Troublesome TopicWHO IS JESUS?

Heiser causes confusion about the person and qualities of Jesus.

He sends a mixed message. Let me remind you that when someone sends a mixed message, the recipient will choose the option he likes best.

He tries 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, Jesus is presented as the same as Yahweh.

Page 312 believers in Jesus will exercise dominion with Jesus among the holy ones.

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.

For instance, on page 315 Heiser says that Jesus is the “lone divine son who deserves worship.” There are two problems there. Heiser thinks there are other divine sons, and that Jesus is like them, yet somehow different. Does he think Jesus was created? I don’t know because he doesn’t say. Does he deny that Jesus has always existed? He hints toward such a denial but is careful to not say it plainly.

Michael Heiser is muddle-headed when it comes 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 is squishy and causes confusion about the person and attributes of Jesus Christ.

On page 336 Heiser says that Peter “assumes that the great flood of Genesis 6-8, especially the sons of God event in Genesis 6:1-4, typified or foreshadowed the gospel and the resurrection. For Peter these events were commemorated during baptism.” Really? Baptism is about the Nephilim? I always thought baptism represented atonement and a change from being spiritually dead to being alive in Christ. He goes on to explain his view of Peter’s use of “spirits in prison” in I Peter 3:19 as support for his earlier statement.

Go to footnote number

And he ends that section by saying that New Testament baptism is “a loyalty oath, a public avowal to who is on the Lord’s side in this cosmic war between good and evil… it is a visceral reminder to the defeated fallen angels. Every baptism is a reiteration of their doom in the wake of the gospel and the kingdom of God.”

I agree that we are in a spiritual battle. But Heiser makes 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 must relate to Genesis 6, not an event before man was put in the garden of Eden. He tries to make everything about the Nephilim and the other gods of the divine council.

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

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

Footnotes

1

See my translation and paraphrase of I Peter 3:17-22 in the last section of this study on Nephilim; it is called: My Translation and Paraphrase of RElevant Passages.