Shownotes
Welcome to Day 1511 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.
I am Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom
A Family of Imagers Part 3 – Worldview Wednesday
Wisdom - the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend; I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. Today is Day 1511 of our Trek, and it is Worldview Wednesday. Creating a Biblical Worldview is essential to have a proper perspective on today’s current events. To establish a Biblical Worldview, you must have a proper understanding of God and His Word. This week, we will finish our study based on a course I completed taught by Dr. Michael Heiser on our Worldview Wednesday episode. Our study is titled “Sons and Daughters of God: The Believer’s Identity, Calling, and Destiny” Throughout this multi-week course, we have demonstrated that, in the Old Testament, “sons of God” and “holy ones” refers to supernatural beings whose Father is God and who work with God to carry out His will and that this divine family was present before humanity. By fully engaging with biblical texts such as Psalm 82; Psalm 89, and Deuteronomy 32:8–9, our study showed that this divine family functions as a template for God’s human family. God desires of humans, as His imagers, to participate in His council. This study addressed issues such as polytheism, the nature of the (little ‘g’) “gods,” and Yahweh’s uniqueness. This study applies insights to the New Testament texts and shows how the metaphor of being in God’s family informs our sense of identity and mission as believers.
A Family of Imagers
· Segment 30: Believers as Family, Participants - 3
Introduction
Hebrews 2 is a bit more of an obtuse example of the kinds of things we’re talking about because Hebrews’ language tends to be kind of complicated, but it’s a pretty powerful one. So I wanted to include it because this section of Hebrews is, I think, especially telling when it comes to these family relationships and bringing things full circle, being presented to God as the fulfillment of the original plan.
Family Members in the Divine Council
We read in Hebrews 2:10-12, God, for whom and through whom everything was made, chose to bring many children into glory. And it was only right that he should make Jesus, through his suffering, a perfect leader, fit to bring them into their salvation. So now, Jesus and the ones he makes holy have the same Father. That is why Jesus is not ashamed to call them his brothers and sisters. For he said to God,
“I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters.
I will praise you among your assembled people.”
Family Members Sharing the Same Status
Now, look at the language here. We have a scene where the writer is talking about Jesus. God is in the picture, and we have this “son” language; we have sibling language here (“brothers and sisters”). The scene is amazing because here we have Jesus introducing God, as it were: “I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters. I will praise you among your assembled people.” What’re the assembled people? Among your assembled people?; It is in the throne room of God; it is in the presence of all who have gone before. The whole cloud of witnesses’ idea is something that Dr. Heiser mentioned in the Unseen Realm. The notion of a “cloud of witnesses” goes back to divine council language by ratifying treaties and agreements and covenants and guarantees.
So we have believers who have gone before members of the council now; they have become grafted in. As normal human beings, fallen but redeemed, and being brought back into the family. The inclusion language here is a reference to someday all of us, each one of us is going to be presented to God, and God is going to be presented to us by our brother who is Jesus. He is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters because we share the same status; we are family members; we are fellow imagers.
God Remains Faithful
When we get to the end of the road of life, with the task well done, things coming full circle, the writer of Hebrews wants us to know that we’re going to have this moment. It is a full-circle kind of thing. Our purpose will be fulfilled in the way it should have originally been. What should have awaited all of us without all the struggle, the sin, the estrangement from God, the travails of human history will be completed. Of course, it wasn’t. God never gave up on the plan. He never annihilated Adam and Eve after they fell; He never just wiped the slate clean. He was committed to this idea of creating humans—these intelligent, embodied beings with who He would share His attributes so that they could be like Him; they could work with Him and, eventually, be brought back into a complete relationship into the family all because of the lead example: the incarnation, the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ who is our brother.
Authority over the Nations
In Revelation 2, we get a little bit of a feel for our status and the activity that we’ll experience in a new Eden in a new situation. Jesus is the speaker here in Revelation 2:25-28: “except that you hold tightly to what you have until I come. To all who are victorious, who obey me to the very end, To them, I will give authority over all the nations. They will rule the nations with an iron rod and smash them like clay pots. They will have the same authority I received from my Father, and I will also give them the morning star!”
“Morning Star” Linked to Ruling over Nations
The “morning star” language is essential. This is a messianic language. You think about the passage, To them, I will give authority over all the nations. This is the reclamation of the nations. Those peoples who rebelled at Babel and were put under the authority of lesser sons of God. Those who became corrupted and seduced their peoples to idolatry instead of being caretakers of them according to the acceptable rules of Yahweh’s justice.
This is what Psalm 82 is about: this adversarial relationship that develops from this act, this rebellion, and this judgment at Babel. The Messiah is the solution to that, but so are we. At some point in the future, we will be put over the nations: To them, I will give authority over all the nations. Who is over the nations now? It’s the fallen sons of God. Who is going to be over the nations? The redeemed sons of God. We essentially become a reconstituted divine council. That is the destiny of the believer. The “morning star” idea is linked explicitly to ruling over the nations because it’s messianic; it refers to a divine being who had come from Judah. Numbers 24:17 is the reference for that; we read the prophecy that A star will rise from Jacob; a scepter will emerge from Israel.
Star Language Associated with Divine Beings
Star language in the ancient world was a language that you would associate with divine beings. The king is also going to be divine. You have hints of this back in the book of Numbers. Later in the book of Revelation, Jesus Himself refers to His messianic standing with the “morning star” language. Revelation 22:16—this is the end of the Bible, this is the global Eden scene—He says, “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this message for the churches. I am both the source of David and the heir to his throne. I am the bright morning star.”
Christ Fulfills God’s Mission
Jesus Christ is the monogenēs. He is the unique Son of God. He is both God and human, uniting all things into one. Christ is the linchpin figure that fulfills God's original plan to have human beings grafted into the divine family. From the beginning, God’s plan was for us to be living on this wonderful, terrestrial place where heaven meets earth. Where God has chosen to be all together as one: one mission, one goal obtained. This is how everything ends in the book of Revelation. In these chapters, in Revelation 21–22, we have very overt, Edenic language, and it’s all deliberate. It’s all to make us think back to the beginning, and here we are in Revelation 21–22 with the mission fulfilled.
We now conclude this course, which links back to Dr. Heiser’s book The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible. If you desire to take a deep dive into the subject matter covered, I highly recommend this book. If you would like an abbreviated form of the book, which is easier to read, I recommend purchasing Supernatural.
These past few weeks, we just focused on a few items, such as the “sons of God” language. Sons and daughters of God, the idea of a divine family with deep Old Testament roots, and how that forms a foundation for understanding the terminology in the New Testament. Not just the terminology, but the concepts that go with it. Of course, those concepts refer to our status as believers; we are members of the divine family. Linking that idea between Old Testament and New Testament affects our understanding of our calling: What are we supposed to do? Why are we even here?
We reviewed the concept of divine imaging and participation in our destiny and glorification in a restored Eden. When that restoration is complete, we have an eternal status, an eternal belonging to God’s family. That restoration provides us the responsibility of eternal rule, eternal maintenance of all the beautiful things that the global Eden is—what God has made, where God has led things throughout human history.
Thank you for joining me on this trek. I hope the journey has been beneficial. I think that this will provide a foundation for learning about other concepts as well in the Bible.[1]
That will finish our study for this week’s Worldview Wednesday. Join us again next week to consider why it is essential to foster and maintain a Biblical Worldview. Tomorrow we will enjoy our 3-minute Humor nugget that will provide you with a bit of cheer, which will help you to lighten up and live a rich and satisfying life. So encourage your friends and family to join us and then come along with us tomorrow for another day of ‘Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.’
If you would like to listen to any of our past 1510 treks or read the Wisdom Journal, they are available at Wisdom-Trek.com. I encourage you to subscribe to Wisdom-Trek on your favorite podcast player so that each day’s trek will be downloaded automatically.
Thank you so much for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and, most of all, your friend as I serve you through this Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal.
As we take this Trek together, let us always:
- Live Abundantly (Fully)
- Love Unconditionally
- Listen Intentionally
- Learn Continuously
- Lend to others Generously
- Lead with Integrity
- Leave a Living Legacy Each Day
I am Guthrie Chamberlain….reminding you to ’Keep Moving Forward,’ ‘Enjoy your Journey,’ and ‘Create a Great Day…Everyday’! See you Tomorrow!
[1] Heiser, M. S. (2019). Sons and Daughters of God: The Believer’s Identity, Calling, and Destiny. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.