Troublesome Topic: MICHAEL HEISER CAUSED CONFUSION ABOUT WHO JESUS IS

Michael Heiser caused confusion about the person and qualities of Jesus. He sent a mixed message. Let me remind you that when someone sends a mixed message, the recipient will choose the option he likes best.

On page 25 Heiser stated “the sons of God are real, divine entities created by Yahweh, the God of Israel… God has created a host of nonhuman divine beings whose domain is the unseen realm. And because he created them, he claims them as his sons.”

On pages 36 and 37 Heiser tried to lift Jesus up as special among the sons of God, and yet he is one of the sons of God. On the other hand, Heiser identified Jesus with Yahweh.

Page 312 believers in Jesus will exercise dominion with Jesus among the holy ones (the council of gods).

The biggest problem is not with what Heiser says about Jesus, but what he says about other Elohim, members of God’s council. By raising others up to the level of “gods” and ascribing to them the terms that are sometimes used of Jesus, it cheapens anything that can be said about Jesus.

In the early stages of the book, The Unseen Realm, Heiser indicated that there are other divine sons, and that Jesus is like them, yet somehow different. Did he think Jesus was created? That seems to be implied until one gets to page 315, where Heiser wrote, “Jesus is the lone divine son who deserves worship because he is the uncreated essence of Yahweh in a human body, now resurrected from death.” Heiser was smart and he knew what to say to keep evangelical Christians happy, while at the same time planting doubt in the minds of his readers. On page 315 he said the right thing, sort of, but the overall picture of Jesus presented in this book is different enough that I cannot accept it. In some ways it sounds like the same Jesus I know, but in other ways it is a different Jesus. It’s very confusing.

On Page 316 Heiser compared Jesus to angels and pointed out that “Jesus inherits rulership and dominion, angels do not.” But if you have read all of Heiser’s book, you should remember how often he makes the point that the members of God’s council were given rulership and dominion over the nations. Even though Jesus will ultimately receive all dominion and all power to rule, the fact that other members of the council were once given rulership and dominion implies that one of them could have received all dominion and rulership if they had played their cards differently. This cheapens our view of Jesus. For Heiser to say that Jesus is above the angels means nothing because he believes that all the members of the council of “gods” were more powerful than angels.

I agree that we are in a spiritual battle. But Heiser made the entire salvation issue about the rebellious members of God’s council. In I Peter chapter 3 Peter was talking about suffering persecution gladly, even as Jesus did. For Heiser every mention of fallen angels had to relate to Genesis 6, not an event before man was put in the garden of Eden. He tried to make everything about the Nephilim and other “gods” of the divine council.

Even though Jesus became human so he could die a substitutionary death for humans, Heiser wanted us to believe that salvation is really about the Nephilim, for whom Jesus could not die a substitutionary death because He was not like them!

Michael Heiser was muddle-headed when it came to Jesus Christ. That is a big problem because, if you change major points about Jesus, you’ve changed Christianity into something else. Notice the name Christianity has Christ in it. Jesus Christ is central to everything we believe. One of the reasons I have come up with a different name for Michail Heiser’s worldview is that he was squishy and caused confusion about the person and attributes of Jesus Christ.

The next lesson in this series is WILL HUMANITY BECOME DIVINE?