Catacomb Resident Blog

A Biblical Cosmology

27 November 2023

This is going to be a bit long.

Let's review our imagery of biblical Hebrew cosmology, the metaphors used in Scripture to guide our thinking about how reality works. It is necessarily in the language of parables, but I am not afraid to guess about a more literal explanation at times. It relies some on Dr. Heiser and his large volume of references to the work of others, but I am not intimidated by his degrees. I'll disagree at times; your mileage may also vary.

Eden was not just any old garden; it was God's backyard. It was attached to His heavenly palace, the "High Mountain of God". It was visible, just out the window from the Heavenly Courts where God conducts His daily routine reign.

In more literal terms, Eden is not a place, but a condition. I tend to think of it as the whole of Creation, but more specifically, the natural world on Earth. What we see now is the Garden of Eden unkept. What we will see when Christ returns is a restoration of the world to its primal state, reinstating our management as it was before the Fall by virtue of restoring us to our eternal state.

Side note: In general, any prophetic gift -- whether specific abilities or temperament or even just as an effect of someone's work -- rests on having some connection to the divine courts. Think of it as, at a minimum, hearing echoes of God's divine council. While those echoes are inherently eternal in nature, prophetic people become aware of God's counsel as they come to the context in which it applies. How those prophetic people perceive that counsel varies with calling, talents and gifts in whatever mix God sees fit. Because people are fallible, it's not a question of whether the things they perceive are God's truth, but a question of whether they are giving it the attention it warrants. It's not about the details, but the general thrust of the revelation. What does God require of us?

In the Old Testament, those who died would either enter divine rest in the "bosom of Abraham" (pending the Day of Judgment) or would depart to the Underworld, where they would be in torment. The latter is a spiritual prison. This is echoed in the New Testament, but in a somewhat different imagery. The concept of "Sheol" is definitely the Underworld, but when you read of some saint complaining they would "go down into Sheol" in sorrow, we often misread what they are saying. It is an accusation that someone is so plaguing their lives that they cannot imagine going to their rest with so much sorrow. The situation is for them rather hellish even before going to their death. As with most things, don't read those passages literally.

Heiser wrote a whole book each on evil spirits and angels. I'm plowing through the first one, and will read the other later. Our first difficulty is terminology. The way we use the word "angel" in English is far too narrow, referring strictly to God's messengers and bodyguard. We pay little attention to the difference between just those two, leaving out a whole world of imagery missing from our English Bibles because it's assumed common knowledge by Old Testament writers.

Every eastern ruler would have a corps of messengers and another corps of bodyguards, professional uniformed troops. They would have different uniforms fitting their assigned purpose. Both were privileged positions, putting them within earshot of just about everything discussed in God's Presence. Aside from commissioned messages, they were expected to exercise a certain level of reticence about what they knew, but were expected to act on it, nonetheless.

Meanwhile, there are an awful lot of other creatures often referred to as "angels" in English that are neither messengers nor bodyguards. Indeed, the Hebrew term refers to a whole range of beings who belong in God's Presence, all the way up to the divine council itself, and all of their various staff members. Sometimes the imagery is that of a small-time eastern nomad sheikh, but at other times it soars to the image of an eastern imperial court.

We get a gauzy image of the core divine council, with a whole herd of lesser beings serving as their lackeys, but still above what we think of as angels. It was not the central councilors, but their underlings who are the alleged "Watchers" that betrayed their assigned roles in Genesis 6.

We have a tough time, as well, with the word "satan" as a generic term for anyone filling a specific role of adversary. Sometimes it can be read as a title, a proper noun, but not always. It's not for certain that the creature in Job 1 is the same person as the Tempter in the Garden of Eden. However, they are both the same role. The whole point is that you and I don't really need to know the personal identity of the being, but be wary of their power and designs.

When we include the New Testament imagery, both "Devil" and "Satan" refer to the same title role; there is no useful distinction. The only distinction between one "satan" and another is when we are discussing the divine councilor assigned as the god of Israel after the Cross. It would appear this role is closely associated with that of "Prince of the Power of the Air" and similar terms for the ruler of this world. The theology behind that seems to be that, once the Covenant of Moses was closed at the Cross, the people who insisted on keeping that national identity alive were handed over to the councilor ruling this world. They were no longer Jehovah's Nation; that title was passed to those who joined the Covenant of Christ.

It's not easy to define the image of the Ruler of This World. By association through Old Testament imagery, he would also be Ruler of the Underworld, AKA "The Abyss". One person having two hats is not entirely new in Ancient Near Eastern traditions. For example, when the Upper and Lower Kingdoms of Egypt were first joined under one Pharaoh (combining two literal crowns), it required two completely different courts with all the staff of each still in place, and two different sets of gods and rituals. Folding them into one took several generations, with the symbolism continuing into the time of Ramases III. The story of how the Medes and Persians cooperated under a single throne is another example. In the English language, the role of Satan is both the ruler of this world and the ruler of Hell, but in the Bible it sometimes appears the roles are quite different.

How the Bible handles that ambiguity is part of our problem, because the common assumptions for English speakers are often quite contrary to the Hebrew. Satan is fallen, confined to this world, and yet seems to have retained some privileges attached to his former status as the "Covering Cherub". The Bible also tends to portray our "Satan" as a high official in God's court -- the "Left-hand Man" or divine Jailer. It's not easy to juggle the imagery. It's complicated by our western tendency to read statements of eternal things as having a single historical locus.

And the Devil's army of "demons" are clearly not former angels. Heiser goes to great lengths to ensure we understand that the demons we face today are the residual spirits of the "giants" of Old Testament notoriety. These are not the "Watchers" themselves, but their children. The Watchers abandoned their proper roles and got directly involved in human society and politics. This gave birth to a whole class of fallen beings who were still mortal, and yet more powerful than humans in some ways because they didn't have human spirits. Eventually they were all killed off. They have no standing in Heaven's courts, but they are not simply human, either. Those spirits remain busy with the same activities that justified their slaughter at God's command, but now are restricted to the role of "demons" we face today, forced to work through actual humans.

And then there seems to be the notion that some of the Watchers are also in the Abyss, but they don't necessarily act as the "demons" we might encounter. It's obvious they are higher ranking than demons, but there is no clear image of what they actually do, aside from the obvious supervisory role over their children. There's a whole range of unclean spirits there, but the main thing we are concerned about is the spirits of the fallen giants.

Each one is a "satan" of sorts, and they all still have specialties and assignments, but there are distinct restrictions. This whole thing is regimented far more than is commonly assumed among English speakers. Westerners tend to think of them in terms of a Grendel kind of being, whose restrictions are more in the nature of things versus actual Law of God. It's part of the whole horror genre of western fiction, granting way more power than actual demons have. If you abide by the Covenant, the demons are mostly powerless over you.

On the other hand, the western concept of "demon possession" is also full of nonsense. I keep saying that feudalism is the fundamental nature of reality itself. The demons we face have a certain feudal grant of authority. We humans are born in the Devil's domain. Election is all about our eternal destiny; it does not free us from Satan's authority over our flesh. The various things we experience before our individual redemption will grant access to the demons in our souls. When we do come to the realization that we are Elect, that does not evict them. Rather, we still have the process of conquering our own lives and taking them back from Satan and his minions.

All of us suffer some degree of "demon possession". Some few are so thoroughly occupied by evil spirits that it becomes readily apparent to anyone with an understanding of such things. However, the broader picture of the eternal conflict between Satan and his allies on the divine council, versus Christ and His Kingdom in hearts, has a lot to do with what demon possession looks like. In the New Testament era, it was one kind of problem for the people Jesus and His disciples encountered in first century Palestine; those encounters would hardly be the same for Americans today. The setting is quite different simply because the roles are changed. We are dealing with a different set of divine councilors, and their power over things does affect the details of what we experience as believers versus those in the New Testament.

But the dynamics are still the same, in terms of imagery. Stay inside the Camp of God; this makes it hard for Satan and his minions to touch you. If you are already in their grip, reach out to the Lord and seek His power to change your orientation and habits. Over time, their claims on your life are weakened.


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