Three-agent Universe (4) Better Insight

Since the coming of Jesus and the gift of the Holy Spirit, we have a fuller understanding of the relationship between the spiritual and physical realms. We understand that we live in a three-agent universe. The three actors on earth are God, humans and the spiritual powers of evil.

When the people of the world turn away from God, they give greater authority to the spiritual powers of evil, often without being unaware of it. The inevitable outcome for a society that forgets God is more frequent evil events as the powers of evil exercise their increased freedom to act. The evil events that occur should be more accurately described as "consequences of forgetfulness" or "a negative feedback loop".

The writers of the Old Testament did not have the understanding or the language to describe spiritual warfare, so when anything supernatural happened, they often assumed that it was caused by God, whether it was good or bad. This was not incorrect, because God created everything, so he is ultimately responsible for everything that happens on earth. However, their description of what happened was incomplete, because many of the events that they attributed to God, were actually the work of the spiritual powers of evil.

This understanding should change the way that we read the Old Testament. We now understand that we live in a three-agent universe, and that many events are the work of the spiritual powers of evil. Jesus and the Holy Spirit have opened our eyes to see things that happen in the world differently. So, when we read the Old Testament, we should approach it with a three-agent lens, while realising it was written by people with a two-agent perspective on life.

When the Old Testament says that God did something, we should be careful. The writer might have assumed it was God, because he saw some spiritual involvement in the event, but we should not assume that the writer's understanding was complete. The description of the event might be correct, but their understanding about the cause of what happened might be incomplete.

We should ask the Holy Spirit to guide us when reading so that we can distinguish between the things that God actually caused to happen and events that were the work of the spiritual powers of evil. If we want a better understanding of the Old Testament, we must learn to discern the difference. We will find that many events, which the Old Testament writers thought were caused by God, were actually the direct working of the spiritual powers of evil, while God was only indirectly responsible.