Judging Angels

In today’s podcast Paul rhetorically asks, “Do you not know that we are to judge angels?”—as though we would nod our heads in agreement and understanding. But truthfully, most of us would put our hands up and respond, “Actually, Paul, we don’t know what you’re talking about.”

To understand what the apostle is saying, we have to get our head into his world and understand the spiritual mindset he lived in. Jamin works off of Michael Heiser’s book, The Unseen Realm, in order to establish the Bible’s picture of a divine council and give some backing to Paul’s incredible statement. As it ends up, he does have a context and the Bible gives us the ability to understand what he’s getting at.

Ultimately, once we understand the divine council, we start to see that Christians will one day take their place among God’s new council to render judgments with Jesus.

NOTE: I mention in this message that Satan fell at the same time as Adam and Eve based on Ezekiel 28:11-19. I was wrong to imply that this assumption is there. The truth is that we don’t know when he fell. My message offers the possibility that it happened in Eden, but we don’t need to opt for that. However, regardless of when he fell, some scholars do still wonder if Satan was on the divine council before he fell. For example, in one interview Greg Boyd said he had “no reason to think that Lucifer was not part of the Divine Council prior to his fall” (Question 6).

Check out the audio of this message on 1208GREENWOOD’s webpage or simply subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. (If the episode is not there when you check the podcast feed, subscribe to the podcast on Apple’s podcast app and it will show up soon.)

Want to learn more about this complicated subject? Here’s a few books to check out from intelligent Bible scholars you can trust:

• The Unseen Realm by Michael S. Heiser
• Supernatural by Michael S. Heiser
• Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament by John H. Walton
• Old Testament Theology for Christians by John H. Walton
• The Crucifixion of the Warrior God by Gregory Boyd (Namely Part VI in Vol 2: The Principle of Cosmic Conflict)
• God at War by Gregory Boyd