Faith without religion.
Welcome to the Salt Lake City Yeshuan Branch verse by verse study through Job.
Prayer
Song
Silence
I want to strongly suggest that anyone interested in a better, clearer, deeper understanding of what we will mention today to get on the Yeshuan.faith site and watch Grady Risely’s presentation on elohiym. I will borrow from some of his insights.
So, we shifted settings last week, after learning about the valor and righteousness of Job. And the setting is described like this,
Job 1.6
October 22nd 2023
6 “On a certain day the sons of elohiym came to station themselves around YAHAVAH and the Satan also came among them.”
We talked about “the” or “ha” Satan” as a roaming prosecutor and that it was a title and not necessarily a personal pronoun name, but I differed talking about another meaty segment in the passage and that is who the heck are the sons of elohiym that came and stationed themselves around YAHAVAH?
And here we are gonna do some thinking and some giving when it comes to the standard bias many people have when it comes to God . . . gods . . . and councils of them.
Bottom line, for some people what we are going to uncover will be a mindblower because the topic is generally overlooked or understudied in the faith today – at least from the pulpit.
Now we touched on the subject when we covered Genesis 1, 3, 10 and 11, but I’ve learned some stuff since then and want to probe the topic, or shall I say, poke the bear, a little more.
As a reminder, we read in
Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Genesis 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
Genesis 11:7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.
So, we know that there is an “us” in the economy of God – in creation, in heavenly administration and in punishment. We have noted that the better Trinitarian scholars are not inclined to appeal to these verses as supports for their view for various reasons.
I teach that God is a Singluar Plural (a modalistic binity) and have suggested that in this way we can better understand the Ontology or make-up of God as being One Plural.
But does God ever ask for help or insight or action from creations other than or outside of Himself?
When we get to Isaiah 6:8 we will read that Isiah writes
Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.
We know God will ask questions of humans, but they seem to be almost like a math teacher asking her student what 10 plus 10 equals all the while knowing the answer.
But in this specific verse we have the Living God asking a group of beings called the Son’s of God in the presence of an accuser named “ha Satan” who joined them.
Who or what are these beings? Why are they called, the Sons of elohiym? Does God have other sons besides the incarnate Christ? Are there other gods then? Other heavenly beings? Are these preincarnate human beings as the LDS often claim?
I am going to teach this in an ascending order of simplicity beginning with the easiest answer and then climbing up to the most sublime.
I cannot say we know that any of them are correct – but we’re trying by pulling from the best information available to help us make sense.
It is the context of the rest of the Bible that will not allow the LDS interpretaion. Point blank.
The most succinct answer? These are angels. Okay, let’s go home. But that’s really not as plain as we might think because angels are NOT men, not disembodied men, nor spirits that will become men latter as the LDS suggest – at least from what I can tell.
But they are heavenly creations and they do appear to form some sort of council here in the story of Job.
The next level up is describing what some scholars have called, The Divine Council, which are a council of “divine beings” (LISTEN) all created by God, who make decisions (in tandem with God) about what happens in the universe including in the lives of human beings.
Is this the only example of such a council in the Bible? No. One of the clearest examples of this somewhat esoteric phenomena can be seen in 1st Kings 22 where the prophet Micaiah retells of a vision God gave him, and in the vision, God asked a (or His) heavenly host what the best course of action would be to bring about the demise of King Ahab.
Automatically our minds will run to innuerable conjectures on the evidence to come. Some will say that these are gods in training. Some might say that these are angels of power, preincarnate men of future power, and on and on.
In the story about how to get old Ahab, one being suggests one thing, and another says another thing.
Finally, one of the council members comes forth and says that he will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all of Ahab’s prophets, and YAHAVAH actually says to him,
“You will succeed. Go and do it.”
Because God sends this being forth to act, we can in the least assign either the title Apostle to it (one sent) and/or angellos (messenger). In a most literal sense.
But things get interesting because the Bible calls these beings “gods” in a few places – like a lot of few places, with one of the most glaring being Psalm 82 where we read an insightful passage in the first verse that says,
God <'elohiym> standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods. (elohiym)
Context proves abundantly that these elohiym are judged by the chief elohiym and they are not on par (in the least) with the elohiym we know as YAHAVAH.
Now, to explain the term elohiym outside of the One Pural God as it is used to describe others (heavenly beings, devils, judges, and the like – I mean the term is used almost 2250 times in the Old Testament and is translated to God or gods in most of them) I am going to use an example brother Grady uses which is really fitting.
Suppose that there is a major corporation in the world that has thousands of offices and divisions. In each division there are bosses – numbers of them. I have a boss and you have a boss, but my boss is not your boss and your boss is not mine.
And this system spreads out like the Mississippi and its tributaries until we get to the starting point. In the case of the conglomerate we might call the top boss the President and CEO.
He or she is the boss of all bosses. Now we don’t have a problem with God having many sub-bosses on earth in the human realm, do we? In the Tanakh God had prophets like Moses whom He calls an elohiym. But He is in charge and all of them are answerable to him in the end.
To make this whole thing simple, this appears to be the case not only in earth, but also under the earth, in the angelic hosts, and in demons and in what we are seeing here are called “the Sons of Elohiym” gathering in what men have described as “councils of divinity.”
Divinity? I’m afraid so. Does this admit that there are other gods? Yes, there are other gods as Paul summarizes in 1st Corinthians
“there be gods many, and lords many . . . ”
That said, there is only One YAHAVAH, president, founder, CEO, CFO, creator, ruler, King and no others have any right to His throne – though it seems that some have sought it.
That said, this good God will invite others – angels, elohiyms, men – into counsel with Him.
We read hundreds of references to these other lower case g gods in scripture and as I said, they are in no way on par with YAHAVAH. But they do exist in most realms. And this irrefutable idea opens the door for all sorts of conjectures that imaginative men will tap into and create myth.
Back to Job let’s read the two main passages in Job where ha Satan (The Divine Prosecutor) and “these” “The Sons of God” are mentioned.
First,
Job 1:6-12 say “Now there was a day when the sons of elohiym came to present themselves before the LORD, and the adversary also came among them… And YAHAVAH said to the adversary, ‘Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.’ So the adversary went out from the presence of YAHAVAH.”
Then,
Job 2: 1-6 says, “Again there was a day when the sons of elohiym came to present themselves before YAHAVAH, and the adversary also came among them to present himself before YAHVAHA… And YAHVAH said to the adversary, ‘Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears elohiym and turns away from evil?… And YAHAVAH said to the adversary, ‘Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life.”
What is pertinent to our discussion today is that we can see that the two times the Satan accuses Job of “being faithful only because God gave him a happy life” the accusation happen in what has been labeled by man as “the divine council setting” where the “Sons of elohiym” are present.
This is a fascinating scene and one where we get a glimpse into what I believe is the heavenly realm and what helps govern it.
Later in Job 38 we will hear YAHAVAH ask Job in verses 4-7
Job 38:4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. 5 Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? 6 Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof; 7 When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”
I am of the opinion that human beings become the sons of God by faith because of passages like Galatians 3:26 where Paul says
“For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.”
Again, our LDS friends like to suggest that these son’s of God are the preincarnate spirit-children before we came to earth and that this verse supports their Swendenborgian view of a pre-mortal existence borrowed from Plato.
Our more studious and scholarly Christian researchers, however, disassociate these deities from human beings, just like the scriptures disassociates heavenly angels from the same.
Speaking of these scholars, most of them will tie the Genesis 6 account that says
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.
to when some of these heavenly rulers and even lesser deities apparently broke through the heavenly wall and entered into our world.
Some might wonder if these sons of God had human male equipment to impregnate the daughters of men, but I would suggest that something spiritual happened there, if they did what some believe, and that it may have somehow been a type for the wonder of the virgin birth.
Again, for another day.
As a reiteration which I feel is important, these passages are truly tiny bits of biblical esoterica that may – may – give seekers insight into the heavenly economy, administration and council which God Himself created for reasons not completely understood or known to us.
I do have to say however, what I always say and that is when a believer has come to understand the ontology of God, the incarnation of Christ, the payment of all sin past present and future, how the Spirit integrates with flesh and blood, freewill verses God’s omniscience and has a grip on sound eschatology (outside of tradition) then maybe they have the earned the right to delve deeply into such things like Heiser.
It’s just unfortunate to me to meet people who have almost honestly never read the Bible that go right to this meaty meal of Nephilim and the councils of the gods at every chance they get.
However, it IS a thing, and having tromped through the scripture as we have I think there is a time and place to address it and we have sort of earned the right to do it.
As we said last week, Dr. Michael Heiser argues that in this divine council found in Job 1 and 2 had “ha Satan” in a prosecutorial roll but this is not a single instance AS we can see such a prosecutor doing this very same thing in Zechariah 2:13-3: 7 where it says
“Be silent, all flesh, before YAHAVAH for he has roused himself from his holy dwelling. Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and ha Satan [‘the adversarial prosecutor] standing at his right hand to accuse him… Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments. And the angel said to those who were standing before him, ‘Remove the filthy garments from him.’… And the angel of the LORD solemnly assured Joshua, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts…’”
Fictional Christian screenwriter, Brian Godawa says,
“Scholars point out that this vision of Zechariah is an example of another thread throughout the Old Testament of what he calls, “the covenant lawsuit.” Godawa adds,
“As we have seen in Job, 1 Kings, and Zechariah, there seems to be almost legal procedures that the divine council engages in when deliberating judgment upon Israel or another guilty nation or king.“
Borrowing from our Corporate example of bosses given by Brother Grady, perhaps in the governance of all things, YAHAVAH has created (because He is the creator of all things) some sort of spiritual beings or lesser elohiym as His council like a corporation would have an enormous inhouse legal team and in these heavenly councils they step in and offer opinion.
Let’s consider another insight to what is happening here with Job. Remember,
Ha Satan is a prosecuting attorney,
And he is hurling accusations about Job only being upright because God blesses him and
that this in the presence of the divine council and God.
Now for another view of Job and what God is doing which counters the possible reasons given in our introduction two weeks ago.
Perhaps we and other scholars have misread the intentions of God here and we ought to give Him the benefit of the doubt for maybe God feels the need to actually respond to these allegations before the council in Jobs defense!
He has asked, “Have you considered my servant Job,” and ha Satan has attached his character saying, “he only follows you because you bless him.”
So maybe ha Satan, the prosecutor, is the one bringing a lawsuit or legal charge about Job (which is His job) and maybe YAHAVAH feels the need to vindicate Job because He is just and upright and is not there to defend himself?
But like the question about God asking questions that He already knows the answers to, why would God need to do that? He’s omniscient, right? He knows everything that Job could, would, and will do. Why doesn’t God just tell The Accuser, there in front of the counsel,
“I’m omniscient and you’re not, so I’m in a better position to know the validity or lack thereof of these charges, and I declare Job innocent of them all? So run along, little accuser?”
We tend to make God be this way but I wonder if that is a mistake.
In other words, even though God may not care what ha Satan thinks, and God knows the truth (LISTEN) perhaps the members of the divine counsel didn’t know the truth and the only way for YAHAVAH to prove Job’s character to them, and to prove the accuser false, was to have Job tested?
Remember, YAHAVAH speaks, but this does not mean anyone is forced to believe Him. He’s that good.
If the council were gods on equal par with YAHAVAH this view is lacking. But if they are created beings (which I ardently maintain that they are) they are therefore limited in knowledge and power and YAHAVAH, being just and good, will not allow Job’s robust reputation to be smeared in front of these divine sons.
Perhaps there was murmuring among the divine counsel and some supposed that ha-Satan might be right in his assessment of Job.
Remember, if these sons departed from the heavenly realm to engage with the daughters of men, they are quite capable of rebellion.
Also remember, these sons might be envious of humans devoted to YAHAVAH and perhaps they wanted to believe the worst about Job, a man created in Gods image who chose to be upright and whole before God.
So, while biblical critics of the text are correct in asserting that “God was trying to prove a point in letting Satan do all of those bad things to Job,”it may not be that God was not trying to prove anything to ha Satan (through a meaningless bet) but was instead using this situation to train/prove these lesser gods the valor of the Man Job.
In this setting, it seems possible that Job, a man of flesh but full of valor and uprightness, was somewhat of a enviable creation to these spirit beings (of which Ha Satan was a part) and like some of the angels they or some of them, wanted to see the human fail.
Perhaps there is bias or prejudice among the spirit creations of heaven against the fleshly creations of Man with Man being created in the very image of YAHAVAH Himself, and perhaps, like prejudices that exist in our world against those who are different than us, they enjoyed watching men squander their make-up when tested?
Who knows. But let’s think freely.
So, in a better light, in a more contextual light that is in harmony with the nature of God that unfolds for us in the rest of scripture, perhaps YAHAVAH was trying to win a verdict of Job’s innocence by clearing Job’s name to the divine council. And this is the way He does it?
Now, this might see like a stretch in the face of all the suffering Job undergoes, but we must remember that the value of a person’s reputation was EVERYTHING in that day and age and culture. Perhaps it is even more important in the heavenly realms.
Different cultures give different emphasis and priorities to different things. When we read Job through the eyes of the American maverick who often give a rats rear-end about what anyone thinks of them we greatly overlook the mindset of people in the east, middle east and far east when it comes to “reputation.”
Even today some feudal Japanese minded souls would rather die by what they call seppuku (suicide) than surrender or face shame. I mean, shame is an enormous factor in some cultures – truly.
I wish it was more of a factor in this country – but it’s not.
But remember that for a child to shame or dishonor parents in the Nation of Israel was punishable by death, which supports the idea that shame was worse than death to those people.
Could it be that Job, this man of extreme honor, would have embraced this suffering imposed upon him if God told him about the accusations being tossed out by ha-Satan against him?
Could it be this is why God does not warn him or give him reasons? And isn’t this what our Good God does with us – withholding and or allowing things to be and occur because HE knows what is best even when we don’t?
This is my present view of YAHAVAH, ha Satan and Job – God acted benevolently on his behalf and Job was blind to why.
Perhaps had God informed Job as to the purpose he would have manned up and invited the suffering causing ha Satan to once again accuse him of only manning up because God blesses Him. In other words, had God told Job of the setting we might have a very different tale being told where Job, like Peter and John, rejoice in the suffering they experience on His behalf?
In the end, I think that this is just as viable a reason for God to allow Ha-Satan to torment Job as to prove to the onlooking divine council that Ha-Satan was wrong and I think it is perhaps a better interpretation than this just being a bet.
So, back to this divine council, to these Sons of Elohiym?
Out the gate, it’s a biblical reality and we cannot get away from the fact that the Bible supports there being a pantheon of divine beings.
The plural term elohiym that is used to describe God upper case (and gods lower case) is used 2,249 times in the Old Testament alone.
There is absolutely no getting around this and there is no way of making these “uses” applicable only to human judges and magistrates on earth.
That said, one thing that the Ancient Israelites did is they differentiated between all other gods, evil and good, idols and not, from the One True and Living God in whom (listen) “there is no comparison.”
Accept that, and accepting deities of elohiym created by YAHAVAH is as easy as accepting that he created all the types and species of animals that thrive and dwell on earth, in the skies, in the seas and below the ground.
Same with seraphim and cherubim.
For me, the complex realities of lesser spiritual deities is just another reason to worship, with amazement, in the One True God proven by
the abundance of passages that reference them in scripture,
The multi-faceted earthly realms of creation on land, sea, air, and below
The reality of angels, demons, devils and such and finally
the validity that while there are god’s many, there is only one true and living Creator.
SHIFT
When we think about such things, isn’t this the whole rub between believers and unbelievers, idol worshippers and seekers of the One True God, of believers standing against man-made systems of doctrine and salvation that this fallen world offers – that there is YAHAVAH-God (PERIOD) and that He has allowed for, even made, lesser expressions leaving all people with the constant question of,
“Whom will I choose?”
“Whom will I serve?”
And “what will I follow, trust and believe?”
A blowing wind?
An idol on a stage?
Gold in my pocket?
My own wisdom and will?
Dark spiritual powers?
I’m gonna get radical on you here – but I think its time Yeshuan’s give some reasonable answers in OUR defense of YAHAVAH and His supremacy, goodness and love.
We have long stood by the idea that the Living God does not change. That He is a fixed fixture of pure moral light and we, His creations, are destined to wholly conform to Him and His ways of fail, lose-out and go to hell forevermore.
In and from this context and view, we fail to rightly respond, because we are not rightly equipped with the truth, to modern criticisms of Him and His ways.
A few months ago, middle of the night, I was faced with a crushing question that caused me to momentarily wonder about God and His Goodness. The question was,
“Why does God allow for children to get bone cancer and suffer incomprehensible pain and death?”
NOT ORIGINAL, I KNOW.
But if you don’t try and face such questions head-on, it’s hard to walk in genuine faith. Of course, that question is representational of all pain-filled situations we face in life, right?
Some wonder why when a brutal car accident is about to occur God doesn’t step in and cause a diversion, why doesn’t He immediately cure all illnesses, and put a stop to all suffering.
I mean, why hasn’t He at LEAST inspired scientists to create a cure for bone cancer in children.
Immediately, I deferred to the Fall and placed the blame on the first couple. But I had to admit that this answer was lacking if God knew the results of the Fall and allowed two people to introduce incomprehensible suffering into this world and He did nothing to stop it.
I then realized that the answer to pain and suffering cannot come by way of cause and effect with God and for an answer to hold any reasonable water it has got to somehow be founded in what God is – and that is love.
And here I stand against all forms of God being unchangeable and believe this:
The ONLY thing that is unchangeable in God is His constant relentless changing in reaching us out of Love.
That the very definition of His love is selfless, sacrificial and unconditional, then God, because He is love, will change courses to constantly love us – in whatever state we are in – in this world.
This does not mean He changes – but His approaches change according to us, our needs, our rebelliousness, and our situations.
This idea is unheard of in the halls of Christian tradition.
So, I went back to the creation of Man and found a fatal flaw in our explanation of that picture. Yes, God made everything good, including the first couple and He blessed them, but the flaw is in the idea that the Garden of Eden was a place of mindless inactivity, pleasures and lacked resistance – before the Fall.
Going back to our study in Genesis we recall the following passages:
Genesis 2:15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
From this we can see that before the Fall Man, for his well being, was given work to do – to dress and keep the garden he was given.
We also read God say three verses later,
Genesis 2:18 It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
From this, we often think of mans needs to have a companion for intimacy but we might also see how valuable a help-meet would be in the face of all that man was instructed to be and do.
Because remember we also read,
“And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”
Again – labors – responsibilities – dominion.
God never intended human life to be one of hollow existences of pleasure.
Quite the contrary.
So there they were – perfectly created, and unlike any other human would ever be – without sin, and they had the best launch into life two humans could ever have.
And all God seems to have wanted was for them to accept His invitation to trust in Him, love Him and have faith in Him and His ways.
Here is where the radicalness begins to take shape. This was Plan A – it was what God offered the whole human race (that consisted of only two people) and it is and was what He desired for us.
But being Good, He had to give the human race choice.
Now our LDS friends say that it was important for Adam and Eve “to Fall” because that is how children came into the world and how they learned and grew, that without opposition in all things they would never know the good.
But the Biblical narrative describes opposition in the garden before the fall.
There was God telling them not to eat of the forbidden tree. There was the command to multiply and replenish and they may or may not have understood how but in that difficulty they could have asked God.
Adam was told to “dress and keep the garden,” which implies to some extent or another decision making, labor and choice.
Finally, the Tempter gave them opposition of mind. Opposition was there. But what they could have chosen, as God walked with them in the cool of the day, was to look to Him and to Him alone. YAHAVAH. His ways, his mentorship, His will.
That, my friends, is what I am going to call, Plan A which is God’s way. It is the only way to life.
But that was not accepted by the first human couple and they chose the open alternative.
Now here is where we need to really change our narrative.
When they made that choice, most believers suggest that God turned on them, hated them, as alienated from them and all of those who came from them.
But I want to suggest that God changed out of love and only then embraced Plan B.
Was it His desired will? Heavens no. Did He want them to eat of the forbidden fruit that brough spiritual death? Heavens no!
But when they made that choice, the living God blessed them in the face of the consequences of their actions.
How?
By making this life exponentially more difficult, and painful and winding up in physical death.
Standard fare is that all such things are a curse from God, even a punishment. But I suggest that what God did in the face of the Fall was the most loving thing He could do.
See, fallen human beings, unless we are confronted with discomfort, pain, threats, fears, worry and woes, will slink back into the mud of entropy and eat bon-bons all day, living forever, as it was, in our sin.
This is why even in the Garden pre-Fall Man was given duties, decisions, dominion and to place things in subjection to his will and ways.
Imagine God giving the first couple a place where they were fed by servants, were clothed by angels, and had nothing to do!
They would become sloth-like, decadent and useless. But that is not what God did – even in Plan A. He gave Man reason, authority, duties and the option to seek Him and His will along the way. But even the first humans, perfectly made, did not want that. Most humans do not want that. We want to get knowledge our own way, knowledge that comports itself to our desires and will. Knowledge that leads to lives of luxury and happiness.
So, when Man fell, He allowed for things that challenge entropy to thrive and we live in a realm where our fears and pains motivate us to better ourselves, to save future generations and to grow in the face of pain, evil and sorrow.
If there was no pain, fear or sorrow, humanity wouldn’t get out of bed. So God, our of real love, gave us purpose for living – drives to better ourselves and condition, and desires for education, learning, and effort in order TO find a way to STOP bone-cancer in children and other evils in the world.
He never let us. He (listen) changed. Out of love. For the world. And when we rejected plan A, which was good, He allowed for Plan B – not that it is ultimate, but it is what is required because in our discomfort, in our fears, in our worries, we will work. And live up to what we were made to do – overcome, have dominion over and subdue.
We’ll stop here.
Questions/Comments/Prayer
