The Demonic Audience Around the Cross
Demonic entities surrounded Jesus Christ during his crucifixion, and this was prophetically predicted in Psalm 22 as the strong bulls of Bashan.
Lately, and thanks primarily to the brilliant work of Dr. Michael Heiser and his divine council worldview and cosmic geography teachings, I've been rereading a plethora of Bible passages; my goal in doing so is to reread and further discern the Scripture to draw out the supernaturalism imbued within them that I might have previously missed. The concept of cosmic geography, in particular, and learning common biblical geographic names - both friend and foe alike - has been exceptionally helpful.
The Crucifixion
Of the various Bible passages that I have been meditating on, I recently came across the unique Psalm 22. You may recall that Jesus himself quotes Psalm 22:1 during his crucifixion. The Gospel of Matthew recounts this event, stating the following:
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Enemies
Considering that Theos Christos (that's one of my favorite names for Jesus) himself quoted this while on the cross, I thought it worthwhile to return to Psalm 22 and read it through. And when I did, I felt like I was struck by lightning. I see cosmic geography all throughout Scripture now, and I caught a whiff of it right here in Psalm 22.
Consider the following verses below:
Many bulls encompass me; strong bulls of Bashan surround me; they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion.
I cannot overemphasize how dumbstruck I was on these verses. Reread that citation again and notice the very important geographic name "Bashan"; notice also that Bashan is associated with "strong bulls" who behave menancingly towards the author of the Psalm, acting as though they are a "ravening and roaring lion".
Roaring Lion
First off, do you recall who else is described as a roaring lion in the New Testament? In case you forgot, let the apostle Peter remind you:
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
Do you notice how eerily similar the language here is? There's an image of an evil lion, and he's roaring. One thing I've learned about Scripture from both Dr. Heiser as well as Chuck Missler is that there are no coincidences in Scripture. And these two brilliant men have provided excellent hermeneutics that I have likewise adopted, some of which are below:
"Scripture is like a mosaic." - Dr. Michael Heiser
"If it's weird, it's probably important." - Dr. Michael Heiser
"Metaphors abound where mysteries reside." - Chuck Missler
Given these hermeneutics, then, and the verse from 1 Peter explicitly describing the devil as a "roaring lion", I think these "strong bulls of Bashan" in Psalm 22 are inherently Satanic in nature. Interesting... let's continue.
Bulls of Bashan
Elsewhere in Scripture, the evil territory of Bashan is associated with bulls and rams. In general, Bashan seems to involve enemy activity directly opposed to YHWH and his people.
By the way, per Dr. Heiser, "Bashan" in ancient ugaritic languages means "serpent"; that's creepy, to say the least. Many times throughout the Old Testament, the territory of Bashan is associated with evil, serpentine worship, demonic strongholds, and so on. When you see the name "Bashan" appear, you should have exegetical alarm bells ringing in your head.
These bulls and rams of Bashan, I strongly believe, are symbolized in Scripture as evil spiritual entities; rebel elohim ("elohim", per Dr. Heiser, simply means disembodied spiritual entity); demons.
Taking this all together, then, these "strong bulls of Bashan" are Satan-serving demonic entities that surrounded Christ during his crucifixon. This absolutely breaks my heart because this means that on top of the physical torture, the abandonemnt of his disciples, and the public humiliation, Jesus was also looking at his spiritual enemies mocking him and deriding him while he was painfully dying on the cross. As if it wasn't enough to be surrounded by evil humans, he was also surrounded by these evil spiritual creatures.
You may be wondering, though: the gospel accounts do not mention demonic apparitions appearing out of thin air during Jesus' crucifixion, so where exactly, or should I say, who exactly, were these "strong bulls of Bashan"? This is a deep, strange question that I will address in another blog post, but let's suffice it to say, for the moment, that I posit that the leaders of the Great Sanhedrin, the ones who condemned Jesus as guilty and who ultimately caused his death and who also went out to witness and to mock him during his crucifixion, were the evil bulls of Bashan. That's a deep claim that I will return to soon.
Spiritual Warfare
This adds a humbling, heart-breaking perspective onto the crucifixion. I think we often and far-too-easily forget that Christianity is a deeply spiritual belief system riddled with supernaturalism at every turn. So much of Jesus' teachings, his actions, even his travels throughout the local geography are deeply ingrained in spiritual warfare.
Our Lord was the lamb to be slain when he came to give his life as a ransom for many, but don't mistaken Jesus' humility as weakness. Our glorious Lord was performing acts of spiritual warfare from the time his ministry started all the way to his ascension to the Father's right hand.
As so brilliantly stated in Psalm 2 and Psalm 82, may he return to reclaim the nations and shatter them like pieces of pottery.
God bless you, image bearer.
