W E’VE COME TO THE PLACE IN THE DIVINE STORY LINE WHERE THE PRESENT must give way to the future. Many scholars and Bible students have proposed all sorts of things for interpreting what the Bible says about end times, but anything approximating precision is not possible.
The reason for this is straightforward. Old Testament prophecy for the messianic solution to the salvation of humanity and restoration of Eden was deliberately cryptic. 1 So it is with prophecy yet awaiting fulfillment. The biblical text is riddled with ambiguities that undermine the certainty of modern eschatological systems. The New Testament writers who speak about prophetic fulfillments didn’t always interpret Old Testament literally. Much is communicated through metaphor framed by an ancient Near Eastern worldview. Consequently, our modern expectations about how a given prophecy will “work” are inherently insecure. 2
Rather than offer yet another speculative system about end times, my goal over the next three chapters is to show you how the divine council cosmic-geographical worldview we have been exploring sheds significant light on how the long war against Yahweh ends. As with everything else in biblical theology, what happens in the unseen world frames the discussion.
Though the kingdom story of the Bible is rarely taught with it in mind, the divine council plays an important role throughout that story’s unfolding. The scriptural pattern is that, when God prepares to act in strategic ways that propel his kingdom forward, the divine council is part of that decision making. The council is the vehicle through which God issues his decrees. The purpose of this particular chapter is to take a look back at the council’s role in the unfolding purposes of God and its final meeting, when God moves to initiate the consummation of his plan to restore Eden at the expense of the hostile powers of darkness.
EDEN, BABEL, SINAI, AND ISRAEL: Acts in Council and Human Failure
From the very beginning of the human drama revealed in Scripture, the divine council of Yahweh was on the scene. 3 We saw at the beginning of our journey that Yahweh announced his will to create humanity: Let us make humankind in our image and according to our likeness (Gen 1:26). Yahweh created humankind as his imager, as he had created his divine family, so that they could participate in administering his affairs. In this case, that meant spreading his influence and the wonder of Eden throughout the rest of the earth. Humanity would multiply God’s image through procreation (Gen 1:27–28; 5:1) to steward the vast planet and its life.
The original human imagers failed. Yahweh and his council next appear in the disastrous event at Babel. Yahweh comes down to observe the disobedience of his human imagers (Gen 11:6). He had spared a remnant after the great flood and repeated the instructions he’d given Adam and Eve (Gen 9:1). But instead of overspreading the earth, humanity had congregated at Babel (Babylon). Instead of taking Yahweh’s influence and knowledge into the world, they sought to bring Yahweh to themselves.
In response, Yahweh said to his council, Let us go down and confuse their language there (Gen 11:7), and then did so. He also decided that he was done working with humanity. Once people dispersed, Yahweh disinherited them, putting them under the authority of lesser elohim (Deut 32:8–9). 4 He would now create his own people from a man and his wife too old to bear children, Abraham and Sarah. Israel would be Yahweh’s portion on the planet (Deut 32:9). Through Abraham’s descendants, the rest of the nations would be blessed (Gen 12:1–3).
The Israelites wound up in Egypt under hard bondage. God raised up Moses to deliver them and to be his agent of divine power against the gods of Egypt. After leading his people back to Mount Sinai, Yahweh and his council gave the fledgling nation of Israel the law. 5 All that was left at that point was to bring them to the land he had promised them. To that end, Yahweh went with them in visible human form, the Angel in whom was the Name. But Israel failed.
At various times in the history of Israel’s short-lived monarchy, the council is seen in fleeting glimpses. They are there when prophets are commissioned to urge loyalty to Yahweh and warn of punishment for rebellion (Isa 6:1–7; Ezek 1 ; Jer 1 ; 23:21–22). The prophet Micaiah pulls back the curtain of heaven, where we see Yahweh and his assembly of divine beings deciding the fate of Ahab (1 Kgs 22:13–28). Israel ultimately fails once more. Yahweh sends them, of all places, to Babylon as punishment.
The council re-emerges after the exile in three significant scenes we’ve looked at before.
While in exile, the prophet Daniel has a vision of a divine council scene. The vision is recorded in Daniel 7 . As we discussed at length earlier, Daniel sees the enthroned God of Israel (the “Ancient of Days”) amidst multiple thrones (Dan 7:9). 6 The divine court is present, this time to decide the future fate of earthly empires (Dan 7:9–12), portrayed by four beasts (Dan 7:1–8).
Once the decision is rendered—that the fourth beast must be destroyed and the other beasts will have their dominion diminished while they await destruction, a second Yahweh figure emerges, coming upon the clouds (Dan 7:13). God gives this divine “son of man” everlasting dominion over all “peoples, … nations, and languages” (Dan 7:14). The appointed king shares his dominion with the “holy ones of the Most High” and “the nation of the holy ones of the Most High” (Dan 7:22, 27). Though set in the place of the people’s exile—in Babylon—the vision communicates an ultimate victory of God and the reclamation of all nations through this son of man. 7
The setting of Psalm 82 is not as clearly telegraphed as Daniel 7 , but most scholars would place it during the exile. 8 As I’ve noted earlier, when the nations of the earth are taken back by Yahweh, the lesser elohim of those nations will be displaced by Yahweh’s reconstituted council, his earthly sons and daughters made divine and set over the nations. 9 Those gods who had received their authority over nations from Yahweh but who had led people away from the Most High will have their authority terminated in Psalm 82 . The gods themselves “will die like men” when Yahweh has reclaimed what is his (Psa 82:6–8).
Divine council members still loyal to Yahweh come into view once more as the exile of Judah is ending. As the sins of the Davidic dynasty and its people are pardoned, Yahweh directs his council in a series of grammatically plural commands:
1 “Comfort; comfort my people,” says your God.
2 “Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and call to her,
that her compulsory labor is fulfilled, that her sin is paid for,
that she has received from the hand of Yahweh double for all her sins” (Isa 40:1–2). 10
The context of Isaiah 40 is a new beginning for Israel. God is acting to bring about a transition in Israel’s status. She must return to Zion and await her coming king. 11 A voice within the council then cries out (again, in plural commands):
In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD ;
make straight in the desert a highway for our God (Isa 40:3 ESV ).
A lone voice responds to the call in Isaiah 40:6. 12 The fact that the gospel writers quoted this passage with respect to John the Baptist and his message links the coming of the king with the messiah, Jesus of Nazareth.
With the coming of Jesus the restoration of the kingdom is inaugurated. It was formalized at Jesus’ baptism, the beginning of his public ministry, and made irreversible at the crucifixion and resurrection. The divine son and servant succeeded—and will succeed—where Israel, God’s human and corporate son and servant, failed.
Yahweh’s rule on earth is progressing and advancing against unseen powers of darkness and humanity enslaved to those powers. The kingdom has a clear goal: the reclamation of the nations and restoration of Eden on a global scale. The result of accomplishing that goal will be the fulfillment of God’s original intention of having a family-council of divine and human imagers. Humanity will become divine and displace the lesser elohim over the nations under the authority of the unique divine son, the resurrected Jesus.
We live in this period of advancement. We are already in God’s kingdom, but not yet. Our bodies are earthly tabernacles for the glory that we have yet to fully experience. We are in the process of becoming what we are—the divine-human children and household-council of Yahweh.
When God once again moves to initiate the final phase of his plan, the council will again meet. We can see what has yet to happen when we read Revelation 4–5 .
Scholars have long identified John’s vision in Revelation 4–6 as a divine council scene. 13 One New Testament specialist in the book of Revelation notes:
The focus of the throne vision is God enthroned in his heavenly court surrounded by a variety of angelic beings or lesser deities (angels, archangels, seraphim, cherubim) who function as courtiers. All such descriptions of God enthroned in the midst of his heavenly court are based on the ancient conception of the divine council or assembly found in Mesopotamia, Ugarit, and Phoenicia as well as in Israel. 14
Given the ground we’ve covered to this point, the description of John’s vision will be quite familiar:
1 After these things I looked, and behold, an open door in heaven, and the former voice that I had heard like a trumpet speaking with me was saying, “Come up here and I will show you the things which must take place after these things.” 2 Immediately I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one was seated on the throne. 3 And the one seated was similar in appearance to jasper and carnelian stone, and a rainbow was around the throne similar in appearance to emerald. 4 And around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and seated on the thrones were twenty-four elders dressed in white clothing, and on their heads were gold crowns. 5 And from the throne came out lightnings and sounds and thunders, and seven torches of fire were burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God. 6 And before the throne was something like a sea of glass, like crystal, and in the midst of the throne and around the throne were four living creatures full of eyes in front and in back. 7 And the first living creature was similar to a lion, and the second living creature was similar to an ox, and the third living creature had a face like a man’s, and the fourth living creature was similar to an eagle flying. 8 And the four living creatures, each one of them, had six wings apiece, full of eyes around and inside, and they do not have rest day and night, saying,
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God All-Powerful,
the one who was and the one who is and the one who is coming!”
(Rev 4:1–8).
The thrice-holy worship takes us back to Isaiah 6:3, an obvious divine council scene. Other points of similarity to other council visions include the creatures (cf. description of cherubim in Ezek 1 ; 10 ); wings on the creatures (cf. seraphim of Isa 6 ); God enthroned (Isa 6 ; Ezek 1 ; Dan 7 ), multiple thrones (Dan 7 ); the gemstones, colors, and sea of glass (Ezek 1 ); divine spirits (1 Kgs 22 ). John’s vision in fact combines earlier divine council features in this one vision. 15
God is surrounded by twenty-four enthroned elders. The identification of these elders has produced much debate. It has been proposed that the twenty-four are
•heavenly beings, either cosmic counterparts to the twenty-four priestly divisions of Israel or divine representatives of the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve apostles;
•glorified human believers representing all believers;
•Old Testament believers (cf. Heb 11 ); or
•nonhuman members of the divine council. 16
The scene’s description in Revelation 5 distinguishes the elders from angels (Rev 5:11) and specifically has the elders, not the angels, in close proximity to the throne encircling God as a council, imagery akin to Daniel 7 . 17 Our discussion in chapter 35 about the divinization of humans after death or resurrection makes it possible that the elders are humans made divine. However, the inclusion of martyrs in the scene in Revelation 6:9–11 seems to require that the elders are also distinct from glorified believers. While it is true that both the elders and the martyrs are described in white robes (Rev 4:4; 6:11), the martyrs receive their robes subsequent to the description of the elders, and are not referred to as elders when that occurs. 18
On one level, identification of the elders as human is quite consistent with other divine council material we’ve discussed, particularly the presentation of glorified believers by Jesus in the divine council (Heb 1–2 ). 19 Conversely, identifying them as divine doesn’t impinge on the human presence in the council. Heaven and earth, divinity and humanity, are not easily separable when it comes to the divine council and God’s plan for restoration of Eden.
The interpretive significance of seeing the elders as divine members of Yahweh’s council is that such a reading dovetails with Old Testament divine council scenes involving the judgment of the nations and their gods.
The choice of “elders” to describe the council derives from Isaiah 24:23, a passage that, not coincidentally, is apocalyptic in genre like the book of Revelation.
21 On that day the LORD will punish
the host of heaven, in heaven,
and the kings of the earth, on the earth.
22 They will be gathered together
as prisoners in a pit;
they will be shut up in a prison,
and after many days they will be punished.
23 Then the moon will be confounded
and the sun ashamed,
for the LORD of hosts reigns
on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,
and his glory will be before his elders (Isa 24:21–23 ESV ).
Isaiah 24:23 describes an apocalyptic judgment on the divine enemies of Yahweh and the kings of earth aligned with them. 20 When their judgment is final, Yahweh will be glorified “before his elders.” Scholars who have focused on this unusual language in Isaiah have drawn attention to the divine character of the elders by means of two trajectories: (1) comparative passages about elders in the Old Testament to establish that the term specifically refers to select members of a royal household; and (2) similarities in the descriptions of the elders in Revelation 4–5 and those of divine beings in other heavenly council scenes. 21
The purpose of the council meeting is threefold: (1) exaltation of the Lamb that was slain (Rev 4:11; 5:11–12); (2) celebration of the Lamb’s victory (Rev 5:1–5), an event that made his followers “a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth” (Rev 5:10); and (3) opening of the seven seals (Rev 6 ). 22 The scene in Revelation 4–6 shows us that New Testament writers were attentive to the Old Testament pattern of divine council activity at momentous junctures in God’s planning. The divine council scene in Revelation 4–6 launches Yahweh’s final judgment on the earth described in Isaiah 24:23, the ultimate outcome of which aligns with Daniel 7 , where the son of man obtains everlasting dominion and shares it with the holy ones and the people of the holy ones loyal to him and Yahweh. 23
Revelation 4–6 sets the stage for the final confrontation between Yahweh and his people on the one hand and the powers of darkness and those under their dominion on the other. As we’ll see in the next two chapters, the engagement is not only for the souls of humanity and the nations of the earth, but for mastery of the unseen realm itself.