06 March 2024
Pageau covers the Nephilim, but I was disappointed by what he left out. Maybe he wasn't familiar with Heiser's work, but this would have been a very good opportunity to discuss how the Nephilim came to be on the cosmic level, and why.
The takeaway is that they represent a very forceful destructive presence of time against space. They were a horrific influence on fallen humanity, creating foul appetites and generally introducing mayhem that could never be hidden again from the minds of humans. Pageau introduces the concept of properly and improperly receiving angels.
Abraham's encounter with the three angels exemplifies the proper way to welcome them. We define "grace" as keeping the proper balance between time and space. Abraham gracefully offered to wash their feet -- just a smidgen of time and renewal without anything dramatic. Then he had food cooked in just a smidgen of fire and fed them under a tree. He kept the delicate balance. A short time later God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah with an awful lot fire (extreme space), and He had previously destroyed the earth with an awful lot of water (extreme time) largely because of angels not properly welcomed (allowed to beget Nephilim).
Every covenant participates in the grace of the Sabbath, the balance between above and below, time and space, right and left, etc. The rainbow appears only when the flooding rain and the drying sun are in close proximity, and this is why the Covenant of Noah represents the global balance of all humanity. But after announcing this covenant, the Lord notes rather sadly that there is no way to remove the curse of evil from mortals. Fallen men cannot be made completely righteous.
Thus, Pageau introduces quite subtly the principle of God's tolerance for a certain amount of evil. He's still quite willing to work with people who truly desire to please Him, but it is inevitable that they will fail in some ways. Again, God Himself declares that there is yet another kind of balance in dealing with mankind mercifully. Without mercy, no flesh could be justified in His sight. If Job can say that we must accept from God both good and bad (Job 2:10), it simply reflects that God does the same from us in a certain sense.
Pageau concludes that chapter with this: "Thus, in addition to being a bridge between heaven and earth, the rainbow is also a cyclical ornament and crown that completes God's work and elevates space with a touch of 'vanity'" (page 317).
Another lesson from Noah and the Flood is that the wine he produced after returning to dry land "represents cyclical time in the Bible, and drinking wine is the equivalent of subjecting yourself to the powers of the flood or the poison of a snake" (page 319) referring to Proverbs 23:31-34.
He mentions the loss of inhibitions with inebriation, the heavy hand of time squashing you down. The symptoms of drunkenness are much the same as exile, as the balance is highly disturbed. Yet, it was given by God as a rather mild form of symbolic death that should help to renew us in some ways. The process of fermentation is itself a symbol of time's work, not because of modern biochemistry, but in the sense of turning over and disintegration. Inebriation is not wholly evil in the Bible, but it should not consume your life.
By contrast bread, also suffering some fermentation, remains a symbol of dry land because it requires more work and fire to bake it. If wine offers echoes of the enmity between the snake and Eve, bread reminds us of, "In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground."
We are almost done with Pageau's book, folks.
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