Spiritual Beings
298 | Geektober | “Stuck on the Witch of Endor”
Peer Into the Spiritual Realm
Grab your nerd glasses — Geektober is officially here! We're kicking off our annual monthlong deep dive by pulling back the curtain on the unseen realm to ask: what's the deal with spiritual beings? From angels and demons to cherubim, seraphim, watchers, and the divine council, why does the Bible give us so many mysterious names without handing us an official field guide? How can the Hebrew word Elohim describe both the Creator of the universe and the departed prophet Samuel conjured by the Witch of Endor? Why did Jesus disarm cosmic principalities at the cross like a TSA security checkpoint? And what does a massive unseen war have to do with losing your patience in the grocery checkout line? Join us as we break out our three sorting questions — allegiance, rank, and function — to make sense of the unseen realm and marvel at the King who rules over it all!
Takeaways
The Big Idea: Scripture unveils the spiritual realm but its emphasis is Christ‘s supremacy over all of them.
This Week's Challenge: Read Colossians 1:15-20 this week and let its picture of Jesus reshape how you think about everything — visible and invisible.
Helpful Links
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Welcome to Geektober
Bryan: I got stuck on the witch of Endor and suddenly in the conversation about like star Wars and like force
ghosts. we need to like probably move forward here, but, uh, I I'm totally with you. hello everyone and welcome to the Bible Geeks podcast. I'm Bryan Scheele
Ryan: I'm Ryan Joy.
Bryan: and thanks so much everyone for tuning in. You know there are angels and demons, cherubim, seraphim, sons of God, watchers, princes, rulers, authorities, powers, you know, the Bible occasionally pulls back the curtain on a huge unseen world and it turns out
there's a lot happening out there beyond our sight.
Ryan: So, what exactly are we looking at? For Geektober, we're asking, what's the deal with spiritual beings? We'll follow some of the Bible's clues and see if we can make a little more sense of this unseen world and embrace some of the mystery that remains.
Bryan: Ryan, welcome to Geektober.
Ryan: We're here. Look around. It's so geeky in this place.
Bryan: man.
Fall Vibes and Nerd Mode
Bryan: I just have to say, first of all, being in a place like Indiana that actually has seasons, one of them being fall, which I've not really experienced before. It's not really in like full effect yet, but boy, I'm so ready for fall. So ready
Ryan: already.
Bryan: yes, like crispy mornings, like excited to experience all of the sweater weather and everything else. But, you know, whether or not you are experiencing different weather, hopefully you are experiencing a change in tone in our episodes because we're getting super nerdy. Geektober is not not the place for the faint of heart, although we're not like, I don't know, I wouldn't say we're like too off the off the deep end here. It is funny, though, like so many of these conversations. It feels to me like your playground to really build and play and expand on some things that you've been thinking about. Specifically, you put together a little PDF about spiritual beings and sent it to a few of us. And I have it pulled up right now and I'm looking through it and it's like seems to be your jam. So I would appreciate you grabbing the wheel and driving on this episode.
Why Study Spiritual Beings
Ryan: Well, it was actually my wife, probably six months ago, she just kept bringing up these different topics about angels and, you know, the powers and just different spiritual beings and that realm. And finally I was like, she was starting conversations that I was not prepared for. And so I was like, okay, I think I gotta get my brain around this if I'm gonna have these conversations. And then, you know, it's not the kind of thing that you preach sermons on or get heavy into with a full Bible class, but we've been having these little short classes at the end of our summer.
And so one of them we did on spiritual beings, and it was way more than should have been one class, probably, but it was like drinking from the fire hose.
Bryan: this episode will be way more than can fit in one episode. But
Ryan: yes, we've tried to cut it back to just, we'll see what shows up here in this conversation. But what we want to get into is thinking about that realm beyond our sight of, you know, the thing we think about most is angels, of course, then we think about Satan, but then there's all of these other beings.
Our Mental Images
Ryan: And I wanted to ask you what you, before you studied this topic, what was your mental image of the spiritual world?
What, you know, even growing up, you know, what did you think of when you thought of that picture, kind of like Elisha's servant, you know, if you could have, yeah, you're, yeah,
Bryan: that's well, I mean, you stole my you stole my example there. Like the story of Elisha's servant is probably the most vivid imagery that I have preloaded in my brain about what is going on. Like, you know, maybe growing up, it was like, okay, well, as like the angels desire to look into these things, and you kind of like, imagine them up there in the sky, kind of peering down through a little porthole in the in the clouds, like looking down into whatever's going on down here. And then you start thinking about angels and spiritual beings and chariots of fire and who knows whatever else, like happening in some dimension just past our vision, kind of like among us, but not really visible. And so that story from Elisha really stands out as being like, if I could only see what's going on behind this curtain, then it would be clear that there's some great battle going on and God is winning. And, but I don't know, I mean, there's probably growing up, it's evolved over time. And I don't know that anything is really accurate as as the Bible would paint it, which is, by the way, can we just start in a conversation here as we talk about this? Like if the Bible wanted us to be like overly up to speed on this topic, like don't you imagine there would be a section in someone's writing that would just tell us like, and here's the breakdown of all, like we have to kind of intuit from a lot of passages throughout scripture what might be going on. And it is like, it does feel like a mystery.
So for me to not really have a solid understanding of it or conception of it, it's probably not like out of the ordinary for most people. Cause it's not really like contained in one, one single description somewhere.
Avoiding Weird Obsession
Ryan: Yeah, I think that stumbles onto maybe one of the, like the balance that we want to strike here of, there's some things, the secret things belong to God, right? Deuteronomy 29, 29. And there's some things we don't want to get, like some people, whenever they find something mysterious and strange, they just obsess over it and it becomes kind of this fascination and that's not where we want to live.
We
Bryan: weird soapbox that they always return to.
Ryan: a, yeah, yeah. A soapbox or like almost a hobby, you know, like, oh, this is so interesting. You know, it's like people get with numerology or like Da Vinci code type stuff, you know, like it can become, people want to
Bryan: not what Geektober is.
Ryan: That is not what this is. But what we want to do is look to what the Bible actually does say, which you can start to think there's not that much, but actually there's a ton that's revealed about it.
It's just, we don't have all the answers, just like almost every subject. We don't have all the answers we would want and we accept that, but we have a lot. Like the Bible talks about all of these beings, a whole lot and wants us to know and recognize there is a world beyond our sight and wants us to have the information that God has revealed in our, the imagination, I guess, of faith, like our awareness of what we see beyond our sight through the eyes of faith and through revelation.
And so, yeah, I mean, I think back to a time when maybe on the one hand, there were times when I thought, well, there aren't those beings anymore. You know, we're past the age where there were, as if like angels and other spiritual beings ceased to exist or something, or like you said, they're just up in heaven worshiping God and not involved in life anymore. And the Bible paints a different picture than that. But at the same time, maybe my imagination at times as a child could get, you know, ahead of me or I'd let the cartoons or whatever
Bryan: Oh, pop culture.
Ryan: yeah, kind of inform that.
So maybe we could just start with a broad question of what's the deal with spiritual beings and start to explore what is out there, what the Bible talks about, and then
What's the Deal With Spiritual Beings?
Ryan: go from there.
Bryan: Okay. So we're not talking about Aquaman, but we are talking about spiritual beings. What is the deal with spiritual beings? Who is out there? I mean, I guess we're like, is this the menu of available possible spiritual beings we're going to, we're going to drive through here.
Ryan: Sure. Yeah, let's talk about what the Bible talks about as words, as images.
What do you think of when you think of different spiritual beings, groups, terms from scripture?
Bryan: Okay. So, um, definitely was thinking about the obvious, um, Satan, the Satan, the, the adversary. Okay. So, uh, the big dog, um, then obviously like right or right alongside that are angels, um, which we talked about last season or the season before that, I forget now, uh, we talked about recently angels. Uh, so we won't get into probably a lot there, but,
there are a lot of scriptures talking about potential other beings. Um, what about like seraphim and, um, generically are like Elohim generically referring to like, uh, I don't know if, are those like, yeah, spiritual beings, let's just call them that. Um, those are the ones I can think of. And then we brought up, uh, Joshua 5, um,
Ryan: Last week,
Bryan: last week. Um, so yeah, I mean that probably not, definitely not an exhaustive list. Kind of break it down for me then.
Ryan: mm-hmm, yeah. You think of the fallen angels, you talked about angels. There's like the fallen angels, demons. You think about, you brought up seraphim with them. There's the cherubim and the four living creatures you see in Revelation.
Those kind of seem to go together.
But yeah, so now you gave a pretty good list that the sons of God is another term, divine counsel.
Bryan: yes. Sons of God. Huge. Now divine, divine counsel, where does, where does that pop up again? Remind me.
Ryan: so Psalm 82,
Bryan: Okay.
Ryan: God has taken his place in the divine counsel in the midst of the gods. He holds judgment and then it goes on to talk about this idea of the sons of the most high in verse six. And so that's one term that we see. Maybe Psalm 89 also talks about some of this.
Bryan: Okay.
Ryan: Yeah, so these are terms that we see. Of course, let me just say, God doesn't need any advisors. He chooses to partner with people like us and with other creations that he, Father, Son, and Spirit have made.
But yeah, so there's this whole world of spiritual beings I think is the main thing I was thinking we could take from this little brainstorm we just had of ideas and words and still not exhaustive and not necessarily saying all of these are different kinds of spiritual beings. What we start to see is these different names tell us different things, right? We even have specific names of angels like Michael and Gabriel, right?
Those are the only two. But Michael is referred to as an archangel. And so what does that mean? And so maybe this all leads us to want to start sorting it out a little bit, you know? Start making some sense of not just a cloud of names, but what are we supposed to take from some of these words? What can we make sense of by building, not really a definitive taxonomy of here's where everybody goes and these are the different types of beings, but these different words are meant to tell us different things.
Three Sorting Questions
Ryan: And so I have three different categories, three different questions to ask around allegiance and rank and function as in like what side are they on and what position do they have and what's their job description basically. And if we ask those three questions, that whenever I was starting to a few months ago, think through this and try to be able to engage with my wife in a more informed way, I just started thinking in terms of those categories and it helped me sort of create a sorting that I think is biblical and helps us not go beyond what's written.
Bryan: basically when you come to one of these names, when you come to one of these spiritual beings, whether they are real or just a reference to some false something or other, um, in scripture, you're trying to get to like, just generically, how should we feel about them? What, what category do they fit in? Um, so when you talk about allegiance, it's very much like who, which side are they on that? That seems clear to me. Rank is like a, maybe a stickier one and it might not apply to everybody possibly, but like some of them where we know that there was like a pecking order there. and then function is probably maybe the most important one, uh, in terms of like practically why they're used or why they're referenced in scripture. so yeah, I think that makes sense. So we, we can kind of like break down some of these spiritual beings in this way. Um, this might be more like if, if we had like a visual representation of this, this might be more helpful. Um, but yeah, I think, I think this makes sense. So words matter, names matter, understanding who these spiritual beings are. That's kind of where you're headed, right?
Ryan: Right, and maybe it would be helpful if I go ahead and make a graphic that I can put on a blog for us or something. I can think through how that would all work, but we'll put an associated blog post with this episode that you can find in the show notes.
Allegiance Good vs Evil
Ryan: But let's start with allegiance, okay, or what side they're on.
So if you just sort it, sort all of these beings right down the middle, what ones do you think of on the bad side and the good side? Right,
Bryan: Well, clearly the, the, the serpent, the adversary, um, Satan would, would definitely be on the bad side. Uh, that's obvious.
Demons would definitely be on the bad side. Although it's interesting how much the demons know about Jesus, um, and even Jesus's servants, uh, the apostles, Paul specifically. Um, so they're, they're, they
Ryan: tremble, as James says, but they are not loyal to the Lord and they are opposing him. They're associated in the Gospels with Satan.
Bryan: Yeah.
Ryan: They are, you know, Jesus is opposing, and really, when he shows up, I mean, this is, I think, why the demons all of a sudden are everywhere in the time of Jesus and the apostles.
There's this declaration happening, really, that the kingdom of God has come. The kingdom of God is coming among us. The domain of God and God's power is showing up in the world in the person of Jesus and then in his church as the apostles are bringing these signs to confirm the word and show the presence of God. And I think you can go back to the prophets, Zechariah 12, and these pictures of the, that Jesus is going to cast the unclean spirit out of the land.
And so there is something important happening, and they, these demons, recognize who Jesus is, even though they oppose him. And that gives Jesus the opportunity to bring his life, his power to bear in the world, even in his incarnation.
Bryan: Okay. So, I mean, that's helpful in terms of, of sort of the demons showing up. Cause it does feel like suddenly, suddenly in the new testament, there's a lot of demon possessed people everywhere. And, and like where we hadn't typically seen that in the old Testament. So that I think that description is helpful. Um, but in terms of allegiance for demons, that's a clear, clear one on the other side, then you get to like Gabriel and Michael, um, you know, these angelic beings, um, definitely on the other side of that, where they're doing, uh, the Lord's work. They're, they're communicating the Lord's message to people, um, stepping in, in powerful ways to convince people about, you know, truths that are coming up that these kinds of things. Um, so that, that seems to be fairly clear. Uh, like heavenly hosts.
I don't, we did, did we talk about heavenly hosts yet to this
Ryan: that's another term.
Bryan: Okay. So, some difficult ones though that come to mind are like broad and maybe more generic terms like Elohim. Um, I mean, does not sound to me like there's a specifically obvious allegiance there. Um, so maybe that's a, maybe that's a difficult one to, to nail down in terms of allegiance. I don't know. What do you think with that one?
Ryan: Yeah, so it's kind of like angels, right? There are fallen angels, and there are, you know, angels are created good.
But what this whole allegiance thing tells us is something has gone wrong, right? Like there is something that has happened because God did not create bad guys, God created us to be good as image bearers, and he created other moral beings that are spiritual beings that aren't incarnated like us,
And so all of these other spiritual beings have chosen good or evil as well, and there was a fall that happened. We don't have all the information that we would like to have.
Revelation 12 gives us a picture of some things, but there is another rebellion beyond the human rebellion we read about in Genesis 3 that has happened.
Bryan: So I mean, yeah, It's helpful to know that there as a broad category are these spiritual beings, these Elohim, whatever they are, that could have gone either way or, you know, like angels could have gone either way by their choice. Um,
Elohim Explained
Ryan: Let's talk about Elohim for a minute 'cause you raised the point and people may be most familiar with that term as a name for God, which it's a good, it's often used, most often for God. And it's an interesting use of a term for God because it's like a plural term, but Genesis 1, God
Bryan: was just going to
Ryan: the heavens and the earth, but created is singular, even though Elohim is plural.
And so you see that there is this being that is unlike any other spiritual being. God is God, there is nobody like God, Yahweh, Father, Son, and Spirit, the Trinity. Only one who is self-existent who created all other beings. But that term Elohim gets used occasionally for other spirit beings.
Whenever Samuel appears, whenever the witch of Endor is trying to conjure up
Bryan: I love this so much. This story pops up in my brain all the time. Yes. Go ahead.
Ryan: and then he is, Samuel appears as an Elohim,
Bryan: Right.
Ryan: a spirit being.
And there's other references where we see spiritual beings that aren't God referred to as Elohim. So what that tells us is that term is broader than a name for God. It's spiritual beings maybe as a good, sometimes it's translated gods with a lowercase g. I like the term spiritual beings because God is confusing because there's only one real God.
Bryan: Correct.
Ryan: so, but there are other spiritual beings. There are angels, there are Satan, there's all these beings we're talking about, but there's one that is set apart from all the others.
He's the spiritual being. We could say, in fact, he's the being above all other beings. And then beyond him, there's these others. So that's a little discourse on Elohim.
Bryan: I, I got stuck on the witch of Endor and suddenly in the conversation about like star Wars and like force
ghosts. we need to like probably move forward here, but, uh, I I'm totally with you. It's, it's, uh, Elohim seems like an interesting one that I, in some ways can probably get stuck into the mystery bin, um, into like, why is it translated in different ways sometimes? Um, but yeah, spiritual beings is helpful as a, as a, as a term to use.
Ryan: let's maybe move on from allegiance.
Rank and Hierarchy
Bryan: You talked about rank. So this seems to be a, an interesting one. Um, I get allegiance.
Allegiance to me makes a lot of sense. Rank feels maybe like the most strained, not strained in terms of like prove to me that it actually is real, but like strained in terms of their, how many of these spiritual beings are you going to be able to rank order against each other? I guess this may be the question. So it
Ryan: Oh yeah,
Bryan: compared to God, the father, obviously everybody's below. Um, what else are we talking
Ryan: compared to God generally, Father, Son, Spirit, every other being is below God.
And we'll come back to that 'cause that's the most important thing to know about all of this. But some of these terms are terms of rank. And that's why we wanted to note this. If we're trying to understand what these terms are telling us, if you hear that Michael is an archangel,
Bryan: Oh,
Ryan: then that means he is arch, he is a ruler or a prince above other angels, right? Or if you hear about in Daniel 10, princes, there's this term, the prince of Persia, and your prince is told
Bryan: The prince of the power of the air. Like the,
Ryan: Well, and so that's Satan. And he is clearly over other beings. He has Satan and his angels, it talks about in Revelation 12 and other places. And so he is a high-ranking evil. So we know his allegiance, but among those who have that allegiance, he on that side has power.
There's other power or authority terminology on both sides, but particularly if you wanna think about that dark side, Paul says in Ephesians 6, those that we are fighting against are Satan. He talks about him, the devil there in 6, 10 to 18, but he also talks about in verse 12, those powers, those dominions, those authorities, and there's this authority language of darkness in the heavenly places. And so there are those who have great power in the heavenly places that are on the dark side and those on the good side, like we were talking about Michael
Bryan: back to allegiance there. So that it's like somewhat connected to allegiance. Um, what, where in the pecking order of your side, whether you're on the good side for the Lord or whether you're against the Lord, where, where in the hierarchy of, um, you know, the rest of the comparative like spiritual beings, would you be? Some of these seem clear. Like I, so that's making sense to me. Like anytime that there's like this, um, military sort of language, like when you're talking about, uh, uh, like armies and captains and these kinds of things, or like a kingdom language like princes and, um, these kinds of things that, that seems to make sense to me. Uh, but not everybody is, is not all of these spiritual beings seem to be categorized in this way. So it'd be hard to, you'd be hard pressed, I think, to compare like one angel in one story to a different angel in another story, if they're both just called angels in both cases or demons for like the other example.
Ryan: right. Yeah, we're not trying to place everyone in a pecking order. We're noting what does this word tell us about the spiritual realm? In some words, their meaning is about rank. And that's why we're using that as another category in addition to allegiance to help us understand what the Bible reveals about this spiritual realm.
Bryan: and it's helpful to notice because Daniel 10 is a really powerful chapter that maybe we won't really dive into it here because that could be a whole episode.
Ryan: But there's something that's happening there is God is revealing through the angel that there are spiritual beings who have been assigned rule and caretaking over particular nations at that time, right? And so that's something that's, it tells us their job, but there's also like rank language used. And maybe that's a transition into talking about function and job. Yeah,
Bryan: sounds like we've started to talk about function, but yeah, when you, of course, right? Like if I have, um, you know, a captain in the army, like he's going to have a specific rank, but that rank is going to come with an associated function, right? Like he's going to have a job that, you know, private first class is not going to have, but if you're a captain, then clearly you have a different role. so yeah, I think rank and function do make sense together.
Function and Job Descriptions
Bryan: Boy, this is super nerdy and I love it. Um, let's talk about, uh, function in a little bit. Um, what do some of these spiritual beings do? Um, and how do we know that they do those things is maybe an interesting part of this discussion. But, um, is this again, like when we, when we get to these stories of these, uh, where these spiritual beings are a part of, like stop and notice what their job is or what they're, what they're actually accomplishing. So often like with, with angels, um, they seem to be messengers from God.
Um, so that might be one obvious function that they might serve is to be God's mouthpieces or like an, uh, spiritual being prophet kind of, kind of language maybe that, that pop up and they begin speaking for God or, or I don't know.
Ryan: Yeah, well, what we're trying to look at is what does the word mean, first of all, and then how do we see them appearing?
And so the word in the Old Testament, the Hebrew word, and the New Testament word for angel means messenger. And so that word can be used for people, for humans, because they're messengers. But then that tells you the job of a particular kind of other kind of being that I am not is an angel comes to be used to describe this kind of spiritual being who is a messenger from heaven.
When we talked about in our little mini episode we did on angels, I think we might have talked about Jacob's ladder or stairway
and that picture of angels going up and down. And that is a helpful picture to help you think about. The idea of a messenger is they're going from God's presence and coming down and doing things. Hebrews, at the end of Hebrews one, we're told that they are ministering spirits to those who will inherit salvation.
But there's this constant messenger role that angels take on where they're appearing, usually looking like people. They seem to have a uniform of white, usually.
Bryan: Glowing.
Ryan: just look like people. Sometimes they have very bright faces or something. But yeah, they appear and they bring a message often or they accomplish something.
Throne Room Guardians
Ryan: There are beings that we mentioned earlier that are always stationed around God's throne, God's presence, the cherubim, the seraphim, the four living creatures in Revelation.
So we're looking there at Ezekiel, we're looking at Isaiah 6, we're looking at Revelation 4, and we're seeing these beings that have a particular look. It was imagery that was familiar to people in that time for Babylonian imagery of what appeared around a throne. And so we don't wanna get caught up in saying like, okay, this is exactly, if we were to see them when we get to heaven, this is what we're gonna see. I wouldn't put that on it. I think each of these aspects of the picture, the four different kinds of faces, the different wings, the different things, are telling us something about these beings, and these are appearing in visions, and visions are intentionally images that are meant to communicate something.
So like I won't be dogmatic one way or another, but I don't take that like, so this is what they look like,
Bryan: Right.
Ryan: but there are wings even over the Ark of the Covenant on the mercy seat of these cherubim. The mercy seat is God's throne room, like the Holy of Holies is like God's throne room on earth. And so the cherubim are there, they are guarding the garden, right? 'Cause that's where God's presence was, the Garden of Eden.
And so that's a function or a job description for these kinds of beings, it seems, is to be these guardians worshiping God always in his presence.
Bryan: So, so as a, yeah, cause I saw you sort of like, you started into this conversation, you veered into the role of like, let's describe what they look like and then veered right back out to say like, no, this is really about their function, not about what they look like. And so often when this apocalyptic language or this, uh, you know, visual language is being used, it's describing them looking a certain way more so to describe what they're actually doing, like what their function is. Um, and so less about like, let's, let's, let's paint an accurate, accurate picture of what they look like more so to say like, this would be the quality or characteristic you would want in someone functioning this way or some being doing this job. Um, so like a protective, a protective being might have these big wings that stretch out to sort of protect whatever or guard, whatever is being, uh, yeah,
Ryan: Swiftness,
Bryan: swiftness, those kinds
Ryan: eyes everywhere, yeah.
Bryan: yeah, able to see a lot. So I think that's helpful because yeah, man, like so often I'm just like, boy, isn't this like a, you know, what is it when a, when a little kid starts learning to write, they're like, you know, just start getting overly descriptive about every little detail in the story. And, and it's like, but that's not the point. Like, it's not to, so that we have a great mental picture of what these beings are more. So it's to like, let's understand how they function and what they do. So, um, aside from like visual language, there's some clear ones where it's like, um, where it appears like their function is obvious. Um, so like you talked about angels and messengers, that kind of thing. What other, what other functions do these spiritual beings have that are obvious, just in sort of the description of them? I think like you said watchers, right? Um, from what is that like Daniel, um, talking about the watchers. So these spiritual beings, whoever they are, are clearly in their function meant to be watching, um, watching over the things that God has, has presented. Um, how, what are some other examples of function?
Ryan: Yeah, you talked about the heavenly host, the commander of the Lord's army, which there's some discussion there around whether it could possibly be a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus just since he gets worshiped,
Bryan: a popular.
Ryan: like he's being worshiped.
Joshua bows down to him, right? And there's sort of something that plays out there similar to Exodus 3 and the burning bush where Joshua has to take his sandals off, and that was, at the burning bush, that was the angel of the Lord, the angel of Yahweh, which also has a whole storyline or an interesting motif of a different kind of a treatment than other angels necessarily in the Bible, seems to carry God's presence in a special way and at times carries his name, brings forgiveness and judgment, gives the guidance to the people.
So the angel of the Lord, the commander of the Lord's army, these are unique kind of places where a spiritual being shows up and yeah, go ahead.
Dark Side Destruction
Bryan: What about the, um, there's, there's a lot of examples, like we're, we're leaning into examples here about the, the good spiritual beings, the ones with God's allegiance. When you get to the New Testament, you start looking at demons. You never see a demon who, whose function is to make the life of whoever it's possessing great. You know, like demon possessed people are typically throwing themselves into fire. Um, you know, running around in the nude, all sorts of terrible
Ryan: cutting themselves up and staying in the cemetery area, kind of weird, desolate places and yeah. Yeah,
Bryan: it appears that their function there is to just cause chaos, um, or to make people suffer, or I don't know, like, is that their function or is that sort of like a by-product of whatever it is that I just don't, so what could they be doing? I mean, obviously you get it from the context. They're just, they're causing a lot of problems. But, um, again,
maybe
Ryan: interesting, sorry,
Bryan: uh, again, maybe that's also sort of tied to, um, the prince of the power of the air or, you know, Satan as the adversary, like a, a spiritual being that is there to devour the lives of those, uh, who are his victims.
Ryan: When I think of function or purpose or job description, I'm kind of thinking of like what God created them to be.
Bryan: Oh, okay.
Ryan: You know,
Bryan: Yeah. Like intended purpose.
Ryan: intended purpose.
Like here's what the cherubim are there to
Bryan: That makes sense.
Ryan: But the demons have or fallen angels or Satan have abandoned their purpose. And so what are they doing? They're doing what is their nature or their rebellious desire to do here as they are wreaking havoc in the world, bringing down, you know, all of us into, you know, as the scriptures say that Satan is in Revelation 12, he knows his end is near, and he is just trying to bring destruction to us.
It's like as much destruction as possible is really the picture you get before his time is gone, almost like a cornered animal or like an enemy who is defeated already. Their defeat is so near, and they're almost more dangerous in some ways because of
Jesus Over All Powers
Ryan: it.
Bryan: Well, okay. So this is helpful for me as a, not just, not just a taxonomy of these spiritual beings, but mostly like a way of approaching each of these when I arrive at them in scripture, when I read and run across one of these to kind of help understanding who they are, just define for myself what it is that they are, um, what, what I should take away, I suppose, when I read about them in scripture.
Um, and you alluded to it, but maybe let's kind of land here in something that is a bit more concrete. Um, you know, we talked about it a little bit with the rank conversation. When you get to the ranking of all of these spiritual beings, of course, God is going to be on top. Um, and specifically as Paul would write in Colossians one, uh, Christ is over the top. He is head of all of these things. So maybe let's kind of land the plane here at a conversation about Jesus, who was a physical man, uh, yet also God as this passage really draws out here in Colossians.
Ryan: yes, an eternal spiritual being that existed before any of these physical realities.
And it says in Colossians 1:16, for by him, Jesus, all things were created in heaven and on earth. So like, in case you didn't get what all things meant,
Bryan: Yeah.
Ryan: anything in heaven was created by him just like this universe was. Visible and invisible. Any being besides God who is invisible. So that's Satan, that's the angels, that's the heavenly beings of any kind were created by Jesus.
And he says, whether thrones or dominions or rulers, authorities. Well, even the most powerful ones, even those with the high rank. Jesus is not like, he's not the senior archangel. Somebody asked me, is Jesus Michael? No, Jesus is not Michael. Jesus is not an angel or any kind of created being. All things, it says in Colossians 1:16, were created through him and for him.
So it's not just that he created them, but he is the reason they exist. We all exist for his glory to accomplish his purposes. And Jesus is, along with the Father and the Spirit, Jesus is the one who chooses what these things will be. And so like after spending all this time wondering and thinking through what these spiritual beings are, it's clear, as we said right from the beginning, scripture is most concerned that we understand who Jesus is. And what do you think Paul is wanting us to ultimately take from this as a, not just an idea or a truth, but a living stance towards all things that exist?
Bryan: I mean, that's quite a large question to ask me. Um, but you know, I mean, it is interesting as, as you kind of back up and start looking at what Paul is getting at before this. Um, you know, in, in the context of what he's saying, verse 13 of Colossians one, Paul says, he has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. So like, why is Paul bringing this up? Maybe why is he, um, why is he wanting us to really wrap our minds around Jesus as the preeminent one? Maybe it's for the purpose of understanding the transformation that we have undergone in Christ, that we have been taken from this against God allegiance into the allegiance into the kingdom of his son. And so this, this transformation has happened for us in a spiritual way, in an invisible way. Um, and just understanding that like, how can God do that? How can God transfer us from one domain into another one?
It's because he has all this power. Like he created all these things and all things were created for him and by him as, as he's talking about, about Christ here. So, you know, and of course, verse 15, which we didn't read, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. So incredible, um, who Jesus is, especially in regard to all of these other spiritual beings. Um, and if he is, if he is the King, not only over his little fiefdom of disciples in the first century, not only over, you know, even like a broader sect of Jews at the time, if he's the King over all spiritual beings, all physical beings, all of everything, totality, then of course, what, what should I be thinking about in terms of my allegiance to him? Like, he's everything. He's, he's the King overall. Yeah. He's
Ryan: And what have I to fear if he is for me, right? And I think there is a broadening of the story of the gospel here. Like you see something, this is why whenever the Bible tells us about things, we should not pack them away and say, that's too weird for me to talk about. The Bible wants us to see something bigger than what I see when I look outside at my yard.
There is a story that this world is part of, but so is the world beyond this world.
Disarmed Authorities
Ryan: And so when he says in verse 20, "Through him to reconcile to himself all things." So God the Father is reconciling all things to himself through Jesus. Things whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And then if you go down to the next chapter, verse 13, "We were dead in our trespasses," of chapter two of Colossians.
And it says that he canceled in verse 14, "The record of debt that stood against us, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him." So this is a storyline of the powers that oppose God, that oppose Jesus in the heavenly places, as well as the powers, including ourselves, any being who opposes God here, all things are being set right, so that in the cross, those powers, whether it's Satan or other authorities or other spiritual beings or demons, demons or men or whatever it be, right? As we sing in hallelujah, praise Jehovah, or Master of the Tempest is raging.
So whatever is out there that opposes him, he has stripped them, he has disarmed them. It's like the check gate, like the TSA. You don't have any, like all of your weapons have been taken away from you. What is the accuser going to accuse us of? What are the powers going to do to us if we're under Christ's protection?
They can't do anything
Bryan: talk a good game, but they, they are toothless. I mean, I suppose if, if you could use that term, right. They have no, they have no weaponry, uh, if they have been disarmed.
Ryan: If we have, and what he says in that disarmament passage there is the debt, the record of our transgressions been taken away. And so if I'm forgiven, what can you accuse me of and have it stand up to proper scrutiny? And can they still struggle against us? Yes, that's what Ephesians 6 says. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers and principalities of darkness and against Satan.
We can be tempted, we can be pushed, but that's why we have to put on the armor of God and be ready in faith and in righteousness and in the word of God to stand against those things because we have everything we need if we're standing in him to overcome by his strength and not by ours.
Bryan: Yeah. That's helpful. And I was, uh, man, like once you, once you start pulling the thread, you just see that this language is all throughout the Bible, but also specifically like Paul's letters, you know, Ephesians you referenced Ephesians six, but Ephesians one versus 20 to the end is all about this Philippians two, first Peter three. I mean, just so many passages. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So like, this is not a niche topic. Okay. This is not, we've, we've, we've exited Geek-tober territory here and we have gone squarely into gospel basics here. This is like, if you're not, you're not seeing the deep battle going on behind the scenes, like peer behind the curtain, because these, these writers are, are helping us to peer behind the curtain. Um, and just see that this is not about, like you said, like what's on your front lawn, or this is not about like what happened at the grocery store that time you lost your temper. This is like a, this is a big battle that is, is epic in its scope and is complete in its victory in what Christ has done. So, I'm glad that we kind of pulled this back to, to what's going on here, uh, with Christ and all these things in Colossians 1. It's just such an epic way to, I guess, wrap this up.
Living the Bigger Story
Ryan: the crazy thing about it is that it overlaps with what happened at the supermarket in that time you lost your temper. And that's
Bryan: Yes. It informs it all. All
Ryan: see both, that we are part of a battle, part of a story that goes beyond what we can see and includes and it unfolds us in and those forces of darkness are trying to pull us away. But we also have the Lord and all of his servants, the heavenly host supporting the good that God wants for us.
Bryan: right.
Well, uh, I think this week I, I'm going to take on a challenge, uh, if we can do that for this one specifically. I think, um, you know, this verse, these verses here in Colossians 1, um, just like you were just talking about, really do help shape the actual way that my life gets lived, both in all the visible ways that we were just talking about there at the grocery store or whatever, uh, but also in the invisible ways, in what's going on in my thoughts, in that grumpy attitude I've just been nursing, or, you know, in the gratitude that I've, that I woke up having this morning. You know, I really can see that, that Jesus shapes everything, um, and there's nothing that he doesn't have control or dominion over, um, just remembering that this week is going to be a good thing for sure.
Ryan: He is the King of kings and all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him. And so yeah, to recognize that whenever he starts that statement with his authority and he ends with, Lo, I am with you always, even to the ends of the age, then it colors the commission we have to bring this gospel everywhere, this proclamation that he is the true good and great King that ultimately can save us all.
Wrap Up and Next Episode
Bryan: thanks everyone for tuning in to the Bible Geeks podcast.
It's been a weird one as we've been talking about spiritual beings. In the next episode, we're going to get into a topic that we have an affinity for here on this podcast and it's AI. We're going to talk about AI again. And Geektober is going to have two episodes, I believe, Lord willing, about this topic. One maybe on the positive side, maybe one on the negative side. So we'll see which one shows up on the next episode. Thank you for tuning in. Show notes on our website and in your podcast player of choice. If you want to reach out to us and ask us any questions, please do that. On our website, on social media, if you know one of us and you want to talk to us in person, shoot us a text, whatever it is, get in touch with us. We'd love to entertain your questions and tackle them here on future episodes. Until the next episode, may the Lord bless you and keep you. We went the whole episode without talking about Michael Heiser.