Seeing the Unseen Realm
Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of Revelation
Revelation is often treated like a coded message about the end of the world. But the more closely we read it, the more we realize that it's not just about future events; it's about unseen realities happening right now.
John isn't just giving us a glimpse of what's to come. He's pulling back the curtain to show what has always been true: that behind the politics, persecution, and powers of this world is a greater spiritual conflict: a cosmic war between the Lamb and the dragon, between the kingdom of God and the forces of evil.
This kind of worldview may seem foreign to modern readers, but the early Church was deeply saturated with this perspective, and the supernatural realm is deeply embedded in the biblical narrative. From Genesis to Revelation, Scripture describes not just a God who reigns in heaven but a divine realm filled with spiritual beings—some loyal, others hostile—who interact with the human world in significant ways.
Dr. Michael Heiser referred to this as the Divine Council worldview. This framework helps us make sense of the supernatural backdrop behind Scripture's most difficult passages. Heiser's work doesn't invent a new system. It recovers an old one that the biblical authors already assumed and is the culmination of decades of scholarly work. While Heiser gathered and popularized the data, he wasn't the first to recognize it.
Once we understand this worldview, the Book of Revelation comes into sharper focus. Revelation doesn't invent new ideas about spiritual warfare, rebellion, or angelic powers. It reveals what's already been unfolding since the beginning. And if we don't learn to see what John saw, we'll misread the book entirely.
To understand Revelation, we need to recover the unseen realm.
The Divine Council in the Biblical Story
Modern Christians have inherited a flattened view of the spiritual world: one where God is in heaven, angels occasionally appear to deliver messages, and Satan lurks in the background as a vague embodiment of evil. But that's not the worldview of the Bible.
The Scriptures present a much more populated and structured supernatural realm, one that includes a divine council; a heavenly assembly of spiritual beings who serve, represent, and at times rebel against the Most High God.
In Psalm 82, God takes His place "in the divine council" and passes judgment "among the gods" (elohim), condemning their corruption and announcing their coming fall (Ps 82:1, 6–7). In Deuteronomy 32:8–9, we're told that when God divided the nations at Babel, He assigned them "according to the number of the sons of God," but Yahweh kept Israel for Himself. This depicts a world governed by lesser spiritual beings, some of whom became corrupt. In Job 1–2, we see "the sons of God" presenting themselves before Yahweh, a formal setting where heavenly matters are deliberated even as the Accuser (Satan) moves among them. In Daniel 10, we get a glimpse of cosmic conflict where angelic "princes" contend over the fate of nations, reinforcing the idea that earthly events are shaped by unseen spiritual forces.
Heiser argued that these passages and others describe a real, structured divine realm. Not a mythological metaphor but a supernatural bureaucracy with loyal and rebellious beings interacting with human history. These spiritual powers are what Paul refers to as the "principalities and powers" (Eph 6:12). In Revelation, they take center stage, and much of John's vision assumes you already know this.
Revelation's Supernatural Landscape
If the Divine Council is the theological foundation, Revelation is the architectural blueprint. Nearly every scene in the book takes place in or around the unseen realm.
The throne room in Revelation 4–5 is the clearest example. John is taken "in the Spirit" and sees a throne in heaven surrounded by twenty-four elders, four living creatures, lightning, fire, and the seven spirits of God. It's a heavenly court scene, echoing the divine councils of Isaiah 6 and Ezekiel 1. Here, the Lamb is revealed not only as the slain Savior but as the one worthy to open the scroll and execute God's plan for the world. This entire sequence presumes a structured supernatural reality complete with worship, authority, deliberation, and decree.
The seven spirits of God (Rev 1:4; 4:5) represent the fullness of the Spirit but also align with the seven archangels in Second Temple literature. The twenty-four elders symbolize the totality of God's priestly and prophetic representatives—twelve tribes + twelve apostles—now enthroned alongside God. The beast from the sea (Rev 13) and the dragon (Rev 12) are not simply metaphors for human empires; they are spiritual powers animating and corrupting human systems in the pattern of Daniel and Job's visions. The stars often refer to angelic beings (Rev 1:20; 9:1), consistent with their use in Isaiah 14 and Daniel 8. The abyss, sea, and mountains aren't just physical features; they are loaded with theological meaning tied to ancient concepts of chaos, disorder, and divine presence.
Margaret Barker and G.K. Beale both emphasize that John's imagery cannot be flattened into purely historical or earthly categories. The scenes he describes are rooted in cosmic geography, a symbolic worldview in which heaven and earth are deeply intertwined and where unseen beings participate in real events.
To read Revelation faithfully, we must recover the Bible's supernatural landscape.
The War in Heaven and the Fall of the Watchers
One of the most dramatic scenes in Revelation is found in chapter 12, where war breaks out in heaven. Michael and his angels fight against the dragon and his angels. The dragon, identified as "that ancient serpent" and "the one called the devil and Satan", is defeated and thrown down to earth (Rev 12:7–9).
The scene is deeply rooted in biblical theology, particularly in a tradition that dates back to Genesis 3, Genesis 6, and Daniel 10, where spiritual beings rebelled against God and influenced the world in destructive ways, battling behind the scenes of earthly empires.
Heiser ties this directly to the Watcher tradition, the idea that certain sons of God (bene Elohim) rebelled by leaving their proper domain and corrupting humanity. This is most clearly seen in Genesis 6:1–4 and further developed in the Book of 1 Enoch. This Second Temple Jewish text heavily shaped the apocalyptic imagination of John's audience. Once again, Revelation doesn't introduce anything new. John didn't invent the concept of cosmic rebellion; he built on it.
In Revelation 12, that rebellion is cast in military terms. A war in heaven breaks out, and Satan is cast down. But he's not powerless; he's enraged, active, and determined to deceive the nations. Heiser argues that this war in heaven is part of what Jesus came to reverse. The mission of the Messiah isn't just to forgive sin but to undo the influence of the Watchers, reclaim the nations, restore divine order, and ultimately crush the chaos they unleashed.
The imagery of the dragon being cast down after Christ's exaltation mirrors the judgment of the Watchers in 1 Enoch. It's apocalyptic shorthand for a cosmic victory already won but not yet complete. This explains why Revelation is so urgent. The dragon's been defeated in heaven, but now the battlefield is earth.
Unseen but Not Unreal
If Revelation feels strange, it's because we've forgotten the world it assumes. Post-Enlightenment Christianity has lost much of the supernatural sensitivity that God's people felt for thousands of years. John wasn't imagining a new reality. He was unveiling the one that's always been there: the spiritual realm that shapes earthly events, the cosmic conflict behind human history, and the deeper war that every Christian is caught up in.
The modern Church often either flattens the supernatural or obsesses over it. Revelation does neither. It shows us a world alive with angels and thrones, dragons and beasts, worship and warfare, and it invites us to see ourselves within that story. The battle still rages, and the Church still stands between heaven and earth, called to faithfulness in the middle of it all.
Understanding Revelation means recovering the unseen realm. The real danger isn't that we'll see too much; it's that we'll miss what's been there all along.
Citations:
Barker, Margaret. The Revelation of Jesus Christ. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000.
Beale, G. K. The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text. New International Greek Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013.
Gorman, Michael J. Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness—Following the Lamb into the New Creation. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2011.
Heiser, Michael S. Reversing Hermon: Enoch, the Watchers and the Forgotten Mission of Jesus Christ. Crane, MO: Defender Publishing, 2017.
———. The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2015.