Book Review: Supernatural

Supernatural: What the Bible teaches about the unseen world – and why it matters

By Michael S. Heiser

Lexham Press, 2015. 163 pages.

Let’s face it: there are some really, really strange things in the Bible. Who are the “sons of God” of who have relations with “the daughters of men”? Does God have a divine council? Are angels and demons real? What’s going on with the passage in Jude about “spirits locked up”? And does any of this matter for our daily lives and ministries?

In his book Supernatural, Michael Heiser attempts to unveil the mysteries about the divine world for us. This is the layman-level book of Heiser’s more academic work on the topic titled The Unseen Realm. The most valuable part of Supernatural is the practical angle that Heiser brings to each topic he addresses. He doesn’t stop with looking at what the Bible says, he takes the time to explore with the reader how it might intersect with and impact life and ministry. Although Heiser is a Bible scholar and doesn’t have overseas ministry experience to speak from, the implications for life that he draws from the discussion of the divine realm are hugely important to the life of a disciple-maker.

Heiser’s book follows a nice flow of thought from the beginning to the end, reading like a story. Each chapter builds neatly on the chapter below, resulting in a full picture of what the Bible says about the supernatural world and what it means for us. He begins by discussing how God’s family is made up of both human beings and divine beings. Both have been given authority to rule, but both are ultimately under the authority of God. Both humans and divine beings have chosen to rebel and reject God’s authority over them at various points in history. The result was that God divided up the nations of the world and placed them under the authority of other divine beings, rather than keeping them under his gracious rule. But he isn’t done with the other nations: God kept the nation of Israel for himself and had a plan from the beginning to use them to bring the nation back to himself.

Heiser spends time in the middle of the book discussing the ways that Israel was supposed to be set apart, the ways that God intended to use them to bring the other nations back to himself. He talks about how God is different than the other divine beings, and thus the nation of Israel, their land, and their temple, had to be holy, sacred spaces for God’s presence to dwell. When he looks at the conquest in light of this, Heiser sees that this event in Israel’s history was all about reclaiming God’s land for himself.

The book goes on to discuss how Jesus was the solution to the problem. The nation of Israel failed to bring all the other nations back under God’s rule. So God himself had to come down, in human form, to address the problem. In Jesus arrival on earth, the battle against evil and rebellion had been taken to a new level. Heiser takes his reader on a journey through the gospels, looking at the ways that Jesus reveals the supernatural workings behind his life, death, and resurrection. He devotes an entire chapter to how the term Son of Man (from Daniel 7) is applied to Jesus with all its significance.

The story continues with the beginning of the church. Heiser shows his readers how the events at Pentecost are crafted to be a reversal of what took place at Babel. Now all the nations are coming back under the rule of the Most High God, and Israel is indeed where it begins. Each individual believer is now the holy space that the presence of God occupies. As Christians we are engaged in the battle against the darkness. As Christians we are sons of God – we are partakers in the divine nature through Jesus. And one day, when God’s rule is fully established on earth through the second return of King Jesus, Christians will rule alongside him, over even the angels. Everything we do in our lives as Christians matters for the spiritual war that is going on all around us. And the scary thing is that many of us don’t regularly recognize this.

At the end of each chapter, Heiser takes on a little journey of discovering how we might apply what we learned in that chapter. Why does any of this story matter? Although Heiser draws specific conclusions for the specific things he examines in the book, the overarching theme is that God intends for his rule to be extended once more over the entire nation. We, as part of God’s family, are part of his plan to do this. We are supposed to be engaged in the battle against the darkness and the spreading of God’s kingdom. This is our mission.

This is where I feel this book is really valuable for those engaged in overseas disciple-making. As Christians, we are the family of God, we are his representatives, we are the ones who are to be restoring God’s rule. As overseas workers, we are engaged among the nations that are currently under the rule of other dark divine powers. And so, Heiser says, “each of us is vital to someone’s path to the kingdom and the defense of that kingdom. Each day affords us contact with people under the dominion of darkness and opportunities to encourage each other in the hard task of fulfilling our purpose in an imperfect world. Everything we do and say matters, though we may never know why or how” (163). This book will either open your eyes to the reality of the supernatural realm or remind you of its power. But beyond that, it will encourage you as you engage daily in the fight against darkness. Go forth and shine the light of God’s kingdom!

Heiser, Michael S. Supernatural: What the Bible teaches about the unseen world – and why it matters. Bellingham: Lexham Press, 2015. Kindle ed.