|

REVISED THIRD EDITION
POSTED
01 MARCH, 2009
To
Be Absent From the Body
by
J.K. McKee
editor@tnnonline.net
revised and expanded third edition
Death is one of the most difficult topics that any human being ever
has to deal with. None of us likes dealing with the death of a
family member, a close friend, or even people we do not know but
still admire. Many people regularly visit the gravesite of a
loved one, whereas others have their remains cremated and
scattered into the wind. Even if you do not regularly visit a
cemetery where your loved one may be buried, thoughts and
memories of the deceased will undoubtedly still come to your
mind from time to time, and the last memory you may have of such
a person—that of your loved one’s funeral—is perhaps what you
remember.
The Holy Scriptures give us as Believers a great deal of comfort,
as we know that we will see those who die in the faith again.
Those of us who believe in the doctrine of resurrection know
that a gravesite is not the final destination. The Apostle Paul,
writing to the Thessalonicans who had not originally grown up in
a culture of resurrection, corrected them with this instruction:
“For
the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the
voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and
the dead in Messiah will rise first. Then we who are alive and
remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to
meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the
Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words” (1
Thessalonians 4:16-18).
The doctrine of resurrection is comforting, because the process
of decomposition will be reversed. No matter how hard the
funeral industry may try to retard decay via embalming, the
placement of a body in an hermetically sealed casket, and then
the placement of a casket in a heavy airtight vault—a corpse
will still decay. But as the Scriptures so properly put it, “I
will put sinews on you, make flesh grow back on you, cover you
with skin and put breath in you that you may come alive; and you
shall know that I am the
Lord” (Ezekiel 37:6). Isaiah 26:19 likewise says, “Your
dead will live; their corpses will rise. You who lie in the
dust, awake and shout for joy.” The resurrection of our Lord
Yeshua should assure us that those who have died in faith will
also be resurrected, with bodies that will live and breathe
again. “Messiah has been raised from the dead, the first fruits
of those who are asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20).
The doctrine of resurrection is something very important for
each of us to believe, especially as it concerns salvation and
what Yeshua has accomplished for us (Hebrews 9:28). Yet
undeniably connected to the doctrine of resurrection is what
happens to the deceased in the interim. What is the intermediate
condition of those who have died? Are our friends and loved
ones, who knew the Lord during their lives and were saved,
simply waiting in the ground for that day of resurrection, their
bodies decaying? Or, are our friends and loved ones, who knew
the Lord during their lives and were saved, in the presence
of the Lord, awaiting to be reunited with their bodies on
that day of resurrection?
Belief in a post-mortem afterlife, where deceased Believers wait in
Heaven in the presence of the Lord until the time of
resurrection, has come under considerable attack in the past
century, primarily from liberals, but now even from a few
conservatives. Even in our own Messianic movement, the idea that
“going to Heaven with you die” is not a Biblical teaching, has
gained much ground, even though there has been little detailed
engagement with the ramifications of such a view. The words of
the Maccabean martyrs, “For
if we so die, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob will welcome us, and
all the fathers will praise us” (4 Maccabees 13:17; cf. 9:8-9),
are not heard. Nor are the countless testimonies of faithful
Believers who have lived their lives knowing that once they die,
they will meet their Savior, having glimpses of Him in their
twilight moments. And what of the conviction of those who know
that when they worship the Lord, they join in with a company of
angels and saints who are in Heaven right now worshipping the
Lord (Hebrews 12:22-23)?
While he firmly held to the doctrine of resurrection, Paul’s own
words “My
desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better”
(Philippians 1:23, RSV), or perhaps more significantly, “I
say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at
home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8), get quickly left
out of the discussion. Frequently, it is not until one is facing
death—either the death of a loved one, or one’s own personal
death—that the subject comes up. Many, because of all of the
rhetoric that has been floating around, are confused and do not
know what to believe about the time between death and
resurrection. They do not know what to think between hearing
things about Hellenistic philosophy, the different dimensions of
life and death, Sheol and the grave, and whether or not the
human being is unique among God’s creatures.
It is easy to say that this is a topic worthy of our discussion,
lest we be confused any longer. An evaluation of the subject
matter, and an impetus not to oversimplify things, is needed.
The subject of death and resurrection is supposed to be
something elementary (Hebrews 6:1-2), meaning that it is to
already be understood by mature men and women of God. Is our
inability to understand this properly as Messianic Believers an
indication that we are not as mature as we should be? What are
the motives of Believers who are convicted that when they die
they will be immediately transported into the presence of their
Savior, and the motives of those who think that they will just
fall asleep and be buried?
Stopping the
Confusion
When surveying the debate over the intermediate state between death
and resurrection, there are people in today’s independent
Messianic community who are confused. Most of Messianic
Judaism’s position on the intermediate state between death and
resurrection has been the same as most of evangelical
Christianity: a Believer in the Messiah departs this Earth for
the presence of the Lord, with the person’s consciousness to be
returned to his or her reanimated physical body at the time of
resurrection.[1]
Today, however, instead of hearing things like “In
My Father's house are many dwelling places…” (John 14:2), many
independent Messianics will instead declare “…the dead do not
know anything…” (Ecclesiastes 9:5).
The doctrine of psychopannychy—more commonly known by the
vernacular “soul sleep”—is often not viewed as heresy in today’s
evangelical Church, but is instead viewed as a theological
aberration.[2]
I would not consider Messianics who believe in what is commonly
called “soul sleep” to be heretics, but I would consider their
interpretations of Scripture to be questionable and misguided.
Today, a sizeable number of independent and Two-House Messianics
believe in psychopannychy, or at least concede that it has valid
points. Our ministry has never advocated any kind of “soul
sleep,” always firmly adhering to the Bible’s complete teaching
of an intermediate afterlife for all people (whether in the
presence of the Lord in Heaven or separated from Him in
Hell) until the resurrection.
It has been our observation that as the independent Messianic
movement has expanded, people from traditions outside those of
mainline Judaism and evangelical Christianity have brought their
theology of psychopannchy with them.[3]
They frequently make it their duty to “correct” everyone.
This influence is often coupled with a wide amount of disrespect
that has been encouraged toward our Christian theological
heritage, and is now being coupled with disrespect toward our
Jewish theological heritage (in particular, the beliefs of the
ancient Pharisees). The doctrine of psychopannychy is now an
avant-garde teaching in many sectors of the Messianic movement,
with some actually claiming that it is “revelation” that the
Father is restoring to His people.
It has become quite en vogue in parts of today’s Messianic movement
to advocate that any belief in a disembodied afterlife is one of
the so-called “lies” of the Christian Church that must be
discarded, with information on this subject presented in a very
harsh manner. When people hear this—especially those who have
lost loved ones and have had to go through some kind of grief
counseling—they can be easily confused and not know what to do.
C.J. Koster, founder of the Institute for Scripture Research, is
quite direct in stating,
“One of the most popular doctrines of the Church is that of
‘going to heaven.’ Nobody is going to heaven. The Reign
(Kingdom) of heaven is coming to earth - that is what we read in
Scripture! The ‘going to heaven’ was a popular Pagan
doctrine.”[4]
For some of today’s Messianics, this is all that needs to be
said. Born again Believers being transported into the presence
of the Lord at time of death is a pagan doctrine, and thus it
must be rejected. We who believe in a disembodied intermediate
time in Heaven are denying the blessed hope of the resurrection
(1 Thessalonians 4:13). We are denying the reality that Heaven
is coming to Earth, and that Yeshua the Messiah will reign over
this planet. We have denied that God is concerned about
restoring the whole human person (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Further
examination with Scripture passages that strongly point to
Believers departing to an intermediate time in Heaven prior to
the resurrection is not necessary.
Yet this kind of argument leaves out some very important data: it
assumes that everyone who believes in a disembodied
intermediate state for Believers in Heaven denies the doctrine
of resurrection—which we surely do not! No one should
ever deny the fact that the orthodox Jewish and Christian
traditions—which today’s Messianic movement largely benefits
from—are united in their shared conviction that there
will be a resurrection of deceased bodies in the eschaton
(Daniel 12:2). The doctrine of resurrection sets the Biblical
message strikingly apart from paganism, because it advocates
that our Creator is very much concerned with the physical human
body every bit as much as He is concerned with the human
consciousness.
It is right to say that various Christian teachers and pastors have
overemphasized “going to Heaven,” perceived as some form of
endless disembodied bliss, at the expense of underemphasizing
the Second Coming of the Messiah where physical bodies of
deceased persons will be resurrected and His reign will come to
Planet Earth. It is not incorrect to assert that some have
adopted a dangerous Platonic idea that matter is evil (discussed
further), and that instead all we need to be concerned about is
something spiritual or metaphysical.
N.T. Wright, among today’s evangelical scholars, has been
correct to remind us, “The meaning of ‘resurrection’ as ‘life
after life after death’ cannot be overemphasized.”[5]
As the people of God, we are responsible for remembering that
the world God has made is “very good” (Genesis 1:31), and that
physical matter is by no means inherently evil. If we can view
physical matter as “very good,” it will lead to us properly
fulfilling His mission and our dominion over the Earth, rather
than spurning it.
It is also important for us to remember that those who believe in
psychopannychy have often been divided into two sub-groups:
sectarian cultists who deny key Biblical doctrines such as
Yeshua’s Divinity, and theological liberals. For almost two
centuries, liberal theology has widely advocated that Holy
Scripture should be treated as some kind of inspirational
theology, but not as accurate history.[6]
Liberals have to deny an intermediate state for the dead,
because if Believers are waiting in the presence of the Lord in
Heaven prior to resurrection, then unbelievers must be similarly
waiting in some kind of intermediate punishment prior to their
resurrection and final sentencing. (Their actual position on the
doctrine of resurrection is frequently uncertain.) Sectarian
cultists, however, are simply guided by an ethos of wanting to
inflict as much damage as they can on what they perceive as any
cardinal doctrine of evangelical Christianity.
Messianics who have recently adopted a belief in psychopannychy are
largely those who want to give evangelical Christianity a
similar kick in the tuccus, not being guided by wanting to
constructively discuss the issues. Frequently, they are very
contentious and vengeful about their newfound “Truth,” and want
everyone to know that they now deny some kind of “pagan belief”
of going to Heaven. This approach breeds nothing less than
confusion among brethren, and does not encourage an
objective analysis of the Scriptures. It certainly does not help
those who are grieving over the loss of a loved one who knew the
Savior.
In contrast to this, we should be those who want to give a fair
hearing to the issue, examining what the Scriptures say about
the human constitution, the intermediate state of the dead prior
to resurrection, and the ideology of a person wanting to go to
the presence of the Savior at time of death or just to a
place of burial. Denying something simply because “the Church
taught it” is insufficient; what matters is that one’s
convictions are confirmed by a fair examination of Biblical
texts. I have discovered via experience that not all Messianics
who embrace a belief in psychopannychy hold to it indefinitely,
as there will often be a reevaluation of the view when a
relative or close friend dies, or when one’s own self is struck
with the question of death. Many realize that they get caught up
in a fad, and that they have been influenced by sensationalistic
rhetoric of little substance.
Interpretational Issues
Those who believe in the doctrine of psychopannychy are often
marked by failing to consider a wider scope of Biblical
passages, including the principle of progressive revelation
whereby statements made in the Tanach may be clarified by
further statements made in the Apostolic Scriptures (Hebrews
1:1-2). Messianic advocates of psychopannychy often base their
arguments entirely upon what is stated in the Tanach. Robert A.
Morey rightly observes in his book Death and the Afterlife,
“we cannot base our understanding of death and an afterlife
solely upon passages found in the Old Testament…we must
recognize that the vision of the Old Testament prophets was
intrinsically blurred and, as a result, was vague on most of the
details.”[7]
Only focusing on the Tanach is a serious problem even for those
who just hold to a doctrine of resurrection, and deny any
kind of disembodied post-mortem state for the interim.
The principle of progressive revelation should not at all be
difficult for us to understand, because as Believers in Messiah
Yeshua we stand on the firm conviction that He is the dénouement
of the Tanach Scriptures (Luke 24:44; cf. Romans 10:4, Grk.).
Prophecies that speak of Yeshua’s Messiahship in the Tanach are
made clear by specific examples we see in the Gospels of His
ministry and atoning work for us. In a similar way, it should
not be a stretch for us to see that vague statements regarding
death in the Tanach have greater clarification when the
testimony of the Apostolic Scriptures is taken into account.
Those who advocate the doctrine of psychopannychy do not typically
consider a wider array of Scriptures regarding the post-mortem
state prior to resurrection. They often give a text like the
Book of Ecclesiastes more theological weight in the discussion
of the state of the dead, than texts like the Gospels or the
Epistles. A clause such as “the dead know nothing” (Ecclesiastes
9:5, RSV/NIV) by the anonymous Qohelet, is believed to take vast
precedence over statements by known people such as those of
Yeshua the Messiah (Luke 23:43) or the Apostle Paul (2
Corinthians 5:4-10; Philippians 1:19-24). Furthermore, they
often read Qohelet’s words with the wrong presuppositions,
failing to take into account its rather late acceptance into the
Tanach canon (m.Yadayaim 3:5; cf. m.Eduyyot 5:3).
One issue that absolutely requires us to not ignore the testimony
of the Apostolic Scriptures is actually the doctrine of
resurrection itself. Some passages of the Tanach could be
read from the perspective that there is no resurrection.
Ecclesiastes 9:2-3 says, “It
is the same for all. There is one fate for the righteous and for
the wicked; for the good, for the clean and for the unclean…they
go to the dead.” Some would say that this indicates that
there is no resurrection after time of death, as all die and
that is it. No
psychopannychist would argue that this is what Ecclesiastes
9:2-3 says; they would instead say, and rightfully so, that this
is a general remark made about how all people die. They would
also rightly argue that a larger scope of Scripture passages
needs to be taken into consideration in order to confirm a
theology of resurrection, including those in the New Testament
(even though they frequently do not do this regarding the
discussion of a post-mortem afterlife prior to resurrection).
It is not unimportant that for some interpreters of the Hebrew
Bible, there is only one verse which unambiguously endorses the
doctrine of resurrection. Daniel 12:2 says, “Many
of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these
to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and
everlasting contempt.” Passages such as Isaiah 26:19 or Ezekiel
37:6 (previously quoted) may also give credence to a belief in
resurrection, but as Benjamin D. Sommer concludes, these verses
are better taken “as a metaphor for national renewal” of Israel
“as they return to their land to reestablish a commonwealth.”[8]
For such an interpreter, being stuck with the Book of Daniel
alone for Tanach support for the doctrine of resurrection may
indicate that this view was something which came very late
within the Biblical period. While conservatives will often date
the composition of Daniel to the Persian era (500s B.C.E.),
liberals will frequently date Daniel to as late as the Maccabean
era (164 B.C.E.).[9]
In such a schema, this would place the doctrine of resurrection
less than two centuries prior to the ministry of Yeshua! One
could view the doctrine of resurrection as a rather late
arrival in the scope of Biblical revelation.
For many interpreters of the Tanach Scriptures, “Evidence for
belief in resurrection in the OT is scarce and often ambiguous”
(EDB).[10]
To the mix of Scriptures we could probably add Job 19:25-26, “I
know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His
stand on the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my
flesh I shall see God,” but even Job has been dated by some to
as late as the post-exilic period,[11]
which again for some makes the doctrine of resurrection a late
invention. So in the words of George Robinson’s Essential
Judaism,
“Belief in the resurrection of the dead, a key element in
traditionally observant Judaism’s vision of the Messianic age,
dates from the period of the Pharisees, and may be an outgrowth
of Greek or Persian influence…According to at least one Jewish
historian…the idea of resurrection of the dead gained its first
currency at the time of the Maccabees, around the second century
B.C.E., a period of great suffering for the Jews. In the face of
such trauma…the notion of another life after death promised a
final, cosmic release.”[12]
I personally accept
Isaiah 26:19; Ezekiel 37:6; Daniel 12:2; and Job 19:25-26
speaking of the resurrection of individuals and that the
doctrine of resurrection appears in the Biblical narrative much,
much earlier than the post-exilic period. Yet it is
absolutely true that the debate over the resurrection did
not come to major fruition until the Second and First Centuries
B.C.E., with this doctrine being a major division between the
Sadducees and Pharisees. The former group did not accept the
doctrine of resurrection because they did not see it in the
Torah,[13]
with the latter group accepting it and making it an integral
part of their teachings. If the Sadducees did not believe in the
resurrection, we should not be surprised how the Rabbinic
tradition, while asserting “All Israelites have a share in the
world to come,” lists the first group as those who will not
share as “He who says, the resurrection of the dead is a
teaching which does not derive from the Torah” (m.Sanhedrin
10:1),[14]
a direct assault on the Sadducees.
If the doctrine of resurrection did not become firmly developed
within Jewish theology until the centuries immediately prior to
Yeshua, then should we at all be surprised that a similar
theology of intermediate afterlife—and even views of a
Messiah to come—were developed and refined at the same time?
Should this at all disturb us? For the Believer in Yeshua, our
conviction of the doctrine of resurrection does not come from
the Tanach Scriptures alone, but the significant host of
passages in the Apostolic Scriptures that attest to its
validity—most especially because He has been resurrected![15]
In a similar way, placing ourselves within that same
pro-resurrection First Century Jewish theology, tracing the same
history of interpretation, do people such as myself believe in
an intermediate afterlife in the presence of the Lord until the
time of resurrection. The doctrine of an intermediate afterlife
can be traced along the same path as both the doctrine of
resurrection and the expectation of a Messiah to come.
A widescale failure to give the First Century Pharisees their
rightful place in today’s Messianic theology has evidenced
itself quite steadily over the first decade of the 2000s (due in
no small part to the growing influence of the Karaite movement),
because when properly considered it will affect what we
believe about the post-mortem state of the deceased. This is a
theological strata that Yeshua the Messiah instructed His
Disciples to follow (Matthew 23:2-3), and that the Apostle Paul
was a part of specifically because of the doctrine of
resurrection (Acts 23:6).[16]
In addition to firmly believing in the resurrection, the
Pharisees also believed in an intermediate afterlife prior to
resurrection. The testimony of the First Century historian
Josephus was that the Pharisees did “believe that souls have an
immortal vigor in them, and that under the earth there will be
rewards or punishments, according as they have lived virtuously
or viciously in this life…the former shall have power to revive
and live again” (Antiquities of the Jews 18.14).[17]
The Talmud similarly indicates that the Pharisees held that in
death the body sleeps, but that the consciousness of a person
would go to the presence of God until being restored to the body
at resurrection:
“When
someone gets up, he says, ‘My God, the soul that you put in me
is pure. You formed it in me. You breathed it into me. You keep
it in me. You will take it from me one day but restore it to me
in the time to come. So long as the soul is in me, I thank you,
Lord my God and God of my fathers, master of all ages, lord of
all souls. Blessed are you, Lord, who restores souls to dead
corpses’” (b.Berachot 60a).[18]
That the ancient Pharisees believed in both the doctrine of
resurrection and of an intermediate, disembodied post-mortem
state, is something that few scholars contest. John W. Cooper
summarizes in his book Body, Soul, & Life Everlasting,
“without exception the evidence we have supports the judgment
that the Pharisees not only affirmed the resurrection of the
body but the temporary separation of the soul as well. Many
scholars suppose that during the first century A.D. these
beliefs were found among the common people as well.”[19]
The Pharisees may have believed in a kind of dualistic view of
human composition, but in stark contrast to their Greek
neighbors (discussed further), it was one that included the
acceptance of a doctrine of resurrection. The need for us as
Messianics today to follow the Pharisaical lead in determining
our theology and halachah can be best seen in all of the
parallels between Pharisical theology and the Apostolic
Scriptures. Menahem Mansoor indicates,
“Pharisaic doctrines have more in common with those of Christianity
than is supposed, having prepared the ground for Christianity
with such concepts as Messianism, the popularization of
monotheism and apocalypticism, and with such beliefs as life
after death, resurrection of the dead, immortality, and
angels” (EJ).[20]
The party of the Sadducees, who largely made up the Temple
priesthood, were the only major group among the First Century
Judaisms who denied any kind of existence after this life, be
that a temporary disembodied post-mortem state, or the doctrine
of resurrection itself. The testimony of the Apostolic
Scriptures is unanimous in that the Sadducees denied the
doctrine of resurrection (Matthew
22:23; Mark 12:18; Luke 20:27; Acts 23:6, 8). If we are to
reject the theological lead of the Pharisees as Messianics—as it
is undeniable that many Messianic advocates of
psychopannychy follow their Karaite successors—are we to then
follow the theological lead of the Sadducees? As Josephus
recorded, “They….take away the belief of the immortal duration
of the soul, and the punishments and rewards…” (Jewish War
2.165).[21]
Not that unlike the Epicureans of Ancient Greece (the third
group to be denied a place in the world to come in m.Sanhedrin
10:1), the Sadducees believed that a person got a single chance
at life here on Earth, and that was it—with no rewards,
resurrection, or any kind of existence to follow.
The belief in the doctrine of resurrection is unique to both
Judaism and Christianity, having been significantly developed by
the party of the ancient Pharisees. Wright is correct to assert,
“the early Christian belief in hope beyond death belongs
demonstrably on the Jewish, not the pagan, map.”[22]
The First Century Messianic movement, as is evidenced by the
Apostolic Scriptures, developed its theology of the intermediate
state prior to resurrection from the same Pharisaical
forebearers. Forgetting this presents the danger of today’s
Messianics accepting Saddusaical beliefs that deny not only an
intermediate afterlife prior to resurrection, but the doctrine
of resurrection itself.
What does it
mean to bear the image of God?
Advocates of psychopannychy commonly argue that those of us who
believe in an intermediate disembodied state for the dead, prior
to resurrection, have accepted a view of immortality which is
not Biblical. It is fiercely argued from 1 Timothy 6:16, for
example, that God “alone
possesses immortality.” They miss some qualifications that go
along with God’s immortality that need not be forgotten: “who is
the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of
lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in
unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him
be honor and eternal dominion!” (1 Timothy 6:15-16). Here,
Yeshua’s exaltation in Heaven is magnified, and He is designated
as One who possesses a status that no one else can ever
possesses, because He is a member of the Godhead. From Paul’s
point of view, no one on Earth has ever seen the Lord in His
complete exaltedness, clearly because He is immortal and human
beings are mortal. The vantage point is how Moses was unable to
fully see God when he approached Him on Mount Sinai (Exodus
33:20).[23]
The type of immortality that defines who God is, is not something
that any human being possesses—but this does not all of a sudden
mean that the human being made by God is no different than the
animals. Morey describes how “Some are thinking of ‘essential
immortality,’ which refers to a life having neither beginning
nor end. According to the Bible, only God has essential
immortality as an attribute of His being (1 Tim. 6:16). Since
man begins at conception and does not come from eternity, he
does not have essential immortality.”[24]
No man or woman ever born by normal means is exalted over the
cosmos and is the source of salvation, as Yeshua the Messiah is
(Philippians 2:5-11; cf. Isaiah 45:23). Yet, it is true that the
Father has “seated
us with Him in the heavenly places in Messiah Yeshua”
(Ephesians 2:6). It is entirely inappropriate for a Bible reader
to equate man’s fate as being the same as the animals if somehow
his purpose for being created is associated with a dimension in
addition to the present one.
The Scriptures are clear that human beings are different from the
rest of God’s Creation. It is only of man that God says, “Let us
make human beings in our image, in our likeness, so that they
may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds in the sky, over
the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the
creatures that move along the ground” (Genesis 1:26, TNIV).
Elohim
(~yhla)—actually
speaking to Himself—says “Let us make humankind in our image,
according to our likeness” (NRSV), b’tzalmenu k’demutenu
(WntWmdK
WnmlcB).
The human being who possesses God’s image would be able to have
dominion over God’s Creation.
In the words of Nahum M. Sarna,
“A human being is the pinnacle of Creation. This unique status is
communicated in a variety of ways, not least by the simple fact
that humankind is last in a manifestly ascending, gradual order.
The creation of human life is an exception to the rule of
creation by divine fiat…Human beings are to enjoy a unique
relationship to God, who communicates with them alone and who
shares with them the custody and administration of the world.”[25]
The human being is of extremely high value, especially in
comparison to the rest of Creation. Being made in God’s image
(Lat. imago Dei) obviously means that human beings
possess unique qualities that those of the animal kingdom do not
possess. This is especially true of those who have experienced
redemption via the gospel, and who have access to a God who sits
in Heaven (Hebrews 4:16; 10:19).
Psalm 8 picks up on the theme of man made in God’s image, and
specifically on the fact that God made man to rule over His
Creation (Psalm 8:6-8). But the Psalmist’s assertion is a very
important one that cannot be overlooked: “You have made him a
little lower than God” (Psalm 8:5a) or “You
made him a little lower than the heavenly beings” (NIV). The
Hebrew clause of interest is m’at m’Elohim (~yhlam
j[M),
“lower than God,” rendered in the Greek LXX as brachu…par
aggelous (bracu…par
aggelouß),
“a little less than angels” (LXE), due to the ambiguous nature
of Elohim.[26]
Regardless, though, the lot of humanity is not cast with the
animal kingdom but instead with the Heavenly host;
the Psalmist did not say that man was made “a
little higher than the animals.” Any kind of intermediate
disembodied post-mortem state is a direct result of an
association with the Heavenly host originating from our
fashioning by God, a testimony to our uniqueness among His
creatures.
Throughout history, human culture has demonstrated a number of
unique qualities, bearing witness to God’s imprint, including:
1. awareness of a moral code “written” or impressed with a
conscience
2. concerns about death and about life after death
3. propensity to worship and desire to communicate with a
higher being
4. consciousness of self
5. drive to discover and capacity to recognize truth and
absolutes[27]
Indeed, it is only the human race among God’s Creation that
possesses intelligence, a capacity to reason, and verbal
speech—making it different when compared to the animals.
Do we really think that a human being is unique compared to the
animals, or is no different than a dog or cat? Do we realize
that each of us has a connection to the Heavenly dimension?
Those who believe that when we die, we do not go anywhere until
the resurrection except the grave, skew the uniqueness of man.
In his book Immortality or Resurrection? Samuele
Bacchiocchi describes what psychopannychists instead believe:
“If at death the soul of the believer goes up immediately to
the beatitude of Paradise to be with the Lord, one hardly can
have any real sense of expectation for Christ to come down
to resurrect the sleeping saints. The primary concern of these
Christians is to reach paradise immediately, albeit as a
disembodied soul. This concern leaves barely any interest in the
coming of the Lord and the resurrection of the body.”[28]
It is true that there has been an overemphasis by many on a
disembodied state following death, and that the resurrection of
the deceased and the Second Coming of the Messiah to the Earth
hardly get discussed. As Wright notes, too many believe in “a
future expectation that bears far more resemblance to Plato’s
vision of souls entering into disembodied bliss than to the
biblical picture of new heavens and new earth”[29]—one that surely does need to be corrected. But from the
Biblical testimony of the human being made different in
comparison to the animals, is it right to assume that when a
person dies he or she suffers the same fate as the animals? If
man was made a little lower than God and/or His Heavenly host,
should we not more fully consider how this affects our
composition? It is notable that we consider how
psychopannychists have, perhaps unknowingly, cast their lot
with atheists and agnostics who deny that humans are
spiritual creatures, being no different from the animals as just
“advanced animals,” rather than with the Bible which does teach
that humans are different from the animals.
If human beings are only one-dimensional creatures, with no
significant Divine imprint upon them, then psychopannychists are
right: at time of death human beings die and are interred in a
grave. A higher being might possess the power to resurrect the
human being, but man is solely of this dimension. The
Scriptures, however, do not teach this. Man’s rule with God
extends to the Heavens as much as it extends to Earth, as the
author of Hebrews testifies “in
subjecting all things to him, He left nothing that is not
subject to him” (Hebrews 2:7). Our rule beside God extends
beyond Planet Earth.
Those who believe in psychopannychy, the view that once a human
being dies that he or she just goes to a place of burial until
the resurrection, have denied the Biblical reality that we
are different, something realized by the image of God placed
upon us. Morey rightly describes,
“In the light of the dignity and worth of man as the unique
image-bearer of God, we cannot accept, therefore, the idea…that
man’s death can be reduced to the death of brute beasts. What
they fail to realize is that man is far too wonderful to die
like a dog. A conscious afterlife is exactly what we would
expect of such a wonderful creation as man.”[30]
It is very true that the reality of a bodily resurrection is not
emphasized as much as it should be in much of today’s
contemporary discussion regarding the death of Believers.
This does need to change. But belief in the resurrection of
the dead is by no means incompatible with a belief in an
intermediate disembodied state. The image of God placed upon the
human race shows that we are different among His Creation, and
thus our death should be considered something different than the
death of animals. Are we the pinnacle of God’s Creation, or
are we not? When we can understand what being made in the
image of God is all about, then it allows us to see that people
are not one-dimensional beings solely of this Earth, but they
indeed do have a connection to a Creator in another dimension.
Are human
beings just animated chemicals?
There is perhaps no bigger debate surrounding the intermediate
state than what composes a human being. Paul writes in 1
Thessalonians 5:23, “may
the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your
spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at
the coming of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah.” The sanctification
of oneself that is portrayed in the Scriptures is one where a
whole person, not just the body neither just the
consciousness of a person, is to be changed by God. Theological
proponents of either
psychopannychy, or of an intermediate afterlife
prior to resurrection, recognize this fact. The debate, rather,
is focused around whether the various components of a person can
be separated at all, existing in multiple dimensions, or whether
the various components of a person can only exist in this
dimension.
Psychopannychists argue a position of monism regarding the
human person. They believe that the human being made up of body,
soul, and spirit can only exist in this present dimension of
Planet Earth. Advocates of an intermediate post-mortem afterlife
prior to resurrection, by the very nature of holding to such a
view, have to believe in some kind of dualism for the
human being. Human beings are made up of a material substance of
this dimension, as well as some kind of an immaterial substance
of another dimension, with one substance that can be separated
and exist outside of the body in some form, even if just for a
limited time.
The majority position present throughout the orthodox Jewish and
Christian theological traditions is sometimes called holistic
dualism. A human being should be perceived as being a single
entity—a person who will be fully reconstituted and restored at
the time of resurrection—but a separate part(s) of the human
being can exist independently of the body, even though being
absent from the body such a part would be different, and the
person would be incomplete. Cooper explains this kind of holism:
“It views an entity as a single primary functional system, not as a
compound system constructed by linking two or more primary
functional systems…It implies that parts do not operate
independently within the whole, and that they would not
necessarily continue to have all the same properties and
functions if the whole were broken up….[But] holism does not
necessarily imply that if the whole is broken up, all parts
disintegrate into chaos and nothingness. Secondary systems might
continue to exist, although without all the properties and
capacities they had when integrated within the whole…On this
view, souls, spirits, minds, or persons might be able to exist
without organisms, although they would be deprived by the loss.”[31]
Cooper suggests that this kind of existence, albeit temporary,
could be likened to how given the right conditions organs can
sometimes survive outside of body. Likewise in today’s computer
age and what we can do with transferring software and files
between an individual personal computer, mainframes, servers
across the Internet, and now even to our mobile phones and PDA
devices, the extra-body survival of a human consciousness is not
that difficult for us to perceive.
Both monists and dualistic holists appeal to the creation of Adam
in Genesis to make their case. After announcing His intention to
create humanity in His image (Genesis 1:26-27), God creates
Adam. Genesis 2:7 says “the
Lord God formed man
of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life; and man became a living being.” Both monists and
dualistic holists agree that one part of the human being, the
body, is clearly of this Earth. They diverge on what it means
for the human being to possess “the breath of life,” which makes
a person “a living being.”
The Hebrew of Genesis 2:7 says
v’yipach b’apayv nish’mat chayim v’yehi ha’adam l’nefesh
chayah
(hYx
vpnl ~dah yhyw ~yYx tmvn wyPaB xPYw),
or God “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man
became a living soul” (KJV). To
psychopannychists, the issue is closed. A human being is the
combination of a physical body and a physical breath, which
results in a soul. A human being—a soul—is thus entirely of this
dimension of Planet Earth.
To their credit, psychopannychists have helped in wanting to get
others to see that human beings do not “have” a soul, but rather
“are” a soul—a nefesh (vpn). Thus, when the Scriptures commonly speak in
terms of “that
day there were added about three thousand souls [psuchai,
yucai]”
(Acts 2:41), it was not three thousand immaterial
consciousnesses that were saved, but three thousand people. When
a “soul” is talked about it is frequently in reference to what a
person is. Yet, there are questions that need to be asked
regarding what components make up this “soul.”
Is it significant that in the creation of the animals it is
nowhere said that the animals had nish’mat chayim (~yx
tmvn),
“the breath of life,” implanted into them? Both Jewish and
Christian commentators have thought this is significant.
The Keil & Delitzch Commentary on the Old Testament makes
the point, “the
vital principle in man is different from that in the animal…The
beasts [only] arose at the creative word of God.”[32]
Sarna’s view is, “The uniqueness of the Hebrew phrase
nishmat
ḥayyim
matches the singular nature of the human body, which, unlike the
creatures of the animal world, is directly inspirited by God
himself.”[33]
Victor P. Hamilton similarly indicates,
“Unlike
rûaḥ,
which is applied to God, man, animals, and even false gods, nešāmâ
is applied only to Yahweh and man…Thus 2:7 may employ the less
popular word for breath because it is man, and man alone, who is
the recipient of the divine breath.”[34]
The Orthodox Jewish ArtScroll Chumash commentary considers
the nish’mat chayim to be “the life that is unique to
Man,” resulting in a person being a “rational soul that includes
the power of intelligent speech. This is what elevates a human
above animal life.”[35]
It is not at all a stretch to conclude that the nish’mat
chayim breathed into man indicates that he does possess a
uniqueness specifically endowed by his Creator, a part made not
of this Earth. The Hebrew language has no specific word for
“mind” or “consciousness,” but it is safe to say that this
neshamah (hmvn)
or specific “breath” from God would constitute it. It helped
make Adam different from the animals. The combination of a
physical body made of this dimension, with a special breath made
of another dimension, produces the “soul” or the human being.
When this combination is brought together, an essential human
person is formed.
In its totality, the “soul” or nefesh is not something
entirely immaterial or entirely material, although
psychopannychists argue that a nefesh is
entirely material. One of the common appeals is made to the
Torah’s decree that “the
life of the flesh is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11; cf. Genesis
9:4; Deuteronomy 12:23), indicating that “life” is something
solely of this dimension. The nefesh or “soul” of a
creature is in its blood, right? The problem with making this
assessment is not that blood pumping throughout a creature
indicates that it is physically alive; the problem is that
eating the flesh of animals is what is in view in those
passages, and that human life and animal life are equated as
being exactly the same. While humanity’s dominion over the
Earth demands that we respect blood, especially those of the
animals we kill for food, we are nevertheless different than
the animals. The “soul” that is the human being is not the
same as the “soul” that is an animal.
Messianics who have adopted a view of
psychopannychy are often frequently unaware of how much
flexibility the Hebrew word
nefesh
(vpn)
actually possesses in the Tanach. To demonstrate the difficulty
of this term, we see that “It
may be used at one extreme to denote the principle of life in
man or animal…and at the other to speak of a dead body.”[36]
Many have over-simplified this term, failing to recognize how it
can be used, believing that it can only concern physical life,
and not anything more.
The CHALOT lexicon actually provides nine
different definitions and applications available for the
interpreter to pick. These include: “throat,” “neck,”
“breath,” “living being,” “man, men, person,
people,” “personality, individuality,” “life,”
“‘soul’ as seat & support of feelings & sensations,” and “someone
dead.”[37]
One of the most frequent usages of the term nefesh is how
it simply represents people (Genesis 36:6; Ezekiel 18:4),
including dead people (Leviticus 21:1, 11). This common usage
leads many to conclude that nefesh only relates to
physical creatures, but as Morey points out, this “is based on
the hidden assumption that once the meaning of a word is
discovered in a single passage, this same meaning must prevail
in every other occurrence of the word,”[38]
which is a mistake. The life principle or nefesh does
take on a different dynamic in regard to humans, versus the
animals. The nefesh as the seat of emotions worships God
(Deuteronomy 10:12), sorrows (Leviticus 26:16), feels bitterness
(1 Samuel 1:10), misery (Judges 10:16), grief (1 Samuel 2:23),
or alienation (Ezekiel 23:17-18). These emotions that can
compose the human soul are definitively different than animals
who act solely on instinct, lacking God’s image. God Himself is
even considered a nefesh, as He cries in Isaiah 1:14,
“Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they
are a trouble unto me” (KJV). Given the variance that we see
here, Morey is correct to conclude that the term nefesh
can “transcend the mere principle of physical life,”[39]
so when a human being’s “soul” cries out to God, something more
than just a being of this dimension is intended to be portrayed.
As the “soul” is usually what is used to represent the person,
it should be no surprise that nefesh is used to define
the post-mortem state as well. The Psalmist, appealing for
deliverance, cries out “God will redeem my soul [nefesh]
from the power of Sheol, for He will receive me” (49:15). He
speaks of the possibility, “If I ascend to heaven, You are
there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there” (Psalm
139:8). Also to be considered could be the death of Rachel,
where “It came about as her soul [nefesh] was departing
(for she died)” (Genesis 35:18). Likewise, Elijah called out to
God to revive the widow of Serapta’s son: “‘O
Lord my God, let
this child's soul come into him again.’ And the
Lord hearkened to the voice of Elijah; and the soul [nefesh]
of the child came into him again, and he revived” (1 Kings
17:21-22, RSV). While
psychopannychists commonly argue that nefesh only relates
to physical life and/or physical breath departing and coming,
equally to be considered is how the nefesh as the
essential person can be seen departing and coming—the result of
what was created by combining a physical body with God’s
immaterial breath. This would be most especially the case if
Sheol in the Tanach is indeed the netherworld, and not just “the
grave” (discussed further).
The variety of applications that surround the Hebrew nefesh
are carried over into the Apostolic Scriptures via the
Septuagint, as the LXX largely translated nefesh as
psuchē (yuch).[40]
Morey makes the important point that “the Septuagint never used
bios [bioß],
the Greek word for physical life, as the equivalent for
nephesh.”[41]
Similar to nefesh, psuchē can speak of physical
life animating both animals and man (Revelation 8:9; 16:3;
Matthew 2:20), refer to Earthly life (Matthew 6:25), or simply
to people (Luke 12:19; Acts 2:41). God likewise is associated as
being a psuchē (Matthew 12:18; Hebrews 10:38).[42]
And even though the “soul” or psuchē is rightly
associated as being the whole human person, Yeshua does indicate
that God has the power to punish both a person’s body, as well
as his soul or what he is (Matthew 10:28). This would indicate a
nuanced form of dualism, where at final judgment a whole person
must be punished, but similarly where the essential person as
soul can exist separately from the body.
A similar, and related term to nefesh that appears in the
Tanach to describe human beings is ruach (xWr)
or “spirit.” This is something that
psychopannychists often solely see as relating to a person’s
physical breath, and nothing more. But will this stand up to the
scrutiny of its uses? Ruach is used to refer to physical
wind in weather (Genesis 8:1). Our invisible and immaterial God
Himself is described to be a ruach (Isaiah 63:10), with
His angels being called ruachot (tAxWr)
or “spirits” (Psalm 104:4). The life sent by God to both mortals
and animals is “spirit” (Genesis 7:22). A person’s own self is
considered to be his ruach or “spirit” (Psalm 77:6;
Proverbs 29:11), one that goes back to God or His dimension at
death (Psalm 31:5; Ecclesiastes 12:7), not supporting any kind
of post-mortem extinction until the resurrection.
The Apostolic Scriptures follow the lead of the LXX once again,
where ruach was frequently translated as pneuma (pneuma).
Pneuma can refer to physical breath, similar to how the
false prophet will make the antimessiah’s idol appear living
(Revelation 13:15). Pneuma is used to describe both God
as spirit and His angels (John 4:24; Hebrews 1:14). Yeshua
Himself considered a pneuma or spirit to be an immaterial
being (Luke 24:39). Pneuma or “spirit” is sometimes used
to describe various character traits of a person such as pride,
humility, or fear (1 Peter 3:4), and the seat of his emotions
(Mark 8:12; Mark 2:8; Matthew 26:41). And, pneuma is used
to describe the deceased (Hebrews 12:23; 1 Peter 3:19),
sometimes being believed by people to be some kind of ghosts
(Luke 24:37).
The deceased in the Hebrew Tanach are not depicted as “souls”
often for the reason that a specific term is employed instead.
Departed spirits are labeled refaim (~yapr;
sing. rafa,
apr),
“shades, ghosts,” and refaim is the label given for the
“name of dead in She’ól” (BDB).[43]
Psalm 88:10 asks, “Dost thou work wonders for the dead? Do the
shades [refaim] rise up to praise thee? Selah”
(RSV). Speaking of the adulteress, Proverbs 2:18 says, “her
house sinks down to death, and her paths to the shades [refaim]”
(RSV). When the king of Babylon dies, “Sheol beneath is stirred
up to meet you when you come, it rouses the shades [refaim]
to greet you” (RSV). As Cooper concludes, “in reality the
Israelites did affirm the existence of the departed,”[44]
even if they were just refaim or shades of their Earthly
selves in Sheol.
Given the diversity of usages of nefesh/psuchē,
ruach/pneuma, and refaim seen in the
Scriptures, those of us who believe in a temporary disembodied
state for the deceased prior to resurrection have drawn
conclusions based on how these terms are used within the
Biblical text. They do give support for the premise that the
consciousness of a human being who dies can exist outside
the body. The human being may be a combination of a body from
Earth and a breath from God—giving rise to the soul—but such a
soul or essential person is a product of his or her Creator.
While the body may be the frame on which the soul is formed,
producing a human personality that we would know, possession of
the Divine image gives a human soul unique qualities that an
animal soul simply does not possess.
The contrast to the human being as a combination of elements
from this dimension and the dimension where God resides, is that
the human being as a soul is a combination of a physical body
and physical breath, being a creature entirely of this
dimension. Bacchiochi does not hide the view of
psychopannychists in saying, “both man and animal are
souls…The term soul-nephesh is used for both people and
animals because both are conscious beings. They both share the
same animating life-principle or ‘life-breath.’”[45]
So here, the life of human beings and animals is equated as
being exactly the same. Even though the psychopannychist would
insist that human beings are different because they do possess
intelligence and verbal speech, the reality is that the human
being is no more physically different than a dog or cat. From
the place of the psychopannychist, a human being is entirely a
corporeal entity.
Advocates of
psychopannychy, arguing that the human person is a creature
entirely of this dimension, often have to rely heavily from
arguments that suggest that a human soul is simply the result of
the chemical processes of the brain. While the
psychopannychists, believing in a Divine Creator, would say that
these processes come from God’s imprint on men and women—while
not bedded with evolutionary science or Darwinism, they are
surely sharing the same room. Those who believe that the human
race came about via millions of years of evolution argue that we
are simply the result of advanced chemical reactions that are
able manifest themselves as a “soul.” Detailing this
perspective, Christian philosopher Richard Swinburne writes how
“Four thousand million years of evolution produced man, a body and
soul in continuing interaction. A human soul is more dependent
for its development on its own states than is an animal soul,
for it has complex beliefs and desires kept in place and
changing in accord with other beliefs and desires....When the
body dies and the brain ceases to function, the evidence
suggests that the soul will cease to function also.”[46]
Even though they may believe that the chemical processes in the
brain are not as random as evolutionists may believe,
psychopannychists still have to rely on a great number of
evolutionary presuppositions to advocate that human beings are
entirely one-dimensional. (In so doing, they are likely
unprepared to join into the debate between evolutionary science
and intelligent design over human origins.) It is not at all a
coincidence that theologians who have moved steadily toward a
position of psychopannychy, believing that the human soul is
simply the result of combining a physical body with physical
breath, often advocate some kind of theistic evolution.[47]
Those of us who would affirm that Adam and Eve were created by
Divine fiat are not unjustified to ask ourselves whether or not
God’s imprint upon us is one-dimensional or multi-dimensional,
and whether human beings are just animated chemicals—or not.
Swinburne’s remarks on how the relation of a Creator to a human
may change the nature of one understanding the concept of
“soul,” are quite revealing:
“God, being omnipotent, would have the power to give to souls life
after death (and if there is no natural law which ties the
functioning of a soul to the operation of a brain, God would not
need to suspend natural laws in order to do this)….If God did
give to souls life after death in a new body or without a body,
he would not in any way be violating natural laws—for, if I am
right, there are no natural laws which dictate what happen to
the soul after death.”[48]
Our God as all-powerful Creator certainly possesses the ability
to create the human person with a non-corporeal consciousness
that can exist absent from the body. This may not necessarily be
the ideal condition for a person, nor would it be the permanent
condition for a person in the eschaton—and Paul might even call
such a state nakedness (2 Corinthians 5:3)—but it is by no means
impossible for God to allow. Our argument for an intermediate
afterlife—especially for redeemed Believers—has been
consistently based on the premise that the human being is unique
among all of God’s creations. Man is not just a pile of
animated chemicals.
If a human soul is something entirely of this dimension, a
combination of a physical body and physical breath, then we need
not avoid how this may cause some to look at people. A great
deal of the contemporary literature which today examines the
concept of “soul” is actually not as much focused on the
exegesis of what nefesh or refaim means, but is
more focused on the ethical controversies that ensue—especially
if we are just one-dimensional creatures. If the neshamah
of God, for example, is solely the physical breath of a
person—some could take the possible view that a human life
begins when a newborn child takes its first breath outside of
the womb. Until that point, some may see the fetus as just being
a pile of chemicals inside the female uterus—chemicals which
can be jettisoned at any time prior to first breath. While
psychopannychists that I have encountered in my Messianic
experience would surely not support abortion, it is unavoidable
that they may have unknowingly opened up a very dangerous door.
Psalm 139:13 is clear “You formed my inward parts; You wove me
in my mother's womb.” This is a very tenable position to hold to
if the neshamah or breath that God gave Adam (Genesis
2:7), is something more than just physical breath. In this
instance, human life begins at the moment of conception. While
such life may not be fully developed or mature, a fetus is still
nevertheless a living being even without having taken its first
physical breath. In my own assessment, viewing the human person
as being solely of this dimension, is degrading to the
value of human life.[49]
It skews the Psalmist’s assertion that man was made just lower
than his Creator (Psalm 8:5-8), and gives court to Darwinism.
While God is indeed concerned about the whole human to be
redeemed, including a man or woman’s physical body in the
resurrection (Romans 8:23), this is by no means incompatible
with a temporary disembodied state. Our Creator made us more
than just animated chemicals!
Following the
Fall
What we believe about the post-mortem state is undoubtedly affected
by the Fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and the
introduction of their sin to the rest of humanity. Both
psychopannychists and those who believe in an intermediate
afterlife appeal to Romans 6:23: “For
the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal
life in Messiah Yeshua our Lord.” Adam and Eve introduced death
to the human race, yet those who welcome the gospel can have
eternal life. Psychopannychists conclude that physical
death and physical life are entirely what are being described
here, whereas those of us who believe in an intermediate
disembodied afterlife would argue that something more
than just physical life or physical death should be considered.
Are “life” and “death” one-dimensional, or multi-dimensional
concepts as seen in Scripture?
While Adam and Eve were certainly created in God’s image (Genesis
1:26-27), did they possess the ability for their bodies to live
forever prior to the Fall? Some may get the impression from
reading Genesis chs. 1-3 that Adam and Eve initially possessed
an immortality of their bodies never dying, but this is actually
not the impression that we get from what God Himself says in
Genesis 3:22: “Behold,
the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and
now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree
of life, and eat, and live forever.” Adam and Eve would have had
to have eaten from the Tree of Life in order for their bodies to
live forever.
The instruction that was given to Adam in the Garden of Eden, by
God, was “From
any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day
that you eat from it you will surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17). No
one denies the fact that physical death is a definite part of
the consequence of Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit. In
Genesis 3:19 God is clear to say, “By the sweat of your face you
will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it
you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
But was the penalty that Adam and Eve incurred for their sin
solely physical death? Psychopannychists say a resounding “Yes,” and as
Bacchiocchi would specifically argue, “people [often] believe
Satan’s lie that no matter what they do, they ‘shall not die’
(Gen 3:4),”[50]
which means that those of us who believe in a temporary
disembodied afterlife have obviously been beguiled by the
serpent just as Eve was:
“The
woman said to the serpent, ‘From the fruit of the trees of the
garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in
the middle of the garden, God has said, “You shall not eat from
it or touch it, or you will die.”’ The serpent said to the
woman, ‘You surely will not die!’” (Genesis 3:2-4).
Satan tempted Eve by telling her that if she ate from the Tree
of Knowledge of Good and Evil that she would not die. Of course,
we know that Adam and Eve did die subsequent to eating the
forbidden fruit (Genesis 6:5). Yet in a particular way, the
Adversary was actually correct in telling Eve that when she
would eat the fruit she would not “die.” God was clear to say
ki b’yom akholkha m’menu mot tamut
(tWmT
tAm WNMm ^lka ~AyB yK),
“for in the day of thine eating of it—dying thou dost die”
(Genesis 2:17, YLT), meaning that within a reasonable scope of
time from committing the sin Adam and Eve should have died. They
are confronted by God for the crime that they committed against
Him:
“Then the Lord God
called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ He said, ‘I
heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I
was naked; so I hid myself.’ And He said, ‘Who told you that you
were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded
you not to eat?’ The man said, ‘The woman whom You gave to be
with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate’”
(Genesis 3:9-12).
The serpent is chastised for his temptation of Eve (Genesis
2:14-16), and then the penalty for eating the fruit sin is laid
upon Adam and Eve:
“Then
to Adam He said, ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your
wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you,
saying, “You shall not eat from it”; cursed is the ground
because of you; in toil you will eat of it all the days of your
life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you
will eat the plants of the field; by the sweat of your face You
will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it
you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return’”
(Genesis 3:17-19).
Adam and Eve are told that their future will not be as glorious as
their past, but it is clear from the text that they did not
physically die at the time they ate the forbidden fruit. What
happened instead?
“Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that
they were naked” (Genesis 3:7). Something spiritual took
place within both Adam and Eve when they ate the forbidden
fruit.
As a direct result of their sin, they are ejected from the Garden
of Eden: “therefore
the Lord God sent
him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from
which he was taken” (Genesis 3:23). From reading the account of
humanity’s Fall, Adam and Eve did not “die,” at least in the
context of what psychopannychists
advocate, because Adam and Eve were still physically alive with
their hearts and their brains still functioning. Instead,
they found themselves ejected out of Paradise. Their
innocence was gone and they could no longer fully commune with
God. Wright observes, “In Genesis, and indeed much of the Old
Testament, the controlling image for death is exile. Adam and
Eve were told that they would die on the day they ate the fruit;
what actually happened was that they were expelled from the
garden.”[51]
Adam and Eve did not “drop dead” from committing the first sin,
but they were instead cast out of the Garden and removed from
God’s presence. Yeshua the Messiah would have to come on the
scene in order to restore humanity back to the condition of
being in such full communion with the Father (Genesis 3:15; 1
Timothy 2:15, Grk.; cf. Revelation 12:17). His work will be
completed with the manifestation of the New Heavens and New
Earth (Revelation chs. 21-22), and redeemed physical people will
be entering back to an Edenic type of state—meaning not just the
redemption of the human consciousnesses, but of the whole
person. Wright comments, “the promised final future is [not]
simply that immortal souls leave behind their mortal bodies,”[52]
because God’s plan of salvation history includes the abolishment
of physical death at the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:26; cf.
Romans 8:23; Hebrews 9:27). Yet, such life and redemption can
begin and be partaken of long before the resurrection.
Advocates of
psychopannychy only look at death in terms of
physicality, equating animal death and human death as being the
same. The death that Adam and Eve would have experienced would
thus have only been physical. Yet, the
Apostle Paul only makes the point that with the introduction of
sin “death spread to all men” (Romans 5:12), eis pantas
anthrōpous (eiß
pantaß anqrwpouß)
or “to all humans,” as animal death was something entirely
different and independent of this.[53]
In Scripture, we do see that “death” involves something much
more than the stopping of one’s heartbeat and brainwaves. The
unredeemed state of a sinner is being “dead
in your trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1, cf. 2:5; Colossians
2:13), and “she who gives herself to wanton pleasure is dead
even while she lives” (1 Timothy 5:6), clearly depicting a
condition that exists even when a person is physically alive.
One who lives in sin is removed from the life of God.
The “life” that God promises to us is something that we can
experience now—even prior to the resurrection—which is being
restored to communion with Him! Yeshua the Messiah asks,
“everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you
believe this?” (John 11:26).
He also says, “Truly,
truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who
sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but
has passed out of death into life.”
Born
again Believers physically die all the time, requiring us
to look at the “death” and “life” of human beings in
something more than just physical, one-dimensional terms.
Morey notes, “The ‘life’ which we receive at regeneration is not
to be a temporary existence. The life which we receive is
described as being ‘eternal.’”[54]
This is why our Lord says, “I came that they may have life, and
have it abundantly” (John 10:10), and while surely He
does want us to be physically fit, He more especially wants us
to be in an intimate relationship with Him!
If we have properly interpreted the Creation account, Adam and Eve
experienced God’s life and God’s presence inside of the Garden
of Eden, and upon sinning were ejected into a condition of death
and separation from Him. This death would involve their physical
bodies ceasing to function, but it would primarily include
the end of their intimate communion with Him. It is mistake
to limit the “life” of a human being entirely to physical life
on Earth. While physical death is something to be conquered via
the resurrection, the dominion of death can be conquered now
by the power of the gospel and people receiving salvation.
Eternal life is not exclusively being given a resurrected and
restored body to exist in the New Heavens and New Earth; it
is primarily being restored to an intimate communion with the
Lord. As the author of Hebrews says, “let
us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we
may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need”
(Hebrews 4:16), a life of communion with God that was lost
because of the sin of Adam and Eve, but can now be restored to
men and women by the sacrificial work of Yeshua.
Messianic
psychopannychists often have a problem
recognizing that when Adam and Eve “died” at the time they ate
the forbidden fruit, they did not “drop dead” in medical terms
with their hearts and brains ceasing to function, but instead
were ejected from the Garden of Eden and God’s presence. But
some think that they have an easy answer for this. Genesis 5:5
says “Adam lived nine hundred and thirty years, and he died.”
They connect this to Psalm 90:4, “a
thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it passes
by,” and believing that humanity has only been granted a 6,000
year cosmic week to inhabit Planet Earth, Adam clearly died in
the first so-called “day” or 1,000-year period. While this is a
convenient way to for Messianic psychopannychists to dodge the reality that the “death” Adam and Eve
experienced was primarily their ejection from the Garden, it has
some problems attached to it.
While it cannot be denied that belief in a 6,000 year probation on
Earth was a view of some Sages (b.Sanhedrin 97a-97b),
with Psalm 90 offered as a substantiating text, Psalm 90 itself
does not speak of a 6,000 year cosmic week for humanity. The
overarching theme of Psalm 90 is God’s timelessness compared to
man’s temporality: “Before
the mountains were born or You gave birth to the earth and the
world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God…For a
thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it passes
by, or as a watch in the night” (Psalm 90:2, 4). A
thousand years passes by God like it is no time at all, even
when people are able to live, if strong, for eighty years (Psalm
90:10).
Messianic
psychopannychists who believe that Adam died in
the first “day” of 1,000 years rely heavily on the work of
Seventeenth Century Archbishop James Ussher, who determined that
the Earth was actually created in 4004 B.C.E. This chronology,
however, was pieced together using presuppositions that
interpreted the genealogy listings of Genesis chs. 5 and 11
incorrectly, failing to consider the use of any telescoping, and
is a chronology that lost considerable support among
conservative theologians in the Twentieth Century. Furthermore,
anthropological data available to us since the Seventeenth
Century does show that the human race is over 6,000 years old.
Creationist Hugh Ross indicates, “attempts to spread the
Christian gospel in Asia were stymied because Chinese historical
records gave a date for the origin and spread of civilization
that preceded Ussher’s date.”[55]
When we see human cave paintings, such as those in Lascaux,
France from an estimated 16,000 years ago[56]
(with some of the other cave paintings in France and Spain
dating to as many as 32,000 years ago), the 6,000 year
chronology that so many Messianics hold to is not at all easily
sustainable.[57]
Unless “life” and “death” are only things to be considered in
entirely physical terms, then we have adequate proof from the
Fall that the death introduced to humanity by Adam is first and
foremost an unredeemed person’s separation from God, present in
those who live in bondage to the realm of sin. This is a
separation that can be remedied, however, by men and women
receiving the salvation available in Yeshua. When a born again
Believer dies, his or her consciousness will be transferred into
the presence of the Lord—surely a desirable condition if
one’s communion with Him has been restored to a heart that is
then filled with great love for Him (Deuteronomy 6:5;
Philippians 1:21-23)—with the salvation process fully
consummating at the resurrection. It is not unimportant at all
that human death is differentiated from animal death (Romans
5:12). Advocates of
psychopannychy have done a disservice in viewing “life” and “death”
in only one-dimensional terms. By so doing, it has been my
experience that Messianic
psychopannychists seem to not possess a significant knowledge of the
spiritual realm, or for that matter of the communion that they
should desire to experience with the Lord.
What is Sheol?
What is the grave?
Within the Hebrew Scriptures, the place where the deceased go is
called Sheol (lAav), translated in the Septuagint by the term
Hadēs (adhß), whose usage carries over into the Apostolic
Scriptures. In most of today’s English translations of the Bible
(i.e., RSV, NASU, NRSV, ESV) both Sheol and Hades appear in the
text, leaving the reader to decide what is being spoken of
(David H. Stern’s Complete Jewish Bible similarly just uses
Sh’ol). Versions like the NIV, however, often render Sheol
as “the grave.” With this, Ecclesiastes 9:10 would say “for
in the grave [Sheol], where you are going, there is neither
working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom” (NIV). Yet there
is a huge debate in today’s Biblical scholarship whether Sheol
is actually “the grave,” meaning just a place of internment for
dead bodies. The newer TNIV renders Ecclesiastes 9:10 with “in
the realm of the dead, where you are going,” which indicates
doubt that Sheol is not necessary “the grave.” So is Sheol/Hades
the grave, or is it an extra-dimensional place where the
consciousnesses of the dead can be held prior to resurrection?
Psychopannychists argue that Sheol/Hades is exclusively the grave,
whereas those of us who believe in an intermediate afterlife
prior to resurrection argue that it is an extra-dimensional
realm of the dead.
Sheol is depicted as a place from which no one comes up (Job 7:9),
seemingly requiring some kind of resurrection, causing many to
conclude that it is only “the grave.” Yet, is it at all
important that the location of Sheol is often contrasted to be
as low as Heaven is high (Deuteronomy 32:22; Isaiah 7:11)? This
could depict Sheol at one end of the cosmic spectrum, with
Heaven at the other end, and with Planet Earth somewhere in the
middle. Heaven is surely in another dimension than Planet Earth,
so why would it be a problem if Sheol were also in another
dimension?
Expositors often do not disagree with the conclusion that Sheol and
the grave are connected, as the power of death is in view, yet
“the degree to which [Sheol] is identified with the grave has
been debated” (ABD).[58]
Is Sheol a synonym for the grave, or is it a companion for the
grave—so that while one’s body decays in a tomb, one’s
consciousness is reduced to a shade of its former self in Sheol?
Strong evidence is offered on both sides, with many simply
concluding “At most it is a place of confinement away from the
land of the living” (ISBE).[59]
One’s presuppositions relating to whether Sheol is just the
grave, or an extra-dimensional holding place, will affect how
one interprets Scripture passages that portray the deceased in
Sheol.
One fact that can easily escape us is that the Scriptures do
possess specific terms for a place of interment, a tomb or an
actual gravesite. The Hebrew qever (rbq)
means “grave, sepulchre” (BDB),[60]
and is used to describe how the king of Babylon has “been cast
out of your tomb” (Isaiah 14:19). While the other “kings of the
nations lie in glory, each in his own tomb” (Isaiah 14:18), the
king of Babylon does not have a proper burial in a qever,
instead being brought down to Sheol (Isaiah 14:9) where he is
welcomed by the kings who preceded him. In Greek, a term of
specific interest to us would be mnēma (mnhma),
often meaning a memorial, and hence “gener. grave, tomb”
(BDAG).[61]
In the period between His death and resurrection, Yeshua’s body
was placed in a mnēma
(Mark 16:2; Luke 8:27), yet as the Apostle Peter would testify “He
was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did
His flesh suffer decay”
(Acts 2:31; cf. Psalm 16:10). Yeshua’s body was not placed in a
mnēma
long enough to decay, while the Lord was not left as a permanent
resident of Hades (or Sheol; cf. Luke 23:43; 1 Peter 3:19).
While these are important examples to consider regarding what Sheol/Hades
is, it behooves us more than anything else to examine the varied
usages of Sheol as seen in the Tanach. This is largely
because
psychopannychists
make their arguments about the post-mortem state almost entirely
from the Tanach. (Regardless of what side one takes,
interpreters are widely agreed that the usage of Hadēs in
the Apostolic Scriptures concurs with the Tanach usage of
Sheol.) So does the Tanach depict Sheol as a place or
internment, or as a holding place for the consciousness of the
deceased prior to resurrection?
The first place Sheol appears is in the Patriarch Jacob’s
lament for his son Joseph, of whom he cries out “A
wild beast has devoured him; Joseph has surely been torn to
pieces!” (Genesis 37:33). Mourning for his lost son, Jacob is
overcome so that all he can say is ki-ered el-beni avel
Sheolah (hlav
lba ynB-la dra-yK),
meaning “I will go down mourning to my son in Sheol” (Genesis
37:35, NJPS). While it would be very easy for one to simply
conclude that this means “in mourning will I go down to the
grave” (NIV), it is not insignificant that we point out
how—believing his son was eaten by a wild animal—Joseph would
have had no place of burial. Morey points out, “He…speaks of
‘going down’ to reunite with his son, because it was assumed
that Sheol was the place of departed spirits, probably a hollow
place in the center of the earth.”[62]
Similarly, commenting on this verse, Sarna describes,
“[Sheol] is the most frequently used term in biblical Hebrew for
the abode of the spirits of the dead. The region was imagined as
situated deep beneath the earth, enclosed with gates. It was a
place of unrelieved gloom and silence; it received anyone, good
and bad, great and small. All were equal there, and none who
entered it could leave.”[63]
The first Biblical usage of Sheol allows for a belief in a
disembodied post-mortem state, something even reflected in
today’s somewhat progressive Jewish theology. For the most part
regarding Sheol, though, we find a series of Tanach passages
that are undeniably affected by one’s presuppositions. If Sheol
is just the grave, they can be viewed this way, or if
Sheol is a holding place for the human consciousness prior to
resurrection, they can likewise be viewed this way. The
following are a selection of passages to be considered.
Thankfully, most Bibles do leave Sheol as is, leaving the reader
to decide what is being communicated:
“For
Sheol cannot thank You, death cannot praise You; those who go
down to the pit cannot hope for Your faithfulness. It is the
living who give thanks to You, as I do today; a father tells his
sons about Your faithfulness” (Isaiah 38:18-19).
“The strong among the mighty ones shall speak of him and
his helpers from the midst of Sheol, ‘They have gone down, they
lie still, the uncircumcised, slain by the sword’” (Ezekiel
32:21).
“Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all
your might; for there is no activity or planning or knowledge or
wisdom in Sheol where you are going” (Ecclesiastes 9:10).
“For there is no mention of You in death; in Sheol who will give
You thanks? I am weary with my sighing; every night I make my
bed swim, I dissolve my couch with my tears” (Psalm 6:5-6).
“Let
me not be put to shame, O
Lord, for I call upon You; Let the wicked be put to
shame, let them be silent in Sheol” (Psalm 31:17).
“As sheep they are appointed for Sheol; death shall be their
shepherd; and the upright shall rule over them in the morning,
and their form shall be for Sheol to consume so that they have
no habitation. But God will redeem my soul from the power of
Sheol, for He will receive me. Selah” (Psalm 49:14-15).
“For
Your lovingkindness toward me is great, and You have delivered
my soul from the depths of Sheol” (Psalm 86:13).
“What
man can live and not see death? Can he deliver his soul from the
power of Sheol? Selah” (Psalm 89:48).
From the variety of usages seen here, it is not difficult to see
how some interpreters can view Sheol as being “the grave,” and
yet how other interpreters can see Sheol as a netherworld for
the deceased. Psychopannychists would view the varied references
to Sheol in a poetic or non-literal sense, whereas those of us
who believe in an intermediate post-mortem state would view
Sheol as a literal holding place for the consciousness of the
deceased. Both
psychopannychists
and those who believe in an intermediate post-mortem state are
agreed that Earthly life is contrasted with the existence of the
diseased. But what kind of existence of the diseased is
implied in the sorts of passages above?
Morey summarizes his
view:
“Once in Sheol, all experiences related exclusively to physical
life are no longer possible. Those in Sheol do not marry and
procreate children because they do not have bodies. Neither do
they plan and execute business transactions. Once in Sheol, they
cannot attend public worship in the temple and give sacrifices
or praise. There are no bodily pleasures such as eating or
drinking. Those in Sheol do not have any wisdom or knowledge
about what is happening in the land of the living. They are cut
off from the living. They have entered a new dimension of
reality with its own kind of existence…”[64]
Advocates of psychopannychy like Bacchiocchi, however,
do believe that Sheol is just another term for “grave.” He
provides Numbers 16:31-33 as his support, saying “Perhaps the
clearest example of the location of sheol beneath the
earth is the account of the punishment of Korah, Dathan, and
Abiram, who had revolved against the authority of Moses.”[65]
These verses tell us,
“As
he finished speaking all these words, the ground that was under
them split open; and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed
them up, and their households, and all the men who belonged to
Korah with their possessions. So they and all that
belonged to them went down alive to Sheol; and the earth closed
over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly.”
This was quite a dramatic scene, as those opposed to God’s
servant were swallowed up by the ground. Bacchiocchi’s view is
that “This episode clearly shows that the whole person, and not
just the soul, goes down to sheol, to the realm of the
dead.”[66]
What he has failed to tell us, though, is the fact that being
swallowed up by the ground is not the normal way that people
die. Numbers 16:30 is clear to specify that this judgment was
“something unheard-of” (NJPS) or “unprecedented” (HCSB),[67]
so that Moses’ credibility could be confirmed to the Israelites.
There is no major issue here if an Israelite had already
believed that the consciousness of the deceased went to Sheol,
because the rebels’ going down with their possessions would make
the Israelites realize that what had made them prideful against
Moses could not help them in the face of God. On the contrary,
the Psalmist even says that one’s bones “have been scattered at
the mouth of Sheol” (Psalm 141:7), supporting the view of Sheol
not being “the grave,” but instead a holding area for the
consciousnesses of the deceased where physical elements are not
allowed. The rebels opposing Moses would then be swallowed up
and killed, ultimately ending up as just refaim or shades
in Sheol.
Those of us who believe that the evidence points to Sheol being
a temporary holding place for the disembodied diseased until
resurrection, can point to usages of the term that can be read
from the perspective of an extra-dimensional post-mortem vantage
point. Morey provides a list of twenty reasons in his book
Death and the Afterlife pointing to Sheol being an
extra-dimensional netherworld, notably including: unlike a grave
(Exodus 14:11), Sheol is never localized; Sheol can never be
bought or sold (Genesis 23:4-20), unlike a place of entombment;
humans can place a dead body in a resting place, but not in
Sheol (Genesis 50:13); humans can touch a gravesite (Numbers
19:19), but not Sheol; remains in a grave can be removed or
uncovered (2 Kings 23:16), but humans are incapable of removing
or uncovering anything in Sheol; humans can beautify or decorate
a gravesite (Genesis 35:20), but not Sheol. These facts can only
lead us to one conclusion: Sheol is an extra-dimensional
netherworld.[68]
As he further concludes,
“Sheol is ‘under the earth,’ or ‘the underworld,’ while graves
were built as supulchres above the earth, or caves, or holes in
the earth. Sheol is called the underworld in Isa. 14:9. It is
also called ‘the lower parts of the earth’ (KJV) in Ps. 63:9;
Isa. 44:23; Eze. 26:20; 31:14, 16, 18; 32:18, 24. Sheol is the
opposite of heaven (Ps. 139:8). One must go ‘down’ to get to
Sheol (Gen. 37:35).”[69]
While the linguistic debates over what Sheol is do rage on, there
are some specific instances where death is portrayed in the
Tanach that will give us a fuller picture of the subject,
because as Cooper notes, we can often be stuck with “the
indeterminacy of poetic language.”[70]
It is incumbent upon us to see what the Tanach actually tells us
about the death expectations of Ancient Israel for us to have a
fuller picture.
Death
Expectations in the Tanach
When reading the Tanach, it is not difficult for one to see that
it is more concerned about regulating human life on Planet
Earth, than it is concerned about the hereafter. Cooper
indicates, “The Old Testament is resoundingly this-worldly. The
fullest possible extent for a human being is to live an earthly
life as God created it to be lived.”[71]
Many people when reading the Tanach get the impression that it
has no expectation of any kind of intermediate afterlife, or for
that same matter, a resurrection of the dead. The Tanach does
certainly affirm the reanimation of physical bodies in the
eschaton (Isaiah
26:19; Ezekiel 37:6; Daniel 12:2),
but what does it say about the expectations regarding death?
Does it conclusively speak against the concept of a disembodied
post-mortem state?
Psychopannychists
certainly believe so, but those of us who do believe in a
temporary disembodied state prior to the resurrection are not
convinced.
The following are some passages that need to be
weighed into our discussion, especially in terms of whether or
not the Tanach supports
psychopannychy.
Leviticus 19:31; 20:6; Isaiah 8:19-20
“Do not turn to mediums or spiritists; do not seek them out
to be defiled by them. I am the
Lord your God”
(Leviticus 19:31).
“As for the person who turns to mediums and to spiritists,
to play the harlot after them, I will also set My face
against that person and will cut him off from among his
people” (Leviticus 20:6).
“When they say to you, ‘Consult the mediums and the
spiritists who whisper and mutter,’ should not a people
consult their God? Should they consult the dead on
behalf of the living? To the law and to the testimony! If
they do not speak according to this word, it is because they
have no dawn” (Isaiah 8:19-20).
Moses’ Teaching specifically forbade the Ancient Israelites from
consulting mediums or necromancers (Heb. sing. ov,
bAa),[72]
with capital punishment specified for those who would employ the
services of such individuals. It almost goes without saying
that a prohibition on consulting the dead presupposes the belief
in some kind of continued existence of the human consciousness
after death. While the Lord certainly did not want His
people engaging in these activities to open themselves up to
demonic activity, the intention for visiting a necromancer would
have specifically been for not communicating with angels or
demons, but instead deceased humans.
It is indisputable that “There is abundant evidence for cults of
the dead in the pagan world that surrounded Israel” (ABD),
existing in Mesopotamia in the time of Abraham, in Ugarit, and
in Canaan. There was an “ancient view that the dead as spirits
maintained an ongoing relationship with the living, albeit in a
weakened state of existence” (ABD).[73]
While visiting a burial site is not uncommon for any ancient or
modern culture, many ancient societies visited burial sites to
do more than just remember and honor the deceased, but
instead perform religious rituals to try to communicate with
them and curry favor from the beyond. The rites of these cults,
often trying to communicate with the deceased, were strictly
forbidden for Ancient Israel.
The employment of terafim (~yprT)
or various household idols were commonly employed in necromancy
(Genesis 19:13; Judges 17:5; cf. Isaiah 29:4). Food offerings to
the dead are prohibited (Deuteronomy 26:14; Psalm 106:28), as
they were believed necessary for the ongoing nourishment of the
departed. And it has even been suggested that one of the reasons
that pork was off limits for Israel’s diet was how “the
sacrifice of a pig was closely connected with rites for the dead
(Isa 65:4)” (ABD).[74]
Yet, the witness of the Tanach does indicate that the
Israelites, even though prohibited from consulting necromancers,
did try to communicate with the dead in Sheol. Some even assert,
“The Hebrews in the remote past carried on an organized cult of
the dead, especially of their ancestors” (ABD).[75]
As Cooper concludes, “surely if the Israelites did not believe
that the dead existed or that they could be consulted, there
would have been no need to warn them against such practices.”[76]
Numbers 16:30-33
“‘But if the Lord
brings about an entirely new thing and the ground opens its
mouth and swallows them up with all that is theirs, and they
descend alive into Sheol, then you will understand that
these men have spurned the
Lord.’ As he
finished speaking all these words, the ground that was under
them split open; and the earth opened its mouth and
swallowed them up, and their households, and all the men who
belonged to Korah with their possessions. So they and
all that belonged to them went down alive to Sheol; and the
earth closed over them, and they perished from the midst of
the assembly.”
We already addressed this passage in the previous section on
Sheol, answering the claim of
psychopannychists
that Korah and the rebels were only transported
to the grave, and not a holding place of disembodiment. The
ground opening up and swallowing the discontents and their
possessions is said by Moses to have been “something
unprecedented” (HCSB) or a “miracle” (REB), meaning that this
was not the normal way that people die. The view that the
rebels could have been physically killed by this, with their
consciousnesses transferred to the netherworld of Sheol, is not
at all a far stretch of the scene, especially if God wanted to
emphasize how their possessions would not save them.
It is not unimportant that in the view of some, Korah and his
company going down alive into Sheol indicates that they may have
never died. Philip J. Budd indicates how “The common death experienced by men in
general is the withdrawal of breath and divine spirit (cf. e.g.
Job 12:10; Ps 104:28). This is clearly distinguished from the
abnormal intervention on God’s part anticipated here.” He lists
one view, which asserts, “Since they ‘go down alive’ it may mean
that they feel deprivation there, and suffer in a way that the
dead do not.”[77]
With this considered, the possibility that Korah and the rebels
could have been taken into Sheol without experiencing physical
death may serve as an antithesis of individuals like Enoch
(Genesis 5:24) or Elijah (2 Kings 2:11) being translated by God
up into Heaven.
1 Samuel 28:13-15
“The king said to her, ‘Do not be afraid; but what do you
see?’ And the woman said to Saul, ‘I see a divine being
coming up out of the earth.’ He said to her, ‘What is his
form?’ And she said, ‘An old man is coming up, and he is
wrapped with a robe.’ And Saul knew that it was Samuel, and
he bowed with his face to the ground and did homage. Then
Samuel said to Saul, ‘Why have you disturbed me by bringing
me up?’ And Saul answered, ‘I am greatly distressed; for the
Philistines are waging war against me, and God has departed
from me and no longer answers me, either through prophets or
by dreams; therefore I have called you, that you may make
known to me what I should do.’”
King Saul visited the witch of Endor with the specific intent of
communicating with the deceased Samuel, a significant problem
for him as he routed all necromancers out of Israel, yet
promised this medium that she would not be harmed (1 Samuel
28:9-10). As she performs her rituals, she says elohim ra’iti
olim min-ha’eretz (#rah-!m
~yl[ ytyar ~yhla).
Because the scene depicts some kind of specter being called up
and speaking to King Saul,
psychopannychists
have to immediately discount the possibility that this is
actually the Prophet Samuel, as it would easily support the view
that the consciousness of the deceased can exist outside of the
body. Psychopannychists insist that this being, labeled as “elohim”
by the witch of Endor, was only a demon impersonating Samuel and
not the Prophet Samuel himself. Yet this has a problem when the
rituals associated the Canaanite cult of the dead—which we may
safely assume this medium was practicing—are taken into proper
consideration. Wright explains,
“Elohim normally means ‘god’ or ‘gods’; this usage
presumably reflects Canaanite belief in the divinity of the
dead, surviving here as a kind of linguistic fossil. Here it
seems to mean ‘a spirit’, ‘a being from the world of the gods’.”[78]
For some reason or another, God allowed the rites of this medium to
work, and the Prophet Samuel communicates a rather ironic
message to King Saul: “Why then do you ask me, since the
Lord has departed
from you and has become your adversary?” (1 Samuel 28:16).
Obviously, if the Almighty Himself is unwilling to help Saul,
then Samuel in the netherworld cannot help Saul, either. And
what is Samuel’s word to Saul? Samuel says, “tomorrow you and
your sons will be with me” (1 Samuel 28:19), as they would be
killed in battle and join the company of departed refaim
or shades in Sheol. This is not just a poetic way of Samuel
saying that Saul and his sons would die. Cooper notes, “[H]e
expects Saul and his sons to be joining him. That would not be
true if he were [just] in some special state of suspended
animation provided by God for this unique occasion.”[79]
Isaiah 14:9-11, 18-20
“Sheol from beneath is excited over you to meet you when you
come; it arouses for you the spirits of the dead, all the
leaders of the earth; it raises all the kings of the nations
from their thrones. They will all respond and say to you,
‘Even you have been made weak as we, you have become like
us. Your pomp and the music of your harps have been
brought down to Sheol; maggots are spread out as your bed
beneath you and worms are your covering’…All the kings
of the nations lie in glory, each in his own tomb. But you
have been cast out of your tomb like a rejected branch,
clothed with the slain who are pierced with a sword, who go
down to the stones of the pit like a trampled corpse. You
will not be united with them in burial, because you have
ruined your country, you have slain your people. May the
offspring of evildoers not be mentioned forever.”
The death of the king of Babylon is an intriguing passage,
because we see Sheol or the netherworld, and qever
or the tomb, depicted together. When the king of Babylon dies, “Sheol
beneath is stirred up to meet you when you come, it rouses the
shades to greet you, all who were leaders of the earth” (v. 9,
RSV), as the refaim or departed spirits of the kings who
preceded him in death actually welcome him into this new realm.
They tell their new companion, “So you have been stricken as we
were, you have become like us!” (v. 10, NJPS). In spite of the
great power he may have wielded in life, the king of Babylon is
not immune as death is the great equalizer. What we see can
clearly be interpreted as a disembodied post-mortem state in
Sheol.
V. 11 adds a physical dimension to this because when the king of
Babylon dies, he has “been brought down to Sheol; maggots are
spread out as your bed
beneath you and worms are your covering.”
Each of the kings who have preceded the king of Babylon in death
have their own place of internment, their own “house” (v. 18,
KJV) where their remains rest among their people and they can be
remembered and honored. The king of Babylon, in contrast, has
“been cast out of [his] tomb [qever]” (v. 19) and “will
not be united” with the kings who preceded him “in burial [b’kevurah,
hrWbqB],
because [he has] ruined [his] country” (v. 20). The king of
Babylon has no burial, but instead is given a bed of maggots and
covering of worms. Consider the reaction of those who witness
the fall of the king of Babylon:
“Those
who see you will gaze at you, they will ponder over you,
saying, ‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who
shook kingdoms, who made the world like a wilderness and
overthrew its cities, who did not allow his prisoners to go
home?’” (Isaiah 14:16-17).
In spite of the great power and influence he wielded in life,
the evil actions of the king of Babylon catch up with him in the
end. John D.W. Watts explains, “The observations of those who
view the corpse reflect their astonishment and horror. The body
has not been buried, but abandoned like garbage (v 19). He
shares the fate of the dead among the poorest people: like the
aborted fetus, like the clothes of one stabbed in
a brawl, one killed in a fall, one trampled by a
mob or on a battle-field, he is simply dumped in a pit and left
to the birds and animals.”[80]
Rather than having a tomb where he can be honored and remembered
by his people, all the king of Babylon has is a place among the
shades in Sheol, where he can be chastised by those who preceded
him in death. His mangled corpse disappears into history.
Advocates of psychopannychy
do not see this scene as depicting any kind of literal descent
of the consciousness of the king of Babylon into Sheol, but
instead conclude that the king of Babylon dying and being
greeted by previous kings in Sheol is just a poetic taunt, not
to be taken with any kind of literalness. Sheol here is simply a
synonym for the grave. But this is not the full picture of what
we see in his downfall. Instead, we see Sheol and the grave
contrasted. Morey concludes, “the king is cast out of his grave
(kever) in order to be thrown into Sheol where the
departed spirits can rebuke him (vv. 9, 10). In this passage,
Sheol and kever are opposites, not synonyms.”[81]
There is hermeneutical difficulty for the
psychopannychist who believes that
Isaiah 14:9-11, 18-20 is simply a symbolic way of describing death,
but no post-mortem disembodied state. What is keeping us from
interpreting Scriptures where they consider that the literal
condition of the dead is complete unconsciousness in a similar
poetic or symbolic way? Cooper notes that their “objection cuts
both ways. It is also a problem for those who argue from Job,
Psalms, and Ecclesiastes that pure unconsciousness is the
literal Hebrew belief about the dead. Those texts [could not] be
taken at face value either.”[82]
Psalm 146:2-4
“I will praise the Lord while I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have
my being. Do not trust in princes, in mortal man, in whom
there is no salvation. His spirit departs, he returns to the
earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.”
Psychopannychists often think that they have a very strong case
from Psalm 146:2-4, as v. 4 obviously describes what happens to
a person at death: someone’s breath leaves, his body decomposes,
and his brainwaves or thoughts cease. No conscious post-mortem
state is seen. These conclusions, however, fail to take into
consideration the actual message being communicated by the
Psalmist.
The Psalmist declares how he will praise the Lord with his
being: “Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, O
my soul!” (v. 1). Only the Lord, because of who He is, is worthy
of such praise and the Psalmist’s trust. The Psalmist refuses to
place his trust “in the great, in mortal man who cannot save”
(v. 3, NJPS). This is because human beings die and decompose,
unlike a God who is eternal. On these points psychopannychists
and those of us who believe in an intermediate afterlife are not
in disagreement.
What is to be made of the Psalmist’s assertion that when a
mortal man dies “in that very day his thoughts perish”? Some
suggest that the scene here is Israel trying to seek its
deliverance from allies of other nations, something that
indicates distrust in God and will not benefit them. Others
would simply say that this concerns individuals placing their
trust in princes or political leaders. Yet regardless of which
view one takes, esh’ton (!ATv[)
is more concurrent with one’s “plan” (HALOT; cf.
RSV, NIV, NRSV, ESV, etc.),[83]
as opposed to his thoughts being his consciousness. Leslie C.
Allen explains, “Their
creatureliness spells the transience of their policies: in spite
of their apparent power, from a long-term standpoint they are
powerless.”[84]
We have good reason to believe that Psalm 146:2-4 does not
concern the consciousness of a person ending at death, but
instead the plans of any mortal sought out for salvation—over
and against a God who should be praised and who alone can
provide salvation.
Ecclesiastes 3:18-22
“I said to myself concerning the sons of men, ‘God has
surely tested them in order for them to see that they are
but beasts.’ For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of
beasts is the same. As one dies so dies the other; indeed,
they all have the same breath and there is no advantage for
man over beast, for all is vanity. All go to the same place.
All came from the dust and all return to the dust. Who knows
that the breath of man ascends upward and the breath of the
beast descends downward to the earth? I have seen that
nothing is better than that man should be happy in his
activities, for that is his lot. For who will bring him to
see what will occur after him?”
In examining the works and teachings of psychopannychists,
it is not difficult at all to see that there is perhaps no more
favorite book of the Bible for them than Ecclesiastes. For some
reason or another, they feel content in giving this anonymous
and controversial book more weight than many other texts of
Scripture. Few Messianics who have adopted the doctrine of
psychopannychy
are aware that Ecclesiastes was one of the last books to be
included in our Bible, for the specific reason that some viewed
it as being anti-resurrection.
The Mishnah records the debates that occurred between the
Pharisaical Schools of Hillel and Shammai over Ecclesiastes’
usefulness: “‘[The Book of] Qohelet does not render the hands
unclean,’ according to the House of Shammai. And the House of
Hillel say, ‘It renders the hands unclean’” (m.Eduyyot
5:3).[85]
Shammai considered the text to not render one’s hands unclean
because Ecclesiastes was not intrinsically that holy, whereas
Hillel viewed the text as being holy. Debate over the holiness,
or unholiness, of the Book of Ecclesiastes was still going on
until the late First Century C.E. (m.Yadayaim 3:5), well
after Yeshua the Messiah had come on the scene. The Apostle
Paul’s reference to Ecclesiastes 1:2 in Romans 8:20 assured
Ecclesiastes a place within the Christian canon, but much of the
Church has viewed Ecclesiastes with some of the same skepticism
as the Rabbis.
Any difficulty those of us who believe in a temporary disembodied
post-mortem state may have, however, needs to be resolved from
the text of Ecclesiastes itself, and not us just dismissing this
book as somehow not being Scripture.
Here in Ecclesiastes 3:19 it is directly stated, “Man's
fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them
both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath;
man has no advantage over the animal” (NIV). Upon first reading,
it appears that the consciousness of a human being does not go
to an extra-dimensional holding place at the time of death. To
the
psychopannychist, those
of us who believe in a disembodied post-mortem state have
obviously got it all wrong.
The cotext of v. 19, though, gives us a little
fuller picture of what Qohelet is saying to his audience—an
audience that likely needs to be encouraged to live a godly
life, rejecting hedonism. Qohelet has stated just earlier, “I
have seen the task which God has given the sons of men with
which to occupy themselves. He has made everything appropriate
in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so
that man will not find out the work which God has done from the
beginning even to the end” (Ecclesiastes 3:9-11).
Gam et-ha’olam natan b’libam (~BlB
!tn ~l[h-ta ~G)
is a unique statement to consider: “Also,
he has put eternity into man's heart” (ESV), or
“he
has given human beings an awareness of eternity” (CJB). While
limited creatures that they are, a human being is to understand
that there is something beyond Earth. Life on Earth, while
possessing good things (Ecclesiastes 3:12-13a), pales in
comparison how “everything God does will remain forever; there
is nothing to add to it and there is nothing to take from it,
for God has so worked that men should fear Him”
(Ecclesiastes 3:14). A life lived without Him as the emphasis
misses the point! People must turn to God to be shown all the
wonders of His work.
Qohelet returns to his largely pessimistic method of reasoning
with the crowd. The cycles of human life repeat themselves
(Ecclesiastes 3:15), but he adds something: “in
the place of justice there is wickedness and in the place of
righteousness there is wickedness”
(Ecclesiastes 3:16). Resha ([vr)
is present in places where it should not be (cf. Micah 6:10-11),
and so what happens is “‘God
will judge both the righteous man and the wicked man,’ for a
time for every matter and for every deed is there”
(Ecclesiastes 3:17). This could be read as a hint of a future
resurrection and judgment. But what follows are the difficult
words that have stirred unbelievable controversy among many
examiners of Ecclesiastes, as Qohelet asserts,
“As for men, God tests them so that they may see that they are
like animals. Man’s fate is like that of the animals; the same
fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have
the same breath; man has no advantage over the animal.
Everything is meaningless [hevel,
lbh;
more accurately meaning ‘transitory’]. All go to the same place;
all come from dust, and to dust all return. Who knows if the
spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes
down into the earth?” (Ecclesiastes 3:18-21, NIV).
These are the kinds of sentiments that one would expect the
Sadducees of the First Century C.E. to say, those who
categorically denied the resurrection. Does Qohelet deny the
resurrection? Some interpreters actually say yes—so
whether one is a
psychopannychist
or one believes in a temporary disembodied afterlife, as we
both believe in the resurrection—this forces us to interpret
the Book of Ecclesiastes within the scope of the wider Biblical
canon.[86]
When we consider the larger Biblical message, and the setting of
Ecclesiastes as the period of opulence and corruption reflected
in the Books of Amos and Micah, I would suggest that Qohelet’s
purpose is not, in fact, to equate the fate of
human beings and animals as being the same. Instead, he wants to
get his listeners to see that there is more to life than just
fulfilling one’s sensual desires—things that are transitory and
not permanent. Qohelet says that God will bring people to
justice who commit wickedness (Ecclesiastes 3:17). Wicked people
who think they can get away with sinful deeds are really no
better than the animals, thinking that once they die they will
face no consequences for their actions before a Higher Power.
From this angle, Qohelet cynically says, “For
who can prove that the human spirit goes up and the spirit of
animals goes down into the earth?” (Ecclesiastes 3:21, NLT).
Rather than speaking indisputable facts about how human beings
and animals are compositionally indifferent, could it instead be
that Qohelet is really trying to get his audience to think
about their wickedness, and if they really do face the
same fate as the animals? After all, who can really prove that
there is something more than this life? His line of reasoning is
for them to simply enjoy life on Earth now, because after all,
how can we really know what happens next? He says, “I have seen
that nothing is better than that man should be happy in his
activities, for that is his lot. For who will bring him to see
what will occur after him?” (Ecclesiastes 3:22). No consequences
after death, right?
Within the larger Biblical canon we know that there are definite
consequences after death, and that the fate of human beings
is entirely different from that of the animals. The Apostle
Paul is clear on how “each
one [of us will] be recompensed for his deeds in the body,
according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2
Corinthians 5:10). Ecclesiastes
3:18-22 presents no problems to those
who believe in either the resurrection and/or the
resurrection and an intermediate afterlife if the
text is approached with the right presuppositions. Qohelet
desires that his audience not allow the wickedness he has seen
on Earth persist, and he asks them rhetorical questions to
really think about whether their lives face no consequences
after death, because their destiny and composition is the same
as the animals.
Ecclesiastes 9:5-10
“For the living know they will die; but the dead do not know
anything, nor have they any longer a reward, for their
memory is forgotten. Indeed their love, their hate and their
zeal have already perished, and they will no longer have a
share in all that is done under the sun. Go then, eat
your bread in happiness and drink your wine with a cheerful
heart; for God has already approved your works. Let your
clothes be white all the time, and let not oil be lacking on
your head. Enjoy life with the woman whom you love all the
days of your fleeting life which He has given to you under
the sun; for this is your reward in life and in your toil in
which you have labored under the sun. Whatever your hand
finds to do, do it with all your might; for
there is no activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom in
Sheol where you are going.”
This section of the Book of Ecclesiastes is probably the most
frequently quoted Scripture by psychopannychists
toward people who believe in an intermediate afterlife prior to
the resurrection. Ecclesiastes 9:5b says “the
dead do not know anything” or “the dead know nothing” (RSV/NIV).
Sometimes this is screamed at people who are grieving the
recent loss of a loved one. While Qohelet is not screaming
this at his audience, we need to once again understand his
intention for making this remark, and seeing whether or not it
really does support
psychopannychy.
Qohelet
is tempered by wisdom, as he says “I have taken all this to my
heart and explain it that righteous men, wise men, and their
deeds are in the hand of God….It is the same for all. There is
one fate for the righteous and for the wicked; for the good, for
the clean and for the unclean; for the man who offers a
sacrifice and for the one who does not sacrifice” (Ecclesiastes
9:1-2). The power of death is something that will affect each
and every person, as “there is one fate for all men”
(Ecclesiastes 9:3). Qohelet’s emphasis here is what happens to
evil people, and while “insanity is in their hearts throughout
their lives. Afterwards they go to the dead”
(Ecclesiastes 9:3b). You almost see a chance for possible
repentance in his claim, “whoever is joined with all the living,
there is hope; surely a live dog is better than a dead lion”
(Ecclesiastes 9:4). One might be weaker and righteous
before God while living, as opposed to having died strong but
with no hope of restitution before Him. What follows are
some more words from Qohelet that have been strongly debated
among interpreters:
“For
the living know they will die; but the dead do not know
anything, nor have they any longer a reward, for their memory is
forgotten. Indeed their love, their hate and their zeal have
already perished, and they will no longer have a share in all
that is done under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 9:5-6).
Psychopannychists will take the short clause “the dead know
nothing” (RSV/NIV) and then claim that anyone who believes in an
afterlife—in either Heaven or Hell—between the time of death and
resurrection is in severe error for believing so. Yet this is
not the context of Qohelet’s words. Qohelet is speaking on how
the dead cannot participate “in
all that is done under the sun,”
tachat ha’shamesh
(vmVh txT),
things done on Planet Earth.[87]
Those who believe in psychopannychy often base their doctrine on
half-verses such as Ecclesiastes 9:5b, which say “the
dead do not know anything.” Yet this is not definitive evidence
of no intermediate post-mortem afterlife, as the verse
continues describing human life on Earth, and how the dead
do not know of any Earth-bound things: “their memory is
forgotten. Indeed their love, their hate and their zeal have
already perished, and they will no longer have a share in all
that is done under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 9:5c-6, NIV).
Ecclesiastes 9:5-6 does not say anything about the condition of
dead persons or where they are, but instead lists specific
things that they cannot do because they are dead.
The things Qohelet lists such as love, hate, and zeal are things
that these people had time to participate in on Earth or “under
the sun,” but cannot participate in beyond the veil of death,
hence not “knowing” about them.
Once a person is dead, his or her fate is sealed before the
Almighty, and no chance of restitution remains. A life of these
specific worldly experiences is over.
And so what is one to do while living that life “under the sun”?
Is it a life of no value according to Qohelet? No. He says, “Go
then, eat your bread in happiness and drink your wine
with a cheerful heart; for God has already approved your works”
(Ecclesiastes, 9:7). Now is the time to live a life pleasing to
God, where one can enjoy future blessings—and not
condemnation—from Him! Qohelet says to “Enjoy
life with the woman whom you love all the days of your fleeting
life which He has given to you under the sun; for this is your
reward in life and in your toil in which you have labored under
the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with
all your might; for there is no activity or planning or
knowledge or wisdom in Sheol where you are going”
(Ecclesiastes, 9:9-10). Life on Earth, in spite of its
imperfections, indeed has its rewards that God wants people to
take advantage of—especially those who are living a life of
obedience to Him. These are things, though, which are no longer
available after death.
V. 10
says that the joys God has created to be experienced on this
Earth cannot be enjoyed when a deceased person goes to Sheol.
While versions like the NIV renders this as “for in the grave
where you are going…,” as previously discussed this more
accurately means “for in the realm of the dead, where you are
going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor
wisdom” (TNIV). A deceased person joins the refaim or
shades in Sheol, an extra-dimensional holding place for the
consciousness, and is not completely what he was on Planet
Earth. Ecclesiastes 9:5-10 and Qohelet’s assertion “the dead
know nothing” presents no problems for those of us who believe
in an intermediate disembodied afterlife, if we can see how he
substantiates what knowing nothing about really involves.[88]
There are no major passages in the Tanach that conclusively prove
that when a person dies there is no disembodied intermediate
post-mortem state. There are passages in the Tanach, though,
that do prove that life on Earth is something to be enjoyed
to its fullest. Our purpose for living here on Earth
should not be to just die and escape to the hereafter; such
a view is absolutely foreign to the Tanach. Human beings have
been given dominion over Planet Earth, and we should take
advantage of all the wonderful joys in nature and in this world.
As the Psalmist so aptly puts it, “Trust
in the Lord and do
good; dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness. Delight
yourself in the Lord;
and He will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:3-4).
God will shower us with rewards in this world if we trust in Him
and love Him! We do not have to wait for the eschaton to
experience such treasures.
The Greek
View(s) of Immortality
Before one can examine what the death expectations of the Apostolic
Scriptures are, it is commonly argued that the ancient Jews, the
Pharisees in particular, picked up the idea of a disembodied
afterlife from their interactions with the Greeks and not their
reading of the Tanach Scriptures. For many of today’s Messianic
Believers, all that needs to be said is “Belief in the
afterlife is Greek!” and that is reason enough for many to
reject the concept that born again Believers who have died are
in the presence of the Lord, awaiting the resurrection (or for
that same matter, many other Biblical doctrines). As I have far
too frequently encountered, while a fear of Hellenism is invoked
by Messianic psychopannychists, I have never witnessed a
single teacher actually quote the classical philosophers and
what they believed—much less engage with such philosophers’
opinions.
It is absolutely futile if Messianic psychopannychists try to argue
that the idea of an intermediate disembodied afterlife would
have only been a late Hellenistic importation to Second
Temple Judaism, never known or encountered before,
because the idea of a disembodied afterlife goes back several
millennia before the classical Greek period. Various
civilizations that preceded the founding of Ancient Israel and
the giving of the Torah, in fact, believed in a disembodied
afterlife.
The Mesopotamian Descent of Ishtar, dated to the late Bronze
Age (1550-1200 B.C.E.), portrays this goddess descending into
the underworld where the dead reside. Its opening words tell us,
“To Kurnugi, land of [no return], Ishtar daughter of Sin was
determined to go to the dark house, dwelling of Erkalla’s god,
to the house which those who enter cannot leave, on the road
where travelling is one-way only, to the house where those who
enter are deprived of light, where dust is their food, clay
their bread. They see no light, they dwell in darkness.”[89]
This depicts a Mesopotamian deity going to a place from which no
one returns.
The Egyptian religion had a significant theology of afterlife, as
is easily testified by the pyramids and various inscriptions
within the tombs of the pharaohs. The Egyptian Book of the
Dead is a lengthy compilation of such inscriptions and their
attendant papyri, describing what would happen when a departed
person would enter into the netherworld. A person’s entry into
the world of the dead begins by being judged by the god Osiris,
as his heart is weighed on a scale and must be lighter than a
feather:
“Saith Horus the son of Isis, ‘I have come to thee, O Un-nefer, and
I have brought unto thee the Osiris Ani. His heart is [found]
righteous, and it hath come forth from the balance; it hath not
sinned against any god or any goddess. Thoth hath weighed it
according to the decree pronounced unto him by the company of
the gods; and it is most true and righteous. Grant that cakes
and ale may be given unto him, and let him appear in the
presence of the god Osiris; and let him be like unto the
followers of Horus for ever and for ever.”[90]
Morey goes on to summarize how “When we turn to the literary
evidence, we find that the oldest extant literature abounds with
references to a life after death The Egyptian Book of the
Dead reveals the elaborate views of that great civilization
which arose along the Nile. The earliest Chinese literature
spoke eloquently of man’s afterlife. The Tibetan Book of the
Dead reveals the ancient beliefs of those who lived ‘at the
top of the world.’ The Babylonian and Assyrian belief in an
afterlife is indisputable.”[91]
While this does not serve as conclusive evidence that the Ancient
Israelites likewise believed in a disembodied post-mortem state,
it does demonstrate that we have an array of pre-classical
options at our disposal. It was not as though all civilizations
prior to the classical Greeks believed in no afterlife, and that
once the ancient Jews interacted with the Greeks, they then
incorporated a rather late concept into their religion. On the
contrary, there is a widely attested array of Ancient Near
Eastern materials that support the premise that a disembodied
afterlife was a view held by cultures contemporary to Ancient
Israel. One could just as easily argue that the Ancient
Israelites adapted the views of the Mesopotamians or the
Egyptians regarding the post-mortem state, into the Tanach
Scriptures, just as one may try to argue that the Pharisees
adapted the views of the Greeks.
But what did the Greeks actually believe? Psychopannychists might try to argue that the Pharisees
would have modified a view of Sheol as exclusively being “the
grave,” perhaps to adhere more to the scene of Odysseus’ descent
into Hades, where he encounters, among other people, his father,
his mother, Achilles, and King Agamemnon.[92]
Yet as we have previously discussed, usages of Sheol in the
Hebrew Scriptures themselves can demonstrate that it is
an extra-dimensional holding place for the consciousnesses of
the deceased, not requiring any kind of Hellenistic influence or
re-interpretation. In fact, one of the interesting realities
that need not allude us, is that in the First Centuries B.C.E.
and C.E., many Greeks and Romans did not believe
in a disembodied afterlife as all that remained for a person.
Consider the Apostle Paul’s encounter with the Epicureans and
Stoics at the Aeropagus (Mars Hill) in Athens:
“And
also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were
conversing with him. Some were saying, ‘What would this idle
babbler wish to say?’ Others, ‘He seems to be a proclaimer of
strange deities,’—because he was preaching Yeshua and the
resurrection. And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus,
saying, ‘May we know what this new teaching is which you are
proclaiming?’...Now when they heard of the resurrection of the
dead, some began to sneer, but others said, ‘We shall
hear you again concerning this’” (Acts 17:18-19, 32).
It is very easy for many Bible readers to overlook the
references we see to the Epicureans and Stoics, and simply
conclude that the divisions between them were no different than
two rival political parties, and then move on. On the contrary,
both the Epicureans and Stoics both had their own views of the
post-mortem state, with the former being able to easily dismiss
Paul’s convictions of the resurrection. Epicurean philosophy,
dating to the Fourth Century B.C.E., largely denied any kind of
post-mortem existence, as “Epicurus taught that (1) there is no
life after (physical) death, for death is the dissolution of the
atoms in our bodily existence; (2) even if man were to live on,
there would be no divine retribution, for the gods are not
concerned with human life” (ISBE).[93]
The Epicureans, largely holding to a philosophy of self pleasure
until one dies, would have easily dismissed the concept of a
resurrection as they advocated a significantly agnostic approach
to any kind of existence after death, largely discounting the
afterlife. It is not difficult to see them saying to Paul, “What
would this seed picker wish to say?” (Acts 17:18, YLT).
Stoicism was a far more dominant ideology than Epicureanism,
likewise originating from the Fourth Century B.C.E., and having
significantly impacted the Romans as well as the Greeks, whose
disciples included Seneca, Epictetus, and the Second Century C.E.
emperor Marcus Aurelius. Stoicism held that the Supreme Being
was everything in the universe, as Stoic theology “may be
described as a monistic and materialistic pantheism, in which
God permeates all of nature.”[94]
“The essential nature of man is therefore one with the essential
nature of the universe…For man is related to the universe as a
microcosm to macrocosm, and the same fiery principle of life,
law, and reason pervades them both” (IDB).[95]
At death then, whatever matter or energy composed a human being
would simply be engulfed back by the universe. The Stoics did
believe in a kind of disembodied afterlife, one where “At death,
the soul separates from the body. It exists for a certain time
on its own, but is reabsorbed into the [universe]…no later than
at the next ekpyrōsis” (ABD).[96]
This kind of post-mortem state would actually lead to a
reincarnation of a person throughout the ages. The Stoics in
Athens would have been more open to hearing Paul’s views on the
resurrection of the body.
In contrast to the Epicurean belief that physical death is the end
of one’s existence, and the Stoic belief in reincarnation, one
encounters Platonic dualism. Psychopannychists commonly
argue that Jews and Christians who believe in an intermediate
afterlife have adopted Platonic dualism, a philosophy where
physical matter is evil, but where metaphysical immaterialism is
good. Socrates, Plato’s predecessor from the Fifth Century B.C.E.,
is recorded as saying, “Death, as it seems to me, happens to be
nothing other than the separation of two things, the soul and
the body, from each other. When, therefore, they are separated
from each other, each of them is in a condition not much worse
than when the human being was alive, and the body has its own
nature” (Gorgias 524b).[97]
Wright notes, “For Plato, the soul is the non-material aspect of
a human being, and is the aspect that really matters.”[98]
The human body is simply a temporary dwelling place for such a
soul, and death is a release for the person to be brought into a
greater and much better form of existence. Phaedo of Elis
contemplated Socrates’ death by asserting,
“[T]his ‘purification’, as we saw some time ago in our discussion,
consist[s] in separating the soul as much as possibly from the
body…And to have its dwelling, so far as it can, both now and in
the future, alone by itself, freed from the chains of the
body….And the desire to free the soul is found chiefly, or
rather only, in the true philosopher; in fact the philosopher’s
occupation consists precisely in the freeing and separation of
soul from body” (Phaedo 67d).[99]
From this point of view, Ralph P. Martin can conclude, “the Greeks
looked forward to dying, for it represented a flight of the soul
from the body and as such it promised a desirable goal.”[100]
The physical body was just a shell to be thrown off of a person
at death, and all that mattered was a release into the great
beyond. It is not at all unreasonable for psychopannychists to
point out that this is a common sentiment expressed by many of
today’s Christians who contemplate death. A release from the
physical body will usher one into the endless bliss of Heaven,
as God Himself is only concerned about the saving of an
immaterial consciousness, and not the whole human being.
This what many Christians believe about death, having been
taught incorrectly.
While Platonic dualism does advocate a disembodied afterlife, and
while many Christians have simply and errantly (and unknowingly)
adapted Platonism into their view of human composition, it is
inappropriate for us to assume that the orthodox Jewish and
Christian traditions have likewise just reworked Platonism into
all of their theology. The very belief in the resurrection
assumes that God is indeed concerned with the whole human
person, including his body. Holistic dualists who
believe in an intermediate afterlife do not adhere to Platonic
dualism, but instead affirm that among all of God’s creations,
the human being is different and thus must experience a
different kind of death in comparison to the animals. Cooper
explains how “Affirming a dichotomy of body and soul at death
does not necessarily contradict [the] holistic emphasis on human
life and seems wholly compatible with Old Testament
anthropology.”[101]
One can only be labeled a Platonic dualist if there is no
emphasis on the resurrection of the physical body in the
eschaton, and no emphasis on God’s affirmation that
physical matter is not evil.
That God is concerned with the human body every bit as much as He
is concerned with the human consciousness can best be seen in
the burial practices of the ancient Jews. The Jews gave extreme
respect to the human body after death, with internment most
often taking place within twenty-four hours,[102]
a custom that continues today within much of the Jewish
community. Historically, both Jews and Christians have strongly
disfavored cremation, with reasons ranging from the belief that
God could not resurrect ashes (even though He surely can), to
the view that a human made in God’s image should not be defaced
in such a dishonorable way. Only in the past two centuries have
Christian views on cremation liberalized, being started by
Europeans who saw it as a necessity as cemetery space became
unavailable. Now cremation is commonly practiced often so that
no one will not have to think about a loved one decaying in a
cemetery, a form of denial for survivors. Many of today’s
evangelical Christians oppose cremation, and they most
especially oppose cremation accompanied with scattering ashes.
History shows that cremation was quite common in the Roman
world, for the precise reason that the body was viewed as a
shell to just be discarded after death as garbage. Even burial
at sea, of a complete human body, would be preferable to this
(cf. Revelation 20:13).
The kind of holistic dualism depicted to us in the Apostolic
Scriptures is not the kind of dualism we see in Platonic
philosophy. It is one that recognizes a nuanced difference
between the body and the essential person as soul (Matthew
10:28; 1 Corinthians 5:4)—or perhaps described better where we
see the “inner man” or esō anthrōpon (esw
anqrwpon)
compared and/or contrasted with the “outer man” or exō
anthrōpos (exw
anqrwpoß;
cf. Romans 7:22-23; 2 Corinthians 4:16; Ephesians 3:14-16). The
comparison of one’s Earthly dwelling to the beyond may also be
considered (2 Peter 1:13-15), although in such an intermediate
condition a person would be considered “unclothed” (2
Corinthians 5:4) and thus incomplete. It would be an absolute
mistake for anyone to think of the comparison of inner and outer
man, or being at home in the body and thus separated from the
Lord (2 Corinthians 5:6), as the Bible’s endorsement of
Platonism. The redemption of the human being includes all
of his aspects, including the body. As the Apostle Paul
so aptly writes in Romans 8:22-23,
“We
know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains
of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we
ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan
inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the
redemption of our bodies” (NIV; cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:23).
J.K. Chamblin summarizes how “Paul’s ‘holistic dualism’ is
utterly opposed to other kinds of dualism in the ancient
world…in which sarx [flesh] or sōma [body] is
inherently evil, the human psychē or pneuma is
inherently good, and salvation consists in the release of the
soul from the body. Paul dreads entry into a bodiless state at
death (2 Cor 5:1-5) because it is unnatural and abnormal…That
period is indeed an ‘intermediate state’; ultimate salvation
awaits the reintegration of the person at the resurrection of
the body (1 Cor 15:42-48; Phil 3:20-21…).” Yet, he is also keen
to describe how “Neither the monism of idealism that reduces the
person to soul nor the monism of materialism that reduces the
person to body is compatible with Paul. Nor are those
contemporary forms of dualism which encourage [primarily] the
saving of the soul and the depreciation of the body.”[103]
Platonic Greek philosophy insisted that a person’s soul was trapped
inside his body and seeking a final release to the great beyond.
In contrast to this, those who believe in an intermediate
afterlife believe that it is intermediate precisely
because of the doctrine of resurrection. A human body is
not something that God is unconcerned with saving, nor it is
just an “empty shell” to be dispensed with as garbage—and most
especially not to be burned as garbage—after someone’s death. We
affirm an intermediate disembodied state on the basis of the
human person being made different from all other creatures, not
because matter is evil.
Contrary to what some psychopannychists may think, today’s
evangelical theologians do admit that too much of a Platonic
Hellenistic influence has been witnessed in the contemporary
ideas of today’s Christians, where going to Heaven is emphasized
over and against the resurrection. (And I have certainly
encountered Messianics who likewise fall into similar traps.)
Wright honestly admits “that a good deal of our current view of
death and the life beyond has come from…impulses in the culture
that created…[things] that now need to be reexamined in the
clear light of Scripture.”[104]
While Wright affirms an intermediate afterlife in the presence
of the Lord for born again Believers, he does speak on how since
the Bible’s emphasis is more on the resurrection and the
eschaton—the world to come—so should ours be. What this directly
affects is how we accomplish God’s mission for the present age
here on Earth. If matter is not inherently evil, then we should
endeavor to see that at least some of the world to come is
manifested here, now in the lives of His people, before
its complete manifestation (discussed further).
Debates will rage on as to whether the ancient Pharisees, who
affirmed both an intermediate afterlife and the resurrection of
the dead, adapted Platonic philosophy into their theology. It is
certainly a fact that prior to the rise of classical Greek
civilizations, civilizations contemporary to Ancient Israel did
affirm an afterlife, with the Ancient Israelites in Egypt being
exposed to such views. The key in understanding whether or not
those of us who affirm that deceased Believers are in the
presence of the Lord have adopted Platonic philosophy or not,
is whether we also affirm that physical matter is evil, with a
person’s immaterial substance alone being good. This is not
something I believe, nor do I believe that God is only
concerned with saving the immaterial consciousness of a person,
with the body to be thrown away after death. On the contrary, we
affirm that prior to resurrection a deceased Believer is both in
the presence of the Lord in Heaven and interred in a
cemetery. A temporary disembodied state and affirmation of
resurrection need not be mutually exclusive.
Death
Expectations in the Apostolic Scriptures
Anyone who reads the Apostolic Scriptures undoubtedly encounters
how the question of what lies beyond death is asked far more
frequently than it is asked in the Tanach. This is true whether
one exclusively believes in the resurrection, or believes in an
intermediate afterlife to later be attended by the resurrection.
The Tanach largely does not ask questions about the beyond,
because it is more widely concerned with the corporate
nature of God’s people and their conduct on Earth, whereas
questions of an afterlife are decidedly individualistic.
Because the New Testament does focus more on an individual
person’s relationship to God, the question of individual
eschatology is specifically taken up in multiple places. When
passages describing the death of a person are factored into our
discussion, one does not at all see the Bible painting a picture
of
psychopannychy, but rather of the human consciousness being
temporarily removed from the body until the time of
resurrection.
Matthew 17:3-4 (cf. Mark 9:4-5; Luke 9:30-33)
“And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with
Him. Peter said to Yeshua, ‘Lord, it is good for us to be
here; if You wish, I will make three tabernacles here, one
for You, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’”
The scene of the Yeshua’s Transfiguration before Peter, John, and
James cannot be easily discounted by psychopannychists, as both
Moses and Elijah appear before them. While it is true that the
Prophet Elijah did not experience physical death (2 Kings 2:11),
it is equally true that Moses in fact did die: “So
Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of
the Lord. And He
buried him in the valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor;
but no man knows his burial place to this day” (Deuteronomy 34:5-6). When the three Disciples saw Moses at this
encounter, it is not difficult for us to see how they saw Moses
in some kind of post-mortem disembodied form.
Psychopannychists think that they have an answer to this, as Yeshua
later tells His three Disciples, “Tell
the vision to no one until the Son of Man has risen from the
dead” (Matthew 17:9). They consider the Transfiguration of our
Lord and His attendance by Moses and Elijah to only be something
that the Disciples hallucinated—meaning that it did not actually
take place—and thus the appearance of Moses, at least, could not
have been Moses in any kind of disembodied form. (And what of
the Lord’s manifestation in all His glory? Was that too
something that really did not happen?) This assertion does not
fit with the definition given to us of horama (orama),
which clearly means “that which is seen, a sight, spectacle”
(LS).[105]
Luke 16:19-31
“Now there was a rich man, and he habitually dressed in
purple and fine linen, joyously living in splendor every
day. And a poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate,
covered with sores, and longing to be fed with the crumbs
which were falling from the rich man's table; besides,
even the dogs were coming and licking his sores. Now the
poor man died and was carried away by the angels to
Abraham's bosom; and the rich man also died and was buried.
In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw
Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried out
and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send
Lazarus so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water
and cool off my tongue, for I am in agony in this flame.’
But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your life you
received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things;
but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony.
And besides all this, between us and you there is a great
chasm fixed, so that those who wish to come over from here
to you will not be able, and that none may cross over
from there to us.’ And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father,
that you send him to my father's house—for I have five
brothers—in order that he may warn them, so that they will
not also come to this place of torment.’ But Abraham said,
‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.’ But
he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them
from the dead, they will repent!’ But he said to him, ‘If
they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not
be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead.’”
The principal focus of Yeshua’s parable of Lazarus and the rich
man is to get those who hear it to live a life on Earth that is
righteous and that is concerned with the well being of the poor
and needy. This is something that the rich man failed to do, in
spite of Lazarus coming to his house for scraps of food, and him
witnessing the unhealthy Lazarus licked by dogs on a fairly
regular basis. No interpreter should disagree that the rich man
will be punished for his lack of care and showing mercy, care
that he had the wherewithal to demonstrate. This is why the rich
man wants Lazarus to come back to life to warn his surviving
family (v. 28), so that they will not suffer punishment as he
does. Yeshua emphasizes in the parable, “If they won't listen to
Moshe and the Prophets, they won't be convinced even if someone
rises from the dead!” (v. 31, CJB), as the rich man’s
brothers—who presumably act in a similar sinful way as he—have
sufficient warning in the Tanach Scriptures to live a life of
concern for the less fortunate. For not only is there a great
chasm between the righteous and condemned in Sheol (v.26), there
is also a great chasm between the righteous and condemned on
Planet Earth.
The parable of Lazarus and the rich man does have more to teach
a person about life and one’s conduct on Earth, than it does the
intricacies of the hereafter. If one does not live properly on
Earth, punishment will await after death. Yet, no one reading
Luke 16:19-31—including
psychopannychists—can
deny the fact that this account clearly does depict both Lazarus
and the rich man is a disembodied intermediate post-mortem state
in Sheol/Hades. The consciousness of Lazarus is taken by the
angels to Abraham’s bosom (v. 22), a holding compartment for the
righteous. The consciousness of the rich man, in contrast, is
taken to a holding compartment where he experiences some kind of
“agony” (v. 25) being “tormented” (KJV). (We later see in
Ephesians 4:8 how the occupants of Abraham’s bosom will be
transferred to Heaven at Yeshua’s ascension). Among the
condemned in Sheol/Hades, it is not difficult to see how a
theology of intermediate Hell, to be experienced prior to their
resurrection (Daniel 12:2; Revelation 20:6-7), was developed
from the example of the rich man.
That Sheol or Hades was divided into two compartments of (1) one
for the righteous and (2) the other for the condemned, was a
belief common to Second Temple Judaism. This was a vantage point
that Yeshua was teaching from. The First Century historian
Josephus testified how,
“Hades is a place in the world not regularly finished; a
subterraneous region, wherein the light of this world does
not shine…This region is allotted as a place of custody for
souls, in which angels are appointed as guardians to them, who
distribute to them temporary punishments, agreeable to
everyone’s behavior and manners….[The righteous] do not go down
the same way; but the just are guided to the right hand,
and are led with hymns, sung by the angels appointed over
that place, unto a region of light, in which the just
have dwelt from the beginning of the world….[found there are]
the countenance of the fathers and of the just, which
they see always smiles upon them, while they wait for that rest
and eternal new life in heaven, which is to
succeed this region. This place we call The Bosom of Abraham”
(Discourse to the Greeks Concerning Hades 1, 4).[106]
What does the
psychopannychist do about the parable of Lazarus and the rich
man, and Yeshua teaching from the presupposition that the human
consciousness can exist absent from the body in some kind of a
holding place? Regardless of some of the symbolism that one
applies to Abraham, Lazarus, and the agony the rich man
experiences—the setting unavoidably depicts two people in a
post-mortem disembodied and conscious state. The only answers
that psychopannychists can offer to this predicament, clearly a
problem for their one-dimensional theology of human composition,
are not that impressive. All Bacchiochi can say is, “The answer
is that Jesus met people on their own ground, capitalizing on
what was familiar to them to teach them vital truths.”[107]
A certain Two-House teacher is even more direct when he just
says that Yeshua’s parable
“was similar to our modern Aesop’s fables.”[108]
And perhaps quite laughably, The Scriptures translation
produced by the Institute for Scripture Research renders Luke
17:23 with the rich man actually “suffering tortures in the
grave”! (This is something that can only be true if “the grave”
is something more than just a place of interment, as Stern’s CJB
simply rendered Hadēs with the Hebrew “Sh’ol,” as
the Salkinson-Ginsburg and UBSHNT versions also use
lAav.)
The problem with
psychopannychists
saying that Yeshua was using the popular mythology to
communicate to His audience, is that they have just opened a
major door to theological liberalism. If Yeshua’s parable of
Lazarus and the rich man cannot be taken as our Lord
teaching that something does happen to the human
consciousness after death, then there are likely other things
that can similarly be interpreted this way. I can think of no
one more important for today’s Messianics than Messiah Yeshua’s
claim that Moses is the author of the Torah (Mark 10:5; 12:19;
Luke 20:28; John 1:45; 5:46). Some might say that “Jesus’ own
usage” of Moses “always indicates author and not title,”[109]
giving rise to Moses as possibly being only the author of
disparate part or individual commandment(s) of the Pentateuch,
but not at all the principal author and/or overseer of its body
composition. And in a similar way, working within the Jewish
cultural norms of the period, Yeshua’s references to the Flood
of Noah (Matthew 24:37f; Luke 3:36; 17:26f) need not be to an
actual historical event, but instead to the Jewish exiles’
reworking of the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh into an
early copy of the Book of Genesis.[110]
And what is to be made of the Exodus, to which there are no
Egyptian records—the prototype event for His salvific work on
our behalf—is that mythology too?[111]
One needs to be very careful when claiming that certain parts
of Scripture are to be regarded as only “fables,” as it can
give rise to classifying other parts of Scripture as mythology
as well.
There may, in fact, be a legitimate place for us comparing the
death of the king of Babylon in Isaiah 14:9-11, 18-20, and the
death of Lazarus. Luke 16:22 tells us “the poor man died and was
carried away by the angels to Abraham's bosom; and the rich man
also died and was buried.” In a similar way to how the king of
Babylon has no tomb of his own (Isaiah 14:18-19), his corpse
being left to rot the same as his victims (Isaiah 14:16-17),
poor Lazarus as a consequence of his being poor and disregarded
is stated to not have had any burial. The very dogs who would
lick him (v. 21) may very well have eaten his corpse. All
Lazarus has, consequently, is a place in Sheol/Hades with
Abraham, to be held with the righteous until an expected
resurrection (cf. vs. 28, 31). The only positive thing that the
rich man has, in contrast, though, is a burial.
The parable of Lazarus and the rich man may have more to teach
people on Planet Earth about their conduct, then it does about
the specifics of the intermediate state. And while it may be
argued that since the ascension of Yeshua into Heaven the
compartment of Sheol/Hades holding the righteous has been
vacated (discussed further), this account still depicts the
consciousnesses of both the righteous and condemned existing in
a disembodied state. To discount this as Yeshua simply reworking
the popular mythology of the day into His teachings opens a door
to theological liberalism, where historical accounts in the
Tanach appropriated by our Rabbi can likewise be viewed as
popular mythology and thus not at all real.[112]
Luke 23:42-43
“And he was saying, ‘Yeshua, remember me when You come in
Your kingdom!’ And He said to him, ‘Truly I say to you,
today you shall be with Me in Paradise.’”
During the horrific scene when Yeshua is being crucified at
Golgotha (Calvary), one of the criminals being executed along
with Him recognizes how “this man has done nothing wrong” (v.
41), in spite of how he deserved his punishment. He saw that
there was something different about Yeshua, and so he asks Him,
“Yeshua, remember me when you come as King” (v. 42, CJB).
Psychopannychists view this passage as only
relating to the parousia when Yeshua returns to the Earth
and inaugurates His Kingdom reign, and nothing more. Yet, even
though the thief was seemingly forgiven and we will all see Him
in the Kingdom, Yeshua is clear to tell the repentant thief: “Truly
I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise” (v. 43).
As the two of them would both die that very day, their
consciousnesses would be transferred to Paradise, or the
Abraham’s bosom side of Sheol (discussed earlier). Wright
summarizes how
“[P]aradise is here, as in some other Jewish writing, not a
final destination but the blissful garden, the parkland of rest
and tranquillity, where the dead are refreshed as they await the
dawn of the new day…Jesus, after all, didn’t rise again ‘today,’
that is, on [the same day as his crucifixion]. Luke must have
understood him to be referring to a state of being-in-paradise,
which would be true, for him and for the man dying beside him,
at once, that very day—in other words, prior to the
resurrection.”[113]
Psychopannychists, however, believe that they have an easy answer
to this, and that Yeshua was not telling the forgiven thief
beside Him that immediately after death the two of them would be
in Paradise. Many psychopannychists feel justified moving the
English punctuation of v. 43 to read something along the lines
of, “Truly I say to you today, you shall be with me in
Paradise.” For them, this would only be a general statement of
how the thief would be resurrected in the future, and then
ushered into the Kingdom. But our exegesis must be determined
from the source text. It is irresponsible and manipulative of
any interpreter to simply move around English punctuation to fit
one’s theology, without some sound backing from the Hebrew
Tanach or Greek Apostolic Scriptures that sits behind an English
translation. We cannot just arbitrarily move commas around in
the English.
The Greek sēmeron (shmeron) means “today, this very day” (BDAG).[114]
The vast majority of usages of sēmeron in the Biblical
text deal with events that occurred on the same day as “today.”
“In Mt. 27:19 Pilate’s wife has had a bad dream today; this is
an omen for a decisive day, but the immediate sense is the
ordinary one. The usual sense is also present in the petition of
Mt. 6:11: believers ask today for their daily bread from God.
Similarly in 16:3 the reference is to today’s weather, in 21:28
the father asks his son to work today” (TDNT).[115]
Greek scholar Richmond Lattimore renders Luke 23:43 in his
translation as, “Truly I tell you, this day you will be with me
in paradise.”[116]
Yeshua the Messiah plainly told the thief on the cross next to
Him that he would be with Him in Paradise that very day,
not just in the future Kingdom of God on Earth. Cooper concurs,
“For grammatical, semantic, and history-theological reasons,
‘today’ ought to be read literally.”[117]
John 3:12-13
“If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how
will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has
ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the
Son of Man.”
Psychopannychists commonly argue from John 3:13 that “No one has
ascended into heaven,” and thus it is futile for those of us who
believe in an intermediate afterlife to hold to such conviction.
But here the vantage point of the statements being made must be
considered. Yeshua tells His audience that if they do not
believe in the Earthly things of which He speaks—things that
concern a dimension and a state of being which they have all
experienced and is common to them—then they will surely not
believe things about an extra-dimensional state of being in
Heaven which they have never experienced (v. 12) except only
Him. Yeshua’s assertions are designed to point to the ignorance
and faithlessness that His audience suffers from, not the
post-mortem state of the deceased.
Yeshua the Messiah is the only One “who descended from heaven,”
unlike those hearing Him who have not “ascended into heaven” (v.
13), returning with information from this realm. The NLT
captures this well in its paraphrase “No
one has ever gone to heaven and returned,” akin to “None of you
whom I am teaching have been where I have been.” In order to
believe the Heavenly things that Yeshua would disclose to people
in His teachings, extreme faith must be exhibited, as He is the
only One among them who had experienced such extra-dimensional
realities to speak to them about, having emptied Himself of
glory and taking on human flesh (Philippians 2:5-11).
John 14:2-3
“In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were
not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place
for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come
again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there
you may be also.”
We have all heard Yeshua’s words in John 14:2-3 quoted, and they
have often provided a great deal of comfort for survivors who
have lost a loved one. In funeral eulogies it is not uncommon to
hear the sentiment that the departed has gone to “a better
place,” derived from these verses. However, the Lord’s
statements “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come
again and receive you to Myself” in v. 3, likely has less to do
with the intermediate state than it does with the eschaton and
Second Coming. This is because topos (topoß)
or “place” “sometimes means ‘sanctuary’ (the holy place)…Another use is for
‘someone’s place,’ e.g., a senator’s seat, a place at school,
one’s place in the world” (TDNT).[118]
This would point to the “place” being prepared as a position of
authority in His Kingdom (Revelation 20:6), similar to the
various facilities available for the priests who served in the
Temple (1 Kings 6:5-10; 1 Chronicles 9:26-27).
Still, Yeshua does say “In my Father’s house are many dwelling
places” (v. 2), which can be contrasted with the “place” He has
to go prepare, because these dwelling places already
exist. The source text employs the present active indicative
tense in monai pollai eisin (monai
pollai eisin),
“are many rooms” (ESV). These domiciles already exist, and
Yeshua does not have to return to Heaven to somehow make or
create them. The very usage of monē (monh)
in v. 2, meaning “a
stopping place, station”
(LS),[119]
helps us to understand the very purpose of the intermediate
state for born again Believers. Wright comments that when the
early Believers spoke of the post-mortem condition,
“[T]hey seemed to regard this heavenly life as a temporary stage
on the way to the eventual resurrection of the body…When Jesus
declares that there are many dwelling places in his father’s
house, the word for dwelling place is
monē,
which denotes a temporary lodging…first, [one encounters] death
and whatever lies immediately beyond; second, a new bodily
existence in the remade world.”[120]
The monai or dwellings depicted in v. 2 are likened unto
a temporary lodging where travelers would stop off during a long
journey. For the born again Believer who dies, being ushered
into Heaven is like stopping off on such a journey. It is a
Paradise of refreshment, and surely would possess more wonders
than a luxury hotel—even to be considered “gain” (Philippians
1:21) for a Believer facing death—but it is nevertheless a
temporary stopping point. Yeshua is clear to say that such
monai do exist, as “if it were not so, I would have told
you” (v. 2), even though the ultimate aim for a Believer should
be to incur a great “place” of responsibility in the restored
Kingdom of God on Earth (v. 3).
In viewing the intermediate state for Believers as monai in Heaven, prior to the resurrection, it is best for those of us
who are survivors and have lost loved ones—that in spite of any
temptation to do so—not to speculate on what the
intermediate state actually involves and what they are presently
doing. We know it is a Paradise, and we should simply leave it
at that.
The intermediate Heaven is a place of refreshment where one can
bask in the presence of the Lord, awaiting for the fulfillment
of the next stage in His plan of salvation history. The Holy
Scriptures, while indeed speaking of the intermediate state, do
not give us the specifics of it. About as far as one can
speculate on what goes on in that dimension is that those who
have been martyred in the faith are likely entreating the Lord
to swiftly vindicate the righteous (cf. Revelation 6:9-11). It
would also not seem unlikely that the disembodied saints are
revealed more about the nature of the universe and the role
redeemed humanity will play in the eschaton, but we cannot find
any specific verses to support this postulation as probable as
it may be.
Acts 2:29, 34
“Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the
patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his
tomb is with us to this day… For it was not David who
ascended into heaven, but he himself says: ‘The
Lord said to My Lord, “Sit at My right hand”’ [Psalm
110:1].”
It is not uncommon at all to see the Apostle Peter’s words of
Acts 2:34 quoted by psychopannychists. Peter did say “David
did not ascend into the heavens” (RSV), and so psychopannychists
will conclude that the deceased are not in Heaven or in any kind
of disembodied post-mortem existence, because here King David
did not ascend into Heaven. David is one who was “both died and
was buried,” only having a mnēma (v. 29). As is frequent
with psychopannychists’ arguments, they have only given us a
partial quote, and we have to assess the much larger cotext,
having a feel for the broader message of what Peter is preaching
to those assembled at Shavuot/Pentecost. Rather than
making a remark about the post-mortem state of King David’s
consciousness, Peter instead takes the words of King David and
establishes the Messiahship of Yeshua via Davidic Psalms and
promises. Peter compares and contrasts Yeshua to David, because
many of the promises that God made to King David are fully
realized in the Person of Yeshua, Great David’s Greater Son:
“Men
of Israel, listen to these words: Yeshua the Nazarene, a man
attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which
God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves
know—this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan
and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of
godless men and put Him to death. But God raised Him up
again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was
impossible for Him to be held in its power. For David says of
Him, ‘I saw the Lord
always in my presence; for He is at my right hand, so that I
will not be shaken. Therefore my heart was glad and my tongue
exulted; moreover my flesh also will live in hope; because You
will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor allow your Holy One to
undergo decay. You have made known to me the ways of life; You
will make me full of gladness with Your presence’ [Psalm
16:8-11]. Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the
patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb
is with us to this day. And so, because he was a prophet and
knew that God had sworn to
him with an oath to seat one
of his descendants on his
throne, he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of
the Messiah, that He was
neither abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh
suffer decay [Psalm 132:11; 2 Samuel 7:12f; Psalm 89:3]. This
Yeshua God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses.
Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and
having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit,
He has poured forth this which you both see and hear. For it was
not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says: ‘The
Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand, until I make your
enemies a footstool for Your feet”’ [Psalm 110:1].
Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain
that God has made Him both Lord and Messiah—this Yeshua whom you
crucified” (Acts 2:22-36).
In
Peter’s whole sermon as seen here, it is very true that King
David was not crucified, buried for three days, and then
ascended into Heaven as the risen Lord and Savior. These are
things that only Yeshua has done as the Messiah and
Savior of the world. In fact, as He had told the thief beside
Him that they would be in Paradise (Luke 23:42-43), Peter
asserts that the Lord “was
not abandoned in Sh'ol” or the netherworld long enough so
His “flesh did not see decay” (Acts 2:31, CJB). Yeshua was
resurrected from the dead (Acts 2:32), and exalted to His
Father’s right hand (Acts 2:33) at His ascension. David, in
contrast, died and was buried (Acts 2:29).
Unlike the Lord Yeshua, David did not resurrect from the dead,
ascend into Heaven (Acts 2:34), and take a seat at the Father’s
right hand as “both Lord and Messiah” (Acts 2:36). This is what
is meant by Peter when he said that David did not ascend; it is
an ascension that only Yeshua Himself could achieve that
is attendant with other important events. As the Apostle Paul
will later say, it is an ascension which assures us that “at the
name of Yeshua every knee
will bow [Isaiah 45:23], of those who are in heaven and
on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess
that Yeshua the Messiah is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”
(Philippians 2:10-11). As respected as King David should be, he
did not ascend into Heaven and take control of the cosmos as the
Lord Yeshua (Ephesians 1:20-21). The
context of Peter’s words deals with the resurrection and
ascension of Yeshua the Messiah as
Lord—as opposed to
King David, whose bodily remains are still buried and who may
not be considered Lord.
Even
though King David did not ascend like this, it is not by
any means substantial justification—when taken within the larger
Biblical scope—for us to assume that he is exclusively in the
grave and not in some kind of disembodied post-mortem state
along with the other saints.
Acts 7:59-60
“They went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord
and said, ‘Lord Yeshua, receive my spirit!’ Then falling
on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not
hold this sin against them!’ Having said this, he fell
asleep.”
The testimony of faithful Stephen, the first Messianic martyr,
is one which many Believers have taken great comfort and
encouragement from—as may have faced their deaths in a similar
way.
Most psychopannychists believe that when
Stephen was stoned, when he exclaims “Lord Yeshua, receive my
spirit!”, this is only a reference to Stephen’s physical breath
leaving, and then Stephen—a person entirely of this
dimension—fell asleep or died. This kind of claim runs into a
significant problem because of what happens as Stephen is being
unjustly stoned. Before dying, he proclaims to those gathered, “Behold,
I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the
right hand of God” (Acts 7:56). While this was an important
theological declaration of Yeshua’s exaltedness—indeed believed
to be blasphemy by those stoning him (Acts 7:57)—for someone to
deny that Stephen actually saw the exalted Yeshua at the
right hand of the Father in Heaven is entirely confounded.
If Yeshua the Messiah is everything for a Believer, then being welcomed into His presence is something
to be greatly anticipated!
There is no indication from this declaration made by Stephen
that he was simply expecting to go to the grave. Rather, he is
plainly calling upon the Lord and entreats Him to receive his
consciousness. The verb dechomai (decomai)
means “to receive someth. offered or transmitted by another,
take, receive,” and “to take someth. in hand,
grasp” (BDAG).[121]
Stephen earnestly cried out to the Lord for Him to take him into
His presence. But this is not everything. I. Howard Marshall
explains how what Stephen saw was much, much more:
“It has been suggested that what Stephen receives is a kind of
proleptic vision of the parousia or second advent of Jesus; the
individual Christian finds that Christ comes to him in the
moment of his death. In any case, what is significant is that
the dying Stephen is welcomed into the presence of Jesus; the
implication is that, as Jesus was raised from the dead, so too
his followers will be.”[122]
This helps us to see the balance between a Believer’s
consciousness leaving for the presence of the Lord at death, and
the promise of future resurrection. Stephen’s spirit leaves and
Stephen’s body falls asleep—and both are still Stephen—to
be reconstituted at the resurrection. This is why in his seeing
Yeshua exalted in Heaven, the next place he would be, Stephen
declares that Yeshua is One who will return to vindicate those
who have suffered just as he. As His Lord declared to the
Sanhedrin before His own death, “you shall see
the Son of Man sitting at
the right hand of Power, and
coming with the clouds of
heaven” (Mark 14:62).[123]
Stephen’s expectation, while being one where his Lord will
receive him into Heaven, is likewise one where he will be
resurrected from the dead at his Lord’s Second Coming. It is not
enough to simply go to Heaven, because only at the parousia
will the corrupt world that condemned both Yeshua and Stephen
be brought into His full dominion. This has likewise been
the expectation of millions of born again Believers who have
similarly faced death.
1 Thessalonians 4:14-15
“For if we believe that Yeshua died and rose again, even so
God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in
Yeshua. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that
we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord,
will not precede those who have fallen asleep.”
The promise of the resurrection of deceased saints was a
significant comfort for the First Century ekklēsia,
particularly in the Apostle Paul’s teachings about the Second
Coming of Yeshua. Referencing the deceased saints, Paul
emphasizes how at the parousia “through Jesus, God will
bring with him those who have fallen asleep” (v. 14, RSV). The
verb agō (agw)
means “to direct the movement of an object from one position
to another,” and in v. 14 likely relates to “lead,
bring, lead off, lead away” (BDAG).[124]
When Yeshua the Messiah returns to the Earth, the
consciousnesses of the deceased saints are brought with Him to
be reconstituted with their bodies at the resurrection. They
will be the first to participate—“the dead will be raised
imperishable” (1 Corinthians 15:52)—as they are the senior party
to the junior party of those who “will not all sleep, but…will
all be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:51).
When our Lord Yeshua returns to Planet Earth, He will be
accompanied by the host of the departed righteous. Paul has
admonished the Thessalonicans earlier “that He may establish
your hearts without blame in holiness before our God and Father
at the coming of our Lord Yeshua with all His saints” (1
Thessalonians 3:13), meta pantōn tōn hagiōn (meta
pantwn twn agiwn).
This is a direct allusion to Zechariah 14:5, where “Then the
Lord, my God, will
come, and all the holy ones[125]
with Him!”
Psychopannychists
try to argue that Paul only envisions the saints or holy ones
accompanying Yeshua in 1 Thessalonians 3:13 as being angels, and
not disembodied Believers to be reconstituted with their
resurrected and restored body. However, in response we do see in
Scripture how both God’s angels and human saints are often
associated with one another as being members of His collective
host (cf. Psalm 8:5, LXX; Hebrews 12:22-23). Likewise within the
Pauline corpus, hagioi (agioi)
or “saints” is a term almost exclusively used to describe born
again Believers.[126]
We can safely assert that when Yeshua returns, the “saints”
brought with Him are primarily the consciousnesses of deceased
Believers to be reunited with their bodies. Yet, among those
“saints” are surely members of the greater Heavenly host.
2 Corinthians 5:1-10
“For we know that if the earthly tent which is our house is
torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made
with hands, eternal in the heavens. For indeed in this
house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling
from heaven, inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be
found naked. For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan,
being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but
to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up
by life. Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is
God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge. Therefore, being
always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at
home in the body we are absent from the Lord—for we walk by
faith, not by sight—we are of good courage, I say, and
prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home
with the Lord. Therefore we also have as our ambition,
whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we
must all appear before the judgment seat of Messiah, so that
each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body,
according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”
One of the most significant problems with the Corinthian
congregation, among the many they experienced, was that too many
had not been taught the essentials of the resurrection (1
Corinthians 15). It should also not be surprising that they had
not been taught properly about the intermediate state as well,
the time between death and resurrection. In 2 Corinthians 5:1-10
we see the delicate balance of Paul’s theology of resurrection,
and Paul’s theology of an intermediate afterlife, detailed.
This vignette opens with Paul’s assertion “that if the tent that
is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a
house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (v. 1, ESV).
This Earthly tent is obviously a reference to the human body
being “dissolved” (KJV), a person experiencing physical death,
and so as a result Believers have some kind of a permanent house
from Heaven. Many view this as a reference to the monai
or dwelling places to which Yeshua refers in John 14:2, a
temporary lodging in Heaven for the departed saints prior to
resurrection. Some, however, view this as a reference to the
resurrection body and how at the time of resurrection the power
of Heaven will manifest itself and the physical remains of
deceased Believers will be reanimated.
V. 2 points to the latter being the more likely. Paul says how
“For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon
with our house which is from heaven” (KJV) or ex ouranou
(ex
ouranou).
When Believers receive a resurrected, immortal body, Paul
asserts that “having put it on, [we] will not be found naked”
(v. 3). The state of death is described as nakedness, because a
person fails to possess an immortal body—and so to Paul, not
possessing or being clothed upon with an immortal resurrection
body is a less-than-desirable permanent state. V. 4 clarifies
how “while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened,
because we do not want to be unclothed but be clothed, so that
what is mortal will be swallowed up by life.” Everyone who lives
is “oppressed” (NEB) because the human body will inevitably die,
and another state of existence will present itself—that of not
being en toutō (en
toutw)
or “in this tent”—a process of dying that no person
instinctively wants to go through. The Holy Spirit has
been given by God to His people to assure them that the ultimate
salvation they will experience involves the resurrection and
their physical bodies possessing immortality (v. 5, Hebrews
9:27-28).
All interpreters agree that Paul does not necessarily desire to
be “naked” or “unclothed,” meaning die, but what does this state
specifically involve? Is it just physical death and then a state
of unconsciousness as psychopannychists
would conclude?
People in Earthly life that are “naked” or “unclothed” still do
exist, albeit in a somewhat exposed or incomplete
condition. Paul has previously just said, “we do not lose heart,
but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being
renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16)—meaning that although
the tent of the human body may age steadily toward death, ho
esō (o
esw)
or the immaterial consciousness is not similarly weakened. For
those of us who believe that the human consciousness can exist
absent from the body, being “naked” or “unclothed” would be a
fair description of such an “inner man” surviving after death.
The Jewish philosopher Philo spoke of how “Isaac…was at all
times naked and incorporeal” (Allegorical Interpretation
2.59),[127]
a state actually to be desired by people.
Paul has a much different view than Philo when it comes to being
“naked” or “unclothed,” as his principle desire is for his body
to be changed (v. 4), not wanting to die. His thoughts shift,
though, as in vs. 6-10 he does discuss what is more likely to
take place for both him, and also the Corinthians. He says
“being always of good courage”—so no matter what happens—“know
that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the
Lord” (v. 6). The condition of being physically alive, en tō
sōmati (en
tw swmati)
or “in the body,” is one that causes a person to be
ekdēmoumen apo tou Kuriou (ekdhmoumen
apo tou kuriou),
“absent from the Lord.” Paul says “we walk by faith, not by
sight” (v. 7) precisely because from a human position on Earth,
we love and serve a Lord whom we have never seen, yet whom we
can see when present with Him!
V. 8 summarizes what being “unclothed” or “naked” would involve:
“we are of good courage, I say, and prefer to be absent from the
body and to be at home with the Lord.” Regardless of what takes
place in Paul’s life, or in the lives of the Corinthians, even
though death would make him compositionally incomplete, Paul
actually prefers to be ek tou sōmatos (ek
tou swmatoß)
or “absent from [or, out of] the body,” with his inner man or
his consciousness removed to another place. And the reason why
he wants to be absent from the body—even though he would find
himself being “unclothed” or “naked”—is not difficult to see.
Kai endēmēsai pros ton Kurion (kai
endhmhsai proß ton kurion);
he prefers “to be at home with the Lord.” The verb endēmeō
(endhmew),
clearly means “to be in a familiar place, to be at home”
(BDAG)[128]
or “to
live in
a place” (LS).[129]
The RSV renders this text as “we would rather be away from the
body and at home with the Lord.” He says later that “our
citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20), and so even though
separate from his physical body Paul would be an incomplete
person, being in the presence of the Lord in Heaven is
far better and preferable.
Even though Paul does envision a temporary disembodied afterlife,
this does not mean that Earthly matters of service and ministry
get put aside. He instructs the Corinthians, “we also have as
our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to him”
(v. 9). This is because “we must all appear before the judgment
seat of Messiah, so that each one may be recompensed for his
deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good
or bad” (v. 10). The judgment or bēma (bhma) seat of the Messiah is a place all must stand
before. While Paul does see himself dying and being welcomed
into the presence of His Savior, such a “being home” with Him
cannot be used as an excuse for dismissing “the things done
while in the body” (NIV), which for Believers should involve
accomplishing good works (Ephesians 2:10)! Being welcomed into
the Lord’s presence in Heaven is only to later be accompanied by
the resurrection of the body, and the bringing of Heaven’s reign
to the Earth. Going to an intermediate Heaven is an expectation
that only the redeemed human being can expect among God’s
creatures.
Philippians 1:21-23
“For to me, to live is Messiah and to die is gain. But if
I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean
fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to
choose. But I am hard-pressed from both directions,
having the desire to depart and be with Messiah, for that
is very much better.”
Many interpreters agree that Paul’s letter to the Philippians
was written from the vantage point of him facing trial in Rome,
and so for Paul the possibility of him dying for the gospel was
a definite and immediate reality. The Apostle had great
assurance in his faith, because he says “for to me, to live is
Messiah and to die is gain” (v. 21). In being martyred for his
Lord, Paul’s testimony of not wavering would serve as an
excellent testimony to others who would face similar persecution
(v. 20). Yet, in Paul’s words to his beloved friends, he
expresses how he does not want to die. “If I am to go on living
in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me” (v. 22, NIV),
as still much more could be done for the spread of the gospel.
Paul finds himself divided between dying, and staying on in
Earthly life, being “betwixt” (KJV). He does “not know which to
choose” (v. 22).
While he ultimately concludes that “to remain on in the flesh is
more necessary for your sake” (v. 24), the other option Paul has
is one of significant gain for himself: “My desire is to depart
and be with Christ, for that is far better” (v. 23, RSV). Psychopannychists would only say that
after Paul died, he would enter into the deep endless sleep of
death, only to be awakened by the Lord at the resurrection—so
Paul’s next moment would indeed see him with Messiah, denying
any kind of post-mortem conscious existence. This is too
convenient, though, because it ignores the context of what
“depart” actually means. The verb analuō (analuw)
is defined
“to loose a ship from its moorings, weigh anchor,
depart” (LS).[130]
It was also used as an ancient military term to describe
breaking camp and moving to another location: “About
that time, as it happened, Antiochus had retreated [analuō]
in disorder from the region of Persia” (2 Maccabees 9:1). Paul’s
departure meant an actual departure to somewhere, like a
ship leaving harbor or an army breaking camp—in this case a
departure to the dimension of the Messiah in Heaven.
The following clause kai sun Christō einai (kai
sun Cristw einai)
makes it very clear that Paul expected upon time of death to
enter into the presence of the Lord. The verb eimi (eimi)
generally relates “of things, to be, exist” (LS),[131]
and it would not be a stretch to render this phrase as “and with
Christ exist.” This would undeniably be a death considered
“gain” (v. 21). While Paul’s body would be asleep (cf. 1
Corinthians 15:51-52; 1 Thessalonians 4:14- 16), Paul’s
expectation is one of meeting his Lord immediately after
departure. Gordon D. Fee explains how,
“Paul understood death as a means into the Lord’s immediate
presence, which for him and countless thousands after him has
been a comforting and encouraging prospect. Very likely he also
expected such ‘gain’ to include consciousness, and for most
believers, that too has been a matter of encouragement.”[132]
If Paul had said something like “I desire to
depart and rest in Messiah,” then psychopannychists
might have a case. But Paul said that he desired to depart and
exist with Him.
The reason Paul can say “my desire is to go off and be with the
Messiah—that is better by far” (v. 23, CJB) is precisely because
Yeshua the Messiah was everything for him! Those of us
who believe in a temporary disembodied afterlife are similarly
motivated: Yeshua the Messiah is everything for us! Is Yeshua
the Messiah not everything for psychopannychists? This is a question that few
psychopannychists
I have encountered really want to answer. When we consider what
Paul expects after death—seeing the Lord—what is so
ideologically wrong with affirming an intermediate state in
Heaven for Believers in His presence? Should we not be motivated
by love for Him so much that we should desire seeing Him
the same as Paul?
And, do keep in mind that
although Paul expected to depart to see Yeshua immediately
following death, he very much affirms belief in the resurrection
to his Philippian audience (Philippians 3:20-21).[133]
Hebrews 9:27-28
“And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and
after this comes judgment, so Messiah also, having
been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a
second time for salvation without reference to sin,
to those who eagerly await Him.”
The author of Hebrews is addressing an audience whom he
considers to be far along enough in faith that “by
this time you ought to be teachers” (Hebrews 5:12), meaning that
they should possess sufficient knowledge and maturity to
understand the complicated issues of theology. It should not be
that difficult to understand his perspective on salvation. Human
beings are only allowed to die a physical death once, facing
some kind of judgment—whether good or bad—following, sealing
their fate as either redeemed or unredeemed (Hebrews 9:27).
(And, if eternal punishment is considered to be the “second
death” [Revelation 21:8], this has to be taken in terms of a
second kind of separation from God, not being annihilated from
existence.)[134]
Yeshua the Messiah, sacrificed at Golgotha (Calvary) for the
sins of the world, cannot be sacrificed again for the atonement
of sins (Hebrews 9:28a). Yet, Yeshua is going to appear once
again in regard to His Father’s unfolding Heilsgeschichte
(Ger. salvation history). V. 29b says He “will appear a second
time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who
eagerly await Him.” In our discussion about the intermediate
state, it is not difficult to see what the author of Hebrews is
referring to. God is not just concerned about the salvation of
an immaterial consciousness, but at the parousia Yeshua
will return, the bodies of deceased saints will be resurrected
to physical life again, and the bodies of living saints will be
similarly translated (cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:23; 1 Corinthians
15:51). As the Apostle Paul so excellently puts it in
Philippians 3:21, He “will transform the body of our humble
state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the
exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to
Himself.”
Salvation for an individual does not end with being forgiven of
sin and reconciled with God. On the contrary, salvation for a
person will only be completed at the resurrection, with all
of the components of the human being brought to immortal
vitality. Psychopannychists
are not incorrect in pointing out how this message of
resurrection has been sadly forgotten among many Believers. At
the same time, though, psychopannychists have done a disservice
in reducing the human being entirely to this dimension,
as Believers do possess authority given by Him over things in
His dimension (Ephesians 2:6).
Hebrews 12:22-23
“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the
living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of
angels, to the general assembly and [congregation] of the
firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge
of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made
perfect.”
The author of Hebrews is likely writing his treatise on the
heels of the impending destruction of Jerusalem in the late 60s
C.E. (cf. Hebrews 8:4, 13), and as such he must convince a
Diaspora audience—teetering on denying Yeshua—that His sacrifice
is indeed sufficient to cover their sins. These people may have
thought in the back of their minds, even as Believers, that
animal sacrifices occurring in Jerusalem could always be
something that they could find solace in. Now that this was
going to be removed, what would they do? With this about to
change, so would the dynamics of their faith—and they would be
tested. In wanting his audience to look to an exalted Yeshua in
Heaven for their answers, we also should not be surprised to see
how the writer focuses their attention off an Earthly Jerusalem
and onto a Heavenly Jerusalem where the Messiah resides. This is
a Heavenly Jerusalem that will be merged into Planet Earth after
the Millennium as the eternal state begins (Revelation 21:1-10).
As is frequently seen throughout the Apostolic Scriptures, there
a sense of realized eschatology in the life of
Believers—elements of the world to come to be experienced now—that
is to encourage people to remain steadfast in faith. V. 22 does
not say “you will come to Mount Zion and to the city of the
living God sometime in the distant future,” but instead the
perfect tense verb proselēluthate (proselhluqate)
is employed, a past action with continuing effects or results:
“[Y]ou have come.” Morey explains, “the believers had been
ushered into citizenship in and fellowship with the heavenly
Jerusalem.”[135]
This is a present, not a just a future reality for them.
Who do we see in this Heavenly Jerusalem? Obviously we see God,
and not surprisingly we also see “myriads of angels” (v. 22).
And it is at this point that the psychopannychist,
who advocates that the human being is only of this dimension,
gets decidedly embarrassed. Along with the Heavenly host of
angels, we see “the spirits of the righteous made
perfect” (v. 23) worshipping God before His throne. This is
obviously the disembodied consciousnesses of Believers, “righteous
people who have been brought to the goal” (CJB). They never gave
up on the Lord or His salvation during their lives, and having
died all that then awaits them is the consummation of their
salvation via the resurrection.
Any person who has lost a loved one who knew and loved the Lord,
can take great comfort in these verses. When we join in
corporate worship as Believers here on Earth, we also join into
an ongoing worship of the Lord in Heaven. This not only involves
angels before Him, but those who have preceded us in
faith and have likely impacted us in many ways. The author of
Hebrews’ use of this to dissuade his audience from reneging on
salvation is not difficult to see. While eternal punishment will
await if they fall away, any kind of reunion with redeemed
family and friends will also not be possible.[136]
1 Peter 3:18-20
“For Messiah also died for sins once for all, the
just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to
God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive
in the spirit; in which also He went and made proclamation
to the spirits now in prison, who once were
disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the
days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a
few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through
the water.”
The Apostle Peter’s description of the Messiah’s salvific
work—somehow affecting even those from Noah’s generation—is
admittedly controversial, but it does give us an important clue
that a post-mortem state of just sheer unconsciousness is not
something Biblically sustainable. Peter asserts that the Messiah
died for the sins of all people so that we might be reconciled
to the Father (v. 18a). He then follows this with a difficult
remark: “He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the
spirit” (v. 18b, NRSV). Some interpret the datives (indicating
indirect object) sarki (sarki)
and pneumati (pneumati)
as being locative, with “flesh” being of one dimension and then
“spirit” of another dimension. A way to take this is might be
that when Yeshua was made alive “in the spirit” He did not
resurrect physically, but instead only appeared to the Disciples
as an hallucination. Yet, the disciple Thomas was able to
physically touch Yeshua’s crucifixion scars (John 10:27).
Another way of looking at the datives sarki and
pneumati is that these are not locative, but instead
instrumental: “He was put to death in/by the flesh, but made
alive in/by the spirit.” “Flesh” would be describing how He was
put to death by “sinful men” (Luke 24:7), and in contrast
“spirit” would be the power that embodied and thus resurrected
Him. Continuing this train of thought, it would have thus been
by the power of the Spirit that Yeshua “went and made
proclamation to the spirits now in prison” (v. 19a), the
same Spirit that would consequently raise our Lord from the
dead. Hew would have had to cross the great gulf between
Paradise and prison (Luke 16:23-24). It is difficult to avoid
the fact that tois en phulakē pneumasin (toiß
en fulakh pneumasin),
“the in prison spirits” (my translation), is a description of
those who were disobedient during the time of the Flood in a
post-mortem disembodied penal state.
Psychopannychists advocate that when Yeshua died on the cross, He
solely went to the grave. But what Peter tells us in these
verses speaks to the contrary, a view later reflected in various
editions of the Apostles’ Creed where Yeshua “suffered under
Pontius Pilate, crucified, died and buried; he descended into
hell.”[137]
Peter tells us that the Messiah somehow “made proclamation” (NASU)
to the spirits in prison that performed evil deeds at the time
of Noah. Morey explains how “While there remain many unanswered
questions which have never been fully resolved by any
commentator in two millenniums, the phrase ‘spirits now in
prison’ clearly speaks of disembodied spirits in the
netherworld.”[138]
This necessitates Yeshua to have gone somewhere more than
just a place of internment in the intermediate time between
His crucifixion and resurrection.
The controversy that has occurred over 1 Peter 3:18-20 is what
“preached to the spirits in prison” (v. 19, RSV) actually means,
with some concluding that condemned sinners can be redeemed even
after death. Did Yeshua descend into Sheol/Hades and preach the
gospel to those condemned during the time of Noah, so that they
could now be considered “saved”? No. This problem can be easily
solved by seeing that all is said by Peter is ekēruxen (ekhruxen),
as the verb kērussō (khrussw)
means “to make an official announcement, announce, make
known” (BDAG).[139]
While it can often relate to proclaiming the good news, in this
case it appears that upon descending into Sheol/Hades, Yeshua
instead would have simply declared a message of victory or
righteous vindication to these spirits, as their final
sentencing is all that they have left to look forward to (cf.
Colossians 2:15). If Peter intended the gospel message of
salvation to have been proclaimed by Yeshua here, then the verb
euaggelizō (euaggelizw),
often regarding “to evangelize,” was a more specific option that
could have been used. The NASU rendering of “made proclamation”
best captures what is intended in Peter’s remarks.
2 Peter 1:13-15
“I consider it right, as long as I am in this earthly
dwelling, to stir you up by way of reminder, knowing that
the laying aside of my earthly dwelling is imminent,
as also our Lord Yeshua the Messiah has made clear to me.
And I will also be diligent that at any time after my
departure you will be able to call these things to mind.”
Similar to how the Apostle Paul reflects on the possibility of
his death in Philippians 1:21-23, so does the Apostle Peter
write about his forthcoming death in his second letter. He talks
about his current life, “I consider it right, as long as I am in
this tent” (v. 13, HCSB), en toutō tō skēnōmati (en
toutw tw skhnwmati)
or “in this the tent” (my translation). Here, Peter’s usage of
skēnōma (skhnwma)
or “tent” is akin to his “body” (RSV/NIV). He says that “I know
that the putting off of my body [skēnōma] will be soon,
as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me” (v. 14, RSV), as
apothesis (apoqesiß)
means “a putting aside, getting rid of a thing” (LS).[140]
Peter speaks of a future time, shown to him by the Lord, where
he will be putting off his physical body, his body being likened
unto a temporary tent.
It is not difficult for one to see how the composition of this
letter on Peter’s behalf was for him to issue some final
instructions to the Believers. He wants to both encourage and
admonish them, as he will not be with them for much longer. He
says in v. 15, “I will make every effort so that after my
departure you may be able at any time to recall these things” (ESV),
as his words will be direct and impactful enough so that they
will not be forgotten. This departure is his “decease” (YLT).
From the Greek, the clause of interest is meta tēn emēn
exodon (meta
thn emhn exodon),
with Peter’s departure from human life on Earth actually being
an “exodus.”
Exodos (exodoß) means “movement from one geographical area to another,
departure, path, course,” and “departure from among
the living” (BDAG),[141]
and Exodos (EXODOS) was the term used by the Septuagint Rabbis to call the Book of
Shemot (tAmv)
in the Torah, because its primary theme is the Ancient
Israelites’ departure from Egypt and entry into God’s purpose.
The Apostle Peter did not employ the term exodos by
accident, describing his forthcoming death. He likens his
Earthly death to the Israelites’ departure from Egypt. In order
for Peter to depart in this manner, he has to actually go
somewhere. If Peter’s personal exodus is only his being
transferred from Earthly life to an Earthly place of burial, it
certainly weakens his expectation. Yet, if Peter’s exodus is his
consciousness being transferred to an intermediate afterlife in
Heaven with the Lord, then exodos was the appropriate
term to use. And indeed, when one properly thinks of the Exodus,
just a removal of Israel to the wilderness is an
incomplete picture. The wilderness experience was a temporary
stage of sojourning for Israel on the way to the Promised Land.
Similarly, Peter’s exodus would not end at Heaven, but rather
with the resurrection of his “tent” and entry into God’s Kingdom
on Earth.
Revelation 6:9-11
“When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the
altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the
word of God, and because of the testimony which they had
maintained; and they cried out with a loud voice, saying,
‘How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from
judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the
earth?’ And there was given to each of them a white robe;
and they were told that they should rest for a little while
longer, until the number of their fellow servants and
their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been,
would be completed also.”
Both psychopannychists and those who believe
in an intermediate afterlife recognize that a great deal of
symbolism is employed in the Book of Revelation, much of
which—especially if one is a pre-millennialist—will only be
known for certain as God’s plan of salvation history unfolds
sometime in the future. Yet here in Revelation 6:9-11, at the
breaking of the fifth seal, it is difficult for one not to see a
conscious disembodied post-mortem state portrayed. Here, as the
Apostle John witnesses, “I
saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain
because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which
they had maintained” (Revelation 6:9).
It is not at all improper to view “souls” here as being just
people, given the wide array of usages available for psuchē,
because it is the location of where these people are
crying out that needs to be taken into consideration. The
setting depicted in Revelation is not people symbolically crying
out from the ground, but rather they are associated with the
altar found at “the temple of the tabernacle of testimony in
heaven” (Revelation 15:5). These Believers who have died,
presumably as martyrs, entreat the Lord to enact His righteous
vindication for sinners (Revelation 6:10). Here, wearing some
kind of white robes, Heaven is depicted as a place of rest and
refreshment (cf. John 14:2), as these martyrs would have to wait
just a little while longer (v. 11) until God’s plan can be fully
enacted. Morey summarizes how “This passage has always proven a
great difficulty to those who deny that believers ascend to
heaven at death.”[142]
There is no reason to believe that when the Apostles died, each of
them expected to just float away to Heaven for a period of
endless disembodied bliss, as such a view fails to take into
consideration the significance of the resurrection to Second
Temple Judaism. The Apostle Paul very clearly taught that we are
awaiting for “the
redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23), our reanimated, restored
physical selves. At the same time, the expectation for the First
Century Apostles and saints was not to just die and then fall
into an endless unconscious sleep until the resurrection,
either. The expectation was “Lord Yeshua, receive my spirit!”
(Acts 7:59), and “My desire is to depart and be with Christ”
(Philippians 1:23, RSV). Even if such a disembodied state would
have been considered nakedness or incompleteness, it was
nevertheless preferable “to be absent from the body and to be at
home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8) in the intermediate
period between death and resurrection, as one would be in the
presence of the Savior.
The
Netherworld and Heaven
A fair summary of Scriptures in both the Tanach and Apostolic
Writings depicts that following death the deceased do not enter
into an unconscious state, but rather that they do enter into
some kind of disembodied intermediate state prior to the
resurrection. Yet there can easily be a great deal of confusion
between the Tanach and Apostolic Writings, as the Tanach
describes all of the dead going to Sheol or the
netherworld, and the Apostolic Writings describe the redeemed
dead going to the presence of the Lord, presumably in Heaven.
For the psychopannychist, this means that Sheol obviously just
means “the grave,” and then references in the Apostolic Writings
have to be reworked or spiritualized out of context. For those
of us who believe that the consciousness of a born again
Believer is transferred to the presence of the Lord in Heaven at
time of death, there has to have been some kind of transition
point within the Scriptures where the righteous dead no longer
went to the netherworld of Sheol, but now go to Heaven.
Based on some of the passages that we have just reviewed above,
various theologians of the emerging Christian Church of the late
First and early Second Centuries, holding to a doctrine of an
intermediate afterlife inherited from the Synagogue,
investigated the writings of the Apostles in an effort to
determine what the transition point of one going to Sheol/Hades
to the righteous now going to Heaven would have been. The
doctrine that was formulated was that upon His death at the
crucifixion, Yeshua the Messiah descended into the Paradise side
of Sheol/Hades (Luke 23:43; cf. 16:22-24), made a proclamation
of His victory to those who would remain imprisoned (1 Peter
3:19-20), and then upon His ascension into Heaven took with Him
the deceased righteous from the Paradise side of Sheol/Hades
into Heaven (Ephesians 4:9). This has commonly became known as
either the descent into Hades or the harrowing of Hell.[143]
Can this view of the righteous dead being transferred from the
Paradise side of Sheol/Hades, now into Heaven, be substantiated
when all of these passages are taken into consideration? I
believe that they can. In His parable of Lazarus and the rich
man, Yeshua depicts Sheol/Hades as being divided into two
compartments: one a side of Paradise or Abraham’s bosom (Luke
16:23), and then the other a side of punishment (Luke 16:24).
This is concurrent with Pharisaical Jewish theology of the time,
which actually held that the Paradise side of Sheol/Hades was
but a temporary holding place for the righteous deceased.
Josephus attested that here, “they wait for that rest and
eternal new life in heaven, which is to succeed this
region” (Discourse to the Greeks Concerning Hades 4).[144]
Obviously at some point, the righteous deceased had to be
vacated from of Sheol/Hades, something anticipated in First
Century Pharisaism.
Yeshua the Messiah told the repentant thief beside Him at Golgotha,
“Truly
I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise” (Luke
23:43), as upon dying they would both find themselves in
Abraham’s bosom. The Apostle Peter describes how while in Sheol/Hades,
“He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in
prison” (1 Peter 3:19), a declaration of His vindication over
evil. The transition point of the righteous deceased going to
Sheol/Hades at time of death, to now going to Heaven to be in
the presence of the Lord, is asserted to be Yeshua’s ascension
into Heaven. This would be seen in Ephesians 4:7-9, where
the Apostle Paul describes,
“But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure
of Messiah's gift. Therefore it says, ‘When
He ascended on high, He led captive a host of captives, and He
gave gifts to men’ [Psalm 68:18]. (Now this expression,
‘He ascended,’ what does it mean except that He also had
descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is
Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that
He might fill all things).”
Paul’s principal aim in Ephesians 4 is to describe the unity
that is to manifest itself among Believers in the Body of
Messiah, and how each person has a distinct role to play by
being given unique spiritual gifts (Ephesians 4:11-12). In
explaining how Yeshua’s work has distributed gifts to His
followers, Paul appropriates Psalm 68.
Psalm 68 is a psalm of battle, and the verses leading up to v.
18, quoted in Ephesians 4:8, describe the Lord defeating His
enemies (Psalm 68:1-4), His vindication for the oppressed (Psalm
68:5-6), His mighty power (Psalm 68:7-10), and the victory that
is achieved by Him (Psalm 68:11-18). The Lord God fights in
battle, and then leads forth captives caught in battle in His
train to Mount Zion to rule and reign in triumph:
“The chariots of God are myriads, thousands upon thousands; the
Lord is among them as at Sinai, in holiness. You have
ascended on high, You have led captive Your captives; You
have received gifts among men, even among the rebellious
also, that the Lord
God may dwell there. Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears
our burden, the God who is our salvation. Selah” (Psalm
68:17-19).
Please note how the Hebrew verb laqach (xql)
can mean “take
to or for a person” (BDB),[145]
in regard to fetching something that is to later be distributed.
Laqach can be extrapolated as “to give,” something that
Paul may have imported into his letter via the Greek didōmi
(didwmi),
in describing Yeshua’s distribution of gifts. The difference
between the Hebrew MT or Greek LXX in Psalm 17:18 is that rather
than receiving gifts, the Messiah as victor is depicted as
distributing them. (Commentators have suggested that the
modified quotation of Psalm 68:18 in Ephesians 4:8 follows a
form of Jewish interpretation known as pesher, commonly
employed by the Qumran community.)[146]
While Paul makes a point that the ascension of Yeshua has
brought about the distribution of gifts to His people, what does
it mean when Yeshua has “led
captive a host of captives,” or ēchmalōteusen
aichmalōsian (hcmalwteusen
aicmalwsian)?
This clause is invariably translated as “he led captive
captivity” (YLT) or “he made captivity itself a captive” (NRSV),
although aichmalōsia (aicmalwsia)
means “captivity: a body of captives” (LS),[147]
often relating to prisoners of war. The rendering “host of
captives” (RSV, NASU, ESV) or “captives” (NIV) is valid. It is
not inappropriate for us to conclude that these “captives” are
the righteous dead who once occupied the Paradise side of Sheol.
Identifying who this “host
of captives” are is connected to Paul’s remarks made in
Ephesians 4:9, “Now this expression, ‘He ascended,’ what
does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower
parts of the earth?” What did Yeshua descend to? There is no
agreement among interpreters today as to what the clause eis
ta katōtera [merē] tēs gēs (eiß
ta katwtera [merh]
thß ghß)
actually means, but there is good reason for us to believe that
this is more than just His descent to Planet Earth.
How low Yeshua actually descended is best answered by
considering the Tanach descriptions we see of Sheol. Deuteronomy
32:22 describes how God’s anger “burns to the lowest part of
Sheol, and consumes the earth with its yield, and sets on fire
the foundations of the mountains.” The Psalmist cries out, “But
those who seek my life to destroy it, will go into the depths of
the earth” (Psalm 63:9), with b’tachtiyot ha’eretz (#rah
tAYTxtB)
being rendered as eis ta katōtata tēs gēs (eiß
ta katwtata thß ghß)
in the LXX. Is this just “the grave”? Morey reminds us again how
“Sheol is ‘under the earth,’ or ‘the underworld,’ while graves
were built as supulchres above the earth, or caves, or holes in
the earth. Sheol is called the underworld in Isa. 14:9. It is
also called ‘the lower parts of the earth’ (KJV) in Ps. 63:9;
Isa. 44:23; Eze. 26:20; 31:14, 16, 18; 32:18, 24. Sheol is the
opposite of heaven (Ps. 139:8). One must go ‘down’ to get to
Sheol (Gen. 37:35).”[148]
In Jewish theology “The lower parts of the earth” or “the
regions beneath the earth”[149]
represent something more than just a place of interment for the
dead, as Sheol or the netherworld was believed to have existed
under the Earth.[150]
The Patriarch Jacob exclaimed, “Surely I will go down to
Sheol in mourning for my son” (Genesis 37:35). As previously
discussed, Sheol here cannot just mean “the grave” because the
deceased Joseph would have had no grave as his father believed
him to be eaten by wild animals (Genesis 37:33).
The Messiah’s low descent into Sheol is accompanied by a high
ascent into Heaven. Ephesians 4:10 details, “He who descended is
Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that
He might fill all things.” Yeshua ascended huperanōn pantōn
tōn ouranōn (uperanw
pantwn twn ouranwn),
“higher than all the heavens” (NIV). The contrast with v. 9
would be that just as Yeshua had descended to the lowest point
in the cosmos (cf. Acts 2:31), now He has ascended to the
highest point in the cosmos. From His exalted point in Heaven
Yeshua is able to fill all things (cf. Jeremiah 23:24). The
Epistle to the Hebrews describes Yeshua’s condition in Heaven as
one of service before His Father as High Priest (Hebrews 4:14;
7:26).
The ancient interpretation about “the lower parts of the earth”
relating to the righteous of Paradise being released from Sheol
with Heaven now opened, helps an interpreter reconcile
statements made in the Tanach about all the dead going to Sheol
prior to resurrection (i.e., Ecclesiastes
9:9-10)
with statements in the Apostolic Scriptures about the righteous
dead going into the presence of the Lord prior to resurrection
(2 Corinthians 5:6-9; Philippians 1:20-23). A transition point
had to take place, and Yeshua’s descent into Sheol or the lowest
region, and His subsequent ascent into Heaven or the highest
region—with the righteous saints or “captives”—would be the best
one.[151]
Morey summarizes,
“Before Jesus was raised from the dead, the apostles assumed
that everyone went to Sheol or Hades. This Hades had two
sections, one for the righteous and one for the wicked. But
Christ’s resurrection changed this picture. Thus Paul uses the
language of transition when he speaks of Christ taking the
righteous out of Hades and bringing them into Heaven (Eph. 4:8,
9).”[152]
Is going to Heaven a “pagan doctrine”?
Most Messianics who have adopted a view of psychopannychy in recent
days have not necessarily done so because they have sat down
with their Bibles, and carefully exegeted the various passages
describing human composition and the death expectations of the
Tanach and Apostolic Scriptures. Most Messianics who have become
psychopannychists have been sensationalized into believing that
going to Heaven upon time of death is a “pagan doctrine.” It is
commonly argued that those of us who believe that the
consciousnesses of the deceased go to a holding place until the
resurrection—known as either Heaven or Hell—have adapted a pagan
concept more consistent with Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and
Greco-Roman views of the afterlife than with the Bible.
In spite of the Biblical exegesis which stands in favor of the
consciousnesses of the deceased being able to exist in a
temporary disembodied state, just saying that the idea is
“pagan” is often reason enough for some Messianics to become
psychopannychists. Lew White, author of the publication
Fossilized Customs, is quite direct when asserting, “Pagans
always believed that they would go into the skies to live with
their deities….It is…important to note what Pagans taught about
the ‘spirits’ of the dead being transported to ‘heaven’. That is
the heresy that has been accepted.”[153]
Do notice how here that the idea of born again Believers being
transported to the presence of the Lord upon time of death is
not just rejected on the basis of it somehow being “pagan”;
it is rejected at the level of heresy. This is disturbing,
because as much as I would reject the doctrine of psychopannychy
as being an aberration, I would not consider psychopannychists
to be heretics as much as I would just consider them to be
misguided and one-dimensional thinkers. I believe they
incorrectly relegate the human being as a creature solely of
Planet Earth, but I do not think they are “heretics,” per se. As
much as I would reject psychopannychy as being a valid doctrine,
I do believe that some psychopannychists might be saved.
There is
a severe error in rejecting a teaching of Scripture—such as the
consciousnesses of Believers transported to the Lord’s presence
upon time of death—as “pagan,” that very few Messianics who have
adopted psychopannychy on this basis are aware of. If we say
that the idea of Believers going to Heaven to be with the Lord
upon time of death is pagan, what is keeping us from rejecting
other doctrines or Biblical stories where paganism may also
parallel the Scriptures? After all, are not there pagan myths
about deities coming down from the sky in the form of humans and
performing miracles, which mimic the Earthly life and ministry
of Yeshua?[154]
What do we do about stories like the Sumerian Epic of
Gilgamesh, which is very similar to the Flood of Genesis
6-9? What do we do about the parallels that exist between the
Genesis 1-3 Creation account and the Mesopotamian myth
Atrahasis? And the list can go on and on…
Using
“paganism” as a basis for rejecting doctrines seen in Scripture,
should we conclude that the Gospel narratives of the Messiah’s
life are pagan myths? Are the accounts of the Flood, Noah’s Ark,
and even Creation itself redacted versions of Mesopotamian
mythology into the Torah? (This is what liberals argue.) Today’s
Messianics are often not aware of all of the potentially “pagan”
elements and connections that can be made between the Holy
Scriptures and mythology. These actually include more of
the cherished accounts and stories in the Tanach or the Old
Testament, then they do the record of Yeshua’s ministry. Yet
this is largely unknown in much of our faith community because
most of today’s Messianic Torah teaching is seldom taught with
any Ancient Near Eastern background considered.[155]
The
“it’s pagan” argument that is frequently made by Messianic
psychopannychists like Lew White, C.J. Koster, and others must
be held consistently and not selectively. If we reject an
intermediate afterlife in Heaven for Believers prior to
resurrection, on the basis that societies contemporary to
Ancient Israel believed in a disembodied afterlife, then more
significant beliefs and/or accounts in the Scriptures need to
also be similarly reevaluated. What this does, more than
anything else, is that it places not the veracity of the
Apostolic Scriptures—but the reliability and trustworthiness of
the Tanach itself—on the proverbial chopping block. The ultimate
result of such a quest will not be that one has a more intimate
and blessed relationship with the Creator, but one will in fact
deny that the Creator is concerned with human beings, that is
if He even exists. A life of some form of Jewish Saddusaism
and/or Hellenistic Epicureanism, with no future resurrection or
existence to come, awaits.
We cannot justifiably conclude that the idea of born again
Believers going to Heaven upon time of death, prior to the
resurrection, is pagan. If we do this, we run the risk of later
denying the trustworthiness of our Bibles, which itself will
lead to either agnosticism or atheism.
You must be
born again!
Perhaps the most significant problem that we should have with
psychopannychists is what many (but not all) of them postulate
about the born again experience. In his words to
Nicodemus, Yeshua the Messiah said “Truly,
truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the
kingdom of God” (John 3:3; cf. 3:7). Here, the clause rendered
“born again” is gennēthē anōthen (gennhqh
anwqen),
more specifically meaning “born from above” (NRSV). This would
mean that the nature of Heaven must be present inside of a
committed and mature follower of Yeshua if one ever expects to
encounter and experience the Kingdom of God in his life. A
significant part of seeing God’s Kingdom made manifest is being
delivered from demons (Matthew 12:28; Luke 11:20), something
that can surely take place when a person is spiritually
regenerated!
It has long been recognized in Biblical Studies that being “born
again” or “born from above” was used in Second Temple Judaism to
describe proselytes. The Talmud records, “R. Yosé says, ‘A
proselyte at the moment of conversion is like a new-born baby’”
(b.Yevamot 48b).[156]
In his sermon “The New Birth,” John Wesley made use of this
Jewish designation to explain the transformation that takes
place within a person via the power of the gospel:
“The expression, being born again, was not first used by our
Lord in his conversation with Nicodemus: it was well known
before that time, and was in common use among the Jews when our
Savior appeared among them. When an adult heathen was convinced
that the Jewish religion was of God, and desired to join
therein, it was the custom to baptize him first, before he was
admitted to circumcision. And when he was baptized, he was said
to be born again; by which they meant, that he who was before a
child of the devil, was now adopted into the family of God, and
accounted one of his children.”[157]
An ancient proselyte to Judaism would have had to turn his back
on his previous way of life in paganism, and submit himself to a
procedure where that old life was considered to be behind him.
He was born again into a new life knowing the God of Israel and
becoming a member of the Jewish community. In a similar way to
be a true follower of His, Yeshua the Messiah required that
people be born again. They would turn their backs on their old
way of thinking, and instead turn to the salvation that He
provided and the example that He had set for living. As a
result, men and women would take on a new nature and could be
considered new people, forgiven of sin and spiritually
regenerated—hence, “born from above.”
The Apostle Peter more specifically describes what it means to
be born again:
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah,
who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again
to a living hope through the resurrection of Yeshua the Messiah
from the dead…for you have been born again not of seed which is
perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living
and enduring word of God” (1 Peter 1:3, 23).
1 Peter 1:23 employs the perfect passive participle
anagegennēmenoi (anagegennhmenoi).
This depicts an ongoing past action with continuing results,
having been accomplished by an external force, namely God and/or
His Holy Spirit. Believers have been reborn via an imperishable
seed as guaranteed by the Word of God or the Holy Scriptures
(cf. 1 Peter 1:24-25; cf. Isaiah 40:6, 8). The born again
experience is not something that is to come to them
sometime in the future for Believers, but it is something that
we each partake of right now following our acceptance of
salvation in Messiah Yeshua. The resurrection of Yeshua is to
assure us that the born again experience which Believers have
partaken of is a genuine and authentic action in our lives.
Peter calls it this is an elpida zōsan (elpida
zwsan)
or “living hope”—the verb zōsan actually being a present
active participle—meaning that this is a present reality that
every Believer possesses!
Many of today’s psychopannychists that one will encounter,
however—with this viewpoint growing in the Messianic world—argue
that the born again experience does not occur when a
Believer confesses and repents of sin, and is spiritually
regenerated. This is very disturbing! Often thinking in
one-dimensional terms, their conclusions are not that far off
from those of Nicodemus: “How
can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time
into his mother's womb and be born, can he?” (John 3:4). Yeshua
poignantly asked Nicodemus, “Are you the teacher of Israel and
do not understand these things?” (John 3:10), as our Lord only
reoriented the ancient Jewish usage of “born again” from
proselyte conversion to now one who followed and believed in
Him, being a recipient of His salvation.
So if the born again experience does not occur when a Believer
receives Yeshua into his or her life, when does it take place?
Many of today’s psychopannychists believe that it takes place at
the resurrection. White says that at the resurrection, “we are
re-born, clothed with immortality.”[158]
Yeshua rebuked Nicodemus for thinking that being born again was
something entirely physical, telling him “That
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of
the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). Yeshua’s followers must be
born of the Spirit!
Being born again requires us to have been
transformed from within, and hence possessing a transformed
heart and mind oriented toward God and His love. While I would
not consider belief in psychopannychy to be a salvation issue,
per se, it is undeniable that many psychopannychists will say
that they are not born again. Does this mean that
they do not possess a new nature and are not reconciled to the
Father? Have they not been spiritually changed via the power of
the gospel? I will leave the final judgment to the Lord, but if
people say they are not born again, then it is a pretty good
clue that they are not.
It is notable, in total fairness, that not all psychopannychists
believe that the born again experience take place at the
resurrection. Koster, among others, affirms that the born again
experience takes place within a Believer’s life on Earth,[159]
making reference to a variety of passages in the Apostolic
Scriptures that any of us should take a great deal of comfort
in, describing the new nature (i.e., Romans chs. 6-8; 2
Corinthians 5:17; 1 John 3:9; 5:18). Yet in all honesty, if one
is truly forgiven of sins and born again—meaning spiritually
regenerated—then Yeshua the Messiah will mean everything for
that person. This is why Paul can say, “I
count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of
knowing Messiah Yeshua my Lord” (Philippians 3:8). It was his
desire, and the desire of many Believers since, to see the Lord
immediately after death (Philippians 1:23).
Being born again and supernaturally transformed
from within is the motivation for Believers wanting to go
to Heaven and meet their Lord.
This is not a denial of the resurrection, but is a desire to see
the Savior because of the love for Him that has changed the
heart. If the
psychopannychist really is “born again,”
what is his motivation for not wanting to go to Heaven
and meet the Lord, and instead only fall into endless
unconsciousness until the resurrection? It has been my
experience that psychopannychists do not appear that eager to
see the Lord following the time of their death. What do they
communicate when many of them protest that Believers going to an
intermediate place in Heaven until the resurrection is
non-Biblical? It is possible that their desire is to not
be with the Messiah? We may never know, and their denial of an
intermediate state in the presence of the Lord is an issue that
they need to resolve in their spirituality and their
relationship with Him.
The
Resurrection and the World to Come
While we are convinced that the Bible teaches that the
consciousness of a born again Believer is transported to the
presence of the Lord upon time of death, it is an absolute
mistake for any of us to believe that a disembodied state in
Heaven is the permanent condition awaiting us in the future. We
believe in such an intermediate state because human beings are
different than the animals, and they bear a Divine imprint from
their Creator. Yet the very fact that such death is commonly
called the intermediate state necessitates a future
resurrection and reconstitution of a person’s body and
consciousness. It is a mistake that much popular preaching
emphasizes “going to Heaven” and often de-emphasizes God’s
Kingdom coming the Earth. Isaiah 11:6-9 so eloquently
summarizes much of what we have to look forward to:
“And
the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down
with the young goat, and the calf and the young lion and the
fatling together; and a little boy will lead them. Also the cow
and the bear will graze, their young will lie down together, and
the lion will eat straw like the ox. The nursing child will play
by the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child will put his hand
on the viper's den. They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy
mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the
Lord as the waters
cover the sea.”
The eternity that awaits us as redeemed saints is not one where we
throw off our mortal bodies and then just enter into another
dimension. On the contrary, it is one where we see the ultimate
merging of two dimensions, as the Apostle John recorded “I
saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from
God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband” (Revelation
21:2). Because so much of an emphasis can be placed by people
upon the intermediate state, the eternal state where all
Creation is redeemed by God and the New Heavens and New Earth
appear too often loses its emphasis in the faith experience of
today’s Believers.
Because of a common de-emphasis on the resurrection and world to
come found among many contemporary Believers, the
psychopannychist will often step in and explain how only his
view of death as being an endless unconscious sleep to be
attended by the Second Coming is Biblically acceptable.
Bacchiochi summaries,
“Death is never presented in the Bible as ‘the climatic experience
of our lives.’ It is not that surprising that for Catholics and
Protestants the Second Advent is no longer really necessary,
because they believe in meeting Christ at death as disembodied
souls….Besides being foreign to Scripture, this teaching
encourages Christians to strive for individual and immediate
blessedness after death and, consequently, pushing into the
background the hope for a universal, cosmic, and corporate
redemption to be realized through the Coming of the Lord.”[160]
While making some valid points about people forgetting about the
significance of the bodily resurrection—and only being concerned
with death and a so-called release into endless disembodiment—Bacchiochi
actually runs a serious risk here. He appears to have responded
to one extreme with another extreme. The antithesis of believing
that endless disembodiment awaits the saints is to believe that
only the resurrection and the world to come await the
saints. From this vantage point, the universal, cosmic
redemption is something to only take place far into the future,
and so whatever happens before that time we as Believers will
simply have to wait things out. Our hope is something entirely
of the future, and not something of the present.
What such a view fails to account for is the fact that we are not
called to live in the present age as though the future age has
yet to manifest itself. The ekklēsia is to live the
life of the resurrection now in the present age! That
Second Temple Judaism held to an eschatological dualism is
difficult to deny. 4 Ezra 8:1 summarizes the view of how “The
Most High made this world for the sake of many, but the world to
come for the sake of few.”[161]
The Apostle Paul reflects this same kind of eschatological
dualism in his letters, contrasting the present evil age with
the age to come where God’s complete salvation will manifest
itself (Galatians 1:4; Romans 8:18; 1 Corinthians 1:26). The
powers of the current evil age are destined to pass away (1
Corinthians 2:6-7), and Believers themselves are the ones “upon
whom the ends of the ages have come” (1 Corinthians 10:11). But
where Paul’s Jewish contemporaries thought that the world to
come was only something intended for the future, Paul recognized
that Yeshua’s own resurrection has blurred such a distinction.
D.E. Aune summarizes how
“For Paul the present is a temporary period between the death
and resurrection of Christ and his return in glory in which
those who believe in the gospel share in the salvific benefits
of the age to come (Gal 1:4; 2 Cor 5:17). This temporary period
is characterized by the eschatological gift of the Spirit of
God…Though the final consummation still lay in the future, for
Christians the new age was present because the Messiah had
come.”[162]
Psychopannychists, while rightly emphasizing the importance of the
resurrection to come at Yeshua’s parousia, often make a
mistake in failing to emphasize that the reign to be manifested
on Earth at the Second Coming has already begun. As
Believers and God’s representatives we are required to capture
elements of the future Kingdom of God right now on Earth! The
Body of Messiah, as a unique group of people empowered by the
Holy Spirit, is a people that presently finds itself living in
an age dominated by the forces of evil. When Yeshua proclaimed,
“Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17; cf. 10:17),
this was not just a promise of a future far off Kingdom of God
on Earth to only be realized at the Second Coming. It was the
inauguration of the realities of the future age in the present
age of evil.
Advocates of psychopannychy often make the insidious charge that
those of us who believe in an intermediate afterlife for
Believers deny the significance of the resurrection and Second
Coming. They commonly say: What would be the point of the
resurrection of the saints if Believers go to Heaven at the time
of death? We could ask a similar question in response: What
would be the point of the world to come manifesting itself, if
Believers are to live the life of the world to come now? All
psychopannychists have done is respond to one extreme with
another extreme. The eternal state for Believers is not endless
disembodied bliss, it is rather a resurrection and
reconstitution of the body where “this
perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must
put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:53). Equally so, many
psychopannychists will go too far and overemphasize the future
resurrection and Second Coming, as though future realities are
not to be realized to some extent now in the lives of
Believers prior to their full consummation.
If we are called as Believers to live the life of the world to come
prior to its consummation, then we certainly do need to
respect our bodies and not fall into the ancient Gnostic error
of thinking that what we do with our bodies does not affect us
spiritually, or vice versa. Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 6:18
certainly come to mind: “Flee
immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside
the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body.” God
does expect us to take care of our whole selves, not only for us
to be effective for His service, but so we can present ourselves
as citizens of that world to come in the future now in
the present evil age (cf. Philippians 3:20). For Messianic
Believers—among the many examples we could consider—this would
mean that when the author of Hebrews writes “there remains a
Sabbath rest for the people of God” (Hebrews 4:9), this not just
some generic spiritual rest in the Messiah, but every Shabbat
when we rest we are to get a foretaste of the realities of
eternity. Bacchiochi’s thoughts are well taken:
“Biblical wholism challenges us be concerned about the whole
person. In its preaching and teaching, the church must meet not
only the spiritual needs of the soul but also the physical needs
of the body. This means teaching people how to maintain
emotional and physical health. It means that church programs
should not neglect the needs of the body. Proper diet, exercise,
and outdoor activities should be encouraged as an important part
of Christian living.”[163]
I know few people who believe in an intermediate afterlife in
Heaven that would disagree with Bacchiochi here. Spiritual
leaders encouraging their constituents to be concerned with
physical health, every bit as much as spiritual health, is a
very good thing. But encouraging physical health is a far
cry from believing that there is no intermediate afterlife. The
continuance of a Believer’s consciousness after time of death in
an intermediate state in the Lord’s presence is a recognition of
the uniqueness of the human being made in God’s image (Genesis
1:26-27; Psalm 8:5-6), and the fact that redeemed humanity’s
reign extends beyond Planet Earth (Ephesians 2:6). Mature
Believers should be able to walk a balanced life of faith where
they are maintained spiritually from prayer, worship, and the
Scriptures—and they are also maintained physically by eating
right, exercising, and taking care of their bodies. They can
recognize that even if their consciousness may be temporarily
separated from their bodies at the time of death, this by no
means should be used as an excuse to abuse the body.[164]
If redeemed humanity is indeed intended to rule and reign as God’s
viceroy in eternity, over the New Heavens and New Earth, it only
makes sense that the promise of the resurrection and a new life
in such a place should be adequate impetus for us to actually
live some of that future life right now. Being
made in God’s image does not only mean that humans possess a
uniqueness that the animals lack, but it also means that we are
required to take responsibility for Planet Earth (Genesis 1:28)
and its people. This directly affects the mission of God’s
people today, and how we are to be actively representing Him to
unredeemed humanity at large. Bishop N.T. Wright, who does
believe in an intermediate afterlife for Believers in Heaven,
has done us all a great service in pointing that our emphasis as
the Body of Messiah needs to really be on the “life after
life after death.”[165]
While the intermediate state in Heaven may be a “gain”
(Philippians 1:21), this should not deter us from fulfilling the
work of the gospel. If we are already citizens of God’s Kingdom
to come, then we should manifest such citizenship in our
behavior and in appropriate acts of service. Wright summarizes
how
“[W]hen we see salvation, as the New Testament sees it, in terms of
God’s promised new heavens and new earth and of our promised
resurrection to share in that new and gloriously embodied
reality—what I have called life after life after death—then the
main work of the church here and now demands to be rethought in
sequence.”[166]
The examples of such work that Wright asks us to consider are not
that difficult to understand, as they include care “for the
poor, the sick, the lonely and depressed, for the slaves, the
refugees, the hungry and homeless, for the abused, the paranoid,
the downtrodden and despairing, and in fact the whole wide,
wonderful, and wounded world.”[167]
Ironically enough, while psychopannychists may place a heavy
emphasis on the resurrection and the world to come, theologians
such as Wright and others—who actually believe in an
intermediate disembodied afterlife—are the ones who are trying
to enact what can be enacted of that world to come in
this world. While Bacchiochi emphasizes physical health,
Wright takes it even further and emphasizes how Believers need
to be concerned with the environment.[168]
(Note that one does not have to believe in the theory of global
warning to know that there are environmental issues. Entire
landscapes, forests, or irreplaceable natural treasures can be
destroyed by an unimpeded advance of industrial man.)
In my experience, I have yet to see psychopannychists really
concern themselves with these kinds of issues. It is thought
that Yeshua the Messiah is going to return and solve all of
these problems, and when He does, He will awaken Believers from
their endless unconscious sleep and usher them into Heaven on
Earth. Those are issues entirely of the future that Believers
should not really concern themselves with, and instead will only
be solved by the parousia.
If psychopannychists want to argue that those of us who believe in
a temporary disembodied afterlife prior to resurrection downplay
the significance of the resurrection, they are certainly free to
think so. But I would argue that many of the same
psychopannychists have placed so much of an overemphasis on the
resurrection and Second Coming, that very little effort is
expelled at capturing some of the life of world to come in the
present evil age. Contrary to this, while the intermediate state
is “gain,” a concern with the “life after the afterlife”
should motivate us to be a people empowered for God’s service,
as we seek to represent Him by our good works of service to
others and concern for those in the present age. It is
foolish for any of us to think that we will receive great
rewards in the future age of resurrection and restoration if
we do not try to live the life of such a future age now.
The Scriptures require us to represent the future age of the
Kingdom of God in the present age.
Have
psychopannychists really helped today’s Messianic movement?
The discussion of whether or not psychopannychy is a valid doctrine
of Scripture affects all people who read the Bible, and not just
today’s Messianic movement. Yet it is important to ask ourselves
whether the growth of a sector of Messianic psychopannychists
has really helped and aided our faith community to accomplish
the mission of God. In denying an intermediate state for born
again Believers in Heaven, can a better understanding of the
resurrection be seen among us? Are Messianic psychopannychists
able to counsel those who are dying, or are grieving the recent
loss of a loved one who knew the Lord, better than those
of us who believe in an intermediate afterlife in Heaven?
Psychopannychists argue that the resurrection and Second Coming are
significant events not to be ignored. I do not disagree with
them on this. But I would submit that in the past decade
(1999-2009) as the numbers of psychopannychists have grown among
us, the Messianic community has not seen the kind of emphasis
that we should have seen on the doctrine of resurrection. There
has often been so much of a preoccupation with the Torah, at the
expense of wider Biblical issues, that the promise of a future
resurrection of deceased Believers does not get a very big
hearing. Messianic psychopannychists can protest all they want
about people forgetting about the resurrection—and it is not as
though they do not have some valid points—yet few of the same
have I ever seen emphasize the significance of the resurrection
and the world to come. Many of them, in their own way, are
actually like pseudo-Sadducees.[169]
My experience has been that many of today’s Messianic
psychopannychists only give lip service to the doctrine of
resurrection.
And what is the hope of many of today’s Messianic
psychopannychists? Is it the resurrection? If it really is, then
we should certainly be hearing more about the resurrection than
do. It has again been my experience that while many of today’s
Messianic psychopannychists may strongly protest any kind of
dualism in the human composition—even though those of us who
believe in an intermediate afterlife do affirm that God will
restore the whole human person—they often practice their own
form of dualism in regard to the present world. While many of us
take comfort in knowing that our loved ones who knew the Lord
are now in His presence until the resurrection, those who do not
have this comfort must only look to the Second Coming. While the
Second Coming is something for us to all look forward to, we are
not to just wait around for it and be taken away or deterred
from the required service that God expects us to perform in the
present world.
It is not difficult to see that a fair number of today’s Messianic
psychopannychists are not living the life of the age to come
now in the present age. Many of today’s Messianic
psychopannychists
·
do not vote in political elections
·
are not playing an active role in their local communities
· are fatalistic and quite defeatist in their approach to modern
issues
·
are not trying to be salt and light to the world, as a reflection
of their Torah observance (Matthew 5:15-17)
·
believe that the end of the world is imminently forthcoming
While Messianic psychopannychists may protest that some people have
lost sight of the doctrine of resurrection, many of them are not
living the life of the world to come today that will
follow the resurrection. This is most especially evident among
those who have recently lost a loved one. Those of us who
believe in a temporary disembodied afterlife recognize that our
loved ones who knew the Lord are now in His presence, and we
will see them in Heaven at our own time of death, or at the
resurrection should we still be alive at the parousia.
All Messianic psychopannychists can hope for is the end of the
world, and it is not at all difficult to see why some have
placed their trust in actually desiring for the Tribulation
period to take place. Such a “hope” for God’s judgment to
manifest, in order to be reunited with deceased loved ones, is
very much misplaced! For it was the Prophet Amos who said, “what
purpose will the day of the
Lord be to
you? It will be darkness and not light; as when a man
flees from a lion and a bear meets him, or goes home, leans his
hand against the wall and a snake bites him” (Amos 5:18-19). Our
hope is not the end of the world and prophesied apocalypse!
Rather than encourage Messianic Believers to live the life of the
world to come now, Messianic psychopannychists have often
encouraged people to just look to the nightmare of history
so they can be reunited with their loved ones. As much of a
reality as the Tribulation period will be, none of us are to
wish it upon the world! Messianic psychopannychists have done an
extreme disservice to our faith community in robbing many of the
comfort that their loved ones who knew the Lord are in a place
of refreshment in Heaven (John 14:2a). But even more so, by
failing to emphasize that Believers are required to live the
life of the world to come in the present evil age, such
sentiments have retarded the spiritual and theological
maturation of the Messianic movement into a force that can
fulfill the greater tasks He has assigned us.
My Own
Personal Experience
Whatever one of us believes about the intermediate state—whether we
are expecting to fall into an endless unconscious sleep until
the resurrection, or be welcomed into the presence of the Lord
in Heaven until the resurrection—we are each affected by our
personal experience, or lack thereof. Having just compiled a
great deal of Biblical evidence and engagement with the
viewpoints of psychopannychists, I cannot hide the fact that
I myself believe in an intermediate afterlife in Heaven prior to
the resurrection because of my life experience. (And I
honestly do wish that psychopannychists would explain to us what
their experiences have been to guide them to their conclusions.)
The second most important spiritual experience in my life occurred
on September 1, 1992, in the intensive care unit of St.
Elizabeth Hospital in Erlanger, Kentucky.[170]
Five months earlier, my father had been diagnosed with malignant
melanoma. He received the appropriate cancer treatment,
including being admitted to an NIH trial clinic in Frederick,
Maryland. The experimental treatments went well, and he returned
home. But the cancer was very aggressive, and the
side-effects of his treatments cause a low blood platelet count.
Two days prior to September 1, my father woke up in the middle
of the night with a massive headache. What was discovered via
catscan were five huge cancerous legions on his brain stem that
were hemorrhaging. Within a day of being admitted to the
hospital, and having said some very direct words to my mother
about how “I can see the Rock and hear the music,” my father
fell into a coma from which he would never wake up.
My father was immediately taken to the ICU ward at the hospital and
placed on a respirator. He was shortly declared brain dead. St.
Elizabeth was a Catholic hospital and as such we had to wait
before we could do anything, but my mother already knew that it
was the time to write his obituary. On the morning of September
1, the respirator was turned off, and my father’s heart steadily
stopped beating. At the moment that my father’s pulse
stopped, his arms slowly raised up as though something were
pulling on him. A great peace then enveloped the room.
The attendant nurse in the room, watching this man die, was
crying because she had never seen anything like it. People who
are brain dead are not supposed to move while they are dying,
because they lack the neural energy to do so. What the survivors
of the McKee family had witnessed that morning of September 1,
1992 was that something had been pulled out of their father’s
body.
My father began the year 1992 believing that he would have his
heart’s desire fulfilled. The recession of 1991 was ending, and
his software business began to do well again. My mother was
pregnant and ready to give birth to my sister Maggie. Things
were improving for the McKees, so for my father to suddenly
get cancer did not make any logical sense.
In his final weeks of life, we were all able to witness that my
father’s attention was not on things of this world. He was
steadily thinking of the next world. His desire was no
different than that of the Apostle Paul: “My
desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.”
This is not to say that my father was at all conflicted, because
Paul was also: “I am hard pressed between the two” (Philippians
1:23, RSV), as my 41- year old father had a young
wife and three young children, with one being an infant. But in
those final days you could see that my father’s concern was that
he be prepared to meet his Lord in glory.
I
will never, ever be a psychopannychist. When my father died, his consciousness departed and he was
welcomed into the presence of Jesus Christ in Heaven. What was
left for us was the body of my father. My father was a very
serious born again Christian, and he knew that even though his
desire was indeed to depart this Earth and meet his Lord, that
an intermediate Heaven would not be his final destination. As a
lay minister, my father delivered many sermons—and he believed
in the resurrection! He did not just believe in it because he
recited “I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life
everlasting” every week from the Apostles’ Creed as blind dogma;
he elaborated on it and explained what he believed. In a sermon
entitled “The Meaning of the Resurrection” delivered on April
28, 1991, my father taught
we who have a relationship with Jesus Christ
are going to live forever. And those who have gone on—who
are WITH THE LORD—are not dead. They’re alive. So why don’t
we say so? Let’s have the courage, if we know they died in
Christ, to say they’re WITH THE LORD!
I will go so far as to say, with Chuck Smith of
Calvary Chapel, when you make the funeral arrangements,
don’t buy a plot, ask if you can rent![171]
Kenneth Kimball McKee (1951-1992) believed in going to Heaven,
and he believed in the resurrection of the dead. As an
evangelical Christian man sold out to serving the Lord, Kim
McKee most especially believed in living the life of the world
to come now in the present world. He believed in good
works of service for the greater Body of Christ, enacting as
much of that life of the world to come prior to the
Second Coming. Kim McKee was active in the Kentucky conference
of the United Methodist Church, he was a registered lay minister
and active Sunday school teacher, he participated in the Lay
Witness Mission, Kairos prison ministry, and most notably was
known as an Emmaus team leader, being the first men’s team
leader to Madras, India in January 1991. Before being diagnosed
with cancer, Kim McKee had already been approved to begin the
process of becoming an ordained Methodist pastor. And most
importantly, Kim McKee believed in the importance of the Jewish
Roots of Christianity. The only reason a person like Kim
McKee would have been promoted early was because God has a
bigger plan in mind, as his death would need to influence and
motivate others for the service of ministry.
Many years ago I remember my father taking me to visit our McKee
family plot, where his parents (and my grandparents) are buried.
I also remember having to go to the same plot and help choose a
place for him to be buried. I know that my father’s desire in
his last days was to meet the Lord Jesus, because in his own
words, “Our home and our hope is not here, it’s in the presence
of the Lord.” But these are not words of escape into endless
disembodiment. My father also firmly believed that the Lord
would “transform
[his] body of [a] humble state into conformity with the body of
His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to
subject all things to Himself” (Philippians 3:31).
After Kim McKee died, we all knew that he was in the presence of
his Savior, yet Kim McKee’s body was not treated with any
disrespect as though it were just an empty shell to be thrown
away as garbage, burned and cast into the wind. Kim McKee’s body
is an important part of his being waiting to be reconstituted at
the time of resurrection. My father was given proper honor and
burial—a funeral deserving of a redeemed saint. My father’s own
grave marker includes the epitaph “Jesus Christ the Rock of My
Salvation,” a testament not only of him desiring to see the
Lord, but that the survivors of the McKee family and all of his
friends and Christian loved ones will actually get to touch and
embrace his body again! The only regret that the survivors of
the McKee family have today is that since we moved away from
Northern Kentucky in 1994, we have not visited our father’s
gravesite as frequently as we should. We know that even though
he is in Heaven with the Lord, he is also buried here on Planet
Earth.[172]
To Be Absent
From the Body
I have had some direct experiences with death, and I have seen the
consciousness of a saint leave his body to enter into the
presence of the Lord. I would personally have a great deal of
difficulty sitting under the leadership of a pastor or teacher
who actively taught the doctrine of psychopannychy—one who would
contentiously confront Believers who have the assurance that
their deceased loved ones are in the presence of the Lord, and
then regard such a belief as being a “lie.” Some pastors or
teachers may prefer to be agnostic about this subject, not quite
knowing what to believe, and I would place them in a different
category provided they largely did not teach on death but
instead living properly here on Earth. But those who actively
deny an afterlife in the presence of the Lord for Believers, in
spite of the Biblical evidence? No, and not ever.
Why would there ever be such people actively teaching that born
again Believers are to not meet the Lord in Heaven after death? Is departing to be with the Messiah not something that
motivates them? The Apostle Paul had difficulty contemplating
death, actually considering it nakedness, but he still
recognized that in being absent from his body he would be at
home with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:3, 8), surely something that
is good. And this is no permanent condition, either, otherwise
we would not call it the intermediate state.
Why do we have some in the Messianic community today who do not
want to be in the presence of Yeshua the Messiah when they die?
Is this just because of bad theology and empty rhetoric? Or are
they afraid because they are unsure of their salvation? I
do not know, as this is an issue that Messianic
psychopannychists must work through with the Lord. If they lack
the relationship with God that they should have, perhaps death
is indeed something that they fear and endless unconsciousness
is all they should really want. But we need to have the
assurance of salvation, so “with
full courage now as always Christ will be honored in [our
bodies], whether by life or by death” (Philippians 1:20, RSV).
The
issue of where the Believer goes at time of death ultimately
pertains to one’s spiritual motivation. Are human beings
one-dimensional creatures solely of Planet Earth? What is
inherently wrong with Believers going to Heaven to be with the
Lord upon time of death? What is wrong with communing with God?
Is there anything evil and repulsive about believing in an
intermediate afterlife? Is there something that instinctively
drives people away from wanting to meet the Lord? And not
to forget the resurrection—how do we concern ourselves with the
life after the afterlife, and participating in some of
that promised life right now?
If the
Messianic movement is to be molded into a mature force of
righteousness, then it is time that we put such elementary
issues of faith well behind us (Hebrews 6:1-2). If we should die
before His return, we should look forward to being welcomed into
the Lord’s presence in Heaven. In the meantime, let us live the
life of the world to come here on Earth today!
J.K. McKee (B.A., University of Oklahoma; M.A., Asbury
Theological Seminary) is the editor of TNN Online (www.tnnonline.net)
and is a Messianic apologist. He is author of several books,
including: The New Testament Validates Torah, Torah In the
Balance, Volume I, and When Will the Messiah Return?.
He has also written many articles on the Two Houses of Israel
and Biblical theology, and is presently focusing on Messianic
commentaries on various books of the Bible.
NOTES
[1]
Consult David H. Stern, Jewish New Testament
Commentary (Clarksville, MD: Jewish New Testament
Publications, 1995), pp 134, 594.
[2]
Everett F. Harrison, “soul sleep,” in
Baker’s Dictionary of Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker
Book House, 1960), 492; Walter Martin, The Kingdom of
the Cults (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1985), pp
447-459.
[3]
These groups include, but are by no means
limited to: the Seventh Day Adventist Church, offshoots
from the Worldwide Church of God (Armstrongism), and
various Sacred Name Only cults.
[4]
C.J. Koster. (n.d.). Replacement
Theology-Part 2. Qodesh Publishers. Retrieved
04 February, 2009, from <http://www.qodesh.co.za/>.
[5]
N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the
Son of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 31;
see also Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the
Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New
York: HarperCollins, 2008), pp 151, 169.
[6]
For a presentation of this point of view,
the editor recommends you peruse Marcus J. Borg,
Reading the Bible Again for the First Time: Taking the
Bible Seriously But Not Literally (San Francisco:
HarperCollins, 2001).
[7]
Robert A. Morey, Death and the
Afterlife (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1984), 23.
[8]
Benjamin D. Sommer, “Isaiah,” in Adele
Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, eds., The Jewish Study
Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 834.
[9]
Consult the editor’s entry for the Book
of Daniel in
A Survey of the Tanach for the
Practical Messianic.
[10]
David Rolph Seely, “Resurrection,” in
David Noel Freedman, ed., Eerdmans Dictionary of the
Bible (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 1120.
[11]
Consult the editor’s entry for the Book
of Job in
A Survey of the Tanach for the
Practical Messianic.
[12]
George Robinson, Essential Judaism: A
Complete Guide to Beliefs, Customs, and Rituals (New
York: Pocket Books, 2000), 192.
[13]
Wright discusses how the doctrine of
resurrection may have threatened the relatively
aristocratic position of the Sadducees, and how “they
thought such beliefs might lead the nation into a clash
with Rome…People who believe that their god is about to
make a new world, and that those who die in loyalty to
him in the meantime will rise again to share gloriously
in it, are far more likely to lose respect for a wealthy
aristocracy than people who think that this life, this
world and this age are the only ones there ever will be”
(The Resurrection of the Son of God, 138).
[14]
Jacob Neusner, trans., The Mishnah: A
New Translation (New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 1988), 604.
[15]
Matthew 22:23-33; Mark 12:18-27; Luke
20:27-40; John 5:25, 29; 11:25; Acts 2:32-36; Romans
1:3-4; 1 Corinthians 15:12, 20-22, 42-46; et. al.
In a very similar way, Believers in
Yeshua have a safety net from the Apostolic Scriptures
that Moses was involved with the composition of the
Torah (Mark 12:26; Luke 24:27; John 1:45; 5:46; Romans
10:5; 2 Corinthians 3:15), as opposed to some disparate
JEDP sources compiled after the Babylonian exile.
[16]
Consult the editor’s article “You
Want to be a Pharisee.”
[17]
Flavius Josephus: The Works of
Josephus: Complete and Unabridged, trans. William
Whiston (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1987), 477.
[18]
The Babylonian Talmud: A Translation and
Commentary. MS Windows XP.
Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2005. CD-ROM.
Cf. “soul,” in Jacob Neusner and William
Scott Green, eds. Dictionary of Judaism in the
Biblical Period (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2002),
599.
[19]
John W. Cooper, Body, Soul & Life
Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the
Monism-Dualism Debate (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1989), 100.
[20]
Menahem Mansoor, “Pharisees,” in
Encyclopaedia Judaica. MS Windows 9x. Brooklyn:
Judaica Multimedia (Israel) Ltd, 1997.
[21]
The Works of Josephus: Complete and
Unabridged, 608.
[22]
Wright, Surprised by Hope, 40.
[23]
The term Paul employs for
“unapproachable,” aprositos (aprositoß),
is similarly used by Philo in describing Moses’
ascension of Mount Sinai:
“[H]aving gone up into the loftiest and
most sacred mountain in that district in accordance with
the divine commands, a mountain which was very difficult
of access [aprositos] and very hard to ascend” (On
the Life of Moses 2.70;
The Works of Philo: Complete and
Unabridged,
trans. C.D. Yonge [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1993],497).
[24]
Morey, 23.
[25]
Nahum M. Sarna, JPS Torah Commentary:
Genesis (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society,
1989), 11.
[26]
The author of Hebrews applies Psalm 8:4-6
to Yeshua the Messiah and His Incarnation (Hebrews
2:6-10), whose ministry and service for the world
restores redeemed humanity as second only to God in
Creation.
Consult the editor’s commentary
Hebrews for the Practical
Messianic for a further explanation.
[27]
This list of five character traits is
copied from Hugh Ross, The Genesis Question:
Scientific Advances and the Accuracy of Genesis,
second expanded edition (Colorado Springs: NavPress,
2001), 55.
[28]
Samuele Bacchiocchi, Immortality or
Resurrection? A Biblical Study on Human Nature and
Destiny (Berrien Springs, MI: Biblical Perspectives,
1998), 30.
[29]
Wright, Surprised by Hope, 80.
[30]
Morey, pp 37-38.
[31]
Cooper, 50.
[32]
E E-Sword 8.0.8: Keil & Delitzsch
Commentary on the Old Testament.
MS Windows 9x. Franklin, TN: Equipping Ministries
Foundation, 2008.
[33]
Sarna, 17.
[34]
Victor P. Hamilton, New International
Commentary on the Old Testament: The Book of Genesis,
Chapters 1-17 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 159.
[35]
Nosson Scherman. ed., et. al., The
ArtScroll Chumash, Stone Edition, 5th ed. (Brooklyn:
Mesorah Publications, 2000), pp 11-12.
[36]
Robert B. Laurin, “soul,” in Baker’s
Dictionary of Theology, 492.
[37]
William L. Holladay, ed., A Concise
Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament
(Leiden, the Netherlands: E.J. Brill, 1988), pp 242-243.
[38]
Morey, 44.
[39]
Ibid., 47.
[40]
The BDAG lexicon offers just as
wide a variance of possible definitions for psuchē:
“life on earth in its animating aspect making bodily
function possible,” “seat and center of the inner
human life in its many and varied aspects, soul,”
“an entity w. personhood, person” (Frederick
William Danker, ed., et. al.,
A Greek-English Lexicon of the New
Testament and Other Early Christian Literature,
third edition [Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
2000], pp 1098-1099).
[41]
Morey, 49.
[42]
Cf. Isaiah 42:1; Habakkuk 2:4.
[43]
Francis Brown, S.R. Driver, and Charles
A. Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old
Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 952.
[44]
Cooper, 60.
[45]
Bacchiochi, 48.
[46]
Richard Swinburne, “The Soul Needs a
Brain to Continue to Function,” in Michael Peterson,
William Hasker, Bruce Reichenbach, David Basinger, eds.,
Philosophy of Religion: Selected Readings, second
edition (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2001), 459.
[47]
For an evaluation of the various views,
consult J.P. Moreland and John Mark Reynolds, eds.,
Three Views of Creation and Evolution (Grand Rapids:
Zondervan, 1999).
[48]
Ibid., pp 466, 467.
[49]
And to the psychopannychists’ credit,
solely viewing the human person as being of another
dimension is equally degrading.
[50]
Bacchiocchi, 16.
[51]
Wright, Surprised by Hope, 95.
[52]
Ibid., 15.
[53]
Animal death, being something independent
from human death, would have been a necessity in order
for God to prepare Planet Earth for man’s eventual
habitation, specifically for the formation of various
precious metals, rare jewels, and fossil fuels such as
coal, petroleum, and natural gas. This took place during
Creation periods or yamim (~ymy)
Five and Six, likely beginning around the Cambrian
explosion of some 543 million years ago.
Cf. Hugh Ross, Creation as Science: A
Testable Model Approach to End the Creation/Evolution
Wars (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2006), pp 138-141.
[54]
Morey, pp 97-98; cf. 1 John 5:11-12.
[55]
Hugh Ross, A Matter of Days: Resolving
a Creation Controversy (Colorado Springs, NavPress,
2004), 23.
Ross also discusses how geneticists have
traced mutations in mtDNA and Y-DNA for the common male
and female ancestors of humanity to a distance somewhere
between 37,000 and 50,000 years ago (Ibid., pp 224-226;
The Genesis Question, pp 107-112).
[56]
Information on visiting the cave of
Lascaux can be accessed on the French Ministry of
Culture website: <http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/lascaux/en/>.
[57]
Consult the FAQ on the TNN website “Genesis
5, 11 Genealogies” for a further explanation.
[58]
Theodore J. Lewis, “Dead, Abode of the,”
in David Noel Freedman, ed., Anchor Bible Dictionary,
6 vols. (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 2:103.
[59]
D.K. Stuart, “Sheol,” in Geoffrey
Bromiley, ed., International Standard Bible
Encyclopedia, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1988), 4:472.
[60]
BDB, 868.
[61]
BDAG, 654.
[62]
Morey, 75.
[63]
Nahum M. Sarna, “Genesis,” in David L.
Lieber, Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary (New
York: Rabbinical Assembly, 2001), 232.
[64]
Morey, 79.
[65]
Bacchiocchi, 159.
[66]
Ibid., 160.
[67]
Heb. beriah (hayrB).
[68]
See Morey, pp 76-77, for his full twenty
reasons on substantiating why the Hebrew Sheol
cannot mean “the grave,” but an actual netherworld.
[69]
Ibid., 76.
[70]
Cooper, 64.
[71]
Ibid., 41.
[72]
The term necromancer is derived from the
Greek nekros (nekroß),
meaning “dead.”
[73]
Charles A. Kennedy, “Dead, Cult of the,”
in ABD, 2:106.
[74]
Ibid., 2:107.
[75]
Ibid., 2:106.
[76]
Cooper, 64.
[77]
Philip J. Budd, Word Biblical
Commentary: Numbers, Vol 5 (Dallas: Word
Incorporated, 1984), Prolepsis database.
[78]
Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of
God, pp 93-94.
[79]
Cooper, 65.
[80]
John D.W. Watts, Word Biblical
Commentary: Isaiah 1-33, Vol 24 (Dallas: Word
Incorporated, 1985), Prolepsis database.
[81]
Morey, 76.
[82]
Cooper, pp 63-64.
[83]
Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner,
eds., The Hebrew & Aramaic Lexicon of the Old
Testament, 2 vols. (Leiden, the Netherlands: Brill,
2001), 1:898.
[84]
Leslie C. Allen,
Word Biblical Commentary: Psalms 101-150,
Vol 21
(Dallas: Word Books, 2002), Prolepsis database.
[85]
Neusner, 653.
[86]
For a further discussion, consult T.
Longman III, “Ecclesiastes 3: History of
Interpretation,” in Tremper Longman III and Peter Enns,
eds., Dictionary of the Old Testament Wisdom, Poetry
& Writings (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2008),
pp 140-149.
[87]
The clause tachat ha’shemesh
appears throughout the Book of Ecclesiastes, forcing any
responsible reader to see that Qohelet’s vantage point
is life as experienced on Earth: Ecclesiastes 1:3, 9,
14; 2:11, 17ff, 22; 3:16; 4:1, 3, 7, 15; 5:12, 17; 6:1,
12; 8:9, 15, 17; 9:3, 6, 9, 11, 13; 10:5.
[88]
For a further discussion, consult the
editor’s entry for the Book of Ecclesiastes in
A Survey of the Tanach for the
Practical Messianic, and his article “The
Message of Ecclesiastes.”
[89]
Stephanie Dalley, trans., Myths from
Mesopotamia: Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others
(Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1989), 155.
[90]
E.A. Wallis Budge, trans., Egyptian
Book of the Dead (London: Penguin Books, 2008), 29.
Note the illustration of the weighing of
the heart on pp 31-32.
[91]
Morey, 67.
[92]
Homer: The Odyssey, trans.
Richmond Lattimore (New York: HarperCollins, 1975), pp
168-184.
[93]
R.V. Vunderink, “Epicureans,” in ISBE,
2:121.
[94]
J.C. Thom, “Stoicism,” in Craig E. Evans
and Stanley E. Porter, eds., Dictionary of New
Testament Background (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity, 2000), 1140.
[95]
F.W. Beare, “Stoics,” in George Buttrick,
ed. et. al., The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the
Bible, 4 vols. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1962), 4:444.
[96]
Thomas Schmeller, “Stoics, Stoicism,” in
ABD, 6:211.
[97]
Plato: Gorgias, trans., James H.
Nichols, Jr. (Ithaca and London: Cornell University,
1998), 125.
[98]
Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God,
49.
[99]
Plato: The Last Days of Socrates,
trans., Hugh Tredennick and Harold Tarrant (London:
Penguin Books, 1993), pp 120-121.
[100]
Ralph P. Martin,
Word Biblical Commentary: 2 Corinthians,
Vol 40
(Dallas: Word Books, 1985), Prolepsis database.
[101]
Cooper, 95.
[102]
P.S. Johnston, “Burial and Mourning,” in
T. Desmond Alexander and David W. Baker, eds.,
Dictionary of the Old Testament Pentateuch (Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003), 105; B.R. McCane,
“Burial Practices, Jews,” in Dictionary of New
Testament Background, 175.
[103]
J.K. Chamblin, “Psychology,” in Gerald
F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin, and Daniel G. Reid, eds.,
Dictionary of Paul and His Letters (Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1993), pp 767, 768.
[104]
Wright, Surprised by Hope, 27.
[105]
H.G. Lidell, and R. Scott, An
Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1994), 565.
[106]
The Works of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged,
813.
[107]
Bacchiochi, 175.
[108]
Nathan Lawrence. (2007). What Happens When You Die?
Hoshanna Rabbah. Retrieved 16 February, 2009,
from <http://www.hoshanarabbah.org/>.
[109]
D.W. Baker, “Source Criticism,” in
Dictionary of the Old Testament Pentateuch, 800.
[110]
For a further discussion, consult the
editor’s article “Encountering
Mythology: A Case Study from the Flood Narratives.”
[111]
Consult the editor’s entry for the Book
of Exodus in
A Survey of the Tanach for the
Practical Messianic.
[112]
For a further examination of Lazarus and
the rich man, consult Morey, pp 83-86.
[113]
Wright, Surprised by Hope, pp
150-151.
Note how I have replaced Wright’s
reference to “Good Friday” with “the same day as his
crucifixion.”
[114]
BDAG, 921.
[115]
E. Fuchs, “sēmeron,” in Geoffrey
W. Bromiley, ed., Theological Dictionary of the New
Testament, abrid. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985),
1025.
[116]
Richmond Lattimore, trans., The New
Testament (New York: North Point Press, 1996), 188.
[117]
Cooper, 140.
[118]
H. Köster, “tópos,” in TDNT,
1184.
[119]
LS, 518.
[120]
Wright, Surprised by Hope, 41.
[121]
BDAG, 221.
[122]
I. Howard Marshall, Tyndale New
Testament Commentaries: Acts (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans:
1984), 149.
[123]
Cf. Psalm 110:1; Daniel 7:13.
[124]
BDAG, 16.
[125]
Heb. kol-qedoshim (~yvdq-lK).
[126]
D.R. de Lacy, “Holiness Sanctification,”
in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, 397.
[127]
The Works of Philo: Complete and
Unabridged, 44.
[128]
BDAG, 332.
[129]
LS,
260.
[130]
Ibid., 58.
[131]
Ibid., 229.
[132]
Gordon D. Fee, New International
Commentary on the New Testament: Paul’s Letter to the
Philippians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 149.
[133]
For a further discussion, consult the
editor’s commentary
Philippians for the Practical
Messianic.
[134]
The topic of eternal punishment is
discussed more fully in this article’s companion, “Why
Hell Must Be Eternal.”
[135]
Morey, pp 212-213.
[136]
For a further discussion, consult the
editor’s commentary
Hebrews for the Practical
Messianic.
[137]
Henry Bettenson and Chris Maunder, eds.,
Documents of the Christian Church (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1999), 26.
[138]
Morey, 214.
[139]
BDAG, 543.
[140]
LS, 98.
[141]
BDAG, 350.
[142]
Morey, pp 214-215.
[143]
“Descent into Hades,” in David W. Bercot,
ed., A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs
(Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1998), pp 205-207.
[144]
The Works of Josephus: Complete and
Unabridged, 813.
[145]
BDB, 542.
[146]
Cf. Pheme Perkins,
“The Letter to the Ephesians,” in Leander E. Keck, ed.,
et. al., New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 11
(Nashville: Abingdon, 2000), 421; Andrew T. Lincoln,
Word Biblical Commentary: Ephesians, Vol. 42
(Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1990), 243.
[147]
LS, 24.
[148]
Morey, 76.
[149]
New English Bible with the Apocrypha
(Oxford and Cambridge: Oxford and Cambridge University
Presses, 1970), 248 fn a.
[150]
Sarna, in Etz Hayim, 232; cf. Jim
West, “Sheol,” in EDB, pp 1206-1207.
[151]
This section includes embedded quotations
from the editor’s commentary
Ephesians for the Practical
Messianic.
[152]
Morey, 86.
In his book King of the Jews
(Littleton, CO: First Fruits of Zion, 2006), pp 122-124,
D. Thomas Lancaster considers the doctrine of the
harrowing of Hell to be a relatively late invention in
Christian theology, largely derived from Dante
Alighieri’s Fourteenth Century fictional
work The Divine Comedy. He insists, “It is
astonishing how this old church mythology has survived
in modern Protestant circles” (p 123), but he expels no
time in investigating or interpreting the relevant
Scripture passages (Luke 16:22-24; 23:43; 1 Peter
3:19-20; Ephesians 4:7-10) used in the late First and
early Second Centuries C.E. to derive this doctrine.
To his credit, though, Lancaster is no psychopannychist.
He affirms that Yeshua’s parable of Lazarus and the rich
man depicts a real place where the consciousnesses of
the deceased are transported at death. But rather than
going to Heaven into the Lord’s presence today,
Lancaster seems to believe that the righteous dead still
go to Abraham’s bosom in Sheol (p 129).
[153]
Lew White, Fossilized Customs
(Louisville, KY: Strawberry Islands, 2001), 41.
[154]
Consult the editor’s article “Is
the Story of Yeshua Pagan?”
[155]
For a discussion of this, consult the
editor’s article “Addressing
the Frequently Avoided Issues Messianics Encounter in
the Torah.”
[156]
The Babylonian Talmud: A Translation and
Commentary.
[157]
N. Burwash, ed., Wesley’s Doctrinal
Standards Part I: The Sermons, with Introductions,
Analysis, and Notes (Salem, OH: Schmul Publishing,
1988), 462.
[158]
White, 41.
[159]
C.J. Koster. (n.d.). We need to be
born again! Qodesh Publishers. Retrieved 23
February, 2009, from <http://www.qodesh.co.za/>.
[160]
Bacchiochi, 251.
[161]
B.M. Metzger, trans., “The Fourth Book of
Ezra,” in James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old
Testament Pseudepigrapha, Vol 1 (New York:
Doubleday, 1983), 542.
[162]
D.E. Aune, “Apocalypticism,” in
Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, 31.
[163]
Bacchiochi, 34.
[164]
I do find it ironic that many of the
psychopannychists I have encountered, who think that
those who believe in an intermediate afterlife in Heaven
are not concerned with physical health, are often some
of the most unhealthy and obese people that I have ever
met.
[165]
Wright, Surprised by Hope, pp 151,
169.
[166]
Ibid., 197.
[167]
Ibid., pp 191-192.
[168]
Ibid., 119.
[169]
Consult the editor’s McHuey Blog post
from 21 October, 2008, “Sadducees
Among Us?”
[170]
The first most important spiritual
experience in my life is detailed at the end of this
article’s companion, “Why
Hell Must Be Eternal.”
[171]
The
entire text of this sermon
is available for reading on the TNN Online website.
[172]
For more information on the life
testimony of Kenneth Kimball McKee, consult the editor’s
article “To
Those Who Have Gone Before Us.”
|