EP099: Q&A Session #15

0:00Welcome to the Divine Council World View Podcast. We're so glad you're here. The Divine Council World View Podcast, brought to you by the Michael S. Heiser Foundation, invites you on a fascinating journey into the supernatural world view of the Bible. Join us for engaging conversations, thought-provoking insights, and a community of curious minds. Hit that subscribe button so you won't miss an episode to discover how an ancient Israel worldview can bring fresh meaning to your faith and the understanding of scriptures. One day we'll roll the Divine too. Careful who you cast in the pearls too. Cause Elohim could be singling down a plural too. Don't forget to include the Divine Council in your worldview. Cause one day we'll roll the world too. One day we'll roll the world too. Don't forget to include the Divine Council in your worldview. Cause one day we'll roll the world too. Welcome to the Divine Council World View Podcast. Glad to have you along. Again, thank you, Mike, for joining me.

1:00I'm sorry for the patriots play in the Super Bowl. If we get if we've talked about it or not, I don't think we have any. No, no. It was the last time we got to meet. I was before the Pats. So do you want to talk about it as a question? It was an epic loss, man. Strange. I think, at least personally, I had a bad feeling that what we were seeing in the last game where they were going against the Broncos. The fact that it was such a difficult game against the Broncos. It gave me pause. And then once I saw like the tail end of the Seahawks game right after we finished watching the Pats AFC Championship, it also made me concerned. So I wasn't entirely surprised, but I didn't expect it to be such a blowout. Yeah. Oh, well, get them next year.

2:01Vikings are still working at their quarterback position, so we'll figure it out. Yeah. Is questions and answers? Thank you. Thank you, again, everyone, for sending in your questions. They keep coming, and we really enjoy that. So again, it's questions. This is where you send your questions or comments. Questions.dcwp at gmail.com. And Mike keeps track of them, and we're going to jump into a couple of this time today. So let's do it right now, Mike, for our first one. This is an interesting one. I've heard of this discussion, and it gives me an opportunity, then when I'm asked it to spend some time with it. So is Jesus a correct post-resurrection title? I've noticed that after the resurrection, New Testament writers rarely refer to Jesus simply by name, by the name Jesus, without attaching a title, such as Lord or Christ or Jesus Christ, is referring to Jesus without a title, unintentionally, minimizing early Christian confession about its Messiah.

3:04Interesting question, because it's true when we are in church, a lot of our hymnology and just discussion, we just talk of Jesus, which at least makes us think about the question, should we be cognizant of the title that comes with the post-resurrection Jesus? So when it comes to statistics, not that it proves everything, but it's certainly in this story, or a question shows a preponderance of the evidence that when it comes to Paul, for example, and this is in the NIV, just for the sake of a text to look at, Paul only mentions Jesus without anything else attached around it, 13 times. Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus, 85 times, Christ by itself, 220 times, and Lord as a reference to Jesus, and that's hard to tell sometimes, because we don't know if he's, you know, when he's quoting an Old Testament text, he may be referring to Yahweh,

4:04but Lord, 210 times. So obviously it is the theme of Paul to talk of Jesus' role in the heavens, and that's where the Lord term comes in, which then leads to the use of, or not that these are chronological, of course, but that leads to the use of the Jewish title Messiah, which is in our English Christ. So Jesus Christ would be understood as Jesus Messiah, and then you have Christ alone, even as referring to the Messiah. So what I would recommend is that, citing his name without the title, certainly need not minimize his role. Nothing wrong with that, and I would expect it to happen just like Paul, you know, does use the name Jesus. It is interesting how little, Paul seems to be concerned about Jesus' physical life, his teachings, his parables,

5:04his miracles. You don't hear much discussion about that in Paul's letters. I'm sure on the ground, if you were following Paul around, through Ephesus and Corinth, he loved to talk about the physical life of Jesus. But when it comes to his letters, which are occasional, obviously, and they have problems or concerns that are being dealt with, those letters do not talk much of his physical life. But anyway, that's what I would recommend. Otherwise, let me throw this out too, that a D.C.W. oriented reading of the New Testament, since that's the role of this podcast. If I'm going to go into the New Testament with a D.C.W. lens, watching for themes that matter when it comes to the position of the Lord in the heavens, what I like about these post-ascension titles of Jesus, like Lord, Lord Jesus Christ,

6:05even Messiah, really. What they do, they remind us of this, and I've said this so many times, to be obnoxious, I think, but a left to right reading of a story that is developing over both testaments. In other words, if you just say Jesus, that's fine. But when you say Lord Jesus, what you're doing, even if you don't know it, you are appealing to the bigger picture, the bigger story of what has happened. So that, for example, looking in the Old Testament, or going back to the beginning, you have a strong theme of the glory that Yahweh claims for himself. This is especially coming in full terms in Isaiah, for example, that he is the supreme ruler of gods and humans. He is the creator, sustainer. Those two ideas do not parallel themselves well in the ancient world when it comes to the gods, because most religions of the ancient world

7:05had a god or gods that were involved in creation, a separate group of gods that were involved in providential care of the universe. Not so with Yahweh, he claims to be both the creator, which is an entire doctrine unto itself, and then also the sustainer and providential ruler of all events. And however that works, again, we've talked about will and free will, we'll get into it later too. In another question, but when it comes to Yahweh's claim upon this universe, both on the creation side and on the rule side, is univocal, right? He is the only one, so you'll have lines like Isaiah 48, 11. I will not give my glory to another. Now that's said in context of opponents to Yahweh's rule. So be ready for, as you and I know, we can mic that or any reader of the New Testament with a DCW lens. Something's going to happen,

8:05something's going to change. When we have Jesus enter into Matthew 1, and by the time the story is done, and you have, and I've put these texts on the screen, later Yahweh bestows upon someone else. Of course it's Jesus. The glory that was once his alone is now given to this person, seated, quote, at his right hand, which is, again, ancient, we have speaking of delegated rule, under the auspices of a king, fully aligned with that king, loyal to that king, and doing that king's will. So this is in Psalm 1, 10, of course, and then you get into the New Testament, right hand language, X2, Romans 8, Ephesians 1, Galagians 3, all through Hebrews, for Speeder 322. So anyway, that's my thoughts, Mike.

9:06I enjoy singing with only the name of Jesus mentioned. In other words, when it happens, I know who I'm speaking of in my mind, and I'm thinking of that whole story. I suppose, and you know, I guess you'd be the person to appeal to here when it comes to your Boston audience that you've mentioned, you know, 20-somethings that sometimes just venture in off the street. This would be my question to you, I guess, you know, after you've heard me out on this stuff, which I don't think could be too surprising to you what I've said. But when it comes to the person off the street, how would possibly just referencing Jesus, minimize or mistake the story? In other words, if people, if you ask person on the street, what do you think of Jesus, besides being a swear word maybe, but most people have heard of Him. If you just mention Him by name as Jesus,

10:06what version of Jesus do they have in their head? I'm curious what you've noticed in your ministry there. Well, I think a lot of times folks think of Jesus as, at least in this region, if they have at least a warm inclination towards Him, then they think of Him as a kind, wise teacher, maybe a possibly, maybe a friendly, you know, if they came from a Roman Catholic background, for example, they may think of, like, He's the nicer of the three in eternity. And so, you know, there is that. At the same time, I think, like, within our, like, within the church that I attend, you know, for many years now, ever since, ever since I started getting into Heiser's work and then also into other works like, you know, Dr. Matthew Bates' materials, you know, our church is way of languaging and trying to describe who Jesus is.

11:06We often always go back to that Jesus is the King, where that Jesus, not just saying Jesus is Lord, but that Jesus is the King, to emphasize that there is a loyalty aspect that must be given. And this isn't just simply enough to just say, yeah, I believe that Jesus existed. But no, is he the King? Is he the one that you're laying down your life before? As you are journeying into this, honed our thing of, of, learning what it means to be a follower of God, a follower of Jesus. And so, those are kind of the ways that we try to language it. We always go back to using words like loyalty or allegiance in our church now. We try to not use the words faith or belief as much because we know in many ways when we use words like allegiance and loyalty, that actually kind of tickles people's ears a lot more. It perks them up because it's so not normally used unless you're talking about the socks and the pats

12:09and whatever else. Like, you know, you got to believe. Well, not believe in the socks, but believe in Jesus. And so, there is a little bit of that of just trying to fear how to intrigue those who are coming in. Now, I don't think there's anything wrong with using Jesus just as a name by itself. I mean, even as you were sharing, Ron, I was just looking up through my logus of just doing a simple search through the New Testament of where does Jesus appear, but not with Christ, not with Lord, not with Messiah. And for example, like in the general apostles, Epistles, six times it occurs in 1 John. In Paul's letters, the Pauline letters, it occurs 12 times. And one more. I'll say, let's see what Peter does. He doesn't, he apparently Peter actually uses one of those titles where Jesus.

13:11So, it's interesting to kind of see that there isn't an aversion to using Jesus by itself. But I do think that there was a strategy that was going on, especially with Paul's letters, right? Because he's talking to a mixed audience. Gentiles, definitely Greek and Roman folks. And there is this almost interesting appeal to Jesus, the Christ, Jesus, the anointed one. I'm not talking about Caesar. I'm not talking about Caesar, the Christ. I'm talking about Jesus, the Christ. And in a sort of implying to the audience, this is the Lord that you bend your knee to. This is who you lay your allegiance down to. This is who you ultimately give all of your glory and all of your renown and your praise and everything you can to disking, not to the Caesar. Yeah, one of the lines that NT Wright is known for

14:12and I picked up on it a long time ago and I really appreciate it is that when you say Jesus is Lord in the New Testament, that implies that Caesar is not. Yeah. And that's how they would have understood it, which now makes sense for the problems that Paul faced among Gentile audiences, right? In the Roman Empire, it matches the charges of the Roman imperial forces against Jesus in Nazareth or I'm sorry, in Jerusalem during Passover. When you talk of Jesus being king, which even now, you know, in our hot political climate, we have to watch out for how we think of a king because America hates kings, right? We've heard that one. And yet we have a king in Jesus. And so we have to somehow culturally, you know, not apologize for the term king because it worked in Jesus' day and it worked just fine. And so we have to at least explain possibly to a younger audience what we mean by it,

15:12but we shouldn't be afraid of it either. And Ron is saying if I could possibly be just, you know, because you and I have talked about this before because you and I don't land exactly in the same spot about whether Jesus can also be referred to as Yahweh and how Yahweh gets referred to within the Septuagit, you know, oftentimes it's associated with the word Lord in the Septuagit. And so like, I get what you mean that Jesus is accorded the glory that it looks like something's changed. And I do see in some sense you can say, Jesus as a human being, yes, it's surprising. It's surprising, a human is given the same accordance of glory. At the same time, as we've talked about before about like the two powers doctrine, that this concept is deriving from, you know, more interesting, ancient, or Eastern ideas of how

16:12in the Cain like Panthenon, they had L and Bale and how eventually Bale is elevated to essentially co-regient so a second power, right, with L. That he has accorded the same glory and essentially worship. He's seen as almost essentially the equal power with L. And so thus this idea within the two powers doctrine eventually, it's like this angel of Yahweh, does angel or does intermediary that seems to be accorded more honor than other divine messengers. Like I can kind of say, I wouldn't, I wouldn't make too much of a big deal. And I actually have always wondered if Paul is actually playing around with the texts that say Lord in the Old Testament and then referring that to Jesus as, like, I, I, anyway, you and I, like we've gone this, we've gone over it as many many times.

17:13And it's on theme. I mean, this is the question, right? So we're not getting off theme and talking about it. Lord, Kurios, you know, and you know this is a common term for Sir. So there's, there's going to be a lot of uses of Kurios for not just Jesus in the text, but others as well. And I think it's even in the, in the Acts 16, Sir, is what, what, what must I do to be saved? I've, I've introduced there as well. So they, I'm not ready to look it up quick, but be curious in Acts 16 to 30, is it? Sir, what must I do to be saved? So they probably use Kurios there. And that also gets all, like, mixed up as well of how Kurios is connected to the Caesars, right? Of how? Exactly. Yeah. So I, I don't put a lot of weight into. I was just listening to debate online between, it was a debate about the, you know, the Trinity and how to appeal to Jesus and things like that.

18:14And one of the lines that the Trinitarian used was the use of Kurios. And of course, the rebuttal coming back from the other side was, well, others are accorded the title of Kurios too. So in other words, there is even intermural debate among good Christians about the use of Kurios. But suffice it to say, Philippians 2, you know, or, first Corinthians 8, these famous texts that talk of Jesus being Kurios and then comparing him to the Father, as though is that trying to say he's the same being or same essence or different person, however, that goes, you know, in our lingo. The writers were aware of it, and they didn't stumble over this concept to them. They stumbled over other things. When I came to how to accord worship of Jesus on the level of Yahweh, however, you want to put that or say that, they didn't stumble over it. They went forward with it.

19:16And you don't hear acts debates, you know, or debates in the book of Acts about it, or even really within Paul's letters, you don't feel there's a debate going on there. But it's for us to debate, not them, apparently. I do wonder, go Ron, if... Because like I can kind of see why over time, especially if you and I came from, for example, like a pagan background, and we come to lay our allegiance down before Jesus, that it would almost become almost an intentional polemic of making a point that, no, I am according Jesus only as the Lord and to make it almost like a very public statement that, yeah, I know there are many, many gods out there. And yes, I know there are many human rulers that would love my worship too. But I'm going to make it a point that only Jesus is given this title. And like I don't know,

20:17like I just wonder if that is possibly a trajectory that eventually just folks just took on. And that's why it's become almost, as some scholars would like to say, in Iraq, like us pouring something back into the text that the writers didn't intend to. But like you mentioned, they were okay about leaving it there, but as later generations of followers are trying to make a point, especially as they kept encountering persecution and resistance or pushback, that now I'm going to make it a point that only the only one I'll ever refer to as Lord is going to be Jesus. And really just emphasizing that because I'm trying to make a point. Yeah. Very good. Well, before we get to our second question, we're happy to have a sponsor. Today's podcast is brought to you by, as a sponsor, Certified Financial Planner, Josh Taylor, with Compass Financial Advisors,

21:20that's Compass with a K, go ahead Mike and tell us about Certified Financial Planner, Josh Taylor. So, so Josh Taylor is with Compass Financial Advisors. It is a Christian Independence Certified Financial Planner, and they are here to help you design an investment plan to achieve your retirement goals. As an independent fiduciary investment advisor, Josh offers an array of investment tools, including biblical, responsible investing portfolios, with over 30 years of professional experience, Josh provides a unique perspective to your personal investment planning objectives. For more information, contact Josh Taylor at www.compass, that's with a K, financial.com. Remember that is Compass with a K. Great. Thank you, Josh, for investing in this podcast.

22:21We do appreciate it. Here's our next question. Can created Elohim impede human freedom? I appreciate again the way the question came. It was fun to think through this. The story of 1 Kings 22, in which a spirit is sent by Yahweh to lie, to Ahab's prophets, seems to, and read that text, by the way, if you don't know what that is, it's a fascinating vision into the courtroom, the very, you know, throne room of God. This seems to imply the story does that created God's have the ability to adjust, manipulate, hinder, obstruct. You know, you have your choice of verbs there. Human freedom. Is this story teaching this, and are there other Old Testament passages which teach this? Now, what I took this to me, not in the obstruction sense of, like, Balam's donkey getting in the way, that would be an example of a divine being using, an animal, all Genesis three possibly,

23:23to speak, right? And so that's a, it got in the way. But that's not the question, as I understand it in front of me. What I'm hearing is the reader saying, we had a spirit go down from Yahweh's throne room, as it were, and say that he would lie to the prophets, and that prophet, or that group of prophets, would then lie to Ahab. As though to say, he would get into the very minds of somebody, and how a mind works, versus the brain, right? Or the same or different, or whatever, that's not the question here. But the idea that a spirit would actually manipulate the brainwaves of a human, so that that human would think something, believe something, something like that. So my mind goes to this, Mike, we have Old Testament examples, we have Old Testament examples. I think the best ones for me, quickly would be Saul, King Saul, three times said,

24:24to have a raw or evil spirit, sent from Yahweh, come upon him, and clearly makes Saul act, think, feel differently, emotionally, you know, distraught. So in this sense, it affected his mind or brain. An evil spirit, we're told in Judges 9, produced what's called mutual, we call it a mutual suspicion of treachery between a Bimalak and the leaders of Shekhmins, of just a very quick mention of something. But again, it's there in the text that an evil spirit got involved between, you know, the leader of Israel and the leaders of Shekhmins. So there's that. Now, and think off the fly, if you can't have anything else in Old Testament, Mike, that, you know, you can imagine, but let me go to the New Testament on the other side. Let's admit that the unclean spirits of Mark 1 and Mark 5

25:25did cause in Mark 1, what seems to be an otherwise normal guy to speak and to talk. And this man seems to be in concert with this demon that's inside of him, or unclean spirit. So that that man is either, well, I guess, yeah, he's being manipulated, he's being physically, mentally manipulated by this divine being. We also have just that quick line, maybe this is figurative or metaphorical, but we have in Luke 22 and John 13 that Satan entered, quote unquote, into Judas. And then Judas, of course, does the bad things. And so we're not necessarily told how this works. In fact, let me just give you my opinion then. Looking at this idea in a more systematic way, especially in the New Testament,

26:25as opposed to just having these episodes, but looking at it systematically, I think this is where Paul was by the time you get to the New Testament, we finally have someone who kind of backs off the scene and looks at what's going on, and he says, as for unbelievers, this would not be a believer, but an unbeliever, that he would say, and I think this specifically has a Gentile flavor to it, in Ephesians 2, that they follow, quote, the ruler of the power of the air. Now, when you think about that, that means, if we're to tap Paul in the shoulder and say, now, are you actually saying that an unbeliever, when he thinks a thought, he is thinking along the lines of, because he's being manipulated by a spirit, a, back the ruler of the air, or the demonic, or the satanic figure that we would call the devil. He also says in 2 Corinthians 4, that non-believers have their minds blinded

27:26by the God of this world. And again, if we're going to take Paul as a systematic theologian to some degree, I would love to ask him, well, what do you mean by that? So how does someone get blinded by a God? What is it that, what power does this spirit have to manipulate the very mind of a non-believer? Paul, let me continue to read what I have said here, and Paul nowhere explains how human minds can be influenced by evil spirits. Only that it happens. It may parallel how God sends a strong delusion. This is God now, our God, capital G. In 2 Thessalonians 2, verse 11, we hear of God sending a strong delusion to non-believers. There, and we don't have as much trouble with that. We believe our God can manipulate anyone's thoughts at any time. I mean, he can do anything, including that. But we've also, as I've just shown,

28:26seen a new testament that has no theological problem, or systematic theological problem, with someone saying, well, Satan has access to non-believer's minds on the level that they can be blinded by the God of this world. So, you know what? Do you have any things before I give you my summary thought? Well, I mean, just even... Even just like those episodes at the end, that episode in 1 Kings 22, you know, like I've listened and I remember hearing my talk about this, and I mean, one of the things I remember him pointing out is that, simply, a lot of our English translations render that word that's translated evil, is coming from the same word that is known as raw in Hebrew, which can be just simply translated as bad. It doesn't actually necessary have a connotation of moral of morality. It's just a bad thing.

29:26Bad thing happened to you. Like, you get cancer. That's bad. It's not really a moral issue necessarily, but it is a circumstance, a result, something that's happened that is not good. It's actually bad. So, I think sometimes, because the English translations tend to say things like the tree of good and evil, instead of simply the tree of good and bad, or that this will be, I will be, you know, I will talk about evil, instead of just simply bad. This will be a bad thing that will happen to Ahab. So, I would want to first kind of caveat that there's a little bit of sometimes people get weirded out by these passages, because does this mean that God is using demons, right? Like, they see the word evil, and then they'll automatically associate the spirit of the divine being that is doing this work, is somehow an evil being,

30:27like he's working with the demons, he's working with Satan. It's simply, it's a bad result, especially for Ahab. God can send a spirit with having a bad result out of that issue. Yeah, and the same thing was salt. It's the same word that it was a bad spirit that affected salt, caused him to go into these frantic moments of utterances, prophetic utterances that probably didn't make any sense to him, or to anyone else around him. I actually wonder, and this is just my own personal speculation, I have wondered if it was, because there's a debate among some scholars, right, of whether the spirit that was sent was God's Holy Spirit, or was it just a spirit, a spirit that was serving him. And I can see it playing either way, but it would be such an interesting thing of what happens if the Holy Spirit were to have come

31:27upon Saul, and he's just so bent on his own selfish ambition that what we see is just the collision of those two things happening. Oh, interesting idea. And so, at least I would just caveat that, I, it's kind of a weird question to me, because the question implies somehow a hindrance, or, as though I'm preventing a human being from actually having human choice, or, you know, that somehow, like, all of a sudden made this moment into a predestined moment. And, in my mind, it's like, why is it that we just assume that the Elohim or, you know, divine beings are not also involved in how things and events play out? That they are also players on this chessboard. Well, you have, and you bring up an interesting point, in Job, think of what happens, and maybe this story is metaphorical to some degree,

32:27and in other words, we can enjoy the theology of the book of Job without making it necessarily overly physical. By that, I mean, in Job 1, when Satan, or thus Satan, leaves the courtroom, is given permission by God to affect Job's family and situation. We hear of a great east wind that comes. Well, did Satan cause wind? And if he does, then he has the power of making weather, which is an interesting idea, or possibility. He gives Job boils in chapter 2. Is that, does that mean he can give disease? The problem with that kind of, you know, this equals that thinking is, I'm always nervous to make theology out of something that wasn't theologically in context. In other words, if I pull out of that chapter, the theology that Satan can cause

33:27cancer, I think the biblical writer and God himself can say, well, Ron, that wasn't the point of the text. We weren't talking about what Satan can or can't do. And, you know, give the writer the latitude to speak sometimes metaphorically. And I just, I'm just throwing that out there that we have to be more careful at times. So that's what I'm thinking of when you bring up the idea of Satan being involved in the providential course of nature. I mean, we have some stories like that that make you wonder. And I mean, like, and also, for example, going back to like your example about Job, I am actually not, and you know, this is a little bit part of my own doctorate because, you know, I am working with in the book of Job. I'm not completely convinced that that divine being is desatant. The evil, you know, being that is from Genesis 3. It simply is the accuser. I do, I do provide some consideration that there might be

34:29something to it, but there's no definite identity thing. But what is interesting about all that in chapters 1 and 2 is that it seems to be that God gives the power, the ability to this accuser to do this testing on Job to take away his stuff through and flick sickness on him, to do these very things. But he puts a limit. And it is interesting. So it doesn't imply necessarily that the divine being in of itself had those abilities prior to the permission that was given. Good point. And as well as theologizing, but I think it's a good point. And even within that, and this was something I think I I'm pretty sure I remember putting this in my paper that God's words back to this divine being in chapters 1 and 2 is he is in your hands, do as you will. And so there is even an indication that this divine being

35:29has choice. You can turn the dial to 11 if you want to. You don't have to. You don't have to kill the children. You can maybe inflict them with a sickness, but they don't die, but you can hurt them. You don't have to slaughter everyone that was in Job's encampment. You could just scare them with a raiding party. He didn't have to. But this divine being does dial it up to 11 in chapters 1 and 2. Well beyond, like just full max destruction. And that is actually where in my paper I do understand there is something that is going on with this divine being. But technically, he hasn't crossed boundaries. He is doing what he's allowed to do. Yeah. Anyways, but it is just one of those things I bring up is like, why is this sometimes when we talk about supernatural beings, we make it sound like a though, if they are real

36:30and they interact with humanity, then somehow that means that we don't really have free will or free choice. They are simply on the board with us. Yeah. They have the advantage in that we can't see them. You read my mind here. That's how I'm going to close this up is give me, give you an in some conclusionary thought, I'm going to bounce off what you just said. The Bible portrays humans as conscious, responsible, and intentional in their thoughts and actions. That's just the story. We are humans in the sense that we can think and we are responsible in our thinking. We are intentional. We don't want that kind of thing. So we start with that. The Bible portrays humans not as machines, not as manipulated by spirits as a general rule of life. Second point, we sense that our wills are our own. We speak of free will. I've heard that line.

37:30Of course, you know what that means. And I'm nervous about it. So let's talk about it. We speak of free will because we do not feel compulsion when making decisions. That's where we get the idea of freedom from. That when I look at a restaurant menu, I actually feel free to have this and not this. And that's where the word free comes in. The Bible never says it's free. And we use that word for ourselves because we don't feel compulsion on most of the things we do. On the other hand, and I'll close with this. The Bible clearly depicts humans in those stories we just mentioned as being influenced by spirits, including God. Now there, let's capitalize the G there. This is how prayer works. When you pray, I'd say 90% of your prayers include the manipulation or movement at least of human free will. God gives us a safe trip home. You know, you're praying for the other cars that you're meeting. So in some sense, when you pray, you're admitting that God has power over human will, right?

38:32And I would recommend this. And I've said this back in our Genesis study a long time ago that probably the greatest reason or the main reason, the primary reason that a spirit can contact a human is because we have been made in the image of Elohim, plural. Let us make man in our image. So in God saying to this host of beings, let's make these humanoid things, but you know what? Let's not make them like beasts of the field. Let's not make them like birds of the air. Let's make them like us. As soon as you have that line said, now the idea that these beings can come down from heaven and manipulate again and influence free will is designed as part of our nature. We are made to be able to be in contact, have contact, have communion even and covenantal relationship with God, capital G, as well as God's small G. That's just the way we're made.

39:32So I'll close with this and you get the last word. I prefer to think of our wills as real. I like that turn better. Our my will is real. While being generally unaware of influence coming upon me through a spirit or a spirit, capital S, with a spirit. In other words, I think I have to end this conversation or this question with this. I don't know how it works. But I know that it works. I know that I can be contacted by a spirit because of the way I'm constitutionally made. And my dog can't or is not so influenced in the general days that he lives. But I am because I'm made in their image and therefore I must share in some kind of communicative ability. But I may not know it. And that is the question I leave it with or the interesting situation that I live in.

40:32I don't know if I'm necessarily being manipulated and people don't like that word. Am I being influenced by God when I choose a breakfast cereal? I might be if my wife is praying for me. She may say, please, Lord, help him choose Cheerios. And then if I choose the Cheerios, by my own will, which felt free, it could have been influenced. I mean, it's a silly illustration but it works. My point being, it's our being contacted and directed influenced, whatever, by small G gods, just the same as capital G God influences believers. So I guess the if I guess the way that I would think of it is that as human beings we tend to forget that while we

41:32are, you know, sort of the one jewel, the crowning moment of creation, we are not the only creations. Right. And we are part of a vast ecological system where, you know, yes, human free choice. I tend to, back in the old days in my college days, I took philosophy classes as like slight electives because I had some philosophy classes. And one of the things that kind of one of those classes did was it disavowed my assumption that free choice and free will were the same. I tend to not think that free will really is a thing because the only person who really truly has free will is actually a creator. He's the only one who can really exercise his will and it will just happen. I have free choice.

42:32And those choices are influenced, hopefully, for good for my benefit. But sometimes I'm also manipulated or maybe I am boxed in because of circumstances that are completely of my control because I am not the only one on this playing field. You know, it's just one of those interesting things, right? We're going back to like the book of Job I'm thinking that we tend to think of like the instances where Leviathan and Bahimif show up in the book. And so much of that book almost comes with the assumption, oh, we generally think of Leviathan and Bahimif as these chaos monsters, these chaos agents, they cause all these problems, they will stop on you, they will kill you if you get too close, they're evil, they're bad. And yet when God talks about them, it's not the only thing that God has done, of how amazing, how majestic,

43:32how powerful they are. But make no mistake, if Bahimif is walking in one direction and you are in its way, it doesn't care if it steps on you. And so you could say as much as you want, this thing is impeding my free choice to stand here in this spot. It's like, well, you can exercise this free choice, to keep on walking, even if that includes walking over you. And so you are given a choice of whether you will step out away, or if you will just be stubborn and think somehow, you cannot be crushed. Like, that's what I mean. I think sometimes we naively assume that the Elohim, whether they are loyal or loyal, and hopefully there are more of the loyal ones who are assisting us who are also loyal to rally together for the

44:32purposes of the creator. And so I think that's just simply it's the playing field that we are in. And that's one of the great things that Dr. Heiser had helped me understand is that there is genuine contention in the spiritual world that the creator does have rivals. They are powerful than him. But they are annoying. They are trying to prolong their existence. I mean, they are exercising their free choice ever since he pronounced what he did in Psalm 82. That these rebels will die. That they will die like mortals. And I don't know what does that mean for a divine being to die. But I'm sure they also don't quite understand what that means. And so they're exercising their free choice to try to delay and stop this punishment that God had spoken. We'll have one day.

45:33All interesting. And I appreciate the question again. Thank you folks for the questions like that. And if you have them send them as we close this episode, questions.dcwp at gmail.com is where you can send them. Thank you Mike. Let's close it here. And thank everyone for joining in the meantime. Until we meet again, delight in God's influence on your life. Even in ways you may not recognize. Bye bye. Thank you for listening to the divine council world view podcast. If you have enjoyed what you heard and learned today, please prayerfully consider supporting or you can support us by downloading the Michael S. Heiser Foundation app through your app store and donating there. We appreciate you are giving us a listen and you're ongoing support to Dr. Heiser's legacy. Until next week.

46:48Bye bye. Bye bye.