Troublesome Topic: REGARDING THE RULE OF THE NEPHILIM OVER THE NATIONS

Pg. 115  “those disinherited nations would be in spiritual bondage to the corrupt sons of God.”

Pg. 328  the nations [were] under the lesser Elohim

Pg 332 Angels are on a lower level than those who rule over geographic areas. Heiser says that all divine beings (except YHVH) are the same species, but some have higher rank than others. He takes that to mean that angels, demons, and lesser Elohim are all created by God and are his imagers.

Pg 343  to be expelled from the church was to be thrust into the realm of Satan.  (What does this mean regarding sin?)

REBUTTAL

Psalm 22:28 says, “dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations.”

Joshua 3:11 calls the God of Israel “the Lord of all the earth”.

How many Nephilim were there and how many demons are there? If the first instance of “angels” coming to earth was shortly before the flood, and if there were only 200 angels that came down to mount Hermon (per 1 Enoch) then they would have had time to create only one generation of Nephilim before the flood. They could have procreated with many women (supposedly) but still, how many children can 200 have in one generation, compared to the supposed number of demons in existence today? (We don’t know the number of demons, but we suspect it is a very large number, because the angels that remained loyal to God made up 2/3 of the original total, while those that rebelled and became demons made up 1/3 of the original total). But after the flood it supposedly happened again and more Nephilim were born. While Anakites and Rephaim were mentioned several times after the flood and the number of them was significant enough to be a threat to people because of their size, there was not a great number of them. Not millions or billions of them. My point here is that the number of Nephilim possible does not seem to match the number of demons implied by the Bible. Therefore, the origin story which claims that the demons came from the Nephilim when they died does not seem to match the numbers of demons implied in the Bible.

Everything about this theory of disinherited nations is based only on assumptions and a twisting of what the Bible says.

The biggest problem with these statements is their impact on the doctrine of sin. What exactly is meant by “causing trouble and being a threat to humans” (pg 328)? Heiser speaks of the spirits of the Nephilim in regard to rule and governance more than tempting and deceiving. What does that look like in real life? Is man forced to do evil? Can we help being sinful if we are being ruled by evil spirits? Michael Heiser never makes those things clear.

I will cover the cause of sin in the next set of lessons.

For the next lesson go to WHAT IS HE LORD OVER AND WHAT ARE THEY LORD OVER?