Unseen, Not Unreal

Welcome. This lesson is a little different from most: come with an open mind, and know that nobody in the room has all the answers. Before we can talk about UFOs, UAPs, artificial intelligence, or anything else people are asking about, we need a theological road map. This session lays that map down. The goal is not to make you fascinated with the supernatural or afraid of it. The goal is to help you see that the Bible has always described one creation with both visible and invisible realities, all of it under the authority of Jesus Christ.

The Big Idea

Big Idea: The Bible does not ask us to choose between a natural world and a supernatural world. It presents one creation containing both visible and invisible realities, all under the sovereignty of Jesus Christ.

What It Means: We tend to split reality into two boxes: the real world we can measure, and the spiritual world we talk about on Sundays. Scripture never does that. It describes a single creation that God made and rules, part of which we can see and part of which we cannot. Learning to read the Bible that way changes how you handle everything strange you encounter.

Reflect:

• Do you live like the seen world is the real one and the unseen world is a nice idea?

• What would change this week if you truly believed both are equally real?

Why Talk About This Now

Big Idea: Part of a shepherd's job is to help you discern the times.

What It Means: We seem to be moving into a cultural moment where more information about UAPs and unexplained phenomena is coming out. There are popular shows built on speculation, filmmakers who have wondered aloud whether their work might shake people's faith, and pastors who have been warned that some disclosures could cause believers to stumble. Rather than ignore it, the teacher wants to give you categories to think with before the headlines arrive.

People are already fascinated with UFOs, ghosts, near death experiences, demons, angels, unexplained lights, strange creatures, paranormal encounters, occult practices, extraterrestrial intelligence, and alternate dimensions. The question is not whether you will hear about these things. The question is what framework you will use when you do.

Reflect:

• Have you ever encountered something you would call supernatural: a vision, a light, an experience you could not explain?

• Who or what has shaped how you interpret those moments so far?

Two Wrong Responses

Big Idea: Christians usually respond to the supernatural in one of two unhelpful ways: dismiss everything or accept everything.

Response One: Dismiss Everything. Western Christians are shaped less by the Bible than by the Age of Enlightenment. We assume there must be a natural explanation for everything. Much of the rest of the world, especially the global south and east, does not think this way at all.

Response Two: Accept Everything. On the other side are believers who assign every inconvenience to demonic activity. The car will not start, so the devil is in the engine. The cereal spills, so the devil tripped you.

What It Means: The Bible does not land squarely on either side. There is nuance and there are shades of gray, and Christians often handle nuance poorly. You do not have to pick one of these two ditches.

Reflect:

• Which ditch are you more likely to fall into: dismissing or accepting?

• Where did that instinct come from?

Two Things to Remember About the Bible

1. The Bible Is Not a Science Book

What It Means: Scripture was not written to answer every scientific question. It does not tell us the exact age of the earth. It does not tell us whether to eat Cheetos. Its purpose is to reveal God to mankind. If you approach it like a textbook, you will be frustrated and you will misread it.

2. The Bible Can Be Silent Where We Wish It Spoke Loudly

What It Means: Scripture is mysterious. It is quiet in places we wish it would shout. Parenting teenagers would be simpler if there were a verse that said, "Do not date Tim." There is not. And our common mistake is to yell where God whispers, making a major issue out of a minor one.

Reflect:

• Have you ever built a strong conviction on a place where Scripture is actually quiet?

• Can you name a question you wish the Bible answered but it simply does not?

The Third Option: Discernment

Big Idea: You can say, "I do not know what that phenomenon is, but I know the biblical categories through which I should evaluate it."

What It Means: Discernment is different from blanket acceptance and different from blanket rejection. Write this down: the Christian does not need an explanation for everything. We serve a mysterious God. What we need is a worldview capable of handling things we cannot explain.

Action: The next time something unexplained comes up in conversation or in the news, practice saying out loud, "I do not know what that is, but I know who rules over it." Resist the pull to force an answer.

We Already Have a Supernatural Faith

Big Idea: Before you call anything else weird, look at what you already confess.

Consider this statement and try to find the part that is not supernatural: We believe Jesus is the Son of God, who through the incarnation and the virgin birth entered humanity, taking flesh upon himself without losing an ounce of deity. He lived a perfect life on earth. He literally died by being hung on a Roman cross, and after three days defeated death through death, and then rose to sit at the right hand of the Father by ascending into heaven.

What It Means: There is no part of that confession that is not supernatural. To the atheist, we are the people talking to a monster in the sky. Our faith is unusual, and we need to normalize being weird. If someone says they cannot believe in tongues, healing, or miracles, they will have to abandon a great deal of the Bible. And if God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, why would the supernatural stop?

Reflect:

• Are there parts of the Christian confession you quietly find embarrassing?

• What would it look like to own the strangeness of your faith without apology?

How Paul Describes the World

Scripture to Read:

• Ephesians 6:12 - We wrestle against rulers, authorities, cosmic powers, spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places

• Colossians 1:16 - All things created by him, visible and invisible, thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities

What It Means: Paul's language about cosmic powers meant something concrete to his first century readers. They lived in a world shaped by magic, mystery religions, astrology, and a cosmos populated with spirits. Nothing in Paul's wording suggests he is speaking in metaphor. He really believes there are rulers, authorities, and cosmic powers operating in a heavenly place. That is weird, and we can admit it.

Scholar Scot McKnight notes that these terms function as shorthand for the many powers, great and small, personal and impersonal, individual and systematic, that resist God's saving activity among humanity. The powers refer to dark cosmic forces operating within the structures of God's world.

Visible and Invisible

Colossians 1:16 gives us two categories:

• Visible: what we can perceive, measure, and access with the five senses

• Invisible: what is at times imperceptible to the five senses

Right now we believe God is present with us. We do not see him, smell him, or touch him. We hear him through the preaching of his Word. He is real and he is here, on the invisible side of things.

What It Means: Modern Western culture teaches that reality consists mainly of what can be measured. That is a relatively new idea, maybe three hundred years old, perhaps five hundred. In the whole history of humanity it is brand new. Scripture says reality is bigger than that.

The Bible Assumes an Unseen World

Big Idea: Scripture never tries to prove the supernatural. It simply assumes it.

Scripture to Read:

• Genesis 1:1 - In the beginning God, with no argument offered for his existence

• 2 Kings 6:15-18 - Elisha's servant has his eyes opened to see the horses and chariots of fire

What It Means: Genesis does not open by explaining how the supernatural works. It opens with God, a Being none of us have seen, touched, or smelled. The assumption is baked in from the first sentence.

Look at what Elisha prays in 2 Kings 6. He does not pray, "God, come and save us." He assumes the army of God is already there. He prays that his servant's eyes would be opened to see what is already true.

Scripture is filled with this unseen world: God, angels, cherubim, seraphim, Satan, demons, principalities, powers, rulers, authorities, heavenly hosts, sons of God, spirits, divine messengers, bodily resurrection, eternal beings, and miracles. That is only a partial list.

Our Two Bad Habits: Modern Christians tend to read these passages apologetically, explaining them away as figures of speech, or to ignore them altogether. We read that the angel of the Lord came to someone and we skip straight past the angel to the message. But there is something important about the messenger.

The biblical writers presented these moments as matter of fact, not as fable. These are not Aesop's stories. They are accounts the writers believed to be true.

Reflect:

• When you read about angels in Scripture, do you slow down or skip ahead?

• Is there an unseen reality present in your room right now that you have stopped considering?

Action: Read 2 Kings 6:15-18 slowly this week and pray Elisha's prayer for yourself: "Lord, open my eyes."

Where This Leads

Big Idea: If there is an all powerful, unseen God, many of our debates shrink.

What It Means: People argue over the hows and whys of creation. If there is an unseen, all powerful God, the hows and whys are insignificant to him. People debate whether the flood was global, regional, or fable. If there is an all powerful, unseen God, he can flood a region or flood an earth as he pleases. As a side note, nearly every major culture carries a flood narrative, and the Chinese character for flood includes a boat with eight people in it.

The Divine Council

Big Idea: The Old Testament portrays God as having a divine council, a host of created spiritual beings through whom he administers his rule.

Scripture to Read:

• Psalm 82:1, 6-7 - God takes his place in the divine council and holds judgment among the gods

• Job 1:6 - The sons of God come to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan comes among them

• 1 Kings 22:19 - Micaiah sees the Lord on his throne with all the host of heaven standing beside him

• Daniel 7:9-10 - The Ancient of Days, a throne of fiery flames with burning wheels, thousands upon thousands serving him

• Job 38:4-7 - The morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy at creation

What It Means: This language is strange, and the teacher is the first to admit it. In Psalm 82, God stands in a council of other gods, little g, and announces that they will die like mere mortal men. Some will say this is figurative, and it might be. But we also have to be open to a world where this is literal.

Job 38 is especially challenging, because the phrase "sons of God," bene Elohim in Hebrew, is connected to the moment of creation itself.

An Important Guardrail: None of this makes Christianity or Judaism polytheistic. There is only one God. His name is Yahweh. He is eternal, uncreated, and sovereign. But the biblical record does support other spiritual beings that were created, and this is not foreign to an ancient Near Eastern lens.

The Cultural Lens: Scholar John Walton notes that in ancient Near Eastern cultures, people found their identity within community rather than as autonomous individuals, and they projected that communal orientation onto the divine realm, imagining that gods, like humans, functioned in community. The idea of the autonomous individual comes from God himself and then shows up again strongly in the founding of our country. Everything else was communal. When you read the Bible, you have to read through a communal lens.

The Early Church Believed This Too: Justin Martyr, who died around 165 AD, wrote that God, having made the whole world and subjected earthly things to man, committed the care of men and all things under heaven to angels whom he appointed over them. This was not Justin alone. Origen, Irenaeus, and Clement of Rome held similar convictions about God delegating authority to spiritual beings.

The Framework:

1. There is a heavenly realm.

2. There is an earthly realm.

3. There is only one God.

4. Both realms were created to participate in God's rule.

God does not need the divine council, but he chooses to administer creation through them, much as he does on earth. He creates man and then gives him the assignment to fill the earth and steward it.

If that last point troubles you, read the end of the book. Heaven is not floating on a cloud in a white robe playing a harp. We are physically resurrected to rule and reign with him.

Reflect:

• Which of these passages is hardest for you to sit with, and why?

• Have you been reading the Bible through a two hundred year old Western lens instead of an ancient Near Eastern one?

Action: Read Psalm 82 and Job 1:6 this week without rushing to explain them. Write down your honest questions rather than forcing an answer.

Eden Was More Than a Garden

Big Idea: Eden is where God's realm and humanity's realm overlapped.

What It Means: When we picture Eden we imagine a lush botanical garden with Adam and Eve conveniently covered by shrubbery. Biblically, Eden represents something much greater. It is the meeting point of heaven and earth. God is there, spiritual beings are there, and humans are there. And in eternity, God's realm and humanity's realm will overlap again. That is why we see heaven and Jerusalem coming together at the end. Eden is being restored to us.

Scholar Gordon Wenham writes that if the modern reader finds this story incredible, that reflects a materialism which doubts the existence of spirits, good or ill. But those who believe the Creator could unite himself to human nature in the virgin's womb will not find the story intrinsically beyond belief.

Why Eve Was Not Shocked by the Serpent

Scripture to Read:

• Genesis 3:1-6 - The serpent speaks and Eve converses without alarm

• Isaiah 6:1-3 - Seraphim with six wings stationed above the Lord's throne

• Revelation 12:9 - The great dragon, that ancient serpent, thrown down with his angels

What It Means: Genesis 3 does not describe an ordinary zoological snake that somehow learned vocabulary. The Hebrew term nachash carries serpent imagery, but the wider biblical picture connects this figure to a type of throne guardian, like the seraphim of Isaiah 6.

Scholar Jacob Massine argues that the semantic overlap suggests the nachash and the seraphim belong to the same class of celestial, winged, fiery guardians stationed before the divine presence. The seraphim of Isaiah 6 are best understood as serpentine divine throne guardians. That changes the picture, does it not? Not chubby cherubs floating with little wings, but winged beings guarding the throne.

If the serpent was a familiar type of celestial being that Eve knew inhabited Eden alongside humanity and God, her lack of shock suddenly makes sense.

The Lord of Hosts

Isaiah 6 also gives us the title "Lord of hosts." This depicts God as a heavenly king surrounded by his heavenly council, with Israel's earthly host paralleling the angelic host around his throne. God's governance of creation has always involved delegated authority.

That title became especially prominent after the exile. Israel fell to Assyria, Judah fell to Babylon, Jerusalem was burned. Those living in exile assumed their God had forgotten them or lost. The prophets kept saying, "Lord of hosts," to remind them that what you see in the physical does not match what is happening in the spiritual. There is still a God on the throne, and he is still in charge of every cosmic power.

Reflect:

• Where in your life does the physical situation look like God has lost?

• What would it mean to trust that the Lord of hosts is still on the throne there?

The Pattern of Rebellion: See, Desire, Take

Big Idea: Every rebellion in Genesis follows the same three step pattern.

Scripture to Read:

• Genesis 3:6 - She saw the tree was good, it was desirable, she took and ate

What It Means: See. Desire. Take. That is the shape of sin. The teacher tells the story of being fifteen and walking past a candy jar at the grocery store, seeing his favorite flavor, wanting it, and taking it for a nickel. He justified it because it was only a nickel, and then hid it from his dad like Adam and Eve hiding in the garden. He ended up spitting it out, apologizing to the manager, and paying a dime.

We see this in little kids, in teenagers, and in ourselves. This is what sin is.

Reflect:

• Where are you currently in the pattern: seeing, desiring, or already taking?

• What is the small thing you keep justifying because "it is only a nickel"?

Action: Name one place where you are at the "desire" stage right now and bring it into the light with God or with a trusted friend before it becomes "take."

Rebellion One: Eden

Big Idea: A supernatural rebel deceives humanity, and humanity joins the rebellion.

What It Means: Michael Heiser and Joel Muddamalle both emphasize something many Christians miss: Genesis 1 through 11 contains not one fall but three rebellions, and those three form the backdrop for everything that follows. The story of Israel picks up in Genesis 12 with Abraham. Chapters 1 through 11 tell us what went wrong in this cosmic world.

In Eden the result is sin, death, exile, alienation, and a corrupted human rule. Satan had already fallen before this, so the problem was not only in the cosmic realm. Now the cosmic and earthly realms have joined in rebellion together. It is both human and supernatural.

What Was Truly Lost: The main thing lost in Eden is God's presence. From there, the rest of the Bible becomes the story of God restoring what was lost in the first rebellion.

Rebellion Two: Genesis 6

Big Idea: Rebellious heavenly beings crossed a boundary God established, in an attempt to control and destroy God's human family.

Scripture to Read:

• Genesis 6:1-6, 11 - The sons of God, the daughters of men, the Nephilim, and an earth filled with violence

• Deuteronomy 18:10-14 - No divination, fortune telling, omens, sorcery, mediums, or inquiring of the dead

• 2 Peter 2:4 - God did not spare the angels when they sinned

• Jude 6 - The angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling

What It Means: The interpretive key is Genesis 6:5, that every intention of the thoughts of man's heart was only evil continually, and verse 11, that the earth was filled with violence. It would be hard to say that all people everywhere naturally think about that kind of violence all the time. Something had changed, and verse 2 tells us what.

The offspring are associated with the term Nephilim. It is worth noting that Greek, Roman, Mesopotamian, and Babylonian cultures all carry myths of giants. Those cultures probably did not all independently invent the same myth. There is likely a source, and this would be it.

Be Honest About the Options: Faithful Christians interpret this passage differently. Some understand the sons of God as human rulers or as descendants of Seth. Some say they represent kings. But the supernatural interpretation has significant ancient support.

A Word About 1 Enoch

Important Caveat: Enoch is not Scripture. Say it twice. Enoch is not Scripture. But reading ancient writers can sometimes help us get inside the mind of the original audience and understand what they may have been thinking.

1 Enoch 6 describes angels, called sons of heaven, seeing the daughters of humans, desiring them, swearing an oath together, and taking them. 1 Enoch 7 says they defiled them and taught them sorcery, enchantments, cutting of roots, and the explanation of herbs. In plain terms: sorcery, magic, and the use of drugs.

What It Means: In that interpretation, fallen spiritual beings wanted to breed with God's humanity in order to destroy it, and to teach humanity things that would destroy it. They did this knowing full well their own destruction was certain.

This is why the purity commands of Deuteronomy make sense and why Israel was to be unique among the nations. The word "abomination" there is some of the strongest language in Scripture for what is detestable before the Lord.

The Same Pattern: Look at Genesis 6:2 again. The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were attractive, which is desire, and they took as wives any they chose. See, desire, take.

The Theological Point: Rebellion has spread from humanity into the cosmic order and back again. There is an escalating assault on God's purposes. In the first rebellion, humanity tried to rise to God's level by determining good and evil for themselves, seizing something they were not given. The second rebellion moves the opposite direction: divine beings lower themselves to humanity's level, members of God's household grasping for something they were never given. The second rebellion was an attempt to further corrupt the human family through improper relations and forbidden knowledge.

The Point Is Not Giants: The fascination should not be with giants, and it should not be with aliens. The point is that there is a rebellion from a spiritual order attempting to destroy humanity. That is the story of the Bible. We have an enemy who wants to kill you and all of God's creation, a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

It should be no surprise, then, that the enemy today attacks at the fundamental level of identity, marring God's creation. If he cannot destroy God's creation before birth, he will try to distort it in life. This has always been his pattern.

God Judges and God Offers Hope: God judges the earth with a flood, but he offers hope through Noah, just as he offered hope to Adam and Eve after Eden.

Reflect:

• Does knowing there is a real enemy change how you think about temptation and confusion in your own life?

• Where have you treated a spiritual assault as merely a personal weakness?

Rebellion Three: Babel

Big Idea: At Babel, humanity used technology to try to dethrone God.

Scripture to Read:

• Genesis 9:1 - Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth

• Genesis 11:1-4 - One language, the plain of Shinar, a tower with its top in the heavens, a name for ourselves

What It Means: Two details unlock this story.

First, the plain. A plain is flat ground. Think Kansas. In the ancient world, gods were associated with mountains. The psalmist speaks of God on his mountain. When Jesus goes up the mount of transfiguration, the three apostles with him expect a divine encounter precisely because they are going up a mountain. The people of Babel deliberately settled on a plain to get as far from God as possible.

Second, the tower. This was not a building project like every pastor in America wants. Rather than ascending a natural mountain to encounter God's presence, they constructed an artificial one to assert human dominion and to escape the scattering God had commanded after the flood. God told Noah's sons to fill the earth. Babel says, "Let us not be dispersed." That is direct disobedience and a violation of the covenant with Noah.

From this point forward in Scripture, Babylon represents anti God world systems which, in pride and arrogance, lead humanity to believe it can dethrone God and has no need of his laws and commandments. That is exactly where we live today.

Scholar Sutherland writes that the movement to Shinar and the decision to build a tower reflect a cultural belief in human innovation's power to transcend natural and divine boundaries, with the ziggurat serving as a theological assertion of humanity's control over the sacred. What came out of the post Enlightenment world? The claim that we have evolved past God, that we do not need him, that we have technology.

The Same Pattern Again: They see what they can accomplish by avoiding God's commands. They desire to make a name for themselves. They take technology in order to become gods.

Pentecost Is the Reversal of Babel

At Babel, humanity tried to usurp God's rule by ascending to him with one unified language in one location. At Pentecost, God comes down and unifies his message through many distinct languages for one mission: the gospel.

Reflect:

• Where are you tempted to trust human innovation instead of God's presence?

• Are you building anything right now mainly to make a name for yourself?

Abraham: The Opposite of Rebellion

Big Idea: Into the swamp of rebellion, God calls one man, and that man does the opposite of see, desire, take.

Scripture to Read:

• Genesis 12:1-3 - Go from your country to the land I will show you, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed

What It Means: God calls Abram out of Ur, a place steeped in idolatry not far from the region of Shinar, and begins to reveal a way of salvation for humanity. Where the three rebellions saw, desired, and took, Abraham obeyed, went, and waited.

And the promise that in him all the families of the earth shall be blessed is a promise of Jesus. Jesus is the winner of the cosmic rebellion.

Reflect:

• What has God asked you to obey, go, and wait on that you have been trying to seize instead?

Action: Identify one area where God has told you to wait. Write down what obedience looks like there this week instead of grabbing.

Putting It All Together

Big Idea: The Bible assumes a supernatural reading, and everything in it exists to reveal the greatness of Christ.

The Story So Far:

• God rules a heavenly realm full of beings and creates a human world that reflects his glory, made in his image.

• A portion of the spiritual world rebels and brings rebellion into Eden by convincing humanity they can become like God.

• Spiritual beings launch another rebellion by corrupting humanity and teaching it things that bring about its own destruction.

• Humanity rebels again at Babel, believing it can ignore God and become like him by its own power and technology.

• God calls Abraham, and through him comes the blessing of all the families of the earth: Jesus.

Why Scripture Reveals Any of This: Christians can become obsessed with the supernatural or fearful of it. Scripture reveals the unseen realm so that we understand there is deception at work, but primarily so that we see the greatness of Christ.

Scripture to Read:

• Colossians 1:16-20 - All things created through him and for him, he holds all things together, and he reconciles all things by the blood of his cross

What It Means: The invisible world exists. The spiritual conflict exists. Rebellious powers exist. All of it exists under Christ. Humanity is saved, creation will be restored, and the rebellious powers have lost their grip.

Every power you feared, Jesus created. Every spiritual authority, Jesus outranks. Every mysterious phenomenon, Jesus understands completely. We live in a mysterious universe. It is a very weird universe. But it is not an uncontrolled universe. It is firmly in the grip of God.

Reflect:

• What unseen thing have you been afraid of that Jesus created and outranks?

• Does your peace depend on explaining the universe or on trusting the One who holds it together?

Action Steps

Today:

• Name which ditch you tend to fall into: dismissing everything or accepting everything.

• Say out loud, "I do not need an explanation for everything, because I serve a mysterious God."

This Week:

• Read 2 Kings 6:15-18, Psalm 82, Job 1:6, and Colossians 1:15-20 slowly.

• Write down your honest questions instead of forcing quick answers.

• Watch for the see, desire, take pattern in your own week and stop it at "desire."

This Month:

• Read Genesis 1 through 12 in one sitting and trace the three rebellions.

• Notice every place Scripture mentions an unseen being and resist the urge to skip past it.

• Practice discernment in one conversation about something unexplained, without dismissing and without swallowing it whole.

"For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible... all things were created through him and for him."
- Colossians 1:16

"Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them."
- 2 Kings 6:16