Council of God-3
Only God Is Perfect
Like the Creation account, the account of the fall in Genesis 3 is one of those episodes in Scripture that anyone acquainted with the Bible seems to know. But there is more to the account we need to see. We understand th fall from previous lessons. Eden was both the divine abode and the nerve center for God's pan for earth. The view of the Jewish writer was: Where Yahweh is, so is His council.
We saw Yahweh had announced His intention to create humankind as His imagers in Yahweh's family, would be tasked with overspreading the earth, advancing God's kingdom rule. They were Yahweh's choice steward-kings over a global Eden under His authority.
We will soon see that one divine being dissented. But how could there be trouble in paradise? How could things gone wrong?
The book of Job contains some of the clues.
THE BACKDROP
Job is an odd book. That's what makes it so interesting. The account opens with a divine council scene – the sons of God appear before Yahweh (Job 1:6). During the council meeting the satan shows up. His rank is not made clear to us. With respect to whether he is of the same level as the sons of God or is on the scene as a servant official to the council is not said. The lower status is more likely, given what we learn about his job.
We can use the phrase “the satan” deliberately because; the Hebrew (satan) means something like “adversary,” “prosecutor,” or “challenger.” It speaks of an official legal function within a ruling body – in this case, Yahweh's council. When Yahweh asks the satan where he has been, we learn that his job involves investigating what is happening on earth (Job 1:7). He is as you would say, Yahweh's eyes and ears on the ground, reporting what he has seen or heard.
The satan in Job 1 – 2 is not a bad guy. He's doing the job assigned to him by the Father. The book of Job does not identify the satan in this case as the serpent of Gen. 3, the figure known in the NT as the devil. The OT never uses the word satan of the serpent figure from Gen. 3. In fact, the word satan is not a proper personal pronoun in the OT.
OT scholars are well aware of all this. Hebrew grammar supports this. Hebrew and English both don't attach the definite article (the word “the”) to proper personal nouns.
Most of the twenty-seven occurrences of satan in the Hebrew Bible, however, do indeed have the definite article – including all the places English readers presume the devil is present (Job 1:6-9, 12; 2:1-4, 6-7; Zec. 3:1-2). The satan described in these passages is not the devil. Rather, he's an anonymous prosecutor, as we saw earlier, fulfilling a role in Yahweh's council – bringing an accusatory report.
The function of the office of the satan is why later Jewish writings began to adopt it as a proper name for the serpent figure in Gen. 3 who brought ruin to Eden. As we have seen before that figure opposed God's choices for His human imagers. The dark figure of Gen. 3 was thought of as “the adversary” ans so the identifier satan was put on him. And deserves it. The point here is only that the OT doesn't use the term for the divine criminal of Eden.
In Job 1 the satan and God converse about Job. I think you all know the account of Job's sifting.
We see in Job 4, one of Job's friends , Eliphaz, responds to Job's lament and wish for death (Job 3:11).
We see something like, who do you think you are, Job! Why would God consider you blameless when He doesn't even look at His heavenly messengers that way? Also Ref. Job 15:14-15.
What Eliphaz says is significant. We see two scriptural statements that God's heavenly council members are corruptible; they are not perfect. Only the Father is perfect. God never actually said that Job was incorruptible and perfect, only that he was blameless at the time of the council meeting. God knows that Job could fail – just like the divine beings in His council. We see that the lesser elohim cannot be trusted.
FREE IMAGERS
God knows that none of His imagers, divine or human, can be completely trusted. The reason is obvious. Though imagers are like God, they are not God. That's a truth we know all to well from our own struggles and experiences in a fallen world.
Without genuine free will, imagers cannot truly represent God. We saw earlier that the image of God is not an attribute or ability. It is a status conferred by God on all humans, that of representing God. God created humankind to extend Eden over all the earth. That's what the commands of Gen. 1:28, collectively referred to by theologians as the dominion mandate.
God did not intend to create imagers that did nothing. God's original intent was to arm His imagers with both the will and the ability to carry out His decrees. We represent God as His imagers with possession of free will, we must be committed to completing His tasks.
Since the lesser elohim were also created as God's imagers, they too must have free will and had the same mandate so far one of them failed.