Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Two Case Studies
Part 3: Serpent = Satan?
Part 4: What is Satan's Real Name?
Part 5: Accuser
Part 6: A Son of God?
Part 7: God's State Prosecutor
Part 8: God’s Sifter
Part 9: Azazel
Part 10: Desert Temptation
Part 11: What Does a Jewish Messiah Look Like?
Part 12: Bow Down to the Domination System
Part 13: Proclaiming Jubilee
Part 14: The Evil One
Part 15: The Angels of the Nations
Part 16: The Gerasene Demoniac
Part 17: Further Lessons on Exorcism in the Bible
Part 18: Driving Satan from Heaven
Part 19: The Unveiling of the Beast of Rome
Part 20: Unveiling the Beast Today
Part 21: Jesus and the Domination System
Part 22: Violence
Part 23: Death
Part 24: The Advocate
Part 25: Conclusions?
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The Angels of the Nations
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| A depiction of Michael and the Prince of Persia |
But gradually, the language began to change - as Jewish theology developed from henotheism/monolatrism to monotheism, the way they spoke of other supernatural forces required changes as well. So rather than calling the rival deities of the other nations “gods”, the Jewish writers began to call them “angels” and “demons” - if the deity was working within the service of Yahweh, they were an angel, and if they were working against Him they were a demon. This is very similar to the way the gods were previously spoken of - if they obeyed the will of the Most High, they were members in good standing (see Psalm 103:21, 148:1-6); but if they failed to render God’s justice, they were judged and sentenced to die like mortals (compare Psalm 82:1-8 to Isaiah 24:21).
In Daniel 10:3-20, we find an angel speaking to Daniel. And he comes in response to the prayers of Daniel - but as Daniel has been praying for quite some time, he explains that he was held up by the head of the kingdom of Persia, but the archangel Michael came to his aid. And in the end of the passage (vs. 20), the angel says he is going to do battle with the prince of Persia once again, but warns Daniel that the prince of Greece is about to come. In this instance, it seems that the angels are representative of the corporate spirituality of a nation.
This depiction of angels being assigned to nations as their head and acting as either messengers/servants of God, or agents of chaos can be seen at work in the New Testament as well. In “Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament”, Walter Wink writes:
[T]he angels of the nations are far better attested immediately before and after the New Testament period than within the New Testament itself. The motif is fairly explicit in Revelation 12-17. It may also be presupposed in Acts 16:9 and 1 Cor. 6:3, and possibly also in 1 Cor. 4:9, 1 Tim. 3:16, and Luke 4:6 and 10:1 as well.Also, in the apocryphal book of Jubilees, there is a section in chapter 15 on the angels of the nations:
For there are many nations and many peoples, and all are His, and over all hath He placed spirits in authority to lead them astray from Him. But over Israel He did not appoint any angel or spirit, for He alone is their ruler, and He will preserve them and require them at the hand of His angels and His spirits, and at the hand of all His powers in order that He may preserve them and bless them....
In “Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament”, Walter Wink responds to the above passage:
Why would God want the nations led astray? Is this merely hindsight that treats what happens in history as the determined plan of God? In any case, this inevitably casts the angels of the nations in a negative light. The step from this to their demonization is very short.
Oftentimes, the doctrine of inerrancy gets in the way of realizing how theological ideas developed over time in the Bible, and those who adhere to it try to flatten the Bible - resulting in interpreting the newer ideas through the lens of the old. And so the progression of revelation throughout the Word - the living and active Word of God (Heb. 4:12) - is missed. And so we miss entirely the language of the gods/angels of the nations. But if we understand how this idea developed, we can see how Romans 1:19-20 can express how “the gods” are really just the language of people recognizing God’s power and holiness, rather than seeking to invalidate these things. And within this understanding, we can also see how “the gods” or “the angels of the nations” become a symbol for the spirit of a corporate entity - the expression of a “personality” of a government, or a business, or a church.
When Paul writes to the Corinthians about the issue of food sacrificed to idols, he even concedes the possibility of the existence of “gods”. The experience of those whose prior relationship to “the gods” was so powerful for them that the “there is no god but one” solution to the problem - the argument that “there’s nothing wrong with eating this food, because the gods don’t exist anyways” - was not satisfying to these members of the church, as you can see in I Corinthians 8:5-6. For these members, their experience with the “gods” felt like possession, and so, to simply explain away their existence was actually insensitive. So in this passage, Paul is not interested in the argument - rather, whatever is worshiped is indeed experienced as a “god”, and this experience can be a possession or a blessing. In Acts 17:22-31 as well, Paul seems to affirm the experience of other “gods” if they are in harmony with Christianity. So in the food sacrificed to idols debate - if the person in question has been completely liberated from their “gods”, they may eat the food - but otherwise it is unhealthy for them. And for those who have been liberated, they should be sensitive to those who have not (see I Cor. 8:10-13 and 10:27-29).
Jews took a rigid, legalistic interpretation to the second commandment and had absolutely no images at all - and so they had no problem with attacking any and all images as idolatry. Meanwhile, Paganism during this time was susceptible to the attack against symbolic images as idols because it was on the decline - even the artisans who fashioned artists had realized that “the gods” no longer spoke, and this is why they had begun to portray them in Paul’s time as aging, rather than forever young. But these new Christians felt that symbols could be powerful - it seemed to them that Jews were throwing the baby out with the bathwater, as it were. And because Christians had symbols, they were not immune to having the attack against idols turned back around at itself and pointed at Christianity. So there must be a more complex attitude of holding on to the good and rejecting the evil - recognizing that the symbol points to something much bigger, and so if it is treated as such, it may be healthy worship. So idolatry may be in the eye of the beholder.
I have written before on the subject of panentheism within the Bible. Healthy panentheism is an incorporation of the many into one - God is primordially One, but is continually unfolding into the many, as the symbol of the Trinity expresses so well. And so within the Trinity, we find multiplicity in unity. Within this framework, Paul’s attitude towards the altar to the unknown god (Acts 17:23) makes more sense - and as he wrote elsewhere, Christians are to hold on to the good and reject the bad (I Thessalonians 5:21-22). This means accommodating those whose beliefs are different from your own - coming alongside them and recognizing the reason in their position, and affirming the good in them before you gently point out the weakness, while at the same time showing solidarity by admitting your own weaknesses.
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| "There is still good in you, father. I can feel it." |
C.S. Lewis took note of how accommodating Paul was to the beliefs of the Gentiles when he wrote “The Last Battle” (the last book in “The Chronicles of Narnia” series). Towards the end of the book, there is a scene where a character named Emeth comes face to face with Aslan. Emeth had been a worshiper of the false god Tash, and so when he faces Aslan after the defeat of the forces of Tash, Emeth is downcast - expecting Aslan to deal harshly with him. But Aslan sees the good in Emeth, and accepts whatever good deeds Emeth had done for the false god Tash as having been truly done in service to Aslan. Lewis explains this idea further in “The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume III: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy”:
I think that every prayer which is sincerely made even to a false god, or to a very imperfectly conceived true God, is accepted by the true God and that Christ saves many who do not think they know him. For He is (dimly) present in the good side of the inferior teachers they follow. In the parable of the Sheep and Goats those who are saved do not seem to know that they have served Christ.By recognizing how Paul leveraged the symbolism of the gods, we can see how polytheism is really just psychology at work - as Carl Jung writes: "Zeus no longer rules Olympus but rather the solar plexus, and produces curious specimens for the doctor's consulting room, or disorders the brains of politicians and journalists who unwittingly let loose psychic epidemics on the world." If this is true - if “gods” are really symbolic representations of psychological realities - when we cast aside the symbolism of gods as if it were useless, are we unconsciously projecting these symbols out onto the messianic figures of politics, sports, celebrity, and our “spiritual” leaders? If the gods are indeed symbolic of our psyches, perhaps it is no wonder that their characteristics are so exaggerated - they are so furious, greedy, petty, erotic, etc., because they represent our repressed and/or neglected inner characteristics. When these repressed psychological characteristics combine within societal structures, they do indeed begin to take on a power and characteristic all their own - a certain god-like corporate personality begins to emerge! And people begin to be trapped within these corporate psyches in a form of possession that is sinister, indeed.
But here is the real mystery - is our personal psyche combined with others the determination of a corporate psyche, or is it the other way around? Is our own psyche an expression of the corporate psyche which shaped it? Are “the gods” projections, or are our personalities projecting the characteristics of our “gods”?
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| Ares and Aphrodite |
We can see how the expression of repressed sexuality being experienced as a god plays out within the corporate spirit of America as well - and the connection within Aphrodite’s mythology to Ares, the god of war, provides surprising insight into America’s own obsession with war and her desire for world domination.
In “Unmasking the Powers: The Invisible Forces That Determine Human Existence”, Walter Wink writes:
Yielding to the archetype can be pathological. If the mythology lives us, instead of our living it, we can fall into a state of inflation, possession, bondage, one-sidedness, and stereotypy.But as Satan can be used to serve God as His sifter, so “the gods” can also be employed by the Most High as his servants - sifting His children and removing their impurities. To illustrate this, I would tell you the story of a young man who grew up in a very restrictive environment - repressed in many ways, and with an obsessive picture of goodness. Aphrodite seduced this young man out of his false, idolatrous sense of piety and shattered his image of bogus saintliness.
This story is my own. And it was only because of this “sin” that I was finally able to see true grace - the grace that accepts everyone for who they are: brokenness and all. Just as Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor. 12:7) kept Paul grounded and humble, so my own unhealthy obsession with sex (Aphrodite) lured me out of my robotic, inhuman “goodness” - this unattainable, false sense of perfection as sterility that results in hatred of all that provides a barrier to its possession - and into the real world where sexuality belongs as part of the whole. Until I was brought out of this place of sterility, I could not love. And I needed to feel freedom of real love before my sexuality could become a healthy part of myself. In this way, the unconditional love of my wife was truly an Angel (a messenger of God’s love) to me.
Paul picked up on the idea of repressed sexuality becoming an obsession in I Corinthians 7:5, where he rebukes the members of the Corinthian congregation who have taken sexual piety to levels of absurdity. A legalistic, rigid way of life often ends up proving its own foolishness when the natural desires do not go away but rather end up consuming those who tried to deny them. A holy life must, rather, make room for those desires in a healthy way - not becoming completely consumed by the desires (hedonism) or trying to kill that very human part of ourselves (asceticism), but rather enjoying in moderation that which was always meant to be a gift from God in its proper context. This idea can be expressed through the metaphorical image of a thermostat - too cold and we freeze to death; too hot and we boil alive.
Often prohibitions only serve to call attention to the behavior they try to prevent - alcohol was being consumed at much higher levels after prohibition was repealed than before it had been made law. We are making the exact same mistake with the “war on drugs”, and showing we did not learn this lesson. Crack cocaine actually exists because of this prohibition - drug lords needed to be able to create drugs that were more highly concentrated, and thus easier to smuggle. And so prohibition only makes the drugs more potent, while filling our prisons. And at this time, the U.S. prison population is the highest in the world - and the horror of this is that in our system, those who only hurt themselves go to prison, while the bankers who caused the market crash of 2008 and caused despair for millions of other people go free (and not only that but they continue to make billions).
True spirituality is an integration of the parts into the Whole - rather than trying to amputate or disown aspects of ourselves we find unseemly, such as our sexuality. Spirituality is supposed to be a total expression of healthy humanity, rather than the partial humanity which so much pious religion demands. Pious religion demands that we sacrifice those aspects of ourselves which it finds unseemly. But true spirituality gives those parts as a sacrifice in, through, and to Divine Love - thus integrating them into the whole in a way that is truly healthy. Bringing the gods into the worship of the One True God (Psalm 29:1-2) renders them less powerful - less god-like. They are manifestations of the divine, but not to be worshipped as divine themselves, neither ought they to be demonized (which is a repression, almost always resulting in an unhealthy and secret obsession).
Paul even sees anger as being a necessary part of humanity - “be angry, and yet do not sin”, he writes (in Ephesians 4:26-27). In this verse, Paul actually commands anger - it is necessary sometimes, in order to spur us into action so that we may seek justice. But if we divulge and cultivate our anger, or if we try to hold it in or suppress it (which only results in an inner festering which eventually boils over as murderous rage), we give an opportunity to the devil inside. This verse shows that anger itself is not satanic - it is how we deal with it. I wonder how many “exorcisms” have been performed on angry individuals who just have not been taught a way to express their anger in healthy ways? Exorcism, in this case, would only makes it worse, because we’re trying to cast out a part of the individual’s humanity - a part which belongs within the whole. Rather, we must love that inner nature that wants so badly to be helped through this situation.
It’s time for another break. In the next post, we will begin to explore the concept of exorcism.
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Table of Contents:
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Two Case Studies
Part 3: Serpent = Satan?
Part 4: What is Satan's Real Name?
Part 5: Accuser
Part 6: A Son of God?
Part 7: God's State Prosecutor
Part 8: God’s Sifter
Part 9: Azazel
Part 10: Desert Temptation
Part 11: What Does a Jewish Messiah Look Like?
Part 12: Bow Down to the Domination System
Part 13: Proclaiming Jubilee
Part 14: The Evil One
Part 15: The Angels of the Nations
Part 16: The Gerasene Demoniac
Part 17: Further Lessons on Exorcism in the Bible
Part 18: Driving Satan from Heaven
Part 19: The Unveiling of the Beast of Rome
Part 20: Unveiling the Beast Today
Part 21: Jesus and the Domination System
Part 22: Violence
Part 23: Death
Part 24: The Advocate
Part 25: Conclusions?
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