Troublesome Topic: THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING

In the first chapter of Unseen Realm, Michael Heiser says the method of interpretation he is proposing “won’t overturn the important apple carts of Christian doctrine” (pg 13), but two paragraphs later he says “it informs every significant Bible doctrine in significant ways” (pg 13) and “you’ll never be able to look at your Bible the same way again” (pg 13).

His book does change every major teaching of the Bible and every major area of Christian theology. That does overturn all the important apple cart of Christian doctrine.

The book Unseen Realm makes important changes in the following:

The study of God (Theology)

The study of man (Anthropology

The study of sin (Hamartiology)

The study of Jesus (Christology)

The study of salvation (Soteriology)

The study of the Holy Spirit and other spirits (Pneumatology)

The study of the church (Ecclesiology)

The study of the end of the ages (Eschatology)

A MORE DETAILED LIST OF THE TOPICS THAT HEISER CHANGES

THEOLOGY – THE STUDY OF GOD

THE CHARACTER OF GOD

Who is God and what is He like? What does He demand of us? These are foundational questions. The Bible is God’s way of telling us about Himself. If we change what the Bible says about God’s character, we have changed Christianity. Heiser presents a different picture of who God is.

Telling all the nations other than Israel to go serve other gods is out of character for the God presented in the Bible.

Michael Heiser says that the goal of the conquest of Canaan was to eliminate the giants, and all the non-giants who were wiped out in the process were simply “in the wrong place at the wrong time” (page 209). That is out of character with God who told Abram that He had to wait till the sin of the Amorites living there had reached its full level before he punished them and removed them from the land. All the people there were wicked, not just the giants. Waiting till punishment is truly warranted is what God is like.

IS GOD SOVEREIGN OR NOT?

Allowing demons to give Him council and listening to demons is out of character for the God revealed to us in the Bible.

A God who is obliged to share His authority and glory with lesser gods simply because they are supposedly His children does not square with the Bible.

The Bible presents God as being the only one and having no rivals; Michael Heiser presents God as being one God among many, albeit, He is the most powerful among them.

In the Bible, God demands to be worshipped as the only true God. If He were one god among many gods, those demands would have no foundation.

Therefore, we must find a nonliteral way to interpret passages that mention a council of gods. I take those passages to mean that God and His inspired writers, were telling the people that even those entities which they thought had power, were nothing; the Creator God we follow has much more power than you imagine those other gods to have. This does not validate those other gods, it shows how great our God is.

THE SOURCE OF ALL TRUTH

God is the source of all truth. If you want truth you should go to what He said, and fortunately, He has left us a written account of what He wants us to believe. Heiser’s view of the Nephilim and the Council of the gods presents a totally different worldview with its accompanying assumptions, however, all of it lacks foundation; it is built on a reliance on pagan religions and a reinterpreting of many passages in the Bible. If you have read Heiser’s book, Unseen Realm, you know that there are many passages of the Bible that he has reinterpreted to fit his proposed worldview. He makes his interpretation sound right or at least plausible, but he is usually forcing a square peg through a round hole which shaves off the corners and makes it a round peg. If God’s word is true, we should not introduce a pagan worldview into it; we cannot mix truth and falsehood and still claim it is truth.

ANTHROPOLOGY – THE STUDY OF MAN

WHO WE ARE AS HUMANS

One of the big problems with believing that the Nephilim came from a sexual union between angels and human women, is that it violates God’s order in creation where everything reproduces according to its kind. No option exists outside of His order. To accommodate the Enochic view of the Nephilim, one would have to remove from the Bible all references to reproduction according to their kind. What’s more, one would also hvae to interpret Genesis 6:2&4 in a very narrow way, while excluding other more viable options. Heiser makes you think he is listing all the options, but he is not. By avoiding the best option, he is making his interpretation sound more acceptable.

HAMARTIOLOGY – THE STUDY OF SIN

CULPABILITY FOR SIN (GUILTINESS)

            God holds humans guilty. See passages like Exekiel 33, Romans 1:18-32, James 1:14-15.

            The guilt of the Nephilim in causing mankind or the nations to become corrupt is never mentioned specifically in the Bible.

            The role of the Nephilim in leading all humans astray is never mentioned in the Bible – if it were a key point, it would have been explained and then referred to many times.

There is also the question of whether we are free to choose sin, or if we are forced to sin by the spirits of the Nephilim who rule over us. Heiser only hints at how much control the evil spirits actually have over the nations and what that looks like. However, his heavy reliance on the books of Enoch lead us to believe that he adheres to everything, or almost everything, in them, including stuff about the Nephilim or their spirits being the ones who caused corruptions and taught the humans new ways to sin. This brings up questions about man’s level of accountability and guilt.

GOD’S PUNISHMENT OF WRONGDOING

            Genesis 6 says God was preparing to punish humans for their wickedness, not just Nephilim.

            All the punishments or judgements of God in the past would make no sense if it is the Nephilim’s fault that we sin.

            All the prophecies about punishment of evil in the future, including the final judgement, would be untrustworthy.

CHRISTOLOGY – THE STUDY OF JESUS

THE DIVINITY OF JESUS

If Jesus had not claimed to be God, the religious leaders of His day would not have opposed Him, they would have simply said, “OK, prove you are the Messiah.” Heiser is not clear about his views on Jesus, but his book seems to bring Jesus down very close to the same level of the other divine members of God’s Council, which includes demons. He seems to think that Jesus was created by the Creator God just like the other members of the council.

That is precisely the type of thing the early church fathers called heresy!

If you change who and what Jesus Christ is, you have changed Christianity into something else.

SOTERIOLOGY – THE STUDY OF SALVATION

GOD’S OFFER OF ATONEMENT AND RECONCILIATION,

If the Nephilim are the reason for our sinful habits, then God’s offer of redemption from sin means nothing or is so weak that it is unhelpful.

THE BENEFITS OF FOLLOWING GOD AND LIVING IN CLOSE RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

All these are ruined by the Nephilim if they can cause us to sin at will, or can enslave us in certain types of sin, or control all powerful leaders on earth.

SATAN

Why should we watch out for Satan’s deceit and temptations if the Nephilim are the real problem?

THE PRESENCE OF SIN AND EVIL BEFORE THE NEPHILIM WERE BORN

If the rule of the spirits of the Nephilim over the nations caused them to become corrupt, i.e. if the Nephilim are the source of sin, there would have been no sin prior to their arrival, which happened hundreds of years after Eden.

MICHAEL HEISER ON SALVATION

Heiser tries to make his theory fit within the framework of Biblical salvation, but he changes far too many things. He uses the same terminology we do some of the time but points a totally different direction the rest of the time. If you change who man is, what sin is, and who Jesus is, you have also changed what salvation is. Heiser does all those things.

PNEUMATOLOGY – THE STUDY OF SPIRIT

Heiser’s book significantly changes the Christian perspective on the spirit world by adding a few other categories, ones drawn from pagan mythology. This has a negative influence on how we see the Holy Spirit of God because it muddies the waters. In Heiser’s book we see the members of the divine council doing a number of things that I always thought the Holy Spirit did. Maybe my “problem” was that I was basing my viewpoint on what we see in the Bible rather than on pagan mythology.

It also changes how we view ourselves. Heiser places all the emphasis on the supernatural spirit realm and ignores the fact that man is made up of body, soul and spirit. Because we are spirit beings with a physical body, we can have a direct connection to our Creator. But for Heiser, the word spiritual means the council of the gods, not a connection between man and God. He then says that we will become like the members of the council of gods – we will become divine. The Bible does not teach this; it comes from pagan mythology like most of Heiser’s other ideas.

ECCLESIOLOGY- THE STUDY OF THE CHURCH

Instead of describing the church as the New Testament does, Heiser describes the church as the new physical meeting place of the council of the gods. The Bible’s emphasis is not on the physical location where the body of Christ meets; it is entirely on the spiritual dynamics involved.

He also says that anyone who has been called by God and commissioned by God has been ushered into the council of gods. They are now quasi-divine. Does that mean that God has to listen to those people and consider their council? According to Heiser, yes. He has significantly changed the nature of the church and its leaders.

ESCHATOLOGY AND THE END OF THE AGES

Heiser makes the end of the story more about the defeat of the rebellious members of the divine council than he does about the reward of the faithful followers of Jesus. He also states that all God’s faithful followers will become divine and part of God’s divine council. Heiser has changed everything in the Bible, from beginning to end.

SUMMARY

If you change all that stuff in the Bible, you no longer have the Bible. If you choose to believe the set of ideas about the Nephilim, the council of the Gods and the Book of Enoch which Michael Heiser puts forth, you have changed everything so radically that you have stepped outside of the realm of the Christian faith and are now following a different religion altogether. It may not have a formal name yet, but it is indeed a different religion; it is no longer Christian, and it does not rely on the Bible as its Holy Book. It relies more on 1 Enoch than any other book.

If you have taken that step, I urge you to turn back to the source of all truth. Study God’s own words about Himself as found in the Bible. Stop reading Heiser’s reinterpreting of every passage to mean a council of gods; he will make his view sound convincing, but there is always more to the picture that he does not show you. Instead, read the Bible for itself using many of the study resources that are available to us today.

The next lesson is called YOU MUST CHOOSE WHICH ONE TO BELIEVE,  YOU CANNOT MIX THE TWO.