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Have you noticed there is a strong attraction to secret knowledge?¹The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary gives a number of definitions for “Secret” including: “kept from knowledge or view : HIDDEN,” “revealed only to the initiated : ESOTERIC,” “something kept hidden or unexplained : MYSTERY,” “something kept from the knowledge of others or shared only confidentially with a few” It has been part of the human condition almost since the beginning days of creation. In Genesis 3, the serpent tempted Eve with secret “knowledge” that, according to him, she could access by simply partaking of the fruit God had forbidden from one tree. It sounded good. As we all know, she couldn’t resist.

It’s true that not all so-called secret knowledge has the far-reaching devastation of the lies told to and believed by Eve. Some may merely be distracting and harmless, but some could easily lead people astray, taking them way off course and sometimes into heresy. We do not deny that there are mysteries in the Bible – passages difficult to understand. Mysteries intrigue us, and as human beings, we want to resolve them. We want to unveil any and all “hidden” secrets. It’s perfectly ok to wonder about things, but we should not build our understanding of scripture around obscure passages with vague wording. All through the Old and New Testament, we find false teachers and false prophets offering new revelational insights about God. It often did not work out well for those who believed and followed them.

Every book in the New Testament, with the exception of Philemon, was written to address false teaching, expose false teachers, and correct false doctrine and bad behavior. Believers were misled by those who claimed to possess “secret knowledge” about confusing issues like “How could a holy God incarnate into a body of flesh?” Docetism rose up to solve that mystery. In their view, since sin indwells the flesh and God is holy, He could not incarnate without becoming sinful and no longer holy. To fix the problem, they claimed to possess secret knowledge – that Jesus was a phantasm that only appeared to have a physical body. Viola, the problem was fixed. The Gospel of John, 1 John, 2 John, and 3 John were written in part to expose this particular secret knowledge that was gaining followers in the church, which was contradicted by Scripture and history. In the first eighteen verses of his gospel John builds his case. In the first three verses, he points back to Genesis and the creation and writes:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. (John 1:3)

Before anything was created, the Word existed as God. Anything that was created, He created! John continued building his case and, in verse fourteen, states:

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son (John 1:14)

“The Word became flesh.” That is pretty clear, but John went on to record what Jesus said about His coming death and His prediction that He would raise His body after three days in John 2:19-22:

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

Down through the centuries, Bible scholars have tried to unravel what they see as Bible mysteries. When the Scriptures do not give enough – or perhaps any – additional information on an unclear passage, they may offer up previously unrevealed explanations to “clarify” the issue. These clarifications may be harmless or may lead people to a heretical conclusion.

Dr. Murry J. Harris was a Professor of Bible and Theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (Illinois). To all accounts, he is a sound biblical scholar and an all-around nice guy. He had become puzzled about the resurrection body of Jesus. How did Jesus seemingly pass through walls into locked rooms? (John 20:19) Why didn’t the disciples immediately recognize Jesus when He appeared, (Luke 24:13-32) and other similar questions? In 1990, Harris offered his solution to what he believed was a mystery in his book, From Grave to Glory. He argued that Jesus was raised bodily but not physically. According to Harris, the physical body of Jesus was not integral to his resurrection body and was, according to Harris, invisible and immaterial in its normal state. Jesus, he claimed, merely manufactured bodies for the eyes of the disciples for evidential reasons, to convince the disciples that He had been raised.

There was no need to bring a solution from outside of the text to solve a puzzle that never existed, offering an explanation that is not simply unsupported by Scripture, but is actually refuted by Scripture! For example, the eyes of disciples on the road to Emmaus were prevented from recognizing Him (Luke 24:16), and when their eyes were opened, they did recognize him. (Luke 24:31) The problem was with their eyes, not the body of Jesus. Could Jesus have walked through walls in a physical body if He chose to? Of course. He walked on water in His physical body, which is not normally seen as humanly possible, and that occurred before the resurrection. But He may just as easily have entered through the door, much like Peter, who was chained between two guards and yet walked out of prison before the wide-awake eyes of the guards, inside and outside the cell. Also, no one noticed he was gone until much later. (Acts 12:1-12)

We’re not at all saying that Harris borrowed his idea from the Jehovah’s Witnesses, but it so happens that his conclusion nearly mirrors their teaching on the resurrection body. We address these and many other resurrection questions in “Resurrection: Watchtower-Style.”

More recently, the late Dr. Michael S. Heiser has developed quite a following in the church. Again, it is our understanding that, in the main, Heiser is a solid scholar, and according to Doreen Virtue, who knew him well, he was a genuinely nice person. His popularity grew as he revealed biblical secrets that have been mysteries, at least to him, until now. He freely admitted that virtually everyone down through history had missed the main one he uncovered, which is the key he used to unlock others. He did claim some scholarly backing, but that was from liberal theologians. The starting point of his “discovery” is Psalm 82:1. Pastor Gary E. Gilley wrote in “The Unseen Realm A Critique,”:

It all began when Heiser was examining Psalm 82:1, which reads in the NASB “God takes His stand in His own congregation; He judges in the midst of the rulers. “Michael Heiser, currently Executive Director of the School of Ministry at Celebration Church in Jacksonville, Florida, came to believe that he had discovered the key to understanding God and Scripture which had long been buried by the western world and the evangelical community. That key was:  “The God of the Old Testament was part of an assembly – a pantheon – of other gods ” (p. 11). This view is reinforced by Heiser’s personal translation of the verse as found in his book, The Unseen Realm, Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible:²Michael S. Heiser, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible;Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015 “God [elohim] stands in the divine assembly; he administers judgment in the midst of the gods [elohim]” (p. 11).  As Heiser attempted to interpret the meaning of this verse, his emerging view apparently received virtually no support from conservative theologians (and rightly so), and he found it necessary to look beyond evangelical scholarship which had, he believed, ignored his newly discovered key (p. 12). In the process, Heiser scrapped his former reliance on systematic theology along with creeds, confessions and denominational preferences, which had filtered out and rejected his new discovery (pp. 14-16, 60-61), and went about putting the pieces together himself (p. 12). He writes, “We need to lay our theological systems aside, answer these questions like an ancient Israelite would have, and embrace the results…It is time to peel these layers away” (pp. 60, 61).

By beginning where Hieser began, we can determine if his basis for all that follows his newly minted revelation of this mystery is sound or not. We could spend time discussing why doctrine should not be derived from poetry (Psalms) or wisdom literature (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes), but that would end up being a much longer article than it already is. For now, we will just look at the context of the passage and let it speak for itself.

First, words have a range of meaning, and the particular meaning of its use in an individual text is determined by the context. David Stern demonstrated this in his comments on John 10:34-36:

Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken—

David Stern comments in the Jewish New Testament Commentary:

You people are Elohim, here Greek theoi (“gods”). But in the Hebrew text of Psalm 82 the word “elohim” may be translated “God,” “gods,” “judges” or “angels.” Yeshua’s rabbinic mode of Bible citation implies the context of the whole psalm (Mt 2:6N), which plays on these meanings:

“Elohim [God] stands in the congregation of El [God]:
He judges among the elohim [judges/angels/gods]:
‘How long will you judge unjustly? …
I have said, “You are elohim [judges/angels/gods],
All of you are sons of the Most High.”
Nevertheless you will die like a man
And fall like one of the princes.’
Arise, Elohim [God (the Judge)], and judge the earth,
For you will inherit all the nations.”(Psalm 82:1–2, 6–8)

The first and last “Elohim” mean “God,” but the others should be rendered “judges,” “gods” or “angels.” To remind the reader to reach back through the Greek to the Hebrew wordplay I rendered theoi by its Hebrew equivalent.

Yeshua’s wordplay implies a rabbinic-style kal v˒chomer argument (Mt 6:30N): if humans, who do evil works as they “judge unjustly” are elohim, how much more is Yeshua, who does good works (vv. 25, 32–33, 37–38) Elohim; and if “all of you are sons of the Most High,” how much more does the description “Son of God” apply to Yeshua³David H. Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary : A Companion Volume to the Jewish New Testament, electronic ed. (Clarksville: Jewish New Testament Publications, 1996), Jn 10:34

The context of the Psalm itself rules out the idea that YHWH is standing in a counsel of angels or gods He created. The word Elohim can be used for both but also for human judges. In this case, YHWH is judging the council that is judging in the congregation (Israel), and they are unjust in their judgments. Like Adam, they are sons of the Most High:

Unconverted men are called “sons of God” as well, although, in some places, the exact phrasing is not used. For example, the idea of “sons of God” appears in Malachi 2:10, speaking of the unfaithful Jews of the prophet’s time: “Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us?” We can find a similar meaning in Psalm 82:6-7: “I said, ‘You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High. But you shall die like men . . ..’” In the New Testament, the evangelist Luke calls Adam “the son of God” in Luke 3:38.⁴Bible Tools, “What the Bible says about Adam as the son of God”

The Psalm ends with the Psalmist calling on God who just judged the unjust judges who were judging in the congregation of Israel to arise and “judge the earth.” That day will come.

David Stern points out that Jesus did not appeal to this passage to affirm to his questioners that there was a council of gods to whom “the word of God came.” His point was that if unjust human judges are “‘are sons of the Most High,’ how much more does the description ‘Son of God’ apply to Yeshua”?

We could also ask, hypothetically, two other questions about these “gods.” If these “gods” are not merely unjust human judges, which fits the context best, would God have known these gods existed? Would they be true or false Gods?  To answer the first, we could simply read Isaiah 43-49. For example, Isaiah 43:10:

“You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me.”

The answer to the second question is equally clear:

For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”— yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist. (1 Corinthians 8:1-6)

There is one True God. All others are, by definition, false.

Hypothetically, if the ones being referred to in Psalm 82 are gods, according to Isaiah writing under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, YHWH didn’t create them and didn’t even know about them. They may be false gods, since there is only one true God. However, why would false gods be judging in the congregation? No, the context is actually easy to understand, in the original Hebrew or even in the English translation. They are not false gods judging the congregation but are unjust human judges. Without the great mystery Heiser believed he discovered; his other teachings built upon it hold no weight. Unfortunately, his faulty understanding of one passage of scripture has led people to accept his speculative understandings of other passages of scripture which seem to predominately rely on non-inspired, non-canonical ancient texts. That can lead people away from the main teachings in scripture and into more and more speculation. As Dr Norman Geisler would say, the main things are the plain things, and the plain things are the main things. There is nothing inherently wrong with speculative musings, but they should not keep us from studying and understanding God’s Word in its proper context.Ω

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