Supernatural RSM Series – Part 5
Refton Student Ministry Series:
Supernatural Part 5: The Holy War
Why in the world are there “giants” in the Bible? That’s just weird. But even more uncomfortable is when Yahweh God issues commands that devotes cities and nations to “destruction.”
A few months ago one of my students asked, “Why does it seem like God commits genocide in the Old Testament?” That’s a fair question! Some chalk it up to a form of literary exaggeration. Others will say that God has always been in the business of giving life and taking life, so we shouldn’t be surprised when He issues harsh commands to people who rebel against Him. And still others avoid the question altogether [like The Bible mini-series that we watched last week]. All of these explanations (or lack there of!) are missing a key concept that we’ve been discussing in this series:
There is a cosmic war going on against good and evil!
Yahweh and His divine council are real. The rebellious spiritual beings, including Satan, are real. The acts that seem like genocide aren’t just war for war’s sake. It’s more than a land dispute. This is about a Holy War that involves giants. I’ve not had the chance to read Paul Copan’s book, Is God a Moral Monster?, in its entirety, but I have looked at the three chapters devoted to the massacre of the Canaanites. Paul is a well known biblical scholar and is particularly noted for his studies in the Old Testament on tough issues like this. He says:
“The worship of idols wasn’t innocent or harmless. The Old Testament connects idolatry with the demonic – that is, with the cosmic enemies of God who rebelled against him … [Lev. 17:7; Deut. 32:16-21; Ps. 106:37-38] … Even Pharaoh – the earthly representation of Egypt’s gods – was a picture of this cosmic opposition. So in the exodus, Yahweh is the cosmic warrior who engages the evil powers of Egypt and the forces that inspire them” (Copan, 167, my emphasis).
Notice that Paul is not talking about idols that are imaginary cartoon gods in the minds of the Canaanites. These “idols” represented real, rebellious spiritual beings [“elohim” = “gods”] who were dead set against Yahweh being in charge. Again, this is the mindset of the biblical authors! Should we dismiss their supernatural worldview simply because we think we know more than they do? I’ve come to realize that what resides at the core of this approach is pure ethnocentrism. Another resource that aims to help us in this area is Misreading Scripture With Western Eyes by O’brien and Richards – I highly recommend their works.
So before we go any further, we need to talk about the reason why Israel had to wander the desert for 40 years.
Wandering the Desert
This is what I’ll get into tonight with our RSM lesson. The reason the Israelites were banished to the desert for 40 years was due to a culmination of disobedience to Yahweh God. After everything Yahweh did for them [deliver them from 400 years of slavery; sustain them; promise them a future and land; etc], they continued to lack a core trust in the Most High (Yahweh). One particular event was the last straw for Yahweh…
The Israelites were being led by Moses and Aaron, who received a promise from Yahweh that they would inherit land in which the Canaanites already occupied. So, before they went to war they decided to send out spies. These spies went into the Canaanite lands and after 40 days they came back to report what they saw. They saw a land that had an abundance of good food! Caleb and Joshua, two of the spies, were all for going up against the Canaanites to take the land. However, the other spies were not so enthusiastic. In fact, they seemed downright scared. Here’s what they said:
31 Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.” 32 So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. 33 And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.” (Numbers 13:31-33, my emphasis)
What a bunch of complainers – right? Well… do you remember who the Nephilim were? They were the children of the Watchers in Genesis 6:1-4. They were half “divine,” half human. They were not only born into evil, but their existence represented evil. Not only that, they were said to be “of great height” and strength. Think Goliath. He was over 9 feet tall, and was considered a giant. Actually, there were many giant clans and Goliath was from one of them – he was a descendant of the original Nephilim! So, we’re not talking about building sized giants like we see in the movies (or in one of my favorite games from my childhood). I mentioned in a previous blog that the average height of an Israelite during this time period was around 5 feet. King Saul was about 6 feet tall. So scholars would suggest that these giants were somewhere between 6.5 and 9.5 feet tall. That seems reasonable, but still scary. What chance did the Israelites have against these Canaanites?
They had Yahweh God on their side.
That fact makes all the difference. Caleb and Joshua got that, but the rest of the spies didn’t. In fact, the rest of the Israelite encampment, except for Moses and Aaron, were so afraid that they decided it might be time for new leadership. The people said, “let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt” (Numbers 14:4). Go back to Egypt?! They would rather be enslaved than trust in Yahweh God. That says a lot.
Yahweh isn’t happy with Israel and says, “How long will this people despise me?” (Numbers 14:11). Honestly, I really don’t know if Jesus had this in mind, but it reminds me of when He said:
“O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you?” (Matthew 17:17; Mark 9:19; Luke 9:41)
It’s the kind of disappointment that a parent has when their child continually disobeys. If it weren’t for Moses and Aaron pleading with God to spare Israel, God would have disinherited them and started over (think Babel!). Well, God listened to them but as any good parent knows, disobedience needs some sort of punishment. So, Yahweh said that their punishment would be that anyone 20 years or older, except for Caleb and Joshua, would not enter the promised land. Instead, they would wander the desert for 40 years, one year for every day the spies checked out the land of Canaan.
The Israelites heard this punishment and decided to try and sway Yahweh by doing what He asked of them in the first place. They took up arms and went out to do battle against the Canaanites, despite Moses telling them that they would be disobeying God yet again. Moses and the ark of the covenant stayed behind while the Israelite army went out and were utterly defeated. Why? Because Yahweh God wasn’t with them. He left them to their own destruction. Afterward, they began their 40 years of wandering in the desert.
So there it is – the reason why the Israelites wandered the desert for 40 years was because Yahweh had enough of their lack of trust. At the end of the 40 years they would get a second chance. They were to go out and take the lands as before, and again, they were going up against some of the giant clans (Sihon and Og). This time they obeyed Yahweh and gained victory. Deuteronomy chapters 1 – 3 is a good overview of these events.
War… hooh, hah… what is it good for?!
Well, it wasn’t for nothin’. Dr. Heiser puts it this way, “…the conquest of the Promised Land was a holy war – a battle against the forces of darkness and enemies under the dominion of hostile gods the Bible says are real spiritual entities” (Supernatural, 94). Simply put, this war was to extinguish the Nephilim bloodline. If you read Numbers and Deuteronomy, you might notice that Yahweh does not have the Israelites go to war with every nation. He only has them take up arms against the nations that contained the giant clans. Joshua, Israel’s commander, took out many in this bloodline, but some remained:
“Joshua devoted them [the Anakim (Nephilim descendents)] to destruction with their cities. There was none of the Anakim left in the land of the people of Israel. Only in Gaza, in Gath [where Goliath and his buddies lived!], and in Ashdod did some remain” (Joshua 11:21-22, my additions).
So the next time you read David and Goliath, remember that there’s more going on than the writer of 1 Samuel wanting you to know how to face your giants. This was part of Yahweh’s ongoing holy war to take His nations back from rebellious spiritual beings. Side note – David and Saul are clearly the main characters in the 1 Samuel narrative. So why do we talk so much about Goliath? That’s a great bible study question to ask yourself 🙂
Why does all of this matter?
If you were to read through the rest of the Old Testament historical books you would see that this conquest was never fully completed. There was a point in Israel’s history where they “decided they’d done well enough and disobeyed God’s command to drive out the other nations. But partial obedience is disobedience” (Supernatural, 95, my emphasis).
I think this is key. Yahweh God is not seeking only part of us, but all of us. This is why I keep talking about believing loyalty. If you’ve gone to church for any length of time then you already know that you need to believe in God. But, even the demons believe, and shudder! It’s really not enough to just say you believe in Jesus and then you’re good; as if you’ve got your ticket to heaven. Hear me on this…
Real faith in Jesus implies that your heart, soul, mind and strength are in it.
This isn’t faith from a distance. This is a loyalty – an allegiance – that we have to follow Jesus and obey Him. The truth is that there will be a day when many people say to Jesus that they did this and that in His name, but He’s going to tell them that He never knew them. Then He will send them away. Knowing someone is an ongoing, active thing. If we don’t cultivate that relationship, then we don’t really know Him do we? Jesus wants followers to actually follow and listen to His Word. Why? So that they can continue His mission of reclaiming the nations. Jesus didn’t just die for you and me. He died so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but rather, they will have eternal life (John 3:16; “believes” is an active verb participle… which means that this is a continual action on your part and not just a head knowledge).
Does this mean you will be perfect?
Of course not. The thing is that the Israelites were willingly choosing to disobey God. They had a supernatural worldview and were choosing for themselves to walk away from Yahweh. That’s different from a Christian who “messes up.” Besides that, we are under a new promise – the promise of forgiveness that comes through a real faith in Jesus. I really think that once we wrap our minds around the concept of believing loyalty, then all of our legalistic worries fall away in light of the cross. Followers of Jesus are dead to sin and alive in Him. I’m of the opinion that if we really believe that, then we will truly feel free.