Watchman on the Wall

Announcer: Welcome to Watchman on the Wall, a daily outreach of Southwest Radio Ministries and swrc.com. God is still on the throne, and prayer changes things.

Today, we have more insight and details inside the unseen realm with authors Micah Van Huss and Mac Dominick. In a world of nonstop headlines and constant uncertainty, stay informed from a biblical perspective with Prophecy in the News magazine. Each issue is packed with insightful articles on Bible prophecy, current events, apologetics, archaeology, Israel, and Christian living, all designed to help you understand the times through the truth of God's word.

Whether you're a longtime student of prophecy or just beginning your journey, Prophecy in the News magazine will educate, encourage, and challenge your faith. Subscribe today. Visit swrc.com or call 1-800-652-1144. That's 1-800-652-1144. Prophecy in the News: bringing clarity to the chaos. Here's today's host, Micah Van Huss.

Micah Van Huss: Welcome to the program today. I'm your host, Micah Van Huss. I host Marginal Mysteries here at Southwest Radio Ministries. You may have checked out my latest book, *Angels: Eternal War of the Princes*. You know I like to talk about the weird stuff from a biblical perspective. Of course, my newest book, *Mythologies Decoded: Echoes of the Bible*, I am finally finished with it, and it'll take a month or so of editing, but it'll be out soon, so keep an eye out for that.

But today, we are talking about Dr. Michael Heiser's book, *The Unseen Realm: Expanded Edition*. Joining us to help discuss this book is Mac Dominick. Many of you folks know Mac Dominick. He's been on the program before many times. He has written his latest two books, *Cosmic Conflict* and *Shadows of Evil*. Mac, welcome to the program today.

We were talking about Dr. Michael Heiser's book, *The Unseen Realm*, and we were talking about his first chapter, Psalm 82. The theme of what we were talking about is Dr. Michael Heiser’s tagline: "If it's in the Bible and it's weird, it's probably important." I agree with that. Psalm 82 is one of the most mysterious chapters in all of Scripture until you understand what's going on with the princes of the nations after the Tower of Babel.

Today, I want to pick up by talking about chapter two of his book, *The Unseen Realm*, which we are selling here at Southwest Radio Ministries. Feel free to get a copy of the new expanded edition hardback. You can get it at swrc.com or by calling 800-652-1144.

Chapter two is talking about the Divine Council in Michael Heiser's book. The Bible presents God as ruling among a heavenly host, not because God needs help, but because he shares his rule with his created sons in the spiritual realm, just like God shares the earth with us humans. He created the earth for us humans, and it seems like God wants willing participants.

When we get to the topic of the Divine Council, which I wrote a whole chapter on in my *Angels: Eternal War* book, some folks will say the Divine Council does not exist, which is a council of spiritual beings that counsel God. Some people will say it doesn't exist because God doesn't need a Divine Council. While it's true that God doesn't need a Divine Council, that's no reason that it doesn't exist.

The prime example of the Divine Council in Scripture is 1 Kings 22, starting in verse 19, where he has a vision of God's throne room. God is talking with the spirits around him in his throne room, asking how we should deal with the human King Ahab. A spirit steps forward before the Lord and says, "I will handle King Ahab." God says, "How are you going to do it?" He says, "I will be a lying spirit in the ears of his prophets." God says, "How will you do that?" And the spirit says in this manner and that, and God tells the spirit, "Go forth and do."

The perfect example of the Divine Council in action in Scripture and its existence is 1 Kings 22. We do have other examples of the Divine Council during the story of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4. It is by demand of the Watchers, by word of the Holy Ones, that tells Nebuchadnezzar he will eat grass as an ox and live as a beast for a certain amount of time. There are other examples of the Divine Council in Scripture.

In my book, *Angels: Eternal War*, I talked about how it's likely that all of the Old Testament prophets, including Samuel and others, physically stood before God's Divine Council before they were coronated or made into a prophet or given permission to go forth. There are plenty of scriptures that talk about his prophets who have stood in his divine assembly. So, Mac, talk about the Divine Council a little bit and how the Bible can speak of these other beings without denying that Yahweh is the Most High.

Mac Dominick: When God created man, I think the best analogy is when God created man and man fell into sin. Jesus died on the cross, and those of us who come to faith in Jesus Christ, we are commanded to go forth into all the world and preach the gospel and make disciples, right? Does God need us to do that? Couldn't God just send his Holy Spirit to overwhelm every human being on earth and bring them to faith in Christ? Doesn't God have that power? I believe he absolutely does, but that's not the way that God in his infinite wisdom chose to do it.

Basically, the idea of the Divine Council—I'm not sure I agree with the terminology so much as Divine Council. You mentioned this in passing a minute ago, Micah. You said the Divine Assembly. I like that terminology a lot better because, to me, it's somewhat like when you're working for a company and you have the CEO and you have a board of directors. What are the board of directors going to do? Well, theoretically, they're going to do as they are told by the CEO.

It's the same thing with God's Divine Council, if you want to use that terminology. They are not going to go off and do their own thing. Everything they do as supernatural entities around the throne of God, they are going to do at the direction of God and not by their own volition. I prefer the terminology Divine Assembly over Divine Council, but that's just a personal preference.

I can't recall where it came from, but I know for a fact that Dr. Heiser got the terminology Divine Council from another scholar years ago, I believe in the 19th century, that came up with this same concept. It was not original to Dr. Heiser. As I said in the earlier segment, Dr. Heiser said he was a dot connector. He also said many times he never came up with anything original. He just looked at what the Bible said and went to other scholars and started connecting the dots.

My preference is the Divine Assembly because I do not believe in the heavenly realm that anyone actually counsels God, if we want to look at it that way. But they act at God's direction because God is supreme. God is the boss. These spiritual entities act according to his direction and according to his will. That's not a criticism of the Divine Council terminology, but it's just a personal observation of how I personally view what's going on among these supernatural entities.

Micah Van Huss: As far as the question—you touched on it—the fact that God doesn't need a Divine Council is no argument against its existence. God doesn't need humans, but he created us. It's almost as if he wants a family of willing participants.

Now, let's talk about chapter six in his new expanded edition, *The Unseen Realm*. Chapter six is about gardens and mountains. Eden was not merely a garden; it was a sacred space where heaven and earth met. In my study on my *Mythologies* book that's getting ready to come out, I do a section on heaven. Again, the spiritual realm, if you remember in *Angels: Eternal War*, I did a section on hell and the underworld. This time, I'm doing a section on heaven, and it's been a fascinating study.

Imagine the spiritual realm as a sphere and the earthly physical realm as a sphere, two separate spheres. I believe in the Garden of Eden, those spheres overlapped somewhat, heaven towards earth. After the Garden of Eden, those spheres are separate; there's no overlap. But then in the end, for the new heaven and new earth, those spheres are going to completely overlap. That's the way I've started to study the way heaven, paradise, and the underworld during the timeline of the earth work. Mac, talk to us about the Garden of Eden. What was it? Was it a garden? Was it a sacred space? Why do mountains, gardens, temples—why do they keep appearing as meeting places between God and man?

Mac Dominick: Dr. Heiser was very prolific in his teachings on gardens and mountains. Even more than just in the book, the courses I took, he spent a lot of time speaking about gardens and mountains and the Garden of Eden. Basically, what we have here—this all comes from Dr. Heiser; this is not something that Mac Dominick made up. I will let you know when I assert my opinion into this.

God had his holy mountain in the beginning in Eden. We see that in the book of Ezekiel when we're reading about Satan and the cherub and all of that rehashing of the fall of man when Satan was in Eden in the book of Ezekiel. Basically, what we learn is that Eden was a garden, and it was located on God's holy mountain.

In my book *Cosmic Conflict*, I start connecting the dots, and I come to the conclusion that the Garden of Eden was located on God's holy mountain, and God's holy mountain hasn't changed. I believe that the city of Jerusalem today sits on the very original site of the Garden of Eden because what was going on here is that this became a sacred space, and what the Jews called in Latin the *Axis Mundi*, where God's world—as you said, the spiritual dimension and our current dimension—intersected there on the Garden of Eden.

You look through the Old Testament, and you find mountain theology all over the place. Every god—Baal had his holy mountain. Mount Hermon was the holy mountain of the god El. The Greek gods all dwelt on Mount Olympus in mythology. We see this in the scripture; we see it in mythology over and over again that the gods dwelt on the mountains, humans lived on the surface of the earth, and then there was the underworld, the place of the dead.

There's a pinnace in the new expanded book of Dr. Heiser's that talks about this three-tiered cosmology. We need to understand that in reading our Bible because that's what the Hebrews taught and believed. There was the dwelling place of the gods, or God in this case with the Hebrews, the dwelling of man where we are, and the underworld, the place of the dead. All of that is a theme that runs through the Old Testament.

As I said, I believe that God had his holy mountain, and his holy mountain was and is Mount Zion. As a matter of fact, we read in the life of Abraham this very unusual character by the name of Melchizedek shows up. He is where? In the city of Salem, which was the ancient name for Jerusalem. We learn in the book of Hebrews that Melchizedek had no beginning, no ending, and it goes on and describes Melchizedek as one like the Son of God.

We have to understand that Melchizedek—when we put all this together and we connect all the dots in the book of Genesis, in the Psalms, and in the book of Hebrews—we can come to the conclusion biblically that Melchizedek was a pre-incarnate appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, by the way, Dr. Heiser disagrees with that, so this is the Mac Dominick version. I apologize if I'm overstepping my bounds here with all due respect to Dr. Heiser.

Melchizedek was a pre-incarnate appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ. Where was he? He was on God's holy mountain. Why was he there? Because we know that the Garden of Eden existed on God's holy mountain prior to the flood. A cherubim was placed at the entrance to the Garden of Eden to keep men from the tree of life prior to the flood. We can assume that with the flood, the Garden of Eden itself was washed away in the waters of the flood.

What was Melchizedek doing there in the time of Abraham? Why would a pre-incarnate appearance in human flesh of what Dr. Heiser calls the Angel of the Lord come to Jerusalem during this point in time? He was there to plant God's flag, so to speak, on this mountain, Mount Zion, as it is called. What today is Zionism is named after the Mount Zion of God.

Jesus in his pre-incarnate form was there to claim that mountain as God's mountain. Why would he do that? So David, when he came along, would know that this was God's sacred space. This was the *Axis Mundi* where the spiritual realm and the physical realm intersected. Therefore, David made Jerusalem the capital city of Israel over 3,000, closer to 4,000 years ago. David made Jerusalem the capital city of Israel. Why? Because Mount Zion, God's holy mountain.

We have a continuous stream through the Old Testament that includes mountain theology, garden theology. Dr. Heiser goes to great lengths to talk about the construction of the temple and how the scenes carved into the gold were what? Palm trees and gardens, because the temple was mimicking the sacred space of the Garden of Eden that was on that very spot.

Micah Van Huss: It's a super fascinating study. Again, in my *Mythologies* book that's getting ready to come out, I have a chapter called "The World Tree," and Yggdrasil from Norse mythology is the tree that connects all the different realms that the Norse believed in. The *Axis Mundi*, as you said, is the connection.

We're getting ready to talk about chapter 33 in Dr. Michael Heiser's book about the death of Jesus Christ and what that did more than just saving mankind from their sins. It did some other things. We're going to talk about that. But first, we're talking about Dr. Michael Heiser's *The Unseen Realm: Expanded Edition*. This is a new hardback book by Dr. Michael Heiser, and you can get your copy at swrc.com or by calling 800-652-1144.

Chapter 33, the cross is not only forgiveness of sins. This also kind of goes into Dr. Michael Heiser's other work, *Reversing Hermon*, but Jesus came for two other primary reasons than just saving mankind from their sins. His death on the cross was a public defeat of the princes of the powers of the air. Mac, how does the resurrection turn death into the enemy's own defeat?

Mac Dominick: It's really interesting, and I am speaking a little bit outside of Dr. Heiser's actual teachings but based on Dr. Heiser's teaching. We read in the Great Commission, "Go ye therefore into all the world." The word "therefore"—one of the most common sayings among Bible students is when you see "therefore" in the Bible, you need to look back to the previous verse to see what "therefore" is there for. When you look back in the previous verse, Jesus said, "All power is given to me in heaven and earth. Therefore, go ye into all the world."

That's a very profound statement because we are commanded to go into all the world based on the power of Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, and Dr. Heiser talks about this being the standard of God's power, it was the Red Sea crossing. Every time you read in the Old Testament where a writer goes off on the power of God, the phraseology is typically just God's power was exhibited as when he parted the waters and the children of Israel went through the Red Sea.

But in the New Testament, we have a new standard of power, and that standard of power is the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ because he had power over death and power over the gods. How do we know he had power over the gods? Because we read in Psalm 22, and Dr. Heiser points this out as well in this very chapter, that when Jesus was on the cross, the bulls of Bashan were gnashing on him, I believe is the word, with their teeth.

In other words, these bulls of Bashan—we can't really take this literally because there weren't horned cows around the cross making fun of Jesus. But when we see that word "Bashan," and Dr. Heiser goes to great lengths in this book to point it out, Bashan was the place of the serpent, and every time you see the word "Bashan" in the Old Testament, you need to take note, raise a red flag. It's talking about evil; it's talking about spiritual evil.

When we see this idea of the bulls of Bashan, what we are really seeing is the territorial gods of abject evil, the angels that had fallen and turned their backs on God, these same gods that we were talking about in Psalm 82. They're sitting back celebrating because they thought they won. They killed the Messiah. It's all over. Now their boss, Satan, is going to take over the world and we are going to really be in charge. They were badly mistaken because they didn't realize the plan of God was to send Jesus as the suffering prophet like Moses that had to die for the sins of mankind and forgive man of their sins before establishing the kingdom.

What we're seeing here in the death and resurrection of Christ is the allotment of power over these rulers. You go back to Daniel chapter 10, and you read about this entity, the Prince of Persia. Remember Daniel was praying, and here again, a pre-incarnate figure, the Angel of the Lord of Jesus Christ, came to Daniel and said, "Hey, Daniel, I would have been here sooner, but the Prince of Persia held me up." I thought God was omnipotent.

When we tie that together with Matthew 28, and we see that you can go out now because all power is given unto me, that implies that Jesus, as God, intentionally limited his power when it came to the rulership of the nations. That rulership had been turned over to the sons of God as we read in chapter 32 of Deuteronomy. Dr. Heiser spends much of his book talking about the Deuteronomy 32 worldview, and that's another way that the reading of your Old Testament will completely change when you understand that.

Jesus had limited his power, but here at the cross, his power now exceeds these rulers of the nations. That's not to say they've been displaced yet, because they are still over the nations. As a matter of fact, that same Prince of Persia is ruling what nation? Micah, what modern nation is ancient Persia? Iran. We see that same Prince of Persia wreaking havoc in our world today, still attacking the people of God, the Jews that are in God's holy land, on God's holy mountain, in God's sacred space, in Israel. We can tie all this together by studying what Dr. Heiser wrote about in our study of the Old Testament.

Just be apprised that as men, as teachers, whether it's Micah Van Huss, Mac Dominick, or Michael Heiser, we are not perfect. You as the listener or the reader of my books, Micah's books, or Dr. Heiser's books, must hold every one of us accountable to the word of God. You have got to be a good Berean. I have got to be a good Berean, as in Acts chapter 17, it talks about the Bereans were not like those of Thessalonica, but they searched the scriptures daily to see if those things were so.

That's the same thing we need to do with Dr. Heiser. We need to make sure that he is held accountable to the word of God. You need to make sure Micah Van Huss is held accountable to the word of God. You need to make sure that Mac Dominick is held accountable to the word of God. My view is, to sum all this statement up, is that Dr. Heiser's commentary on the Old Testament is phenomenal—some of the best that you will ever get, and it'll change the way you read your Bibles, especially the Old Testament. When it comes to ecclesiology, eschatology, and general theology, if you are a dispensationalist, you will disagree with some things that Dr. Heiser says in this book. But please, please, do not throw out the baby with the bathwater because this is a book that will change your life and your perspective of the word of God, especially the Old Testament.

Micah Van Huss: Folks, Mac and I have been talking about Dr. Michael Heiser's latest book, *The Unseen Realm: Expanded Edition*, hardcover edition, *Discovering the Supernatural World of the Bible*. You can get your copy of Dr. Michael Heiser's expanded edition at Southwest Radio Ministries by calling 800-652-1144 or by visiting the website, swrc.com.

Announcer: What if some of the Bible's most mysterious passages aren't mysterious at all? What if we've simply lost the worldview of the people who first read them? In *The Unseen Realm*, best-selling scholar Dr. Michael Heiser takes readers on a fascinating journey through scripture, exploring the supernatural world of angels, demons, the Divine Council, and spiritual warfare. With careful biblical scholarship and clear explanations, Heiser uncovers truths that can transform the way you read God's word, from Genesis to Revelation.

And now, this expanded edition takes you even deeper. Released as a beautiful deluxe hardcover to celebrate the book's 10th anniversary, it includes new material from Dr. Heiser never before available in print—expanded chapters, additional insight, and fresh content that further unveils the supernatural world of the Bible. You'll explore fascinating questions about the Nephilim, imprisoned spirits, the heavenly council, and other often overlooked passages of scripture.

If you've ever wanted a deeper understanding of the supernatural world revealed in scripture, *The Unseen Realm* is a must-read. Order your copy today at swrc.com or call 1-800-652-1144. Don't miss out on any of the important topics and information that is shared on Watchman on the Wall. Make sure you subscribe to our free email newsletter. Sign up today for the free email newsletter.

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