Discussion Jumpstarter
Study leader reference - not a definitive answer
Question 6
The speaker claims the law was “put in place through angels by an intermediary,” calls it a “lesser reality,” and connects Deuteronomy 32 (“sons of God”) with Paul’s “elementary principles of the world”; what does this imply about God’s relationship to spiritual powers and earthly systems, and how might that make some Christians uncomfortable with the “spiritual mechanics” of the Old Covenant?
Another way to ask: If the law involved angels and is called a “lesser” arrangement tied to spiritual powers and earthly systems, what does that say about how God works with spiritual beings and human institutions? Why might that idea make some Christians uneasy about the Old Covenant?
Discussion Jumpstarter
Direct Answer
The transcript implies God governs history with a layered order: nations were “assigned” under lesser spiritual beings, and even Israel’s law operated through mediators like angels, showing the Old Covenant as an indirect, provisional arrangement—an idea that can unsettle Christians who expect a simple, direct system.
- He cites Deuteronomy: God “assigned the nations… to be ruled by lesser spiritual beings,” while “the Lord’s portion is his people, Jacob.”
- He says he doesn’t “fully understand” this but claims it is “pretty clear in the New Testament,” acknowledging complexity.
- Paul is quoted: the law “was put in place through angels by an intermediary,” and believers were “held captive under the law… until… faith would be revealed.”
- The law is described as a “guardian until Christ came,” and also as connected to being “enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.”
- He contrasts this with Christ: now we have a mediator “who himself is divine” and brings an “actual connection to God,” not a “lesser reality between us and God.”