By Gwen Frangs / Cambridge, UK / December 2020
In his book The Unseen Realm, Michael Heiser teaches that God was speaking to the divine council in Genesis 1:26 when He said: ‘… let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness’ (see page 39 of the Kindle edition of the Unseen Realm). Dr. Heiser says that the reason that it is the divine council that is being spoken to in Genesis 1:26 is because technical research in Hebrew grammar and exegesis has shown that the Trinity is not a coherent explanation (see page 39 of the Kindle edition of the Unseen Realm). He provides a footnote which suggests that you read a book written by another Old Testament scholar who deals with the grammar used in Genesis 1:26. He then asserts that seeing the Trinity in Genesis 1:26 is reading the New Testament back into the Old Testament and that this is not a sound interpretive method for discerning what an Old Testament writer was thinking. He further argues that there are no Trinitarian phrases in the Old Testament and that the ‘plural of Majesty’ does not exist in Hebrew. He is absolutely correct about all of this.
However, while there may be no evidence for the Trinity in Genesis 1:26, it is very clear that there is another Person of the Godhead present in Genesis 1 besides the Father. The Holy Spirit is described in Genesis 1:2 as hovering over the face of the deep. Proving that the Trinity does not exist in Genesis 1:26, is not the same thing as proving that the Holy Spirit does not exist in Genesis 1:2. Dr. Heiser does not provide any evidence proving that Genesis 1:2 does not refer to the Holy Spirit before claiming that God is speaking to the divine council in Genesis 1:26.
I, myself cannot think of any evidence to suggest that it is not the Holy Spirit in Genesis 1:2. One could try and argue that the Spirit of God in Genesis 1:2 is not the Holy Spirit, but that the phrase ‘the spirit of God’ refers to God’s own spirit. One could try and argue that it is the Father Himself who is referred to in Genesis 1:2 and that He is somehow projecting His presence over the water as a spirit, while being present in some other form somewhere else. However, that would not be correct because Jesus taught that the Father is Spirit (John 4:24), and not that the Father has a spirit. You could try and argue that the ‘of’ in the phrase ‘the spirit of God’ could be omitted, so that it would read ‘the spirit God’, and that the author was merely using ‘spirit’ as an adjective in Genesis 1:2. However, this cannot be done, because in all other instances in the Old Testament, the ‘of’ is included in phrases with the same type of grammatical structure.
We can know that the phrase ‘the spirit of God’ is a reference to the Holy Spirit because God refers to His spirit in Joel 2:28 and says that in the last days He will pour out His spirit on all people and that your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions and your old men will dream dreams. When this event happens on the day of Pentecost, it is made clear to us in the account in Acts that it is the Holy Spirit that is poured out onto the disciples (see Acts 2:14-21). Therefore, when God speaks about His spirit, He is referring to the Holy Spirit.
The Bible makes it quite clear that the Holy Spirit cannot be the Father because Jesus tells us in John 14:23 that if we keep the words of Jesus that the Father will come and make His home with us. He sees the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the indwelling of the Father as different from each other. Also, when the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus during His baptism, the Father spoke from Heaven calling Jesus His beloved Son. In John 14 Jesus prepares His disciples for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and makes it clear that the Holy Spirit is a Person and that He will be asking the Father to provide that Person to His disciples. Jesus calls the Holy Spirit a Counsellor. Someone who is not a Person cannot offer counsel.
Not only does Michael Heiser fail to recognize the Holy Spirit as a Person Who was present during the creation in Genesis 1, but, he is assuming that the storyteller in Genesis 1 is a bad storyteller, because he thinks that the storyteller introduces the divine council into the story out of the blue, without even telling the reader who they are. I have never encountered a storyteller who does not tell the reader who the other characters that are introduced into the story are and just leaves them to guess at who they are. Therefore, Dr. Heiser, when teaching that God is speaking to the divine council in Genesis 1:26, is asking us to ignore the rudimentary rules of good literature. He does not recognize that the author of Genesis 1 introduced the Person that God is speaking to in Genesis 1:26 in Genesis 1:2, when he said that the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the deep.
If one recognizes the Holy Spirit to be a Person and one recognizes that He is introduced by the author of Genesis 1 in Genesis 1:2, then the conventions of good literature demand that God is speaking to the Holy Spirit in Genesis 1:26 because the Holy Spirit is the only other Person which the author of Genesis 1 indicates as being present in Genesis 1.
The contents of the chapter indicate that the author was highly skilled. The author would have indicated to the reader that God was speaking to the Heavenly host in Genesis 1:26, had that been the case. While Job 38:7 indicates that the heavenly hosts were present at creation, it is not the intention of the author of Genesis 1 to highlight that particular fact or he would have mentioned that they were present. The fact that the author does not identify them as being present indicates that the author’s intention is to highlight an experience shared by the Father and the Holy Spirit. The Father and the Holy Spirit created the universe together. The Father created the universe through the Holy Spirit. To introduce the divine council into verse 26, destroys the unity of the Father and the Holy Spirit creating the universe together. In Genesis 1, the Father commands and the Holy Spirit creates. The Father creates everything through the Holy Spirit and there is absolute unity between them. This is what the language in Genesis 1:26 is indicative of – the unity that exists between the two.
In his book Angels, Dr. Heiser attempts to use this unity as an argument for why the divine council is being spoken to in Genesis 1:26 by suggesting that the Trinity don’t need to speak to each other because they already know what is in each other’s minds (pages 8 and 9 of Angels). However, this does not make sense because Jesus prayed in private on certain occasions while He was on the earth. He would not have done this if the Trinity don’t speak to each other.
I believe that Dr. Heiser’s perspective that the Ugaritic religion should be used as a tool for interpreting the Old Testament because the city of Ugarit existed during a similar period in history and was located close to Israel (see pages 45 and 46 of the Unseen Realm) does not hold water. By taking this approach Dr. Heiser places the divine council in a more superior position in Genesis 1 than the Holy Spirit. If a future archaeologist dug up the remains of a satanic church which was located near to a church and then superimposed the religion of the Satanists onto the church so that there could be a better understanding of what happened at the church, we would be horrified. However, this is exactly what Michael Heiser does in the Unseen Realm when he uses the religion of Ugarit to interpret the Old Testament in a manner which leads to him replacing the Holy Spirit in Genesis 1:26 with the divine council.
An even greater concern is that teaching that God is speaking to the divine council in Genesis 1:26 tampers with the divinity of Christ. The Holy Spirit is introduced in Genesis 1:2 when the verse states that the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the deep. The apostle Paul reveals the identity of the Spirit of God in 1 Corinthians 3:17:
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
2 Corinthians 3:17
It doesn’t get clearer than that. The apostle Paul is placing the pre-existent Jesus Christ into the second verse of Genesis 1. However, a number of scriptures in John 14 and 15 in which Jesus promises to send the Holy Spirit would seem to render it entirely impossible that Jesus is the Holy Spirit:
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—
John 14:16
26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
John 14:26
26 “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me.
John 15:26
It would seem that Jesus is indicating that the Holy Spirit is an individual Who is entirely separate and different from Himself. However, a similar thing occurs when Jesus refers to the Son of Man.
“The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness.”
Matt. 13:41
“The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men and they shall kill Him, and He will be raised on the third day.”
Matt. 17:22-23
“Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”
Matt. 19:28
“Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death, and will hand Him over to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify Him, and on the third day He will be raised up.”
Matt. 20:18-19
“But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.”
Matt. 25:31
When Jesus refers to the Son of Man in these scriptures it also seems like He is referring to an entirely different person from Himself. However, in Matthew 16:15, Jesus identifies Himself to be the Son of Man:
13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.
Matthew 16:13-17
It is clear from verse 15 that Jesus is Himself the Son of Man and that there is no separate or different Son of Man.
It would seem that in the verses in John 14 and 15 in which Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit in the third person that He is doing the same thing as when He referred to Himself as the Son of Man in the third person.
Although He speaks of Himself as the Holy Spirit in the third person, He indicates in John 14, that He Himself is the Holy Spirit.
To remove the Person of the Holy Spirit from Genesis 1, separates Jesus Christ from His pre-existent identity as Yahweh, the Holy Spirit (https://www.topicsinbiblicalstudies.com/jesus-speaks-of-himself-as-the-holy-spirit-in-john-14-and-15/). That is what Colossians 1:15-17 is referring to. Colossians 1:15-17 must be speaking about Jesus’ pre-existence as the Holy Spirit because the Son of Man was only begotten after there were already kingdoms on the earth Psalm 2:7-8. Therefore, the Son of Man was not present in Genesis 1 as the Son of Man, but was present in Genesis 1 as the Holy Spirit.
Also, take a look at the meaning of the word ‘begotten’ in https://biblehub.com/hebrew/3205.htm. You will see that the word is derived from the word meaning ‘to bear, bring forth, beget’. The word translated ‘begotten’ in Psalm 2:7 means that the Son of Man was begotten. In Zechariah 3, the second last book of the Old Testament, the Father is speaking through the Holy Spirit about the Branch. In verse 8 Yahweh says: ‘I Am bringing forth My Servant the Branch….’ Zechariah 3:8. He is describing a future event. He is not describing something that had happened in the past prior to creation. The Son of Man was begotten only at the beginning of the New Testament when Mary became pregnant with Him, as a result of the Holy Spirit overshadowing her. When the Holy Spirit took up residence in the body that the Father had prepared for Him, the Son of Man was begotten:
5 Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said:
“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
Hebrews 10:5-7
but a body you prepared for me;
6 with burnt offerings and sin offerings
you were not pleased.
7 Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—
I have come to do your will, my God.’”[a]
The Son of Man did not exist prior to that point. The speaker in the verse makes it clear that He sees Himself as separate from the body that was prepared. In other words He is not the body. He is in the body. To understand Colossians 1:15-17 you have to understand that Paul understands that the body and the Person inside the body are different from each other. He understands that the Person within the body is the Holy Spirit:
6 Who, being in very nature[a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Philippians 2:6-8
In verse 6 above, Paul is referring to Jesus’ pre-existence as the Holy Spirit. Human beings have three parts, the spirit, the soul and the body. Jesus’ spirit is the Holy Spirit. The apostle Luke makes this very clear when he says in Acts 16:
Paul and his companions travelled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to .
Acts 16:6-7
Jesus is the incarnate Holy Spirit and He consistently spoke with that authority saying that: ‘before Abraham was, I Am’ (John 8:58) and calling Himself the Holy One that had been set apart by God (John 10:36). The Trinity came into being when the Son of Man was begotten by the Father. Prior to that there was only the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Jesus confirms that He is the Holy Spirit when He says in Matthew 18:20:
20 For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.
Matthew 18:20
In John 14:18-20 Jesus identifies Himself as the Holy Spirit when He says:
18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
John 14:18-20
In John 17:22-26 Jesus again identifies Himself as the Holy Spirit when He says:
22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
25 “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made you[a] known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
John 17:22-26
The only way that Jesus can be inside a Christian is in the form that He pre-existed in before coming in the flesh and that is in the form of the Spirit of God. The apostle Paul called this a mystery:
24 Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. 25 I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness— 26 the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. 27 To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Colossians 1:24-27
For an explanation regarding why Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit in the third person in the Gospel of John when He Himself was the Holy Spirit see (https://www.topicsinbiblicalstudies.com/jesus-speaks-of-himself-as-the-holy-spirit-in-john-14-and-15/).
Colossians 1:16 and John 1:1-3 make it clear that Jesus, as He pre-existed as the Holy Spirit, was both present at creation and that everything was created through Him. When translating Colossians 1:16, the Bible Hub interlinear Bible translates the word εἰς as ‘unto’. That is a mistranslation of this Greek word in this instance. If you click on the number above the word, you will see that it means ‘into’. It is shocking to see that most of the English Bibles do not translate the word correctly in this verse. The NIV, the English Standard Version and the New King James translates it as ‘for’. However, if you understand that the Holy Spirit is the subject of the verse, then you recognize that the Greek word εἰς means ‘into’ in Colossians 1:16. When speaking about Jesus in Colossians 1:16 Paul says:
‘Because in Him were created all things in the heavens and upon the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things through Him and into Him have been created.’
Paul is saying that everything that was created was created inside of Jesus. We are all inside Jesus. We can only be inside Jesus in the sense that He is the embodied Holy Spirit.
In John 1:1-3 we are told:
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and God was the Word. He was in the beginning with God. All things through Him came into being and without Him came into being not even one thing that has come into being.
John 1:1-3
It is clear that John is referring to Jesus as the Spirit of God, Who is spoken of at the beginning of the creation event in Genesis 1:2 and Who created everything.
I believe that Dr. Heiser is weakening Christianity by teaching that God is speaking to the divine council in Genesis 1:26, because he is tearing down the foundational doctrine of the divinity of Christ by removing Christ from the creation. The apostles laid this foundation very carefully, in the face of considerable opposition from Judaism to the divinity of Jesus. To tear down their foundational doctrine is to tear down Christianity itself. Dr. Heiser is effectively saying that John and Paul, pillars of the early church, were wrong with regard to their interpretation of Genesis 1 and, by implication, that Jesus didn’t pre-exist as the Holy Spirit. This is very dangerous for Christianity. It is to remove the divinity of Jesus and to make Him into a mere man.
In my opinion what makes Dr. Heiser dangerous for the church is that his teaching regarding God speaking to the divine council in Genesis 1:26 affects a Christian’s ability to participate effectively in the great commission. In Luke 24:13 we find the account of Jesus’ appearance to two disciples after his resurrection as they walked to a village called Emmaus:
13 Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles[a] from Jerusalem, 14 and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, 16 but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad.[b]18 Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” 19 He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth,[c] who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.[d] Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. 22 Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, 23 and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.” 25 Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! 26 Was it not necessary that the Messiah[e] should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” 27 Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.
Luke 24:13 -35
A vital part of winning people for Jesus is that we are able to interpret to them the things about Jesus in all the scriptures in the same way that Jesus did for these two disciples. I believe that by replacing the Holy Spirit with the divine council in Genesis 1:26, Dr. Heiser diminishes the ability of any Christian who believes his teaching regarding this, to speak about Jesus to unbelievers. The person who believes Dr. Heiser’s teaching will be unable to link Genesis 1 to the scriptures in the New Testament which reveal Jesus to be the agent of creation. Therefore, they will no longer be able to substantiate that Jesus is God by virtue of the role that He played in the creation process as the Holy Spirit.
In most Bible translations Hebrews 1:7 reads as:
7 In speaking of the angels he says,
“He makes his angels spirits,
Hebrews 1:7 NIV
and his servants flames of fire.”[a]
However, the author of Hebrews is quoting from a verse in the Old Testament – Psalm 104:4, which reads:
4 He makes winds his messengers,[a]
Psalm 104:4 NIV
flames of fire his servants.
The Greek word ‘πνεύματα’, which is translated as ‘spirits’ in the majority of translations of the Bible is more appropriately translated as ‘winds’. Strong’s Concordance defines the word as follows:
Strong’s Concordance
pneuma: wind, spirit
Original Word: πνεῦμα, ατος, τό
Strong;s Concordance: 4151. pneuma
Part of Speech: Noun, Neuter
Transliteration: pneuma
Phonetic Spelling: (pnyoo’-mah)
Definition: wind, spirit
Usage: wind, breath, spirit.
As you see, ‘wind’ and ‘breath’ precede ‘spirit’.
Fortunately, the English Standard Version has gotten the translation correct. In the ESV, Hebrews 1:7 reads as:
7 Of the angels he says,
“He makes his angels winds,
Hebrews 1:7 ESV
and his ministers a flame of fire.”
If one thinks it through, translating the verse using ‘winds’ instead of ‘spirits’, is the only way that makes sense. This is because angels are spirits. To say that God makes something that is already a spirit, into a spirit simply does not make sense.
Why is it so important that Hebrews 1:7 is translated correctly? It is important because Acts 2:1-4 describes the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost as follows:
2 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues[a] as the Spirit enabled them.
Acts 2:1-4
If one reads Hebrews 1:7 and Acts 2:1-4 together it would suggest that the Holy Spirit is an angel and one would be correct in deducing this; because in the Old Testament there is an Angel Who is called the Angel of Yahweh and the Angel of His Presence; and this Angel is called the Holy Spirit in Isaiah 63:8-13:
7 I will tell of the kindnesses of the Lord,
the deeds for which he is to be praised,
according to all the Lord has done for us—
yes, the many good things
he has done for Israel,
according to his compassion and many kindnesses.
8 He said, “Surely they are my people,
children who will be true to me”;
and so he became their Savior.
9 In all their distress he too was distressed,
and the angel of his presence saved them.[a]
In his love and mercy he redeemed them;
he lifted them up and carried them
all the days of old.
10 Yet they rebelled
and grieved his Holy Spirit.
So he turned and became their enemy
and he himself fought against them.11 Then his people recalled[b] the days of old,
the days of Moses and his people—
where is he who brought them through the sea,
with the shepherd of his flock?
Where is he who set
his Holy Spirit among them,
12 who sent his glorious arm of power
to be at Moses’ right hand,
who divided the waters before them,
to gain for himself everlasting renown,
13 who led them through the depths?
Like a horse in open country,
they did not stumble;
14 like cattle that go down to the plain,
they were given rest by the Spirit of the Lord.
This is how you guided your people
to make for yourself a glorious name.15 Look down from heaven and see,
Isaiah 63:7-19 NIV
from your lofty throne, holy and glorious.
Where are your zeal and your might?
Your tenderness and compassion are withheld from us.
16 But you are our Father,
though Abraham does not know us
or Israel acknowledge us;
you, Lord, are our Father,
our Redeemer from of old is your name.
17 Why, Lord, do you make us wander from your ways
and harden our hearts so we do not revere you?
Return for the sake of your servants,
the tribes that are your inheritance.
18 For a little while your people possessed your holy place,
but now our enemies have trampled down your sanctuary.
19 We are yours from of old;
but you have not ruled over them,
they have not been called[c] by your name.
The Father is Spirit and, therefore, cannot be seen (Colossians 1:15 ; 1 Timothy 1:17). In order to relate to His creation He presences Himself in and expresses Himself through the Holy Spirit.
I believe that this is what the apostle Paul was saying when he wrote to the Colossian church about Jesus Christ, the Son of God:
15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Colossians 1:15-17 NIV
In verse 15, Paul calls the Son of God, Jesus Christ, the image of the invisible God. Paul was a Jewish scholar, well versed in the Old Testament scripture. He would have been fully aware that an image of God, the Angel of Yahweh, had existed in the Old Testament. The Angel of Yahweh appeared to a number of people in the Old Testament and after seeing Him all of these people said that they had seen God. For example:
- In Genesis 16:13 Hagar calls the Angel of Yahweh, God.
- In Genesis 48:15-16 Jacob calls this same Angel, God.
- In Judges 13:22, Manoah calls the Angel of Yahweh, God.
- In Exodus 3, when the Angel of Yahweh appears as fire in a bush, He is referred to as God by the author, both in verses 4 and 6.
- In Genesis 22:12 the Angel of Yahweh calls Himself God.
- In Zechariah 12:8, God the Father calls the Angel, God.
- Hosea calls the Angel, God in Hosea 12:4-5.
It is not an accident that these people were saying that they had seen God. They were all declaring that they had seen the image of the invisible God when they saw the Angel of Yahweh. So, why does Paul call Jesus the image of God in the New Testament, if he was aware that there was another image of God Who appeared to people in the Old Testament? Wouldn’t he be concerned about causing confusion by calling Jesus the image of God, when the Angel of Yahweh was the image of God in the Old Testament? Or was Paul walking away from his Jewish roots, denying the teaching of the Old Testament about the Angel of Yahweh and setting up Jesus as a new God? I don’t believe that this was the case. I believe that the most simple explanation for why Paul called Jesus the image of God, is that he was identifying Jesus as the Angel of Yahweh. I believe that Paul understood that when Yahweh said that His name was in the Angel, that He was saying that the Angel was His image (Exodus 23:21).
We can know this is true because in Exodus 6:2-3 the preposition on the word בְּאֵ֣ל means either ‘in’, ‘at’ or ‘with’ in the ancient Hebrew (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%91%D6%BE). It does not mean ‘as’ because כְּ is the prefix which means ‘as’ (8af3842462324e4d5443b28852f9368b3e9aa672.html). If you look at the blue parts of speech under the original Hebrew text the preposition is listed as Prep-b. Prep-b, according to the Hebrew parsing, means ‘in’ (https://biblehub.com/hebrewparse.htm). Therefore, the verse does not read:
….. I am Yahweh and I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as El Shaddai…
Rather, the verse reads as:
….I am Yahweh and I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob in El Shaddai…
In the ancient world people believed that if they made an image of a god, that the god came and lived inside of the image. They must have gotten this idea from God, because God the Father is living within the Holy Spirit, El Shaddai.
Jesus confirms that the Father is in the Holy Spirit when He says:
22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity.
John 17:22-23a
The apostle Paul understood that the Father and the Holy Spirit are One because the Holy Spirit is the image of the Father (Colossians 1:15). In fact, the Greek word εἰκὼν, which was used by Paul in Colossians 1:15, and is translated ‘image,’ can also be translated as the word ‘statue’. When the Holy Spirit manifests in His angelic form it is as if He is the statue within Whom the Father is living.
If the reader finds what I am saying confusing, please refer to my article about the Holy Spirit in which I discuss the fact that the Holy Spirit is an angel https://www.topicsinbiblicalstudies.com/the-holy-spirit-2/. This Angel is called the Angel of Yahweh in the Old Testament and was also called El Shaddai, Yahweh (the visible Yahweh), the Word of God and the Ancient of Days. If what I am saying sounds unbelievable to you, consider Hebrews 1:7 which says that the Father makes His angels ‘winds’. Also, I am sure that you agree that Satan is a fallen angel. We know that Satan entered Judas Iscariot in order to make him betray Jesus. This indicates that an angel is able to become a type of spiritual wind and enter a person’s body and motivate them to act in a particular manner. Therefore, it is absolutely scriptural that the Holy Spirit is an angel Who the Father can transform into a Holy Wind to indwell the believer and to assist the believer to live righteously.
The image of God, The Holy Spirit, appears in the Old Testament as: the Angel of Yahweh; the Word of Yahweh; the Ancient of Days; the Cloud Rider; the Torch and Furnace during the creation of the Abrahamic covenant; the Cloud and the Pillar of Fire in the wilderness, the Fire on Mount Sinai, Yahweh Who was seen by the elders of Israel at Mount Sinai; the Rock providing water in the desert, the Commander of the Lord’s army; Yahweh Who was seen by Isaiah and Ezekiel; the Flame in the burning bush; the Word of God which came to the prophets and the Rainbow of Promise after the flood of Noah https://www.topicsinbiblicalstudies.com/the-holy-spirit-2/. This is what Jesus revealed to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. How was it that He could appear in so many different forms? The reason for this is that the Holy Spirit is an angel and and angels can change their form (Hebrews 1:7).
The Holy Spirit appears in the New Testament as both Jesus Christ and as the Holy Spirit. In the Gospel of John, Jesus describes Himself as being the Light of the world (John 8:12). Light can exist as both a particle and a wave. When the Holy Spirit became Jesus, He became different to what He was as the Holy Spirit because Jesus was also a man with a body of flesh which gave Him human emotions and made Him share in the difficulties of what it is to be a man. As Jesus, the Holy Spirit became fixed in the form of a man. He is the Word described by the apostle John Who is bearing witness in Heaven in 1 John 5:7. However, He also remains as the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit now exists as both the Spirit and as Jesus, the incarnate Holy Spirit, the Son of God.
The apostle Paul recognized that as a man, Jesus is still the Holy Spirit. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 3:17 that ‘the Lord is the Spirit’ and in 2 Corinthians 3:18 Paul calls Jesus: ‘the Lord the Spirit’.
In Philippians, Paul says: ‘For I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance’ (Philippians 1:19 NRSV).
In Galatians, Paul says: ‘And because you Gentiles have become his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, and now you can call God your dear Father’ (Galatians 4:6 NLT). In Galatians 2:20a Paul says: I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me’.
In Romans, Paul says: ‘But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.’ (Romans 8:9, 10 NRSV).
In Ephesians 3 Paul says: ‘17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God’ (Ephesians 3:17:19).
In Romans 5 Paul tells us: ‘5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us’ (Romans 5:5).
Luke, the author of the book of Acts, recognized that the Spirit of Jesus, was the Holy Spirit. He says in Acts 16: ‘Paul and his companions travelled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. 7 When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to (Acts 16:6-7). It is clear from these verses that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus.
The apostle Peter recognized that Jesus was the Holy Spirit incarnate. He says in 1 Peter 1:10-11: ‘Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, 11 trying to find out the time and circumstance is to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow (1 Peter 1:10-11).
The apostle John describes how Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit into the disciples: ‘Then he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” ‘(John 20:22 CEV). Jesus was breathing a portion of Himself into the disciples. On the day of Pentecost they received the full measure.
In the Book of Revelation the apostle John sees the Holy Spirit:
12 And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks;
13 And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.
14 His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;
15 And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.
16 And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.
Revelations 1:12-16
We know that this is the Holy Spirit because we are told in Revelations 2 verses 1 and 7 that it is the Holy Spirit:
2 “To the angel[a] of the church in Ephesus write:
These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands.
Revelation 2:1
7 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
Revelation 2:7a
Also, Revelation 2:12 says:
“To the angel of the church in Pergamum write:
These are the words of him who has the sharp, double-edged sword.
Revelation 2:12
Ephesians 6:17 says that the sword belongs to the Holy Spirit:
Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
Ephesians 6:17
In the Book of Revelation the Holy Spirit appears to John to reveal to him what is to come, just as Jesus said that He would do:
13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.
John 16:13
Notice that in Revelation 1:13 the Holy Spirit is described as One like the Son of Man. It does not say that He is the Son of Man. In Revelation 1 and 2 the apostle John is seeing the Holy Spirit as He was before He became incarnate as the Son of Man. He was seeing the Holy Spirit as He appeared in the Old Testament as El Shaddai, the Ancient of Days, the Word of God. The Holy Spirit is the glorious Angel seen by Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1:26-28) Who can manifest in both a concentrated or a distributed form. When He manifests in the form of a man, He has concentrated Himself into that form. When He manifested in this form in the Old Testament He was called El Shaddai or the Angel of Yahweh or Yahweh or the Word of God. When He is an invisible Spirit He has distributed Himself into that form. In Genesis 1:2 He is in that form. The word used to describe Him is מְרַחֶ֖פֶת. It is usually translated as ‘hovering’ but more correctly means: ‘to grow soft, relax’ https://biblehub.com/hebrew/7363.htm. This is also the form that He takes as He lives within the believer.
It makes no sense that the Holy Spirit appears so prolifically in both the Old and New Testaments, but does not play a significant role in Genesis 1. The main theme of the Bible is not the divine council but the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Message. That is what the Greek word ‘logos’ means which is the word which the apostle John used when describing Jesus as the Word in John 1. To make a big deal of the divine council in Genesis 1 instead of making a big deal about the Holy Spirit in Genesis 1 breaks the consistency of the word of God to us. It diminishes the power of the Message. It becomes clear when you read the Unseen Realm that Michael Heiser has entirely missed the main theme in the Bible. The main theme in the Bible is God’s relationship with His creation through the Holy Spirit, Who became incarnate as the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to save the creation that He had created. Dr. Heiser seems to have become fixated on the divine council. There is no doubt that there is a divine council, but the divine council is not the One who came and died for us on a cross. The Holy Spirit, in the Person of Jesus Christ, came and did that. We must give Him His due.
Another concern regarding Dr. Heiser’s teaching is what he teaches about God the Father. For Dr. Heiser, elohim (God) in Genesis 1, is the same as Yahweh, the Ruler over the divine council. We know this because Dr. Heiser teaches that elohim is speaking to the divine council when He says: ‘… let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness’ (Genesis 1:26). As the members of the divine council can be seen, this means that Dr. Heiser believes that elohim in Genesis 1 can also be seen. However, Christianity teaches that there is an unseen Father:
18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
John 1:18
Elohim in Genesis 1 has to be the unseen Father in order for Christianity to hold true because Hebrews 1:2 says that the Father made the universe:
2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.
Hebrews 1:2
Because Elohim is unseen, He cannot be the same Yahweh, Who rules over the divine council. Yahweh, Who rules over the divine council, was seen in the Old Testament both by the divine council members and by a number of people. For example, He was seen in 1 Kings 22:19-20; Isaiah 6; Ezekiel 1:25-28. Clearly, Yahweh, Who rules over the divine council is the image of God, the Holy Spirit. Dr. Heiser’s teaching that God is speaking to the divine council in Genesis 1:26, removes the unseen Father that Jesus taught about from Genesis 1, and, therefore, is at odds with Christianity.
What is also of great concern is that if God is speaking to the divine council in Genesis 1:26, this means that there are other beings just like God and that God is not unique and the only one of His kind, because he says: ‘Let us create man in our image and according to our likeness.’ Dr. Heiser tries to get around this by arguing that God had created the members of the divine counsel in His image when He created them (see page 52 of the Kindle edition of the Unseen Realm). However, this is a poor argument, because an author writing in a world dogged by polytheism, as was the case of the author of Genesis 1, would have been very careful not to have created the idea that God might be equal to other divine beings. Therefore, the words mean exactly what they say. Because God is speaking to the Holy Spirit, they are entirely accurate and show us that the Father and the Spirit share an image and likeness because the Holy Spirit is the image of the Father and the Name of God is in the Holy Spirit.
The Bible teaches that the Angel carried the Name of God within Him (Exodus 23:20-22). God’s name encompassed His entire identity. It must have been because of this that the Angel and the Father have the same image and likeness and not because the Angel looked like the Father externally, because the Father is Spirit and He is invisible (Colossians 1:15 ; 1 Timothy 1:17). If the Holy Spirit is the image of the Father and human beings were created in the image and likeness of God, it follows then that the spirit of a human being is created in the image of the Holy Spirit. This would explain why Colton Burpo, the three year old boy who visited Heaven in 2003, saw all of the human beings in Heaven, including himself with wings. The only exception to this was Jesus Who, Colton said, went up and down like an elevator. The obvious reason for this difference would be that Jesus is the only One so far Who is in a resurrected human body.
Teaching that the Father is speaking to the divine council in Genesis 1:26 implies that God the Father is an angel because the members of the divine council are all angels. We can know for certain that the members of the divine council are all angels because Paul tells us in Galatians 3:19 that the law was ordained through angels. It does not make sense that God the Father would be an angel, because why would He have created the Holy Spirit, the Angel of Yahweh, as the Firstborn of creation ( Revelations 3:14, Colossians 1:15 and Hebrews 1:6 ) if He Himself were an angel? Logic dictates that He created the Angel of Yahweh as the Firstborn, the beginning of creation, in order to be able to relate to His creation. If He Himself were an angel He would not have had to create the Angel of Yahweh to be an intermediary between Himself and His creation. I believe that the fact that Dr. Heiser teaches that God is not unique in image and likeness represents a dangerous level of heresy. Please see my article Michael Heiser’s Divine Council Heresy for more on this point.
In my opinion, it becomes clear when reading the Unseen Realm that Dr. Heiser regards the Bible as literature rather than as inspired literature. It is this interpretative method which has sorely let Dr. Heiser down when interpreting who it is that God is speaking to in Genesis 1:26. It becomes clear when reading the Unseen Realm that Dr. Heiser is trying to see the Old Testament in the way that the authors of the Old Testament who were living in Old Testament times would be seeing things as individuals who could not transcend their historical milieu. However, this method fails to take into account that these authors were inspired by the Holy Spirit with regard to what they were writing and that because of this their writing transcended their time and circumstances. While the interpretative method of trying to see everything in the Old Testament in the way that someone living during the Old Testament times would have seen it holds up in certain instances and can often provide greater understanding regarding the meaning of something in the Old Testament, it does not hold up in others and it should never be used when foundational Christian doctrine takes precedence.
In my opinion, Michael Heiser does not seem to understand that the literature of the Bible and the literature of other ancient near eastern cultures cannot be seen to be equal because the authors of the other ancient near eastern texts were not inspired by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, any comparison between the Biblical texts and these other texts has to be undertaken with a level of caution that, I believe, Dr. Heiser fails to embrace. Jesus taught that the Holy Spirit would lead us into all truth. He did not say that we should study the Ugaritic scriptures, the scriptures of a Satanic religion, to find the truth. He did not teach that we should see them as more authoritative regarding the interpretation of holy scripture than holy scripture itself. Unfortunately, this is the methodology that Dr. Heiser uses. By replacing the Holy Spirit with the divine council in Genesis 1:26 because the Ugaritic scriptures provide a precedent for a divine council, whereas they do not provide a precedent for the Holy Spirit, it is possible that Dr. Heiser blasphemes the Holy Spirit. Jesus made it clear in Matthew 12 that anyone who says ‘anything’ against the Holy Spirit would not be forgiven. He did not qualify what He meant by ‘anything’. Ultimately, it is for God to decide whether Dr. Heiser has blasphemed the Holy Spirit, or not. By removing the Holy Spirit from the creation process. I believe that Dr. Heiser has most definitely insulted the Holy Spirit.
In my opinion, when Michael Heiser instructs us in the Unseen Realm that God is speaking to the divine council in Genesis 1:26 because this is how an Old Testament writer would have seen it, he is teaching us to use a different interpretive method to interpret Old Testament scripture than the interpretative method that Jesus and the apostles taught us to use. Reading Jesus and the New Testament events concerning Him back into the Old Testament was the interpretative method that the authors of the New Testament used. It was the interpretive method that Jesus used Himself on the walk to Emmaus. I don’t think that we would have a New Testament if they hadn’t been using this method. In fact, if Christians can’t read back the accounts of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament into the accounts of the Spirit of God in the Old Testament, we might as well give up on Christianity and churches might as well shut their doors. It is necessary that a Christian adopts this interpretative method and uses it. This is actually a fundamental part of what it means to be a Christian.
Michael Heiser’s interpretation of Deuteronomy 32:8;9
Michael Heiser interprets Deuteronomy 32:8 to mean that God divided the nations between members of the divine council. However, within the context of Deuteronomy 31 it is the Israelites, and not angels, who are spoken of in Deuteronomy 32:8. If you take the time to read the entire text of Deuteronomy 31 and Deuteronomy 32 it becomes apparent that it is impossible that Deuteronomy 32:8 is referring to members of the divine council because it is the Israelites, the Sons of Israel who are the subject of discussion throughout both chapters. In Deuteronomy 31, the same Hebrew words which Dr. Heiser translates as ‘the Sons of God’ in Deuteronomy 32:8 are used to describe the Israelites ( See Deuteronomy 31:19; 22; 23 ).
I would like to challenge the reader to take the time to read both Deuteronomy 31 and Deuteronomy 32 and to see for yourself that Michael Heiser’s interpretation of Deuteronomy 32:8;9 is taken entirely out of the context of Deuteronomy 31 and 32. The verses prior to Deuteronomy 32:8;9 and directly after Deuteronomy 32:8;9 are all about the sons of Israel. It makes no sense that in Deuteronomy 32:8 God stops speaking about the sons of Israel, speaks about angels for two verses and then returns to speaking about the sons of Israel in Deuteronomy 32:10 onwards.
Read within the context of Deuteronomy 31 and 32, Deuteronomy 32:8 provides the justification for the Israelites displacing the people who were already living in the land of Canaan and taking their land. It is saying that this was justified because when God separated the land among the sons of Adam, he did it with the tribes of Israel in mind. The verse is saying that it was always God’s intention to give that land to the Israelites and that He even went so far as to have already worked out which tribe would get which area of the land when he initially divided the nations and that he used particular people groups as place holders to allocate which land would be given to which tribe of Israel. Deuteronomy 32:9 gives the reason for why God favours Israel above these nations who are going to be displaced from their land and why God thought of where the Israelites’ home would be so far in advance. The verse declares that it is because Israel is God’s inheritance, in other words, His special people, the apple of His eye.
Michael Heiser is divorcing Deuteronomy 32:8;9 from the context of Deuteronomy 31 and 32 by arguing that ‘the sons of God’ described in Deuteronomy 32:8 are angels. It does not matter that Israel did not exist at the time that God separated the nations between the Sons of Adam because whom God foreknows, he predestined. Therefore, God already predestined that Israel would have the land of Canaan, even before He made Israel into a nation.
Dr. Heiser doesn’t tell the reader that Deuteronomy 32:43 in the Dead Sea scrolls provides proof that the sons of God spoken of in Deuteronomy 32:8 in the Dead Sea Scrolls are human beings. According to the Dead Sea scroll S4Q44, Deuteronomy 32:43b should also be translated to contain the phrase ‘sons of God’: http://dssenglishbible.com/deuteronomy%2032.htm. The context of Deuteronomy 32:43 makes it clear that the sons of God that are spoken of are human beings because it speaks about their having blood. It is highly unlikely that angels have blood. Angels are able to transform into flames of fire (Hebrews 1:7). It is unlikely that beings with blood could undergo a transformation like that.
The Masorites seem to have decided that it was best to sacrifice the ‘sons of God’ reading in order to protect the text from being misinterpreted to be speaking about angels. What was lost was the closer relational aspect as sons of Israel places God at a greater relational distance than sons of God. However, the existence of scholars such as Dr. Heiser indicates that these Jewish rabbis were entirely correct in their assessment that heresy could arise from the ‘sons of God’ reading.
The context makes it clear that the phrase ‘sons of God’ was used in Deuteronomy 32 when referring to the Israelites because God is being revealed as a Father to them in this chapter. The idea, of God as the Father and Israel as His son, is found in Deuteronomy 32:5,6:
5 They are corrupt and not his children;
Deuteronomy 32:5;6
to their shame they are a warped and crooked generation.
6 Is this the way you repay the Lord,
you foolish and unwise people?
Is he not your Father, your Creator,[a]
who made you and formed you?
Again in Deuteronomy 32:19;20 God is spoken of as the Father of the Israelites:
19 The Lord saw this and rejected them
Deuteronomy 32:19;20
because he was angered by his sons and daughters.
20 “I will hide my face from them,” he said,
“and see what their end will be;
for they are a perverse generation,
children who are unfaithful.
It is clear from reading the entire chapter of Deuteronomy 32 that the Father’s relationship with his human children is being discussed. Therefore, while Dr. Heiser is correct about the fact that in the original Hebrew it says sons of God, he is incorrect in teaching that the sons of God referred to in verse 8 are angels. He has chosen to ignore the fact that the Jewish rabbis themselves tried to clear up any confusion about this by substituting sons of Israel for sons of God in the Masoretic text.
Dr, Heiser does not take the heresy as far as it can go because he does not teach that El Elyon and Yahweh are two different entities. He recognizes that El Elyon is Yahweh. Unfortunately, there is a group of scholars that teach that they are different and use Deuteronomy 32:8;9 to argue that Yahweh is the son of El Elyon and that He is merely one of many sons of El Elyon. By doing this they introduce polytheism into the text. Dr. Heiser does not take things to this extent, but merely uses the ‘sons of God’ translation as a cornerstone for his cosmic geography teaching. While it is the case that these other scholars take a sledge hammer to Christianity by trying to show that it emerged from what was initially a polytheistic religion and by implication can be seen to be man-made, arising out of social evolution, Dr. Heiser takes the more subtle approach of arguing against the polytheistic approach (see http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted_hildebrandt/otesources/05-deuteronomy/text/articles/heiser-deut32-bs.htm), and, instead, attacking the Personhood of the Holy Spirit in Genesis 1. Removing the Person of the Holy Spirit from Genesis 1 and replacing Him with the divine council destabilizes Christianity which is founded in the fundamental teachings of the apostles that God the Father used the Holy Spirit, the Angel of Yahweh, the Lord Jesus Christ to create everything that is in existence (Colossians 1:15;16) https://www.topicsinbiblicalstudies.com/the-holy-spirit-2/.
I believe that Dr. Heiser relied entirely on the flesh, his human brain, when reaching the conclusion that it was the divine council that is being spoken to by God in Genesis 1:26. The Bible is clear that if someone is a Christian they will not be in the flesh, but in the Spirit, saying:
But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you… if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.
Romans 8:9
Therefore, I believe that it is possible that Dr. Heiser may not have the Holy Spirit and that he may not be a Christian. Jesus warned us that there would be people who seemed to do a whole lot on His behalf but who were not actually Christians:
22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
Matthew 7:22-23
I am of the opinion that if the Holy Spirit was living in Dr. Heiser, the Holy Spirit would have given him a check in his spirit when he wrote that God was speaking to the divine council in Genesis 1:26. After receiving a check, Dr. Heiser would hopefully have refrained from writing that. However, I believe that it is possible that the Holy Spirit did give Dr. Heiser a ‘check’ and that he chose to ignore Him because he was eager to sell books. I believe that it is possible that his desire to make a name for himself as a Christian author has resulted in him not having taken sufficient care to ensure that what he was teaching about the divine council lined up with the New Testament’s interpretation of the Old Testament. It is clear to me that if Dr. Heiser is a Christian, he struggles to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit because he prioritizes the flesh, the human intellect, over the spirit.
What makes the question of whether Michael Heiser is a Christian complicated is that in Part 4 of the Unseen Realm, Dr. Heiser provides, what is undoubtedly, the best teaching regarding the pre-existent Jesus that I have ever come across. It is hard to comprehend that the same man who teaches so powerfully and passionately regarding the Word of Yahweh and the Angel of Yahweh could fail to recognize the important role that the Holy Spirit plays in Genesis 1. I believe that it is the strength of Dr. Heiser’s teaching regarding the pre-existent Christ that is getting him asked to speak in churches and not his list of academic credits. His teaching regarding the pre-existent Christ is so strong that pastors are prepared to turn a blind eye to the fact that he is compromising foundational church doctrine regarding the divinity of Christ.
Michael Heiser appears to be a friend to the church because he has spent so much time researching the historical context of the Old Testament and assures us of his sincerity and goodwill in wanting to bestow this knowledge onto the church. However, it should be noted that the serpent in the Garden of Eden was also very charming, eloquent, and erudite, and seemed to belong in the Garden. However, it wanted Adam and Eve to have a type of knowledge which it was better that they did not have. As Christians we do not need to know that the city of Ugarit had a pantheon. However, it is necessary for us to know that the phrase ‘Spirit of God’, which is referred to many times in the Old Testament, is a reference to the Holy Spirit, who is a separate personality, and not merely a reference to God’s own spirit. We need to know that the Father and the Holy Spirit are two distinct entities and the spirit of God described in Genesis 1:2 ( וְר֣וּחַ אֱלֹהִ֔ים) is the Holy Spirit and not the spirit of the Father ‘astral travelling’ or projecting himself onto the earth in some manner. We need to know that the Holy Spirit is a second person that is present in Genesis 1 and God is speaking to the Holy Spirit when He says: ‘Let us create man in our image and according to our likeness’ and not to a divine council. Therefore, I would caution pastors to ensure that Christians who are new to the faith are strongly grounded in foundational Christian doctrine before they hear Dr. Heiser’s teaching regarding the divine council. In fact, in my opinion, Dr. Heiser’s books should not be read by lay people at all, because the information will very possibly confuse them. However, I believe that Dr. Heiser’s books are useful for pastors and teachers who have sufficient knowledge of Christian doctrine to enable them to sift through them and to take what is useful out and to disregard what is not.
In light of all of the above I am forced to regard Michael Heiser as somewhat of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I am of the opinion that his teaching about the divine council falls under what the apostle Paul called an other gospel:
8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!
10 Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Galatians 1:8-10
The fact that when interpreting Genesis 1 Dr. Heiser ignores the scriptures in the New Testament that reveal that Jesus was the Holy Spirit before He became Jesus, the Son of Man, is a problem. In my opinion he prioritizes the Old Testament above the New Testament, when it should be the case that a Christian prioritizes the New Testament, even if they are an Old Testament scholar. Michael Heiser markets himself using his university degrees and refers to his university degrees in order to validate the veracity of his teaching. He is trusting in his intellectual knowledge and in academia. However, you cannot read the Bible with your intellect only, but must read it relying on the Holy Spirit. I believe that academia is Dr. Heiser’s source of strength, instead of the Holy Spirit, and, therefore, he is trusting more in man than God.
However, there are a great many good things to be said about Dr. Michael Heiser. I enjoy Dr. Heiser’s writing style, I like that he is an out of the box thinker and I admire the depth of his research. All Christian teachers can learn from the example that he sets when it comes to doing research. Also, his knowledge regarding the context of the Old Testament and the ancient near east can be extremely helpful in certain instances for understanding difficult Biblical passages for which there is not clear New Testament precedent. I find his passion for Biblical study to be inspiring and I like how he is trying to make the Bible more accessible for the younger generation.
I have personally benefited from certain aspects of his teaching. For example, I found his teaching about the Word of Yahweh and the Angel of Yahweh to be life changing. His teaching regarding the Gap Theory and the Aleph Tav were beneficial to my understanding of Genesis 1:1. His insight into the polemical nature of Genesis 6 and the Tower of Babel and flood stories allowed me to see that the Garden of Eden story was also a polemic.
Therefore, I have no regrets about purchasing the three books that I have already purchased by Michael Heiser and I will very possibly buy more of his books. However, I will definitely read his books with extreme caution recognizing that his teaching represents a very mixed bag because he prizes academic recognition, and possibly, financial gain, above the Holy Spirit and prioritizes academic methodology above foundational Christian doctrine. Therefore, when I read his books I will be thinking hard about what aligns with foundational Christian doctrine and what does not.
Addendum:
The ‘us’ references:
Genesis 3:22
The Hebrew word מִמֶּ֔נּוּ in Genesis 3:22 means ‘on account of’. For some reason, the Bible Hub Interlinear Bible incorrectly translates this word as ‘of us’ in the English text which they run underneath the Hebrew. However, if you click on the number above this word, which is 4480, the word is shown to mean ‘on account of’. Therefore, what Yahweh says in Genesis 3:22 is ‘…. behold mankind has become as one on account of knowing good and evil…’ Therefore, the word ‘us’ is not used in Genesis 3:22 at all.
Genesis 11:7
The phrase ‘let us’ is used in both Genesis 1:26 and in Genesis 11:7. As both the Father and the Holy Spirit are called Yahweh in the Old Testament, it is not possible to know with certainty which of the two is the speaker in Genesis 11:6, or to whom they are speaking. It is possible that the Father is speaking to the Holy Spirit and saying that They should go down to the earth, or it is possible that Yahweh, the Holy Spirit is speaking to the divine council and saying that He and they should go down.
Isaiah 6:8
In Isaiah 6:8 we can know with certainty that Yahweh the Holy Spirit is the speaker because Jesus made it clear that no one had ever seen the Father. Therefore, this had to be Yahweh the Holy Spirit who Isaiah was seeing. Therefore, when He says ‘and who will go for us’ in Isaiah 6:8 the word ‘us’ is very possibly referring to Himself and the Father. However, as there are seraphim present in the throne room, it is possible that Yahweh the Holy Spirit is referring to Himself and the seraphim. Again, it is not possible to be entirely certain who the ‘us’ refers to.
However, there can be no doubt that the New Testament authors were aware of these verses in the Old Testament and, that in spite of the presence of these verses, they identified the Holy Spirit as a person and highlighted the role of the Holy Spirit within Genesis 1. If the divine council had featured as a main theme in the Bible in the manner that Dr. Heiser portrays it to be in the Unseen Realm, the New Testament authors would have had something to say about this council. They were clearly very excited about the Holy Spirit, but showed no interest in the divine council whatsoever.
Dr. Heiser believes in the Trinity and he has, to my knowledge, never denied the existence of the Trinity. The point that I was making in the first paragraph of this article is that Dr. Heiser does not see the Father and the Holy Spirit speaking to each other in Genesis 1. In the Unseen Realm Dr. Heiser is intent on marrying the knowledge gained from the archeological discoveries made at Ugarit with the Old Testament. In the religion of Ugarit a divine council featured prominently. This is why Dr. Heiser has tried to superimpose this council onto the Old Testament. In his efforts to combine his academic knowledge regarding what archeology has revealed regarding the religion that was practiced at Ugarit with the Bible, Dr. Heiser has departed from the teaching of the early church. The early church emphasized the Holy Spirit, not the divine council. Dr. Heiser has a great teaching gift, but he is wrong in trying to superimpose the religion of Ugarit onto the Old Testament. The fact that the Israelites were being led by the Holy Spirit made them unique in the ancient world. Dr. Heiser’s methodology of superimposing Ugaritic religious practice onto the history and religious practice of the Israelites fails to take the presence of the Holy Spirit with the Israelites into account. His presence with them made them very different from the other middle eastern people groups. Dr. Heiser’s methodology starts with the premise that they were the same as the other people groups. He does not see that it is impossible to have the Holy Spirit present in the midst of you and to remain unchanged by His presence.
Bibliography:
Heiser, Michael S. (2015). The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press. ISBN 978-1-577-99556-2.
Heiser, Micahel S. (2018). Angels: What the Bible Really Says About God’s Heavenly Host. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press. ISBN 978-1-683-59104-7.