The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Rod Dreher wrote “to order the world rightly as Christians requires regarding all things as pointing to Christ”
Christ is the One in Whom in all things consist and humanity is not the measure of all things. If a defining characteristic of the modern world is disorder then the most fundamental act of resistance is to discover and life according to the deep, divine order of the heavens and the earth.
In this series we want to look at the big model of the universe that the Bible and Christian history provides.
It is a mind and heart expanding vision of reality.
It is not confined to the limits of our bodily senses - but tries to embrace levels fo reality that are not normally accessible or tangible to our exiled life on earth.
We live on this side of the cosmic curtain - and therefore the highest and greatest dimensions of reality are hidden to us… yet these dimensions exist and are the most fundamental framework for the whole of the heavens and the earth.
Throughout this series we want to pick away at all the threads of reality to see how they all join together - how they all find common meaning and reason in the great divine logic - the One who is the Logos, the LORD Jesus Christ - the greatest that both heaven and earth has to offer.
Colossians 1:15-23
The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Episode 49 - Whispers of Enoch, Celestial Lore and the Enigma of Seven
Prepare to cast aside the rigid ladder of angelic hierarchy as we unravel a tapestry of interdependence among celestial beings that's more web than pyramid. Together with PJ, we dissect the traditional Dionysian categorisation of angels, pondering over biblical and extra-biblical texts that suggest a divine order far more intricate and intertwined than previously imagined.
We connect the dots between numerology and prophetic times, deciphering the significance of the number seven in the choreography of history and exploring the periods of tribulation as echoes of ancient patterns.
Venture skyward with us as we navigate the stratified skies, from the familiar blue to the otherworldly realms beyond our gaze. Our conversation orbits around the mystical number of seven once again, as we hypothesize a septenary structure to the celestial beyond, moving from the atmospheric to the spiritual. We entertain the mathematical elegance of the Fibonacci sequence as a clue to the progression of heavenly realms, and introduce the enigmatic tetramorphs.
Our celestial odyssey culminates in a star-studded discussion of the cosmic roles of angels, where planets and stars are more than mere fixtures in the night sky—they're spirited beings with divine duties.
We tease apart the threads of the Book of Enoch, where fallen angels and their fates reveal a narrative rich with cosmic consequence. As the mysteries of the universe unravel before your ears, we invite you to join us on this expedition through ancient narratives that bridge the spiritual and the material, leaving you with an eager anticipation for the revelations yet to come.
The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore
Well, welcome back to the next episode of the Christ-Centered Cosmic Civilization and we're diving into the heavens, archangels, angels, and how the way that the divine emperor administers the cosmic civilization, the divine empire, is not really at all the way pagan thought thinks. Like pagan thought, modern thought, so often everything is hierarchical in a way that is oppressive and mechanistic, and that you know the idea of this graded chain of being, so that higher things are superior, intrinsically, essentially, than others, whereas what we've been trying to understand is in the Bible. It doesn't work like that. And angels have an interdependence, they draw their life from the Holy Spirit and that they are modeling something of how we are designed to be, and church is like that. Church has this relationship to angels. We might be able to get into that in one of these episodes, but I want us to dig a bit more, more. We're still trying to analyze, uh, dionysius, the areopagite system, and we've seen that there is merit in the groupings of the three sets of three that he goes for. We didn't like the fact that he has them as higher, middle and lower, because it doesn't, as PJ would say, correspond to quite how they work in scripture, having that kind of a hierarchy, as if the less physical things are, the superior they are. So there's a danger there that some of what we get in Dionysius could have that.
Speaker 1:We were worried that there was a Neoplatonic pollution in his writings and then we maybe detected some of it there that the idea is physical things are lower than intellectual things. That does sound disgustingly Platonic, and obviously academics like talking like that. It's funny, the people who most advocate this idea that intellectual things are higher than physical things. They tend to be intellectuals and they go oh, that's kind of convenient, isn't it, that you happen to have your profession as essentially ontologically higher than other people. But that's a very common thing in pagan thought. But of course it's the opposite, isn't it? If all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form, then the very highest level of reality is within the creation. The very highest level is a physical body of Jesus.
Speaker 1:Now let's then turn it back to PJ, because I am still fascinated by this idea that we've seen that in the Bible there are three heavens, and then we also can see that the number seven is super important in the creation of the heavens, of the earth, because the creation of the heavens, earth, the earth, because the creation of the heavens, earth was done in six days, with a seventh day of rest. So seven is so intrinsic to the creation of the universe and that the in the commandments. We too are to replicate this seven pattern in our pattern, in the way we operate within the heavens and the earth. Six days of labor, one day, so seven seems to be absolutely intrinsic to the heavens and the earth, manifested in the seven branch candlestick and in so many patterns of seven. And even then, the way that three and a half comes up in scripture like a half of history a half, and that half of history like a half of history, and that half of history is a time of great testing and trial, that comes up in Elijah, the life of Elijah. It comes up in Revelation, daniel, this idea. So whenever three and a half comes up, that is also the number seven coming up in a different form, a half of it. In other words, it's not so long when three and a half comes up and it's like there's going to be three and a half periods of great suffering. In a way the Bible is saying not so long, it's only half of the created history and all that sort of thing. So three and a half or seven three and a half is a version of seven, this idea of seven being intrinsically important to the heavens and the earth.
Speaker 1:I can see that in the Bible. I write that in my book study guides. I see it in the Bible as I'm constantly reading it. But PJ is going to hopefully now be able to explain to us how does that work when there are clearly three heavens? How can that relate to the being seven heavens? Go for it.
Speaker 1:So it's this sense in which when we think about the first heaven so that's everywhere, from our feet basically all the way up to, like, the end of the sky it's quite big in comparison to us individually. So that's like to the height of the sky. It's quite big in comparison to us individually, so that's to the height of what we would call the atmosphere, yeah, yeah. So then the second heaven is so big we can't see the end of it when we look through it. So we know there is this third heaven that's filled with light and everything. But if we just look at the third heaven in the night, we just see the second heaven. If we look at it oh, at the third heaven, you know, in the night we just see, oh yeah, the second. I'm sorry I was gonna say well, I don't. I don't know, but your pj probably does look into the third heaven during the night, but most of us have to be limited to only looking at the second heaven in the night and, and it's that it's so big, it's like we can't see the end of it. And so sometimes people think, no, there is nothing at the end, there's just that is the infinite thing, the second heaven. But the Bible says no, there is this on the other end, something even bigger.
Speaker 1:And just to put that into perspective, I was listening to a lecture this last week and the guy was he's an astronomer of a sort, and he was saying that we seem to imagine that the part of the universe that we can see has trillions of galaxies and each galaxy has billions of stars and star systems. So we're like what that just is like inconceivably big. And he actually said it is inconceivable. We, we, we have no way of modeling or visualizing the vastness of the second heaven. And so I and he was like literally in awe and worship of the second heaven, and I I wanted to say, gosh, if you, you, you are like that about the second. If only you knew that there was an even bigger level of reality. So is that? Was that a good response for me to think that, although the second heaven seems, it's like ludicrously vast, it isn't even the biggest level of reality. Is that fair? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And I think, um, one of the reasons we we can see so much of the second heaven is so that we realize how big the third is. So like I think, in the same way, in or in the same proportion, that the second heaven is bigger than the first heaven. I think the third heaven. So like, I think, in the same way, in or in the same proportion, that the second heaven is bigger than the first heaven. I think the third heaven we would expect to be that much bigger than the second heaven. So it would be, and that is where we get the number seven really.
Speaker 1:So you think within this first heaven we could only fit like one sub heaven, um, but then you can have twice as much in the second heaven, so there's one. The first heaven is just one heaven, yeah. The second heaven is kind of like two heavens, yeah, yeah, and then in the third heaven you get four. Which four heavens. Right, in total there's seven heavens. But it works that way that you, as you get to bigger and bigger heavens, there's like more in it.
Speaker 1:And we've done, we've looked at maths in the Christ-centred cosmic civilisation and we've seen those sort of progressions where you go one to two, to four, to eight, to 16. Those kind of patterns are very deeply embedded into theology and the cosmos. So you're saying that is the case in the heavens, yeah, and that sort of uh, like fibonacci sequence sort of thing has to be what seven means, because, like a lot of the time, multiplication and division are very important in the bible, but then seven is like a prime number. It cannot be broken down that way. When we're thinking, what is seven about, as we are now, we can't go back that way.
Speaker 1:But given that this fibonacci sequence gives us an answer, so is it like because in, in the, at the highest level, that the watchers, for example, that are on that highest level of reality, there there's four of them, there's four of them, and they are tetramorphs, aren't they? Don't they? They themselves are four. There's four written into them and there are four of them and they are really, as far as I can see like super high level super are they? Are they archangels?
Speaker 1:Or is it fair to say that archangels are not tetramorphs? Yeah, archangels. Explain what tetramorphs are. Oh yeah, like our daughter Anna saw the footnote, I'm just going to mention PJ's book again. He's written this book all on this subject that we're discussing, but he goes into like huge detail in it. It's a sort of 110 page book but it's so dense and full that it took it. Really is a rich thing. But she noticed you have a footnote. Uh, and it's not the first footnote, it just says archangels cannot be tetramorphs. And she said, wow, I'm gonna have a t-shirt written with a archangels cannot be Tetramorphs. Change my mind. She said she's going to set up a table on the high street and say that. So maybe you can explain why you say that Archangels cannot be Tetramorphs.
Speaker 1:But then let's hold our thought. Why? No, let me first finish the thought about this thought. Why, um, no, let me first finish the thought about this. Like the fourfoldness of the creatures at the heavenly realm and like the third heaven, because the tetramorphs to me seem to be in the third heaven because they surround the throne, they're full of eyes, they have this and they have four faces. So there's something incredibly four about them. And so that does illumine your point that the third heaven has a fourfold character to it. And obviously the first heaven is it's lucky to even be one heaven, you know, in comparison and then the, the twofold character, the second I can think of that too in the bible. Well, let's not over complicate. I thought let's just first of all think about the fourfold character of the third heaven and what are called the tetra.
Speaker 1:Do you want to just tell us a little about the tetramorphs in the bible and why you think they're not archangels? Because you might say, oh, they're probably archangels, aren't they? And I've heard people say they're archangels but they can't be. Is that true? It changed my mind. No, yeah, so the tetramorphs, they're called cherubs at different places in the bible.
Speaker 1:Uh, but they're a special kind of cherub because one of their faces, they have four faces, each um, each of which seem to represent a major category of creature, and they're described. What are those four major categories? So you've got a man, you've got a cherub or an ox. An ox, because a cherub has the face of an ox, and we know that from Ezekiel chapter one and Ezekiel chapter 10, where the four faces in one occasion it's called an ox's face and in another occasion it's called a cherub face. So on that basis, we know a cherub face is an ox face. So there's a human face, a cherub face, which is an ox face, and you know hence why in hinduism the ox is considered a sacred animal, because it's an angelic for an animal in symbolically. So then the other two there's a lion and an eagle. Is that right? Yes, and they are all very important.
Speaker 1:Lions are. The Bible discusses them in very interesting ways, and it often uses the word for lion and the word for serpent interchangeably, which is quite a weird thing to do, because in our kind of usual taxonomy it's very difficult to find animals that are less grouped together, yeah, than serpents and lions. But they are biblically, and they are in a lot of ancient cultures. It's something that we no longer see. That used to be just totally apparent, um, but so there's much more going on that I think we can cover just in one go.
Speaker 1:But one striking feature, I suppose, is that they are wild and they're like untameable. That's something like CS Lewis picks up on, where, like Aslan, he has Jesus appear as a lion called Aslan and he's you know, he's untame. There's something that he feels that's an aspect of Jesus that's very lion-like and they can't really be tamed, these sorts of creatures. No, yeah, and people often think they've tamed a snake and you get these news stories all the time. They're like, oh I, I totally, yeah, this, this snake loves me and everything. And then you find in the news they've been eaten by the snake or bitten by them.
Speaker 1:And also in the bible, the proverbs says that there's things that cannot be predicted and one of them is the movement of a snake. Wow, it says that in proverbs and also things that are the also, I think they say a say the way a young man behaves towards a young woman is also dangerously unpredictable, but I think the movement of a snake is concerned. So that idea that a lion and a serpent are like uncontrolled, yeah, and there will definitely be more going on, and we cover that as well in the All Hallowmas books. That's a different one, but we've mentioned it's part of a series and there's creatures like the basilisk. That is clearly no, no, no, no. We've done a lot on the basilisk and I'm always tempted to get back into fae creatures.
Speaker 1:So the four faces. What's the eagle, what's the eagle face? Well, well, philo feels that is also angelic, um, that he feels the birds are very angelic like because they fly, but then they also are connected to the earth in some way. They always go down to rest, um, and they view from above in and and can come down for judgment. In the bible, yeah, the eagle flies above and it can descend in judgment and that these like feathered winged creatures that are carrying messages and bringing judgment from above, I guess the um, like in the jk rowling harry potter things, where you've got these owls that are messengers, they have a kind of angelic symbolic feel. So the eagles are very obviously have that angelic feel, don't they?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and so many of them are monogamous as well that they are very chaste, and that's something like the Book of Jubilees mentions about angels, because when Abraham has to learn to be chaste after the Hagar incident, he has to circumcise himself. Jubilees says, on the very first day of creation the angels circumcise themselves. So they are kind of defined by being very chaste and so are birds in some way. Yeah, that thing in Jubilee is where the angels are of the circumcision, are circumcised and have dedicated themselves reproductively in that way, to the holy ways of the Lord, and they're supposed to be super chaste, but not. Some of the angels forsook the circumcised chasteness and that should we just quickly mention that.
Speaker 1:Is that fair to, because someone might be saying that's ridiculous, the even idea of angels needing to be chaste. I remember doing a social media post about it and it caused great alarm from I forget who it was, but someone seemed to be very alarmed at the idea of angels being chases. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous to imagine that angels would need to be dedicated in their sexuality or something. But actually the Bible, it was a realistically important thing. Is that true? Yeah, absolutely. And the book of enoch so that is one book that so many ancient christians and jews, before jesus was born like, took it for granted as a part of scripture, and that goes into a lot of the kind of detail about the fallout of this and how. Yeah, and then the product of those unions were like the Nephilim.
Speaker 1:So where does that happen? Does that happen in the Bible? Is it recorded that there were angels that were not chased In Genesis? When we get the genealogies, that includes In Genesis 6, is where it happens. Isn't it the sons of god, who were angels. What do they do? They see? Yeah, the door. Yeah, isn't it the daughters of men? Yeah, they're very human women and they fancied them. And, uh, they got jiggy there and produce these giants offspring, and then that leads to enormous difficulties and they're included in the genealogies in the bible. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then nephilim. Well, there's loads of interesting things as well, but as well when we think about how jesus has to deal quite creatively and he likes, uh, feedback and so on. There in the in enoch, it says because they're neither humans nor angels, he can't throw them into tartarus, like he did the angels and not the abyss, like he does sinful humans. So he asked, so he decides they can become evil spirits and draw out sin from people so that jesus can deal with it. So he's like that I can't deal with you properly and you're stuck between heaven and earth, like both have cast you out, because they're like a hybrid thing so that they in administrative justice they don't quite fit in either category. So he kind of comes up with a third category to handle them.
Speaker 1:Okay, we won't get too much into that, but let me go back to the Tetramorph idea so we don't get lost on the Nephilim. I know some people say let's have a whole series on the Nephilim. Well, we might do at some point and look at Jared and the Book of Enoch and things like that, but for now we're on the Tetramorphs and we, like the angel. The Tetramorphs are these four watchers, and why are they called watchers? Do you think they're full of eyes, aren't they? They are, and they're called as well elsewhere. And Philo Spivy says they are like bodyguards to Jesus and I think they take that role very, very seriously and they're just watching constantly.
Speaker 1:I don't think there is this idea where Jesus can. He kind of likes being able to focus and relax, and we see it when he was in his earthly ministry, he goes off to focus and relax and so on, and he trusts these angelic bodyguards of his to protect him in those times. And the devil tries to use that against him sometimes. But there is a sense in which he's got these people who are just incredibly watchful, whereas if we were trying to be bodyguards to Jesus, we can only see ahead of us, whereas they have this massively panoramic vision and he couldn't sneak up on Jesus. It's the fact that he likes having them there and he seems to like, as we said, he likes delegating things and he likes using people and trusting people.
Speaker 1:And when the Bible describes them to us, they want us to realize you cannot sneak up on the watchers, because it actually says they've got eyes everywhere, even like on the wings and under the wings and everything. There's no blind spot for the watchers. They can see everything. And there's four of them and they have each four faces. And that again is emphasising the fourfoldness of that highest level of reality. The third heaven has four levels of reality to it, partly embodied in those, because they are the almost maximally heavenly creatures of the because and they, they are constantly around the throne and the, there in ezekiel, the there in the mentioned in daniel um, the watchers, the in revelation, therefore the, the tetramorphs as they're called. And that fourfoldness, and also the fourfoldness of the third heaven, comes out in that the city of God that's in that third heaven. It's very much described in this fourfold manner, that it's square and it's cuboid. Actually, that fourfoldness it's got like we would go. A cube is a three-dimensional thing but it's defined by these four sides on each face and things. But the fourfoldness of the third heaven is quite strong in Scripture. So that does seem to correspond with this idea.
Speaker 1:That and that, the idea of pyramids being explained. The pyramids why are pyramids a a cuboid in a way, and why pyramids are associated with heavenly things? Yeah, in sacred architecture over the entire world, including mentioned in the Bible. But tell us about that. How is a pyramid like a cube? Because it does have the same base as a cube, and a lot of people and we know, because Egyptians wrote about why they built pyramids and they did believe that this thing that has a base that has, as, four sides and four corners, but then it reaches up to these things that have three sides and that reaches up to the heavens. So you've got this base of four and that can lead you up to the three, which is this heavenly thing, um, and? And then it has the same height, width and depth, doesn't it? Yeah, just like a cube does. Yeah, so, and it's not just egypt that did uh, pyramids, because romulus, the, the king of rome, he was buried in a pyramid, and nero was as well, and we get them. You know aztecs and other cultures.
Speaker 1:It's a very common idea to to be fascinated with how you can have something that's, uh, fourfold and then threefold at the very same time. Fourfold and threefold, and that's what? And don't they occur even in things like, um, babylonian stuff? Oh, yeah, yeah, the ziggurats, you do have that, yeah yeah. And in china and I, I think India's got them as well ancient Indian architecture, yeah, yeah. So it is this fascinating. And then again, if you have like fourfold and threefold, you've got kind of sevenfold again. It like all taps into the same sort of numbers that we've been dealing with so far. So that's right, we may have to stop on this, because I'm always interested in going further with it.
Speaker 1:But in our conclusion to this episode, I'd like to think a little bit more about the kind of roles that the different triads of angels might have, that. So we've got these three heavens. That are three like general headings for heaven, the heavens. There's three kind of categories of heavens the lowest one, which is our atmosphere, there's one of those. Then in the second heaven, that's got a two-fold character to it. And then, when we get to the third heaven and we're getting really serious, there's a four, twofold character to it.
Speaker 1:And then, when we get to the third heaven and we're getting really serious, there's a fourfold character to it, and it's interesting how people struggle to grasp or even to describe the second heaven, and so you can see why the biblical writers become really struggle when they're giving sight of the third heaven and it's fourfoldness and all that, and we're like, wow, how on earth are we going to cope with that? Now I think, like what, as john says, what waits for us when we see jesus and become like him? Even john's like I don't know, I can't even. It's too much, because when all the heavens are kind of united together in one thing and that and all the seven fullness of the heavens is, uh, reconnected together and becomes this single united reality, you think how amazing is that gonna be. Yeah, I know all of that. So there's all of those things spinning in our minds.
Speaker 1:But I'd kind of like to probe into a little bit of what kinds of roles the angels have. So, for example, the idea that the virtues help in the movement of the stars and the planets and things like that, the like the stellar act. Can we call it stellar, because stellar means stars, doesn't it and isn't? Isn't that how older christians refer to the activities of angels in the second heaven, as stellar activities. Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, well, to quote Philo again, he sees the seven holy archangels that we've talked about. He sees them as the planets. He kind of uses them interchangeably and it seems that in Revelation Jesus agrees with him. You know, he does say the seven spirits that stand before the throne of God, they are the seven stars. He does say they're the same thing, which is like quite odd, because I don't think again, when we just see it and we use our astronomical tools, we seem to see dead rocks and we've seen that sort of thing, and just balls of gas and dead rocks, yeah, whereas Jesus sees seven people, seven of his oldest friends, which is quite incredible, and he knows all the stars by name and so they have names and we'll do the names in the next episode. So don't be tempted to do that. But like, yeah, but all the stars, not just the seven holy archangels and the seven planets, because we see Wormwood again. Again, he knows that name and he comes down from heaven in Revelation, so they're all kind of personal. Yeah, the stars then have names and we just give them names like 4832-HJ because we're incredibly thick and unimaginative, whereas he has proper names for them all and knows them personally.
Speaker 1:And in the Bible it talks about calling the stars out by name, doesn't it so? When this night time comes and the stars are available for us to see, it literally says doesn't it it in the bible that he calls out the stars by name? Yeah, and I think biblically a lot. So there's one interpretation that sees the material world as just very dead and then behind it there's this spiritual world which has loads of life in it. But I think they in the bible they seem much more connected, because we see that the trees have spirits which clap their hands and so on. We see, you know that there's all that sort of stuff and we think, well, trees don't really think, they don't really do things, whereas in the Bible he kind of sees trees as people, or maybe because then, as CS Lewis has it, he has that the spirits are like kind of different than the trees, but like they're the same person as well.
Speaker 1:Sentience in the way that you might say, my, you might examine a human body and you'll say that body does not think. Because you might examine a leg or a hand and you'd say that is not a sentient thing, but you might say, ah, but the person to whom that body belongs is sentient, and in that way, you might say, well, a tree, that's not a sentient thing, and you just look at the bark or the leaves and you'll say there's no, so, ah, but there could be a spirit to whom that tree belongs and that spirit is sentient. Same of rivers, maybe, but certainly stars, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think that might be one of the ways we make sense of it that we're looking at something that seems to be dead, but the Bible seems to think the archangels are the planets and we see in Revelation there's an archangel that comes from the sun and so on, and we do see they're connected and, as we'll see, one of the archangels is actually associated with fire and light of the sun. Yeah, yeah, that's just a spoiler. Yeah, that's a little spoiler to come for the next episode, yeah, but I think, oh, yeah, what was the question again? Yeah, no, so it was just the Dionysius does think that his second triad have responsibilities for running the second heaven and the movement of the stars and the planets and things like that. And you're really telling us and maybe with this we'll have to end this episode, the idea that there are biblical reasons to think that stars are involved in the movement of?
Speaker 1:Uh, angels are involved in the movement of stars and planets. Is that fair, yeah, and that it might be as simple as one angel who's like in charge of the others in some way, telling them where they should be going and keeping them in order, moving in orbits and systems like that? And is it the case that sometimes stars disobey and start wandering? Is that in the Bible? This is one thing Philo says. He says the planets. He says he kind of disagrees with the word planet because it means a wanderer, and he says the seven planets are not wanderers, they're going exactly, they're in their posts, they're going exactly where they're meant to be.
Speaker 1:But in Enoch and in like uh, esdras, which is like the kind of uh, old version of ezra and it clues, and second, esdras includes a very long and interesting ah, and jude quotes jude 13. He talks about this do you want to share that? Yeah, so then in um enoch I suppose he's so jude, he quotes a lot from enoch. So jude 13 just says he's talking about false teachers and he says they are wild waves of the sea foaming up their shape, wandering stars for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever. Some wandering stars and this is referencing people know the big reference to that Jude makes to Enoch where he talks about the Lord coming with myriads of his saints.
Speaker 1:But that is also a quotation from Enoch, because the archangel Uriel, I believe it is takes Enoch to the edge, right between the universe and the abyss, and shows that there were seven angels that abandoned their posts and they have to be chained up in Tartarus, which this angel explains, or this archangel explains, is essentially a prison right on the edge. So it's like Jesus can't quite send people to the abyss yet. That's this final judgment. But he's got them like dangling on the edge because he's like they're just not safe to have around the universe. He, when you read enoch, you see all the damage they did and it's the right move. I think what we're going to ask is pj to tell us more about this and more about tartarus and possibly abaddon and things like that in a let's. Let's do it in the next episode because I don't want to curtail, uh, this interesting topic.