Three-agent Universe (9) Reading the Old Testament

When reading the Old Testament, we must remember that the authors of the various books held a two-agent world view. They believed life on earth was an interaction between God and humans. They assumed that all spiritual stuff was the work of God. They did not understand the ruthlessness and the extent of the spiritual warfare that was going on around them.

Thanks to Jesus and the ministry of the Holy Spirit, we now know that we live in a three-agent world. Life on earth is a battle between God and the spiritual powers of evil, with humans caught in the crossfire, but having an important role in the outcome. That is a totally different way of looking at life in the world.

The battle between God and the spiritual powers of evil did not begin at the cross. It has been going on since the fall of Adam and Eve when the spiritual powers of evil gained authority on earth. The authors of the Old Testament did not understand the reality they were living in, so they recorded the events they were describing as interactions between God and humans. However, when we read their accounts, we should see them as incomplete descriptions of the battle between God and the spiritual powers of evil, with humans caught up as active participants in the middle.

Our expanded world view means that we will have an understanding of the events that they recorded that is different from what they described. We will often see the spiritual powers of evil at work in a situation where the people affected were not aware of what was happening. The Holy Spirit has promised to lead us into all truth. When we are reading the Old Testament, we should ask him to give us a three-agent understanding of what is described in two-agent terms.

We should assume that some of what is attributed to God was actually the activity of the spiritual powers of evil. The Old Testament is full of clues that something more complex was going on than what the author described. If God is described as doing something that is contrary to the revelation of his character that we have in Jesus, that might be a sign that the spiritual powers of evil might be responsible for an event that is ascribed to God.