Transcription
Deserts aren't habitable and hospitable to life. This is why demons are associated with desert wilderness places. Where does Jesus, where is he confronted by Satan? In the desert. In the wilderness. Isaiah 13. Why are demons described with animals that live out in the desert? Because the desert is associated with death and hostility. And these animals eat death. Okay? They're carrion eaters. Okay?
So Moses's body winds up in a place that is not in the land. As soon as Paul thinks of resurrection, he thinks of the delegitimization, the nullification of the authority of the rulers and the principalities and powers. Why?
So in the mind of the Israelite talking about sacred space like Yahweh's land, that's his land. So it's, it's sacred land. So like, I've got to take some land, have some of Yahweh's space to basically make a little outpost in this hostile. It's his way of connection with the true God. Yes.
I mean, think about what happens with the wilderness wanderings. Okay. They leave Sinai, which is the mountain of God, again, sacred space. They have the Ark. The presence of God is with the Ark. When they rest to camp, then the camp again is sanctified. That is Yahweh's ground, his holy ground in the midst of the wilderness. And he goes with them. What are they going to do? You know, they're going to ultimately have Yahweh set his name again, assert ownership and also associate his presence with a specific spot in the specific land of Israel to build the temple.
But when they're doing the Day of Atonement, while they're wandering around, this is why the goat, you know, for Azazel, who was a demon figure, the high priest puts his hands on the head of the goat for Azazel, transferring the sins of the nation, and that the goat is led out of the camp because the camp is holy ground. Everything else outside is under dominion. This is why Paul borrows the imagery with an unrepentant sinner in the Corinthian church. Deliver them unto Satan, put them out of the church because that's where sin belongs. When they repent, they're brought back in because this is sacred space. This is why believers are the temple of God. 1 Corinthians 3, 1 Corinthians 6, 2 Corinthians 6. Okay. What fellowship does the temple of God have with idols? You plural are the temple of God.
You know, we now, I mean, it goes from one little land surrounded by lands that are under dominion of hostile supernatural forces. Okay, that idea. But that is going to, in the New Testament, be transferred now to not one land. We're one body now. If you are Christ, Paul writes to the Gentiles in Galatians 3, if you are Christ, you are Abraham's seed and heir according to the promise. It's Galatians 3:26-29. They are brought in as one people of God. And the people of God become sacred space. And their mission is to bring people from all the nations into the family. And then they're still living out in the nations. And they repeat the process. They replicate themselves because the ultimate goal is not just one little piece of land the size of New Jersey associated under Yahweh's dominion. It's the entire globe. It's the entire earth.
Which is why at the end of the book of Revelation, the new earth is a new Eden has a tree of life. Okay? I mean, all of these things are deliberate. That you know, you can trace these ideas through the Old Testament, but the entire globe and each one of us doing the job of the Great Commission reflects the ultimate goal of every nation under dominion. So, so even think now, you know, how we were what we were created out of the dust of the earth. Now, our earth, we're Yahweh's sacred space as his temple. We're his outpost. Do you see? And he's given us authority over all the principalities and powers. He's given us authority. And that's why it's so important to understand, you know, you're the scholar. I'm going to let you talk. I'm But, but so, so another thing I always wondered about was the Moses body. Oh, yeah. How, how it, it talks about that that Michael went and contended for Moses body. Talk about that.
It's a, it's a really strange passage, but it, it's actually, it's actually only understandable if you think in terms of cosmic geography. The first thing you have to notice is where is Moses buried? You know, where, like where does, where does God, you know, where does he wind up when he dies? And the places are Arava and Ovote. Those are the geographical names. Arava is the desert wilderness which, in the Old Testament worldview, was again the realm of the dead because deserts aren't habitable and hospitable to life. This is why demons are associated with desert wilderness places. Where does Jesus, where is he confronted by Satan? In the desert. In the wilderness. Isaiah 13. Why are demons described with animals that live out in the desert? Because the desert is associated with death and hostility and these animals eat death. Okay, they're carrion eaters. Okay.
All of these ideas sort of, you know, play into. So, one place, one term that it's described is this desert idea. But Ovote, the second geographical name, actually in Hebrew means spirits, spirits of the dead. It's the term that was used when necromancers are talked about, people who contact the dead, like mediums, the witch of Endor, and all that kind of stuff. So Moses's body winds up in a place that is not in the land. It's not in the New Eden, Israel. It's outside. And so God, you know, through Michael, has to lay claim to the body of Moses because that's in the bad place, one of these bad places. That's why we have that scene. It's an assertion that, no, Moses is mine. He belongs to me. He was a faithful believer. And it doesn't really matter when I'm in charge, okay, where he's buried. But the Lord of the Dead would certainly like to lay claim to him. But the answer is no. He's mine. So again, spiritually he becomes, he's still part of the family, the people of God, but the whole issue is where he was, where he actually wound up, again, outside the land.
So, so Mike, so is everybody following here? So we understand there's only one creator, one God who created all of these beings, the heavenly family, the earthly family. We have these rebellions now. And, and a couple of things. So, so now let's go to the New Testament and the language that Paul is using when he's talking about, you know, Jesus' death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and now he's disarmed these principalities. Like, now they have no legal claim. Talk a little bit about that.
I mean, Paul again has this worldview drawn from the Old Testament of supernatural forces that are evil and wicked and hostile to God. They are rivals, and they are rivals to God. They're rivals to his people. They have geographical dominion. And he refers to them as principalities, powers, rulers, authorities, all these vocab terms. Now, what's really interesting, and this is what you're angling for here, is that there are five or six places. Colossians 2:1, Ephesians 1, Ephesians 3, Ephesians 4, actually with Bashan there quoting Psalm 68, 1 Peter 3, you know, Peter does it as well. There are several places that associate, oddly enough, the resurrection with the defeat, the delegitimization of the supernatural powers and principalities.
Now, I say it's odd because, I mean, whenever until I sort of discovered that, whenever I thought of resurrection, I always thought, "Oh, this is going to be awesome." Like, you know, I'll have, I'll be at my ideal weight, you know, I'll have more hair, you know, I mean, we always think in terms of like self-improvement, like ultimately what we're going to be, and, you know, I'll be rid of this disease or something like that. You know, something physical that, you know, sort of limits us or we're always thinking of our own bodies, our own condition. And Paul has some of that language, 1 Corinthians 15. But half a dozen times, as soon as Paul thinks of resurrection, he thinks of the delegitimization, the nullification of the authority of the rulers and the principalities and powers. Why?
And it's Old Testament. Okay. We talked a little bit yesterday about Psalm 82, which has a lot to do with these territorial entities. At the end of the psalm, the psalmist says, he proclaims, "Arise, O God, and take all, take all the nations. Take the nations back as your inheritance." And it's curious that the word "arise" in the, I mean, the Old Testament, the Hebrew Old Testament was translated into Greek before Jesus showed up as a man, you know, Jesus of Nazareth was born. It's called the Septuagint. It's the Hebrew Old Testament translated into Greek. And this is what Jesus and the New Testament writers quote most of the time because they're speaking to often a Gentile audience. That's why the New Testament's written in Greek, and so they use the Old Testament that also happens to be in Greek, that translation. And if you look up Psalm 82 in that Greek translation, the word "arise" there is the verb associated with resurrection. Anastasis is the noun. It's the resurrection. And that verb shows up in three or four Old Testament passages that have the Messiah or God rising up and taking the nations. So Paul knows this. So in his mind, the resurrection of Jesus was the key event to nullifying the powers, the authority of the rulers and principalities and bringing the Gentile back into the family. Should I tell him about the