Who Were The Elohim, Sons of God, and the Divine Council?
The original sons of God in the Bible were sometimes named elohim, and elohim, as Dr. Michael Heiser tells us, can refer to any high spiritual power, it does not refer necessarily to a specific God. These sons of God were also part of the divine council mentioned in Ps 82, Ps 89:7, Job 38:7, Job 1:6. From these verses we can tell that there were, and probably still are, a council of high angels with whom God almighty would discuss and delegate decisions about the world. Some of these may have been the Watchers mentioned in 1 Enoch and in Jubilees, or in Genesis 6 as the sons of God. From Jubilees we gather that Watchers were employed to guide humanity, and I suspect they guided nature to prevent negative mutations form occurring, and to guide breeding etc. But they overstepped their boundaries, teaching things they ought not, like sorcery and weapon making. And having somehow become men in appearance they managed to inseminate women with their seed.
Their offspring were Nephalim, (literally “fallen ones”) were wiped out through Noah’s flood. Genesis 6:4 states that, “There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that”, so it is possible that another type of angel manifested and committed the same acts after the flood. Yet some of the offspring of these giant Nephalim managed to escape the flood, assuming that the flood did not over the whole Earth. There are examples in the Bible of where the whole earth refers to the known earth or that extended region; Middle East; Mediterranean etc, for example when Nebuchdnezer refers to himself as the King of the whole earth. The the post flood Nephalim are referred to as Rephaim or Anakim later in the Torah. The most well known fallen Watcher was called Azazel, to whom the scape-goat was sent when it was sent into the wilderness on the day of Atonement. All evil was banished to the desert, just as Azazel was.
Much of the Old Testament concerns God’s intervention in our physical world in order to reverse the damage sown by the watchers, and the idolatry and child sacrifice that mocks God and his creation. The future church will join the Elohim council and will therefore judge the ordinary angels, and presumably the elohim/sons of God that fell. We will have the authority to do this because we have been saved out of an evil earth and an evil nature, while ordinary angels have never needed to overcome in this way.
The fact that when Jesus quotes from Psalm 82:6 he confirms that scripture is describing these beings as gods, and therefore it should not be a stretch for Jesus also to be described as the Son of God. The only puzzling element is that Jesus mentions that word of God had come to these beings, possibly indicating that they were humans. But the word of God might just as easily have come to the angels. After all, the name Enoch means teacher, Enoch taught the people, having received the word from the Watchers, who in turn heard from God.
- God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment:
- How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Selah
- I said, “You are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you;
- nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.
Ps 89:7 In the council of the holy ones God is greatly feared; he is more awesome than all who surround him.
Job 38:7 when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
Job 1:6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them.