spiritual

Divine Council

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There are a great many concepts that exist within the Bible that most people tend to miss the first time around. I know I did. I made a great deal of assumptions on the meanings of things based on modern theology, culture, and norms. Little did I know that something as awesome as this existed. So, here’s something I’ll let you in on: the Divine Council.

In Hebrew, there is a word thrown around a lot in the Word: Elohim. This word was used to refer to the One True God, false or foreign gods, angels, afterlife spirits (1 Samuel 28:13), Moses (as God’s middle man), the judges (this is debated; Exodus 21:6), and the Messianic king (Psalms 45:7). Soooo, what does Elohim mean, actually?

Elohim is a word that can be both plural and singular (like “sheep”), which can be understood in context. It means something like “spirit,” or “being of the spiritual realm.” It can refer to God, Himself, since He’s also a being of that spiritual realm, or of any other being in that realm, which includes angels, beings pagans worshipped, and any number of other life forces. Sometimes, writers of the Old Testament didn’t use the word Elohim. Sometimes, they referred to spiritual beings as the “hosts of heaven, “assembly of the holy ones,” “stars,” or “messengers.”

This may seem like a strange concept to us, but it wasn’t to the Hebrews. There was an ancient understanding that there are two realms, the physical and the spiritual, and while many beings didn’t transverse the two, there were many who did. God, that is the Elohim of Elohim (God of gods or the highest being of all) created them all and exists in both or neither. We may better understand these realms as dimensions.

In sections written in Greek, they used the word Theos to refer to God as His title because they didn’t have a word similar to the Hebrew Elohim. However, as the writers of the New Testament described the attributes of God or explained Jesus’ sacrifice, they still utilized these concepts, by referring to spiritual beings as “powers and authorities,” in this example referring to fallen elohim.

And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. – Colossians 2:15

Back to the Divine Council.

Just as there are leaders and powers in this physical realm, which God has allowed, there are leaders and powers in the spiritual realm as well. Maybe one way to describe this is like a company where maybe the Father is the Founder, Jesus is the CEO, and the leaders are managers, regional directors, etc. This metaphor may not be perfect, but I wanted to emphasize that in this company, God is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient, so He doesn’t really “need” any one below. However, His personality is such that He desires communion and shares authority with others. This is where we come into the picture.

Since the beginning, God has been working on making us a sort of ambassador or cohabiter between realms. We exist here, in the physical, but we are also spiritual.

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:26-28

We were meant to be part of the Divine Council along with the “hosts of heaven” and the “assembly of the holy ones.” However, the Bible is vague as to why some angels fell (like Eden’s snake) and have attempted to overturn God’s plans to save humanity to turn them into His children and thus into holy Council members. Some say the fallen angels believed humans are animals compared to them, and they were jealous of God’s lofty plans for them. Some say they were jealous we could procreate and “create” others. Nothing says exactly, so it could be an entire drama behind the scenes that we’re just not aware of at this time.

You will find many instances where God confers with His council members for their ideas on plans and situations. See Genesis where He’s constantly speaking with someone (some say this could just be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit conversing), Job where the righteous man was tested by a Satan figure, or deciding the best plan to oust the evil King Ahab in 1 Kings.

God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment… Psalm 82:1

Let it be known that this concept of a divine council, like pretty much everything, is debated. Read the Bible and pray for the answer to be revealed. If we are to be Council Members with God, praying is essentially filling the role you were made for: sitting down with God amongst His council and asking for His help.

God bless!

Sources other than Bible:
Podcasts –
The Bible Project – Spiritual Warfare
The Naked Bible

Books –
The Unseen Realm

Websites –
http://themelios.thegospelcoalition.org/review/the-unseen-realm-recovering-the-supernatural-worldview-of-the-bible
https://www.thedivinecouncil.com/
https://www.miqlat.org/what-the-bible-teaches-about-a-divine-council.htm
https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/wholecounsel/2018/08/29/gods-divine-council/
https://www.deseretnews.com/article/765621073/Old-Testament-divine-council-called-a-sod.html
https://blog.logos.com/2018/03/two-ways-study-divine-council/
https://glorywaters.org/2018/03/23/does-the-bible-teach-a-divine-council/
https://nakedbiblepodcast.com/podcast/naked-bible-249-did-israelites-view-their-judges-as-gods/

My Crazy Testimony

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I didn’t grow up “in the church,” so churchy terminology feels strange and archaic to me. For the longest time, I honestly didn’t know I had a testimony.

So, for those, like me, who didn’t know, this is the definition of testimony according to Google:

tes·ti·mo·ny

/ˈtestəˌmōnē/

noun

noun: testimony; plural noun: testimonies

•a formal written or spoken statement, especially one given in a court of law.

•evidence or proof provided by the existence or appearance of something.

•a public recounting of a religious conversion or experience.

What’s interesting is the Bible and Torah has ideas that formed the backbone of many legal systems around the world. One of these ideas is the testimony. If you were pulled as a witness in a court of law and questioned as to the existence or the character of God, what would you say?

When I was 11, just about to turn 12, my aunt’s boyfriend (who was Muslim) told me that Islam has something called “the age of accountability.” Basically, this is the age people are old enough to be held accountable for their own actions. I may not have grown up in the church, but I grew up with very religious/spiritual parents, and I was very determined to be perfect for God.

I could envision a forest, each tree a person. In order to be noticed by God (whom I’d already fallen in love with), I needed to be the tallest one, and I figured the way to stand out for God was to be sinless. So, I’d been reading the Bible (understanding it in my limited way as a child), and in the old testament there are a heck of a lot of rules, laws, and ordinances. It was overwhelming for me at the time.

One night, I lie in bed and prayed to God. I needed something simpler I could remember, so no matter what I faced in life, I’d know I was doing the right thing.

Now, I was 11, remember, so I still believed in a magical God, in which many adults have probably lost faith. So, I expected to be answered, but not directly of course. Perhaps, He would communicate by way of a TV program or a song that would hit the right message.

I was hoping for a paragraph or something I could memorize. Surely, it would take at least a page to summarize the Bible’s laws.

In the dark of my bedroom, I heard a single solitary word:

Love.

It was like a thought, but it also felt separate from me.

So, of course, I immediately started arguing with it. No way that was it. That was too easy to remember, too simplistic, idealistic, rainbow, unicorns …

My mother once told me if I ever heard anything pertaining to God, to check the Bible before absorbing the message. If anything conflicted with what was said in the Bible, it wasn’t of God. So, I turned on the light and went to my bookshelf. Picking up my Bible, I flipped randomly through. It fell open to a page in the new testament – Matthew 22:36-40:

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

I can’t even explain how dumbfounded I was that night. I still argued with the word “love” for the rest of the night, tossing the idea to and fro in my mind until I fell asleep.

I have since realized this event was too coincidental to be anything but God answering my prayer, and nothing has conflicted with the idea that “love” summarizes all of God’s laws. In fact, Love is the meaning of life, and as the Bible will also say, God is Love.

This is one of the reasons behind this blog. No one but God can be perfect, but we will always be loved. We are also called to love.

That moment has shaped the rest of my life, and I hope my testimony will shape yours.