S5 E3: The Unseen Realm--Part 1

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Season 5 will cover the supernatural and paranormal from a Spirit-led perspective. In this episode, Glenn begins digging in by looking at the book "The Unseen Realm" by the late Dr. Michael Heiser. This book is used by many Christians to explain paranormal and supernatural events. The book has attracted both criticism and praise, and Glenn will focus on portions of the book he believes are relevant to a Spirit-led life. This episode mentions the Divine Council, which is new to many Christians.

The Bible will be the source of truth for this season, even though extra-biblical books and podcasts will be discussed. As discussed in Episode 1, Glenn will be kind to the authors and podcast hosts discussed throughout the season.

This episode has a transcript. If your podcast player does not support transcripts, please go to the Transcripts section of https://spiritledhope.com/ . These transcripts have been edited for accuracy and are typically of higher quality than those produced automatically by many podcast apps.

Transcript

S5 E3 TRANSCRIPT 

THE UNSEEN REALM--PART 1

INTRODUCTION

Hello everyone and welcome to Spirit-Led Hope. My name is Glenn Erichsen, and in this episode, we are discussing a book called:

     THE UNSEEN REALM

And this will be Part 1. As a quick note, in this and following episodes, I may mention other podcasts. I want you to know that I am not necessarily endorsing them or saying that you should listen to them. The podcasts I mention were part of my exposure to the season’s topic, and you should use your own discretion to determine if they are suitable for you or your family.

Okay, let’s get started. I had never heard of the book, “The Unseen Realm,” until I listened to the “Blurry Creatures” podcast. On the first episode, when one of the hosts said that he believed in Bigfoot because of the Bible, it really surprised me. And after a few more episodes it became clear that a book, written by the late Dr. Michael Heiser, was instrumental in that belief. Many of the guests on that show echo the same thing.

Because of the Bigfoot connection, I was worried that Heiser was going to present some flaky things. But that is not the case. Dr. Heiser was a legitimate scholar with a PhD in Hebrew and Semitic languages. He does say some things that might be considered on the fringe of Christian theology. But he always thoroughly backs up what he says using his command of the Hebrew language and culture, as well as extra-biblical material. I do not agree with everything he wrote, but I respect it because he explains why he believes what he wrote.

Since I am not a Hebrew scholar, I did read some critiques by other scholars on Heiser’s approach. And they said what I just said. There are some beliefs Heiser held that you can debate, but he is within the bounds of Christian orthodoxy. I will be sharing things from the book that I am comfortable with, but do not think that I except everything Heiser said without some reservations.

The first thing we need to look at is the title of the book, because the title explains one of the primary reasons Heiser wrote the book. Even though most people just refer to the book as “The Unseen Realm,” the full title is “The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible.”

It is in this title that you see why Heiser felt compelled to write the book. He believed that the Church had lost a supernatural understanding of the Bible. And this bothered him. He believed that pastors and Bible scholars had so rationalized the text of Scripture, and avoided difficult passages, that they stripped out what was necessary to make the Bible coherent, and even exciting. 

If you are a regular follower of this podcast, you know that I express some similar concerns about over intellectualizing our faith in God. But I do not think we should look at this book title and believe that it applies to the whole Christian community equally. For example, in the last episode we mentioned that whether you are charismatic or non-charismatic affects how you understand the supernatural aspects of the Bible and act accordingly.

And Heiser realized this. In fact, at the start of the book he said this, “Many Christians claim to believe in the supernatural but think (and live) like skeptics. We find the talk of the supernatural world uncomfortable. This is typical of denominations and evangelical congregations outside the charismatic movement—in other words, those from a background like the one I grew up in.”

So, this is a very telling statement by Heiser and very honest. I really appreciate it. It is helpful for all of us to recognize that we have filters which affect our views of the supernatural. If you are non-charismatic, and were raised like Heiser, some of the things we are getting ready to discuss may make you uncomfortable. If you are charismatic, some of this may still be new to you and make you uncomfortable.

“The Unseen Realm” is a hefty book with a lot of footnotes. Heiser writes as a scholar and backs up what he says through Scripture and extra-biblical material…that is material not found in the Bible. It is not a book that everyone will enjoy reading, although I do recommend it. But read it with a willingness to do your own study and a willingness to push back. Just like you should do with what I say. 

I apologize for how long this introduction is, but I believe it is important to set the stage properly for this book. I have noticed there is a Christian community who seems to almost idolize Dr. Heiser and this book. Because “The Unseen Realm” opened their eyes to a supernatural worldview, there is a tendency for many of these believers to think that the Church has failed to teach the whole of Scripture. They almost seem to have a chip on their shoulder. But the reality is that large portions of the Church are very comfortable with the supernatural, especially many charismatics. That said, I believe that both followers of Heiser, and charismatics, have something valuable to offer each other. 

Because of the complexity of the book and the arguments Heiser makes, there is no way that I can do the book justice in one, or even several episodes. So, what I am going to do in two or three episodes is present four significant Biblical events which Heiser covers. These four events form a framework for how Heiser views the Bible. This framework originates in the Old Testament but has explanatory power for many of the events we read about in the New Testament. I am going to place these four significant events in chronological order. In the remaining time we have in this episode, we will look at the first event.

THE DIVINE COUNCIL

The first significant event has two components to it, and the first component is something familiar to most Christians. It is simply this…at some point in time, God created spiritual beings who were not human. If you want to think of these spiritual beings as angels, that is fine. But I am just going to call them spiritual beings, which is probably a better description.

From Scripture, there are some things we know about these spiritual beings. We know they were created, and they were created before humans. We know that they have rankings with some being more powerful than others. We know that they come in a variety of forms, but Scripture does not tell us a lot about these forms. For all we know, there may be a variety of spiritual being types on the same scale as the number of animal types we see in the world. Or maybe not. We just do not know. We only know for sure what we read in the Bible. There are things written outside of the Bible, but all these accounts must be read with some level of skepticism.

We know there are many of these spiritual beings, but we have no idea just how many. In the Bible, we see expressions like the “hosts of heaven” and “thousands upon thousands.” Many people believe that every human has a guardian angel. If that is true, then there are billions of these spiritual beings. Again, we just do not know.

From the Bible, we know that these spiritual beings can enter our physical world, and we know that at least some of these spiritual beings are portrayed as powerful and intelligent. And because they are spiritual beings, not bound by the physical like we are, they can do things that are impossible for us to do. We also know that these spiritual beings have access to God in a way that we currently do not. 

And that brings us to the less well-known component of the first significant event. After these spiritual beings were created, God selected a group of them to help him rule the created universe. This group of spiritual beings is called “the divine council.”

If the divine council is new to you, you are not alone. It is not something that I have heard taught about very much. We can read about the divine council in Psalm 82:1 which says:

God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment.

Psalm 82:1 ESV

Micheal Heiser read this verse while he was working on his PhD, and it significantly altered his understanding of the Bible. “The Unseen Realm,” is the summary of where his studies took him, after reading this verse.

And you might wonder, what is the big deal? But to Heiser, he had not thought about the possibility that there were other spiritual beings surrounding God in an apparent advisory role. And these beings in Scripture, are called “gods.” In fact, recall in Season 3, that we presented “Elohim” as one of God’s names. In Psalm 82,  the verse we just read, these beings are called “elohim.” In other verses, they are called “sons of God.” 

Now, before you panic, these “elohim” are not equivalent to God and this verse is not promoting polytheism. As I said earlier, these spiritual beings are all created. None of them were created to be worshipped. Any worship of these beings is a product of sin, and we will get to that in a future episode. We call these spiritual beings divine and sons of God, not that we should worship them, but because like humans, they are in some sense God’s children and have characteristics beyond us because they are spiritual beings. But none of them are worthy of our worship.

The whole idea of other “gods” can get distorted and create a lot of angst and arguments. And that is because some of these spiritual beings did, and still do, receive worship as gods. Some of them were worshipped through idols. Paul addressed this very issue when writing to the Corinthians. Here is what he said:

About eating food sacrificed to idols, then, we know that “an idol is nothing in the world,” and that “there is no God but one.” For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth—as there are many “gods” and many “lords”—yet for us there is one God, the Father. All things are from him, and we exist for him. And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ. All things are through him, and we exist through him.

1 Corinthians 8:4-6 CSB

We see from these verses that Paul had to deal with the same confusion. Paul makes it clear that these spiritual beings who receive worship are “so-called gods.” Let us be clear…for Christians there is one God, and these spiritual beings are not him. God did not create other gods to be worshipped, but he did create powerful spiritual beings who were created to serve him.

So, what then is the divine council? The Bible is not very explicit when it comes to defining the divine council. All we know for sure is that for his own reasons, God allows the members of this divine council to have input into the affairs of the universe. 

But let us be clear, God does not need the advisory input. God is not lost without the council. He does not need the divine council to keep him in check. But he has chosen to work with them. 

Whenever we discuss the divine council, we need to accept that the Bible does not give many details about it or explicit information on all the members of the divine council or all the other spiritual beings God created. As much as we would like to know more, God has his reasons whenever he is silent in Scripture. 

Now because we are curious people, the lack of information in the Bible can bother us. And this often motivates us to look in other places to see what we can learn. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. We just need to be careful where we search and what we do with extra-biblical information if we find it.

SPIRIT-LED APPLICATION

I want to take a moment now to think about how this first significant event relates to a Spirit-led life. The first thing I want us to see is that humans are not the only intelligent life forms in the universe. We just discussed that God created large numbers, maybe billions, of spiritual beings apart from humans. And this Christian belief has some real ramifications.

Based on the Bible, there is a chance that any human being, including you and I, can encounter a spiritual being. And this encounter can be with our physical senses, or through spiritual gifts. Humans are physical beings with a spirit. And we know from Scripture that sometimes spiritual beings appear in physical form where our body’s senses detect them. Think about the biblical accounts where angels give messages to people. The angels are seen with eyes and heard with ears. And sometimes, spiritual beings are sensed through spiritual gifts which bypass the physical senses. In 1 Corinthians 12 we read that the Holy Spirit can help us discern spirits.

This possibility of encountering spiritual beings can be very disturbing if you have rationalized the supernatural out of the Bible. It is one thing to believe a story in the Bible about human encounters with spirits, and another to believe that you could be the one to encounter spiritual beings. That can be a big jump. But that is one of the story lines in the Bible we are studying this season.

I am grateful that Michael Heiser pointed out that non-charismatics may have a harder time with this. I see that trend, even though I know it is not always true. It was not true for me. Even though I grew up as a non-charismatic, I believed in the existence of supernatural creatures. This helped me when I became a charismatic and began living a Spirit-led life. For me, it felt very natural when I first encountered the supernatural. 

In fact, if you are living a Spirit-led life, you should anticipate that somewhere along the way, you will encounter evidence of spiritual beings. I hope that does not scare you, because there is no reason to be afraid. God has equipped us to deal rationally and spiritually with whatever we encounter. If you are a Christian, you have already encountered God, the infinitely greatest of all spiritual beings. And God will be with us whenever and wherever our lives intersect with these supernatural beings.

There is another way this significant event relates to a Spirit-led life. It has to do with the way the Holy Spirits works with us in a cooperative fashion. With the divine council, God receives input from intelligent spiritual beings and allows them to have some say in the way God runs the universe. And this seems unbelievable in a way. Why would God let created things make suggestions? And yet, this is what the Holy Spirit does with us in our daily lives and when operating in the gifts of the Spirit.

If you think about it, God does not micro-manage us. God gave us free will and he expects us to use it wisely as someone who is made in his image. Because of this, we have a say in the way the universe works. God could micro-manage us, but he does not do that. Now it is possible that God will intervene as necessary. But he does give us a say in the way we live and affect others.

This cooperative relationship between humans and God is very much seen with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit determines who receives and benefits from the gifts, but we have a responsibility to follow the Holy Spirit to safely operate in the gifts. It is a mystery to me, that God will empower us and yet allow us to use his gifts imperfectly. This is one of the reasons people get hurt and reject gifts of the Holy Spirit.

But whether we understand it or not, God has chosen to allow the divine council, and us, to participate in his Creation. It is a mystery that God, for his own reasons, has chosen to do this.

CLOSING

So let us wrap up this episode. We have discussed the first of four significant events covered in “The Unseen Realm.” That event was that God created spiritual beings and placed some of these beings on a divine council. God does not need the divine council, but for his own reasons allows the council members to have a say in how the universe runs. 

For us, as Spirit-led people, we should not be surprised to encounter evidence of these spiritual beings. But we should marvel over the reality that God gives us a say in how the world operates. In a small way, we are like the divine council. I am not saying we are members of this divine council, but we do have a say in what happens in the world around us. That should be exciting to think about, and very sobering. Sobering, because what happens if we choose to ignore the guidance of the Holy Spirit and do what we want to do.

And that points us to the next episode where we will discuss what happened when members of the divine council chose to rebel against God.

As always, you can send me comments, suggestions, or questions, by email at glenn@spiritledhope.com. You can also send me a one-way text message by going to the episode show notes and clicking on the link with your smart phone. If you find these episodes useful, please spread the word and share them with your friends.

As you spend your time influencing the world…

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope, by the power of the Holy Spirit.  

Until the next episode, take care.

Copyright 2025 Spirit-Led Hope