or you are all sons of light and sons of day 1 Thessalonians 5:5
Last night at TOV Matt and Audrey from “Eden to Eden” led us in an amazing praise and worship set followed by Matt and I talking about Light. My dear friend and pastor Craig Lott then went on to share a testimony. TOV was powerful and life changing last night and I pray that many receive and walk differently today.
The Greek word for light is phos. We get English words from this such as photograph and photosynthesis. Spiritually we often talk about salvation experiences in terms of bringing people out of darkness into the light when they receive Jesus. One of my life “gripes” is that this seems to be the thrust of the evangelical church today and we sort of missed the true message of the “light” of the gospel if that is all we are accomplishing. That isn’t a very good image of discipleship.
I have been into photography my entire life. My uncle was a professional photographer and gave me a Nikon F2 when I was in 7th grade. I started shooting a lot of film and spent half my life in the dark room being enamored by the power of light. As a photographer I am simply given light and what I do with the light in terms of the subject is up to me. Great photographers understand how the relationship between the subject and the light. I have spent my life mastering this both behind the camera and behind the word of the Lord; and I don’t believe I am done with either yet. I am a disciple.
The early Greeks saw the divine structure of the world in terms of light and dark. Most of their deductions led them farther away from God than closer to Him, but that is the story of a fallen world. Humankind continually takes something that God intended for good (TOV) and decimates it. In some ways that is what has happened to the idea of bringing people into the light.
When Jesus and the biblical authors talk about bringing people into the light they didn’t mean just barely. They meant lifelong immersion.
There is a good reason why God first creates light. Light has no ontological priority. It doesn’t exist until God calls it into existence. All of the ancient cults worshipped some form of distorted light -the sun, moon and stars. In a Deuteronomy 32 worldview that was the primary falling away. All of the luminaries, that is -those created as heavenly beings, “fall” and become worshipped themselves in the place of Yahweh rather than being a light that pointed or mirrored Yahweh. Make no mistake, all the philosophy of “illumination” that doesn’t begin and end with the lifelong journey of completeness that Jesus calls us into, is still in the dark.Light belongs to God.
For you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light Ephesians 5:8
In Greek, this reads gar pote skotos, nun de phos en Kyrio (literally, “for then darkness, and now light in Lord”). Even though his words are certainly Greek, the syntax is Hebrew. You were darkness. Darkness isn’t merely a description of your state, it was the essence of your being. Remove the darkness and there would be nothing left. Before we were rescued, we were black holes in the world, pulling creation into the emptiness within us.
Let me explain this in metaphorical terms of a photograph. I can’t take a photo of a subject in total darkness. It simply doesn’t work. Thats what a “photo” is – the light creating an impression. But even if I introduce the subject I am photographing into a little bit of light, I am now able to “photograph it”, but just adding a small amount of light still makes a muddy yucky image. Yes, it is a “new” or original image, but its gray and murky. Yea the subject might think, “wow, a photo of me in my new light, this is the best I have ever looked!” but they don’t see or know what really good light looks like. There may even be a sense of beauty to that first dimly lit image. It could even win some abstract art contest at your county fair, but it leaves a lot to be desired to those that have a trained photographic eye. Over the years I have learned to be a master of natural light in photography in the same way that I have grown into the light spiritually. People look at some of my photographs on a wedding say and often say, “I have never seen such a beautiful image.” That is what we should desire of our image before the Lord. Yet many of us are very complacent to remain in the murky gray thinking our leaves in the light look really good. In Jesus’s image, they have a way to go! He invites you into a journey to find better beauty. The beauty is intrinsically there, but the revealing process is going to take some mastering.
Make Your face shine upon Your servant; save me in Your kindness. Psalm 31:16 (ISR translation)
Matt and Audrey’s song writing endeavors are described as “Eden to Eden.” The infinity symbol symbolizes a never-ending pursuit or journey to walk in the Light of Jesus.
No matter where you turn in the Scriptures, you are never far from Genesis. The beginning is the end. The cosmic Garden is the destination. The original light of creation (ye-hi ‘or) is the same light David wishes to fall on him. The very light that separates order from chaos, long before night and day were regulated by the sun and moon. “Bring Your light, the light that belongs to the order You established, into my life, O Lord.”
The Hebrew in this text is ha-ee-ra (shine, give light, make light, become light). It is ongoing theme of the scripture that many Hebrew idioms come from. Wisdom lights up the face (Ecclesiastes 8:1). God’s word brings light to the eyes (Ezra 9:8). The Lord’s face shines on His people (Numbers 6:25). The presence of the Lord causes the earth to shine (Ezekiel 43:2).
The light of God’s face is the light that saves but more importantly is the light that leads towards the implored road to become masterfully like Jesus. The road back to the upward trajectory of Eden and eventually re renewed heaven and earth. In this Hebrew idiom, to experience God’s light isn’t simply to be rescued and brought into intimate shepherding. Your saved so that you can be shepherded in the light.
Do you know what it means to truly walk in His light day in and day out, to become a master of light?
Last night Craig Lott shared his testimony. It would have been easy to be emotionally moved to compassion and miss his primary message so let me repeat it. He lost his wife three weeks ago today unexpectantly. When something like this happens, you don’t care about things you used to care about. The light focuses you on what really matters and means something. Too many of us are REALLY entangled. Yea we may be in the light but not living a life completely given to Jesus. Hopefully you don’t need to lose your wife to see this message. Craig’s testimony challenged us to walk in what matters. Don’t live in the mucked-up worldliness of this carnal X-ian culture; but truly find and live in the light of Christ as if your world had just been reconciled to the only things that really matter.
The Word of the Lord is light to those who follow it. Those who are devotional to God dwell in the light. Light becomes the symbol for openness, harmony, community, freedom, redemption and Hessed Life.
Perhaps you have heard the term, “Cosmic Geography”; through excellent works like “The Unseen Realm,” much of Christianity has been impacted and even changed through the restoration of a legitimately or “real” supernatural context for all of scripture. Yet many of these revelations were never translated into an application for modern ministry and spiritual warfare. I was enthralled the first time I learned that Naaman the leper was actually of sound mind when he requested dirt from the prophet as a normal transactional aspect of ancient near eastern culture.
The term cosmography is the protoscience of understanding and organizing the thoughts and general features of the cosmos, heaven and earth and the spiritual and physical universe. [1] Simply put, “Cosmic Geography” means that the dirt on our planet is very important to the spiritual entities and their realm. This is also an ancient worldview that likely all the living people possessed in biblical times. The people of that era would have considered this thinking normative. We have advanced so far in modernity that we have drastically, and detrimentally, drifted from this important premise.
For the purpose of clarity, let us refresh ourselves to the historic account. I will skip around for brevity.
2 Kings 5
Vs 1 Now Naaman, the commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man in his master’s sight and highly regarded, for through him the LORD had given victory to Aram. And he was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper.
Naaman the Aramean (Hebrew: נַעֲמָן, lit. ‘pleasantness’) was a commander of the armies of Hadadezer, the king of Aram-Damascus, in the time of Jehoram, King of Northern Israel (Samaria) [2]. He was a military figure for the Arameans who had been successfully raiding the Israelites and on one of these raids, Naaman gained a young Jewish slave girl for his household. With unimaginable virtue, this young slave girl lamented for Naamans sickness affected life and made the comment, “If only my master would go to the prophet who is in Samaria, he would cure him of his leprosy.” (Vs 3b)
Naaman went through all the politically necessary hoops to go to the prophet (Elisha) and pursue his miraculous healing. Elisha told Naaman to dip in the Jordan River seven times (baptism? allegiant declaration?) and the requested miraculous healing would manifest.
Vss 14-15 So Naaman went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored and became like that of a little child, and he was clean. Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God, stood before him, and declared, “Now I know for sure that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel. So please accept a gift from your servant.”
Elisha refused the gift but did allow Naaman a granted request that seemed like a standard practice of the day.
Vss 17b-19a “Please let me, your servant, be given as much soil as a pair of mules can carry. For your servant will never again make a burnt offering or a sacrifice to any other god but the LORD. 18Yet may the LORD forgive your servant this one thing: When my master goes into the temple of Rimmon to worship there, and he leans on my arm, and I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the LORD forgive your servant in this matter.” “Go in peace,” said Elisha.
As you dive in, I think you will see the “Cosmic Geography” applicationand connections for much of the Old Testament context. But what about the New Covenant outlined in the Christian part of scripture?
In the begenning… the Genesis creation story, am I the only one who ever wondered why God chose our building blocks to be dirt? Adam was created in the most sacred place on earth, the cosmic mountain/garden of Eden. That was the most sacred physical environment that existed, and the dirt there was the most sacred dirt ever. The substance being formed of sacred material from a sacred place was divine wisdom in supernatural action.
Our substance could’ve been anything in the hands of the creator, but He chose our cosmology would be based in the foundation, the building blocks of the earth itself. We are earthlings, of planet earth, made from earth, made by the Creator of earth, to be the sacred part (remnant) of the Earth. This would also coincide with the curse that was laid upon the Nahash (serpent).
Genesis 3:14
So the LORD God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and every beast of the field! On your belly will you go, and dust you will eat, all the days of your life.
If it’s weird, it’s important. Why was our cosmic enemy cursed to crawl in the dust, and eat dust? I would conjecture that the answer revolves around a cosmic reality that the dust of humanity was meant to be much more than what the old preacher says at the gravesite… “Ashes to ashes dust to dust”
We were created to be a sacred people (royal priesthood) living in sacred space (cosmic paradise mountain of Yahweh) so of course we would be the culmination of that sacred place (dust) and that sacred function (the Ruach breath/Spirit of life making us of the same substance of God) living eternally feeding on the Tree of Life. But the serpent eternally adjusted our trajectory into the first fall of mankind and because our dirt became defiled, we were now required to leave the sacred space, and the sacred dirt of our creation transformed into dirt -dirt. Plain ole’ dirt.
This makes much more sense when applied to the curse that the Nahash (serpent, cosmic enemy, the satan, the devil) would now be a ‘dirt eater’ for the rest of his miserable life. We were the dirt he was going to live off of like a leech sucking the life of its host, so our enemy was a spiritual parasite consuming our dirt.
Here are a few more to ponder:
There was a “rock” that followed the Children of Israel through their wilderness journey… why a rock? Was it a pet rock (in jest)? Of all the illustrations that were possible, this seems weird. But it is not if you consider that rock or stone is a geological type of dirt but it is solidly formed and unchangeable. This is why that ‘rock’ was called Christ (1 Cor 10:4) and they drank from it because it was life-giving (water = life in a desert). The rock was spiritual (life) dirt (stone) making it a type-and-shadow of a New Testament reality.
In the Song of Moses in Exodus 15, we see this in verse 12, “You stretched out Your right hand, and the earth swallowed them up.” The actual account contains the Red (Reed) Sea as the swallowing agent, so why the reference to ‘earth’ here? I would submit that it was another example of the Cosmic Geography being alluded to. The dirt (earth) was going to swallow the enemies of God in a great victory on the eschatological ‘Day of the Lord’ that apocalyptic literature infers.
In another astounding example, Moses used this doctrine to ‘prove’ that an act of judgment was direct divine interaction during the rebellion of Korah:
But if the LORD brings about something unprecedented, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them and all that belongs to them so that they go down alive into Sheol, then you will know that these men have treated the LORD with contempt.”(Numbers 16:30)
The famous response of God to the passionate prayer of Solomon at the Temple dedication:
“I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. If I close the sky so there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send a plague among My people, and if My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:12b-14)
In verse 14 the term ‘land’ is ‘erets’ in Hebrew which is the Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 term ‘Earth’. It is Cosmic Geography being referenced again.
Abraham, the father of faith and the progenitor of the messianic lineage was specifically told by God that his offspring would be like the ‘sand on the seashore’:
I will surely bless you, and I will multiply your descendants like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will possess the gates of their enemies. (Genesis 22:17)
We could go on but let us get to the fun stuff… the New Testament references that I believe are lost to our modern theology.
Here are a few verses that all of you have memorized…
John 3:3-10
Jesus replied, “Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”
“How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time to be born?”
Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh is born of flesh, but spirit is born of the Spirit. Do not be amazed that I said, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes. You hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked. “You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and you do not understand these things?
If we look at this first through a Deuteronomy 32 worldview and apply Cosmic Geography, then the rebuke of Nicodemus by Jesus for his lack of understanding makes much more sense. If you were like me, you would have likely wondered why Jesus insulted Nicodemus’ lack of revelation so quickly in this discourse. If we look at that rebuke through the lens of Cosmic Geography then it makes sense that a scholar of Jesus’ day would have known that there would be a redemptive need of the actual cosmology of mankind to fulfill the framework of reclaiming sacred space. The ‘born again’ experience returns humanity to the sacred space, the holy place, of the cosmic geography that we were created to be. We become ‘new dirt’ through the work of the Spirit and thereby become the new sacred space where Yahweh can abide with humanity in holiness and completeness.
Although there is no clear source of information about Nicodemus outside the Gospel of John, Ochser and Kohler, writing in The Jewish Encyclopedia in 1905, [3] identify him with Nicodemus ben Gurion, mentioned in the Talmud as a wealthy and popular holy man reputed to have had miraculous powers. [4] Some 21st-century historians make the same connection. This would connect to a Deuteronomy 32 cosmic view of the spiritual realm. Nicodemus did not grasp that Jesus had come to change the very DNA of humanity to reclaim us as His Cosmic Geography where He would eternally abide. He will never leave nor forsake that sacred space, He will walk in them and live in them forever, He will ‘pitch His tent’ (tabernacle) in that dirt and never pull up stakes.
I would also stipulate that the reality of cosmic, geography, revolving around the new birth, so sarcastically annotated by Jesus to Nicodemus was something that was deeply rooted in all of the New Testament writers. Please take a minute and go on a scriptural journey with me as we look at these verses in this different light of human Cosmic Geography.
2 Corinthians 4:7 NASB
But we have this treasure in earthen containers, so that the extraordinary greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves
How is it possible for ‘dirt’ containers to contain the ‘extraordinary greatness of the power’ of God? It is not! Unless we are a new, better, sacred kind of dirt that was made for God to live on.
Matthew 5:13
You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its savor, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.
Salt is considered an ‘essential mineral’ because all life is dependent upon possessing it. In a Cosmic Geography application, it would make rational sense that Jesus would connote that we, the recipients of the new life He was offering, the born-again life, would literally be the living part of the Earth. The new dirt that gives essential life.
John 9:6-7
When Jesus had said this, He spit on the ground, made some mud, and applied it to the man’s eyes. Then He told him, “Go, wash in the Pool of Siloam” (which means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came back seeing.
Jesus is THE life, there is no life without His life. He spit of regular dirt, and the dirt became supernatural dirt that healed a blind man. This new kind of dirt that we are to be is the substance of this world mixed with the life of God. In the world but not of the world. Jesus was illustrating that the dirt He would make would heal the physically and spiritually blind by being a new kind of dirt covering and healing broken places.
Luke 8:15
But the seeds on good soil are those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, cling to it, and by persevering produce a crop.
The Parable of the Sower is the granddaddy of all parables. It is not ‘A’ parable it is ‘THE’ parable. We learn through the Physician’s account that Jesus said that the dirt was the human heart and the seed was the Logos of God that contained the Kingdom of God/Heaven. When the normal, defiled, fallen dirt of humanity is infused with the Logos of God then that dirt becomes the place where the Kingdom grows from. When Jesus, Who is the Logos (John 1:1) is planted into a regular dirt heart, that dirt becomes supernaturally capable of Heavenly production that it was previously incapable of. The seed of Jesus changes our dirt into the Cosmic Geography that Heaven springs from.
Luke 4:13
When the devil had finished every temptation, he left Him until an opportune time.
In keeping with the Genesis account of the Nacash consuming the dust of humanity we can look at the temptation of Christ in the wilderness under a different lens. Jesus was the one and only dust that the serpent could not consume. Jesus was already a special kind of dirt because of His incarnation and virgin birth, but we see here that He was also unique in the aspect that He could not be consumed by the cursed snake. His dirt was Consim Territory that the enemy could not slither into and eat. When you and I are born again, we take on the same substance as Christ (Colossians 2:9-10) and therefore become unconsumabale dust in the same way.
Luke 9:5
“If anyone does not welcome you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that town, as a testimony against them.”
We are now the new dirt of the new birth becoming the sacred space where God and His Good News emanate from. As we tread through this dusty earth we are to encounter other dirt creatures and effect change into their composition. Jesus was teaching His peeps here that if those people would not receive the message (seed) into their dirt then we are to knock the unchanged dirt off of our changed dirt because the two are incompatible. Only sacred items can be in sacred space. There is no room for ‘common’ or unholiness on Holy Ground (just ask Moses and Joshua). There is no mixing of the sacred with the un-sacred, it must be knocked off and returned to the unredeemed ground outside of Yahweh’s Cosmic Geography.
John 13:3-5
Jesus knew that the Father had delivered all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was returning to God. So He got up from the supper, laid aside His outer garments, and wrapped a towel around His waist. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and dry them with the towel that was around Him.
Jesus KNEW that His hands held the future of humanity and chose to illustrate the redemption of humanity’s dirt by washing the dirties place of His disciples… the dusty feet. This is no accident that Jesus used this illustration to exemplify this notion of a new Cosmic Geography being the new people of God, His Ekklesia. Jesus removed the old, sinful, and cursed dirt from His people so that their dirt became sanctified and sacred fit for sacred use. This was not just a cool way to show His guys how the Last Supper is supposed to be celebrated, there was a Cosmic reality taking place in that upper room on that last evening together. Jesus was literally creating sacred ground with His hand and His breath on that holy night.
Those Divine hands are still making sacred ground every day in any human dirt-bag that humbly and submissively comes to Him. We offer ourselves as a human sacrifice, He takes that dirt offering and adds His divine life to it in the new creation of a New Creation of Cosmic Geography in sacred space made from a different kind of dirt.
Weinberg, Steven (1972). Gravitation and Cosmology: Principles and Applications of the General Theory of Relativity. Wiley. pp. 407–463. ISBN 978-0-471-92567-5.
“God Loves Naaman”. Word Journey. 29 August 2008. Archived from the original on 8 September 2008. Retrieved 7 September 2008.
Safrai, Zeev (2005). “Nakdimon b. Guryon: A Galilean Aristocrat in Jerusalem”. In Jack Pastor; Menachem Mor (eds.). The Beginnings of Christianity. Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi Press. pp. 297–314. ISBN 978-9652171511.
Bauckham, Richard (1996). “Nicodemus and the Gurion Family”. The Journal of Theological Studies. 47 (1): 1–37. doi:10.1093/jts/47.1.1. ISSN 0022-5185. JSTOR 23966458.
If you’re into theology at all, you may hear someone use the term “Deuteronomy 32” worldview, this conversation often refers to subjects such as the divine council, the falls, and spiritual beings. The main source for such theology within the last 10 years is The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Biblewritten by Michael S. Heiser. I was in the Department of Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies Ph.D. program at UW Madison, where Heiser and Tim Mackie from the Bible project also attended a few years before I did. If you google “Deuteronomy 32 worldview,” you will likely find our Expedition 44 videos on the subject. Matt Mouzakis and I (from Expedition 44) have also written a rather scholarly book on the subject which is being published by Wipf and Stock Publishers and is to be released next year.
This article is a 45-minute read.
Understanding the cosmic issues
In the beginning, everything was created by Yahweh, and it was good (Tov), humans being very Tov, but it was not complete. Humankind was given an opportunity as divine representatives to continue the good work God had begun with Him in a divine partnership. Unfortunately, the covenants established by God with those He loved both in the spiritual and physical cosmos were broken. The Bible is the story of God’s enduring faithfulness to return to “TOV” and the Edenic like plan with his creation despite their rebellion and continual “falling away” from Him. This “falling away” is best explained (IMHO) by what is called a Deuteronomy 32 worldview. Deuteronomy is a book that in many ways shows a structure laying out the plan for God to partner with humanity and return to the order that was lost. God established order that was TOV and was then lost through the falling away. The fallen spiritual beings reinstated chaos or what is RA (the Hebrew word for evil or things contrary to God’s plans), while God’s ways were order through TOV. Chaos is described as the space that existed before God interacted with it at the beginning of creation. It was a space void of his life-breathing presence. When God interacted with it, he brought forth life and order. The opposite of God’s presence is chaos or RA (evil)”. To be clear the term chaos isn’t evil in of itself, it is just wild or out of line; it simply has the ability to be used by the evil (ra) forces. For instance, Job refers to the leviathan as a chaos monster of the world that can bring on destruction but in of itself is not necessarily evil. Humanity could be considered similar; in that they begin or start out as neutral (or if you subscribe to the 5 pillars of Calvinism you would believe they are born completely defiled by total depravity) and must decide whom they will serve. Will they follow Yahweh or the world?
There is a battle between the world’s ways and God’s. RA vs. TOV. Deuteronomy was a plan to return to TOV, but Israel failed, and the plan and pages deepened.
This dual world falling away, sometimes described as a rebellion or apostacy, describes the free will decision that humanity repeatedly makes (and/or perhaps also described as their depravity) and spiritual beings made to position themselves away or separated from God. (One of the reasons I subscribe to free will and each person making decisions away from God rather than total depravity is based on the similarity of the spiritual beings falling away. The spiritual beings seem to make cognitive decisions to fall away and foreshadow that of humanity. I believe both the spiritual beings and humankind choose individually to follow or not follow God. The consistent hermeneutic between the falling away of the spiritual beings and mankind does not seem consistent with a “born or created that way” theology of total depravity. Neither beings were created against God, they both have to make decisions away from Him to fall and for Him to join Him.) Although offered partnership in allegiant covenant relationship, they chose RA over TOV, the world over God. We will see that God therefore disinherited the nations after babel meaning He “allowed” their choice of separateness to be granted to them. Despite the falling away of the spiritual entities, the overall plan of “inheriting” the whole earth still existed and thus gave this opportunity to Israel and humankind.
Chaim Bentorah has regularly pointed out that everything God created He declared that it was good. But he did not declare man to be good until he created a woman to be his help meet. Note it says help meet, not help mate. The word in Hebrew is ‘azar (helper) kenegedo (one before or one who helps to see or understand). In other words, a woman was created to stand before a man to help him see or understand God. The word good in Hebrew is tov which means to be in biblical harmony with something or someone.
I may be the first one to hold or introduce this view, but those created directly by the hand of God are referred to as “Sons of God” throughout the Bible. Sons of God(Biblical Hebrew: בְנֵי־הָאֱלֹהִים, Bənē hāʾĔlōhīm,[1] literally: “the sons of Elohim”[2]) is a phrase used in the Old Testament and in Christian Apocrypha. However, the Bible doesn’t just come out and say that it is a definition of those created directly by the hand of God, you have to interpolate this concept or backread it. In most Biblical cases the term Sons of God is gender neutral according to the grammar. The Bible grammatically both in the original languages and English presents a masculine point of view throughout, so it can be confusing to determine where women fit or how/when they are included in the intended audience. Historically and grammatically, masculine pronouns have been used as a gender-neutral pronoun option, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that every passage in the Bible that uses a masculine pronoun refers to both men and women. As with any book, the clues to gender inclusivity within the Bible are found within the surrounding context. Good hermeneutics and the wisdom of the Holy Spirit help us to accurately interpret the Bible and the intended audience of specific passages. Being an egalitarian theologically I personally lean toward the great majority of passages being intended for all humankind.
The first mention of “sons of God” in the Hebrew Bible occurs at Genesis 6:1–4.
1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, 2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. 3 And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. 4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
At first take, upon reading the term in Hebrew, you may think that “sons of God” has a negative connotation and many have made that mistake similar to the way that chaos may be misunderstood as evil. However, we are introduced to entities scripture will later theologically refer to as “sons of God” much earlier in the text. I would argue that the original “angelic” beings created by God, the first humans, Adam and Eve are or would take on this title. Later in the New Testament, as I will get to, those recreated as new beings making a profession of faith to follow Jesus under the new covenant are also recognized within the same terminology to be understood as being “newly created” by the magnificent works and direct hand of God. Two Greek words are translated in the New Testament as “son,” teknon and huios, both words indicating sonship by parentage, one by physical descent, and the latter from the sense of adoption, which was relevant in both cases to the intended audience. Humankind become sons of God in the regenerative and adoptive sense by the acceptance of Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour (John 1:12; Galatians 3:26). (To be clear
All of the earliest textual sources interpret the “sons of God” as spiritual beings (a better term than angelic beings although both terms seem to have a place). References are found in the Enochian literature, the Dead Sea Scrolls (specifically the Genesis Apocryphon, the Damascus Document, 4Q180), Jubilees, the Testament of Reuben, 2 Baruch, Josephus, and the book of Jude (compare with 2 Peter 2). But to be clear, the only two identical occurrences of bene ha elohim in the Hebrew Bible are found in Job 1:6 and 2:1.
Claus Westermann claims that the text of Genesis 6 is based on an Ugaritic urtext. In Ugaritic, a cognate phrase is bn ‘il as referenced in the Ugaritic Baal Cycle.[4] The phrase bn ilm (“sons of the gods”) is also attested in Ugaritic texts as is the phrase phr bn ilm (“assembly of the sons of the gods”).[5] This will be in agreement with our views on the divine council as the article continues.
Some newer translations use the word “angel” in place of the more ancient term “sons of God” such as the Septuagint , the Codex Vaticanus, Codex Alexandrinus, and many English versions. However, the term “angel” isn’t the best term in my opinion to use interchangeably with “sons of God. Some directly created by the hand of God were not spiritual beings in the Old Testament and we do not usually refer to one that has made a commitment to God and by Christian definition has been reclaimed, as a spiritual being as long as they are on the earth (yet they still biblically assume the title of “sons of God.”) Therefore, to be the most theologically correct, I would suggest the term “Sons of God” simply mean those that are directly created or (in a New Covenant sense) recreated by the hand of God. Spiritual beings would then be the best term for those that are celestial or spirit entities rather than human. Perhaps you could use the term “angel” for a Godly spiritual being and “demon” for a fallen spiritual being.
Getting back to Genesis 6, the first mention of the term “sons of God” in the Bible, early church fathers and Christian writers such as Justin Martyr, Eusebius, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Commodianus also believed that the “sons of God” in Genesis 6:1–4 were fallen Spiritual beings who engaged in unnatural union with human women, resulting in the begetting of the Nephilim.[6] But in every case, I have seen, they also take on a larger scope of the term to include other definitions ascribed above within the narrative.
Before I move on, I need to address why “sons of Israel” is a poor interpretation in case you’re wondering. “sons of Israel” is used in a fair number of English translations. This mainly comes from the Masoretic Text which does not say “sons of God” but “sons of Israel” however in 4Q37 the term “sons of God” is used.[7] This is probably the root reading for the translation we see in the Septuagint as well. English translations based on the traditional Hebrew text of the Old Testament read “sons of Israel.” The phrase “sons of God” is found in the Dead Sea Scrolls which are much older than the traditional “received” texts. This conversation is going to be important to our upcoming section on the division of the nations at the Tower of Babel (Gen 11:1–9) which is connected to the Table of Nations of Gen 10, which directly precedes it. “The Table of Nations catalogs 70 nations but does not include Israel. Why? Because Israel did not exist at the time of the Babel event. This makes the reference to “sons of Israel” in Deuteronomy 32:8 illogical and unsustainable: “sons of God” was most likely changed to “sons of Israel” sometime after the Jewish community—in response to the new Christian church and its use of the Septuagint—“standardized” the Hebrew text in the second century AD.” [8]
Understanding the Fall(s) of Mankind
Most Christians refer to “the Fall” as the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve give into temptation and is exiled from Eden. However, there are several “falls” in the Biblical Narrative to the extent that “falling” becomes a major theme of the entire Biblical text. In the Biblical account of the Edenic fall we are likely reading a dual fall, the fall of humanity as well as the spiritual being’s initial fall. I say this because had the serpent already “sinned” it most likely would not have been in Eden. “It’s important to note that the garden is described as a pure and undefiled sacred space where God exists with His pure and undefiled, Tov, creation.
The serpent and Humanity thus are dually falling as we read the story. The serpent is likely the one that rises as the leader of the fallen powers and principalities we describe as Satan in the New Testament. This is the act that begins the fall that seemingly results in 1/3 of all the angelic beings as we might arguably deduct from Revelation 12:3–4. This initial falling of spiritual beings is going to influence the choice by Yahweh to destroy the world with a flood and very much come full circle again as part of the story of Babel. The continuing fall of Spiritual beings goes on throughout the Biblical Text to be described as a war in heaven between Yahweh’s forces against those led by Satan and “the dragon”, identified as the devil or Satan, who was thrown down to the earth. Revelation’s war in Heaven is related to the idea of fallen angels, and possible parallels have been proposed in the Dead Sea Scrolls. As I have noted in many other articles, my view on revelation as a partial preterist is that most of it describes the spiritual state as to have already happened or be happening and much less about the end times than some people make it out to be. The first two chapters and the last two chapter of the Bible describe the Edenic plan lost and regained, all of the pages in between show what was lost to be regained. In a thematic sense these “middle pages” of the Bible describe the struggle over God’s treasured people. Exodus 19:4-6a describes this:
“You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to Myself. Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession [s’gullah or segullah] among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”
If the people kept His covenant and obeyed His voice, they would be His own special possession amongst all the people… a holy, set-apart, nation, a royal priesthood described in the Old Testament and later the New Testament as recreated “sons of God.” In the Old Testament this theme is what the fallen spiritual beings are at war for; that they might “win over” humanity rather than Yahweh. Every time Humanity as a whole fail and is given over to “Satan” or the fallen powers and principalities it is described as a “fall” or as people that have “fallen away” from God. In this sense Israel becomes a picture of one that was set apart but fell. Today we are living in a world that is marred by the various rebellions and falls, but as Christians we are also in the upward trajectory of Jesus’ resurrection and ascension which by His atonement gives way to victory for those that accept Him and live in devotion as a New Covenant Set Apart Royal Priesthood. We are the agents of reconciliation. As New Testament priests we present God to the people and the people to God.
This also helps give us some understanding of the theological battle between the nation of Israel today still being considered as God’s “chosen nation;” or the understanding that Israel was, in the same way Adam and Eve were given the opportunity to represent God and his Kingdom, to the world (but failed). Heiser alluded to this in his book I Dare You Not to Bore Me with The Bible in saying “God, of course, doesn’t need to be protected by a zealous scribe or anyone else. Israel’s doctrine was that Yahweh was unique and above all other divine beings (Psa 29:1; 89:5–7). In a severe judgment, the nations at Babel were disinherited by Yahweh and given over to the administration of other gods (Deut 4:19–20; 32:8), whose actions would be judged by the God of Israel (Psa 82:1, 6). This paved the way for God to create a new people, Israel, in the very next chapter of Genesis. And ironically, it was through Abraham’s seed that the disinherited nations would be reclaimed (Gen 12:1–3).
Understanding the Fallen Spiritual Beings
Growing up as a kid, I am sure you read the Old Testament “gods” to be a figurative representation of ancient people’s imaginations. At some point though, you probably wondered, were these “real gods” and where did they come from? At a very basic level, you probably understand those that represent Yahweh to be angels and those that represent the fallen principalities to be demons. There are several books that go into this in detail with varying views but let me share with you a more concise biblical understanding. Starting with Eden, the serpent falls and likely becomes the leader of the fallen, whom we refer to as Satan, but we actually aren’t given that in the text; we have to come up with it by our own deduction. From that moment, many spiritual beings begin to fall. We also don’t have all the details of this. The main narrative of the Bible is to tell of God’s redemption plan for us, and we don’t have all the chronicles of the rest of the story as it is connected. We get bits and pieces of it, but the Bible hasn’t given us all of the side stories that accompany the main narrative.
The Torah uses the Hebrew terms מלאך אלהים (mal’āk̠ ‘ĕlōhîm; “messenger of God”), מלאך יהוה (mal’āk̠ Yahweh; “messenger of the Lord”), בני אלהים (bənē ‘ĕlōhîm; “sons of God”) and הקודשים (haqqôd̠əšîm; “the holy ones”) to refer to beings traditionally interpreted as Yahweh’s principalities. Examples of a supernatural messengers are the “Malak YHWH”, who are either a messenger from God, or possibly an aspect of God himself (such as the logos),[9] or God himself as the “theophanic angel.”[10]
At any rate, we get the idea that some of the Spiritual beings were fallen and in Genesis 6 they perhaps intermarry. Genesis 6 leads into the story of the flood (Genesis 6:9–9:17), as God saw that “the wickedness of man was great” and that “the earth was filled with violence.” God therefore decided to send a flood to wipe out humanity (Genesis 6:5, 11). The earth “being filled with violence” is a direct correlation to the result of God allowing mankind to choose between Tov and Ra. Interestingly, it’s relevant to understand that the waters of the flood were a source of chaos. The people who were creating violent chaos were ultimately given over into the same chaos that existed before the creation of His good order. In the same way that we understand baptism today as a representation into a new way of life apart from our old chaotic existence, the flood account was a rebirth headed by Noah and his family. There is a connection between water, life and death that holds implication in the physical and spiritual realms.
We don’t know what God was thinking in terms of the flood and your thoughts are going to be influenced by your theology on omnipotence and omniscience. It seems that God used the flood as a reset from the evil that overcame the world due to the fallen spiritual beings. One might think that would take care of the problem but then a few chapters later we get to Babel which is also largely about fallen spiritual beings and the quickly corrupted world. If you follow Expedition 44 closely you will find that there are well respected differences in this area. For instance, Heiser and Walton (whom I hold both in very high regard) have both written great books on the subject and differ significantly. I think both make some great points.
Deuteronomy 4:19–20 and 32:8–9 represent two sides of the same coin. In Deuteronomy 32:8–9, God apportions the nations to the sons of God; here, however, God allots the gods to the nations. We have to wonder what exactly is going on. It seems that spiritual beings (perhaps largely those of the divine council) were put in charge of different nations and the nations began to worship the spiritual beings as or over Yahweh Himself and the beings essentially “fell” accepting that form of idolatrous worship. God then disinherited the nations and the fallen spiritual beings and would make a new nation (Israel) who were to be Yahweh’s chosen ones that would reclaim the earth for Yahweh. Israelites, in other words, believed that Yahweh, their own supreme, unique God, sentenced the nations and their gods to each other. At Babel, God, like a father dismissing and disinheriting his children, judges all the nations for their disobedience (Gen 11:1–9). Then, in the very next chapter, He calls Abraham (Gen 12:1–3), effectively starting over in creating an earthly human family for Himself. These other gods, which Deut 32:8 refers to as “the sons of God,” were members of Yahweh’s heavenly host. Scripture elsewhere condemns both the members of the nations and their gods for disloyalty and corruption (Psa 82).
This section in large part is paraphrased from Dr. Michael Heiser
Understanding the cosmic geography
The concept of cosmic geography is also important as everything under Yahweh was intended to be sacred and holy. The territory of other nations, according to Yahweh’s decree, belonged to other gods. You may consider something along the lines of God endowing each nation to a spiritual being and then we get the sense that all of those spiritual beings end up falling. Everything except Israel is lost. They are seemingly the only hope for the redemption of the fallen world. Israel then also fails but God makes a way through His Son. This lens of falling spiritual beings continues into the New Testament as corrupt gods both populate and control certain geographical regions such as Bashan. You might recall the story within the later named Cesarea-Philippi which was a center of Ba’al & Pan worship. Mt Hermon stood high in the background. Stories within the Israeli literature linked Ba’al with the evil dead, and with the underworld. Calling the place the gates of hell. In the book of Enoch the fallen angels were reputed to have arrived on Earth on Mt Hermon, and the entire region was considered cursed with evil. Mk 5:1-10 Mt 8:28-34 Lk 8:26-39 also tell strange stories of the underworld. If you haven’t read this post you might consider. Jesus basically attacked what were called the gates of hell and the rock mentioned at that time was Mt Hermon not Peter himself. AND the same mountain was the place of Jesus’ transfiguration further facing down those evil forces.
Paul used geographical terminology such as principalities, rulers, thrones, authorities, powers, dominions (Eph 6:12). In Acts 2, God begins to reclaim all the nations for Himself. It is interesting to compare the table of nations from the Old Testament to the new, both show the 70 lost that were to be regained after Pentecost and the sending of the Spirit. This may also convince you to take a closer look at Paul’s statement earlier in Ephesians 3:10 when he states “His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms,” only to say let’s not underestimate what God wants to or can collectively do through a multifaceted representation of his love and power through his bride, the church.
In many ways, once you take on a Deuteronomy 32 worldview, much of the scriptures you didn’t understand in the New Testament now make sense; you will see them with a new clarity. In the New Covenant our bodies are the sacred cosmic temple that should define set apart space and ground with every step.
Understanding the Divine Council
This might surprise you, but the idea of Yahweh’s “divine council” is in all of the pages of Ancient Near Eastern History. Sumerian, Akkadian, Old Babylonian, Egyptian, Babylonian, and of course the Bible all share this common view.[11] Psalm 82 states “God stands in the divine assembly; He judges among the gods (אֱלֹהִ֔ים elohim). The Hebrew is “beqerev elohim”, “in the midst of gods”, and the word “qerev” if it were in the plural would mean “internal organs”[12]). In an ancient sense the internal organs were what gave life, they just didn’t understand exactly how they worked. Essentially in the same way they understood the organs of their body to give life but not know exactly how they worked, they felt the same way about this divine council. Later in this Psalm, the word “gods” is used (in the KJV): Psalm 82:6 – “I have said, Ye [are] gods; and all of you [are] children of the most High.” Instead of “gods”, another version has “godlike beings”,[13] but here again, the word is elohim/elohiym (Strong’s H430). This passage is quoted in the New Testament in John 10:34. In this way, the term “gods” seems to imply the understanding of a heavenly host that functions as a council to the MOST HIGH of them.
I Kings 22:19 describes Yahweh seated among “the whole host of heaven.” The first two chapters of the Book of Job describe the “sons of God” assembling in the presence of Yahweh, the “multitudes of heaven.” The Divine council and the challenger in Job should make a serious Bible reader ask some questions and work to reconcile their overall lens regarding how God was thought of within the early days of the Bible. I am sure this will be a new consideration for some readers, but although the book of Job was not penned until many years later, it likely describes a story that took place not long after creation and some may even argue before the fall as to align the challenger figure of Job and the serpent of the first fall as both likely being the same cosmic leader of the fallen world that the New Testament calls Satan. But as I alluded to earlier, fallen spiritual beings would likely have not been welcome in the presence of Yahweh (in a heavenly or Edenic setting) so it creates some interesting things to work through. To take this view (which I will say presumably would then explain some difficulties with more traditional perspectives of early Genesis), you would also have to accept the view that Adam was the first man created in and dwelling in the “upper” garden of Eden while other humans were on “lower” earth (using Tolkien style language). Thus, since Genesis 2:20 tells us that since “no suitable helper was found” Eve was created. This may imply there were other women, but they weren’t suitable for Adam. Most scholars strongly agree Adam was the first man, but the Bible doesn’t directly say that Eve was the first woman which would allow for the story of Job to be inserted into a Biblical timeline while Adam was alive. In both garden and job Narratives it would better explain why a “Satan figure” could have been in holy space. In the same way some see Song of Songs to be in some part a story of Adam and Eve which in a similar way would explain some theological difficulties of that story (namely how they seem to be sexually involved before marriage which later is against Torah law). Many scholars would agree that that Adam and Job lived 56 years contemporaneously which also supports the above minor view. Finally, seeing the divine council starting to fall early in the story also explains why God’s plan with Israel would be to reinstate them as a royal priesthood to partner with him in ruling over the earth after or during the time it is being reclaimed. The divine council would have failed, and God is looking to re-establish a ruling partnership with His newer creation of humankind, Israel.
It is interesting that we do not read the Edenic language from the creation of Adam and Eve again until Israel is recreated and instructed as priests in Leviticus 16. Israel’s temple was the place where the priest experienced God’s unique presence, and Eden was the place where Adam walked and talked with God. The same Hebrew verbal form (stem) mithallek used for God’s ‘walking back and forth’ in the Garden (Gen. 3:8), also describes God’s presence in the tabernacle (Lev. 26:12; Deut. 23:14 [15]; 2 Sam. 7:6-7).[14]
Genesis 2:15 says God placed Adam in the Garden ‘to cultivate [i.e., work] it and to keep it’. The two Hebrew words for ‘cultivate and keep’ are usually translated ‘serve and guard [or keep]’ elsewhere in the Old Testament. When these two words occur together in the Old Testament (within an approximately 15-word range), they refer either to Israelites ‘serving’ God and ‘guarding [keeping]’ God’s word …or to priests who ‘keep’ the ‘service’ (or ‘charge’) of the tabernacle (see Num. 3:7-8; 8:25-26; 18:5-6; 1 Chr. 23:32; Ezek. 44:14). These are “jobs” that spiritual beings once were entrusted two but now are roles given to humanity.
Although we aren’t given more on the heavenly rebellion, some have wondered if God choosing humanity might have triggered the jealous falling away of the heavenlies or if God created humankind because of the Heavenly falling away. These are questions that the Bible doesn’t give us the answers to but much of theology it to determine what might be the best answers with the information we have been given and I also would asset is one of the dynamics of deeper discipleship to understand the Word of God and His ways.
In Genesis 1:36 we read, “Then God said, Let us make mankind in our image.” Many “back read” this to be the trinity, but perhaps a better hermeneutic would be to understand it as a divine council.
Looking back at the Biblical story, we see two “realms” or “environments.” Initially the Divine council would function in a partnership with God helping Him “rule” the world he creates. When relationship is broken and the council seems to “fall” it is offered to humankind to fulfill this plan in the return to Eden.
Understanding the Tower of Babel
I recently wrote an article with John Walton that alludes to some thoughts on the Tower of Babel. As I mentioned earlier, Walton and Heiser have somewhat opposing views on this subject. You will notice that my view holds parts of both of their views. It is a bit of a hybrid. Here is the link to the article with Walton.
The Tower of Babel episode is key to understanding the thematic view of the fallen world and why it needs to be reclaimed in the name of Jesus. The term Babylon has come to have a connotation of those far from God or rival to Him. In Genesis 11 we read that it was at Babylon where people sought to “make a name (shem) for themselves” by building a tower that reached to the heavens, the realm of the “gods.” In verse 7 we see there is a “plural exhortation” similar to that of Genesis 1:26 (mentioned above). The verse has Yahweh proclaiming, “Let us go down and confuse their language.” But you will also notice that the plural announcement is followed by the singular action which denotes authority of Yahweh: “So Yahweh scattered them” (11:8). As I mentioned earlier, we don’t “see,” “get,” or “read” the entire story here either. But later in Deuteronomy 32:8–9 we get another piece of the puzzle.
When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when He divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. 9 But the LORD’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.
As I imply earlier, the term “most high” in itself also denotes a Deuteronomy 32 Worldview. Elyon or El Elyon (Hebrew: אֵל עֶלְיוֹן ʼĒl ʻElyōn), is an epithet that appears several times throughout the Bible as one of the names of Yahweh. ʾĒl ʿElyōn is usually rendered in English as “God Most High”, and similarly in the Septuagint as ὁ Θεός ὁ ὕψιστος (“God the highest”). Most evangelical scholar agree that ʽElyōn is simply Yahweh, having given the other nations to other spiritual beings, ʽElyōn now takes Israel for himself under the name of the Tetragrammaton Yahweh.
Deuteronomy 32:8–9 therefore describes how Yahweh’s dispersal of the nations at Babel resulted in his disinheriting those nations as his people. This is the Old Testament equivalent of Romans 1:18–25, a familiar passage wherein God “gave [humankind] over” to their persistent rebellion. The statement in Deuteronomy 32:9 that “the LORD’s [i.e., Yahweh’s] portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage” tips us off that a contrast in affection and ownership is intended. Yahweh in effect decided that the people of the world’s nations were no longer going to be in relationship to him. He would begin anew. He would enter into covenant relationship with a new people that did not yet exist: Israel.
The text seems to suggest that what was created as good (TOV) by God had been lost. Since we don’t have that part of the story, we can only make deductions of how and what was lost.
The story of the Old Testament is about Israel versus the disinherited nations, and Yahweh versus the corrupt, rebel, elohim of those nations. Babel is a result of an entire people group believing their way was best, creating the term of what we know of as Imperialism, meaning to implement control over an entire people group or nation what we advocate as believing the right or only way to do something. This is the exact opposite result of holding fast to a covenant commitment to the creator himself.
Walton leaves us with this thought, “The problem was not that they wanted to make a name for themselves. The problem was that they were exploiting a relationship with God to do so. And that is something with which we might be able to identify. Constructing sacred spaces should be motivated by wanting to make God’s name great, not by wanting to make our name great. How many of our great endeavors in the church—our programs, our building projects, our far-reaching podcasts, our great crowds of people—are focused on our glory and success rather than God’s?”
“It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. But there is a place where someone has testified: “What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor and put everything under his feet.” In putting everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to him” (Hebrews 2:5-8)
“What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet” (Psalm 8:4-6)
There are many atonement theories. x44 has an entire series on this. Perhaps all or most of them have a place, but I think the main part of atonement is to understand that through the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension to His throne; Jesus gained victory over the principalities. There were other accomplishments through Jesus at the cross, but this seems to be the primary directive. It gave the ability that we may be called “sons of God.” Through Christ Yahweh would begin to regain the world -what was lost in Eden, before the flood, at Babel, and through Israel’s failure to fulfill their calling.
Jesus became the second Adam. He became mankind’s representative before God just as Adam had been initially.
“Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:18-19).
We then became the royal priesthood to reclaim what was lost for God through the power of Jesus. We are ambassadors, image bearers, with Christ in us to reclaim a lost and broken world. Colossians 1:6, John 1:3, Psalm 33:6 bring context around the entire design to “be good” and transition in partnership to “very good.”
“Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20).
Understanding your mission within a D32 Worldview
Since the beginning of time the Bible tells us we are caught in a spiritual war within the cosmos and we are the central figures of the battle, the segullah. Perhaps spiritual warfare looks different today than during the freeing of the Israelites in Egypt, but perhaps not.
As I allude to earlier, you will gain a different lens when understanding scripture through this worldview. I will venture to say it will give you an understanding to the text you didn’t have. It creates less theological gymnastics and follows a better hermeneutic. It is simply better theology.
Perhaps seeing the plan through this lens changes the picture for you. knowing this information, how then should I live? As believers we now have authority on earth and in the name of Jesus can have power over the fallen spiritual beings as we partner with everything TOV and are supported by the heavenly hosts. The kingdom of Satan has been broken (Colossians 2:14-15) and we have been raised and seated with Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:6). Now we are co-heirs with Him (Romans 8:17). In this sense, Christ became the ultimate mediator—reconciling every nation to God. Victory has been claimed and we now are the agents to regain the world through the name and power of Jesus. A return to TOV.
We are on an upward trajectory in Jesus! We have everything we need to live completely redeemed, sanctified, set apart lives! You no longer need to be entangled to a fallen chaotic world. Make decisions to break those strongholds in the name of Jesus and put the ways of the world behind you. Don’t look back and pursue the king with every strand of your being; your time, treasure, and talent as a complete living sacrifice for Jesus and those that need Him.
Special Thanks to my good friend Paul Lazzaroni who made a significant investment in this article. I thank God for your continued walk.
Douglas, Tenney & Silva 2011, p. 1384
The lexical item in Hebrew: אלהים, ĕlōhîm, means “God” but uses the Hebrew plural morpheme -im. Although ʼĕlōhîm is plural in form, it is understood in the singular sense. Therefore, the English translation is “God” rather than “Gods”.
C. Westermann, Genesis, BKAT 1/3. (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1982), 42
Mark S. Smith The Ugaritic Baal cycle 1994 p249 “all the divine sons” (or “all the sons of God”). ESA sources may support this point.”
G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren Theological dictionary of the Old Testament 2000 p130
IBID Douglas, Tenney & Silva 2011, p. 1384
“Biblical Dead Sea Scrolls – 4Q37 Deuteronomy”. dssenglishbible.com. Retrieved 2019-03-17.
Heiser, The Unseen Realm
Frederick Copleston, A History of Philosophy, Volume 1, Continuum, 2003, p. 460.
Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, eds.: A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, p. 521″. Retrieved 30 July 2012.
Sakenfeld, Katharine ed., “The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible” Volume 2, pg 145, Abingdon Press, Nashville.
godlike beings, in JPS 1917″. Retrieved 18 March 2013.
G. K. Beale, The Temple and the Church’s Mission: A biblical theology of the dwelling place of God [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press; 2004], p. 66
“So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has, cannot be my disciple.” – Luke 14:33
If you know me at all, you know that I am an “ALL IN” guy for the Kingdom who believes we shouldn’t be holding anything back for Jesus. Luke 14 calls us to be rival to anything that opposes Jesus, but with the context that even our enemies might be won over to Him.
“RENOUNCE ALL” – Jesus had some “HARD SAYINGS” but this one might take the cake! Today in our American Christianity or churchianity paradigm we seem to just simply ignore this one! This flies in the face of health and wealth prosperity preaching seeming to identify that perhaps Christians should sell everything (Christ’s words to the rich young ruler and the Acts 2 mindset) and live as paupers for the kingdom. And to be clear, I do think it takes on that tone.
But let’s take a closer look, in Greek the phrase is ouk apotassetai, which literally would be to “not place in order from”. What’s very interesting to me is in the New Testament every single time the verb apostasso is used it is in the middle voice. I would venture to say this is the only treatment of a verb this way in the entire text. It is very rare and unusual, so it makes me take special interest and ask why? When we say to “not renounce” something then, it takes a sense of “to place in order away from myself”. Understanding the literal translation of the Greek phrase means that when we read paying attention to the grammar of the Greek language you come out understanding that the mindset is to restructure or reorder, we give up chaos for order to come to proper balance in the kingdom. A life of shalom. So, if I had to translate the middle voice thought into this (as some translations like NT Wright’s have attempted) it might better read, “No one can be my disciple who does not take up the proper priorities in terms of possessions for Godly order over the world’s chaos.” Of course that doesn’t read well! Furthermore, the middle voice almost always implies that Christ is taking the action for us, that it is something out of your control once you come to the posture called for, usually devotion but in this case is actually a step more than that -it leans towards the harder definition of Jesus into discipleship. (What seems to follow the progression of fan > follower > disciple.)
If you don’t take on the posture of Jesus with your worldly things you can’t possibly enter into Jesus’ definition of discipleship. They must be renounced or completely re-ordered. So, the takeaway is what you can’t do is keep the prioritization of the world and still attest to be on the track to discipleship.
Everything is His and if you attest to be “all in”, than nothing should be your own. That’s why tithing in the New Covenant is a hard conversation. Tithing along with the Torah in the Old Testament was to be a stop gap until all things could be reconciled by Jesus. Now that “WE” have Jesus everything is His. If your on track your not thinking Tithe or Torah your thinking everything! (YOUR LIFE) Nothing is your stuff or your time. And the path to sanctification is more of Him and His kingdom ways and less of your world ways. A complete transformation that finishes eschatologically (but in que on this world) with you being made completely into the image of Jesus.
You don’t need to “create time or space” for Jesus if all of your time and space is for Jesus. You no longer have claim to anything of the world, YOU HAVE RENOUNCED THAT NOTION!
If you catch yourself beginning to collect things for your earthly storehouse that has no place for kingdom endeavors your posture for the kingdom is out of balance. You are mis-stepping the path of discipleship. The text says anyone off course can’t be my disciple. Do you want to be a disciple? Are you willing to come to a complete posture before the Lord to enter this covenant? Are you willing to “give up” everything to be a disciple?
One reason generations are disengaging from the church is because of the mixed messages the church has sent for years. Many people have become disillusioned with the division in the American church and one of the reasons is because we’ve exchanged a biblical gospel that exalts Jesus above everything in the world for an American (progressive) gospel that prostitutes Jesus for the sake of comfort, control, power, politics and prosperity in this world. I’m compelled to pray, God, we want to renounce it all. I pray that we don’t settle as disciples of Christ. I pray that we might be in absolute devotion to Jesus’ deeper covenant relationship both in this life and eschatologically in the coming kingdom.
In the last 10 years there have been several books written that speak to this:
Will Ryan – This is the Way (Series)
Boyd – The Myth of a Christian Nation
Zahnd – Postcards from Babylon
Bates – Salvation By Allegiance Alone
Sprinkle – Exiles: The Church in the Shadow of Empire (Church in the Shadow of Empire)
Wright & Bird – Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in an Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies
Platt – Don’t Hold Back: Leaving Behind the American Gospel to Follow Jesus Fully
But before all of these there was a classic called – Persecution in the Early Church, A Chapter on the History of Renunciation, by Herbert B. Workman, in 1906
The opening pages of the New Covenant declared this same philosophy by Holy Cannon. John the Baptist was the precursory proclaimer of this truth as ‘the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the Way of the Lord’. The explosive scene that his ministry encapsulated could be summarized by the title we all know him by: The Baptiser.
Matthew 3:1-3
In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for Him.’”
This message was approved by Heaven through the institution of baptism as an expression of forsaking all other allegiant positions as a returning to the One True and Living God. His message was demonstrated by a public display of that newfound loyalty through the waters of baptism signifying a washing away of the old for the embracing of the new. This message spread like wildfire among the religious Jews and even impacted the gentile population in their midst.
Vss 5:6 “People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region around the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River.”
In keeping with the divine purposes of his message, he adamantly declared that those wishing to embrace this new allegiant life (the path to discipleship) MUST renounce all other places of faith and fully submit to the Kingdom life.
Vss 7-8 “But when John saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his place of baptism, he said to them, ‘You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit, then, in keeping with repentance.’”
A requirement for John was the ‘produced fruit’ consistent with a changed heart. John was not looking for new FaceBook subscribers, or popularity in his ministry… the purpose was to transform lives. This was accomplished through radical, immediate, and noticeable lifestyle reflections consistent with true, sincere, and authentic repentance. What John was doing, and ultimately what Jesus declared in His Gospel, would find direct and deadly conflict with the hierarchy of Judaism and the control of the Roman system. So deadly in fact, both John and Jesus were martyred for their unified message.
In a life application aspect what John was requiring was real, daily change. The tax collectors were told to stop their extortion. The soldiers were commanded to treat others with respect and to cease being bullies for personal gain. The religious were charged with throwing away their masks of self-righteousness and hypocrisy and embracing a non-legalistic view of worship.
For us today, this message should still resonate as loudly and powerfully. What should we cast aside for the throne of Jesus in our soul to be unchallenged? Where in our hearts, attitudes, finances, relationships, and time are we being prodded by this message of complete allegiance do we find the world challenging the supremacy of Christ?
During the first few centuries a great conflict arose between Rome and those obedient to Yahweh. By Roman theory, the national state was the one sole society that must engross (take up, control) every interest of its residents: religion, social, political and humanitarian. In other words, the state should be the supreme authority in one’s life. Romans wanted Christians to take their part as loyal citizens of the empire, discharging the dues, performing the obligations of a citizen, displaying complete loyalty. The Christian replied, “We worship no other.”
Under Rome, all new “societies” were required to obtain a charter or permission from the emperor or from the senate. If the group was not granted permission under the state, they were considered “rival” to the state. The extreme penalty was treason, punishable by death. Christians were not persecuted because of their creed, but because of the absoluteness of the Christian faith.
To say that Jesus is Lord was a statement against the empire. “No King but Jesus” became the rallying cry of the true believer and also the last words of many persecuted and martyred Christians.
The Jewish–Roman wars were a series of large-scale revolts by the Jews (and / or Christians) of Judaea and the Eastern Mediterranean against the Roman Empire between 66 and 135 CE. [1] These wars were in large part over the “kingship” of the peoples. Could Rome demand sole authority? Although the Diaspora of the Jews started many years before this, the Jewish–Roman wars had a devastating impact on the Jewish people, transforming them from a major population in the Eastern Mediterranean into a dispersed and persecuted minority. [2] Most scholars would consider this charge of Jews and Christians to not give allegiance to Rome over God and / or Jesus as the major distinguishing feature of what defined an all-in follower of God or Jesus. The First Jewish-Roman War culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem and other towns and villages in Judaea, resulting in significant loss of life and a considerable segment of the population being uprooted or displaced. Those who remained were stripped of any form of political autonomy. Subsequently, the brutal suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt resulted in even more severe consequences. Judea witnessed a significant depopulation, as many Jews were killed, expelled, or sold into slavery. [4]
Jews were banned from residing in the vicinity of Jerusalem, after the central worship site of Second Temple Judaism, the Second Temple in Jerusalem, was destroyed by Titus’s troops in 70 CE. [5] The destruction of the Temple led to a transformation in Jewish religious practices, emphasizing prayer, Torah study, and communal gatherings in synagogues outside of Jerusalem. This pivotal shift laid the foundation for the emergence of Rabbinic Judaism, which has been the dominant form of Judaism since late antiquity, after the codification of the Babylonian Talmud. [6] But this also gave way to the rise or continuation of Christianity. As Rabbinical Judaism spiraled down, Christianity rose up taking on many of the same “anti-empirical” thoughts towards the ruling over them and their religion by Rome. Perhaps more than before Christians were now vowing allegiance to Jesus over any other form of worldly government. Persecution has always had a purifying effect on the true people of God.
By the third century, emperors were realizing that the Church was not a mere body of anarchists to be rooted out wherever necessary. The Church was fast becoming a rival organization of growing strength and power. The aggressiveness of Christ’s followers was viewed by Rome as a very real threat to their worldwide domination.
By the middle of the third century, the more energetic rulers organized efforts to crush out the Church by the use of all the resources of the state. The police measures taken at Antonines (Roman Emperors who ruled between 138 and 180: Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius) gave place to a civil war without quarter (mercy offered). But, unlike all other civil wars, only one side was armed. Strange to say, this was the side that was ultimately defeated. On the one hand were the immense resources of the Empire, centralized in one supreme will. On the other side was the PASSIVE RESISTANCE OF CHRIST’S FOLLOWERS, making the state’s massive recourses useless. The Christians were a peculiar people, with peculiar views of their own. They wore no distinctive garb (clothing: outward appearance)in the world, yet they were definitely not of the world. “We are supposed to live aloof from crowds,” said Tertullian, an early Church leader. [7] Their opponents phrased the matter differently. They are “a people who separate themselves and break away from the rest of mankind.”
The pacifistic early church Christians seem to have gotten Jesus words a bit “more right” compared to the war mongers of 70 AD. It was hard to find an occupation in which the Christian could engage without compromising with idolatry. Some said that if they did not compromise, they would be cut off from every means of livelihood. Tertullian replied that, “faith must despise starvation as much as it despises death.” [8] But the more the Christians prospered, the more their neighbors “hated them” or perhaps “grew envious of them.” The Christians professed, “nothing was more alien to them than politics.” [9]
In practice, Christianity and the Empire proved fundamentally antagonistic. They were rivals in conception and method. Each claimed to be a kingdom of universal sway; each created a Church of universal obligation, each demanded absolute loyalty to its supreme lord. Between Caesar and Christ there could be no compromise. [10]
BART D. EHRMAN
Persecution was the direct outcome of the Christian doctrine of RENUNCIATION. To renounce meant to disown, reject and disclaim. The early Christians were renouncing their allegiance to the Roman Empire and denying any connection to it. In other words, the Christian ceased to be his own master, ceased to have his old environment, ceased to hold his old connections with the state. In everything, he became the bond-servant to Jesus Christ. In everything he owed his supreme allegiance and fealty (loyalty) to the new empire with Jesus Christ as Head. “We engage in these conflicts as men whose very lives are not our own… We have no master but God,” said Tertullian. [11]
Scriptures for further study and consideration:
Luke 3:3-17
3 He went into all the region around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins (noun),
4 as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for Him.
5 Every valley shall be filled in, and every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked ways shall be made straight, and the rough ways smooth.
6 And all humanity will see God’s salvation.’”
7 Then John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?
8 Produce (Aorist Imperative Active) fruit, then, in keeping with (accusative adjective of ‘fruits’ meaning ‘worthy, suitable, deserving, matching value) repentance (metanoias). And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.
9 The axe lies ready at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
10 The crowds asked him, “What then should we do?”
11 John replied, “Whoever has two tunics should share with him who has none, and whoever has food should do the same.”
12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”
13 “Collect no more than you are authorized,” he answered.
14 Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?” “Do not take money by force or false accusation,” he said. “Be content with your wages.”
15 The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John could be the Christ.
16 John answered all of them: “I baptize you with water, but One more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
17 His winnowing fork is in His hand to clear His threshing floor and to gather the wheat into His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
Acts 8:26-38
26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go south to the desert road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.”
27 So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official in charge of the entire treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. He had gone to Jerusalem to worship,
28 and on his return was sitting in his chariot reading Isaiah the prophet.
29 The Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to that chariot and stay by it.”
30 So Philip ran up and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.
31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
32 The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture:
“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is silent, so He did not open His mouth.
33 In His humiliation He was deprived of justice. Who can recount His descendants? For His life was removed from the earth.”
34 “Tell me,” said the eunuch, “who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?”
35 Then Philip began with this very Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
36 As they traveled along the road and came to some water, the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is there to prevent me from being baptized?”
38 And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and Philip baptized him.
1 Peter 3:18-22
18 For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit,
19 in whom He also went and preached to the spirits in prison
20 who disobeyed long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built.
In the ark a few people, only eight souls, were saved through water.
21 And this water symbolizes the baptism that now saves you also— not the removal of dirt from the body, but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God— through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers subject to Him.
Romans 6:1-7
1 What then shall we say? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may increase?
2 Certainly not! How can we who died to sin live in it any longer?
3 Or aren’t you aware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?
4 We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may walk in newness of life.
5 For if we have been united with Him like this in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection.
6 We know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.
7 For anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
Bloom, J.J. 2010 The Jewish Revolts Against Rome, A.D. 66–135: A Military Analysis. McFarland.
Hitti, Philip K. (2002). Hitti, P. K. Gorgias Press. ISBN 9781931956604. Archived from the original on 15 April 2021. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
Schwartz, Seth (2014). The ancient Jews from Alexander to Muhammad. Cambridge. pp. 85–86. ISBN 978-1-107-04127-1. OCLC 863044259.
Taylor, J. E. (15 November 2012). The Essenes, the Scrolls, and the Dead Sea. Oxford University Press.
Armstrong (2011). Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths. p. 163.
Karesh, Sara E. (2006). Encyclopedia of Judaism.
Harrison, Peter (June 2017). “‘I Believe Because it is Absurd’: The Enlightenment Invention of Tertullian’s Credo”. Church History.
Gonzáles, Justo L. (2010). “The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation”. The Story of Christianity. Vol. 1. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
This translation was created in conjunction with the Patristics Project at Faulkner University.
Bart D. Ehrman is the author of The Triumph of Christianity and the author or editor of more than 30 books, including the New York Times bestsellers Misquoting Jesus and How Jesus Became God. Ehrman is a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and a leading authority on the New Testament and the history of early Christianity.
Tertullian: Douglas Powell, Tertullianists and Cataphrygians, Vigiliae Christianae 29 (1975)
Baptism, then, is not what produces salvation. It “saves” in that it reflects a heart decision: a pledge of loyalty to the risen Savior. In effect, baptism in New Testament theology is a loyalty oath, a public avowal of who is on the Lord’s side in the cosmic war between good and evil.
Michael Heiser, The Unseen Realm
Baptism is important. In many ways, I think it is the purest example still intact today of what it meant to make an allegiant statement as they did in Jesus’ day. I am often asked what do you say when you baptize someone? People question as if there is some kind of magical phrase or potion that comes with Baptism. It probably won’t surprise you that I don’t really like the usual repetition of words that often come with baptismal “services”. You have probably heard a pastor proclaim something like, “in obedience to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and upon your profession of faith, I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.” It’s not that I have a big problem with these words, but my issue is more that the repetition of liturgy from scripture today probably wasn’t really what the authors had in mind here and in other similar situations such as the Lord’s prayer. But that doesn’t make it wrong to do so either. The words of baptism are important whether you see the act as a sacrament or more of an allegiant profession of faith. Nearly everyone sees baptism as an outward sign of a decision that has happened in the head and the heart. It’s the best picture of Biblical 1st century allegiance still found within our modern western culture.
“Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” Romans 6:3-4 ESV
We usually think of life at baptism, not death. We want to think joy and often in western thinking death is not joyous, but Paul’s culture (yes, I continue to arguably allude that Paul wrote Romans or at least had it penned) didn’t think like this. Death was often honorably esteemed and eventually everyone would die.
So why does Paul choose to use the phrase baptized into death? We need to consider how first century followers viewed baptism. Within Judaism, but also other religions baptism was a standard practice of renewal or cleansing.
Without venturing too far into this, baptism in the New Testament signifies an allegiant lifelong commitment (purification) similar to what God asked of Abraham in the covenant of circumcision. There are several connections that are important there.
At the time when this was written, the Greek term (which we transliterate “baptism”) was also a verb used to describe violent acts like drowning. We also see this similar usage in Luke 12:50 and several other places in the Bible. The author wants the reader to consider complete (possibly even violent) death of the old life. All that a person was, any influences you may have been under, any oaths of allegiance, and claims to who you were, even to the point of what you might have been completely immersed (water drowning metaphor) into that kind of living (antinomianism). Paul says it is now dead, all of it.
That’s why when Jesus says the centurion in Matthew 8 has more faith than anyone else (I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith) it was likely a death sentence, and the centurion was ready for that. He literally was ready to give up his oath of allegiance and life spiritually, but also physically. (That would have been the natural consequence for a centurion that placed their allegiance to anyone other than the emperor.)
When we choose to bury all that was us, we in turn accept new life in Christ pledging the reciprocal dance of grace. I have used this expression several times in the book. [The Roman writer] Seneca explains the image of three dancing connected by grace: a benefit ‘passing from hand to hand nevertheless returns to the giver; the beauty of the whole is destroyed if the course is anywhere broken’ (Seneca, [De Beneficiis, meaning “On Favors”] 1.3.3-4). The “three graces” picture visually represented how grace was understood to function in the first century Greco-Roman world in which Paul wrote. Grace (charis) originated with a generous giver usually thought of as the Benefactor. Often the Benefector was introduced to one in need by a mediator. The gift was then accepted by the recipient (client) who in his or her thankfulness and gratitude in turn extended the gift (grace) to others, and this in turn benefited the original giver. The recipient in many ways became a representative of the Benefactor to those in the Benefactors society. Coaching or mentoring towards what the Benefactor desired was often nurtured through the mediator to the recipient. It became a continual relationship between the three entities. In this unbroken circle, everyone was understood to benefit. In this sense, God works through Christ in us as we freely receive the gift and continue to give all of it to others as they are then introduced in the same way through the mediator to the father. Everything is freely given.
We often use the word “adopted” when describing our new relationship in Him. In the Greco Roman Empire adopted beings could not be disowned as natural born children could be. When you were “adopted in” you were guaranteed the new life promised to you by those that gave the pledge to adopt. You were an heir that could not be passed over in terms of inheritance. It was a new covenant that was cut for you. It was a free will reciprocal agreement even though it seemed like the party adopting had everything to lose and nothing to gain; but as we all know with children that isn’t the case. The blessing is reciprocal.
Baptism is a confirmation to lifelong allegiant faith, a way of life given to king Jesus. An entrance into a beautiful, joyful, reciprocal dance of grace but starts by putting to death “all” that you were. You are no longer your own but His, a new creation by which your very life is an image of His whom you belong. He is in you and your life is a temple that bears His name. Your very essence is to bear the light of Jesus and extend that gift to others. This is not of yourself but only in the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
In life you are now set apart to serve. The Hebrew word ‘abad (עבד) can be translated as “to work,” “to serve,” or “to worship.” This is the word that is used to describe the original mission for humankind.
In essence, through baptism, we return to our cosmic calling. In faith, we worship as we serve. All that we are, we are in Christ.
Luke, I am your father! Every 80’s and 90’s guy knows exactly the implications of this phrase. Today we live in a fatherless world. There are so many implications of this, but one of them is the Christian mainstream claiming things of the Lord, yet in actuality is far from the galaxy of their father. I would urge a return to covenant living.
“As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you will be the father of amultitude of nations.” Genesis 17:4 NASB
In Hebrew Av hamon goyim means Abraham would be the father of many, those inside and outside of his immediate family – the regathering of the lost nations (Deuteronomy 32). Today, Christians believe they are faithful to the same God, Yahweh; but if we would have lived during the time this sentiment was expressed to Abraham (the intended audience of the text) I doubt our modern-day actions or fruit would have been recognized as the kind of devotion or allegiance God was asking for. As I write this, Four Southern Baptist theologians and pastors intend to ask messengers to this year’s Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting to adopt the Nicene Creed as part of the denomination’s official faith statement and it begs the question, what does it look like in a modern world to fulfill what Yahweh asked of us?
According to Rabbi Shraga Freedman, “Even when non-Jewish nations recognize the existence of a Supreme Being and the need to serve Him, they advance many distorted notions of what He expects of His creations. Throughout history, their warped perceptions of religious devotion have caused untold pain and suffering to myriads of innocent human beings.”[1]
At first contemplation you might realize that if you aren’t observant to the Torah then you certainly can’t claim Abraham as his spiritual father, and thus what His father Yahweh asked of Him and those to come. You aren’t of the same lineage. But Jesus also redefines a few things for us, and I am thankful for that!
Skip Moen interjects, “God promised that Abraham would become the father of many goyim, that is, the father of many who do not descend from his biological line. But this does not mean these goyim are free to make up their own religious practices. What it means is precisely what James said at the Jerusalem council in the first century. “For from ancient generations Moses has those who preach him in every city, since he is read in the synagogues every Sabbath” (Acts 15:21). We must remember that the promise to Abraham is predicated upon a prior statement, namely, “Walk before Me, and be blameless.” It is hardly conceivable that walking before Abraham’s God is a matter of personal taste.” [2]
I have written a couple of books on the return to covenant practice. That doesn’t mean that all modern Christians should go back to observing the law, but it might carry some implications. I am saying quite clearly that modern day Christianity is a better picture of unfaithfulness than faithfulness. The primary mission of Jesus was to a lost and carnal world to be reconciled back to Yahweh. The religious leaders of His day had become the farthest from His father. I am not sure that has changed any today.
Jesus was observant. This is a call back to being holy, to leave everything on the beach having no other idols before you and completely follow the Lord. Today if you and your family are largely indistinguishable from those of the world you likely aren’t living by the covenant given. The God of Abraham well might be trying to get your attention by calling out your name and urging you to come back into the fold of his love compassion and mercy. Thankfully that calling is from Yahweh and not a “Darth Vader” father figure that has left this world lacking in so many ways. Return to what is TOV.
[1] Rabbi Shraga Freedman, Living Kiddush Hashem, p. 31.
I have come to cringe when people say things like, God is only concerned about your heart. Or perhaps using the semi-excusive example of David having a “heart after God” all the while being a murderer and adulterer (which clearly doesn’t match up with the character of God). I likely wouldn’t let my kids hang out with him. Clearly so many scriptures continue to share how important it is to have a heart for God, and I would fully agree, even though I view complete devotion as so much more than just the motives of the heart.
Matthew 6:21: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Proverbs 3:5: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”
Proverbs 4:23: “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”
Romans 12:2: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” (a quick word study of “nous” will link the heart and mind)
Proverbs 23:26: “My son, give me your heart and let your eyes delight in my ways.”
Psalms 51:10: “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”
Psalms 73:26: “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
Philippians 4:7: “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
John Walton has been a good friend and lifelong mentor to me that started back when I was a freshman at Moody Bible Institute in 1993, and I asked for his thoughts on the subject as I continue to wrestle through them. We went back and forth working through some things that have influenced my opinion in this conversation. I will indicate his words in our private conversation using quotation and suggest articles for further study.
To start with, I might even suggest, as I allude to in nearly every article, that we might need to rethink a few things according to a better hermeneutic towards the exegesis of the text rather than popular opinion or tradition. John recently wrote a book entitled Wisdom for Faithful Reading that I would suggest starting with. John suggests that the popular text for David having a heart after God’s heart is usually misinterpreted. In 1 Sam 13:14 the expression used there is used elsewhere in the OT (as well as often in the ANE) not to describe the inclinations of the king (one who pursues knowledge and relationship with the God), but to describe the sovereign choice of the deity (who for his own reasons has chosen the king to rule). So, the claim is not that David pursues the heart of God as a spiritually mature person rather than pursuing his own ends; instead, David is the man that God has pursued with his own criteria in mind rather than Saul, who was someone who met the criteria of the people. It is a statement about God’s sovereignty, not about David’s spirituality or piety. It is therefore not something that we can aspire to in our own lives. He has written an excellent article on this topic here.
It was interesting that in the Old Testament a great amount of wealth was used to construct the temple and tabernacle (it is somewhat ambiguous as to whether this was God’s asking or solely the doing of the people in an effort to worship God similar to the way the rest of the world honored and appeased the gods). This wealth has no value to God, but the gold meant something to them. The gracious donation or perhaps giving it up was possibly viewed as an outward sign of the internal heart. John would say that “We honor God with our extravagance in giving that which is of value to us. God does not need what we give.” (But seems to be honored by the giving through a pure and undefiled heart.)
John continues, “we can also see a similar picture of this heart in giving when Jesus responded to Judas’ expressed concern for the poor in the context of Jesus’ feet being anointed. Yes, the money could have gone to the poor, but expressing the worthiness of Jesus through the extravagant expenditure with no return was considered not only legitimate, but commendable.”
Today I often wonder whether God smiles at megachurch budgets and building campaigns that resemble much of the world in the name of Jesus. The scripture would suggest that the answers might lie in the motive of the heart rather than on the extravagance of the expenditure. “God smiled on the extravagance of the woman who anointed his feet with oil, and, since he called for great extravagance in the Tabernacle and Temple, I assume he smiled on those projects, but only to the degree that they were carried out with his honor in mind, not their own.” We could also take into account the widow’s mite or the widow’s offering as presented in the Synoptic Gospels (Mark 12:41–44, Luke 21:1–4) Jesus clearly “smiled on” her and commended her sacrifice—an issue of the heart and extravagant even in its lack of relative worth.
Often it seems that what might at one time be a pure motive becomes defiled and abhorrent to the Lord. Some might say that the golden calf was fashioned as an emblem animal or medium to God or possibly a pedestal for the Lord to be invited to come down and dwell amongst the Israelites. However, God is still displeased as John explains that this was a violation of the second commandment. In a similar way the Tower of Babel may have started out as an invitation for God to dwell with the people (which seems to be God’s desire – tabernacling with His people); but then becomes defiled also by the disobedience of the hearts. (Read more about Babel from John’s account.)
John would share that the medium is the message, but motives can corrupt the medium (heart). Yet, any given medium may be used well or badly by different people at different times. Jesus gives an example as he criticizes how the temple is being used (casting out moneychangers) revealing their impure motives yet affirming the value of the temple when rightly perceived (as His father’s house.)
Often, I wonder about the progression to which we allow the defiling of our heart’s original pure intentions. Some things have the original intent of honoring the Lord but quickly become an extravagance that only serves our own egos or only seeks to oblige God.
Spending in the name of God is hard to figure out sometimes. I have so many questions for God, was the church ever intended to be the religious bank it has become? (Acts seems to suggest people directly giving to the needs of the body not the church acting as the collection agency, but there are several passages that may speak otherwise.) What does He think of a modern church budget that is 50% or even 95% salaries and mortgage? Why isn’t the church caring for widows, the poor, and the broken? (Our “evil” government seems to do this much better than the global church.) We are told to not have judgmental hearts, but to test these things by the spirit and know them by their fruit. One of my good friends leads a church in a lower income area and runs out of seats every Sunday, has leaky roofs over kid’s heads, and can hardly pay the measly mortgage every month while the megachurch the next town over is spending 75K on new LED screens and smoke machines every other year with a tech budget that is 10x more than the net worth of my friend’s entire organization. What would God say?
Sometimes it is hard to see whether the extravagance happening around us in the name of the Lord is an outward sign of a great heart, or an idolatrous tower. Sorry, no “answers” today… just a rambling of my heart!
Marriage is a covenant relationship instituted by the Lord. The term covenant in Hebrew (berith) has a literal meaning of ‘a cut where blood flows’ and is used to accurately portray the strongest of all possible relationship structures we could divinely engage in. This word and concept is one of the largest hermeneutics in scripture and is a necessary component for true revelation of the scriptures, the nature of God, and our new life in Christ Jesus and the basis for all relationships.
Written by Dr. Steve Cassell and edited by Dr. Will Ryan
When I was younger I was entangled with the ‘thug’ or ‘gang’ life because, well, I was stupid. I can almost hear the diverse reactions to that revelation among the readership… from guffaws, to eye-rolls, and possibly a few raised eyebrows of shock. Nevertheless, it is an accurate historical reality. The main compelling factor propelling me in that direction was the deep longing of my heart for a real, committed relationship. One of the first things I learned about gang life was the mantra, “Blood in, blood out”. This just simply meant that you were required to shed blood (your own in a self-sacrificial activity like gang-banging in another gang’s territory that would likely get you thrashed or even killed) or the shedding of innocent blood in an armed robbery or potentially a murder. There was no way into the gang without bloodshed. Once you were in, there was no way out without bloodshed. This mostly meant that you were going to die if you ever wanted out, but in some instances, the exiting member would be ‘allowed’ to go through a gauntlet-style beating that would usually hospitalize them and complicate their health for the remainder of their life. I know it sounds barbaric, but I was desperate for authentic relationships. Ultimately (by the enormous grace of God) I chose a different path which mostly had to do with a God-sent gift sashaying into my cosmos by the name of Kay… who is now my covenant bride. We are most definitely committed unto the blood of self-sacrifice to one another without hesitation or consideration.
Suppose you, our reader, are married or intend to enter into the sacred and divine institution of a marriage covenant at some point in the future. In that case, these words must have a powerful resonation in your soul (nephesh, psyche). I have been doing full or part-time ministry for almost thirty years and the degradation of the covenantal aspect of marriage has been nearly destroyed by our ever-darkening world and the decay of basic humanity as we are propagandized into some animalistic attitudes towards relationships and society.
When a couple is joined in Holy Matrimony the vow is something akin to:
“I swear to honor and love you;
In riches and in poverty,
In sickness and in health,
For the better or the worse,
Until death do we part,
So help me God.”
Those are not just words… they are a covenant vow unto another person sworn in the presence of and under the submission to our Great God. In actuality, in antiquity, this was a “blood in, blood out” solemn oath giving God (and the gathered witnesses) the right to punish, even unto the shedding of blood, either participant if they violate that covenant vow. God’s perfect intention in marriage was ‘blood in’ (the blood of the hymen on the wedding night) and ‘blood out’ which was the ‘until death do we part’ provision.
The first thing we, as the image-bearers of God to a broken mirror of the world, need to embrace is doing our marriages the way God says, not the way culture or our fickle emotions scream. If that is a place you dare to transverse with Doc Ryan and I, then I double-dog-dare you to read on…
Glad you are here this far!
Since you have determined to do the hard thing and stay in this message to this point, firstly I want to applaud you for being willing to be a hero (heroes do hard things) and also warn you that you will be shunned as a rarity in our modern world. But consider that God loves to use heroes and rare people to do great things.
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“You shall fear the LORD your God; you shall serve Him and cling to Him, and you shall swear by His name.” Deuteronomy 10:20
Throughout the Bible God uses the relationship of Marriage to give us an earthly or physical example of our relationship to God and others. You don’t have to be married to glean from this discussion. God positions himself as the forever faith pursuer, the lover that will never leave us despite our shortcomings and continual failure and perhaps even unfaithfulness. Love, compassion, grace, mercy, and forgiveness are just a snapshot of this unending example to us. The Hebrew verb for cling is davaq and is the word used for glue. The implication is longevity, reliability, and consistency in faithful commitment.
What’s important is this: a husband is to cling to his wife in the same way that we are to cling to God. There are several other verses in the Bible that portray the same analogy. In each one, God is represented by the woman, not the man; the scriptures seem to imply a reciprocal role of equality that compliments the relationship by each person’s gifts. A reciprocal circle of grace accepted and freely returned.
The example of covenant relationship is not only exhibited or modeled in the biblical marriage through scripture, but then serves in many ways as an archetype of our relationship with God and between others merging the gap between heaven and earth. We see a glimmer or foreshadow of what all relationships will be in an eschatological sense in a recreated heaven and earth to come. A return to Eden. – Will Ryan Th.D.
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Every relationship is regularly challenged by conflict. There is an undeniable truth to this statement: “Familiarity breeds contempt”. It is true in many Christians relating to their relationship with God and also true in human relationships. The time of Jesus’ life and ministry was regularly hindered by the masses of people who could not reconcile the idea of Jesus being all human and all God at the same time. The majority of people in His time rejected Him because they justified their devaluation of Him based upon His humanity.
John 8:48-53 ESV
The Jews answered him, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?” Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and he is the judge. Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.” The Jews said to him, “Now we know that you have a demon! Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, ‘If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.’ Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?”
Due to the conflict these religious hypocrites could not reconcile they all missed out on the greatest blessing, the greatest gift, and the greatest possible salvation that would give them the greatest life ever. Conflict steals away the blessings of God from one’s life. As people of the Kingdom of our God, we need to walk out a better way of dealing with ‘conflict and resolve’.
Luke 17:1 NKJV
Then He said to the disciples, “It is impossible that no offenses should come, but woe to him through whom they do come!
Knowing it is impossible to do life without having conflict, we should be desirous to navigate this territory supernaturally. To begin that process we first need to answer the question: “Where do conflicts come from?”
In my attempt at brevity, I am going to only give you the ‘big two’.
Pride (me first, my wants, my ways, my control)
Lack of Understanding (comprehension of your covenant partner)
Let us take up arms against the first evil monster hungry to devour us as its prey… Pride.
Pride has two main expressions. The first we are all mostly familiar with is the overt me-istic, I-centric expression that displays itself in self-aggrandizing, self-focused, self-concerned, self-serving, and narcissistic type attitudes that usually turn our guts when we are confronted with it. Sadly, our culture today has turned pride into an object of worship (by abominable parades and a month-long holiday celebrating perversity). But the scriptures and the life of Christ make it uber clear that pride is an evil foe of everything good and right.
James 4:5-10 ESV
Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.”
These statements are echoed by Peter (1 Peter 5:5-7) and quoted from the wisdom of Proverbs (3:34). The stories of narcissistic pride destroying people in the scriptures are on nearly every page from the fall of the divine couple, Adam and Eve looking for their own way into the life of God, to the fall of the divine being ‘Lucifer’ into the wretched Satan as the arch-enemy of God and man, to the mind-numbing ignorance of David’s adulterous murder account of self-gratification resulting in a dead baby and a civil war, to the sadness of Judas selling Jesus for a pittance of silver coins.
A lesser-known expression of pride has the same dangers but is a bit more subtle. This is the prideful attitude of self-debasing words, actions, or identity. A person who operates in insecurity, low self-imaging, fearful social interactions, sheepish or shy behaviors, and isolation as an introvert is equally operating in pride. There are just at the other end of the spectrum. I illustrate it this way:
PR-I-DE.
Anything that has “I” in the center is pride. Whether it takes the form of PR-omoting the “I” or in the DE-basing of “I”… both are “I” in the center. Covenant is a commitment to lay down your “I” for another as Christ exemplified. The definitive aspect of what separates covenant from contractural- or performance-based relationships is the self-sacrificial commitment. In a secular performance-based contract of marriage, the normal interaction will be, “You do this for me and I will do that for you”. That is basically a business transaction where we are ‘purchasing’ the affection or performance of our spouse. The Bible has a word for this type of faux marriage: concubine.
Proverbs 13:10a KJV
Only by pride cometh contention
Only… that is a big word. The cause of any and all contention is pride. Yikes!
When I counsel marriages in this the most normal response is, “No way!” Most folks do not think the contention in their marriage is their fault… it has to be that OTHER person. The scriptures argue that it takes two to tango, and it would behoove us to agree with the scriptures.
James 3:16 Aramaic Bible in Plain English
For where there is envy and contention there is also chaos and every evil thing.
I often refer to this as the ‘other’ 3:16 verse that is WAY less memorized. John 3:16 makes us have warm fuzzies, James 3:16 makes us angry… Jesus said the truth will make you free (John 8:32) but in my experience, before the truth liberates you it tends to make you REALLY mad. Pride is the ONLY root of ALL contention. Where there is contention there is chaos and EVERY evil thing. (Think about that for a second… EVERY evil thing… like sickness, abuse, poverty, anger, oppression, depression, sin…) Does that statement illustrate any of the areas of your marriage?
The second cause of conflict in our covenant relationships is a lack of understanding. You do not know what you do not know. When we do not understand, the natural human response is to assume, analyze, or project our own opinions into the circumstances or motives. “I know why you did that! It is because you think I am stupid!” “No… no, I do not think you are stupid… I just wanted to do something nice for you.”
One of the most precarious places we can attempt to transverse is thinking we know another person’s motives. Kay and I have established a ‘rule’ that we are not allowed to assume one another’s emotions, intentions, or motives. It has actually affected the overall culture of Beloved Church because we have adopted the statement, “That person is blankety-blank at me right now.” What we mean by that is we recognize that something is going on in their heart but we will not speculate in arrogance as to what it is exactly. It requires communication, honesty, courage to be transparent, and a relational commitment to sincerely listen to one another.
But spiritual and covenantal ‘understanding’ is much larger than just a psychologically invented, and sociologically driven ‘model’ of interpersonal communication tactics. That is worldly, and frankly, arrogant as well.
Proverbs 11:2 BSB
When pride comes, disgrace follows, but with humility comes wisdom.
The divine weapon against pride is humility. Humility is the most virtuous character that is the most shunned and avoided in all of Christianity. The more humble we engage in relationships with one another the more fruitful, intimate, and unified they will ultimately be. Humility is a necessary component to spiritually based relationships, as in marriage covenants, because without humility true communication cannot exist.
1 Corinthians 2:11 BSB For who among men knows the thoughts of man except his own spirit within him? So too, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
If you look closely at that text you will see an eternal principle being expressed: it is only by the Spirit that any one of us can understand the heart. That means our own heart as well as the heart of our covenant spouse. Humility is required to embrace a principle like that because human wisdom and psychological analysis will defiantly argue that our cognitive functions are primitive chemical processes as a derivative of whatever emotion or disposition we randomly are being controlled by. No, Beloved reader. We were created much more complex than science has the capacity to embrace. ONLY by the Spirit of God can we rightly and effectively navigate the deep waters of each other’s souls.
Proverbs 20:5 BSB
The intentions of a man’s heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out.
When the Bible declares that something is deep, you can bet your bottom dollar it is DEEP. Notice though, that the way to draw that sweet cool water that is in that deep well out is through the ‘bucket’ of understanding. There is much strength and determined effort involved with lowering a bucket on a rope into a deep well and then, hand-over-hand, lifting that heavy bucket back up for the reward of a refreshing drink. The Spirit of God is Who gives us the ability (grace) to ‘understand’ each other in an accurate way. This should convince us of the great importance of knowing each other through the Spirit and not only by the flesh (or psychologically analyzed personalities).
2 Corinthians 5:16
So from now on we regard no one according to the flesh. Although we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.
Our regard for one another needs to be of a spiritual valuation, not a carnal or natural one. This is only possible by intimacy with the Spirit where we are humbly submitted to allowing God to help us ‘understand’ our mate. This imperative to comprehend our spouse goes much further than just having a happy marriage.
1 Peter 3:7 ESV
Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.
The commitment to live with one another without contention, in humility, and submitted to the intimacy that can only come through the Spirit is necessary for our overall spiritual/soulical health beyond just our marital well-being. This verse says plainly that your prayer life will be hindered if this is not engaged in properly. You can search the scriptures and you will not find another place that declares a more direct reason for hindered prayers. That should impress upon us the needful resolve to guard our marriages voraciously, in these ways.
Doc Ryan and I are deeply invested in the covenantal realm for the body of Christ, especially in the arena of the marriage covenant. This is why we have penned this teaching together and sacrificed our time and energy to sow into your lives. We pray that your life is impacted and blessed by these words are truths to the degree that they inspire true repentance and change in whatever places your Good Father and your covenant community is shepherding you into.
In theology people are going to interpret passages differently...
This article has 7,330 words and will take most people 39 minutes to read.
My good friend Dr. Steve Cassell and I see 99.9% of theology very similarly. But occasionally we take slightly diverging views. I have said this before, but much of our relationship would look like an ongoing respectful healthy argument to most people. This may be described as a Mars Hill brotherhood. Perhaps you might say iron sharpening iron except that term is often used amongst disagreements which I do not think really summarizes our spiritual conversation. Steve and I have a healthy banter in which we work through all kinds of theologies going back and forth. Steve came from a word-of-faith background, and I came from a more traditional yet also spirit-filled background. Steve has been personally influenced by and is a regional representative for Andrew Womack Ministries International (AWMI.net). Both Steve and Andrew hold a minor view, not only recognizing that the cross brings spiritual healing (as nearly every Christian would confer) but also complete physical healing and health. Steve also sees the power to heal as similar to any other gift and I see it as possibly more of something God sets aside or “grants” to some extent; meaning you have it, or you don’t. Some people call this an anointing. Although this is another debated subject that you can read on here. In this case, I hold the mainstream view on healing and Steve holds a minor view.
Some of the minor views that we both hold would be to believe in conditionalism rather than the significantly more accepted view on ‘Hell’ of Eternal Conscious Torment. We also both see Heaven as an intermediate state with the final eschatological state or place for those with God as being a recreated Heaven and Earth (which most theologians I know would agree with, but your normal everyday church pew Christian doesn’t think this way.) We both do not hold a physical ‘rapture’ view of the ‘End Times’.
We also do not hold to any of the normal interpretations of the Calvinism TULIP. Most mainstream churches are going to agree with 2-3 Calvinist positions on this yet probably would not openly consider themselves Calvinist. We wouldn’t accept any of the TULIP views at least to the degree that a reformed church or Calvinist would present them. I could go all day on interpretations like this, but I think you get the point.
Today, I have invited Steve to join me in this article to explain and define our perhaps slight differences in terms of God’s healing power. To be clear we both believe and operate in faith for God’s healing power. Jesus said that believers will lay hands on the sick, and the sick will recover (Mark 16:18). (But our interpretations differ, will all sick recover or just some?) We both train the body of Christ so that they can do the work of the ministry in this area (Eph. 4:11-12). The day of the one-man show in the body of Christ needs to come to an end, and we are literally seeing that take place all around us in our respective opportunities of ministry. Steve and I experience firsthand miracles nearly every day that some people have never experienced (or even seen) once in their lifetime. In fact, we both expect God to do these things and in faith know that He does and will. In many ways we are expectant and in tune with the healing power of Jesus every hour of our lives. We experience nearly the same healing experiences day in and day out in the kingdom and yet explain the theology of what has taken place through different interpretive lenses. We both believe that everyone is called to heal in Jesus’ name and that in that sense it is a spiritual gift. Yet, I would believe that God chooses to empower some as anointed to truly have a more powerful version of this gift while others likely won’t get there. Perhaps that is a developed spiritual gift like any other, but some people seem to have it and others don’t.
This theological difference comes to fruition in varying ways. When someone comes to me and asks that we pray for healing for them or someone else I often feel the spirit telling me right away that they will be healed or that we need to simply pray for God’s will. If I feel the spirit telling me they are going to be healed then I simply declare it in Jesus’ name, and they are healed. I can probably count the times on one hand when this didn’t come to fruition and I can’t tell you why, but I am also not hung up on it. As you can imagine, this is confusing to people asking for me to heal them or simply pray for healing. “Why did Doc Ryan pray and heal one person and then the next person in line he simply shared perhaps a theology of trusting in the Lord, faith, timing, sovereignty, why God may not choose to intervene, or even ministry through brokenness?”
Dr. Steve on the other hand seems to strongly believe that if the person that comes to him has the faith to be healed, they will be (since he also leads by that faith.) In fact, sometimes I see Dr. Steve as being so set apart as God’s healing agent that perhaps God tips His hat to Dr. Steve and allows Steve to command healing even when that may not have been the plan of God. (Oh boy…. this just set off a bunch of peoples alerts on what they think of the sovereignty of God and changeability might or should be.) I would say this is very similar to those that we see in scripture that have the intimacy to wrestle with God and God actually has honored their requests and seemingly delayed or changed his mind as a result of empowering them to actually harness the manifestation of God’s power in them. You might recall in Exodus 32 when Moses pleaded with God so that he would not destroy the people he had saved. The Lord told Moses he would not take out his wrath on Israel. Moses immediately picked up the two stone tablets the Lord had given to him earlier, with the Ten Commandments on them, and returned them to his people. (you may want to look at this wording again) God may even endow His power and doesn’t necessarily keep track or intervene in every situation but allows the person to represent Him in this way. The disciples seem to have been given powers yet come back telling Jesus they couldn’t heal some. Jesus was even unable to heal at one point in Matthew 13 and Mark 6. So, what are all the dynamics of healing?
I have invited Steve to chime in on this article and have noted his comments in blue:
Hello Expedition 44 peeps! Dr. Steve here…
Doc Ryan is accurate in everything he has portrayed about our covenantal relationship and my beliefs. I am interjecting in this place and will do this periodically throughout the article to clarify or exegete my position. This is my first place to interrupt quickly. The first sentence of the last paragraph stating my faith for believing in a 100% manifestation for everyone who approaches me in faith (please note ‘IN FAITH’) comes from ‘watching’ the ministry of Jesus. There was never a time or a person who was turned away when they approached Him in humility and faith. It is a bit simplistic just to base a theology on a truth like that, but I tend to be a smidge more simple regarding actual interactive ministry. Theology is infinitely complex because the One we study (-ology, from the Greek ‘logos’) is infinitely complex. But the Gospel is simple and should remain that way. The way Jesus did the actual ministry (adding in the progressive developing aspects of the ekklesia and ecclesiology of the Epistles and Acts) is what I target as a carbon copy (same with Doc Ryan).
Hebrews 1:3a – ‘The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His nature…’
Hebrews 13:8 – ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.’
We both Agree with Andrew Womack when he says, “One of the worst doctrines in the body of Christ is the belief that God controls everything that happens. Fundamentalists/Evangelical Christians believe that God either controls or allows everything and that Satan has to get His permission before he can do anything.” That’s a convenient theology because it absolves the individual of any personal responsibility. God’s will doesn’t automatically come to pass. We have to believe and cooperate with God to receive what He has provided and in some cases, “covenanted” for us.
But from there Steve and I slightly part ways. AWMI and Steve would continue…
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Andrew’s theology regarding healing is often referred to as “the finished work of the cross.” Personally, I cringe at this simply because I never like to give merit to the cross. (IMHO, this is a Calvinist phrase usually tied into the doctrine of limited atonement, so we often don’t use this phrase.) Steve has actually changed his verbiage over the years to say, “the finished work of Jesus.” I don’t want to wear a crucifix or even entertain much observance of the cross because I want to focus on the resurrection and ascension that gave life. Yes, the cross was part of the plan, so this isn’t a huge problem for me, but I prefer to focus on the victory of the stories in Jesus -not dark places that were traveled on the way to victory. It is similar to someone sharing a testimony… don’t spend an hour on the muck that you lived in (sounding like you are almost bragging about it) and 5 minutes on the redemption, flip it around. There is a place for the cross but the focus of nearly all of the NT after the Gospel is on the resurrection and what that means for “salvation” and life in Christ here and now but also to come. I do realize that seeing a cross can point people to the victory of Jesus which is why I have a cross at the “range” where we have TOV and have for many years.
Steve here again… Doc Ryan is right again. I have adjusted my language due to the expansion of my revelation on the atonement. The aggregation of information and bringing in the vast matrix of typological precursors from the Old Testament sources has expanded how I understand the atonement to be. (To expand your understanding, see Expedition 44 series on ‘Atonement’ HERE.) Yet knowing that each facet of that atonement process was known, calculated, and used for human redemption is stronger in me today than before. I see that the stripes Jesus took for our healing (1 Peter 2:24) have an even stronger application knowing that Jesus’ atonement was sufficient in all areas, for all people, for all time.
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With that let’s jump in, Healing is already an accomplished work according to I Peter 2:24,
“Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.”
STEVE: The term ‘healed’ is in the simple past tense (aorist indicative passive). RYAN GREEK 101: The Aorist is used for past time and portrays perfective aspect (portraying the action as a bounded whole, or in summary fashion without reference to the way it unfolds in time). As a Passive tense, the subject is the patient of the verbal action: “he was eaten,” “they were killed.” Grammatically in this verse we both agree healing is an action that took place and happened once, the action itself (the cross) theologically doesn’t need to continue or happen again. What it “accomplished” is good for all of time.
The real question then is whether the implication is spiritual and/or physical healing. To this, Steve would say that Jesus isn’t healing people today— that “work” was accomplished 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem when He took those stripes on His back. He hasn’t, and won’t, receive any more stripes. People today only receive through faith what has already been accomplished by Jesus thousands of years ago. (To be clear I -Ryan agree with this in a sense of spiritual healing, we have everything we need, and we aren’t looking for any other continued work of Jesus to make healing possible.)
Andrew would continue, the Scriptures don’t tell us to pray for the sick, in the sense that we are powerless to minister healing to them. It’s just the opposite: Jesus told US to HEAL the sick (Matt. 10:1, 8; Luke 9:1, and 10:9). There’s a big difference between asking the Lord to heal people and healing them. Since Jesus is with us and will never leave me nor forsake us (Heb. 13:5), Steve would then assert that I can say with the Apostle Peter, “Such as I have give I thee” (Acts 3:6). ON the other hand, some would say that none of us has authority to heal a body, only the Creator does (Acts 3:12–13). I do not generally recommend articles from Desiring God as they tend to have a reformed bend to them, but in the spirit of reading another perspective, you might enjoy this post.
Steve here… There is a bit of a semantic point I must make. I (Steve) cannot heal anyone, ever. My confidence and power come from the designated authority granted unto me by the Great Commission and the infilling of the Holy Spirit which is where I parallel Peter’s ideology. I have the power because I have the Creator in me and His known will is to heal (Matt 8:3) congruent with His universal command to heal in the Commission. RYAN – Yes but we both agree that power is endowed to us. We are the hands and feet and physical manifestation of Jesus.
To continue, Andrew (and Steve) would say that this is what Peter said when he ministered to the lame man in Acts 3. Peter didn’t pray for this man. He didn’t say, “O God, we can do nothing without You. Please heal this man if it is Your will.” They would say and I would agree that it’s always God’s will to heal (3 John 2). We don’t ask and then wait and see. That’s not believing His Word. Instead of beggars, we need to become believers who, knowing God’s will, use our authority to heal. I believe that at least some of us (and all of us who claim Jesus to some extent) have this endowed gift from God or physical power given to us.
Steve again… I do not believe this to be a ‘some of us’ condition. The argument over the ‘have and have nots’ has raged in Christianity for far too long. I believe that there is no clergy and laity (a stale old power trip to repress the masses), no less anointed or more anointed (because when you have the Spirit of Christ you have ALL the anointing), no age limit (our children’s church sees healing all the time), and no gender category (my wife Kay is equally effective as I am). The language of ‘gift’ is usually where the disqualification seeps into one’s identity with the thought, “I just do not have that gift.” But if you were to exegete the word ‘gift’ you would see it is a derivative of ‘charis’ (grace). John tells us (John 1) that Jesus was the fullness of grace and truth. When you have Jesus you have the fullness of the Godhead in your Earthly existence and you are complete in Him (Col 2:9-10). RYAN: Steve says this really well!!! I agree, but obviously some gifts are matured and or used or even granted by God more than others.
So where do I/we slightly diverge? I would say a few things to clarify Andrew Womacks statements, and Steve actually agrees with almost everything I would assert here… We personally don’t (regularly) see through the eyes of God, although occasionally some gifted people can and do (seers). His ways are higher than ours. Hebraically it would be very selfish to think that we can request what we want “over” a God who knows more than I do. In other words, to assert that I know that healing is best in every situation is out of my pay grade. Yes, Jesus believes in healing and might endow that power to me but it also might not be in God’s “timing” or order. This could explain why sometimes God doesn’t seem to allow healing through those that were formerly given and proved to have had such things.
Steve here… My perspective is God wants people healed more than I ever could. God loves people more than I ever could. God wants people, all people, everywhere to call upon the name of the Lord for salvation (sōthēsetai, sozo) (Rom 10:13). I do not believe that God ‘wills’ some people for damnation and others for salvation and would see that known will to apply to a lesser form of ‘salvation’ in the manifestation of healing. If God loves every person enough to provide eternal salvation for them, surely His love would surpass the smaller expression of salvation in physical (or emotional) healing (Rom 8:11 and 8:32). RYAN: Well, this falls into the classic, God has the power and God has the desire so why aren’t all things and all people simply reconciled? They aren’t.
Some healing is eschatological in my view. God has created and continues to operate according to His order. We may think we know that, but I don’t think we always do. I think the ancient word order is the best way to say God’s “decisions” may be influenced by a plethora of other conditions. I see this more like the modern word algorithm. Many things come into play that may determine the will of God for any particular person or situation. There are several Biblical words for order and Jeff Benner helps us out with understanding them, but in this case, I would point you to consider the Hebrew root סדר, which again has the root דר (dar) within it. As an example, the verb סדר is found in Job 10:22; A land of darkness is like a darkness of death and without order, and the light is like darkness. This imagery is reminiscent of Genesis 1 where the heavens and the earth were in total darkness, a state of chaos. The creative power of God then “ordered” the world into a state of “order.” [1] Some things are just “above us” and I do not think we will understand them until we reach an eschatological time of understanding spiritually. I see us as watching that movie of our pasts with new eyes perhaps in heaven. My book This is the Way of Covenant Discipleship expounds on this more.
To continue both Andrew and Steve would say that they have prayed for thousands of people across the globe, and they have yet to see every person healed. It might be a problem in the heart of the one receiving prayer, or it might be something they don’t understand in regard to that particular person. But one thing they would exert or say they know for sure—it’s not God. – Personally, I would disagree. I think God’s order may be bigger than what Steve or Andrew see and believe. I also think a fallen world comes into play here. Some things are just broken and can’t be fixed this side of “death.”
Steve again… I agree with Doc Ryan that our cosmos is jacked up beyond repair in some places (human government, death, the Laws of Entropy) and is groaning with pain until the Sons of God releases it in the Eschatological Day of the Lord. (What a day that will be! Come Lord Jesus come!) But I would not classify healing here. I do not believe that what the forces of deception started through the nahash in the Garden of Eden are greater or stronger than what the Son of Man lifted up on the cross (John 3:14-15) redeemed. What Jesus accomplished in the Garden of Gethsemane is greater than what the snake did in the Garden of Eden. Jesus was the victor in the battle of the Gardens… Ryan – Amen!
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An excursus on James 5:13-16: Healing, Illness, and Resurrection
Above we see that Andrew Womack says that we should not pray for the sick but simply heal them. James 5:13-16 seems to contradict this line of thought.
13 Is anyone among you suffering? Then he must pray. Is anyone cheerful? He is to sing praises. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; 15 and the prayer offered in faith willrestore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.
In this pericope, there are 2 separate words for “sick”. In verse 14 it is astheneo. this is a word used for sickness 18 times in the NT, and most of the LXX usage of the word is for someone who is feeble or sick. In this verse in James, the elders are asked to “pray” over him.
The second word translated as sick in verse 15 is kamonta. This word is not about illness but about being weary. In this context, it is weary from sin. So this could be sin that has led to sickness when you combine the two in the context and links back to “suffering” in verse 13 which leads off the passage.
The solution is prayer and confession in verse 16. Confession and forgiveness bring healing (is this physical healing or spiritual healing?) Now the question is about whether this is only about sin that has led to illness that has to be prayed for to bring healing or all illness? Isn’t all illness, disorder, and weariness a result of the Fall? So shouldn’t we pray for all of it?
God desires to bring about new creation in all of us! As Romans 8:19-25 states all of creation is waiting for the sons of God to be revealed and this revealing is communicated as healing through our resurrection (the redemption of our bodies). Paul explains elsewhere in 2 Corinthians 5 that this is a distinction between an earthy tent (our current body) versus a building from God (our resurrected bodies). Similarly, he speaks in 1 Corinthians 15:36 of the need to die to be resurrected because a seed does not produce life unless it dies. So if Jesus “purchased” full healing in this life what is the purpose of the resurrection of the body? If Jesus’ healing was the resurrection, why wouldn’t ours also be? Maybe the healing in this life is spiritual (and resuscitation of life), but actual true healing is in their resurrection.
Steve again… This is a place I will deviate from Doc Ryan a smidge as well. I teach in our covenant community (Beloved Church) that sickness and disease have been defeated through the atonement, but that does not assert that the aging process of time has been canceled. Just as one must fight for holiness against sin (which was FULLY defeated in the atonement) one must fight the temptation for sickness and disease attacking one’s flesh because it was equally defeated. Our enemy is a persistent cuss and will try and enslave us with the defeated force of sin and will equally try to kill us with the defeated forces of sickness, disease, strife, pride, and all the other tricks up his slimy sleeve.
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The next issue that similarly we don’t see eye to on is healing through the atonement. It might be good to simply first read the AWMI statement on this here. I am going to be quoting several things from this post. [2] Andrew Wommack also has a more in-depth book on this subject called, “God Wants You Well”, and I would suggest reading it regardless of your view. (NOTE: I have more books on my bookshelf that I don’t agree with than I do, this is a good measure of truly searching for spiritual truth.) I also love AWMI and believe we can learn a great deal from them and as believers need to support His ministry; I just don’t see eye to eye on this one small part of his overall theology which has come to be what he is largely known for.
Andrew (AWMI) would say that Jesus has already “purchased” healing for us. In theology, this is referred to as the ransom theory of atonement. I believe in a ransom theory in terms of Jesus “freeing the slaves” in an exodus sense of freedom, but within most ransom theories of atonement (and specifically the way that AWMI often uses it) the statements bring connotations of purchasing or buying back something. I don’t see God needing to purchase anything back from Satan (as this would put Satan with equal authority to God or having divine “rights”), or Jesus needing to buy something from God for us (Jesus and the Father are one). Moses didn’t “pay” for the Israelites from Pharoah, he simply took back what some might say was rightfully His. This seems to be more of a spiritual war than what we would describe as a purchase agreement by most people’s standards. Some would argue that this is also an example of simply letting God fight all of our battles, as Jesus also seems to allude or suggest to His followers.
Continuing, AWMI would assert that in Matthew 8:17, it says that these healings that took place were the fulfillment of the prophecy spoken by Isaiah, “With his stripes we are healed.” Andrew would interpret that this was the fulfillment that ‘He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses’ essentially alluding to that being at the cross Jesus healed our physical sicknesses, hurts, and pains. Jesus healed people physically to fulfill the scripture that says we are healed by His stripes.
-Hermeneutically I can’t do that for several reasons. I would say that most Christians do this though. I wouldn’t assert that is what the text says, I would say that is personally eisegeting the text to say something that I wouldn’t naturally read into it. Some would say we don’t have the interpretive right to make those deductions from the text (We get into some of this in this post). But if we look at this verse in context it is before Jesus even went to the cross. The effects of the ministry of the servant brought healing (not just the death on the cross). Yes, there is spiritual healing, but I don’t see the text providing all physical healing. By this measure, it would seem that no one should ever physically die. That assumption that God’s healing at the cross not only gives everlasting spiritual life but everlasting physical life here on earth obviously isn’t the case.
Steve again… This is one of the places where I think theology can get in the way and overcomplicate a simple truth. In the first sixteen verses of Matthew 8, we see a leper healed (an impossible healing by Hebraic standards) specifically because Jesus expresses it is His will for healing. Then we have a disgusting uncircumcised gentile who should have no access to the God of the Jews but Jesus makes it clear He is atoning for ALL people by healing the centurion’s slave (Slave! Another disqualified person!) without question or stipulation. Next, we have Peter’s mother-in-law (I thought a Pope could not be married… hmmm…) who gets healed simply because she was in the same house as Jesus. A woman! A mother-in-law (yikes)! Without requesting! Hard to get away from the interpretation of anybody, anytime conclusion. Then, like a cherry on top, the next part of the narrative is verse 16: “When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to Jesus, and He drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick.” They just brought the masses… sinners, unrighteous, rejects, sick-from-birth folks, demon-filled mentally ill peeps, and then like an exclamation point Matthew throws in the “ALL” word to just mess with his readers. It is not coincidental that after all that, Matthew specifically tells us why, under the unction of the Holy Spirit, all of these diverse types of healings were done: This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “He took on our infirmities and carried our diseases.” This just seems too clear to miss Matthews’s doctrine of healing being stated, to me. Matthew seems to unabashedly call Jesus the Isaiah 53 suffering servant and part of His ministry was to defeat disease. The educated second-temple Jews reading this would have known the messianic profile that included authority over demonic beings would also include power over physical sickness/disease. RYAN: Jesus certainly had and has power of sickness and disease but when he was on earth, He didn’t seem to physically heal everyone he came in contact with, some were healed, and some weren’t. He was specific with some in healing and the woman who touched His cloak found this power but not everyone around Him or came to him was healed.
SCHOLARLY NOTE ON WHY ISAIAH 53 MAY BE A STRETCH: Using Isaiah 53 in this way as I alluded to is also hermeneutically not very acceptable by the measure of most scholars. Although I will say it is arguable. I will keep this brief, but the intended audience wouldn’t have read it this way. You have to backread this kind of messianic physical healing into the story. Several issues come into play here. Critical scholars are unified in thinking that this part of Isaiah (chs. 40-55) was not written by Isaiah of Jerusalem in the 8th century BCE, but by a different author in the mid-6th century BCE, after exile into Babylon. [3] It is to be remembered that the prophets of the Hebrew Bible are speaking to their own contexts and delivering a message for their own people to hear, about their own immediate futures… they aren’t telling fortunes, that was considered divination. There is a place for prophetical prediction but not as much as people entertain IMHO. The suffering servant here might have messianic implications but that can be problematic that not all of the personal attributes in IS 53 can describe Jesus. As an example, some of the things just aren’t true to Jesus. Many readers fail to consider the verb tenses in these passages. They do not indicate that someone will come along at a later time and suffer in the future, they are talking about past suffering. The Servant has already suffered – although he “will be” vindicated. Does this mean it ALSO can’t represent a future Messiah? Well to some hard-line scholars and methods of interpretation, the answer might be YES. For at least hundreds of years, Jews never interpreted this passage as referring to a future messiah. To be clear, I am not saying that it can’t have Messianic implications. But it is a very difficult passage and what I am saying, is that within the textures of interpretation, you never draw a major doctrine from a difficult passage that can’t be easily supported elsewhere. The problem is that seems to be exactly what AWMI has done with this passage.
I do agree with a lot of what Andrew says, I think his determination of the Greek word sozo is accurate, and I agree that “Healing is just as much a part of what Jesus came to accomplish in your life as forgiveness of sins.” I also agree when he says that “God is not the author of sickness in your life.” However, what I have a hard time with is his conclusion then that “God would not want you to live in sickness.” I believe some things on this earth are simply effects of a broken world. The ditch this digs is that AWMI seems to be teaching that if you have everything in spiritual order you will never be sick. So then when sickness comes you are continually questioning God on what is wrong with you or your faith, or your devotion, or your heart. You must not be experiencing healing because of your actions or lack of them. I don’t believe that. Some things are just a result of a broken world that eschatologically will eventually be healed in Jesus – but not everything will be healed here or now. We are in a state of transformation called sanctification, but Andrew would say that on earth is possible to attain that “complete” sanctification in physical healing and I would disagree – we physically die here on earth. To me, that seems pretty simple and evident and possibly even un-arguable.
Steve again… and I will dare to argue the inarguable just for a moment of healthy banter with Doc Ryan. I completely agree that we will die here on earth, and that is something that will happen to all of us. I would just argue the assumption that one must become sick, diseased, infirm, infected, and unhealthy to die. The New Testament makes a strong distinction between the death of an unbeliever and the ‘falling asleep’ of the believer. It is just personal conjecture to imply that God needs us to get eventually sick in order to die so that we can then have access to our resurrected (celestial) bodies. I believe that sickness is as much an enemy of God’s will in a person as sin is. Sin means to ‘miss the mark’ and being sick misses the mark of the creative intention of our bodies through the ‘very good’ (Gen 1:31) declaration of scripture… even science would capitulate to the truth that our bodies were designed to fight all sickness, disease and mutation. I love how God can make narcissistic scientists squirm with His infinite wisdom. RYAN – I wouldn’t see most sickness as associated or deemed as sin, but would also agree it can be a result of sin in your life.
Andrew says it is ‘false teaching’ to claim that “God is the One who causes people to die” or to say that God “puts sickness on you to humble you for some redemptive purpose and to perfect you through all this suffering” and I agree! I think that is a poor ditch that Calvinism and reformed theology continue to put people in. God is “TOV” His character doesn’t generally “DO” that people; although there may be situations where He may “USE” such things to His workings or divine order.
On the other hand, in his book, Andrew also asserts that the cross redeems believers from financial poverty. In 2 Cor 8:9, Paul says that Jesus became poor so that through his poverty believers might become rich. Wommack takes Paul literally here which I don’t agree with entirely although this is another conversation on the retribution principle and prosperity which I do somewhat see a place for. But here as it relates to this conversation, AWMI would say that Jesus’ death and resurrection provide for Christians ‘forgiveness of sins, healing, deliverance, and prosperity’ in this life (p. 20). The main issue with this kind of thinking as I have alluded to earlier is, if God intervenes for all believers to be completely well in this lifetime, why are so many seemingly devout believers that are not “well” or not rich?
Steve again, quickly… This is a slippery slope that can engulf some believers. We cannot and should not ever determine God’s will based on the experiences of some, and even the experiences of the masses. God always has had and will have a remnant of people who have experiences others do not and will not. Just because every believer does not experience peace, or joy, or forgiveness does not mean that they cannot. Prosperity and health are available to all, but not all will accept (or even know) that it is for them, just like other great and precious promises annotated throughout scripture.
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To be clear here are specifically the things that I think Andrew’s theology on healing is a bit off:
He argues that illness and even death (p. 88) can be overcome in this age. I would say that is a poor hermeneutical claim. In fact, I might say that many verses seem to say the opposite, that God will swallow death and wipe away all tears after this life (Isa 25:8). I would also assert that this world is broken and is wasting away (2 Cor 4:16), and only at the coming of Jesus will we receive resurrection bodies (1 Cor 15:23). That’s why Paul says we are waiting for the redemption of our bodies (Rom 8:23). It seems clear that the Bible indicates that in this present physical world men are appointed by God to die (e.g., Ps 90; Heb 9:27). Wouldn’t Andrews theology have more people living physically forever or being taken up into the cloud or whirlwind without actually experiencing physical death? Wouldn’t we have at least a handful of people each one of us knows experiencing this? But we don’t.
Steve here… Andrew does not believe death as a whole is to be overcome in the age, just death that is contrary to God’s plan for a person, more specifically, premature or wrongfully caused death. Otherwise, the many commands (and Jesus’ examples) to raise the dead are nonsequiturs and unrighteous. Why make the command (not request) to ‘raise the dead’ if death was supposed to just be? RYAN – Raising the dead is a possibility within God’s will but not for everyone who is in God’s will.
Wommack argues that Christians are redeemed from sickness and poverty but not from persecution. I see tribulation as being very key to a person’s ongoing process of sanctification. I don’t think Jesus causes the hardship but uses it in a sense of refining us. It also is going to reflect back on the idea of the prosperity gospel. As I do believe that God desires for us to experience all of the Joy he offers, some of it may not be experienced physically here on earth. I would not say that Paul was prosperous by the world’s definition after his conversion encounter on the road. If persecution exists wouldn’t sickness be part of that? Wommack answers that God allows the persecution of Christians because he loves the persecutors and wants them to repent (pp. 76–77). But Luke 22:42 suggests another reason: Jesus understands that his crucifixion is the will of God. God did not want Jesus ‘well’—God allowed (and some will even say “willed” without necessarily taking on Calvinist notions,) Jesus physically dead in order to accomplish His great redemptive purposes (Isa 53:6; Rom 8:32; Luke 22:42; Acts 2:23; 4:27–28). If God in His wisdom allowed the suffering and death of his own Son, can he not allow suffering and sickness for the followers of His Son in order to accomplish his sovereign purposes? Andrew might argue a substitutional atonement theory here, that Christ took this on so that we wouldn’t have to; but I don’t think that is a good view. I think I can lightly agree to a metaphorical extent that Jesus’ death and resurrection served as a “substitute for us” but even thinking this way carries some implications that are hard to reconcile. I think Boyd can help us with this consideration. [4]
Steve again… I think this argument could be settled by the clear deviation of persecution and tribulation. Persecution that we are all universally subject to, and should even rejoice in when afflicted with, is a directed assault against us for the purpose of hindering or stopping the advancement of the Gospel or the Kingdom. Tribulation is the general agitation of life that affects the believer and unbeliever alike. A lost sinner can be tribulating because he is human, but they cannot be persecuted for righteousness sake. As ministers of reconciliation, we will suffer persecution and we are not redeemed from it because we were specifically PROMISED it by our Lord.
Finally, many Christians testify that much (or even most) of their growth in holiness has occurred through suffering (cf. Ps 119:67, 71). However according to Wommack, although someone may learn character-transforming lessons through illness, that was not God’s plan which would imply that God shouldn’t or wouldn’t allow or use it. I agree that I doubt it was his plan, but I do see God using it.
Steve again… I agree as well. God’s perfect plan is for us to learn everything through the Spirit and the scriptures, but because we miss the perfect all too often God has this loving and merciful backup plan of redeeming our mistakes into a beautiful and powerful lesson that is called a ‘testimony’.
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Despite where you land here, I think it is important to understand that we need to live in unity as believers regarding the way we see healing work. One night at TOV, I said something to the extent of, “Regardless of your theology of healing, join with me in praying within the Will of God that this person may be healed.” The scripture seems to show that through prayer God’s will may be swayed towards the hearts of those that are intimate with Him. I think we can all pray for healing and/or just heal if we believe God works in us that way, but I also think it is important to realize that one person’s views on healing aren’t undeniably proven through scripture. There are different valid interpretations and we need to honor and respect people who may feel differently, uniting on what we can agree on.
Perhaps through His order, God has already taken into account these requests and has accounted for them in faith. As we will never truly know the answer to this debate on this side of heaven, we are charged to grow deeper as disciples and pray for such things. In the end, regardless of your thoughts, we all can agree that eventually every believer will be brought to complete healing in Jesus.
Steve here in finality… My love and unity with Doc Ryan is greater today than yesterday even as we have engaged in the polemics of this deep and vast subject. A major reason for that is we have determined our covenantal love and Christian honor for one another greatly exceeds our doctrinal differences. In our unity, we both agree that God heals and that we love people enough to want them to experience that blessing. In our humility, we will both adamantly assert that MANY folks do not get healed and we do not know why. Yet that does not dissuade us from pressing into the heart of God, it moreso invigorates us towards God, His heart, and His truth. Division is demonic, diversity is divine. We pray that is your conclusion as well. RYAN – Amen and well said brother!
This article was primarily written by Dr. Will Ryan, responded to and edited by Dr. Steve Cassell, and edited in part by Dr. Matt Mouzakis.
Have you ever noticed that the very first occurrence of the word “LOVE” in scripture refers to Abraham’s passion for His son Isaac? The word is used to first describe the long-awaited child of Sarah. But does that feeling change over time? In our previous post (PART 1) we wrestled with Abraham’s “love” for Isaac and noted the hardships that came into the picture. Perhaps this love was perpetrated more from Sarah than Abraham. In Hebrew the first word of a sentence often serves as a guidepost of the main thought. In the same way an “idea” might be introduced in such a way to show significance. It could be that the word “LOVE” is first used as contronym form. This is often found in Hebraic writing forms as an emphasis of the opposite strengths. I have written a good deal about Hebraic contronyms. In this case we might be introduced to the story using the word “LOVE” for the first time to stress what God’s “love” shown in His character looks like next to the “broken love” of the world.
This is the story of archetype faith, indeed, it was this very hope in God’s promise that moved God to rename Abram to Abraham, and Sarai to Sarah. But who was the real Archetype of Faith?
In Jewish tradition, the drama of the sacrifice of Abraham’s beloved son is called the Akedah (עֲקֵדָה, “binding”), which as we have pointed out is traditionally regarded as the supreme test of Abraham’s obedience and faith. The blast of the shofar is intended to remind us of God’s gracious atonement provided through the substitutionary sacrifice of the lamb (as well as to “drown out” the voice of the accuser). In this way, the Akedah represents the truth of the Gospel, and how God’s attribute of justice was “overcome” by His attribute of compassion (Psalm 85:10). We see some truth to these traditional interpretations of atonement but also have pointed out that there is much more to be considered; not to mention some theological problems with the traditional views having to do with substitutionary atonement and “power over” retributive justice problems.
One aspect that is often overlooked is Sarah. Perhaps she is in many regards a better archetype of faith, or dare we even say role model of faith, than Abraham was. It is no secret that Expedition 44 believes in the return to the ideals of Eden. In this way, we see the dual covenant partnership of men and women, husband and wife, and as equal ambassadors of the royal priesthood that we were set apart to be. Today, as we celebrate mothers, we want to take a deeper look at the life of Sarah in this story.
“After these things…” We always want to build on the context of the our previous posts (PART 1) discussion. The story of the offering of Isaac, Abraham’s “promised seed,” begins with the statement, “After these things God tested Abraham…” (Gen. 22:1). The phrase, “after these things” (וַיְהִי אַחַר הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה) in Hebrew connects to the next image that “Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beersheba and called there on the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God. And Abraham sojourned many days in the land of the Philistines” (Gen. 21:33-34). The Tamarisk tree here recalls the tree of life that is figuratively being restored in hopes of bringing back order that was lost. This is a sign from early on that Abraham believed that God was making a way to return to the Edenic plan that was lost; which in some part meant a return to the equality of the royal priesthood. This is “reverse the curse” language and imagery.
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Sarah gave birth to Isaac when she was 91 years old (Gen. 17:17, 21), and she later died when Isaac was 36 years old, at the age 127 (Gen. 23:1). The Bible doesn’t give us the cause of death, but the midrash Tanchuma says that Sarah “died from shock.” Jewish tradition states that her soul departed from her. Genesis 23:2 says “And Abraham came to mourn for Sarah and to cry for her.” When we read this in Hebrew, we find something the English doesn’t reveal, the text of the phrase “and to cry for her” (וְלִבְכּתָה) is written with a diminutive letter Kaf, which scholars ascribe as Abraham’s mourning for his deceased wife to have been restrained. Could Abraham have believed in faith that God would raise her from the dead, does Hebrews 11 suggest this? Or is there another reason for restraint?
Have you ever considered that it is Sarah, not Isaac who was actually the sacrificed of the Akedah? Some have even suggested that Sarah prayed to God: “Let me die for my son; let me die in place of my son…” Could Sarah’s love have been so great it brought Isaac back to life from the dead? Various sages wonder why Sarah lived only 127 years while Abraham lived to be 175, that is, 48 years more. Perhaps it is ironic that Sarah’s years amounted to the number of years Abraham lived as ha-Ivri (הָעִבְרִי), in Hebraic thought this is a term that identifies his relationship to the one true God (some might describe this as being saved). Since Abraham was 48 years old when he came to believe, and a convert is regarded as a newborn, then Abraham lived (as a believer) exactly 127 years, precisely as long as did Sarah. There are some implications on Calvinism as she is often regarded as walking in faith from birth, but that is another post.
Essentially, we are given then from the text that Sarah walked in Faith all of her days and Abraham did not, but matched her days in faith as a sign of the “return” to the equality of the tree as to the Royal Priesthood as it was intended in Eden.
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In Jewish tradition Sarah is one of four most beautiful women who ever lived (both inwardly and outwardly.) Agree with it or not, the Rabbis asserted that by the time she gave birth to Isaac, she was regarded as virtually sinless (Bereshit Rabbah 58:1). The Talmud (Megillah 14a) explains that Iscah was another name for Sarah (Gen. 11:29), meaning “to gaze.” The Hebrew word for face is “panim” (פָּנִים) and is written the same way as the Hebrew word for inside, “penim” (פְּנִים), suggesting that Sarah’s beauty was both external and internal. You may be aware that Sarah is described often as the first prophetess. This comes in part from a word play in Hebrew as people enjoyed “gazing upon her beauty” her real beauty was that she had the ability to “gaze” into the heavens; later this is what prophets described as “seers” who had the ability to see more clearly or perhaps even from the eyes of God. We believe this is still a spiritual gift that some might describe as a spiritual sense; we also believe that when you have the Holy Spirit in you, you have this sense. Like every spiritual gift some have it more than others. Some scholars would argue that Sarah could have been different in that she may have been born with this sense or gift in a mature state.
Her first name Sarai in Hebrew (שָׂרַי, “my princess”), meant princess and could have denoted her as an Egyptian princess which Gen 12:11-20 might allude to; but later she is *renamed by the Lord because of her faith as Sarah (שָׂרָה, which also meant “princess”, but is slightly different. In Hebrew text also has a number correlation and often means something. This is a form of numerology. Regarding Sarah’s name change, the Yod (whose numerical value is 10) was “taken” from Sarai and divided into two Heys (whose numerical value is 5). Half was given (by God) to form the name Sarah and the other half was given to form the name Abraham (from Abram). The implication was that she was already “whole” or “complete” which later is described by Jesus as “perfection” being what believers can attain to in the way they are made new in Christ. In this thinking, Abraham was not complete and needed something from her to be returned to the complete or equal state. There is a sense of “reversing hermon” going on here if you speak that language. It is a reverse of the God taking something from Adam to make Eve; for Abraham to be reinstated, Sarah would have to give something from herself. That is why if you don’t read this in Hebrew you can’t truly understand the implications of Hebrews 11 and why Sarah is actually considered “THE” true heroine of faith (Heb. 11:11) and Abraham isn’t mentioned. Is your mind blown yet? Essentially, at this point in the Timeline what God was attempting to accomplish in Sarah was to re-establish the royal priesthood that had been lost in the fall. Perhaps she thought Issac was the one that would bring life, and perhaps that was God’s plan that men then continued to mess up. The woman began the fall, but man has sustained it. Together in covenant relationship through a strand of three cords we can restore it, but will we get there and when?
[NOTE: Some believe our spiritual names exist before time itself and that God simply reveals them to us, not necessarily renaming us as we are “His” from inception. some have concluded that this is part of the world taking us and then God reclaiming us.]
The Midrash states a divine presence such as a cloud, hovered over her tent, as a foreshadow of the cloud that walked with Israel in the desert. Many scholars have alluded that Sarah was without a doubt an equal to Abraham, and perhaps even more in tune with God. You might remember that when Sarah sent Ishmael away Abraham was unsure, and God had to tell him to listen to her voice in Genesis 21:12. Remember when Abraham lied about here saying, “She is my sister.” Then Abimelek king of Gerar sent for Sarah and took her. Then the Angel told Abraham not to worry because she was surrounded by a divine presence.
There is one last thing that needs to be mentioned. Sarah represents the “life” of Abraham. As I mentioned, Abraham outlives her by 48 years. But did you ever notice that this seems to be the end of the narrative voice for Abraham in the Bible? When Sarah dies, He might as well die; and perhaps He does in God’s eyes. When you read carefully you find that even though we continue to “know” or “be told” more of Abraham’s story there is no further dialogue recorded between God and Abraham after Sarah’s death. It is also pretty crazy that the last story we have of Abraham which is seeking a wife for Isaac is noted as the result of Sarah’s will for her son. She was also the first person to be buried in the Promised land; you might even say she was the seed of what was to become the set apart nation. I often wonder what the world would look like today if this would have come to fruition. If the Seed would have given way to the Royal Priesthood and Israel would have represented God and reclaimed the rest of the world bringing us back to Edenic life of walking with the Lord.
“And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, The LORD, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.” Exodus 34:6-7
It has been said that behind every great man is a greater woman. It certainly seems that this was true in this story, and I can certainly say that about both of our wives! I believe that naturally mothers possess a closer natural connection to life and God as Exodus 34 describes Him. In many ways it seems like even though Eve may have taken an apple, men have in many ways continued and “LEAD” the march of the downward spiral of this earth. Today I want to celebrate motherhood and the innate compassion of the female. I believe Sarah towered over Abraham in the spiritual realms and today I believe in the upside-down kingdom; that even though women have been repressed in so many ways, they are the ones that continue to gently shepherd and disciple the church from the quiet – which is the preeminent calling of the kingdom. It is always interesting to me that most Men (even in an ultra-progressive world) won’t demand to not work 4o hours a week or more and stay home to shepherd children; yet in many ways Biblical women have demanded that their children be shepherded by their Godly principle rather than take a chance with handing them over to the discipleship of the world. It seems that a lot of the women in our lives have been given better eyes to see such as was embodied by the story of Sarah. Today, and I pray every day to come, we embrace, cherish, and hold high the great women of faith in our lives.
Eschet Chayil – This post is dedicated to our wives and the amazing women of TOV faith.
