You’ve Been Reading ‘Fullness of the Gentiles’ Wrong This Whole Time | Michael Heiser – Part 2

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]I mean, all of these things concatenate.

[00:00:02]They string together. You've heard me say it a thousand times in the podcast.

[00:00:07]Patterns are important.

[00:00:10]Okay? You want to look for interconnectivity.

[00:00:14]>> God is the subject of gano is unusual.

[00:00:17]And when you do find it, it's supernatural stuff.

[00:00:22]So when Matthew picks that word, he could have picked other words. when he picks that one, maybe he had something in mind to communicate.

[00:00:30]And if he didn't want to communicate that, he just messed up because people will be misled then into thinking a certain thought because they know the patterns. No, no, he makes his choices to communicate certain ideas to contextualize what he's trying to say that the one born to Mary and Joseph, this is a supernatural birth.

[00:00:49]John 3, I mean, how much more familiar can it get?

[00:00:53]Um, if you go to John 3, just just turn there. We'll do a real quick cursory reading of John 3 because this is one of those passages where you just think, "Oh, not John 3 again." Like a sermon, you know, it's just like, "How many times are we going to hear a sermon on John 3:16?" Well, you know, there's there's a lot in here that would surprise you.

[00:01:17]So, we know how it begins. There's a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, okay?

[00:01:21]a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you're a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him." Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." And then Nicodemus, what? You know, Nicodemus said to him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?"

[00:01:43]Jesus answered, "Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." See that? Oh, great. That's our verse to fight about. Okay. And and we think every tradition thinks they know what what that means. Catholic, Protestant, Protestant has their little subdivisions, you know, and it it becomes about baptism and baptism's relationship, yes or no, to salvation and all this kind of, you know, stuff.

[00:02:08]So, just hold on. I mean, we all know how this is fought about. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not marvel. You know, don't think I'm crazy, Nicodemus, that I said to you, you must be born again.

[00:02:21]The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear it sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit.

[00:02:28]Of course, Nicodemus is like, "How can these things be?" And Jesus answered him, "Are you the teacher of Israel and yet do not understand these things?" I mean, that was a humbling question.

[00:02:40]Like, how do you answer that?

[00:02:42]Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know. We hear witness to what we've seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I told you earthly things and you don't believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things again? And and he he ends the with the reference to the as Moses was lifted up or as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the son of man be lifted up that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. Now, does anything look familiar in there? Of course, you know, because you you've heard the passage preached, you know, a thousand times. Now, some things that we need to get in our heads. The context for this is actually Passover. Okay? If we went back and I'll just I'll just flip for myself here. If we went back to John 2:23 now, when he was in Jerusalem, this is right before John 3 begins. Obviously, when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name. They saw the signs that he was doing. Okay?

[00:03:34]So, that situates John 3. It's Passover time. That's the season where this happens. Now, we've got Passover as the setting.

[00:03:46]And then we get into John 3, and this incident occurs by night.

[00:03:52]And then Jesus talks about being born from above. That's what born again means. If your translation, your English translation has born again, it's an it's from above. Okay? Born from above. And that ought to give you again jarome thinking here. And then he says something about the kingdom of God. So look at those things. Passover, nighttime, a birth, you know, God, you know, being birthed by God, a new beginning or a beginning at the result of the power of God. God's bringing something into existence. Okay? And then we have a reference to the kingdom of God. Kingdom of God. Okay? God coming to earth among his people. He will be their God. They will be his people.

[00:04:37]we get a little more. We have a reference to something coming out of water. E is the preposition. Okay? Born of water. Most English translations have, but this thing that's being born is out of or through water. And then we have a reference to the spirit, the numa, which can be translated spirit or wind. And Jesus uses both words or you, you know, he uses the word and it gets translated, you know, two different ways in your English translations. And the context again that you might want to be thinking about that elsewhere in John when Jesus, you know, is referenced with this stuff. Listen to these verses. This is John 131-33.

[00:05:18]John is saying, "I myself did not know him." Okay, this is John the Baptist. But for this purpose, I came baptizing with water that he might be revealed to Israel. And John bore witness. I saw the spirit descend from heaven like a dove and it remained on him. I myself did not know him. But he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, he on whom the spirit, you see the spirit descend and remain, this is who baptizes with the holy spirit and I have seen and I have borne witness that this is the son of God. So you have in John 1, okay, we're talking about John 3, but two chapters earlier, the same writer is talking about he's associating the son of God with this baptism, this water event and using the language of the spirit. I mean, and he uses this terminology in John chapter 3 as well. He talks about flesh and spirit, then Moses in the wilderness. Look at the listing here.

[00:06:18]Passover, nighttime, a divine birth, you know, divine bringing into existence, a kingdom, again, God coming to be with his people, something born out of or birthed out of or through water. You have a reference to the spirit, which can be translated spirit or wind, flesh, spirit, Moses, wilderness. Does any of this sound familiar?

[00:06:44]What if born of water didn't refer to amniotic fluid? This is what you're going to get in commentaries. Semen or water baptism or John's, you know, you know, baptism. You know, our baptisms are John's or ritual washings of the Jews. What if it referred to the deliverance through the sea at the Exodus?

[00:07:07]Passover nighttime.

[00:07:10]Okay, here's your list that we just went through in John 3.

[00:07:16]Compare that to Exodus, Passover context, Exodus 12.

[00:07:22]Okay, the deliverance is at nighttime.

[00:07:25]God brings his son, the son of God, out of Egypt. Remember, Israel is referred to as God's son a couple times in the book of Exodus. Okay, he brings his son out of Egypt through the waters of the sea. It's a new beginning. Exodus 12:2 I have that referenced why what h what happens in Israel in connection with the deliverance at the Red Sea they change their calendar.

[00:07:48]Okay, this is now going to be the new beginning of the year.

[00:07:53]Okay, they change their calendar. The sea is parted by the wind. The Numa Exodus 15os is is is the term used elsewhere in Exodus 14. And Jesus, of course, is the prophet like unto Moses. And Jesus, of course, is lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent. I mean, I mean, how many how many ways can can John and Jesus telegraph a relationship between the the birth event, the new birth event of the nation, deliverance from Egypt, okay, through the sea to to Nic. I mean, Nicodemus, don't you know this? I mean, you're the teacher of Israel. you and you don't know this stuff.

[00:08:36]Suggestion. The Exodus is a rebirth of Israel. God bringing his son or child out of Egypt through the water. Again, out of Egypt, I have brought my son.

[00:08:45]Exodus 4:22, "Let my son go into the wilderness." Moses tells Pharaoh, you know, this these are God's words, "I want my son to go out in the desert and worship me."

[00:08:57]Nevertheless, it is a birth tied to ethnicity.

[00:09:03]The Exodus only applied, you know, at least the the story, the confrontations.

[00:09:08]Yes, there was a mixed multitude, wasn't there? Okay, there was a mixed multitude. So, we still have the the Jew gentile Israelite Gentile thing going on. Yes, it was a divine deliverance, but it's tied in the Israelite the Okay, so it's a birth tied to ethnicity despite again God's, you know, miracle.

[00:09:27]What Jesus is pointing out to Nicodemus is that the earthly birth, the earthly birth, he's speaking to a Jew, to Nicodemus.

[00:09:38]Okay? Nicodemus as as as a person exists because Israel was taken out of Egypt.

[00:09:46]Okay? They were reborn. They were delivered.

[00:09:49]Jesus is pointing out to Nicodemus, this is, you know, this is an earthly birth and it has to be followed by a spiritual birth and the spirit had been indeed promised to Israel. That was the new covenant. So if the Exodus event is this event and what Jesus is saying in John 3 in light of each other and and since that's you know again it's it's tied to ethnicity because they're a physical people. All right, being physically delivered. If the Exodus event is that which is flesh is flesh, then this means that if Nicodemus only identified with the deliverance from the bondage of Egypt, the formative event in Judaism, he would not have eternal life.

[00:10:31]If this is the only thing you align yourselves, think of believing loyalty.

[00:10:36]Now if your believing loyalty in the God of Israel is if it is tied only to this event you will not have eternal life.

[00:10:48]You need a new birth.

[00:10:52]You need a new birth, one enacted by the spirit. And so in Jesus theology, if we kept reading the book of John, what does that refer to? Well, again to to sort of cut to the chase here, this takes us back into the when I talk about an unseen realm, you know, we we we spent a lot of time talking about the two powers, the two Yahweh's idea from the Old Testament, the the Godhead thinking that you see in the Hebrew Bible and Genesis 48's a big part of that with again God and the angel tied together with a singular verb. Again, this is all familiar stuff if you've read Unseen Realm.

[00:11:27]So the two powers idea, you have probably heard me say either on the podcast or on a YouTube video or something or some presentation that just as the angel or the word was but wasn't Yahweh. Okay, this this you know second Yahweh figure was but wasn't. They're still identified with Yahweh, but there's still this transcendent invisible Yahweh. And now we've got a physical representation of him here typically as a man just as the angel was but wasn't Yahweh. this the same but yet different. So Jesus was but wasn't God. He is God but he's not the father. Again, this is this is the the the trinitarian, you know, tension, although we're only talking about two right now. But if you go from that and then you say again, I've said a number of times that if you think about Jesus, the spirit also is but isn't Jesus.

[00:12:19]And there are three or four passages that interchange spirit of God with spirit of Christ or spirit of Jesus in the New Testament. And there are two passages in Paul where Paul says that the Lord is the spirit. That doesn't mean he's denying a physical resurrection or anything like that because Paul affirms that too. It's just you have the same interchange going on.

[00:12:38]And this is where trinitarianism actually comes from. Jesus is the central figure. He is but isn't the father. And he is but isn't the spirit.

[00:12:46]So when Jesus leaves, I mean he he actually tells people this. I'm I have to leave. I have to ascend to the father so that what? so that the spirit will come. Well, how else can Jesus say where two or three are gathered, I'm in your midst.

[00:13:01]It's because he's also the spirit but yet not. You know, again, it's it's this tension again. You know, there are a number of indications of this. And so, when when you read through through John and through the rest of the gospels, what Jesus is saying to Nicodemus here ought to be plain to him.

[00:13:18]It ought to be plain again when Jesus confronts him with, I mean, you know, all the Exodus stuff. this is the formative event of of of your faith, okay, as an Israelite. But if this is the only thing you identify with, you do not have eternal life. Why? Because the spirit is going to come. And when does the spirit come? The spirit is going to come when I when I leave. As look at what he says. As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the son of man must be lifted up. I mean, he's alluding, you know, to to this sort of thing. He's connecting himself with this this deliverance again that you know back in Moses day and you know all the messianic stuff about you know the Messiah being the new Moses and all that sort of thing. So he he's telling Nicodemus look you know that that that the prophets told you that the spirit was going to come you're going to have a new heart you know the the tablets you know the hard heart is going to be changed to a soft heart of flesh you know you know all this stuff Nicodemus or at least you should. And so what he's telling him is when that happens, you need to shift your believing loyalty to that.

[00:14:23]If you're stuck over here with the first birth and you never get the second one, you will not have eternal life.

[00:14:32]So John 3:5, born of water in the spirit, is not about amniotic fluid, semen, or even baptism.

[00:14:40]It's about two births.

[00:14:42]It's about Israelite identification and then identification with the spirit. And Jesus is laying it out for him. And that's why he says, I mean, he doesn't say, Nicodemus, you're a physician.

[00:14:54]Don't you know about amniotic fluid? No, he he says, "Are you not a teacher of Israel?" I mean, how can you be a teacher of Israel and not see this?

[00:15:04]And he just lays it out for them. But you that that only becomes even even part of of you know what's in your head floating around when you get to John 3 if you look at the vocabulary and then just ask yourself where have I seen that before you know what what might John be repurposing and you just go through yeah it takes time to do that pass overnight you know the whole thinking about what does what does birth mean you know well it's a new beginning and and who who initiated it God well well did God bring things into existence in the Old Testament. Yeah, there's creation. Oh, yeah. There's Abraham and Sarah. That was a supernatural birth with Isaac. You I mean, all of these things concatenate.

[00:15:44]They string together. You've heard me say it a thousand times in the podcast.

[00:15:48]Patterns are important.

[00:15:52]Okay? You want to look for interconnectivity.

[00:15:56]You just have to get to the nuts and bolts and then think about, you know, how they might be connected. I'm going to skip ahead here to Deuteronomy 32:18.

[00:16:04]Again, this is a bit more obscure in Deuteronomy 32. Why don't you just go there and you're going to think, why in the world are we talking about this verse?

[00:16:13]I should be asking how much time I have left because I don't really know.

[00:16:17]Uh, somebody can give me a minute count.

[00:16:19]Let me know. Deuteronomy 32:18.

[00:16:24]Again, this is Moses' sermon, you know, to the Israelites.

[00:16:29]And part of it he says, "You were unmindful of the rock that bore you. You forgot the God who gave you birth." Now again, we're looking at, you know, English translation, of course, but Hebrew Bible. And gave you birth, they bore you. If you look in the Septuagent, what you're going to find is go back here, move ahead a little bit, and we know what Deuteronomy 32 is about. If you look in Deuteronomy 32 and verses that aren't 8 and N, you'll see a lot of filial language, son or birthing language, child or birthing language.

[00:17:15]Verse five, Israel is referred to as Yahweh's children. Verse six, Yahweh is Israel's father. 19 and 20, Israelites provoked Yahweh. They were his faithless children.

[00:17:27]Of course, verse 43, you have to read that with the Dead Sea Scrolls again and the Septuagent. Yahweh will avenge his children when he judges the gods of the nations. So, it's very clear. You read Deuteronomy 32, Yahweh's Yahweh is the father and then he has children, okay?

[00:17:41]Israel. And in Deuteronomy 32:18 we get this reference to birthing or bore or bearing you know his children Israel.

[00:17:52]The Greek there is from the lema gano to beget or something like that. And what I want to ask you to think about is when you go to Matthew 1:20 do not fear to take Mary as your wife for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

[00:18:10]It's the same lema.

[00:18:12]Now again, let's let's ask ourselves a question. Is it possible that Matthew might be thinking about something in the Old Testament? Now, we know that Matthew is very very much, you know, a user of the Old Testament. It's sort of what distinguishes his gospel. And he often has, again, scholarly studies have sort of fared it out that Matthew has this propensity for passages that deal in some way with Yahweh and his children. Okay, your children birthing, you know, these sorts of things. So if if you if you track on that or you just ask yourself the question, you know, hey, you know, maybe it's the same lema. Here it is.

[00:18:48]Deuteronomy 3:18. You forsaken again the God who bore you or gave birth to you.

[00:18:55]This lema with God as the subject is unusual in the Old Testament in the Septuagent. Here are three instances.

[00:19:04]There there a handful of others, but these three are the most interesting.

[00:19:08]Isaiah 1:2. I'll just click out to them quickly. Ask yourself, what is it talking about here? O heaven and hearken, O earth, because the Lord has spoken. I begat and raised sons.

[00:19:20]I begat sons. Who sons? Who's he talking? He's talking about the Israelites. Again, the Israelites collectively are the son of God in the Old Testament.

[00:19:30]Okay. So it's used it's used again of individuals that God supernaturally brought into being again through his intervention with Abraham and Isaac.

[00:19:40]Psalm 2:7 the Lord said to me you are my son today I have begotten you. Septuagent. It's the same lema. Again, this is spoken to the king. And the king is again, yes, one of the sons of God, one of the children of God, if you will, of the Old Testament, corporate Israel, but he's special again because God made a covenant with David that said, you know, I'm going to legitimize the sons from your line to be the king of Israel. And of course, David becomes the prototype for the Messiah, the, you know, the son of God. And then Proverbs 8:25 is another one. This is the wisdom passage again where wisdom is talking about creation. I'll just go back here. Uh again, wisdom is the speaker. The Lord created me as the beginning of his ways for his works. Before the present age, he founded me in the beginning. Before making the earth, before making the depths, before the springs of the waters came forth, before the mountains were settled, before all the hills, he produced me. The Lord made countries and unhabited regions. So on and so forth.

[00:20:47]So he produced me there in the ESV as this ganao and we've talked many times about this about ka you know this doesn't it's Jesus is going to get identified with with wisdom in in the gospels and in some other places again if you remember the series on Colossians this isn't about Jesus having a beginning because if wisdom is the personified attribute of God or has anything to do with God's attributes at all which I would suggest it's impossible to deny because it's wisdom all right then you can't argue that there was a time when God did not have wisdom because then how could he create?

[00:21:20]And even if he could create without wisdom, how would he know it's a good idea? Okay, the these are just inseparable things.

[00:21:27]So, you know, you can go back and listen to old episodes or do some, you know, reading about that. What I want to focus on is this language that's kind of unusual. God is the subject of this lema. It's always something supernatural. Again, the wisdom passage from the gospels. It's actually quoted from the uh from again the apocryphal books Deuteronomical Deuteronomical whatever you prefer there but in the one passage in Luke the wisdom of God said I will send them prophets and apostles and then in Matthew that's inserted it's identified with Jesus Jesus says therefore I send you prophets and wise men some of whom you will kill and crucify. So there's this identification in the New Testament of Jesus and wisdom as well.

[00:22:08]What I want to get to is the lema logic in Isaiah 1:2. Israel has supernatural origins. Same thing for Psalm 2:7.

[00:22:19]That's a that's a supernatural origin.

[00:22:20]Why? Because it was God who initiated the covenant. Okay? I'm not claiming that David or any other Israelite king was supernaturally born or something like No, that isn't the point. The point is that their line was legitimized because of an act of God.

[00:22:34]Okay? That was God's choice. and Proverbs 8:25 again supernatural creative power through the agency of wisdom. Now is it reasonable to think that Matthew's choice of lema from the septuagent if we look at it from that angle is it reasonable to think that his choice communicated something different why do I ask the question because people will go commentators will go to Matthew 1:18 and try to deny the virgin birth they'll look for ways to undermine and deny it parthonos that was Greek goddesses or something and the parthonon or they'll go back to Isaiah 7:14 because three verses later, Matthew's going to quote Isaiah 7:14. Well, Alma, it doesn't it doesn't mean virgin, someone who's never been sexually active, except when it does. Okay, Genesis 24, if you go back there in 16 and verse 43, we get Alma and Betula used of the same individual. This is the Isaac and Rebecca story. But, but nevertheless, people will will do things. They'll go through great pains to strip away the import the whole logic of the vocabulary. But if you go back to verse 20, three verses earlier, you've got gao.

[00:23:46]And if you look up gao in the septuagent, and when God is the one doing that, you get supernatural origin.

[00:23:53]So is it possible? Is it reasonable that Matthew might have been thinking that? I would suggest it is. But again, what what I'm trying to encourage you to do is when you're reading scripture, especially New Testament, because it's a little more, you know, in the forefront of your mind when you're reading the New Testament, it's easy when the New Testament writer says, "As it is written, okay, then I know something is going on in the Old Testament and I got to go find that."

[00:24:18]But even when it's not, what I still want to encourage you to do is do the same strategy.

[00:24:27]Employ the same strategy. Look for vocabulary. You have the tools at your disposal to do word study to look up where things occur and how often. Uh if you have, you know, software like like Logos, this isn't a Logos commercial. I don't work there anymore. Okay. Uh but if you have that and you can run the Bible word study, you can find out instantly where, you know, what the subjects and objects of any verb are.

[00:24:49]God is the subject of gano is unusual.

[00:24:52]And when you do find it, it's supernatural stuff.

[00:24:57]So when Matthew picks that word, he could have picked other words. When he picks that one, maybe he had something in mind to communicate and if he didn't want to communicate that, he just messed up because people will be misled then into thinking a certain thought because they know the patterns. No. Now, he makes his choices to communicate certain ideas, to contextualize what he's trying to say that the one born to Mary and Joseph, this is a supernatural birth, you know, like what else would it be?

[00:25:27]Again, there are all there there ways that he telegraphs this. So, again, in in your Bible study, and again, this is what the podcast is typically about.

[00:25:35]Interextuality is a big deal. If you want to know how to again advance in Bible study, either start doing intertextuality or if you're already doing it, do it all the time. Not just sort of where it's obvious. Do it all the time. And I hope and I you know every everybody we've invited to speak here. I mean they they're this is what what we do. This is what you know scholars are trained to do to you see where the ideas are cross fertilized in the texts. And so this is a discipline that scholars use to produce the kind of data that really floats my boat and floats your boat.

[00:26:11]Okay, it really does. This is how it's done. This is the this is the the initial thing that you have to train yourself to do to be thinking cross text. Where are the patterns? Where are the connections? And you can actually do this. And it just takes time. You got to be willing to work. But you can do it.

[00:26:26]And I think this is the last slide. I think that it's it's really it's better than just relying on tradition.

[00:26:33]Because if you learn to do this, you will get direction in difficult passages. I don't struggle with John 3:5.

[00:26:41]I don't wonder whose view of baptism is correct in John 3:5. It's not what it's about.

[00:26:47]It's not what Jesus is trying to get at.

[00:26:50]And again, if if you're doing what we just, you know, tried to model here, it'll help. It'll help in some of those things. It'll also prevent you from overclaiming or underclaiming theological conclusions. Again, we're trying to root things in the text. And I think it's a good way to help you respond to poor thinking. You know, the the internet theology about, you know, again, trying to use the language of Matthew to deny a virgin birth. Well, really, you know, like like really what's the pattern here? You know, if you're right, you know, this this ought to be more evident in other places. Is it? You know, I mean, you just ask questions like this and learn to again far it out the data and look for patterning and it'll help you again in all three of these areas.