10: What’s Happening in God’s Throne Room?

[00:01] Stephanie: Season 4, Episode 10.

Hello, Father.

[00:06] Marcus: Hello, Daughter.

[00:08] Stephanie: Whew, we just got back from The Deeper Walk Experience in Chicago, or rather, as this episode is airing we did, we are pre-recording it because it happened over the weekend. So I trust it was epic, and as usual, I would love to hear from our audience who attended in the comments. Was it as epic as I hope it was? And what was your favorite part?

While we’re at it, again, can’t stop, won’t stop. Next week, we have another event. This one is online, very accessible. Name your own price, with our own Marcus Warner and Dr. Jim Wilder. November 8th, it shall also be epic.

Father, would you give us a little bit of what to expect from Your Bible, Your Brain, and You? I should have written down what order that went in, but anyway.

[01:06] Marcus: That’s right. Your Bible,Your Brain and You. I’m going to be doing a 30 minute presentation in each session and then have a conversation with Dr. Wilder about it. The first thing we’re going to be looking at is this idea of the voluntarist perspective through which we look at the Bible that we need to recognize in order to be able to move past it. But I’m also going to be talking about worldview in general, how it operates, how it affects us, how it creates a filter that informs our explanations of life, our values, things like that.

Then in the second session, we’re going to be looking at attachment based theology and how an attachment filter helps to open our eyes to some of the things that the Bible is seeing. If you don’t have the right filter, it can actually blind you to things that the Bible is trying to make clear. And so we’re going to be talking about how the brain operates and how culture operates, and how worldview and neuroscience intersect to help us to live with the greatest clarity possible. So how’s that?

[02:22] Stephanie: I told you! It’s gonna be epic. Literally, I am taking a little bit of time off that weekend, but I am deliberately coming back so that I can attend that event because it is going to be amazing. So, yes, I hope to see you there and of course if you’re listening to this way later, you can get the recording.

This week we are continuing with our spiritual warfare series. I also just have to say how much I love that we’re in the midst of a spiritual warfare series now, and also talking about brain science and theology and all of this. That’s the way to do it in my humble opinion.

Spiritual Warfare: last week we flew through some Halloween questions and this week we’re actually starting a series proper. Part one is going to be all about the biblical foundations of spiritual warfare and, Father, I’m just very excited about it. Before we get into the topic of the day, would you like to say anything about the series?

[03:37] Marcus: Yes, well, the inspiration for this series is that I did get asked to write a book and so I thought, before I dive into this it might be a good idea to go through all of this material and talk it through and do some beginning research. And so the podcast is a great opportunity to dive into the biblical foundations of spiritual warfare. So what prompted it for me was, if I’m going to write a book on this, then I need to start studying and I may as well share with people what I’m learning as I’m going through and studying and doing the research. So that’s kind of where it started for me

[04:16] Stephanie: You know, that’s a very practical inspiration, I’m very excited to be on the receiving end.

[04:20] Marcus: I don’t know if I can help our listeners, but that was my motivation.

[04:23] Stephanie: Very, very exciting. So beyond hoping to work out some things and write a better book, what’s your hope for the series? What do you hope for the people?

[04:33] Marcus: What do I hope they get out of it? Honestly, part of this is worldview. And that is that we want to understand that theology and worldview, basically, are almost synonymous..That the way that I look at life, I think, the more in sync to reality my worldview is, the greater freedom I’m going to be able to live with. And so my goal for the audience, in a sense, is that we help them fine tune their worldview, especially as it relates to what the Bible is teaching us about the spirit realm. I think this is important because the farther removed from reality my worldview is, the more problems I’m going to have. And the more in sync with reality my worldview is, the more clearly and accurately I’m going to be able to explain and evaluate life.

[05:40] Stephanie: Amen. Well, I’m excited for the epicness to continue because the first topic we’re diving into is the throne room of our King. So, Father, what is the Divine Council?

[05:57] Marcus: What is the Divine Council? The Divine council was made famous by Michael Heiser. He has written a lot of books on this. He’s got a lot of podcasts and YouTube videos, and sadly he passed away, I think a couple years ago now. But he really popularized this idea. I don’t call it the divine council as often just because that word can confuse people and if you don’t look into it deeply enough, it can make it sound like there are all kinds of gods and Yahweh just happens to be a little bit stronger than the rest of them (like Pantheism) and that’s not what’s going on.

It’s not what Heiser tried to teach. It’s not what we mean by divine council. What we’re talking about, though, is the Bible talks routinely about a courtroom in heaven where thrones are set up, where books are kept, where records are kept. And it is this courtroom concept that leads to a legal understanding of spiritual warfare. And so this is the right place to start from my perspective, as we need to understand: why is there a courtroom in heaven, what is going on in this courtroom, and what impact does that have on our understanding of spiritual warfare?

[07:17] Stephanie: So what is the throne room? What happens in the throne room?

[07:23] Marcus: We start with multiple passages of scripture which say that Yahweh is King, and he is sometimes called the King of kings. When it says King of kings, that’s not just earthly kings, there are also spiritual kings. It is interesting, on multiple occasions we see that there is a throne room of heaven that’s described. In the New Testament, we see this crystal sea and a rainbow around the throne. And in the Old Testament, Ezekiel gives us pictures of it. In Exodus 24, on top of Mount Sinai, we get a glimpse of like God even has a portable throne that’ll come in and that he sets up in various places.

The idea here is that as the king he is the judge, and he is the one who sets up the rules and he enforces the rules. So it’s like he sets the rules, he judges whether or not they’ve been obeyed, and he executes judgment on those. He shows mercy to whom he will show mercy. It’s what makes him God to some extent. It’s like he, the only God, has the right to do all of these things.

Sometimes, though, we think because God is the totality of all this, that he does it all in a vacuum, but that’s not the way it’s described in scripture. It’s described as a relational process in which he involves spirit beings besides himself in this process and it’s just really fascinating as we dive into this a little bit.

I didn’t explain what the throne room is, but the throne room literally is the court in which legal decisions are made in the heavenly realms.

[09:09] Stephanie: So do you want to start with the legal stuff and then work back to the other happenings?

[09:18] Marcus: Sure. From a legal perspective, the idea is like when a throne is set up, it’s usually to pass judgment on something. And so in Roman culture, this was called the bema seat. But throughout the ancient Near East, the idea of setting up a throne, that when the king was on his throne, you could bring your petitions to him to ask him to act on your petition, or you could bring your cases to him, like the famous case where Solomon had to judge between two prostitutes and a dead baby and a live baby.

There are times when the king is judging and there’s times when he’s answering petitions. And so we tend to call these decrees, that whatever comes from the throne is a decree. And that would be a decree answering a petition or it is a decree that is resolving a judicial matter. Either way, it’s a legal action for the king to issue a decree from his throne.

[10:22] Stephanie: Why does that matter for spiritual warfare?

[10:25] Marcus: Well, it matters for spiritual warfare because when we say that God is sovereign, that’s just another way of saying God is king. The word sovereign comes from the idea that he is king. It’s a synonym for king. And as the sovereign, what that means is that spiritual warfare has to be understood in the context of the kingship of God and the sovereignty of God.

And so while there is a kingdom that is in rebellion against him, they are not completely independent. It’s not like they are separate and rival kingdoms that are completely autonomous from each other. They still have to live within the boundary lines that are established by God’s decrees. I’ll give you an example. There are some angels, fallen angels, that are already in prison. We were told this in Peter, that there are some that are already being held in gloomy darkness in a place called Tartarus down in Hades, which means God has already put that boundary on this. He’s not just letting them do whatever.

There are some of these spirits already under judgment and they are given realms where they have jurisdiction and realms where they don’t have jurisdiction. There are legal boundaries put on what they can and cannot do. One of the core boundaries is that they can be active for this present age, but that this age is going to come to an end. When it comes to an end, their legal right to be active and do all these things will be over and final judgement will be issued. And that’s what the lake of fire is all about. It is to bring spiritual warfare to an end.

And so even the fact that we have spiritual warfare in this present age was a decree of God that says this warfare will be permitted. And we don’t know God’s whole mind as to why, but he has decreed that it will be permitted, that it will be temporary, and that it will come to an end someday. This stands in contrast, for example, to something like the dualism of the yin yang philosophy that says that good and evil are always and forever and eternally in competition with one another. The Bible says no, good is going to win, evil will be defeated, and the lake of fire even becomes an act of something good in the sense that it is bringing evil to an end.

[12:59] Stephanie: Yeah, it can be tempting for some to pit God versus the devil as this cosmic duality of good versus evil, but that’s not actually what’s happening here. Would you say a little bit more on sovereignty and what it is and isn’t?

[13:20] Marcus: Some people, when they hear the word sovereignty, what they hear is determinism. And honestly, when I was still doing PhD studies, I had a whole class on determinism in the Bible and philosophy. There are a lot of different variations of it, but I don’t think that sovereignty is fundamentally about determinism at all, it’s primarily about accountability and the idea is that everyone is answerable to the King.

And so where we get this idea of determinism is that there are some things that God has already predetermined will happen. So there is an element of that, He has already initiated some things that are going to play out, and God knows how they’re going to end. But if we get too far into the determinism area, what you can end up with is something that’s actually much more closer to Allah than it is to the Yahweh of the Bible. The Muslim god Allah is very deterministic and the God of the Bible simply isn’t as deterministic as he’s sometimes made out to be.

So when I talk about sovereignty, I’m talking primarily of God as King, doing all the things that a king does, whether that is initiating decrees that put boundaries on things, whether he’s initiating activity, or whether he’s responding to activity in judgment upon it, that all those things are included in the idea of sovereignty.

[14:58] Stephanie: So, do you want to talk any more about the idea of justice or permission?

[15:06] Marcus: Perhaps. Let me get into that in a minute. But let’s start with justice. The justice system in heaven. We see some things happening that we wouldn’t expect to happen because we’re used to the idea that God is omniscient. He doesn’t need anybody to tell him anything. He already knows all of our thoughts, all of the secret intents of our hearts.

And so with that in mind, it’s somewhat surprising to find out that God often investigates human activity. We’re like, “Why is he investigating? Doesn’t he already know all of this?” Well, part of the reason for the investigation is to demonstrate to everybody that he is above reproach, that he is not capricious, that he is not arbitrary. It’s not that he couldn’t, that he didn’t have the right to simply do it the way that he wanted to. But he is demonstrating that he really is just, that he is taking the time to do an investigation.

So for example, in Sodom and Gomorrah, before it was destroyed, he sent two angels to go and to investigate and to see, “Is it really as wicked as the reports that have reached me?” Now, he knew the answer, but he is demonstrating his justice by sending somebody out to check this and make sure that it’s actually true.

We see other times of the Bible talks metaphorically about holding a plumbline up and measuring the wall, just how crooked is it? And it’s a metaphorical way of saying just how crooked is the behavior of these people? Just how off are their values? Do they deserve judgment? What is going on here? And so you see horsemen being sent out, riding on the wind, so to speak, and they’re doing these investigations. As part of that investigation, they will take records, and they’ll record names of who’s doing this and who’s doing that and who’s on this side of an issue and who’s on that side of an issue.

And then sometimes they’ll mark people, and they’ll say that in the spirit realm, there’s a mark on them that says, “Okay, when I do judge, I will see that mark and I will acknowledge that and I will not bring the same kind of judgment on them that I bring on somebody else.” And in all of these ways, God is showing that his system of justice is truly just, and that it’s not capricious, and it’s not  “Just take my word for it, I’m right.” He is demonstrating the justice of what he’s doing in all these ways.

And then ultimately all these records get written down in books. And so you get different kinds of books in the courtroom. And we’ll talk about those perhaps a little bit more, but the two main books are the books of our deeds and the books of our works that are written down, and that’s where the records get stored.

And then the Book of Life is the big one. And that is, the way I understand it, the way I read it is that everybody’s name is put in the book of life as soon as they’re born and the question is, will it be erased or not? Because you see several of these times when God says,” I will not erase their name from the Book of Life,” or there’s the threat. “I will erase their name from the Book of Life.” And that could be simply a metaphor for they’re going to die, but it also might be a reference to eternal life.

So there’s a lot of things that deserve a little bit closer look here, but they’re all related to this idea of a courtroom. They’re all related to the idea of a justice system that is overseeing the way that the world operates. And it’s just fascinating how often we see this in the scriptures.

[18:53] Stephanie: Mm-hmm. Yeah. This episode or this chapter could, as usual, be a whole semester study or a whole book of its own. There’s so much good stuff here.

So, in terms of God interacting with others to make things happen, I really like your explanation of the accountability and of the “You can see that I am just.” It’s like a witness and accountability and all of that. And I also often read it through a lens of, God is so relational. God could do anything he wants in the world with a word, but he wants to work through us, through humans, and he chooses to work through his unseen realm of things going on. He wants us to participate with him. He wants to be doing things in relationship, also, I think there’s an aspect there.

[19:54] Marcus: Absolutely, and even the judgment itself isn’t unilateral. We have examples where there’s a committee, so to speak, discussing this, and they are deciding, in a sense, “Does this person deserve to be judged or not? And what would be an appropriate judgment in this case?” And God is allowing them to participate in that whole process.

There’s a fascinating passage in Daniel where we’re told that the Watchers, and that term “watchers”, the idea that they are watching us down here and they are having conversations about these things. And so Nebuchadnezzar is given a message from the Watchers saying that “We have met, we have gathered, and we have passed this verdict on you.” And then a verse later, it says, “ Yahweh has passed this verdict on you.”

[20:47] Stephanie: It’s a Yahweh-sanctioned verdict.

[20:52] Marcus: Yes, a Yahweh-sanctioned verdict. God gave the task to this committee in a sense, they oversaw it, they passed judgment, they gave the recommendation, Yahweh signed off on it. And so it’s kind of like, we see this happen all the time in normal government and leadership that happens routinely. And it’s the way it’s described in the Bible, which is kind of fascinating to think about.

In 1 Kings 22, we see a vision of the courtroom of heaven in which God is saying, “I have already passed judgment on King Ahab, who was married to Jezebel. He is going to be judged. What’s the best way to do this?” And he invited these spirits in the unseen realm to discuss, what would be the judgment for Ahab and how do we execute that? And they came up with a plan. And one of them, from all appearances, is a demon who is given permission to go and be in the mouth of false prophets in order to lure Ahab to his death in a battle. And that’s really specific. That’s, not just, ”Okay, we decree that he dies.” It was, “No, we’re going to allow him to be deceived by the very gods he worships.”

And it’s an appropriate judgement. How often do we see that the judgment does fit the crime? Ahab had abandoned Yahweh and pursued other gods. So the judgment on him is, “We’re going to let the false prophets of these other gods be the ones who lead him to his destruction.” So that is an appropriate judgment. This is not God taking an innocent person and saying, “I’m going to trick him into doing something evil.” This is God taking somebody who has abandoned him and is pursuing false gods, saying, “I’m going to allow these false gods to be his undoing and to lead him to his judgment.” And there’s something poetically correct, if you will, about that kind of justice.

[22:58] Stephanie: So as we’re talking about spiritual warfare and we’re talking about these really lofty things: courtroom of heaven, and watchers, and divine counsel, and all of that, what can we start to see for ourselves, just boots on the ground Christians, why does this matter to us?

[23:22] Marcus: So the reason it matters, first of all, is to understand that the more that we understand that things like this are real, that they exist, that they’re part of the way the Bible wants us to look at life, we understand that even demonic spirits are subject still to God’s sovereignty.. And because of that, if demons are being active, we need to be asking what gave them permission to be active here.

So for example, culturally, demons can be active because they were invited by the leaders of the culture and by the activities of people within that culture, and that opened the door and invited them, and God says, “Okay, because of what you’re doing, part of the judgment here is I’m gonna give more permission to the demons to be active in your culture.” At an individual level, we see this and also at an institutional level.

I sometimes use the acrostic RIP, like Rest In Peace, and it’s that Regionally or culturally, permission can be given for demonic spirits to be more active. And that’s why if you go someplace like Haiti, for example, where there’s been a long history of demonic spirits being invoked in the culture, you’re going to see more activity in that culture than you will in a culture where that’s not been the case.

In a place like India where there are many gods, there are literally tens of millions of gods, there’s going to be more overt spiritual activity in a place like that because of all the permission that’s been given. In the same way, it helps us to understand and ask, not only regionally, what permission has been given, but Institutionally, like in the institution of my family, has permission been given? In the institution of a church, have we done something in the church that opened up a door that we shouldn’t have? In a business? In some other institution?

And then Personally, is there something that I have done that has opened up doors that would have given additional permission? We’re laying the theoretical, high-level foundation for why we talk about permission and how this actually works.And that’s kind of what it leads us back to is whether it’s regional, institutional or personal, demons can only do what they have permission to do.

[25:56] Stephanie: And as you said at the start, the more in sync with reality our worldview is, the better we’re going to operate. And so this is from big picture to boots on the ground picture, it’s all beneficial and helpful. So I am so excited to continue this conversation with you. We’re just getting started.

I do want to invite our listeners over to our social media this week as we’re doing Warfare Week. You can find us, for instance, on Instagram, @Deeper Walk International, or @OnTheTrail_ podcast, and we would love to hang out with you over there.

And I also want to say thank you to everyone who is a donor at Deeper Walk who helps us stay on the trail with you. You are so helpful to us and to getting the word out to more and more people. So thank you for being on the trail with us.

Father, do you have any closing thoughts for this episode?

[27:06] Marcus: The divine council idea that we first started with, some of this is just fascinating because what it does is it lets us know that we are part of a larger story that is something bigger than us is going on in this world. And I like the way John Eldridge put this that I heard years ago, he said it’s like walking into a movie that’s a half over and, what’s your first question going to be? It’s like, what’s happened already? Bring me up to speed. What do I need to know? All of us are born into a story that’s already going on. And we kind of need to understand that story in order for our life to make any sense.

And so one of the reasons that we go into these worldview questions, or we discuss things like a divine council, or things like this, is because the more accurately we understand that bigger story, the more accurately we’re going to understand our world and be able to explain what’s going on in our lives and know what’s important and what’s not important and how we ought to live. And so that’s why theology is important and that’s why these kinds of big things, sometimes it’s worth taking the dive in to understand.

[28:16] Stephanie: Absolutely. Looking forward to next week.