the spiritual things and similarly loves for us to act like not that even exists.

And so the goal, the unseen battle for me, Steve, was to retrieve awareness so that we can do

exactly what Jesus called us to do. Our vantage point of this conversation is posture and perspective.

Our posture is humble confidence. It's because of what Christ has done and achieved, not because

of what I've done. And then our perspective is from the grave and empty grave. Our perspective

is from the place of the victory of King Jesus. And that's what we're tasked towards.

Wow. A lot to think about. And it's been just so helpful. Thank you so much for taking the time

to come on the show and hash this out with us in the last couple of minutes that we have left here.

If people want to learn more about you and your work, where would you send them?

Yeah, I do the majority of my kind of public teaching on social media, like most people these days.

So Instagram, it's just at my last name, M-U-D-D-A-M-A-L-L-L-E.

And then if you're really interested in this topic and conversation, I would recommend my book,

the unseen battle. It's available on Amazon, wherever books are sold. And then also if you're like,

man, I'm really interested. Like I want to do a deep dive. I started a brand new project,

the beginning of the year, with a podcast, a group of friends and I, they're called The Blur

Creatures Guys. And we started a project called Stranger Theology. And so it's fun. It's we're doing

theological work in this area, writing substantive essays. We've got a premium podcast,

called the Cosmic Mountain series. So 12 episodes over 12 months that is more than a podcast,

hopefully more accessible in seminary, but all theology. And so those are kind of the places

that you can hang out with me. Thank you listeners and viewers for joining us for this week's edition

of the AC podcast. You know what Troy tells you, like, subscribe to all of those things so that

we can gain favor in the eyes of the algorithmic overlords and all of that. So make sure you help

us out in that way. We'll come back next week with more stuff to think about. Until then, you know

the drill. Love God. Love people. Bye for now.