Slandering the Angels in Word and Deed

Hey, this is John, and before we get started on today's episode, I wanted to let you know about our new expanded show notes. These are really cool show notes. Now, have chapter by chapter summaries, reflection questions for you to dig deeper. Every time we reference scripture or look at a biblical word, that's all going to be referenced in the show notes. And you can find a link in our episode description. You could also find them in the Bible Project app. All right, here's the show. The Bible has all sorts of warnings about things you should not do in life. Don't murder. That's one of the ten commandments. Do not be afraid. God says that to Joshua. Do not judge. That's a teaching of Jesus. Well, today we're going to talk about a warning you've probably never thought of before. Don't slander angels. What's that about? We're working through the letter of Jude and slandering angels is on the brain. As Jude accuses certain men in his community, of doing just that. They slander the glorious ones. Glorious ones, as we're going to see, is a way of referring to heavenly spiritual beings. Angels. These people criticize them. Think they're better than them. So why? What is going on here? And if this isn't confusing enough, that's just one of three accusations that he strings together. He says, These people claim to have divine revelations. Look what they do. They pollute the flesh. They are rejecting the Lord's authority. And they slander the glorious ones. Okay, if you're like me, you've probably gotten to sections like this in the Bible and think, yeah, this is a bit complicated. I'm going to move on. Well, today we're not going to move on. We're going to dig in and we're going to talk about all of it, including angels, the role in the Bible, and what it means to slander them. Up there are God's delegated rulers to order the functioning of the cosmos. They're pretty key players. Why does the Apostle Paul say God's law was given to Israel through angels? Why did the author of Hebrews take an entire chapter to talk about how Jesus is greater than angels? And why does Paul write that one day will judge angels? It turns out the first century Christians had a lot of thoughts about angels. And one of those thoughts is to respect them because in some way, respecting angels is respecting God. Jude says, these people, the things about which they have no knowledge, they slander. They claimed to have knowledge. And actually, they have no clue. They're slandering both God and God's delegated powers. That's today on the podcast. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Hey Tim. Hey, John Collins. Hello. Hello. Welcome back to Jude. Jude. Jude. The letter of Judah. Yeah. Yeah, there's 25 verses, one of the shortest documents in the New Testament. But it is jam packed. Like we're not making our way quickly. Here are we. No. You want a big picture again for we walk us through? Where have we been? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So this is a short emergency letter written by Judah, the brother of Jacob, both of whom are men who grew up with Jesus of Nazareth in their home. And Judah's become a house church leader, most likely up in Galilee are the last traces of him. Okay. In early church history, is where he landed his grandsons, you know, are spotted there a couple generations later. And so he writes this emergency letter. I mean, we're not, but a decade or two out from like resurrection Sunday. I mean, we're talking about early house church network. Certainly, mostly just Jewish followers of Jesus, probably lots of relatives of Jesus in these communities. He said he wanted to ride a whole theology of our shared salvation. He wanted to do a like a Hebrew Bible, like design pattern hyperlink theology of salvation. Yeah. He needed to write the short letter because some people have started hanging out in their house churches. And he has the deep conviction that their way of life is actually destructive and is going to erode not just the faith, but also the moral integrity of these followers of Jesus. And so he wants to warn them. And the way that second temple Hebrew Bible nerd Jewish people thought and wrote to each other was to talk about everything in their lives within hyperlink design patterns from the Hebrew Bible. So he wants to warn them that these people in their communities actually fit the bill of all these type characters from the Hebrew scriptures that ruin themselves and bring ruin on each other. And why should stay away from them? So he uses six biblical stories that takes up verses five to 13. We're halfway through that. Then he's going to bring up two prophecies, one from ancient times, from Enoch, another from contemporary times from the apostles and say, we've been warned about these types of people and the effect that they can have and to stay away from them. And then in verse twenty twenty three will be the only positive instructive things that he tells them to do. We'll probably get there in the very last conversation in this little series. And then he praises God at the end. So there you go. That's the shape. That's the shape of the letter. We are right here in verses five to 13. We just finished three biblical design patterns that he linked together. The story of the rebellion of the spies who were building it smoses in God in the wilderness. So they're like the leaders of the people of Israel who were rescued. And now are betraying God. They're like the angels in that they have been given their own proper realm of responsibility. And they grabbed for more. They want more than what God has allowed it to them. That's that analogy. And then he likens it to the men of Sodom and Gomorrah who tried to gang rape the angels that came to them. And it's connected to sexual immorality. But then also to an inappropriate view of spiritual beings. And that's what he's about to go into right now. In inappropriate view of spiritual being. Yeah. Let's just I'm going to leave that ambiguous because we'll fill it in. Okay. So that's what he just went through. Remember we also went through how he's going to quote from ancient biblical text and then use this interpretive technique that was real popular in second temple Judaism, which was in the common elements between network of texts. They see a larger idea emerging out of it. Yeah. And then they say that bigger idea. These kinds of people. Yeah. That's the way to do it. That's these people who are coming into our churches. So during our series where we looked at the formation of the Bible. At the very end, we did a Q and R. Where someone asked about God's word. Like why do we call the Bible God's word? And you start talking about how God's word is that bigger thing. Like. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The scripture, the things written were like the stories and the design patterns and all that stuff. But then when you read that, you're encountering some bigger ideas. Yeah. The voice of God. The voice of God. Speaking to you and your community in this moment, the wisdom of God. Yeah. And then in Hebrews, it talks about that. That's alive. It's a living enact. It's a living thing. That's good. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great Come back, Lord. And they really did think this was likely the last few generations. Yes. I think that's going to come through loud and clear in as we read through the letter. And it comes through in other writings of the Apostles too. The end of days has begun. Yeah, but yet here we are, yeah, like 100 generations later. Exactly. Which is why Second Peter had to write his letter near the end of his life and say, listen, you might think the Lord's slow in coming because it's been a few decades now. But time to God is fundamentally different than in fact time. What time is to us? There's no real relation or reference to God and time, the way we think of time. So I know 2000 years seems a long time for us, but if you get cosmic about it, it's not even the blink of an eye. From the perspective of a rock. Oh, man, I was just down in the redwoods not long ago. And they had this old growth ring of a redwood tree. I mean, I didn't measure it. It was gigantic. Yeah. How wide it was. And these things are a thousand years old, right? Dude, they had to actually marked on it the ring that was like the birth of Jesus. Oh, okay. And it was not at the center. It was like, oh, so this thing's thousands of years old. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So from the perspective of a tree, you know, anyway, that's a much bigger question. So he's going to apply those three biblical stories, rebellion of despise, the rebel sons of God, and the men of Sodom, Gomorrah. He's going to apply it to these people. And that's what we're going to look at. No, shall we? Yeah. So, Versey, you guys in. We actually looked at this right at the end of the last conversation. But in a similar manner, similar to the three examples, those three stories, even these people being inspired by dreams, and they do three things. Everything comes in triads in this letter. So they're inspired by dreams, which is in second-tabled Judaism, even throughout the Hebrew Bible, dreams are a form of apocalypse. So, what we got shows, people, heavenly divine realities, like Pharaoh's dreams, that Joseph interprets. Yeah. So these guys are having some sort of nighttime, like dream experience. Or ecstatic trans experiences through prayer. These types of experiences are described all over the prophets. And it's a thing connected to intense experiences of God's presence. And bring on a elevation of consciousness where you're seeing things on a different dimension or something. Okay. But it doesn't always mean that you're really connecting to the source. Exactly. Yes. And this was a huge problem, especially the prophets Ezekiel and Jeremiah encountered this, where there were prophets in Jerusalem who claimed, I had a dream last night. It's from Yahweh. And there's no way Babylon's going to take the city. We're just fine. God's good with us. He's going to protect us. And Jeremiah was saying, I had a dream. And Jerusalem's going to burn and we're all going to go into exile. So what do you do when there's two constant degrees? You got prophecies. He's saying these people claim to have divine revelations. But look what they do. It's just three things. They pollute the flesh, which is Leviticus 18 style terminology for their sexually promiscuous. So that's the first thing. So that's how you know they aren't really speaking for God. They don't have moral integrity in their relationships. And if they don't have moral integrity in their relationships, that means they are rejecting the Lord's authority. That is the Lord Jesus. Cermin on the Mount. Like integrity in relationships is that is the language of the kingdom of God, right? Is doing to others what you want them to do to you, loving your neighbor. That kind of thing. So they reject the Lord's authority. And those two were kind of like, okay, it's an interesting way to say it. But I think I can understand that. Third thing they do. They slander the glorious ones. Yeah. Okay. What's this about? I love what a great response. You're just like, I just go it on. This is one of those moments in the Bible. I go, I don't know what does that mean. Except you can't really skip over it because verse 9 is entirely dedicated to giving an illustration of what that means. Well, you see, I wouldn't realize that. I just feel like I'd be on to the next weird thing. Okay. That's true. Yeah. So they slander the glorious ones. Glorious ones as we're going to see is a way of referring to heavenly spiritual beings. Okay. They show contempt for spiritual beings. Contempt for spiritual beings. Yeah. What does this mean? We're going to actually probably spend most of this conversation. Swander means to speak poorly of someone, right? Yeah. But in a public way. In a public way. Yeah. To speak publicly in a way to lower someone's value or social status. You're saying behind that is contempt. In attitude of contempt. Yeah. Think of how politicians or public officials get attacked, you know, on like social media post. And not necessarily for a policy decision they made, but attacking their character. You know, that's what it is. There's beings that have a glorious, a high status like angels and spiritual beings. But these people criticize them. Think they're better than them and speak about it. So why? What is going on here? Okay. So before we dive in, because next, he's going to quote from a second temple text. Right. What's happening here? Okay. First of all, the role that angels played in the Hebrew Bible is fairly indirect. There's the angel of the Lord who comes onto the scene. And then occasionally they're right there in the foreground like Sodom and Gomorrah, for example. Yeah. There's a couple angels. Yeah. It's not super common. But Daniel has his encounter with angels. So let's just notice that the first book of the Bible has lot loads of angels. But they're just kind of appearing to Jacob, they're appearing to Hegar, lots of angels. And then it just kind of chills. Yeah, that's true. Exodus, the angel of the Lord appears in some stories guiding the people through the wilderness. And in Mount Sinai. And up Mount Sinai. But after, oh, you're saying in the burning bush. In the burning bush with Moses. Yes. That's right. And then they kind of chill out. And then Joshua encounters a man with the sword. What stories that? This when Joshua goes into the Promised Land and they're the captain of the armies of the Lord standing there, it's the angel of the Lord. You just not called that. And then we have a look at that. No, it's such an important story. We'll get to Joshua one day John and judges and then Samuel and Kings. But right now we're doing Jude. So the point is that angels are, there's a lot in Genesis. They are moderate throughout the rest of the Torah on prophets. And then they really come into prominence in the prophets. When the prophets have visions, often they're encountering these humanoid angelic figures. And like in Daniel. It's really interesting that the book ends. Genesis. And then the prophets in Daniel is where you get the most angels. And in second temple Jewish thought, what Jewish Bible nerds did was take all of these clues within the Hebrew Bible. And they took the world view that comes from Genesis one. This is the seven day creation narrative. And days four through six of creation, where day four is the sun moon and stars, which are the rulers above. The rulers of the sky. Sky rulers. And they mirror the human images of God that are rulers below. The day six rulers, land rulers. And that concept of heaven and earth is mirrors of each other. That idea is then carried forward. And second temple Jewish Bible nerds began to think through the implications of that. And so they began to fill out a portrait of the spiritual realm. But they do so using language and vocabulary from the earthly realm. And so you get a lot more detail about angels as you get into second temple Jewish literature. But it's the result of them meditating on the Hebrew Bible. Like Enoch. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And loads of texts. So what I'm going to show you are two examples of how Jewish thought about angels took the ideas of the Hebrew Bible and developed them. This is like early biblical theology. So first is that idea I just mentioned that on day four of creation, God appoints the lights in the sky as rulers and governors of day and night. So that idea of the lights in the sky and they're called the hosts of heaven in Genesis 131, the hosts of heaven, which is the phrase for angels, spiritual beings. One of the terms. Yeah. One of the terms. That turns into this portrait of the lights in the sky and angels as delegated rulers of the cosmic order of day and night, which is a pretty important rhythm for life in our world. I'm a super important. And so there's all sorts of texts in the Hebrew Bible that talk about how the light of the sun and the stars. It's all designed by God, ordered by God. And those are lights in the sky, images of God's light and they follow God's orders all the time, except for the handful of ones that wander. The wandering ones, which Jews could mention. Okay. Now just to state it, these are the planets and the sun and the stars. Planet comes from the Greek word, planet, which means to wander. The wander. And in the ancient perspective, these were the creatures. These were the heavenly hosts. Yeah. Like to me, that's a different category. There could be heavenly hosts. Let's talk about the spiritual realm. That's right. But that's different than the stars and the sun. The other thing of them is different. In Genesis 1, the lights in the sky are called otot and Hebrew, which means signs or symbols, which is a synonym of humans being called images of God or likenesses. There. So just like humans image God, the stars are symbols of God's light. And if you want, this could be a good time to pause this conversation and go back to our long series from years ago called the God series. We have multiple episodes on the stars and spiritual beings in a lot more detail. Yeah. Yeah. So you could kind of hyperlink to that maybe in the show notes. I don't think I've closed the loop in my mind about it. Yeah. I actually had a whole bunch of new thoughts about this recently that I've been just looking for time to write it down. Oh, yeah. So I can fill it out and then talk with you about it. About spiritual beings? Yeah. And particularly the stars and then the way the mirror, heaven and earth and where the names come from. Because here's what's interesting also is that all many angels get names. Let me just show you a bunch of examples. Actually, one of the latest books in the Hebrew Bible names a couple of these. Their names are who is like God and God is a powerful warrior. We know them as Michael and Gabriel. But Michael means who is like God? Gabriel means God is a powerful warrior. But in later second temple Jewish texts, they get names. Ah, in the book of Enoch, there is a chief angel who is the leader of all the lights in the sky. And his name is named after what God shines into the darkness on day one. Let there be or his name is or yell. My light is God. So it's a name of a chief star who's and the name of it is the light that I shine is God's light. Isn't that rad? Yeah, that is cool. Yeah. Would there have been a star in the sky that they would point out? I mean, that's real. You know what? Probably. I haven't looked that up. Okay. In another passage in the book of Enoch chapter 82, it just starts naming all of the leaders, all of the chief stars and all their names are symbolic that have God in them. Okay. It's the word L. Yeah. So the point is that star beings up there are God's delegated rulers to order the functioning of the cosmos because you get light and then light shines on the ground and then you get fruit and write the plants and makes everything grow. So they're pretty key players in the order of the cosmos. Okay. That's important. Here's another important thing connected with angels. Again, this comes from the Hebrew Bible. There's a poem in Deuteronomy 33 that Moses sings. And in this poem, he's retelling poetically the moment God showed up on Mount Sinai. And he includes a detail in the poem that wasn't explicitly there in the narrative in Exodus about when God showed up. And he puts it this way. As Deuteronomy 33, too, Yahweh came down from Sinai. He dawned upon them from Seir, which are the mountains like east of Sinai. He's shown forth from Mount Puran, which is another way to refer to that mountainous region there. Okay. The poem with myriads of holiness, thousands of holiness. Literally. Our English translations, many of them do thousands of holy ones with singular noun, thousands of holiness. And at his right hand was a fiery law for them. And the them is the holiness? The them. You got to wait for the them. He loves his people. All of the holy ones, and there it is, plural, were in your hand. They bowed down at your feet, each one accepting direction from you, the U of God. A Torah, Moses commanded for us as a possession for the assembly of Jacob. So Yahweh came down with a whole bunch of holy ones onto the mountain, and in God's right hand was a... Oh, and he came down with thousands of holiness. That's true. Thousands of things that fit in the category of holiness. Holiness is the unique set of partners that is associated with God. So thousands of ones who participate or share in God's holiness, and in God's hand was a law that was on fire. Yeah. And this is the Torah. Yes, it's the way of conceiving of God's Word. Becoming Torah. That the people heard in what they heard was lightning and thunder. They saw lightning, heard thunder. That's why they freaked out. So that's being described politically as a fiery law. A fiery law in God's hand. Was that actually the word Torah there? It's fascinating. It's an air-a-mac word. The Hebrew word for Torah is down here in verse 4. The air-a-mac word that's equivalent in air-a-mac for Torah is dot. It's an air-a-mac word in Deuteronomy. Yeah, and that's interesting. Actually, this phrase, Aisha Dot, is a whole rabbit hole. We could spend a whole episode, actually. It's done. On that word? That one word. Okay. Okay. Or two words. Firey. Aisha Dotman. Then verse 3 goes on to say, God loves His people, the ones to whom He came on the mountain. I'm thinking now the people who got to make a covenant with. Yes. Okay. This is the them. This is the them. And so He loves them. He loves this people. He loves this people to whom He came with a fiery law in His hand, accompanied by thousands of holiness. Of holiness. Okay. And His people whom He loves are then called the holy ones in your hand. And they bowed. So God has holy ones above with whom He comes down, thousands of holiness, right, that He comes down with. And then He was, as it were, the Torah becomes a fire from heaven that comes down to earth in the form of God's words and commands. And then when they touch down on earth, they meet God's beloved ones who are also holy ones. I see. So this is the mirror of the land in the sky rulers. Yes. So the holy ones above the holy ones below. And the holy ones above accompany God as He comes down to give the Torah. What is so interesting? Do you see it appear in the New Testament in Paul and in the book of Acts and in Hebrews? This idea that the law given to Israel Mount Sinai was actually given through angels. Paul explicitly references this in Galatians 3.19 where he is talking about, you know, why and where did the law come from through Israel? Yep. And he describes that as being ordered through angels by the hands of a mediator. Moses. Okay. In Stephen's speech, in the book of Acts chapter 7, he talks about our ancestors received the living oracles of God, the law by the direction of angels. Right. And you can look in Josephus for century Jewish historian. You can look in other second temple Jewish texts. There's a book called Jubilee's that's a retelling of Exodus that just retells the story of Mount Sinai in Israel there with Moses and it just puts it in an angel. And the only one that Moses ever talks to is the angel. The angel is called the angel of the face that is God's face. And that's who gives the Torah. So here's why this is all relevant. Why is Jude saying it's a real problem that to slander the angels? That these people show public contempt for spiritual beings. In second temple Jewish thought, angels were associated as delegates of God over the cosmic order and over the covenant relationship. The Torah. The Torah, yes. Well, actually, there's one another step here. So Adam and Eve were destined to be images of God who rule over heaven and earth since Genesis chapter one. They blow it. And so they end up going back to the dust and so does all their children. So when the Messianic Hope starts to build momentum through the Hebrew Bible, and really important kind of summary moment where all those hyperlinked ideas come together is in the book of Daniel, which we've talked about many times, Daniel chapter seven, such an important chapter. And there, there's a whole bunch of beasts and mutants. It's a dream they're having. Beast mutants that represent violent empires and kingdoms come up out of a dark chaotic ocean. Kingdoms that actually don't bring order, but actually bring chaos and just they de-create the world through violence. So they come up out of the chaotic sea. They're returning the world back to the chaos from which they came. This is Daniel's way of describing Babylon. Yeah. Kind of intense. Some intense political rhetoric. Yeah. He and Jude would have been great friends. But Daniel is vision that God going to raise up a son of Adam, one like a son of Adam, who's going to be enthroned in the heavens, sit on God's throne, a human-like figure, and all powers, human kingdoms, but also heavenly beings will bow down to him. That's in the portrait. And so Paul the Apostle comes onto the scene and he believes that Jesus is Israel's Messiah. And he believes that Jesus in his resurrection and ascension to God's right hand now is the ruler over heaven and earth, over all humans, and over all spiritual beings. Even more. What he says is, man, if you put your trust in the Messiah, his life is your life. His identity is your identity. So even you. So Paul says, for example, in the letter to the Ephesians, okay, so there is the Messiah whom God raised from the dead, seeding him at his right hand in the heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power and dominion. Right? Then Paul can go on to then say of the Ephesians, hey, guys, you should know that you all used to be dead in your transgressions and sins. You were slaves to the spirit at work in people who live against God's wisdom. He calls them the sons of disobedience. The spirit. This isn't like referring to multiple angels. I think he's referring here to the chief evil one, the satan. But because of God's love for us, he's rich in mercy. He made us alive with the Messiah. This is key. Ephesians 2 verse 6. He raised us up with Christ. He ceded us in the heavenly realms. Like we have a Daniel 7 identity in him. Okay. So we rule over the angels. Yeah. It may not feel like it, but that's our future. Yeah. In fact, Paul explicitly says this a couple of times. Right? Like in 1 Corinthians, he tells them, don't you know that you are the holy ones and you're going to be responsible for ruling the whole world one day. You're going to even judge angels. Right. Okay. And that's where it gets us from. Yes. Okay. Can I see it back? Yeah. Not only are the angels ordering the sky and like the cosmos and the order of how things work, they're actually involved in giving us God's order for our lives. That's right. Yeah. Over the moral order, you could say. Yeah. So in other words, it's a vision of an realm of spiritual mediators between heaven and earth. There's God above the heavens and the heavens. And then there's the lights in the skies that are signs or symbols of spiritual beings. And when God who is above makes contact with earth, he does it through these delegates. The delegates do what God did on day one, separating night from dark. Yeah. So they're cosmic orders. And then also through the gift of the Torah to Israel, angels have this honored role of being the mediators of the moral order. Didn't we kind of completely lose this idea then in Christianity? Like we never talk about some sort of angelic mediation between God and us. And that is because the apostles were convinced that Jesus Messiah is the human image of God that was destined from the beginning to rule over heaven and earth. So we don't need the angels. That's exactly right. Okay. And you could just say, this is why the letter to the Hebrews begins with a whole chapter dedicated to talking about why Jesus is more important than angels. That's right. And he has to write that to a Jewish audience, to a signolous shift in how they see the world. Listen, your whole life you've been raised, the author of Hebrews is saying, thinking the angels are the thing. And you know what? They're awesome. Yeah. Okay. And you have to say you have contempt for the angels is like, that's just saying you don't get it at all. Like you're misunderstanding God's like design for you. Because God gives you his instruction through the angels. Yeah. And now we realize the one in charge of the angels, Jude will say, as the risen Lord Jesus Messiah, don't, don't diss the angels man. Yeah. Like they have an honored role still in the touch. And the cider language don't diss the angels. Oh my goodness. Don't diss. That comes from being raised on the west coast. Oh, well, you're saying this is insider for west coast. But don't, don't slander the angels. Is such a like insider term that makes sense to them. Yes, exactly. Out of that sense of let's honor the angels, they mediate on our behalf, came this realization of, oh, but Jesus is the one we need. Jesus is there now. And the angels respond to him and we have direct access to Jesus. In fact, we're like kind of seated there with him. We're part of his crew. Exactly. And so like the whole angel thing switches and changes. But you can still say something like, oh, well, they're dissing the angels. Yeah. And that would make sense. Yep, exactly. That was a long setup. Now, let's go back to what he said. So he says, listen, I'm going to paraphrase here. In verse 9, he's going to say, hey, friends, here's a text in our church library. You all have read the Testament of Moses, right? You know, we all read it together. You've also referred to as the ascension of Moses, right? Oh, it's known by two names in ancient descriptions of it. And as a rabbit hole attached. That's right. I'm just going to call it the Testament of Moses. Testament Moses. Also known as the ascension of Moses. Okay. Yes. It's a second temple Jewish work that's imagining Moses. Giving a final speech, like right before he dies. And he's forecasting the whole history of Israel right up to the destruction of Jerusalem. Oh, okay. So this is like Deuteronomy speeches happen and then the Moses like one more thing. One more thing. And then he foretaste the Testament of Moses. The exile, the Babylon. He then talks about the return from Babylon, the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and then the destruction of Jerusalem again. Okay. Okay. So this is a story about the burial of Moses. And it's a story about Michael the Archangel being the one to bury Moses. But then the satan shows up. Oh, really? Yes. In the Testament of Moses, the satan, the evil one shows up. And the satan says Moses is not worthy of honorable burial because he murdered that Egyptian. That's how the story goes. Then Michael has this response. And that's what Jude is quoting from here. And so here's what Jude says. He says, listen, even Michael, like the chief angel of God, when he was disputing the slander rure, often translated the devil. Don't you remember? Even Michael didn't dare to bring about a judgment of slander. Rather, he said, may the Lord repute you. If there was anybody who was in a right position to bring divine judgment on the evil one, surely it was Michael in that moment. And even Michael didn't take it upon himself to render a judgment about even a rebel spiritual being. He said, let God take care of that one. So then Jude goes on. He says, but these people, man, the things about which they have no knowledge, they slander. And man, whatever they think they do understand, like irrational, instinct driven animals, by these things they are destroyed. So they claim to have knowledge. And actually they have no clue. They are slandering both God and God's delegated powers. They don't understand the workings of heaven, but they think they do. They claim to have knowledge of the workings of heaven and earth. We've been enthroned with Messiah over the spiritual beings that gives us freedom to rule the world as we see fit. Remember, they pollute the flesh. They reject all the authority. So that would have likely been something they would have said. Maybe. We look guys like aren't we greater than the angels and aren't we seeded in the skies? So let's just party. Let's party. We are enthroned above the angels with the Messiah. And so sleeping around is not a big deal. But that doesn't affect my eternal destiny. This was actually a widespread distortion of early Christianity that became really popular. Paul was confronting a version of this in a more Greek-romanized version in Corinth. But it's very similar. He calls it being worldly, kosmicos, thinking in a worldly way. And so that guy who's sleeping with his mother in law, and they think it's all fine, still going to the Greek and Roman temples, sleeping with the cult prostitutes. What does that have to do with me acknowledging Jesus as my Lord? And Paul's like, good night. It has everything to do, but that was the new way of thinking, especially for Greek and Roman people. And this is what taking the grace of God and turning it into permission to just do what you want. So here's what I love about this paragraph of Jew. He's naming a book in their church library that is not I've never read. And that it's not in the Hebrew Bible, but it was a text that his church community read and read the Hebrew Bible in light of. Yeah, okay. Let's talk about this story more because I don't think I fully understand what's going on. Yes. Why is this second temple text talking about the burial of Moses as a disputing ground for an angel and the Satan? Yeah, why that? And what did Michael mean by I'm not going to slander Satan? Like what's really going to, I don't get it. Okay. Yes. All right. So welcome to the mind of second temple, Messianic Jewish Bible nerds. So their minds are so saturated, they're simultaneously thinking of about half a dozen hyperlinked biblical texts all of the time. Okay. Okay. So we're going to have to take this step by step like for all of the pieces. First of all, the story about Moses burial will start there. It's the last chapter of the Torah to the Holy Quran, Me 34. And it has a little detail in it. Most of us would read over, but it sparked a whole lot of meditation for ancient Jewish readers. So to the Holy Quran, Me 34, Me 5, we read, then Moses, the servant of Yahweh died there in the land of Moab, according to the command of Yahweh. And he buried him in the valley, in the land of Moab, opposite Bait Pure. And until this day, nobody knows where he's buried. And who buried Moses? Yeah. So the last words of the previous sentence are he died according to the command of Yahweh, and he buried him. Hmm. Yahweh buried Moses. What does that mean? What does it mean? We know that second temple Jewish Bible nerds were puzzled by this. What is fascinating is there is a Dead Sea Scroll manuscript of Deuteronomy for this very section. And when it comes to this part of God, bearing Moses, it actually has a plural verb, not a singular. So and they buried him. Which is just this puzzling because you're like, what was the day? What was the day? But then what we get in other Jewish second temple literature, we find out who the day is. So there were Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Bible and some of these Aramaic translations were also a form of commentary woven into the translation. And all the Aramaic Targams have a plural they buried him. When Aramaic Targam is a translation of... Targam means translation. Okay. So Aramaic translation. And all of there's multiple versions of these Aramaic translations and all of them have the plural buried. One of them, which is called Targam Sutta-chanathan, tells you who the day is. And oh, this is how they translate Deuteronomy, what we just read. Yeah, Deuteronomy 3, 4. Therefore Moses, the servant of the Lord, was gathered there in the land of Moab by the kiss of the word of the Lord. Okay. Gathered means to die. Okay. So God gave him a kiss, his body gave out. Michael and Gabriel arranged a golden couch set with diamonds, Sardonex and Barrel. These are Tabernacle jewels. Okay. They arranged with silk cushions and purple cloth and white robes. Also Metatron and Yofiel and Uriel and Yafafia. Were these other angels? Four masters of wisdom carried him upon it. Oh. So he's actually getting buried by six angels. Ooh, and like some very fancy procession. Super fancy, like funeral couch. Yeah. Then by means of his word, the Lord led him four miles and buried him in the valley opposite Bate Pure. So you always still buried him, but now there's all these angels involved. Yeah, it's like an angelic procession. So when would this have been made? Well, the Targums are very difficult to date, but in the late second temple period. Okay. Right, right after. What this reflects is Jewish Bible readers. Okay. Do a commentary. Yeah. What do we mean when we say God personally does something? Or that there were multiple people involved? Yeah. Well, usually when God does things on earth, the Bible might say that, but then there are other stories of God coming to do something and the way He's doing it is through angelic mediators, like the visitation of Sodom and Gomorrah, or the visitation of angels at different events in the life of Elijah or Elijah. So it must mean that actually it was angels who came and buried him. Okay. It's an interpretive imagination that's doing theology, but by means of hyperlinks. Okay. And so the ascension of Moses, how we're calling it? The ascension of Moses, yeah, assumes that Michael was there at the burial of Moses. Why? Why? Yeah. It's all generated out of interpretive reflection on what it means that Yahweh buried him. Right. Okay. That's why Michael's there. Okay. So this first step. Okay. Why is Michael there? Why is Michael there in the first place? Bering Moses. Yeah. No. Why is the satan there? This is even more wild, okay? But this is so fascinating. So the idea of the satan standing there, accusing Moses, after his death before God. Where is this idea coming from? So this is the result of a Jewish Bible nerd who is hyperlinked about half a dozen other biblical texts together. And here's, I'm just going to list them all. Okay. And you'll start to see how they work together. First of all, think of the snake in the garden who heard God's command and is there trying to undermine Adam and Eve's trust in God's command? Right. Not to eat from the tree. Okay. Okay. Think of Abraham with Isaac in Genesis 22. And Yahweh tests Abraham and asks him to surrender the life of Isaac by offering him as a going up offering on Mount Moriah. Okay. Okay. There's no satan there. Nope. These are all the necessary ingredients to get to. We're making the stew. We're making the stew. Next is a weird story in Exodus 4 where Yahweh comes to put Moses to death the night before he arrives back in Egypt to confront Pharaoh. And then his wife saves him. And his wife is to pour a save them. Why is Moses going to be put to death by Yahweh? Well, the narrative logic and the hyperlink in that stories I think is most likely that it's a measure for measure consequence. God's holding Moses accountable for his murder of that Egyptian. Who are you? Embaring him in the sand. Okay. So next think of the story of David counting up all his fighting forces with a census. There's two versions of that story in Hebrew Bible. Okay. The first version in Second San, what 24 says, Yahweh was testing David. Mm-hmm. You read the parallel story to that in First Chronicles 21 and it says, the satan tested David. Okay. All right. Who's doing the testing? Who's doing the testing? Let's hold in our minds also. Job chapters one and two. You got Job, righteous guy, faithful, and everything that he's done. The satan comes and accuses Job of having ulterior motives for serving God. Yep. And last but not least, we need to hold in our minds the text that actually is being quoted from in the testament of Moses that Jude quotes. Oh. That little phrase that Jude says Michael responded, may the Lord rebuke you? Yeah. He's quoting from the Second Temple text, the testament of Moses. But that's quoting from. But that is quoting from Zechariah chapter three. Zechariah chapter three is a story about after Ezra and the Amaya come back and lead a whole bunch of people back from Babylon to go rebuild Jerusalem and live there. They're rebuilding the temple. And they're going to install like the old priesthood but in the new Second Temple in Jerusalem. And Zechariah chapter three has this scene where the guy named Joshua, he's the high priest about to get installed in the newly built Second Temple. Okay. But then Zechariah has a vision. And it says if Joshua is standing in the heavens right before the angel of the Lord, and guess who else is there? The satan is standing at his right hand to accuse him. So he's got angels left. He's got a yeah. Is this where this comes from? Yes. Oh. Yes. The angel on one side, the Satan on the left. This will evolve in Christian thought and theology to an angel on your shoulder and one shoulder and a devil on the other. But what this is is this is Joshua while he's alive and Zechariah is seeing as it were a heavenly dispute over whether or not Israel deserves to get another shot in the land. Yeah. Okay. Because what we see is that Joshua and Zechariah chapter three, verse three is closed with filthy garments. Stained up there. In the vision. Yeah. So basically it's we've got the high priest of Israel who represents Israel. They've come back into the land after exile and their high, priestly representative is still his clothes still stained with the sins of Israel. So you can see the scene here basically the satan is like this. Like see guys? Like the snake. Coming up before this new atom figure and saying this guy doesn't deserve to be here. He comes from a people with a whole history of idolatry and violence and injustice. That guy doesn't deserve to be here. So that's the scene. Yeah. Then we're just told in verse two all of a sudden Yahweh said to the accuser, the satan. May Yahweh rebuke you. Oh, accuser. Oh wow. Yahweh says it. And may Yahweh who chooses Jerusalem rebuke you. Yeah, none of that. So it's Yahweh speaking. Keep behind me, Satan. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So in the scene though we've got the high priest. You've got the satan on one hand, the accuser. He's like a prosecuting attorney. And then you have the defending attorney. And the divine is the angel of the Lord. Yeah. But then all of a sudden it's just verse two. It's then Yahweh says may Yahweh rebuke you. This is another one of those angel of the Lord moments where you're like, wait, is this? Yes. Is this Yahweh? Yeah. It's like Moses in the burning bush. Yeah. And what happens is Yahweh forgives Joshua and says, take the dirty garments off of him, give him clean robes, and he's going to have walking access in and out of heaven and earth in the temple. So what you get in second temple Jewish literature is all of these stories hyperlinked together. So for example, there's a second temple Jewish text called Jubilee's that's a retelling of Genesis and Exodus written by a super Bible nerd. Okay. When he retells the story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22 and that story begins with Yahweh tested Abraham. He begins it by saying the satan tested Abraham. And he imagines a whole scene that happened right before that. And it's basically Job chapters one and two, but with Abraham in the story. I see. So the story. So you're talking about when Yahweh said to Abraham go up and give him your son. Yep. Very clearly in Genesis 22 it says this was a test from Yahweh. Yes. But in this Jubilee's passage it's going, yeah, but I bet there was some real tension there. Yeah. It's reading that story in Genesis in light of what happened to Job. And saying, well, I know the test that Job faced where he lost his sons. Mm. Lost everything. Happened because Yahweh was talking about how proud he was of Job as a faithful one. And that's how the story begins in Jubilee's telling about Abraham. It begins, this is in Jubilee's chapter 17, that words came in heaven about Abraham, how faithful he was in everything that God told him. And he loved the Lord. He was faithful even in affliction. And so the satan comes in Jubilee's he's called Prince Mostima, which is a variation of the word satan. And then he starts saying, well, you know, actually Abraham loves Isaac, his son more than he loves you God. That's the accusation. Mm. Yeah. And if you were to tell him to offer up Isaac, I bet he wouldn't do it. That's the satan's accusation here. So in other words, these are Jewish readers that are now, anytime Yahweh tests anybody, they're letting all the stories illuminate each other. And they'll fill in the details missing in one story from these other hyperlinked texts. So any testos from Yahweh, they're like, I know there was the accuser there too. There was a Job one and two scene happening and it'll import. So this happens. This is a lot. Dude, this is a lot. But this happens with the story of Moses in the book of Jubilee's. This is Jubilee's chapter 48. When God commissions Moses, it imagines a scene where Prince Mostima, the satan, comes and says, you can't use Moses, he's a murderer. Yeah. You can't use a murderer to liberate people from a violent Pharaoh. He's not qualified. He's not qualified. So that's how Jubilee's does that. So what we're talking about is any time God tests somebody in the Hebrew Bible, it's reading all those stories in light of the Satan's test of Job in Job one and two, and in light of this little story in Zechariah of the satan accusing Joshua. Okay, and the Zechariah story seems really important because that's what he's quoted from. That's what he's quoted from. And I think this is where I still don't fully appreciate. So in Judas like library is the testimony of Moses. Also he reads Jubilee's. Oh yeah. Like he knows all these stories. And so he's meditated a lot on these themes we've just talked about. How the satan is always there to like set a trap and accuse. Okay. And so there's a story in the Testament of Moses where Moses burial is happening. We actually have another version of that story where there's six angels. But in this one, it's took us in on Michael. Yeah. Okay. And the satan is there just like in Zechariah's story of the new Joshua at the New Temple saying, hold on like Moses. Remember he's a murderer. Like we can't give him this kind of honor. That's right. So just like in Zechariah, Yahweh says, May Yahweh rebuk you to Satan. Yahweh which is a little rattle. Yeah. In the testament of Moses, Michael says to Satan, May Yahweh rebuk you. That's right. So he uses the words of God at that moment. You got it. And what does he mean? May Yahweh. Yeah. In other words, this messenger of Yahweh is not taking it upon himself to offer this judgment about the slander of the satan against Moses. So if there is anybody qualified to offer a judgment against the satan and say, you slandering, lying scum, get out of here. Like Yahweh's generous, he's merciful, get out of here with your accusations. Right. That's what Michael said. Michael could have said that. But instead, he just says, you know what, I've got a boss. His name's Yahweh. We're going to let him have the say. Let Yahweh rebuk you. I've got a lot of things I want to say to you right now, Satan. But I'm going to let Yahweh do it because he's in charge. Yeah. Yahweh has a plan for all of this. Yeah. And Yahweh's generous. And Yahweh forgave Joshua. In Zechariah. And therefore, if we imagine that Moses was being accused at his death for having a dirty past, Yahweh will be generous to Moses, and that that doesn't disqualify him. And even Michael didn't take it upon himself to offer a judgment against the satan. So now apply this argument. Judah has this group of bad news people who are hanging out in his house church community. And they think that they are risen with the Messiah elevated above heaven and earth. They're going to rule the new creation with the Messiah. But they've got a deep misunderstanding of what that freedom and honor means. They think what it means is, dude, we can sleep around. Yeah. Because our bodies are all going to turn into something else. Right? In the new creation. And Judah's like, no, that's a deep misunderstanding. Paul the Apostle had an interest at too. We talked about that a few minutes ago. But now, what Judah also really wants these people to understand is that yes, while God is going to elevate humanity as his stewards and rulers over the new creation, back to our line, don't diss the angels. Just because you're going to have authority over them doesn't mean that you get to bring accusations against them now. You're like Michael who just says, let Yahweh deal with you. What would that mean that they're accusing the angels? These teachers are doing, as he talks about elsewhere, is they're dismissing the relevance of God's moral wisdom in the Torah. Right? So angels delivered the wisdom of the Torah to Israel. And well, if with the Messiah I'm exalted over the angels, it must mean the like the laws of the Torah are irrelevant for us. I can't dismiss those too. I can dismiss those. Dismiss the Ten Commandments and all the wisdom that they have. And it must be that I can now both angels around. And so then Judah says, okay, no, no, no, no, remember that we have this book in our library, our church library that brings all these passages and the Hebrew Bible together, even Michael, the most exalted angel. Didn't take it upon himself to think that he could bring an accusation against. He was clearly the most corrupt angel. The most corrupt angel. And he said, let Yahweh deal with you. So these men should have an attitude of what I really want is Yahweh's final word. Yes. That's what matters the most to me. Yes. And if that's what I want, I'm going to recognize that God's moral order is important. Yes. And still has relevance in my life. Yes. And the moral order, this issue through the wisdom of the commands in the Torah, are relevant. This is why Jesus had to himself clarify, I didn't come to set aside the Torah and the prophets. I came to fulfill them. So this is another group that's misunderstood Jesus. And they think they can just set aside the laws of the Torah as irrelevant and live how they want. And in so doing, they are slandering the angels because they read them as the ones through him who gave the Torah. So I kind of get it now. I kind of get it. I know. I know. But like we're entering into such a foreign worldview for me. Yeah. I just don't have never read these passages and never think about this. Me too. Yeah. So fascinating. But here we have a letter in our Bible that we read that brings God's wisdom to us. And it's quoting, second-tiple scroll, and a story written by Jewish Bible nerds reflecting on the Hebrew Bible and all these other texts that for them is also God's wisdom. And I need to kind of figure out what to do with it. Yeah. This testament of Moses' passage is itself meditating and reflecting on an idea found throughout the Hebrew Bible that when human beings fail to discern between good and bad, we make stupid decisions that hurt ourselves and hurt other people. It creates a real question of like, well, if God's going to forgive and restore us, does that just like whitewash all the bad stuff that we've done and the trail of pain that we've left behind in the world? Like, that's still real. All that pain is real. And you could bring all that up and say like, we deserve to pay for all that. And that's a real tension that the biblical authors are exploring and they're doing it through all of these hyperlinked kind of testing stories. And that is what that stake in all the hyperlinked texts, you know, that I was naming Adam and Eve, Abraham and Isaac, Moses, and the murder of the Egyptian story of Job. And so Jewish Bible nerds of Judas period wanted to probe that question more. And so they did a theological exploration, but their minds do it by linking all these texts together. And now Judas doing it to address another crisis in his church community. So maybe it's just a little window into a subculture of really Messianic Jewish Christianity that there were such Bible nerds they could talk about moral issues that we recognize. Not sleeping around, obeying God's right, moral wisdom. But the way they talk about it and try and persuade each other seems so. So for it. So for it. So for it. To us, yeah. Because they lived in a different time and place. But there you go. I don't know what else to say other than. And the remind me again, what he goes on to say about these people after this. Ah, he says they take it upon themselves to slander the angels that gave the Torah and ignore God's moral wisdom in the Torah. What they're slandering are things that they really have no clue about. And the things that they think they do understand, they don't really understand. Because they're destroyed by the little they do understand. It's like an irrational animal driven by instinct. He's really frustrated that these people have made relational inroads in his house church. And he is painting them in very unfavorable colors. Yeah. Okay. So we're from here. Yeah. So what he's now going to do is compare these people to three characters in the Hebrew Bible, whose stories are all hyperlinked together, that not only disobeyed God's commands, but they did so in a way that led other people to ruin the destruction. Cain, Baleb and Korah. And why he's going to bring them up and how their stories are connected, that's what we'll explore next. Thanks for listening to Bible Project Podcast. Next week, Jude's going to reference more wayward characters in the Hebrew Bible, including Cain, Korah and Baleb. What links them together is subtle in the Hebrew Bible. These are three stories of people who themselves made bad decisions, but then they bring other people into their deception. Bible Project is a crowdfunded, non-profit, and we exist to help people experience the Bible as a unified story that leads to Jesus. Everything that we create is free because of the generous support of thousands of people just like you. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us. Hi, my name is Danielle from Newark, Ohio. Hey, my name is Johnny, and I'm from Scotland, originally. I first discovered the Bible Project when I was with some friends back in 2017. 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