Theophanies, Spirit-Fire, and the “Angel of the LORD” (with Courtney Trotter) - Episode 158

Carey Griffel: Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and today I have a special conversation to share with you. It is actually related to our fire series that I've been doing, although it might not entirely seem like it is. I was able to record with my friend Courtney Trotter, who is working on a PhD centered on theophanies. [00:00:39] A theophany is an appearance of God to man. Specifically when we're talking about theophanies, a theophany is the appearance of God to man in the form of something like the Angel of the Lord. [00:00:53] I know that is debated. Not everyone thinks that the Angel of the Lord is an actual theophany or an appearance of God. If you're familiar with the work of Dr. Heiser, you are probably familiar with the fact that he did promote the idea that the Angel of the Lord is a theophany. [00:01:12] It is specifically a theophany of the second person of the Trinity. And there is a long line of history and tradition in theology that goes along with that. If you're looking at the concept of God as a whole in a very logical way where it makes sense according to its internal ancient logic, then I and many others would suggest that it really is important to understand theophany for what they are, as opposed to just being an angelic messenger or perhaps heretically saying that a theophany is just a mode of God. That would be in the realm of Christian heresy regarding the Trinity and things like that. [00:01:57] So I sat down with Courtney to talk about theophanies, but also to talk about manifestations of the Spirit in Scripture, which are frankly, less understood, especially in evangelical or Protestant circles, and a lot harder for us to see. A lot of people will suggest that a manifestation of the Spirit is just a mode of him making him himself known. And so I'm really grateful to Courtney to further the conversation regarding the Spirit's role and understanding theophanies in the form of the Angel of the Lord, being something different than the manifestation of God's glory in the glory cloud, or in fire or Spirit form. [00:02:44] Now, of course, those are very connected because God is one, and it's very complicated and confusing to us. You know, we do not really understand the Trinity, but it is important to understand it in certain ways if you're trying to avoid any kind of heresy. [00:03:03] So I'm just warning you right now, the conversation you're gonna hear with Courtney is gonna get pretty deep in the weeds and I'm kind of hoping that a lot of the ideas presented are going to trigger some really exciting study on your part. [00:03:19] And really that's kind of what I wanted for this conversation was to introduce the fact that there is a lot to say about this field and especially there's a lot to say if you've really got a very simplistic Sunday school conception of the nature of God and the Trinity and appearances of God. [00:03:39] It is very hard to talk about these things without getting into heretical grounds, which is I think why some of this is important, but also another reason why it's so important is because if we don't understand and perceive the Holy Spirit in his active role, then we're really missing out on a very deep part of knowing who God is and interacting with him in the way that we could if we had more knowledge, right? [00:04:08] This is just about discipleship and learning and knowing God on a deeper level. So I hope that you will enjoy this whirlwind of a conversation. There is a lot here, and some of this I'm going to be unpacking further in future episodes because I've already told you that I'm going to be getting deep into talking about the Holy Spirit more in Scripture, especially in the Old Testament, because as I think you'll see after this conversation, the Spirit really is all over the place. [00:04:42] All right. I am here today with my good friend Courtney Trotter, and I will give her a moment to introduce herself and tell everything that she's got going on right now. So, Courtney, thank you for coming on to talk to me today. [00:04:57] Courtney Trotter: Yeah, you're welcome. As you already mentioned, my name is Courtney Trotter. I have a online education company where I teach Greek and Hebrew online called Kairos Classroom. So that's usually what I'm doing throughout the day, but also this semester I started a PhD program in the Old Testament, embodied theophanies of God is the fancy way to talk about that, but all the places where God appears in the Old Testament as a man and how to interpret those and how they relate to Jesus's incarnation. So that will be the topic of my research proposal here going forward. [00:05:30] Carey Griffel: That is awesome and I am excited about that because I think there is a whole lot of need for more conversation about that. I mean, not that there's not been plenty that's already been talked about in history, certainly, but today in our world, we just, we have a hard time grasping some of these so I really think that more needs to be done just because it needs to happen in our space so that we can kind of understand it on our level, I think. [00:06:01] Courtney Trotter: I totally agree. I think that the more I've gotten into researching this topic in the last year and a half, like the implications for the church and the practical life of the church are really, you know, broad and wide sweeping. But theology of the body is a very important topic to discuss these days. [00:06:17] But also what does it mean for us to encounter God in our bodies and to have an embodied form of worship? As we think about what AI can do to revolutionize worship in the church, how important it is for us to maintain that sense of embodiment and the importance of gathering together as God's community. So there are lots of ways that it has implications for further things. [00:06:37] Carey Griffel: I don't think a lot of people understand how the nature of God and his manifestation in the world, the way he interacts in the world, and all of those kinds of things, actually has really practical things as to why it's important for us to worship together, what it means to be the body of Christ and all of that. [00:06:56] Courtney Trotter: Exactly. And then made in the image of God, what does that even mean? [00:07:00] Carey Griffel: So, Courtney, could you just give us a rundown about theophanies in general? [00:07:06] Courtney Trotter: Yeah, so generally speaking, especially if we're talking about the Old Testament and looking at the Old Testament first, you kind of have several different types is how I categorize them. [00:07:14] You have what you might call aural, A-U-R-A-L, where you hear God speaking. Then you have phenomenological theos of God, where God appears in cloud or in breath or fire. And then you also have these embodied theophanies of God, the ones where God appears as a man, which will be largely the subject of my dissertation, but I'll have to kind of deal with those other ones as well. [00:07:39] And all of those experiences, whether aural, embodied, or phenomenological can occur in three tiers of the celestial hierarchy, we wanna label it like that. So you can have an earthly manifestation of God. And so, you know, especially like, let's do this with the embodied ones. [00:07:59] So God appears on earth, earth size, like human size, so on earth, human-sized body. Then you have where the experiencer is on earth, but God appears in the heavens in what we call a God-sized body, like a big body. But then you also have these visionary experiences where the experiencer is in the heavenly realm like Isaiah, and then they see God-sized body, like where his whole robe is filling the temple. [00:08:28] So there are these different modes of God's appearing, and then there are also these different places where people can experience God's appearing. So on earth and on earth with a celestial vision or in the celestial realm with a celestial vision. [00:08:44] Carey Griffel: But we tend to only think of the ones that are on earth, right? And we don't understand there's actually a distinctive difference in the different descriptions and how they're portrayed and probably maybe the purposes of why that manifestation is happening. What is it signaling to the people? [00:09:02] Courtney Trotter: Oh, yes. They always are doing different things in the story, and they're super important. They're really driving the narrative. I think, it's easy to miss how much they're driving the narrative and just begin talking about other narrative features. [00:09:12] But really, when you begin looking at it, the Scriptures are writing down theophany encounters, and the revelation that comes from them. They always are revelatory, bringing knowledge of God. [00:09:21] Carey Griffel: So when it comes to the embodied versions like the human- man appearing theophanies, we have a really easy way to describe that through the person of Jesus, like the second person of the Trinity and all of that kind of thing. Do you think that's an accurate way of seeing those manifestations? [00:09:41] Courtney Trotter: Yeah, so that will actually be something that I'm arguing for in my dissertation is that those are appearances of the second person in the Trinity, pre-incarnate experiences of the Logos is typically how they're talked about, like the word of God. And borrowing from language in John one but that is something that is debated throughout church history. [00:09:59] Some of the earliest arguments that we have for the continuity of the Christian tradition as opposed to Second Temple Judaism I think Christianity is an expression of Second Temple Judaism, but as they're dialoguing with their still- Jewish counterparts, they are saying, no, we are actually worshiping the same God that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses worshiped and that God has now revealed himself to us as Christ. [00:10:21] And so they will draw on these God- man theophanies in the Old Testament to say that person that was appearing to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses was Christ. So then whenever he appears to us, our worship is rightly ordered to him and we're not worshiping a new God. So it's really important for the early church in terms of kind of an apologetic argument that they're not doing something different. [00:10:43] It's just now this fullness of revelation, just like Moses at Mount Sinai, is receiving a fullness of revelation that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did not yet have. So they're like, this is this new Sinai moment, this new Exodus, new Passover moment, and now God has just revealed himself more gloriously to us, right? [00:10:58] and instead of showing Moses' back, he's now shown us his face, right? and so throughout the history of the church that remains the same line as they're encountering early modalism, the belief that God just acts as Father and Son and Spirit, but really is just one thing. [00:11:14] And they're saying like, no, we know this because we have these, phenomenological theophanies that are Spirit in the Old Testament. And we have these ones that are God-man in the Old Testament. And hey, look, that's the Spirit And then you have the Father who remains in the heavenly realm in the Old Testament. [00:11:29] And that's exactly what we believe now, right? So they are encountering early Trinitarian heresies by pointing at those theophanies as if those are Christ in the Old Testament. And it's not until you get to Augustine, that he kind of shifts the theophany doctrine and says that all of those manifestations in the Old Testament are created beings. [00:11:50] so if it's light, light is a creation. If it's a cloud, a cloud is a creation. And if it is a manifestation of a man, then that is an angel. And it's not God. And so then after that it becomes a little bit muddier, but you will now find, scholars on all sides of this. [00:12:05] And some will say that it's a Christophany, but generally speaking, in the Latin West, you will either have what I call impossibility or indeterminabl So impossibility would say that it's impossible for Christ to appear in the Old Testament because of reasons like, well, how could it be his body in the Old Testament? [00:12:22] That'll be kind of a question. Like he only becomes a body to the incarnation, right? So it can't be him in the Old Testament because, you know, he can't be back there. So that's the impossibility. [00:12:31] Or indeterminablity, meaning that we don't know which of the three persons is being revealed, so they aren't just like created things, but we do consider them real theophanies. They're an appearance of God somehow. We just can't determine the person. And so I would say the Latin West after Augustine takes that route. But that's not always the case for other theological traditions. [00:12:52] Carey Griffel: So depending on what tradition you kind of prefer, you point to the theophanies and say, this is Jesus versus kind of distancing yourself from saying, well, we can't say it's Jesus exactly, because Jesus doesn't have a body until a particular moment in history... [00:13:10] Courtney Trotter: Yeah. And oh, just to add onto that, like historical overview, Luther and Calvin are some of the first theologians to really re popularize the Christophany interpretation, that it is an appearance of Christ in the Old Testament. [00:13:22] So you do get Protestant scholars who will have different opinions of this, but I would say largely within, you know, biblical studies, most people would probably fall in the indeterminability camp. Like we can't determine that. [00:13:34] Carey Griffel: So you would put a different explanation on theophanies of God as man versus Spirit. [00:13:44] How would you describe the difference between, it was pretty obvious how you describe the physical difference, but why would that matter? [00:13:52] Courtney Trotter: I think it does matter even in terms of how, if you see, you know, the nation of Israel as, as to how they're interacting, with God in sacred space. [00:14:02] And so, there is a difference whenever the elders of Israel see God seated on throne in Exodus 24, and they look up and, they feel like they're actually eating with God. and then whenever at the end of Exodus you have the fire come down for the mountain and consecrate the altar, and that is sanctifying all of holy space with which you can encounter God. [00:14:20] And so there are reasons to see a difference, but ultimately they are kind of doing the same thing. They're encounters with God. But those encounters with God are doing something different. And especially as we relate it to the Spirit, it tends to just be worded slightly differently where it's like the Spirit of Yahweh or the Spirit of God. [00:14:37] And sometimes you can do that with the human manifestations as well, like the Angel of the Lord, where there is this, natural relational, it's a relational noun. And so it's showing the natural relationship of procession, to use later Trinitarian language of, kind of moving forward from the heavens and how that's coming into the world. [00:14:55] But often they appear together, you know, like the Man is coming with the cloud or something like that, so they do appear together, which is what we see also in the New Testament. Like Jesus' body in the New Testament is doing a lot of the same things that theophanies of God are doing in the Old. [00:15:07] Carey Griffel: You just mentioned, the cloud. When the cloud moves behind them and they're at the Red Sea, then it's described that the Angel of the Lord is also there. So it's two separate things. Right. So that's probably a helpful one to distinguish and show that there are multiple versions. [00:15:25] Courtney Trotter: Like there are multiple manifestations and they're doing separate things, you know, like they're guarding them on either side, right? So you have like the cloud on one side and the Angel on the other, and one's leading them through and one is protecting them, you know, from the oncoming army. So in having those multiple instantiations, they are able to do different things within the story. [00:15:41] Carey Griffel: So as I've been talking in my fire series about fire and its different purposes and how it shows up differently in different frames in Scripture, would you say that, I mean, we haven't looked at this because we haven't like specifically compared my frames of fire with all of the various theophanies that we've had. Do you see crossover there in any of that? [00:16:07] Courtney Trotter: So initially, it's been a long time since I've gone back to school, so this is like, you know, a decade in the making, but whenever I was getting my master's degree, I thought I was going to do because I thought the Christophpany issue was already settled. [00:16:18] Like, I didn't realize that it was such a big deal because, you know, Bible Project and Michael Heiser had kind of convinced, like, felt like it had collated all the information together. And so I kind of wanted to do the same thing that they had done for the Spirit in the Old Testament to kind of flesh out some of those, you know, early Trinitarian intimations in the Old Testament. [00:16:36] 'Cause the spirit is the breath, wind, spirit, and there are ways that we tend to have spiritual readings that I would say that kind of cloud out the phenomenological experience of like what it would mean for the Spirit to appear. But then there are also times that there are phenomenological readings that cloud out the spiritual reading. [00:16:52] So one of those you know, a couple of examples of those would be in Genesis chapter one where it says the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the water. And I tend to just, just kind of insert Breath, Wind, Spirit, like the Breath, Wind, Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the water. [00:17:05] Because what you can then imagine is almost like we read it spiritually, which I think is good. And so we say like, oh look, there's the Spirit there in Genesis chapter one. But if you read it phenomenologically, then you get to see that the Spirit is hovering over the water almost like a helicopter. And like the way a helicopter pushes wind down and then the water is like going out from it. [00:17:23] So then you get to see the dry land emerge out of the midst of this chaos water in Genesis one. But then one that we tend to read phenomenologically that is actually spiritual, I would say is like Exodus 14, where it says the east wind is blowing and opening up the waters and it's the Breath, Wind, Spirit of God that is blowing open these waters. [00:17:44] Just like in Genesis chapter one, it's blowing up the water so the dry land appears. And so if you read them kind of in both in the same way, trying to see both the spiritual and the like, kind of material explanation for what's going on, then you get to kind of imagine what's happening a little bit clearer. [00:18:01] But expanding upon that, like when the Spirit blows or when wind blows, the reason why clouds are associated with that is in judgment when the Spirit blows, it's usually what I like desertification, like where a desert is being made, in judgment. And fire is also where that why is fire attached to the Spirit? Because we need breath, wind, spirit. You need wind in order for fire to be stoked, right? And so whenever the Spirit blows in judgment, a desert tends to form. [00:18:31] And whenever the spirit blows for refreshing or restoration, then you get these images of water. Again, why is that? Well, 'cause clouds bring rain, right? So when in Ezekiel, for instance, the Spirit is coming to enliven the valley of dry bones. It's a dry valley. It's been a valley of judgment. It's desertification, but then all of a sudden the spirit comes and then, they become alive again. [00:18:56] And they become embodied again. So it's that spirit of refreshing. You see the same kind of pattern in Psalm 23 that he leads me besides still waters, that there's this like, refreshing, he restores my soul, he restores my nesh my embodied self. So yeah, I think you're right on the way that you're reading fire there. [00:19:13] I could probably go on longer about the fire thing too. I've got a lot more thoughts about the fire. [00:19:17] Carey Griffel: Oh, you know, I thought that my water portion of things was gonna be way longer, but I think people are just, they're used to understanding water in theological ways in certain ways. And I think that there is less talk about the fire. [00:19:34] Like every time that glory comes up in a Sunday school, people are like, I don't know what glory is. Even pastors are like, I don't have any idea what that means. So it's just less thought of, but fire seems to have so many more and I don't know if it's because water can only do so much where water flows down and then it pools like it can't form in like the flaming sword in Eden and things like that. Mm-hmm. Like it's a boundary line and water doesn't seem to be quite as diverse as flame is, at least as far as I can tell. [00:20:12] Courtney Trotter: Yeah, you're right. and like you were drawing out those images of the flame and all the different ways it can be used both for judgment and purification we also think of it as warmth and the way that the food was cooked within the tabernacle. And, I think it's Josephus, he describes the fire in the temple as being the primary sacrifice. [00:20:30] Even, the importance of Hanukkah this time of year is the preservation of that divine fire. One thing that blew my mind was that, the fire coming from Sinai to ignite the altar, is the continued presence of that pillar of fire and cloud. [00:20:47] It is the continued presence of God amongst people. The sacrifices are set up to maintain the fire. The evening sacrifice maintains the fire until the daily sacrifice again in the morning. The daily sacrifice reignites that presence of God within their midst. [00:21:00] All the other sacrifices, that could be offered are then actually being transformed by the fire into smoke to lift the worshiper up into the celestial realm of God. Smoke is this thing that rises up to God who's in the heavens, and it looks like a cloud. [00:21:15] So all of those actions of the fire are kind of re-spiriting the sacred space and cleansing that sacred space. 'cause fire always smells good. It's cooking the food. There are so many things that it's doing to nourish God's people. [00:21:28] But then as they go into exile, one thing I didn't realize until I started reading more of the intertestamental literature, is that they take that fire into exile with them and hide it, and the priests maintain it in the cave so that whenever they go back at the end of Jeremiah's 70 year prophesied period, they can bring the fire with them and reignite that same fire from Sinai. [00:21:49] Like they're trying to maintain that same fire from Sinai. And so that's why at Hanukkah it becomes such an ordeal that they don't have enough oil to light the fire, in Second Maccabees chapter two, if anybody wants to go and read that. And so then they're praying to God that he maintains a Sinai fire because otherwise it would, truly represent that God's Spirit had left his people. [00:22:09] And what you see at Pentecost is actually the fire leaving the temple and going and resting on the heads of those who have gathered in the upper room and are waiting the sending of the Spirit, the fire appears above their heads. So it's left the temple now and is now going out into the world. [00:22:25] In Revelation you see that every church in Revelation has its own lamp stand, and that's a menorah and it has its own lampstand because they're maintaining the Pentecost fire, in their sacred space the places where they meet. [00:22:37] Carey Griffel: That makes me think of how coal could function as a kind of... [00:22:42] Courtney Trotter: purifying agent. [00:22:43] Carey Griffel: Well, it's a purifying agent, but it's also a metaphor for the remnant. [00:22:48] Courtney Trotter: Mm-hmm. 'cause they're the ones who took the remnants of the fire into exile with them. [00:22:52] Carey Griffel: Right. And a coal can kind of simmer and almost appear like it's not on fire at all, but it still is inside of it. [00:23:00] Courtney Trotter: That's a cool picture. 'cause when they go back to retrieve the fire out of the cave, in Second Maccabees, it says that it's just like, it's basically just coals and it doesn't look like it sl, but then they relight it. [00:23:10] Carey Griffel: Oh, that's cool. This is why I love biblical theology and tracing themes. [00:23:15] Courtney Trotter: These themes and you also get like a little, other textual archeological evidence and it just really brings it to life. [00:23:21] Carey Griffel: Right. I think it shows what is essential and what's important. And a lot of times if you're just looking at dry doctrine and things like that, you're gonna miss these beautiful little pieces that are really essential to understand. [00:23:37] Courtney Trotter: Right. Yeah. So true. Jesus's ascension, like his body going back up to heaven is so important so that the Spirit, that pillar of fire and cloud can go out into all the world and create these little alters, these sacred spaces all over the world. So that's why he says it's a benefit for him to go away, which just seems crazy to us. [00:23:55] But it really is. Like it really is a benefit because now the whole world has, been deemed sacred and therefore a place where the Spirit can meet us through his people. [00:24:04] Carey Griffel: Right. And I don't think that it's really innate to us to understand the God man theophanies in the Old Testament and the Spirit manifestations in the Old Testament as interconnected in as much as they are. [00:24:21] Courtney Trotter: Mm-hmm. [00:24:22] Carey Griffel: So like if you went and did the same kind of frame semantic study of the theophanies as I've done with the fire series and look at the conceptual realities that crossover with those, I feel like there would be a lot. [00:24:38] Courtney Trotter: Oh, yeah, it pretty much always is, you know, like where you have this glory or heaviness or light or fire or cloud coming with the Man. [00:24:47] And even ones where it's not necessarily obvious, 'cause like you said, the frame semantics, like darkness is also one of those, right? Because the cloud can obscure light and so sometimes there's a mysterious darkness when the man appears or it is in the darkness when the man appears. [00:25:02] So there's a lot of overlap there where it does seem like they kind of happen simultaneously. And that signals to people that they are having a theophanic encounter. I mean, part of me is like, you know, when it's like Jacob comes, it is just mentioned as like two lines. [00:25:16] Like Jacob came across the camp of angels and he named the place makhanihim, which means two camps. 'Cause it's like the camp of people and the camp of Angels. It's like, how does he know it's a camp of angels? Like, what's going on? It's like they just all of a sudden knew whenever they were walking around and could tell that something supernatural was happening. [00:25:33] Carey Griffel: Yeah. Well, Genesis is interesting because of that. There's so many little things in Genesis that point forward and connect to other things, but they kind of hang out in Genesis on their own and in different ways than they do later, I think. And we're left scratching our heads because when Adam and Eve are kicked outta the garden, a lot of people think, oh, well then they don't have any presence of Yahweh anymore, they're not in God's presence, and yet people are always talking to God directly and things like that. [00:26:07] Courtney Trotter: He talks to Cain like in just chapter four. [00:26:10] Carey Griffel: Right. He kind of shows up a lot in Genesis if that's the case. [00:26:14] Courtney Trotter: Oh yeah. So even like in Genesis chapter two where he appears in the cool of the day, he appears in the Spirit of the day. so they're kind of overlapping in a lot of different places. [00:26:22] Carey Griffel: So would you say that's a manifestation of both Jesus and the Spirit? [00:26:28] Courtney Trotter: Do I wanna go on record saying that's a manifestation of both? Yeah, sure. I'll go on record with that. It's, I definitely think it is Jesus. And I do think there's the significance that he's appearing with the clouds in that moment, especially as he is creating man in, in-spiriting him or, you know. [00:26:43] There's this biblical scholar, his name is Reed Carlson, and his book is called, gosh, I can't remember exactly what it's called. Reed Carlson. You can go and track him down. He got work on the Spirit. But he breaks down a lot of those Spirit theophanies in the Old Testament and is pretty provocative and exciting to read. [00:27:01] Carey Griffel: And hopefully everybody is now thinking of Daniel and the Ancient of Days and the one like the Son of Man coming on the clouds. [00:27:09] Courtney Trotter: Well, the cloud rider. [00:27:10] Yeah. There are a lot of scholars who will say like, oh, you are overreading it, or you're reading backwards, or you're reading Christian conclusions backwards. But I tend to think that there is actual pressure being put on you in the text and to just describe them away as anthropomorphism or metaphor actually removes the experience of the people in the text. [00:27:29] I think Moses really saw a burning bush and a man-like figure in the bush. So there's your fire and man at the same time again. If you begin to explain these away as metaphors or just created beings, then you're like, well, who is the one speaking? There's a lot of issues that come up there where you're actually kind of removing the revelatory character of the name of God, for instance, from the people in the text. [00:27:51] And so, you know, there's a Jewish scholar's name is Benjamin Somer. He has a really good book on the Bodies of God in Ancient Israel. and he says, "No Jew sensitive to Judaism's own classical sources, however, can fault the theological model Christianity employs when it avows belief in a God who has an earthly body as well as a Holy Spirit and a heavenly manifestation, for that model, we have seen, is a perfectly Jewish one." [00:28:13] So he doesn't think we're overreading the Trinity backwards. He thinks that those are pressures from within the text to take the Hebrew Scriptures as they are, and that they would've had a conception of deities being able to do that. Like he gives several different examples. You know, they, they thought Baal could appear as a human avatar, for instance or things like that. He uses the term avatar. That's not just me trying to talk about video games or something. [00:28:37] Carey Griffel: The Divine Council worldview like hit people like a storm when a lot of people started realizing, Hey, there's this spiritual reality to the text that has been obscured, at least for many of us, right? And I think that if we understood the Spirit well enough in the Bible, that would have just as big of a impact on people. [00:29:02] I really do. Like we are always about Jesus, always about like that's an easy kind of thing, right? Because we've talked about it. Jesus walked amongst humans. And there's been enough writing about, look, this is how you understand Jesus as God. And there just has not been enough writing about how the Spirit manifests and how the Spirit is God. [00:29:25] And we want all of that to be just as human as it is with Jesus. But Jesus is the one who's human. So kind of makes sense that Jesus is really a little bit more relatable because he's just like us. He is the God man, and it's a little bit harder for us to interact with the Spirit in that way. But then we also have spiritual experiences ourselves. [00:29:54] So we directly have experience with the Spirit, but somehow we just kind of write that off as, well, that's just not organic. You know, that kind of thing. [00:30:07] Courtney Trotter: Yeah. We tend to be skeptical of it and kind of almost cast it immediately as something potentially demonic, even if it's not exactly demonic. [00:30:15] We're skeptical because we'll say like the heart is deceitful above all things or something like that. As we've been talking, I've been using the term phenomenological for the Spirit. 'cause I'm not saying a lot of times whenever we say something spiritual, we mean non embodied or we mean non-material, but the Spirit is encountering us in our own bodies, number one. [00:30:33] And in these ways that we can feel like we can feel wind, we can feel fire, we can, as Jesus says, see the effects of the wind. So it is having an effect on the material world. In just popular, you know, Christian discourse, we will say something like, you know, something is spiritual and not physical and we'll put them against to one another. [00:30:53] But that's why, I mentioned Reed Carlson's book, but I like that he talks about the Spirit almost as an organ that we share with God, because we breathe in air and we, you know, this is the thing that sustains our breath. And then God breathes into Adam and this is the way that he is then enlivened to actually move within his body. [00:31:10] Like his body now has the ability to move, to describe something as spiritual means that it has movement, which is why the ancients thought that, you know, trees and, you know, all kinds of things had spirits because they experience movement, they experience life. And that growth that you can see like a plant undergoing is a spiritual movement. [00:31:27] And so you're right. I think we struggle to see the real material ways that we encounter the Spirit and that we can grow and foster the Spirit within us. We kind of discount even our own ability to move and think and to live, move and have our being right as something less than spiritual and purely natural. [00:31:45] So it kind of is sad that we live in this bifurcated reality, but you're right. I think that if we explore those motifs of the Spirit and that semantic frame, as you said of the Spirit, then we get to see how God is moving around us all the time. [00:31:58] Carey Griffel: Right. And I just think there's way too much crossover between the things I've been looking at with fire and all of these things. And you can go look at even more with the man theophanies that we see. I think there's too much overlap there. [00:32:13] Courtney Trotter: But we talk about the spiritual things, like the spiritual realm as if it is something that does not encounter our space. And we live as practical deists all the time. Because we are in nature, and nature is spirited. But like I said, in the history of the church, they would say in him we live and move and have our being or Christ is everywhere present and filling all things. [00:32:30] And how is he doing that? He's doing that by his Spirit. 'cause all things participate in this movement, this growth, via the Spirit. And growth in and of itself is showing that the Spirit is active and at work around us. So a lot of times cultivating the spirit in my life means cultivating my plants, my indoor house plants, because it means that I'm able to pay attention to how things are growing around me. [00:32:54] Carey Griffel: Well, and I suspect if we understood the overlap and how the people of the ancient world were thinking of the theophanies of God in the different manifestations that we have in the Old Testament, then I think when we come to hear what John the Baptist is saying about Jesus, that becomes very revelatory in a way that we wouldn't see just with our modern English readings. We're not seeing that whole picture that the ancient people would just have embedded in their minds. [00:33:28] So if they're thinking Spirit in certain ways that we just are missing, then we're not going to pick up everything that John is saying when he is talking about Jesus and Jesus' baptism with fire and Spirit and all of that. [00:33:46] Courtney Trotter: Yeah, to backtrack to like, you know, the Spirit being physical or having physical characteristics and that, like we bifurcate that and we'll talk about, like some people will refer to the Lord's Supper as like a spiritual eating of the body of Christ, but not physical eating of the body of Christ or something like that. [00:34:00] So what I realized is that what you will say about Christ's body in the Old Testament, you'll also say about these kinds of realities as we experience 'em in the church or in our world. And so you'll end up with kind of matter that doesn't really communicate something to you. Just watched a video on worship this morning that was talking about when David talks about seeing the glory of the Lord in the temple and beholding God in the temple, he's not referring to looking at like the basin and thinking, oh, I can see God in the basin. [00:34:26] It's like, well, no, that's exactly what David says in like Psalm 48, that they will look at Zion, they will look at the temple and say, this is our God. Not like this is our God in heaven, but this is our God in that temple. And that, what matter does is once it is consecrated in this spiritual way, it allows you to engage Spirit in your physical realm. [00:34:47] And so, I like what Gregory Palomas says about this. He says, God is both beyond knowing and beyond unknowing, beyond knowing because we, we can't contain him. And then there's always more that he could reveal to us. And so we, we can never fully comprehend God, but he's beyond unknowing because in my neighbor I see the image of God, the image of Christ. [00:35:08] And Christ has appeared to us in the incarnation and the Spirit is around us in everything. if we don't see the Spirit as active in our midst and have ways in which we can physically encounter spiritual things, then we will kind of live as functional deists and as if the daily things of life don't matter. [00:35:26] CS Lewis talks about this in his book, The Discarded Image that we kind of have closed our eyes to. The in-spirited reality of nature that is all around us, and once we close one of our eyes, you know, and only see it through like we have one eye that's super nature and one eye, that's nature. [00:35:41] Once we close that supernatural eye, then we just see everything as pure potency in a resource, right? Human resources, natural resources, and not as encounter, theophanic encounter. [00:35:53] Carey Griffel: This seems really helpful as well when we consider the mirroring of heaven and earth. I try and bring that out a lot when I'm talking about the divine council because a lot of the mistaken ideas that people have or the arguments against it just means that they don't understand how the spiritual reality and our reality are so interconnected and so mirroring is the way I usually talk about that, but I think there's different ways you can communicate the exact same thing. [00:36:22] Courtney Trotter: I think mirroring is great. Hebrews 12 kind of talks about mirroring in that same way that there is this connection between that heavenly temple and what's going on with us just because we are spiritual beings. So even though we're in our bodies, like we are connected to the spiritual ecclesia as the earthly ecclesia. [00:36:38] Yeah. So mirroring and kind of a physical connection, that is not something separate from spiritual. 'Cause spiritual is supposed to be physical. Like that is the way that God intended the world to be. He intended the world to be the arena for his encounter. So it's not opposed to his encounter. [00:36:56] Carey Griffel: So what would you say if people said, oh, you're just being too mystical. [00:37:00] Courtney Trotter: I would question their presuppositions as to why they asked that, but it probably does sound very mystical compared to how I grew up and even how we think about it and then people will wonder, okay, well what's your discernment? [00:37:12] So that it's not becoming bad spirits. And yeah. So I would employ the same discernment as the apostles. Like, it's not that there's a, spiritual reality and non-spiritual reality. It's John says to discern the spirits and you discern the spirits by their proclamation about Christ, or things like that. [00:37:28] So yeah, it sounds mystical, but we were created as embodied spiritual beings where we were made from the dust of the earth and given the breath of divine life. And so the things above are connected to the things below, via our bodies. Like that's how our bodies were created to be. I call this like the divine dirtling. [00:37:49] That's how we were created to be. 'Cause we come from the dirt. We are adam made from the Adamah in Hebrew or in Latin, the same word play stands, where we are humans made from the humus, from the earth, from the soil. But then we are given that divine, life, breath, spirit, as God breathes into us. [00:38:05] So we were made to kind of be that fulcrum point that connects the things above to the things below. So it sounds mystical, but that's just creation in my opinion. [00:38:14] Carey Griffel: Yeah. Well, it's funny because I really do think people would say that what you're saying is mystical. And yet at the same time, when I hear all of these kinds of things explained in that way, it's like, well, what's more actually like, it's not materialism, but it's understanding the levels of God and understanding God's revelation and working within creation as the only being outside of creation. [00:38:42] Courtney Trotter: 'Cause the creator creature distinction is still very important. So it's not that you know, we become God, but we've become divinized through participation with God that all things can participate in the spiritual life of God, because this, like I said, is the arena with which he created to encounter humans. Like he created the world to encounter humans and to become human. So it's not mystical, it's the incarnation as step one in God's plan. [00:39:10] Carey Griffel: Yes, because Genesis three is not the beginning. [00:39:13] Courtney Trotter: Yeah, we were created in the image of God. Oh, that's the other thing. People will say, oh, these are anthropomorphisms and you're overreading anthropomorphisms. And to that I just say, well, God has that problem because these are not anthropomorphisms. [00:39:26] These are theopo morphisms where God has decided to make man in his own image, like he has decided to say, hey, whenever I look at you, Carey, I'm seeing something that is revelatory about God. And once we see Christ come into the world, we now know what that means. But it at least prepares us all the way there from Genesis chapter one, to anticipate these embodied theophanies of God as something that is truly reflective of his character. [00:39:53] And so when we look at images of Christ, we're like, oh yeah, that's our God that we worship. He looks human and it's not a problem for us. So yeah, these are theopomorphisms. We were made to be God- human creatures that are naturally connected to God. [00:40:06] So it's not mystical. It's just the way that God created the world to be. And it does seem natural upon a certain reading of Genesis one, but then it's kind of unnatural based on our experience of the world and our experience of our spiritual life, like you said, because we've kind of just bifurcated these realities. [00:40:21] Carey Griffel: Right. Well, my favorite way of describing the church is through the phrase, the body of Christ. And what does that mean if we're not actually his body? You know, this isn't like pantheism or some other nonsense like that. [00:40:37] Courtney Trotter: It's just recognizing the sacred character of all creation. [00:40:40] Carey Griffel: And how deeply embedded God's purposes are. And I don't know how else to describe that . But for us, who are living in the body of Christ as God's imagers, we have to have purpose in our lives. So the questions that we're asking are going to be reflective of all of that kind of thing, if that makes sense. [00:41:00] Courtney Trotter: Right? Yeah, exactly. And it should transform the way we live. Really should. And the way that we worship and the way that we gather together, and the way we look at our neighbor, it, should transform the way we look at all creation. [00:41:12] Because one of my favorite theologians, he says all we have is God and the world he created. And so we need to learn how to treasure that. [00:41:18] Kevin Rowe, he wrote an article called Trinitarian Pressure and Biblical Hermeneutics, and he kind of gets at that idea that from the very beginning there's this kind of Trinitarian pressure from the jump of Genesis chapter one as you look at these different theophanies and how they're participating in the life of God. [00:41:35] Carey Griffel: What do you think of the light in Genesis one? [00:41:38] Courtney Trotter: Is it just light? So like prior to the creation of the luminaries of light. [00:41:43] Carey Griffel: Right. So because, you know, the light is not said to be created, it just is. [00:41:48] Courtney Trotter: Yeah. No, I definitely think that and Jesus says, I'm the light of the world. I think that that is, a special kind of light, an uncreated light that is proceeding forth from God. And that's different than the luminaries. So there's this greater light that the lesser lights reflect. [00:42:05] Carey Griffel: Yeah. So when it comes to theophanies in the Old Testament, how do you think they are setting up the incarnation? How's that gonna help us to see? Because a lot of people get confused. They're like, well, we have the incarnation in the New Testament. But if God had a body in the Old Testament, then why did he need to do that? What are theophanies pointing towards when we get to the incarnation? [00:42:31] Courtney Trotter: Yeah, so there's a few things that they're doing. I would say at least one way that I map them out is that they're mysterious, they're liturgical and they're christological. [00:42:40] They're mysterious in that they are like unpredictable. There's no way to know when God is going to appear as a man. And then there's also this, like, as they happen, you know, it's like the first one that you get is a voice that walks and has feet and things like that. It's like described as a voice. that has legs. It's kind of weird. [00:42:59] And then there are times where you get these, like, I really like this kind of ancient mid rash on Genesis 22 when it says that the Angel of the Lord, you know, appeared to Abraham. It said like, Abraham, Abraham, you know, don't kill Isaac. And it says like it appeared above him. And the ancient rabbi says like, how did he know that this was, the Angel of the Lord and how did he know it was God? And he is like, surely he knew it was God because he would not have not gone through with the command of a lesser deity than the one who had commanded it, right? So he wouldn't have disobeyed God if it was just an angel. [00:43:32] But he also knew it was God because it came from above. It's like coming down at him, you know? 'cause that's like what the preposition is, is like the angel came from above. [00:43:39] Or the one with the donkey and like the donkey that won't go through and like he can't see the Angel with the sword drawn, but the donkey can, you know, they're just all these really weird ways that they appear, kind of outside of the frame of what the percipients of the story perceive. So there're these very mysterious appearances. [00:43:57] But then they're also liturgical 'cause usually afterwards there is some kind of new pattern of worship that is set up. So the first, kind of embodied theophany that you get after the garden is whenever God appears to Cain and Abel. And, this weird sacrifice situation happens, you know, where one sacrifice is accepted and one is not. Whenever you have the wrestler appear to Jacob, then Jacob starts to erect these altars to God, the God of Israel, the one who he had met. Same thing at Sinai, that this new pattern of worship happens. [00:44:29] And that pattern of worship is to establish this as a place where we can always encounter God, even if you don't see God as a man whenever you go to this place, you know? Oh, they did encounter God there. So whenever you come to this place, you are encountering God. So it establishes this liturgical pattern as a standard for worship. [00:44:47] And because of that, then it participates in Christ incarnation. [00:44:52] And so what you don't have in all those other previous embodied, theophanies, is the full cycle of human life from birth all the way to death, right? They're mysterious, they're glimpses, they're one-off encounters. There may be some dialogue, but you don't have this full birth to life cycle of this incarnation. [00:45:08] So there is something very unique happening at the incarnation where Mary conceives and from the moment that she conceives, John the Baptist is able to recognize Christ in the womb. And then he enters in fully to the human experience all the way through death and the harrowing of Hades, and then comes out on the other side and is resurrected and it says that, he is both the last and the first Adam. [00:45:28] So he's the last Adam, meaning the last person of the age of Adam, like that is going through the lifecycle like a normal man. But he is also the first Adam 'cause he is the first new human that no longer is corrupted by death. And so the incarnation participates in all those embodied theophanies that come before. [00:45:44] One reason that people struggle with that is because they're like, okay, well then how is Christ appearing in the Old Testament? And is it like time traveling Jesus? Or something like that. And there are several different ways that you could work that out metaphysically. Time traveling, Jesus is an option. [00:46:01] However you wanna account for Jesus' body appearing to people after his resurrection, you could use that same model to say that like, yeah, that's him appearing. After his ascension in particular, and that's the same way he's appearing in the Old Testament. So like whenever Paul sees him on the road to Damascus. Paul is on Earth and he's seeing big God body up in heaven that you would have in the Old Testament, right? [00:46:23] That's why I introduced that heuristic earlier. And you have John who's receiving a revelation and he's in heaven and seeing big God body in heaven, right? Like, so the same pattern exists in the Old Testament as what exists in the New, post Jesus's ascension. So there are different ways that you could work that out. [00:46:41] But ultimately I think that you have places in the gospels where Jesus is saying, that was me, that appeared to Abraham Isaac, and to Jacob and to Moses. [00:46:49] And those are the standard. It needs to be in Torah that Jesus appears, and it needs to be those figures to whom Jesus appears 'cause those patriarchs are the ones who set the stage for, you know, Israelite religion and Judaism. And so in John chapter eight Jesus is talking with the Pharisees and you know, he's saying that like, oh, you're not of your father Abraham, you're of your father, the devil. And why does he say that? He says, because Abraham didn't try to kill me. [00:47:12] And so the natural reading of that is like, well, when did Abraham have a chance to kill Jesus? And that would be at Genesis 18 when he was eating with the Lord. [00:47:21] And you're like, well, that's kind of weird. Like, I like, that's a weird response. Abraham didn't try to kill me. Okay. [00:47:28] In John chapter 12, it says, Isaiah saw his glory, Jesus's glory. Who did Isaiah, like John says, Isaiah saw Jesus sitting on the throne, but the Pharisees preferred the glory that comes from man than the glory that comes from above. Right? That's tying it into the earthly visitation with an earthly body with Abraham, Genesis 18, and also the celestial encounter with the big God body in Isaiah chapter six and saying, that was Jesus' body. And he's here standing before you in John. [00:48:00] And then you have the calling of Nathaniel in John chapter two where it says that he was sitting underneath the fig tree and saw a ladder and angels descending a descending upon a ladder, right? And Jesus comes up to him and calls him as a disciple. And he is like, how do I know you are the Messiah? And he's like, well, and he tells him what he was envisioning. Well, that is Jacob, sitting on earth and envisioning a man standing on top of that ladder, in the big God body. [00:48:24] So that's all three of those type that, that framework that I introduced coming from Genesis, right into the book of John. [00:48:31] Carey Griffel: This is why, we need more written about it because there's so much to talk about. You could just kind of explain it and people can say, yes, okay, sure. Got it. And then move on with their day. But when it's so deeply embedded with themes and with worship and with how creation even is as a whole, I just don't think we can say quite enough about it. And certainly in the evangelical world, we're missing a lot of that context. [00:49:00] Courtney Trotter: Yeah, yeah. But we gotta take it seriously when Jesus was like, yeah, that was me. Or John's like, yeah, Isaiah saw Jesus. Or when Nathaniel's like, how do I know I should follow you? And Jesus is like, not only do I know your vision, but that vision that you're visioning is, is Jacob. [00:49:12] And I'm the one who Jacob saw. So it, it's kind of a big deal. On top of Exodus 24, you know, whenever they see Jesus in there, they're having the covenant meal. And that's exactly what Jesus is doing in the upper room and with his disciples instituting the new Passover meal. [00:49:29] And so there's just too many beats where Jesus is doing the same thing and we can't get to the transfiguration, where Moses asked to see God. Elijah also wanted to see God. And so now instead of Moses seeing his back, God now has turned his face towards him. And they're both at Mount Sinai, Moses and Elijah, whenever they have this encounter with God, Elijah, and the still small voice, right, and Moses with the back of God and the glory cloud. Moses has a glory cloud there too. And Jesus appears in the transfiguration, in the glory cloud with Moses and Elijah and revealing that divine light that he had before all ages, right? [00:50:03] So yeah, there are just multiple places where Jesus is like, I'm the one, the embodied theophany, that you guys saw back then. You saw no form, meaning you didn't see my face. He was too glorious, so they couldn't behold his face. He had to take on flesh so that he could be seen, because he was too glorious otherwise, if he had revealed his glory, you know, Peter, James and John when they're like, you know, falling over and thinking they're about to die because they saw his glory. He took on flesh and glorified it in his resurrection. [00:50:31] Carey Griffel: Once you see these kinds of things explained in this way, then it becomes really hard to see it not that way, first of all. At least in my opinion it is. And second of all, you can kind of see why it's a big deal, why the theophanies ought to be manifestations of God and not just messengers, right? [00:50:53] I've seen people say, well, you know, the messenger is kinda like how the king would send out a messenger and the messenger would be speaking in the name of the king. You would treat the messenger like the king, And the messenger is still really just another being functioning this way. So we could see the angel of the Lord, or we could see these other manifestations as being created beings in that same kind of form. [00:51:22] And I'm like, well, that's called an analogy and a metaphor. So if we push it too far, we're missing out on the worship angles. We're missing out on the actual manifestation of God with us. This is what we see through Scripture. God with us. God with us. God with us. [00:51:41] Courtney Trotter: Exactly, right. Yeah. So if they were setting up worship sites to an angel that it appeared to him, then how would that be different than what the nations are doing? So this Angel has to actually be God and revealing something about God. [00:51:54] And the Angel says like, come back to this mountain. And with the people of Israel and worship me here and I'm gonna show you how to worship. Right? So these things are revealed in this worship context. And so that's why it's like, yeah, it's gotta be God, it's gotta be the God that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses thought that they were worshiping and setting up these cultic sites to. [00:52:11] And then with the testing of Abraham and the binding Isaac, if Abraham believes the Angel, then he is in some ways like I said, allowing the Angel to counterman his superior, which is God himself. And so it has to be the Angel. And this is an ancient Jewish way of interpretation. Like the ancient rabbis saw these connections too and made all the same connections. [00:52:32] I might as well just go ahead and read this one, if I could pull it up quickly But yeah, you're right. We're missing all these different angles and it, you kind of have to, like Benjamin Somer says, come away with, this has to be God. [00:52:44] And he gives these different heuristics to figure out like, okay, well then why does Deuteronomy say that no one ever see God? Or, you know, and have these kind of, like, you can't see God's statements. And the thing is Jesus upholds that same statement in the New Testament. [00:52:57] No one has ever seen the Father except for the Son who has made him known. And so Jesus says, this has always been my duty, is to reveal the Father. And even the word angel, like you said, is messenger. or the one who was sent and that's why the Nicene Creed says he's God from God. Light from light, is he's always the one who's being sent from the Father into the world. [00:53:18] And it's not because the Father should remain invisible, but it's because it was the property of the Son to be the one who became incarnate. Like that was, the plan, from the foundation of the world. So, it's only natural and it is kind of affirmed there in the Nicene creed, too. [00:53:34] So yeah, it can be a messenger, but if you make it just an angelic being, then you're kind of messing up with a lot of other key biblical texts. These are not just proof texts. This is Exodus chapter three, Exodus chapters 20 through 24. This is, all of these important encounters in Genesis with the patriarchs, like these are big deals. Isaiah chapter six, these are whole chapters of the Bible, not just proof texts. [00:53:54] Carey Griffel: And you know, the crossing of the Red Sea, the Angel of the Lord is right there with them and participating with it. And so if it's just a messenger and if the fire is just fire, and if the cloud is just a cloud, then what we have is, I would say it's a deistic God, like you were saying, a God who will reach down into creation and do something amazing so that people can see him, but it's not really him, it's just kind of this magic trick or this thing that God has to do to break into creation. It's not God actually participating in creation, right. [00:54:36] You know, a lot of times I think if we see what Jesus is doing, we can think the one that I go back to is, well, if Moses was doing this, if Moses was saying this does this just sound like a human prophet speaking oracles of God or something like that, right? Being the representative of God. [00:54:55] Because as the image of God, we are all representing God, and as we are being conformed to the image of Christ and we are in the body of Christ, we are representing God in those ways as well. If Moses was doing the same thing, if he was saying the same thing, would that fly or would there be a problem? [00:55:17] If we have any kind of worship going on or any kind of things that only gets credited to God, then yeah, that's a big problem. [00:55:27] Courtney Trotter: Yeah, no, I totally agree. I did find that quote, from this ancient Rabbi. [00:55:31] So he says talking about Genesis 22, he is working from a mid rash on this verse in Genesis 22. " By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I'll surely bless you and I'll surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed 'cause you have obeyed my voice. You also need to know that the apparently strange phenomenon in this paragraph, that God is the one who subjects Abraham to the trial, whereas the angel prevented him from going through with, it needs to be understood as follows. The angel mentioned in our paragraph is not the category of, and he uses the term nephradim, like the lesser angelic beings, disembodied spiritual creatures, but it belonged to what are known as the emanations of God, a divine voice much closer to God's essence than mere angels. Had the Angel who called out to Abraham and instructed him to desist, belong to the category known as those disembodied spiritual creatures, Abraham would've ignored him, would not have allowed himself to be countermanded by a subordinate of the One who had instructed him in the first place. Moreover, it's quite unthinkable that an angel of the lower category would've been allowed to say to Abraham, and you did not withhold your son from me. You would have to have said, you have not withheld your son from him. All of this proves that the voice, which the Torah describes as emanating from an Angel of God, was of a superior divine level. This Angel is also known as the Great Angel who manifests himself in Exodus 1419 when the Torah describes him as traveling in front of the encampment of the Jewish people, performing all kinds of miracles. The words of the Angel of the Lord employed there by the Torah do not mean the Angel of the Lord in a possessive sense, the Angel being merely an attribute of God. It must be understood as God himself." [00:57:13] And then he goes on to talk about Exodus 23 and Genesis 48. The Angel who has rescued me is what Jacob says, and Israel says in the midst of this terrestrial world. [00:57:22] And so it has to be God. He's attributing rescue salvation, you know, to the Angel. To the God who has led him and the Angel who has rescued me. And so he's pulling together all these same texts that I did. And we aren't even pointing to Jesus yet. We're just looking at Genesis and Exodus. [00:57:41] Carey Griffel: And I think that those who take the idea that, oh, well, you know, that Jacob was only wrestling with a lesser elohim, or those kinds of explanations, they read more like the idea of the progression or the evolution of religion. Like, oh, they used to believe in all of these gods and now they don't later. [00:58:03] Courtney Trotter: Oh, I totally agree. That like developmental view of religion and kind of naturalistic view of the text. And it is interesting 'cause you know, Jacob gets his name Israel from that encounter. [00:58:13] But then it says he gets the name from El Elhe Israel is the Hebrew like God, the God of Israel. And then that is the one to whom in the subsequent chapters, he goes and sets up these altars to. He sets up those altars to God, the God of Israel. So it's almost as if, you know the one whom he worshiped, takes on his own name after that, by giving him the name Israel, then he becomes the God of Israel and then can be addressed by that title. [00:58:38] And in Psalm 68, in verses seven and eight, it says, "Oh God, when you went out before your people, when you marched through the wilderness, the earthquake, the heavens poured down rain before God, the one of Sinai before God, the God of Israel." [00:58:52] So Psalm 68 is saying that the one who appeared to them at Sinai is also the one who wrestled with Jacob. And so you might say, okay, well that's a later interpretation of whoever that Psalmist is looking at those texts. But it is just native within the Hebrew Bible to read those as the same figure. [00:59:10] Carey Griffel: It's never made sense to me that some other being might name Israel . To name something is to have the dominion over it. Another Elohim naming Israel makes absolutely zero sense within that construct. [00:59:25] Courtney Trotter: Not only names Israel, but then becomes the name that Israel sets up altars to. El Elhe Israel. God, the God of Israel. [00:59:32] Carey Griffel: Yeah, and I think that this helps to kind of enter into that conversation of holiness and the connection of holiness with purity and how, especially evangelicals today just do not understand holiness. [00:59:46] And I know everyone says things like that, oh, well, if you understood X, Y, Z concept better, and they mean according to the way that I understand it, you know it, that's not really what I'm trying to do, because I'm saying that we can't get to that level of understanding. [01:00:03] It is a mystery, and it is something that is beyond us, but that is why we had the instantiations of God with our reality and God and reality in the way that it is. Like it's not materialistic. It is not forced readings, I don't think, because it's just too deep and it makes too much sense within the actual context of the time and their actual worldview of the time. [01:00:28] And so I think that's what really kicks it over the edge for me, right? This isn't just evolution of religion. This isn't just materialism. It is something that is deeply embedded in the way that an ancient person would've thought, which is really difficult for us. And even as much as we study, I don't think we still get it. [01:00:47] That's probably why we have things like ritual and things like that because it allows us to experience and to actually participate and have the actual experience that we have with God. It's not just some thought process we have or that kind of thing. It's an actual thing that's going on and it's real. [01:01:08] Courtney Trotter: Exactly. And you know, you can say you don't like the Christian reading of those texts and saying that Christ is God, but I think that if you take away that it is God revealing himself to Israel, both Israel as Jacob and Israel as a people later at Sinai, then you are actually kind of violating Judaism as well, right. [01:01:24] So in their own native understanding of how they came to be people. And I think that's why I actually became really invested in this topic as my dissertation. Because I began to notice evangelical scholars either leaning into the impossibility or indeterminablity in the Old Testament, and I am Jewish, right? [01:01:41] And I was like, wait, hold on. Like, I'm a Christian now, but I'm a Jewish ethnically, and I'm like, I don't really know, then, why my people kind of went through this ethnic hatred for, 2000 years after Christ. Like it seems kind of important to us that we thought that to some of my ancestors that Christ wasn't the Messiah, but that God who, appeared to their patriarchs was actually God. And so you're taking away their conception of God as well. [01:02:05] And so it just kind of felt like, wait, hold on. I'm a Christian so you're taking away Christ from me and I'm Jewish. You're kind of taking away, the God of Israel for me as well. And I always thought these were the same thing. [01:02:14] And so it kind of felt really important that you can try to find a way to read against the grain and have a naturalistic view of the development of religion. But in doing that, you're kind of taking away the natural religious character of humanity in general. 'cause you just are suspicious of all spiritual experiences and kind of reading through materialistic ones. [01:02:31] And so, I believe that all religions kind of come out of encounters with spirits that we should discern against, right? So it's not that just any religion, like, you know, sometimes Christians will say, well, yeah, we have a spiritual religion that has supernatural revelation and manifestation, but I'm suspicious of these other religions and think that they just came out through a history of religion's approach. You know, it was just the circumstances of the time or the ideologies of the time, or this one leader seemed kind of crazy and led people astray. [01:03:00] But if you look at the origins of those religions, they usually have some kind of weird supernatural encounters with entities who are giving them divine revelation or, you know, revelation of a, supernatural sort that are leading them into false worship. [01:03:15] So I don't just think that our religion is the only one that's supernatural. I think the other ones are as well. And I think to say that those are not encounters with God and that they're just angels. I think it is kind of a mistake in the Christian tradition to do that. [01:03:29] Carey Griffel: Yeah. Well, I totally agree. And that doesn't mean that then we believe the revelation that other spirits give anybody else, or even that people couldn't be drawing upon ancient revelation of a true source and then twisting it, [01:03:43] Right. [01:03:44] And, but there's this reality and it just maps onto things in a lot better way. This is why so many people come to the divine council worldview and say, I understand that. I get it. this answers questions I've always had or aligns with thoughts I've had before. Because it does really align with that experience as a whole. [01:04:06] Courtney Trotter: Mm-hmm. Exactly. And, you know, you've had an experience in another religion. And so it lines up with I think how people even if they're being drawn towards Christ and eventually become Christians, they begin to experience truth in the world and be drawn towards truth and have kind of a conversion experience to become Christians like it seems to show that wisdom can be enfolded within all of creation and that people can be drawn to it. [01:04:30] And that even if they're in, you know, what we would call false religious systems, they can begin to discern the truth and then be pulled into deeper truth, who is Christ himself? All wisdom is Christ himself. He is the Logos. And so it allows for, this kind of just wider experience of the spiritual world, that seems more true to our own experience, I agree. [01:04:51] And the ancient church fathers would call that, the prisco theological, like the first theology or the logo spermatic way that there's these seeds of the Logos throughout all creation, where Christ is drawing people to himself. [01:05:04] Carey Griffel: Mm-hmm. Right. Well, and just like we see that if you divorce God from the manifestations, like the Angel of the Lord, I think if you divorce the personhood, deity of the Spirit from all of those things, you get the same kind of problem. [01:05:21] Courtney Trotter: Right. [01:05:22] Carey Griffel: Yeah. All right. Well, thank you again, Courtney, for joining me for this conversation. Let's see if you have any last thoughts to add or conclude to our conversation. [01:05:33] Courtney Trotter: Don't know if I have any last thoughts. We've pretty much exhausted a lot of them. Thank you for having me on and for giving me the opportunity to come and talk about some of my random thoughts. If anybody has pushback or comments, I'd love to hear them 'cause I am working on them. I welcome the pushback and any additional insights you guys might have. This will probably be the next four years of my life, so I'm just beginning it and have a lot to learn. hopefully you guys found it helpful today. [01:05:56] Carey Griffel: If anybody has any questions or whatever, feel free to shoot them on over and I'm sure we can address them another time if needed. [01:06:04] Courtney Trotter: So yeah. We definitely can. [01:06:06] Carey Griffel: Thanks again, Courtney. Appreciate it. [01:06:09] Courtney Trotter: Thanks. Bye. [01:06:10] Carey Griffel: All right, well that is another episode wrapped up and I would really like to thank Courtney again for having this conversation with me. I hope you guys enjoyed it and I hope it wasn't too overwhelming. Like I said, there is just so much here to study and so much that we can understand God a little bit better as we learn and study these things in context and with the help of historical theology. [01:06:36] Because again, the concept of the Trinity is very embedded into Scripture. And that is something that I think is very clear very often in realms of Christianity. But if you've listened to my Faith Journey episode, then you know, for me personally, it was a really big hurdle to go from understanding Scripture to understanding historical Christian doctrine. [01:07:01] And while historical Christian doctrine is a little bit outside the realm of explicit biblical studies and biblical theology, it's also very deeply connected because it comes from those contexts. Just because we don't have the word Trinity, doesn't mean the Trinity isn't in Scripture. And I don't think this is a function of apologetics either, because if you're tracing themes through Scripture, that's not something you can really make up lightly when it's embedded into the historical and cultural context of the time and the way that the people would've thought. [01:07:36] Now, I'm going to acknowledge that we need to have a little bit of care and caution in that because we can't fully ever get our heads in the ancient person's mind, but there is a lot we can do. I hope all of this information that I present in my podcast is helpful to you guys in that. [01:07:56] If you guys have any questions or further things that you would like to have brought out in response to this conversation I had today, then feel free to let me know. I would love to hear all of your questions and responses and thoughts that you have. You can get ahold of me through my website at genesis marks the spot.com, or you can come and join me in my biblical theology community, On This Rock, and I will leave a link to that in the show notes as well. [01:08:27] At any rate, I just realized this week that Genesis Marks the Spot is now three years old. Cue the party favors, I guess. It's really hard for me to believe that I have been doing this for three years already. [01:08:42] It has gone by very quickly, but I know there's quite a bit of episodes and backlog for a lot of people. So thank you all for listening, and thank you for supporting the podcast as well in the various ways that you do, either sharing the episodes or coming to join me on my biblical theology community, and a really big special shout out to all of my financial supporters. Whether you're on PayPal, Patreon, or in my community, you guys absolutely rock, and I am deeply, deeply grateful for you. [01:09:15] And also a very merry Christmas to you all. I pray that you are blessed in the Christmas season and that it brings you fulfillment and peace in the ways that you need it. I pray that the incarnation of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is something that touches your life every day and that feeds your soul. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Merry Christmas guys.