What if the Old Testament prophets weren't just messengers who received words from God, but participants in His heavenly court? That's the proposal Dr. Michael Heiser put forth in his works on the divine council. The Remnant Radio explores this perspective, walks through the texts, and works out what it means for how we think about prophecy today.

ABOUT THE EPISODE:
Dr. Michael Heiser put forth the interpretative framework that the Old Testament prophets participated in Yahweh's divine council, and access to that court is what distinguished the genuine prophet from the counterfeit. The claim from The Unseen Realm: "True prophets have stood and listened in Yahweh's divine council; false prophets have not."

Heiser's proposal focuses on the word sōd, appearing in Jeremiah 23:18 as the sōd YHWH, "the council of Yahweh," and describes what the Hebrew Bible presents as Yahweh's heavenly assembly. Jeremiah deploys it as the credibility test for prophets: the genuine ones have stood in it. The false have not. If that reading is right, the prophetic calling in the Old Testament was more than hearing a message from God. Rather, it was about access to the divine council - admission into the throne room of God.

The concept finds support across multiple texts. Amos 3:7 declares that God does nothing without first revealing his counsel to the prophets, and the council scenes throughout the Hebrew Bible show a relationship that is consistently dialogical. Isaiah is caught up into the council of YHWH so that he can give an answer. He doesn't passively receive a scroll. He's present in a scene (seraphim, a throne, a voice asking "Who will go?"), and he responds.

This idea matters for the body of Christ right now. The continuationist world is navigating real questions about prophetic legitimacy, accountability, and what it actually means to carry a word from God. Heiser's framework gives us a biblical-theological foundation for those conversations that goes deeper than most of what's currently in circulation. If the sōd YHWH is the dividing line between true and false prophecy in Jeremiah 23, that has implications we haven't fully worked out yet.

This episode walks through the key texts and what it means for how we think about the prophetic today.

0:00 – Introduction
3:05 – Divine Council Overview
10:44 – Prophets in the Council
14:26 – Adam, Enoch, Noah
17:55 – Moses and Prophets
20:51 – Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah
23:41 – True vs. False Prophets
32:46 – New Covenant Implications
43:56 – Democratization of the Spirit
45:33 – Warning: Heavenly Travel

PLAYLIST OF DR. MICHAEL HEISER EPISODES: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMsjeViSScFGvabVTMdkZJffia17pz7Cv