May 6, 2018 Charles Yu Series: Message: Main Idea: Purpose: Text: I. Introduction II. Series Introduction Ephesians 6:10-23 Ephesians 6:10-12

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1 May 6, 2018 Charles Yu Series: Invisible Realm Message: One God? Main Idea: Though the invisible realm is populated with many spiritual beings (gods), our God YHWH is high above them all. Purpose: To introduce people to the world of the invisible realm. Text: Psalm 82 and others I. Introduction Most of us are like Emmett Brickowski from The Lego Movie. - We live normal lives. We go to sleep, wake up, have families and friends, go to school, work - We live in this physical world. We wouldn't say everything s awesome, but everything is normal. Then we come to church and read the Bible, and we learn that there is an ongoing struggle: - The world is broken, and I am broken way more broken than we realize but there is a God who created everything, and he is trying to fix things. - God sent his son Jesus into our world, to raise a community to help him fix the world, and he s asking us to get involved. This is the main storyline of the Bible. - But also in the Bible, there are bits and pieces that make references to beings that are not part of our physical world; they live in this larger, invisible realm, and there are passages that tell us that the struggle here on earth is actually part of a greater struggle in this invisible realm. Starting today, for 7 Sundays, we are going to learn about this invisible realm. - Today, we start our dive into the Infinite Abyss of Nothingness. - For many of us, this will be a moment of discovery. It will be hazy; it will be disorienting. II. Series Introduction We didn t finish Ephesians; we didn t get to Ephesians 6: Ephesians 6:10-12, where it talks about warfare in the spiritual realm, is especially difficult. - The problem with reading this passage is that there s a lot we need to know in the Bible before we can properly interpret Ephesians 6: To help us learn this material, we created an entirely new series, called The Invisible Realm. - This series will give us the information we need to read Ephesians 6: Today I am going to do an overview and touch on the various topics for the entire series. - To do that, we are jumping into the deep end. The deep end begins with Psalm 82. Psalm 82 New International Version (NIV 2011) & Revised Standard Version (RSV) - A note about our English translations: I ve noted a few places where the RSV, the Revised Standard Version, makes a different choice in the translation. Psalm 82:1 NIV chooses the great assembly ; RSV has the divine council. Psalm 82:1 NIV has gods in quotes; RSV does not have quotation marks. Psalm 82:5-6 Same thing. NIV has gods in quotes; RSV does not. - In all these cases, the RSV is correct. The Hebrew in Psalm 82:1 says, divine council, and there are no quotation marks in Hebrew. How can we tell when the translation is off? - UW students can take Elementary Biblical Hebrew (Hebrew 103) to fulfill your foreign language requirement at the department of Classical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies (CANES). - Even if you don t learn biblical Hebrew, here at Blackhawk, we prefer and recommend the NIV. It is a good translation. It s easy to read, so we use it for devotion, public reading, and teaching. 1

2 - But when you want to study the Bible on your own and go deeper, a good way to do this is to use 2 or 3 different translations. When the translations pretty much agree, no problem. When they disagree, and the disagreement is significant (like in Psalm 82), you know the translators are struggling over something in the original text. That s when you know to get more help by going to commentaries. What s going on in Psalm 82 is not with the Hebrew text. The Hebrew text is really clear. - The problem is that the clear reading of the text causes problems for modern readers, and so the NIV editors like to anticipate problems and try to solve them for us. Psalm 82 (without the quotation marks, and replacing the great assembly with the divine council): - 1 God presides in the divine council; he renders judgment (sǎ p at ) among the gods (ʾᵉlo hı m) We re not sure what a divine council is, but it s attended by a whole bunch of gods. The Hebrew word here for gods is elohim. The phrase renders judgment in Psalm 82:1 translates the Hebrew word s a p at, which can mean to judge, but also to govern, to rule over How long will you defend (sǎ p at ) the unjust and show partiality to the wicked? Defend (sǎ p at ) the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. God lays out his accusation against the gods. God accuses these gods of injustice; he lambasts them for the way they govern: they favor the rich over the poor. - 5 The gods know nothing, they understand nothing. They walk about in darkness; all the foundations of the earth are shaken. These gods govern so badly because they are ignorant, foolish, without wisdom, and the foolishness of these gods undermines the structure of the entire earth I said, You are gods; you are all sons of the Most High. But you will die like mere mortals; you will fall like every other ruler. In this scene there is a divine council, a place for these gods to gather. These are ruling gods, powerful gods, but instead of conversation and mutual backslapping, we have this tense showdown because God walks in and charges the entire council with injustice and foolishness and then promises to kill them all. - 8 Rise up, O God, judge (sǎ p at ) the earth, for all the nations are your inheritance. This is the narrator talking. He s yelling: Go, God! Rule the earth; take it over. The earth belongs to you, not to those guys! That s Psalm 82. Are you beginning to see why the NIV editors translated the way they did? - The psalm would be much easier for us if the gods were gods (kings, emperors, people who think they re gods), and the divine council is a great assembly (a gathering of human rulers). III. Other Texts that talk about the divine council or divine court Some of you might think, Well, maybe the NIV editors are right after all. - Perhaps, we should translate elohim as gods. Maybe Psalm 82 is an anomaly. The problem is that this idea of a divine council, or a heavenly court, is all over the Bible: - Psalm 89:5 assembly of the holy ones - Psalm 89:6 the heavenly beings (b ᵉne ʾe lı m lit. sons of God ) - Psalm 89:7 the council of the holy ones Psalm 89 talks about Yahweh, the creator God of the world, and he dominates the divine council. The other gods fear him, and they praise and worship him. - Psalm 29:1 you heavenly beings (b ᵉne ʾe lı m lit sons of God ) - Job 1:6 the sons of God (bᵉne ha ʾᵉlo hı m) 2

3 This is a description of the divine court, where the sons of God are like courtiers before Yahweh the king and then Satan shows up. - John 10:34-36 Jesus quotes Psalm 82 when he is being accused of blasphemy for claiming to be the son of God. - His point is: if unqualified, unjust beings that require God s prophetic word to them can be called gods, then how can it be blasphemy if Jesus, the one with the special mission to the world, calls himself God s son? - Jesus acknowledges these gods exist and uses this fact to justify calling himself Son of God. IV. Summary of Psalm 82 What do we learn from Psalm 82? - There is the ONE GOD, and then there are other gods (elohim, elim, or sons of Gods). - These gods rule, in some ways independent of the ONE God, and they have authority over the human realm. - Some of these gods are foolish and unjust, and the ONE God opposes them. - There will be a showdown and an accounting. God will establish his rule over all the earth. This message likely brought up a lot of questions. Save them. Upcoming series messages include: Angels, Satan, Heaven, Spiritual Warfare, Hell, and Jesus. V. Incomparability of Yahweh For the rest of our time today, I want to tackle the question of one God. - This is a foundational question of Christianity. We are known as a monotheistic religion. The generic word for God in Hebrew is Elohim. This word is used in a variety of different ways. - It is used for the one creator God, and it s used for the beings in the divine council. - Psalm 82:1 God (ʾᵉlo hı m) presides in the divine Council; he renders judgment (sǎ p at ) among the gods (ʾᵉlo hı m). - Elohim shows up hundreds of times to refer to all kinds of spiritual beings. It s a broad term. - Elohim refers to spiritual beings that inhabit the invisible realm. - If there are all kinds of Elohim, how are we to understand some of the monotheistic statements in the Bible? (E.g. the beginning of the shema, the great Hebrew prayer in Deuteronomy 6:4). Traditionally, Deuteronomy 6:4 has been understood as there being only one elohim. No other. - Other statements in the Bible are more explicit. Look at these exclusionary statements: Isaiah 45:6 there is none besides me. I am the LORD, and there is no other. Isaiah 45:21 there is no God (ʾᵉlo hı m) apart from me, a righteous God (ʾe l) and a Savior; there is none but me. Isaiah 45:22 I am God (ʾe l), and there is no other. Isaiah 46:9 I am God (ʾe l), and there is no other; I am God (ʾᵉlo hı m), and there is none like me. These verses seem pretty clear that there is only one Elohim. So now we have a problem: - We have all these passages in the Bible that talk about all kinds of elohim. - Then, we have these verses that talk about how there is only one Elohim and no other. - The Bible is not contradicting itself. The problem is with our understanding of the phrases: there is no other ; there is none like me ; there is none beside me. Zephaniah 2:15 - This verse is about the city of Nineveh. Nineveh is talking and says, There is none beside me. - This phrase cannot mean there is only one city in the entire world. It is not about the non-existence of other cities, but the incomparability of Nineveh to all other cities. - We use this phrasing today to mean: No one compares to him. That s the idea in the Bible. 3

4 Psalm 86:8 Among the gods (ʾᵉlo hı m) there is none like you, Lord Deuteronomy 3:24b For what god (ʾe l) is there in heaven or on earth who can do the deeds and mighty works you do? Psalm 97:9 For you, LORD, are the Most High over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods (ʾᵉlo hı m). Deuteronomy 6:4 Listen Israel! Yahweh our-elohim Yahweh one (yisŕa ʾe l yhwh ʾᵉlo he nu yhwh ʾehạ d ) Yahweh is our Elohim, the one Elohim, the incomparable Elohim, the one we worship. The conclusion we draw from the biblical data is that there are lots of different types of elohim. - Yahweh is an elohim, but no other elohim is YHWH. - He is the creator God who created the other elohim. He is the most powerful, wise, just, and compassionate God. He is in a category of his own. Maybe the proper term for biblical faith is not monotheism, the belief that there is only one elohim. The proper term may be monolatry. The worship of only one Elohim, the one named Yahweh. VI. Questions for us to ponder We moved from monotheism (belief in the existence of only one Elohim) to monolatry (the belief that we should worship a particular Elohim named Yahweh). This changes our understanding of the gospel. - In America, we live in a post-christian world. Many of us have this shared assumption of there being one God who has moral requirements, and because many of us know that we do wrong things, there is this sense of guilt. - When we present the gospel in America, we focus on forgiveness. The death of Jesus on the cross removes our sins and reconciles us to God. That s not the gospel presentation in other parts of the world. In rural Taiwan there are shrines and temples marking the local deities. - There are regular festivals and offerings and sacrifices to these other gods. - The gospel presentation in Taiwan does not begin with: God forgives your sins. Because the reply would be: Which god are you talking about? And what is sin? - The gospel presentation in Taiwan is: My God is bigger than your god. My God is more powerful than your god. We worship the creator God of the universe, the only one who is not created, who rules and dominates the divine council, and has now decreed that the rebellious gods will die. And God has decreed to the world (invisible realm and the earthly realm) that they are to unite in the obedience and the worship of his Son Jesus as the divinely appointed king of the world. That s the gospel. VII. Conclusion What is the story of the Bible in light of this populated invisible realm? - The story of the Bible seems to be a series of failures by Yahweh, the creator God. You created the world? Big deal. Your earthly servants? They work for us now. Your kingdom Israel? We corrupted them; they worshipped us. Israel s national history is your complete failure. Yahweh, how does getting your temple destroyed prove your strength? It doesn t. You re weak. Creator God is no big deal in the ancient world; there are plenty of stories about younger gods overthrowing the older gods. You send your son, and he gets himself killed. Weak. - God s perspective revealed in the Bible: 4

5 The creation of humanity is a story of God s offering of human freedom. It s God daring to pursue a greater a goal, human sons and daughters who freely choose him and love him. Israel s national history is a story of God s subtle wisdom where he unveils themes of grace, forgiveness, and sacrifice. The story of Jesus: You didn t defeat him; he defeated death, opening the way for forgiveness and reconciliation, and now my spirit is in these human servants, and they are going live out my life all over the world. I am going re-take the earth and create one new humanity. - Current state of the conflict: God says: I am going to triumph through love, sacrifice, and creating people who do the same. The elohim say: That s never going to work. We are going to take down your church to prove you wrong. What does it mean for us? - How is this not just Greek mythology? Yes there are similarities: A divine council sounds like Mount Olympus. Differences: One God who creates all. + He created physical beings in his image, empowering us with freedom and choices and ability to carry out our own plans. Why do we think he wouldn t do the same with spiritual beings? It s entirely logical that he would do so. + Key difference: Not a God like the others, but one who shares power. He has the kind of relationship with them that he has with us. He seeks to empower them, train them, grow them. For those who rebel, bring them back. - We are subject to spiritual forces (more spiritual power at work than we think about). There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight. C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (originally 1942; this edition: Harper Collins, 1996) ix. - It should change the way we think of ourselves. - It changes the way we pray. Psalm 82 Arise O God. We ask God to take over the world. Psalm 89 We call for the divine beings to worship God. Lord s Prayer. Hallow. Make your name holy, set apart; make it different from everything else; that is, make it incomparable. Establish your comparability father. Bring your reign on earth as it is in heaven. 5