If senseless[1] Gentiles, chosen for salvation to make Israel jealous, reject the righteousness that comes by way of Christ’s faithfulness – a righteousness from God that is in fact based on Christ’s faithfulness to pursue their own righteousness derived[2] from a select subset of the law and their own religious rules, will that open Christ’s salvation to demons and fallen angels?
On the surface of it the question seems absurd to me, too speculative, though I appreciate the symmetry of the pattern. My problem, however, is that I remember when I believed that Paul’s “commandment”— So you too consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus[3]—was a pious fiction, a mind game based on the flimsiest of pretexts: Or do you not know that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?[4]
Now, of course, I believe that Paul’s “commandment” was a carefully wrought conclusion based on a solid truth. And so I believe that I, too, have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside God’s grace, because if righteousness could come through the law, then Christ died for nothing![5] Furthermore, I now believe that this death facilitates forgiveness and the new resurrected (eternal) life by creating the distinction between me (the new man born of the Spirit) and the sin in my flesh (Romans 7:14-20 NET).
For we know that the law is spiritual – but I am unspiritual, sold into slavery to sin. For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I do not do what I want – instead, I do what I hate. But if I do what I don’t want, I agree that the law is good. But now it is no longer me doing it, but sin that lives in me. For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I want to do the good, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the very evil (κακὸν, a form of κακός) I do not want! Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer me doing it but sin that lives in me.
As John the Apostle wrote, We know that everyone fathered by God does not sin, but God protects the one he has fathered, and the evil one (πονηρὸς, a form of πονηρός) cannot touch him.[6] That experience prompts me to keep an open mind and a running account as touch points come up. One of the first things that came to mind was Jesus’ response to the religious leaders’ charge that He blasphemed by claiming to be the Son of God: Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods’?[7]
When I wrote about it before[8] I focused on verses in Exodus where the Holy Spirit called human judges elohim.[9] But Jesus apparently quoted Psalm 82:6 as well. The note in the NET reads: “The problem in this verse concerns the meaning of Jesus’ quotation from Ps 82:6. It is important to look at the OT context: The whole line reads ‘I say, you are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you.’ Jesus will pick up on the term ‘sons of the Most High’ in 10:36, where he refers to himself as the Son of God. The psalm was understood in rabbinic circles as an attack on unjust judges who, though they have been given the title ‘gods’ because of their quasi-divine function of exercising judgment, are just as mortal as other men. What is the argument here? It is often thought to be as follows: If it was an OT practice to refer to men like the judges as gods, and not blasphemy, why did the Jewish authorities object when this term was applied to Jesus? This really doesn’t seem to fit the context, however, since if that were the case Jesus would not be making any claim for ‘divinity’ for himself over and above any other human being – and therefore he would not be subject to the charge of blasphemy. Rather, this is evidently a case of arguing from the lesser to the greater, a common form of rabbinic argument. The reason the OT judges could be called gods is because they were vehicles of the word of God (cf. 10:35). But granting that premise, Jesus deserves much more than they to be called God. He is the Word incarnate, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world to save the world (10:36). In light of the prologue to the Gospel of John, it seems this interpretation would have been most natural for the author. If it is permissible to call men “gods” because they were the vehicles of the word of God, how much more permissible is it to use the word ‘God’ of him who is the Word of God?”
The psalm itself reads (Psalm 82 NET):
God (elohim)[10] stands in the assembly of El; in the midst of the gods (elohim) he renders judgment. He says, “How long will you make unjust legal decisions and show favoritism to the wicked? (Selah) Defend the cause of the poor and the fatherless! Vindicate the oppressed and suffering! Rescue the poor and needy! Deliver them from the power of the wicked! They neither know nor understand. They stumble around in the dark, while all the foundations of the earth crumble. I thought,[11] ‘You are gods (elohim); all of you are sons of the Most High.’ Yet you will die like mortals; you will fall like all the other rulers.” Rise up, O God (elohim), and execute judgment on the earth! For you own all the nations.
And the note in the NET on gods reads: “The present translation assumes that the Hebrew term אֱלֹהִים (’elohim, ‘gods’) here refers to the pagan gods who supposedly comprise El’s assembly according to Canaanite religion. Those who reject the polemical view of the psalm prefer to see the referent as human judges or rulers (אֱלֹהִים sometimes refers to officials appointed by God, see Exod 21:6; 22:8-9; Ps 45:6) or as angelic beings (אֱלֹהִים sometimes refers to angelic beings, see Gen 3:5; Ps 8:5).”
In the prophetic Song of Moses we read: They made him jealous with other gods,[12] they enraged him with abhorrent idols. They sacrificed to demons, not God,[13] to gods (elohim) they had not known; to new gods[14] who had recently come along, gods your ancestors[15] had not known about.[16] And Paul wrote: I mean that what the pagans sacrifice is to demons and not to God.[17] So I can side with the unbelievers Jesus addressed and believe that Psalm 82 was about Israel’s judges, or I can take the psalm at face value and believe that it was the pagan gods who made unjust legal decisions and showed favoritism to the wicked.
If God meant to save these demons, these rebellious angels, these fallen sons of the Most High, the first step would be that they die like mortals so they could be resurrected to a new life: And the Lord God said, “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not be allowed to stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever”[18] (e.g., immortality corrupted by sin).
On the other hand the letter to the Hebrews reads: Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, he likewise shared in their humanity, so that through death he could destroy the one who holds the power of death (that is, the devil), and set free those who were held in slavery all their lives by their fear of death. For surely his concern (ἐπιλαμβάνεται, a form of ἐπιλαμβάνομαι)[19] is not for angels, but he is concerned (ἐπιλαμβάνεται, a form of ἐπιλαμβάνομαι) for Abraham’s descendants.[20] Once again death played a pivotal role but God’s ἐπιλαμβάνεται (taking hold to rescue) might be limited to human beings here. Of course when I turn that around and say, “Hebrews 2:16 limits God’s mercy to human beings,” I feel more like Gollum,[21] saying, “It’s mine! My precious,” than an obedient follower of Jesus, who commanded, Freely you received, freely give.[22]
[6] 1 John 5:18 (NET) Table
[9] Exodus 21:6; 22:8, 9 (NET)
[11] NET note: “Heb ‘said.’”
[17] 1 Corinthians 10:20a (NET) Table
[21] In “The Lord of the Rings” movies Sauron’s ring of power gave Gollum a corrupt immortality, dead in [his] transgressions and sins (Ephesians 2:1 NET).