Who Are the gods? The Unsettling Reality of Psalm 82

Hey, welcome to That's a Good Question, the podcast where we answer questions about the Christian faith in plain language. We are a podcast of Resound Media, a place you can trust to find great resources for the Christian life and church leadership. You can always submit questions that we answer on this show to resoundmedia.cc. If you find this resource helpful, please rate and review the podcast so more people can encounter the life-changing truth of God's Word. Also, if you know somebody who can benefit from today's topic or has questions like the ones that we're answering, please share this episode with them. My name's John and I'm here today with Ryan. Yeah, I'm Pastor Ryan from Peace Church. It's been a while since I've been on the podcast.

Welcome back, it has been a little while. Thanks, man. Pastor Ryan's back today to get to talk about an exciting topic in scripture, one of those verses that can be really tricky to understand, one that people have questions about, one that you got to preach on not too long ago, and people did have questions about it. Psalm 82, if you wanna look it up, or if you wanna look it up later and follow along with us as we talk about it. But the question we're gonna talk about is this. Jesus says, and the psalmist says, Jesus in the New Testament, psalmist in the Old Testament, talks about gods. And so the question is, are there other gods? Who are these gods? And what in the world is Psalm 82 all about, or John 10, where Jesus quotes Psalm 82 in the New Testament? So, what's this all about?

Yeah, so, Psalm 82 is a short psalm written by Asaph, and what's unique about Psalm 82 is that it's unlike other psalms in the sense that there's a lot that's ascribed to God that God's saying, God's quoting, quoting God, God is speaking in the two issues or the two phrases that people typically get hung up on and debate over. The first one, I'd say probably the more prevalent one comes from verse 6 where the quote says, I said, you are gods, son of the most high, all of you. So who are the gods? Who is God speaking to that he would call other people or beings gods? And then kind of the other question that comes with that comes actually earlier in the psalm starts right off the bat when it says, God has taken his place. This is verse one. God has taken his place in the divine council. So the question that is often debated is what is the divine council and what does God mean by your gods? And one of the things that we talk about is that when you come to a passage that's confusing, we typically go right to the particulars. What does this phrase mean? What does this word mean? And those are important questions and we need to ask those questions. But I would say, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this, I think we need to step back and ask a more broad question first. What is this passage or what is this verse? What is this chapter? What is this quote actually saying? What's the main idea behind this? And then from that, once we get that squared away, then we can start asking some of the particular ones.

Right, right. Whenever we're coming to the Bible, that's one of the things, we try to come to it with our own questions, with our own presuppositions. Instead, what we say many times on this podcast is that we need to come to it just like any other book and read it start to finish, or at least the passage, from the beginning to the end, and understand the overall context of what in the world is going on. Usually the words we use to talk about how you study the Bible is observe, interpret, apply, okay? And the first step is observe, which basically means just read it. You know, read it and notice.

Actually read the whole thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't just jump right to, ooh, it says gods with an S on the end.

What's that all about?

Now I'm gonna go to Google or YouTube and I'm gonna hear a bunch of crazy theories, which you can and that can be fun, but I mean, read the text and figure out what it means. So that's where we've got to start, is just reading the text. So what is the context of Psalm 82? What in the world is going on? What's the overall point of Psalm 82?

Yeah. So when we preached this a few sermons ago, it was under the whole notion of the call of God upon His people to uphold His justice in the world. And one of the defining markers of God's justice is that we care for the widows and the orphans. This actually came from a pro-life sermon that we preached, again, a few sermons ago. But this whole notion of the gods, lowercase g gods, and divine counsel wasn't something we could totally flesh out in the sermon, which is why we wanted to revisit it, because people had questions, and rightfully so. So the overarching idea of Psalm 82 is that God is bringing judgment because those who are meant to represent and uphold and enact his justice are not doing so. And one of the ways that God levels an accusation against them is that the widows and orphans are being taken care of. And so the underlying principle, the overarching thrust of Psalm 82 is that God wants his justice enacted on the planet and throughout the world. And he has ordained people or beings, we'll get into that, to ensure that that happens. And when those agents of His justice do not uphold His justice, God will bring His judgment upon them. So, the overarching premise of Psalm 82, the overarching focus, is that God wants His justice to prevail on the planet. And that His justice, verse 3, the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy. Deliver them from the hand of the wicked. This is what God wants on the planet. He wants justice. He wants people treated rightly and fairly and kindly. And he is ordained. Again, we'll get into what he means. Who is the divine counsel? Who's God's? But either way, God is ordained means through other agents to ensure that this happens. And when it doesn't happen, God gets pretty upset. So, right. So, and that's the question that is who is he criticizing is he criticizing angels demons Satan or human beings or what in the world are these people he's criticizing Yep. And so that's where again. That's where the context you have to hold it within the broader context pull out individual words pull out individual phrasing and you can you can go almost anywhere, but when you look at the totality of Psalm 82 and it's not long. It's what is it eight verses eight verses isn't again on the one hand, it doesn't give you a lot to deal with on the other hand. It's nice and succinct right and so I tend to think and this is where I ultimately land and I think Jesus and when Jesus quotes us in John 10, he further underlines this that that God is speaking amidst the divine counsel of which he is the overarching authority. The divine counsel is the human rulers and agents that He has ordained on the planet to ensure that His justice prevails and goes forth. And so, why does He say that they are gods? Well, I would say, and I think the argument here is not necessarily that because they are divine, but because they have a divine appointment. That they are given a divine appointment from God to do His good, divine, eternal, heavenly work in the world. And so the divine counsel, I think, is just that. It's the human authorities that God is allowing to have rule over the people. When they fail to bring us justice, he's going to bring judgment. So that's what I would say Psalm 82 is about. So what would you say about the fact that this sounds a little bit like Job 1 or

Ezekiel or some of the other passages that are referring to more like heavenly realms.

Yeah, so again, yeah, so you see this, I would say primarily in Job 1, Ezekiel, I think it's Ezekiel 10, Revelation 14, 15, and 19 speak of in the presence of God, there's other beings, obviously speaking within heaven. I would say that those are obviously depictions of a real place in heaven and then within God's within God's presence that there are other angelic heavenly beings that aren't fully described. We've done who are the who are the twenty-four elders before the throne room who are the the the living or what are the living creatures obviously Ezekiel speaks of the cherubim and there's seraphim and there's other sort of angelic beings. I think in those places you can hold those within the context of those passages to figure out what they mean. I would just say though, Psalm 82, poetic description of God wanting his justice to prevail, not necessarily for me to be used as a tool to help explain these other scenarios or settings. The term divine counsel, at least in the ESV, I think this is the only time you see that actual phrase. So we can't necessarily apply that to other settings that we think feel similar.

Sure.

But I'd say that this, the divine council, is God's representation of people that he's divinely appointed. Not necessarily speaking of God entering his own throne room amidst of these other supernatural beings. Right.

Yeah, yeah.

So I mean, it is a helpful principle in Scripture. Scripture interprets Scripture. So looking to other passages of the Bible that seem similar to help you figure out what a passage, a tough passage means, that is a good principle. But then you have to look and say, is this actually similar or is it not? And do those similarities mean that it means the same thing or could it not? So it's not always easy to quite figure out how those references actually relate back. And that's where you just gotta do the hard but also say the fun work of just cross-referencing scripture. So going back then, okay, so we can take this in isolation, Psalm 82, and I think it's clear – maybe not clear. I think that's the easy summation of this passage is what we're talking about. But the beauty is that we actually get Jesus quoting this. So we get even more insight into what Asaph and the Holy Spirit are revealing for us in this passage because Jesus goes on to speak about it. Do you want me to lay out the context of John 10?

You want to share?

You can lay out the context and I've got it here. I can read those two verses real quick where he specifically quotes it, yeah.

So basically in John 10, what you see is that Jesus is out and about and the Jews begin to, the crowds of the Jews begin to press him to get him to confess if he is the Christ or not. Like, they're like, sick, we're tired of making you, making us wait, you know, quit making us wait. Reveal to us, are you the Christ or not? And then Jesus is like, if you've been watching me and listening to me and seeing my works, it's been pretty clear. And then he says something to the effect of, but the reason that you don't see is because you're not part of my flock. My flock knows my voice. And then he goes on to even say, he speaks of the fact that those who are part of his flock, God will never let them go. They'll never fall away. And then he says, the thing that gets him in abundant trouble is when Jesus says, for I and the Father are one.

Right, right. So he says, yeah, so they wanna stone him. He says, I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you gonna stone me? Epic line. For which of these good things that I've done are you gonna kill me? Then the Jews answer, it's not for good work that we're going to stone you, but for blasphemy, because you being a man make yourself God. And then here's where he quotes Psalm 82 in verse 34. Jesus answers them, is it not written in your law, I said you are gods. So there's the Psalm 82 quote. If he called them gods to whom the word of God came and scripture cannot be broken, do you say of him whom the father consecrated and sent into the world, you are blaspheming because I said I am the Son of God.

Yeah, so there's a lot there and like Jesus, he was the ultimate master on this, being able to pack so much meaning into so few words. There's so much going on there with what Jesus is saying. So I'd say the first thing he says, he quotes Psalm 82 and then he talks about how that was given to people for whom the Word of God came.

Right, I think that's kind of like the first giveaway as to the meaning of Psalm 82, I think, is how Jesus frames it. He starts talking about these guys, he said, to whom the word of God came, and scripture cannot be broken. So he's already starting sort of inferring that these are simply men to whom the word of God came. He's already kind of implying that in Jesus' response there.

Yeah, and I think for me that's the exclamation mark, not even the period, just the exclamation mark. The divine counsel in Psalm 82 is referring to human agents who are meant to represent God's justice. So, what does Jesus do with this passage, though? He's seemingly, at face value, using it to defend himself against these accusations, but I think there's actually something a little bit deeper going on. Jesus is saying, here's how I'd say it, Jesus is saying that Psalm 82 was spoken to men, even though they are called gods. Again, this should clear up any, for me, this clears up any notion about what the divine counsel is. Jesus is using this not to justify that any human is God. What he's saying is that if God is going to say this to human agents, you are gods. How much more do I have a right to actually say that I am God, because I'm the Father One, because I am the Son of God. So I would say Jesus is using this not to necessarily defend himself or even necessarily to confirm his words. He's using it to draw a contrast to say if God can say this to his own human authorities, how much more do I have a right to say this because I am the Son of God. Me and the Father are one. We share the same essence. And so, and of course that doesn't satisfy the Jews. They double down and want to...

Yeah, and I think there's even some irony, I think, which we could talk more about later, but I think in Jesus is making a claim about himself, but I think he's also using the irony of Psalm 82, you know, he's talking to these Jewish leaders and he's quoting a passage that is criticizing Jewish leaders in Psalm 82. So I think there's even some, you know, if those guys who are Jesus' original audience, if they were to reflect deeper, they might actually realize that Jesus is even sort of prophetically calling them out because they are ironically the ones who are doing what Psalm 82 says of their inverting justice.

Yeah. I think also part of the problem is, and I heard a guy speak on this, is just this is where things get lost in translation between the Hebrew will use to speak of God, such as Elohim and Adonai, versus in English, we kind of have the one word God, and that one word comes with tons of meaning and weight. And that's why in English, we'll try to differentiate between capital G God and lowercase g gods. So you have to think about what would be the parallel there in Hebrew, and I think that's where you just have to look at the different the context and the different words that are used. But again I think the Jesus claims to be God. You know people want to know where does Jesus ever say he's God? John 10 30 he says I and the Father are one. I don't know how much more black and white you can actually be on that. And if you think if we English speakers and readers think that that's some sort of code or he's backing away from that. The Jews knew exactly what Jesus was saying. They were willing to kill him on the spot for saying that. And that's where Jesus quotes of all the Psalms, he quotes Psalm 82. And again, I think what Jesus is saying here, he's like, you guys are getting hung up that I called myself God. The Psalms even say this to human agents. How much more am I able to say I am God because I truly am God's son, I truly am one with the Father. And so for me then, the question is, okay, so how and where do people misapply or misinterpret Psalm 82? And where can that often lead to trouble? There are religions within our proximity that think that we are gods, or that we're lowercase gods. And I don't know enough about their theology to say they're drawing it from this, but I can see how they would want to infer that if you completely ignore the context.

Sure.

But one of the things we want to underscore is that neither the Psalm nor Jesus nor anywhere in the Bible does it ever say that we are that we are gods, uppercase or lowercase g, or that we'll ever become uppercase or lowercase g gods. We are made in the image of God and that's beautiful and profound, but in this passage Jesus is not ascribing divinity to people, nor is Asaph in the original psalm.

Right, I mean that's a pretty dangerous theology. Unfortunately, I've heard that from, you know, I could think of who you're, you know, referring to, but I think of one as well. I mean, even people in the prosperity gospel circle, it's kind of a, you know, little God theology is what it's been called. The idea that we have authority like Jesus had authority, you know, that's not what Jesus is saying here, and that's not what the Bible is teaching. So it makes me think of, too, I'm looking at Psalm 82 here, and I'm just thinking about kind of the background, the biblical background behind some of these, you know, the, you are God's sons of the most high. I'm thinking of where in the Bible does it actually, it does, you know, allude to some human beings being referred to that way. So I think of like 2 Samuel 7. I think of the covenant with David. Right, when God makes a promise to David that his sons are going to be like God's own sons. Right, so the Bible does talk this way, but it has a very specific meaning. Like you said, a divine appointment. It's not that we have divine, like that we're on level with God, but that we have a calling from God. Right, God had a specific calling for David as the king. He had a specific calling for David's sons to be the kings of his people. And then of course, ultimately, that's Jesus. Jesus is the king over God's people. Or I think of even Adam, you know, kind of fits into this, you know, Adam and Eve, Adam. I think of, right, his genealogy in the New Testament. You know, son of Adam, son of God is the beginning of that or the end of that genealogy, it traces all the way back. So we do have in the Bible these examples of people being called sons of God.

Yeah, yeah.

But it's for a very specific reason.

Yeah, and I think that goes back to our identity in God, our relationship to God, not something that's inherent into our DNA. But I can see why this would be very attractive theology to people, that we get to become gods, or we get to become authoritative like God. But that's not what's being said here. When the Bible talks about in other places about those who are the sons of God, for me that that's not denoting who we are internally. That for me is denoting the notion of the relationship that we get to have with God. That we're not his slaves. That we are his sons. That we are his sons and daughters. And again it goes back to the notion that we are made in his image. And so beautiful passage, beautiful context. Jesus clarifies, but we must underscore this is never to be used in the notion that what the psalmist is saying, what Jesus is inferring is that we ourselves are divine or will become divine. But we can have beautifully divine appointments, divine appointments. But again, our sons and daughters, that that sonship. Our adoption is is denoting the relationship we have with our Father in heaven.

Yeah. So, as we've been sitting here talking here in the last couple seconds, I thought I'd just search, just to confirm what you and I were thinking about what people are saying about this verse, and sure enough. So, you know, you and I were referring to the prosperity gospel on the one hand, talking about sort of what's been called little God theology. On the other hand, Mormonism and some of their theology. And sure enough, both of those false theologies use Psalm 82 and John 10 to explain their theology. So Creflo Dollar is one example. Talks about John 10, talks about Jesus saying, I said you are gods, talks about how God produces, yeah, we call them men, but he says that they are, in effect, little gods. So sure enough, I mean, this is the, you know, a wrong reading of this passage is...

Detrimental.

Yeah.

It's detrimental to your theology, it's detrimental to your anthropology. That's just, it's just clearly not what's being said here. What ends up happening, and I think every religion does this to some extent, I think even Christians fall prey to this, is you have an idea, you have a theology and you import it into the text, rather than let the text shape your theology. Again, it's an extremely attractive notion that you are gods or you can become gods or you have a divinity and you need to be awakened. But that's just clearly not what's being said here. I mean, even when I go back and reading Psalm 82 again, and I just preached on it, but going back and read it again, it just comes so much more together when you think about God is holding people to account that he's placed in authority to see his justice and act. He's raised up and given these people divine appointments, and he calls them gods that they have such a high level job to do to see God's justice and act. But then he says, again, verse six and seven, I said, you are God's sons of the most high. All of you, verse seven, nevertheless, like men, you shall die and fall like any prince. So you're going to die like people. You're going to fall like any other prince does, even though I've given you this high authority and given you this great responsibility and this divine appointments to enact my justice in the world, you fail to do it. Therefore, your divine appointments, your high authority will mean nothing. You're going to die like any man. You're going to fall like any prince does. The the text is clearly saying and Jesus himself goes on to say, this is not referring to other spiritual beings or humans that will become some sort of divine being or some sort of lowercase g god. It's speaking about people that god is using to enact his justice in this world. They fail to do so and now god's gonna bring judgment to it and also, I mean, whether or not you become divine or not, or you are divine, or you are capital G, or lowercase g, God, that completely misses the whole point of Psalm 82, which is what we said in the very beginning. You have to look at what's the overarching thought behind Psalm 82, is that God's justice is not being upheld, and he's gonna bring judgment for it. Prosperity Gospels and the Mormons wanna just completely ignore the overarching thought of Psalm 82, pick out a verse and pour a meaning into it, to develop a religion around it, and it is leading people astray. And this is why biblical literacy, understanding proper exegesis and proper hermeneutics is so incredibly important. And basically what we're saying is let scripture interpret scripture. We let scripture interpret scripture. When you let God's word speak for itself and clarify itself, you get beautiful theology that enriches people, that sees God's justice in act, and when you import your own theology, you lead people astray and it's dangerous. And it's sad, and it's really sad. I don't know much about the Creflo Dollar that you mentioned. I mean, I've heard his name before. I know a little bit more about the Mormons,

but either way. Well, I think one of the things that's a little bit ironic is, you know, so we've got these leaders, these false teachers, right, using a passage to actually make much of us, whereas I think the actual point of the passage, especially in Psalm 82, is kind of the opposite. It's actually a bit of a smackdown from God to those who are supposed to be leaders that are misusing God's authority, that are abusing those who are under their care. You know, I just…

So look at the very last verse of Psalm 82. Arise, O God, judge the earth, for you shall inherit all the nations. God is the victor, God is the one who wins, God is the judge, God is the one who gets

it all in the end. Yeah, I mean I think one of the applications of this passage should be just the high level of responsibility, the high level of judgment that is out there for those who are in leadership roles.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Yeah. And not even just in the church, but in the world in general. You know, Psalm 82 is talking about, do you have justice to the weak and the fatherless, maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Okay, so he's talking about, I mean, he's primarily talking to leaders within Israel caring for their people, but also, I mean, it's broadly applicable to other leaders. But, you know, this is something that, you know, statesmen, right, you know, governors, congressmen, senators, presidents, kings, queens, we should hear this and tremble and just think about, am I living out God's call to justice for the people under my care? That's one of the most basic applications that you could have from Psalm 82. But also, like you said, just the high place of God, that God is the one who is the King of Kings, who's actually in control, not us but him.

Yeah, beautiful powerful passage. Hopefully that we've helped some people to clarify what this means. Again, when you pull out phrasing out of context without understanding what the context actually is, it's going to get really confusing. But if you put things in context, patiently walk through the text, I think the clarity of the text comes through. This is not speaking about us becoming gods, this is speaking about God holding judgment for those who are meant to uphold his justice but don't. And so that's a call for all of us, with whatever position of authority we have, are you an agent of God's good justice in this world or not?

Yeah, so the original context of the sermon, like you shared already, was a pro-life message. So when you hear in Psalm 82, those who are weak and fatherless, those who are afflicted and destitute, weak and needy, one of the first people you think of, right, is the unborn.

Yeah, absolutely, the unborn. We see right there, give justice to the weak and the fatherless. In our pro-life message, we argue the fact that there are many people who fit this description in our world, but not least of which is the unborn. They are weak and they are fatherless because, at least in the American context, the laws have said that the father has no rights for the unborn child, that our culture and our laws have said that the life of that unborn child is up to the woman, it's up to the mother. The father has no rights. And so in a sense, you could say that the unborn child is fatherless. The father has no rights over it, over that child. So we have to give justice to the weak and to the fatherless, and for us that means we think that the heart of the father is to see children be born and to champion the cause to be pro-life. And so when we see Psalm 82, and it's a great psalm of justice, oh, by the way, I should mention, Bono from U2 was asked, I can't remember the exact interview, but they basically said if someone wanted to start reading the Bible, where would you point them to? An interviewer asked Bono, this singer of U2, and he pointed to Psalm 82. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Even in the midst of talking about the divine counsel and you are gods and some of those crazy phrasing that we don't necessarily understand at face value, he said point them to Psalm 82 because it's all about God's justice. And his argument basically was we want to show people a picture of how good God is and what God wants for this world and what God wants is justice. And so Bono pointed to Psalm 82 and I heard this laying like a couple years ago. So that was stuck in the back of my mind. So when we came to time to preach on our pro-life message, I was like, you know, this is a, being pro-life has justice as a primary theme for why we're so passionately pro-life. And that interview came to mind, so I said, let's do Psalm 82 for this one.

Interesting. Yeah, yeah. And we've done other episodes on the show here as well about pro-life. I think going back actually to St. Theodore Life Sunday, I think we did one or two episodes talking specifically about that topic. So if you want to hear more on that topic explained more carefully about the whole argument and thinking it through carefully from a biblical perspective, feel free to check out that argument. Check out Pastor Ryan's sermon at the Peace Church website.

Yeah, but also I also want to really emphasize, and I think it's important to underscore this always when Christians speak of being pro-life, for us being pro-life, that does not end when the child's born. For us, that very much continues, that we want to see the mother and the child both being taken care of, both have what they need. This is God's call to justice, justice for the weak and the fatherless, maintain the rights of the afflicted and the destitute. So many single moms fall into this category with her children and her unborn children. So we want to definitely be caring for both. I know that we're getting a little off topic from the notion of what does God mean by you are gods, but since we're on the topic of pro-life, I think it's important for Christians in our world when we speak about this to always clarify. We care for the unborn child and we care for the child when that child's born and the mother as well. Yeah. This is God's call for justice in the world. Awesome. Well, Pastor Ryan, thanks for the great conversation. Yeah, Pastor John, thanks. Good to join you. Thanks everybody for listening. I hope you have an awesome week. Do us a favor, like, follow, subscribe, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube,

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