Questions about the Gospel with Kaleb Amos on the Two Trees Podcast

Interviews
Written By Anthony Delgado

Jon Dillon from The Two Trees Podcast hosts a dialogue between Kaleb Amos of Highways to Zion and Anthony Delgado, author of The Gospel is Bigger Than You Think, exploring questions and reflections on areas where Kaleb felt the book could have offered deeper explanation. The expansive nature of the gospel centers on the kingship of Jesus, the full arc of creation to new creation, and the mission of God's people. The gospel is contrasted with the diluted expressions found in Western "folk religion," where cultural Christianity often strips the message of its biblical depth. The importance of inspiring wonder at the grand narrative of Scripture is emphasized, showing how the story of God unfolds with epic significance. Key theological themes include the supernatural worldview present in texts like Deuteronomy 32 and Psalm 82, the dangers of syncretism, the biblical and systematic perspectives on Satan’s rebellion, and the pattern of typology across Scripture. Broader reflections highlight the value of engaging ancient sources, the importance of grounding ministry in a true vision of the gospel, and the ongoing effort to produce resources that faithfully transmit this vision to future generations.

Questions:

Jon: Hello, my friends, and welcome to the Two Trees Podcast. I am Jon Dillon. I am not the official host introduction of season three—that's Martin—but he's at work, and I have snuck into the back door of his garage so that I can record a special edition of the Two Trees Podcast for you. It's always a lot of fun to run a podcast. It's more fun than I ever thought it would be. So if you're out there wondering if you should start a podcast, I promise you it'll be equal parts frustrating and really fun. The hard part is pushing the buttons and making all the technology work. The fun part is getting to talk about cool stuff and meeting great people.

And I have two awesome people on the phone with me today, and they're both from California, the land of far away. I have my good friend Anthony Delgado back with us. He has written a fantastic book called The Gospel is Bigger Than You Think, Bigger Than Just Personal Salvation. It's about the kingship of Jesus, the story of creation and new creation, and the mission of God's people. If you don't own this book, you need to own this book. It's good—really good. And the cover looks cool, so you'll not only look cool, you'll be cool. Anthony, welcome to the Two Trees.

Anthony: Thanks, Jon, for having me. It's a joy to be able to come and share with your audience again and to just have some good time of fellowship with you.

Jon: It's good to be here. It's always fun to have you on. You're a fun guest to have around. Are you writing anything secretly right now that we need to be aware of? What is next on the list of random homework assignments that you're working on?

Anthony: I'm trying not to share too much. I am writing a book. I'll tell you the slow project—that's not going to come out anytime soon. The slow project is a book on the Devil and the Darkness. It's taken a couple of different forms already. At one point, it was going to be a biography of the devil, and that's still a possibility. That would come with appendices and such on how to think about different parts of the story of the devil throughout the Scriptures—and probably, if you know me, throughout the Second Temple literature as well—and try to parse those things appropriately.

The book I'm more interested in—I'm always writing five or six different things, to be honest with you—but where I've got my hands a little deeper is a book on Protestant sacramentalism. There are a few books written out there, but I think my niche is always to be looking more broadly. Not, "Here's my take on sacramentalism within Protestantism," but, "Here's my take on sacramentalism broadly from a historic church perspective," and obviously from a biblical theology perspective, and how that plays out in any church setting—not just in a single church setting. So looking more broadly than narrowly, I guess you could say. That's a hard word to say—narrowly.

Jon: It is a hard word to say.

Anthony: Anyway, that's probably going to be the next book that I release. I had hopes at one point of releasing it this summer, but I doubt that's going to happen at this point.

Jon: Well, I'll be looking forward to it. I'm not surprised that that appeals to you. You have that love of art and beauty, and so sacramentalism and the way that we approach the Lord through those kinds of things—that sounds really fascinating. I will buy a copy of that one too.

But your book that’s really been making the rounds at the moment, The Gospel is Bigger Than You Think, really resonated with me. At the time you released it, I was preparing to make the shift from the Old Testament into the Gospels, and I was getting really frustrated with—I'm going to call it—pop Christianity. Just the way they used the word “gospel” to pretty much mean “thing that we're doing at church.” They stripped it of the meaning you find in Scripture—particularly the expressions tied to the idea of kingdom, the lordship of Christ, and the beauty of the Lord. So I really resonated with your book, and I know lots of other Christians did as well.

In particular, there’s a gentleman from our Two Trees Podcast community, a man called Caleb Amos.

Jon: Caleb, are you there?

Kaleb: Yeah, I'm here, Jon.

Jon: Hey brother, it's great to have you here. You engaged with Pastor Anthony online a little bit—you wrote a review of his book. Now, I know your love is music. What made you pick up your typewriter and launch into the world of book reviews?

Kaleb: Sure. Just a tiny bit about me—I’m a youth and worship pastor out in California and also a writer. I’ve been writing for a long time. I'm really passionate about serving the Lord with music and with writing. I view what I do vocationally as working in the local church to facilitate sacred moments between people and their Creator. I've used some of my creative gifts to do that over the years and have been blessed to be part of a lot of great teams doing different projects—from recording to writing.

There was a season of life where I wasn't writing as much, but a little over a year ago, I felt God kind of nudge me—the way He often does with so many of us—to pick up the pen again. I started writing. I write a Substack called Highways to Zion, and recently I thought, you know, it’d be cool to start doing some book reviews. I’m a book nerd—as I believe all of us are. I'm here in my office, and I’ve got probably about three years’ worth of book stacks behind me that I’m not going to get to anytime soon. I thought it’d be cool to start talking about what I’m learning, loving, and enjoying in some of the stuff I’m reading.

The first book on deck was Anthony’s book, The Gospel is Bigger Than You Think, and wow—I really, really enjoyed it. I wanted to put down what I gleaned from it as someone who, like you, Jon, and like you, Anthony, is working in a ministry context, trying to transmit the gospel to younger generations—which is really important to me. I just really loved and appreciated, Anthony, the way that you broke through some of the cultural fog, the cultural milieu, and got to the bare bones of what the gospel really is. That really resonated with me, and so I wrote a review. It’s been fun to see the fruit of that.

Jon: Well, I think your love of writing definitely showed up in your review. I can tell that wasn’t your first time trying to put your thoughts down on paper. It was written beautifully, and I loved the overall tone. It didn't come across like, "Hey, I know everything there is to know, and I'm going to tell you why Anthony’s book doesn't do what I want it to do." There was a real sense that you were engaged in the conversation and understood that part of writing books—and of podcasting, in a lesser way—is to facilitate conversation. It's to talk, to engage with another mind.

I love that you didn’t just talk about, "Hey, I liked this about the book; this is what he says," kind of the Amazon summary of the book. You did that part well, but that wasn’t really the heart of your review. It also was, "These are the thoughts that it made me have." I was able to go back through my mind of what Anthony had taught me and also to see, like, I was sitting down at a table. I visualized it would be cool to have Anthony and Caleb at the table with me and we could just talk about this.

And I have a microphone and a soundboard, so I was like, I'm just going to do this online—unless you guys want to move to Ohio and then we can go out for food. But what I would love to do is just have the two of you guys kind of talk. I don't really want you to throw rocks at each other or anything like that. Anthony and Caleb are good friends, okay? They’re at peace with one another. They’re brethren. So if you’re worried about, "Oh, this guy’s going to come after Anthony," that's not the case. Caleb liked the book. He just has some questions and some thoughts that came up as he was reading the book.

I thought, you know, it's probably not just Caleb that has those thoughts or would like to hear from the mind of the author. Let's have these guys together, and so that's what we're doing. Caleb, you said there are a couple of minor qualms—a couple of provisos—that you are interested in. I would love for you to engage with my friend Anthony, and I'm going to sit back and drink coffee and judge you silently, both from a distance.

Kaleb: Thank you. Thank you for that. No pressure, Jon. You're the best.

Jon: You guys all heard that I'm the best. Tell Rose and tell Martin that it is me.

Kaleb: That’s why you're the host, dude. Absolutely.

Kaleb: Well, I think first off what I want to say is just really echo, Anthony, that you captured something well. You captured a lot of things I'm passionate about in this book. One thing that you did a phenomenal job of is unveiling just the massive scope of the story of God. In a way, that’s what necessitated your reason for writing the book, right? Too many of us have a small-minded gospel.

And just this concept of the gospel being bigger than we tend to think really hits home for us as Western Christians living in the society that we live in. I think helping people be inspired with the epic nature of the narrative of God and of the Scriptures is so important. It’s something I tell my students often: if you think the Bible is boring, you are boring.

I think it’s important to inspire that wonder of the Word of God. Just one little anecdote from my ministry—about a year ago, year and a half ago—I took my students on Sunday mornings through First and Second Samuel. We took probably about a year going through it, and it was so cool to see their eyes light up with things they had no idea were in the text because no one had ever taken the time to lead them through it. It was just so fun to see young people exposed to the powerful, dynamic, epic nature of the story of God. I think you do a great job of that in the book.

Anthony: Thank you.

What do you mean by ‘folk religion’ and the ‘gospel of Middle America’?

Kaleb: One thing especially I thought was really profound was the whole idea early on where you talk about the gospel of Middle America, and you used the phrase that it’s kind of like our folk religion here in the West. Do you remember some of that? Could you maybe briefly, for someone who hasn’t read the book, just mention what you meant by that?

Anthony: Yeah. When I talk about folk religion, it’s somewhat of a technical term that refers to what the people happen to believe versus the official doctrine of the church. I used the example of Appalachian magic that gets mixed with the Dutch Reformed tradition.

Jon: Hang on, hang on. You have to stop when you're in the Appalachia. They're called the Appalachian Mountains. That is Appalachian.

Anthony: Oh no, I forgot that. I should have been banned from the podcast.

Jon: Everyone, there’ll be no misinformation on this show. Please carry on—the Appalachian Mountains.

Anthony: I probably didn’t even say that right still, but that’s close enough. I'll give you points. You can see a big difference between Dutch Reformed theology and what the church officially believes and then what’s happening—a lot of spiritual nuance playing out in the real world, as people live their day-to-day lives.

That's what I think we have in the West, especially in the United States. This isn't true for all of the Western world, but there's a general sense of, "I'm a Christian because I live in the United States." Depending on what research poll you pull up today, anywhere from 70 to 80 percent of people still poll saying they are Christians of some kind. And yet for a lot of those people, they’re never stepping foot in a church or anything else. They have a general sense of, "I believe Jesus died for my sins, I believe I'm a sinner, and I believe I'm going to heaven when I die," but they don't really know much more than that.

That's what I mean by folk religion. Those statements are true at least in a sense or in a form, but they’re a far cry from the fullness of what the Scriptures teach. So that’s what I mean when I say folk religion or the gospel of Middle America. I’m using "Middle America" less technically, just to say the gospel of Middle America refers to what people happen to believe here. Middle America is kind of a marketing term—a way of referring to the general consensus of the people in the United States, which is impossible to capture, but it’s a way of targeting people broadly. That's just where I think we’re at.

Kaleb: Yeah. I thought that was so powerful. The word that came to me when I read that in your book was syncretism. In the Scriptures, especially in the Old Testament, that was one of the main problems Yahweh had with His people—this syncretism where they’re worshiping all these other gods. They think, "Hey, I can have this, that, and the other too," whereas Yahweh, man, in the Ten Commandments—the first two are: you serve no one else, no one but Me alone.

I think you clued in on something that's really important in our time, which is that danger of syncretism—of Jesus plus other stuff. That really spoke to me. I thought that was awesome.

Anthony: That's awesome. I actually think there's even another level you can take that. I forget if this shows up in the book or where, but if you think about when Yahweh says, "Have no other gods before Me," part of that isn’t just, "Don’t have them above Me"—though that’s part of it.

It also makes me think of the way that when Rome began their conquest of the world, they started to say, "Greek Zeus, Roman Jupiter—same thing, right?" And we get hints that that same type of syncretism was happening in the Old Testament. As the Jewish people—the Israelites—began to interact with the Canaanites, there was a temptation to say, "Baal, Yahweh—aren’t we really talking about the same thing here?" There’s a certain degree to which that appears to be happening, and that was fine with the pagan nations. But not within the Torah. Not within the law of God.

We do need to be very careful about that kind of syncretism, because it's obviously rampant today—this idea of saying, "Judaism, Islam, whatever other religious idea—it’s all the same thing; we're all looking at the same God."

Kaleb: Right. Right. No, I thought that was really profound. You did a great job with that. Loved it. So I just have a couple of—Jon mentioned the word "qualms," which I won't try to spell right now—but just a couple of things in the book that I have more questions about. So Jon, if that's okay, I'd just like to ask Anthony a couple.

Jon: Yeah, brother. Roll it along—couple more questions.

Kaleb: Totally. So Anthony, there are a couple of moments in the book where—I don't know about you guys, but I'm just an information nerd. When I get a book, I don't like endnotes, I like footnotes. Put it all right there. Let me see it in front of my face. I don't want to be flipping back and forth.

There were a couple of moments in the book, which was so good, where I was just wanting more info. And I was thinking about some people I know who are maybe unfamiliar with some of these ideas. Like here on Two Trees, you guys do a great job of unpacking the uncanny and the strange and weird corners of the Bible.

On page 62, in your chapter on the Kingdom Gospel, you mention the Sons of God—which a lot of the listeners here would be familiar with. You mention the Sons of God appointed by God as judges after the division of the nations at Babel in Deuteronomy 32:8. But I was thinking about friends of mine, people I know, and realizing there are some people who might read that, then go look in their Bible and wonder, "Why does my version not say that?" It might have, like, "sons of Israel" there instead of "sons of God."

What would you say to readers confused by ‘sons of God’ versus ‘sons of Israel’ in Deuteronomy 32?

What would you say to someone who is reading that in your book but is unfamiliar with the Divine Council or the Deuteronomy 32 worldview and is kind of new to that framework?

Anthony: Man, Caleb, that question gets at the heart of so many conversations that I had with my editors. Because on one hand, I wanted this book to be the kind of thing that if you were a good reader, you could just read over a weekend. I think that's largely what we produced, although there are some spots where some of the higher-level thinking kind of got left in.

And then there are spots, like what you pointed out, where maybe I needed more—that I assumed knowledge that wasn’t there. So you're absolutely right. This is a really fair criticism, and it's a reflection of the type of things we were trying to work through to make this the kind of book where somebody wouldn't need six months to read it and get to the end without being able to envision the thrust of the whole book.

It was constantly a time of leaving things out, adding things in. And this is one that, honestly, really hasn't come up much. But I get asked this question constantly. I was even on the Biblical Reenchantment podcast just one or two episodes ago, and my co-host asked me, "Hey, I was trying to talk to somebody about Psalm 82 or Deuteronomy 32, and we went there, and they said 'sons of Israel.' What do I do with that?" He just blindsided me with that question on the podcast, which was great.

So yeah, you're absolutely right—it should probably be in there. I do think that anybody who has that question, if they Google it, they're going to get a decent explanation right there in that AI-generated Google snippet at the top. But it is a profound question.

I think the big thing I would point people to is just the reality that there are different text traditions. And you can probably already anticipate why this got left out. It wasn't really in the scope of the book for me to try to evaluate all the text traditions and argue for a single text tradition. So I instead assumed my perspective. But perhaps a note about this would have been helpful.

I believe that the most original reading is "Sons of God." I believe that partly from looking at the Dead Sea Scrolls material and other Second Temple literature that we've had for much longer than the Dead Sea Scrolls.

One of the things that I definitely see as a pattern in the Second Temple literature, most notably parts of the New Testament—let’s say, for example, Jude, which quotes First Enoch, Jubilees, the set of fragments and scrolls we call the Book of Giants from the Second Temple period—and a handful of other places, is where we see a supernatural interpretation of Deuteronomy 32 and Psalm 82.

I also find it interesting that there are places Deuteronomy 32 points to within the biblical canon, if we read it as "Sons of God," that it doesn’t point to if we interpret it as "sons of Israel." You start to get a shifting in the narrative. I think we get a more consistent look at the Old Testament if we figure that Second Temple Jews were at least largely—or many of them—thinking of the Deuteronomy 32 "Sons of God" as angelic beings, and we assume a supernatural interpretation.

Then we see that reflected in the New Testament, and then acknowledged by the earliest Apostolic Fathers. We don’t really get much pushback on it until Augustine in the fourth century. So I think when we see that patterning, it points us to that reality. It's really that Old Testament to New Testament to Apostolic Fathers pattern that is important to me.

Jon: I just wanted to jump in here and say why I’m glad you didn’t jump into the weeds in that area. I’m as interested in giants, Nephilim, and the weird corners of the Bible as anyone you're going to meet. But I also know that our movement—if you want to call it that, the people who are interested in the giants, in Deuteronomy 32, Psalm 89, Psalm 82—gets the criticism that that’s all we want to talk about.

And I loved that you came with this understanding as your background. I guess what I’m trying to say is that we need books about this controversy—The Unseen Realm was revolutionary for me—but we also need books on other topics written by people who already know this content, so that we're not just in an echo chamber talking amongst ourselves.

Especially as a podcaster, this is hard, because podcast land is filled with niche interests, and people only want you to talk about this one particular thing. I loved that you were able to take that idea—and when I first read it, like Caleb is saying, I was like, "Oh man, a footnote would be cool here"—but when I was reading it in the moment, it didn’t even cross my mind. I just followed what you were doing.

I think that's a powerful statement: not to say, "Okay, I feel the need to justify each one of my thoughts," but to say, "At this point, Dr. Heiser has written. John Walton has written. There’s loads of information about this." And to not feel the urge to defend it at every step, but to just say, "This is truth. If you want to know more about that, go study that."

I don’t think—and I say this not just for your book, but for the people who are creating their own content—you have to defend this in every conversation you have. It's important, and I got this from C.S. Lewis. He said we maybe don't need fewer books on Christianity, but we need books on other topics written by Christians. I think there’s a power to that—not just staying in our lane and beating that one drum, but then saying, "Okay, this is there. How does this affect the rest of the flow of the story?"

I thought you did that without drawing too much attention to it. Your discussion of the gods, your discussion of how we interact in community—it flowed. I can totally understand Caleb, and I think anyone who has that passion for Divine Council Worldview is going to look for the footnote. But at the moment when I was reading it, I was like, "Okay, I see what’s going on here."

Anthony: Yeah, and it’s not that—well, first of all, it’s not that kind of book. I didn’t want anybody to be burdened by the footnotes. But also, that's what I do in my preaching. I emphasize the story of Scripture, and I will unapologetically explain the story of the Scripture.

And so it's weird because if you have this thing about fallen angels, the sons of God, and you just tell it within the flow of the story, you get a better story. Story is actually what convinces people of things. I've talked about this a lot on my podcast. I think it came up a couple of times in the book—especially chapter nine—story is so important to the way worldview and belief systems are shaped.

Sure, somebody might be reading along and go, "Oh my goodness, sons of—what does that mean?" But as they keep reading, what's going to happen is they'll go, "Oh, but if we don't interpret it that way, then none of this story makes sense." I like to not break from the narrative and really just tell the story, and then see how the story leads to fruit.

So yeah, it’s absolutely great feedback, and all I can say is—that's why I didn’t put it in there.

Kaleb: No, that makes perfect sense. And I love what you guys are saying about the Scriptures. It reminds me of one thing Heiser would say: people don’t have to be protected from their Bibles. God doesn’t need you to defend Him—just let God’s Word speak for itself in its own context.

You know, John, I know you mentioned John Walton—that’s something he would talk about too. To really get into the story of the Scriptures, you have to get out of the cultural river you're currently in—your modern or postmodern context—and ask, "What would it be like to live in that cultural river, in that context, in that time, in that language, in that period of history?"

When we do that, and we really engage the biblical story with people, it's really beautiful. It's a lot of fun.

Jon: I think so. And I think you nailed that in your review too. First of all, I know who you are from talking online and everything, but I was like, "Man, this guy understands." And he also understands that this is a conversation—this is a question. He's dealing with not just, "How do modern-day people read this?" but, "How do I communicate this to people?"

If both of you guys are in ministry, you know that a big part of our preparation isn't just, "Okay, I now understand the topic." It's, "Now how do I bring this to people?" Whether that’s through the writing of music, the performing of a song, or the writing of a book—we have to be creative and purposeful in bringing the information to the people.

Even little things, like Caleb, I loved the design of your page. It was aesthetically pleasing. Just looking at it, I thought, "I want to read this." Things like that may seem small, but it's all part of communicating something lovely and taking a conversation a step farther. I think both of you guys did a great job with that.

Kaleb: Thank you. Thank you.

Jon: Yeah.

Where can readers find research like the statistic you cite about Christians questioning the Old Testament?

Kaleb: Anthony, another thing I was really curious about—you had a couple times where you included some really interesting data. Early on, I think it was page 29, you had a piece of research that said the data suggests up to 40% of Christians question the necessity of the Old Testament for someone to believe the gospel of Jesus.

As a youth pastor, I’m on high school campuses every week. I love that data—that helps me a lot. So I guess the thing I was wondering is, what would you say for someone who’s looking for ways to find some of that data and research? Maybe someone who doesn’t have the tools or doesn’t know where to go to find it? What would you say to equip readers to kind of equip themselves with some of that information?

Anthony: Yeah. I believe that specific piece of data—the one about 40% of Christians questioning the necessity of the Old Testament—came from the State of Theology survey. I think it was the 2022 or 2023 version, not the 2024 that's currently published. And, yeah, you're right.

But it was complicated because it was inspired by a study I was reading from Pew Research. So, all of this stuff is readily available, but you're right to ask, "Where do you tell somebody who doesn't know where to go to find it?" It does take a lot of thinking through—like, how else might they be talking about this?

I didn't go look at the raw data to pull that statistic. It was more a meandering pathway of reading various analyses that had been done using either Pew Research data, Lifeway Research data, or reading through the data on State of Theology. The reason that particular point didn’t have a citation is because there wasn’t one single place I could point to and say, "Here’s where this data came from." By the time it got to the form it appears in the book, it was kind of a synthesis.

We actually talked about pulling it out because it wasn’t citable. I would have needed to write a paper referencing the studies to have something to cite properly. But we felt it was an important point to keep in. Sometimes it just comes down to the realities of the publishing process.

I’ve written a number of books, but I've only published two. When I used to write just for writing's sake, these are the kinds of things you don't think about—like, how will this come across, what do you keep in, and what do you cut out? This was another one of those hard decisions.

I think what I would say is, if you're interested in that kind of data, start following those three sources. Start following Pew Research’s blog on their website. Start doing the same for Lifeway Research. Familiarize yourself with the State of Theology survey. Those are broadly Christian resources. State of Theology is more Protestant, and Lifeway obviously has a more evangelical bent.

Kaleb: Okay. I think that now—oh, go ahead, Jon.

Jon: I was just going to say that number feels right. When I think about how hard I have to work sometimes to get people to care about the Old Testament, or to be at all interested in the symbolism and that kind of thing, it feels about right. I can't cite a number either, but just from my personal experience, it lines up. I have a lot of time invested in trying to get people to see, "Hey, you should read your Old Testament. It will help you understand Jesus."

Kaleb: Mm-hmm.

Jon: Yep. Absolutely.

Kaleb: So, Anthony, you mentioned the word Protestant. Speaking of that, I had just another question. You’ve got a chapter on Gospel Family—and for everybody listening right now—it is so, so good. It might be my favorite section of the entire book because I just think family is such an indispensable element of the story of the Scriptures.

Anthony, I love your imagery of that being one of the big spokes in the wheel that is the gospel. For all of us who are ministering in a Western Protestant context, there’s a moment where you talk about Mary—just conceptually as incarnation mother—and you mention Mary’s virginity as an ecclesiological concept in that chapter.

How should Protestants think about the imagery of Mary and ecclesiology that you use?

I'm not asking about perpetual virginity—we would need three podcasts for that, that's a whole long thing. But I was thinking, for those who are dyed-in-the-wool, born-and-raised Protestants who might read that and say, "Man, that kind of stuff sounds like Marian dogma," and they're leery of Orthodox or Catholic theology as sources, where would you point them to—as a pastor and as a scholar?

Anthony: Mm-hmm. I would just honestly remind people—and I think I say it there in the chapter—that I’m unapologetically Protestant. I would remind people that we share, and this is me throwing out a number, but probably 80% of our theology with the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church. We agree on far more than we disagree on.

If that’s true, and if all theology has developed across now two millennia of time, then I don't think we need to be afraid of anything that smells like Catholicism. We aren’t Protestants without Catholicism, honestly. If you really go read Luther’s theses, the list of things he wanted changed in the Catholic Church is actually pretty short.

So I would just remind people that we don't need to be as afraid of things just because they sound Catholic. Now, this is a good example of where some higher-level thinking gets snuck into the book. But I wanted people to see that this imagery is present in the Scriptures—the idea that the church’s responsibility, as symbolized in Mary, is like the birthing of sons of God.

I wanted people to see that patterning. Jim Hamilton calls this typology. If you follow someone like Jonathan Pageau, who’s Eastern Orthodox, he’ll call it symbology. They’re fairly similar ideas in the way they unpack them. Jim Hamilton has a far more symbolic view of typology than most people think of when they think of type and anti-type.

But what it boils down to at the end of the day is the ability to recognize patterns that exist across Scripture. And that’s what I did in every chapter of the book. I kind of started in Genesis and ended in Revelation—not always precisely—but I traced the narrative from the Old Testament, through the Second Temple literature, through the New Testament, and here and there gave a shoutout to the Church Fathers, trying to show the way ideas progress and exist as theological threads throughout Scripture.

This is just one of those places where, when you do take a symbolic or typological look at the Scriptures, you're going to see ideas about Mary pop up in other places. We just need to be okay with that. You don’t have to believe in the perpetual virginity of Mary if you don't want to. Honestly, I don’t think it’s a terribly dangerous doctrine—as long as you don't hang your hat on it as an essential dogma. I don’t even see the perpetual virginity of Mary as something worth arguing about.

That's me, though. I have a little bit of an ecumenical bent to me—not broadly ecumenical, but enough that I want to learn from everybody: what’s right, what’s not right. So anyway, that’s why it’s in there. I wanted people to see it. I did kind of want to get some people on edge, but I also wanted them to say, "Okay, I can accept this part of the paradigm."

Jon: I think that's a good answer. I had my mic turned down there for a minute, sorry. We are at the 40-minute mark here, and we try to shoot for around an hour. So I want to make sure that we're hitting a lot of the other content here.

So Caleb, you said there were a few statements that could have used some more qualifying. What do you want him to qualify? What were some parts that left you wanting him to dig in more?

Kaleb: Yeah, sure. So, alright. This first one is really interesting to me regarding Satan, because I'm actually writing a little bit about Satan and the kingdom of darkness right now. So Anthony, we'll have to sidebar later since you're writing about that too.

Did Satan have a chance at repentance before he entered Judas?

At one point in the book, you wrote about Satan, and you mentioned that the pinnacle event in his turning to the dark side—the moment of no return—is when he possesses Judas in Luke 22. And I was just thinking, first impression reading it, I couldn’t tell if your suggestion there is that, like, the question people ask, you know: Could Satan have repented? Would he have repented prior to Judas’ betrayal?

So I finagled a whole review and twisted Jon's arm to get you on the podcast. I've got you here now. I don't have a dog in the fight. I'm just curious to hear you elaborate on that a little bit—what you think.

Anthony: Oh man. So this is an interesting question to turn to if we only have 20 minutes left. I just want to say—that was an interesting decision.

Jon: We'll go as long as we need to go.

Anthony: Okay, I'm fine with that. So, the passages you're referring to—Luke 22:3, "Satan entered Judas," and John 13:27, "Judas ate the piece of bread and Satan entered him"—these are where we get the idea that Judas was, I don't love the terminology, but you could say possessed or demonized by Satan himself.

I've gotten this question before when I've talked about this in other contexts. But no matter how you parse it, let's frame it this way: there was a time when Satan was not damned. Now, some people want to put Satan's fall before creation, but Satan existed—and existed as not damned—at some point. Right?

So there has to have been, no matter where you place it, a point where Satan was not yet condemned. I'm going to put his full-on fall at the incarnation. Other people won't do that, and that’s okay—they may read Milton that way. But either way, there was a time when he wasn't damned, followed by a time when he was damned.

Certainly, there are prophecies in the Old Testament where you get ideas about his condemnation. But the real question is: do these prophecies point backward or forward? If you're reading, say, Ezekiel—do they point upward to an original fall, or backward to a fall that coincides with events like the incarnation?

For purposes of this question, it almost doesn’t matter where you put it—as long as you understand there’s a time when Satan wasn’t damned and a time when he was.

Now, biblical theology—different from systematic theology—is about the unfolding narrative. It's about theological inferences we make as the text unfolds across the biblical storyline. Systematic theology, by contrast, reflects on everything the Scriptures teach and tries to construct a dogmatic framework.

So your question actually flows more from a systematic perspective, asking: Could Satan have repented? The book, and the statement you're reading from, is approaching it from a biblical theology angle.

You look at something like Revelation 12, which details the fall of Satan at the incarnation events when he was cast out of heaven and fell to earth. This is based on what we call a three-tiered cosmology—heaven, earth, and under the earth. You can Google "three-tiered cosmology" and find lots of great diagrams if readers want a visual.

They weren't thinking about the universe scientifically and materialistically the way we do today; it was a spiritual heaven-earth-underworld paradigm. In Revelation 12, Satan is being demoted. He’s cast out of heaven to earth—and that's why Satan is still active. He's here because that's where he was cast.

Then, in the storyline, in Revelation 20:10, he is vanquished to the lake of fire—an eternal condemnation.

Whether that’s an eternally conscious situation for Satan—or not—that's a different question. Or for anybody else, I suppose, for that matter. But Satan is not under the earth, you could say, until Revelation 20, after Christ returns.

There are two ways to look at this. If we look at it from God's perspective—which is more systematic theology—He knows that Satan will betray Him. So if we ask, "Can Satan do anything other than what God has seen?" the answer is no.

But when we do biblical theology, looking through the narrative and analyzing it within the flow of time and reality that we experience moment by moment, then from that biblical theological perspective, could Satan have just not indwelt Judas? From that perspective, the answer is yes.

It appears within the narrative that divine beings share the same kind of free will or free agency that humans have—however we want to define that.

So, I realize I’m not quite at the core of the question yet because all I’ve argued so far is that from a biblical theological perspective, Satan could have chosen not to indwell Judas. But then that makes us think about the things Satan has done in his rebellion before that moment.

Up until that point, we definitely know—and this was the statement I made—that Judas' possession was the pinnacle event of Satan’s full turn to the dark side, so to speak. Which is funny to say because he’s the archetype of the dark side, right? He’s the caricature of it. But still, that’s the language we use.

Your question is basically: if Satan hadn’t indwelled Judas, would he have been considered repentant and thus escaped the lake of fire?

Some things to consider: if we go back to Genesis 6, which we already briefly mentioned, the angels who sinned in Genesis 6, we’re told in Jude 6, are chained in gloomy darkness—already judged and awaiting the lake of fire. Satan isn't there, though.

And First Enoch tells us that before the angels of Genesis 6 are chained up, they were first cast down to earth—not unlike Satan in Revelation 12. They're not immediately sent into gloomy chains; they're on earth. It’s a three-tiered cosmology thing—heaven, earth, and under the earth.

Now, Jude sees them in gloomy darkness. So what's the disconnect? Especially when Jude is quoting First Enoch in Jude 6? Well, if you develop that—and for Two Trees listeners, a reminder: First Enoch is not canon in any major Christian tradition—but that doesn't mean it isn't inspired at all, or that it isn’t true in parts. We don’t need to settle the inspiration argument to know that people in Jesus’ day were reading it.

In First Enoch, after the watchers were cast to earth, they go on to teach secret knowledge to humans that they weren’t supposed to share. So there's this expansion of rebellion.

In the Satan narrative, he's cast out of heaven to earth—just like the watchers—but he isn’t immediately chained. That's why he’s still active. Revelation 20:11–15 describes the final judgment: a great white throne, the dead judged, and if anyone’s name isn’t written in the Book of Life, they're thrown into the lake of fire—including Satan.

So the question becomes: could Satan’s name have ever been written in the Book of Life?

Even if he didn’t indwell Judas, didn’t he already sin? Based on Revelation 20, and based on the larger canonical witness, the answer is that Satan would still face judgment.

Could he have escaped the lake of fire if he repented? From a systematic theology perspective, the answer is no—because God has already prophesied that he would not repent.

But from a biblical theological perspective, as we consider the unfolding of the story, the answer might be "maybe." That’s the tension you feel in the narrative.

I know that was a lot of background, and I apologize.

Kaleb: No, it's great.

Anthony: What we call "angelic redemption"—especially in Protestant and evangelical circles—is basically treated as heresy. Don’t even bring it up.

I think the idea of angelic redemption is wrong. I don't actually think it's true. But there were no less than a handful of Church Fathers who argued for the possibility of angelic redemption.

Forgive me—I didn't prepare citations for that because I didn’t know I was going to bring it up. But it’s out there. A few Church Fathers argued for it.

Anthony: I know, I know! But really, even though it’s not a major point, if you’re tracing the biblical theology carefully, you almost want to believe—even if it's just for a second—that Satan could have decided to do the right thing.

And that's what's happening as you read the story. You're like, "Gosh, I can't believe that Satan, who's been prophesied to be destroyed, just keeps digging his heels in more." It just gets worse and worse and worse until Jesus says, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." It just keeps escalating.

But we are supposed to read it as though Satan could be redeemed from a biblical theology standpoint, and yet affirm from a systematic standpoint: no, absolutely not. Some people don’t like that I talk about biblical and systematic theology that way. I don't like labels a whole lot, but I'm more Reformed in my systematic theology and more Arminian in my biblical theology.

The reason for that is because Reformed soteriology is a systematic theology, whereas Arminian theology is more of a biblical theology. All of the arguments for free will and free agency—they're coming from the narrative flow of the text.

I'm not trying to synthesize the two. It’s just that if I’m doing biblical theology, I'm going to sound like an Arminian. And if I'm doing systematic theology, I'm going to sound like a Calvinist. And I'm totally okay with that. But a lot of people don't like that. They’ll say, "You can't be both; that doesn’t make any sense."

I want you to understand—I'll give you an illustration. This is how we watch movies. When my wife and I are watching a movie, she's always trying to figure out what's going to happen at the end. She knows she's not supposed to tell me, but sometimes she does—she’ll say, "Oh, it's going to be that guy that killed them," or whatever. She's always trying to figure it out ahead of time.

She’s the systematics. She’s stepping outside the movie, trying to put the pieces together to know what’s going to happen.

My brain is doing that too, but I took a film and literature class in college and decided I didn't want to ruin movies for myself anymore. So I just fight that impulse and want to experience the movie scene by scene. I'm doing biblical theology when I watch a movie. She's doing systematic theology. But we're watching the same movie.

That's what I want people to understand with this sort of thing. We can ask, "Could Satan repent?" and on one hand, say, "Yes," from a biblical theology standpoint. On the other hand, we can say, "Absolutely not," because it's been prophesied, signed, and sealed—from a systematic standpoint.

And that’s okay. We're both reading the same Bible. We're still following the same narrative.

Anyway, I told you that was going to be a long explanation.

Jon: No, I’ve not really thought about it that way before. You’ve intrigued my mind. I'm going to chew on this for the rest of the day—well, probably longer than that.

We’re at the one-hour point here, guys. So what I’m actually going to do is ask you a question. Would you guys mind—I'm just thinking on the spot here—but I would really love to get some more back-and-forth.

How would you feel about a joint article, where Caleb asks a question, and we get a response from Anthony over the next couple of weeks? I mean, it’s only Holy Week, so you don’t have much to do, right? But could we move the format from vocal into more of a "dear friend, Screwtape Letters" kind of back-and-forth article?

Anthony: Yeah, I think that’d be a blast. Yeah, we could do that.

Jon: Alright, because definitely we have more content, more questions that Caleb has, and I want Anthony to have the opportunity to do this. So look for this online. If I decide—or they decide—"Jon, why are you giving me work? I don't want to do that," I may just have them come back on an episode and wrap it up that way.

But guys, where can people go to hear you guys speak, hear you guys play, encounter your writings? Where would you direct people to get more involved in your ministries?

Anthony: Do you want to go first, Caleb?

Kaleb: Sure. You can find me on Substack. I have a page there where I write called Highways to Zion. I write anything from theology, worship issues facing the modern church—I love dabbling in a little bit of ancient mythology, ancient history, languages, and a little poetry here and there.

I'm on social media as well. You can find me there. Would love to connect with any of you.

And then one other really cool thing I was blessed to be a part of—I helped produce a prayer album that our church recorded for our people. Our heart was really just to facilitate sacred moments. It's available on Apple, Spotify—it’s called Abide (one word, all caps) by Canyon Hills Music. There are some really beautiful pieces there for people to put on in the car, during devotional time, or whatever it might be.

Anthony: That's awesome. I'm going to check that out, Caleb.

For me, sort of my hub is anthonydelgado.net, and I would recommend anyone who wants to broadly see what I'm doing to sign up for the mailing list there. That’s the funnel for everything—whether it’s when this podcast goes live, or when I write an article.

I'm not consistent with anything I do—sometimes I'll write three articles in a week, and then not write one for three months. Sometimes I’ll release two podcast episodes on the Biblical Reenchantment podcast and then nothing for a while.

So I just recommend anthonydelgado.net—sign up for the mailing list. It's not an annoying one. I'm not trying to sell anything. It’s just a digest.

And if you're interested in The Gospel is Bigger Than You Think or my earlier book The Watchers and the Holy Ones, both are available on Amazon.

Kaleb: Yep—got mine here! (holds up book)

Anthony: I got mine here too. Where’s yours, Jon?

Jon: It's on my phone!

Anthony: Ah, okay, that works. So yeah, that's where you can find me.

I’ve also—I've never said this on a podcast before—but it’s become a thing recently: if you want to follow my sermons, which are thoroughly Divine Council Worldview saturated, you can go to Palmdale Church. That's the church I pastor—creatively titled Palmdale Church in Palmdale, California. You can follow sermons and other content there as well.

And I did have a couple of notes about The Gospel is Bigger Than You Think. We are finally in the process of translating it into Spanish. As long as there are no roadblocks, I’m hoping in a few months we'll have the Spanish version out.

We've also commissioned an illustrator to work on a kids' version of The Gospel is Bigger Than You Think. Immediately after reading the book, a number of people asked, "What does this mean for kids' ministry?" and showed me curriculum samples and said, "I can’t use this now because I see the gospel not as less than what the curriculum says, but as bigger."

So a kids' version of the book is the first step toward that, and hopefully both the Spanish and the kids’ versions will be out by the end of the year. Both are currently in process.

Jon: That would be awesome. Guys, I can't thank you enough for coming together and just continuing the conversation.

I really think that the church throws a lot of rocks at one another, and I think it's very meaningful for us to sit down and just talk—and to listen to one another. Whether you buy everything or you're just thinking about it, I hope you had several takeaways and thought, "Hey, that was fun. I enjoyed thinking about that."

I think that's the fun of family and being together—and talking this way. So brothers, thank you so much for coming onto the Two Trees and taking your conversations into a public forum where more people can benefit from that back and forth.

So guys, thank you very much, and to my listeners, thank you for listening to the Two Trees Podcast. Please remember that the Lord your God is the God of gods, the Lord of lords, King of kings, mighty and awesome.

Anthony Delgado
Next

Christus Victor and the Divine Council: Divine Council Worldview Podcast (EP024)