Julie – our hard working Priest!
Battle in heaven
Jacob’s vision
Jacob, you may recall, had tricked his father Isaac into giving him the blessing that should have been the birthright of the older twin Esau, and Esau is pretty incensed with this so Jacob’s mother Rebekah advises him to go and stay with her brother – his uncle Laban, until the dust has settled. It is w, and the angels of God are whilst he is journeying to Haran, where Laban lives, that he has this dream. He dreamed of a ladder set up on the earth the top reaches into heaven and the angels of God are ascending and descending.
His brings into focus a lot of Jewish understanding of the nature of heaven and earth. Broadly speaking the universe is divided into two realms, “heaven” and “earth”, and heaven is where God resides but which is also generally inaccessible to humans. Within that there’s a vast spectrum of belief and understanding, to what extent does heaven replicate earth? Or is the idea that there are things about the divine that we cannot understand, but we have to be able to articulate, and we have to employ some form of language to talk about the things of God.
Remember the two ways that God gives to Moses in response to the question, whom shall I say has sent me: One is the divine name Yahweh, which contains the idea of the self sufficiency and completeness of God; the other is to say “the God of your ancestors, of Abrham, Isaac and Jacob has sent you”, which refers to God in relationship with his people, and with history; and those two facets of God remain in creative tension whenever we speak about Him.
The Bible has very little to say about heaven, but it does refer to it: Jesus taught ”thy will be done on the earth as it is in heaven”, the prophets sometimes provide insights based on visions of heaven, Micaiah in 1 Kings says “Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne will all the hosts of heaven standing round him on his right hand and his left.” There are passages in Isaiah and so on, but they’re really difficult to visualise. It’s not like describing Sydney or Paris.
The interplay between heaven and earth
What was also understood was that although heaven was different from earth, there was a constant interplay between the two. That’s the focus of Jacob’s dream; not a ladder that has rungs, but a stairlike pavement and angels (God’s messengers) proceeding from heaven to earth and vice versa, and in Jacob’s dream God himself standing beside him. At the place on earth where this vision is experienced it becomes a place of pilgrimage and will become Bethel, a shrine honouring Jacob’s vision.
Jesus and Jacob
Jesus will have a conversation with Nathanael who he alludes to as a true Israelite, that doesn’t mean that he’s truly Jewish, the true refers to his lack of guile and duplicity – true in the sense of honourable and authentic. Nathanael really is waiting for the Messiah to come; and when he asks how Jesus knew him Jesus uses a messianic motif. “I saw you sitting under the fig tree”, refers to the vision of the prophet Micah when the Messianic age is inaugurated “In the latter days….They will beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war any more. Every man will sit sit under his vine and under his fig tree, and no-one shall make them afraid.”
And Jesus goes on to talk about the vision given to Jacob, but now applying to him. “Very truly I tell you (the “you” is plural and refers to Nathanael and the disciples) you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man”. As God spoke to Jacob in his dream, now the angels minister to Jesus as the Messiah appointed by God. It also means that what Bethel stands for (the place of heavenly vision) now applies to the person of Jesus. Every Jew honoured Jacob, who became Israel the father of the twelve tribes, now they are to honour Jesus as God’s Messiah.
War in heaven
There is an interplay between heaven and earth, but there are also things that happen in heaven which impact on earth. In particular, the judgement of what is taking place on the earth, and here we are introduced to different characters in the heavenly realm. Job begins “One day the angels (in Heb Sons of God) came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came with them. The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming through the earth and going to and fro in it.”
Angels are God’s messengers, they are part of creation but primarily within the heavenly realm and they were understood to have responsibilities for looking after the nations – each nation had an angel that represented their interests in heaven. Satan had a particular function, he was the one who brought to the judgement seat the case for the prosecution, the one who would gather the evidence of wrongdoing and disobedience. At first in Jewish thought this was understood as a necessary function, in rabbinic thought he was the “attribute of justice” in God’s kingdom as opposed to the “attribute of mercy”. But he becomes to be understood as an agent provocateur, in 1 Chronicles it says: “Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel”, and the point of the story is that David will no longer rely on God’s protection but on the strength of his army. And the clue is in the name, Satan is the Hebrew for “accuser” whilst Devil (diabolos), is the Greek for informer, or slanderer or accuser. And Satan is associated with the serpent in Genesis 3 who led Adam and Eve astray.
Satan’s removal
What started as a necessary prerequisite for law and order to be maintained becomes corrupted, and this occurs in heaven itself, to the extent that Satan has to be removed from heaven. The battle against Satan is led by Michael (the Hebrew means “who is like God”. Michael wins the battle, but although he leads the heavenly forces it is clear that the victory belongs to Christ. It is probably a mistake to think of this as a battle with weapons, rather a battle in the legal sense. The false accuser has been evicted from heaven, and his power to accuse is broken.
Jesus alludes to this as he predicts his death on the cross (John 12:27-32) “Now is the time for judgement on this world. Now the prince of the world will be driven out. But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.” And Jesus connects the defeat of Satan with the authority that he gives to his disciples, Luke 10:18 “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and overcome all the power of the enemy.” Satan has been conquered by the blood of the lamb, because there is no longer any accusation to be brought against humanity, the sins of the whole world have been redeemed.
Temporary transfer to the earth
Satan no longer has a voice in heaven but the understanding is that he still has a temporary voice on earth, which accords with our experience. The cross has happened, Christ sits on the throne – but the world is still riven with the impact of sin – war, famine, abuse etc. but the message of the Gospels is to stay firm, it is temporary.