Troublesome Topic: JESUS IS ABOVE NATURE; THE NEPHILIM WERE PART OF NATURE

When I started reading Charlie Kirk’s book called Stop in the Name of God, I found something that relates to the topic of the Nephilim. His first chapter takes a careful look at Genesis 1:1 and explains several foundational principles that can be drawn from it. I will highlight one of those principles by sharing several quotes from Charlie’s book.

These quotes come from the section describing the concept that God is outside of nature.

In ancient times, deities were “entwined with nature…. They did not create nature, they were nature, or at least embedded within its cycles and phenomena” (p. 9). Examples can be found in the gods of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and India (p. 9). “Morality, insofar as it existed, was subordinated to appeasing these capricious forces rather than conforming to a coherent moral law (pp. 9,10). “God is not part of the created order, he is its architect, lawgiver and sustainer” (p. 10).

“When the universe is … governed … by a moral and personal God, ethics can be grounded in absolute truth rather than arbitrary ritual” (p. 11).

God is distinct from creation, “yet lovingly involved. Nature is not divine, but it is sacred – sacred because God made it” (p. 14).

“The God who is outside of nature is also the God who enters history … as a person” (pp14,15). “The God who forged the cosmos also bends low to enter covenant with humanity.” P 11

“That God is outside of Nature … is the antidote to a lonely and disenchanted age. It means that the universe has a moral center, that life has meaning, and that you are not alone”…. He “calls you by name.” p. 15

Now here are my comments about the issue of Jesus being part of the Godhead and thus being above nature, and how that relates to the teaching of Michael Heiser in his book Unseen Realm.

One cannot reduce Jesus to part of creation, as if He were a created being, like other supposed gods of a council of gods, without destroying the uniqueness of the Bible and Christianity.

He was involved in creation and is the sovereign Lord over it (God the Father and God the Son are both called the Lord over all things).

Jesus is not one of the gods of a council of gods. He is not one among many. Jesus is part of the Godhead, outside of nature. He does not act like the capricious gods of ancient times.

Jesus is not one of many image bearers of God, (“imagers” as Heiser was fond of saying) because Jesus was not created; Jesus is God, part of the trinity. He is not just more powerful than other gods, He is God, one with the Father and the Spirit, and there are no other gods.

In his book, Unseen Realm, Michael Heiser gave a muddied, fuzzy picture of Jesus. The book tries to keep everyone happy by saying Jesus was special among the gods of the council of gods, but also implying that Jesus was like the other gods of the council, who were created. He was careful to not say the last part openly in his first book, but it is strongly implied by the other things he wrote about Jesus. On page 315 of his book, Heiser wrote that Jesus was “uncreated”, but he did not consistently communicate that truth in the rest of his book; instead, he strongly implied that Jesus was created.

This is one of various ways in which Heiser was trying have it both ways; he wanted to present a totally different way of understanding the Bible, while telling Christians to not freak out because it was not that different. From the introduction till the Epilogue, Heiser played that game.

However, by changing what the Bible clearly teaches about Jesus, Heiser placed himself outside of Christianity, despite his claims to be within the circle of Christian thought. The softest way to say it is that Heiser caused confusion and planted doubt in the minds of his readers about the person of Jesus; the harshest way to say it is that he tried to change Christianity into a pagan religion while telling readers his book would not “overturn the important applecarts of Christian doctrine” (page 13). That is a huge problem.

The questions that set Christianity apart for everything else are: Who is Jesus? and What has He done? If the answer to those questions come from pagan religions rather than from the Bible, we are no longer talking about Christianity. Heiser’s answers always came from pagan religions.

After that, our personal question should be, “What have I done with Jesus? Have I followed Him or rejected Him?” But what I do with Jesus depends largely on who I think Jesus is.

Why did Heiser feel the need to write the part about not overturning important applecarts of Christian doctrine? Because in the six years of research and writing required to create Unseen Realm, he had experienced considerable resistance from other Christians. Was their pushback warranted? YES! The level of change he was suggesting definitely warranted pushback. The new (yet old) worldview he proposed does indeed overturn all the important applecarts of Christian doctrine, despite his claims to the contrary.

Michael Heiser left the door open for us to follow other gods at the same time as following Jesus, although he said those other gods will be vanquished in the end. If Jesus is one among many, why not worship more than one?

Michael Heiser did not teach that Jesus was the Creator in human flesh. Therefore, when Jesus died on the cross, according to Heiser, it was not God Himself taking our place, but a fellow created being. The power of the cross and resurrection lie in the staggering reality that the only sacrifice that would suffice to satisfy the wrath of a holy God was for God Himself to take our place on that cross.

Unseen Realm also teaches that we will be gods someday, in fact some humans achieve god-status while in this life. Moses and John the Baptist were called to minister to the people as God’s representatives, therefore, Heiser said that they were included among the council of gods.  Those of our era who are called to minister to the people by being God’s representative (think full-time ministers), are also gods in this life; they don’t need to wait. (Actually, all of us are called to represent God before others, but Heiser placed the moment of becoming a god at some point after death for most Christians.) If we are or will be gods and part of the council of gods, and if Jesus was and is part of the council of gods (possibly created, possibly uncreated), the result is one of two possibilities, we are raised up to the same level as Jesus, or Jesus is brought down to our level. Both of those options are utterly, unequivocally unbiblical!

I hope you can see that the confusion caused by what Michael Heiser wrote about Jesus has deeply troubling consequences. Either Jesus is part of the trinity or He is not. Either Jesus is outside of nature and above nature, or He is part of nature. Either Jesus is Lord over creation along with God the Father, or He is not. Either Jesus is the Co-Creator, or He was created and is just another created being. Dr. Heiser consistently presented two opposing ideas and yet he expected his readers to swallow what he wrote without questions.