Spiritual Beings (Rebellion)

When it comes to rebellion, humans are good at doing such a task. It is in our very nature since the beginning to break rules and explore life outside of boundaries. But when it comes to spiritual beings, they too can also rebel as humans. 

In Genesis 6, we see the first human rebellion mentioned in Scripture. Genesis 6:2 claims, “The sons of God saw the beautiful women and took any they wanted as their wives.” These “sons of God” have been translated to mean servants of Yahweh or just righteous men, but the word here is sons of elohim meaning of a spiritual being not humans. So what we have in this passage is spiritual beings taking human women as their wives. This is clearly something that is wrong in God’s eyes and so the flood results. This is a spiritual rebellion and one that defines that course of history.  

There is also a rebellion in Genesis 10-11 with the scattering of the humans at Babylon. In Deuteronomy 32:8, Moses recounts this event, “When the Most High assigned lands to the nations, when he divided up the human race, he established the boundaries of the peoples according to the number in his heavenly court”. This is a clear reference to Genesis 11 and what is interesting is that God divided the people according to the divine council members that we talked about last time. Many translations will say “sons of Israel” but at the time of the rebellion, Israel was not even a thought of a nation. The Septuagint translates this passage as “sons of God”, which I believe is most accurate. This means that Yahweh scattered the people based on the spiritual beings in God’s throne room. This means that since the people rebelled trying to build up to heaven, they were divided based on the spiritual beings that rebelled. 

The apostles also clued in to the idea of rebellious spiritual powers. Colossians 2:15 declares that because Jesus died on the cross, those who had power no longer do. “In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.” Jesus’ death was a power statement that took away power from spiritual rebels.  Jesus is the answer to spiritual and human rebellion and our faith in Him keeps us from rebelling.