The supernatural world of the Bible is overflowing with spiritual beings of varied authority, job descriptions, and backgrounds. At the top of this hierarchy is Yahweh himself—Lord of lords and God of gods (Deut. 10:17). He is the creator of Heaven and earth and all that exists.
Underneath him are the little-g-gods that he created, often known in Hebrew as the beney elohim—that is, the sons of God. While this term is a bit flexible and can be used to describe all the spiritual beings of Yahweh’s heavenly family, we use it here in reference to the gods that Yahweh appointed to rule over the nations of the earth.
This scenario was not the original vision of Eden, but rather a consequence of humanity’s disobedience at the Tower of Babel. Since humanity refused to listen to the God of gods once again, Yahweh created a new paradigm and assigned his heavenly sons to guide the various nations that he had divvied up by language (Deut. 32:8). In the meantime, he focused on growing his own nation out of a man named Abraham.
Now if the gods had done their job rightly, they would have shown the humans assigned to them what Yahweh is like. But Yahweh doesn’t always trust his heavenly family (Job 15:15), and his sons are a great example of why that is. Psalm 82 tells us that these gods used their newly delegated power and authority to oppress their nations. Instead of making righteous judgments over the lives of their humans, they sided with the wicked and let them get away with injustice. Instead of rescuing the poor, marginalized, and oppressed of their nations, they overlooked them and allowed injustice to continue. Moreover, they turned against Yahweh completely, using their delegated power to combat him, as seen when the spiritual princes reigning over Persia and Greece tried to stop Yahweh’s attempts to minister to Daniel (Dan. 10:13, 20).
It’s no wonder Paul had to remind the church that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12). The cosmos is a mess. The gods have their claws in everything and we experience their unified chaos every day.
They are a part of why the poor get poorer while the rich get richer. They are a part of why we see injustice intersecting with every component of life. They are a part of why certain people face so much oppression. They are a part of why we have systems that keep the marginalized stuck. They are the false gods we turn to for false wisdom. They are the divine beings offering us a chance to eat from a different tree. They invite us to go along with the status quo, telling us that injustice isn’t really all that bad. All humans have felt their sting in some way. We are born under their reign, and we know what their leadership feels like.
Being gods, they carry out their authority from the top of society. This is all the more reason that there was no separation between state and religion in the ancient world—rather, the state was religion. Indeed, the highest politicians were often considered to be gods, and much mythology was built around their reign and personhood. From their perspective, the gods reigned through kings, emperors, and pharaohs, which is a view that John saw as reality in Revelation.
In his magnificent apocalypse, John reveals to us the national gods in the form of a dragon, a water beast, and a land beast (Rev. 13)—an unholy trinity if ever there was one. These chaotic, god-like creatures represent all the chaos the earth has to offer, and the three of them play out their chaos through state and religion. These gods are worshipped by humanity, and they symbolize the kings as well; for the kings “are of one mind, and they hand over their power and authority to the beast” (Rev. 17:13). The gods use these politicians as puppets.
These are the gods of the Tower of Babel. This ancient ziggurat bridge to heaven tried to reach out to the divine beings that lived there, and as a consequence, Yahweh allowed humanity to have their lesser gods. Yahweh’s sons are the gods of this age (2 Cor. 4:4), and so long as they exist, so will the cycle of their control. Therefore, we see Babel appear all throughout history, from Genesis to our modern times. The sons of God have centuries’ worth of tricks to ensure that the same exact cycle of injustice and oppression happens with every generation.
As I’ve led people through exorcism, I have seen the many tricks of demons. Every time I found a way to overcome one of their lies, they worked together to brainstorm a new way to communicate their lie. In one encounter I was surprised to find two demons: a master and his protege who was there to learn.
The gods and demons of Babel are crafty. They are teaching and learning. They are using the same techniques they used on others before. They have different fields of expertise and are assigned to individuals with overlapping themes and usually have specific missions they hope to carry out.
And just as we fall prey to demonic thinking in our individual lives and get ourselves wrapped up in sinful lies, thoughts, and actions, so do entire nations fall prey to the gods. From the genocide of Rwanda to Nazi Germany to American lynchings—sometimes the soul of a nation is swept up in a frenzy and we don’t acknowledge what we’ve done until it’s too late. It’s no wonder that John heard a voice from Heaven saying, “Come out of [Babylon], my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues; for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities” (Rev. 18:4-5).
We are not living in the world as it should be and that’s on us. After all, our first sin was to listen to a different god in the Garden of Eden, rather than listen to Yahweh. This chaos has only been furthered by the addition of the gods of Babel. While these gods may vary in their identities, positions, and tactics, they are unified in their mission (Mk. 3:24) and they will eat us up if we are not careful. Indeed, the church not only falls for demonic ploys, but they are often on the frontline of demonic ploys; for they make the grave mistake of confusing the beast for Jesus himself. John knew that some Christians would do this when he recognized that the land beast tried to masquerade itself as a lamb, even though it spoke like a dragon (Rev. 13:11). Proponents of Christian nationalism flock to such beasts, thinking that a few sacrifices to it may bring about Christian victory.
Meanwhile, the true lamb of Jesus hobbles over to us through a pool of his own blood, inviting us to try a different way. Sure, his way might get us killed, but there’s no dragon worship involved. Moreover, Jesus tells us that the victory we’ve been looking for all along isn’t found in reigning over others with the gods, but it’s found in the lowliness of martyrdom. For in Jesus’ upside-down, topsy-turvy way of doing things, to die on behalf of Christ at the claws of the gods is actually how we conquer the gods (Rev. 12:11). We have to relearn everything.
The age of the sons of God is a dark age to live in, that’s for sure. We are born into their reign, we get tangled up in their culture, and we fall prey to their political leaders whenever they decide to copy the false gods in their thinking. Everything feels out of our control and so we put up with their injustice, feeling hopeless to make any real change to the system. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, and we gather that the only way we’re ever going to get anywhere is by either joining the beasts or by trying to overthrow them with beast-like tactics, effectively replacing the beast with another beast and reinvigorating the reign of the gods.
If we are to come out of Babel; if we are to break free of the grip of the sons of God; if we are to impact society in a Christ-centered kind of way, then we can neither go along with the flow of everyday life, nor can we find a muddled middle. We must go a different route completely.
Jamin Bradley 
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