Eternal Hope: 1–24

Walt Henrichsen January 6, 2016

Part One

This begins what will probably prove to be a long series on eternal hope. As you know, hope is the only sustaining influence in a person’s life. Love, obligation, fear – these and other factors can motivate, but only hope can provide a motivation that stands the test of disappointment. You will find “hope” used 129 times in the King James Version of the Bible, 141 times in the NAS, and 185 times in the RSV.

Hope defines the object of your faith, as well as identifies your values. For example, you may place your faith in (take risks in the direction of) the stock market because you hope to have adequate finances for retirement. These, in turn, identify your values, i.e. – you value or consider it important to live well without having to depend on your children or charity during your retirement years.

Hope therefore identifies what you consider gain. You say, “I hope to do well in the stock market.” You do not say, “I hope to lose my investment.” The study of the end of the world (eschatology) seeks to identify what God defines as a biblical hope. In what direction does God say you can legitimately hope? In the New Testament, Paul prays for the Ephesians, “having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints…”[1] Again, Paul says, “For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel…”[2]

In the Old Testament, God offered an eternal hope to the nation of Israel, illustrated by His promise to Abraham, the father of the nation: “for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.”[3] In the Old Testament, however, I can find no parallel hope given by God to an individual, no place where God promises an individual eternal life. This does not mean that the OT saints lacked an eternal hope; Hebrews 11, for example, tells us “they desired a better country, that is a heavenly one.”[4] Rather, I can find no reference to God offering an individual an eternal hope.

I found this so strange that I read the entire Bible looking for exceptions. A large part of this study will be devoted to analyzing various texts that may suggest that individuals did, in fact, have an eternal hope. Before beginning, however, let’s look at some obvious Old Testament indicators pointing in the direction of eternal hope:

Indicators that people believed in the immortality of the soul:

1) – Genesis 1:26-27: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” The fact that God created him in His own image drove man to conclude that he is more than a temporal being like the rest of God’s creatures.

2) – Genesis 2:9: “And out of the ground the LORD God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” In verse 22, Moses says that if man eats of this tree he shall “live forever.”

3) – Matthew 22:32: “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” Jesus quotes from Exodus 3:6 to prove the resurrection and the immortality of the soul.

4) – In 1 Samuel 28:7-15 Saul uses the witch of Endor to call Samuel back from the grave, thus demonstrating that although dead, Samuel lived.

5) – Israel lived 400 years in Egypt, and we know that the Egyptian people held to a belief in the immortality of the soul.

6) – Genesis 5:22: “Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.”

7) – Genesis 37:35: “All his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted, and said, ‘No, I shall go down to Sheol to my son, mourning.’ Thus his father wept for him.” Isaac saw Sheol as a place where he would be reunited with his son. There are many similar passages to this.

8) – Ecclesiastes 12:7: “and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.” Evidently Solomon alludes to Genesis 3:19: “In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” In Genesis, however, God does not say “the spirit returns to God who gave it.”

9) – 1 Kings 17:22: “And the LORD heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived.” God used Elijah to raise the widow’s son from the dead. (Cf. also 2 Kings 4:35 and 13:21). Thus, God demonstrates His power over Sheol; it cannot hold those who enter.

10) – 2 Kings 2:11: “And as they still went on and talked, behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.” As his prodigy looked on, Elijah was translated into heaven. No mention is made of what happened to him. When God translated both Enoch and Elijah, He demonstrated that Sheol was not the inevitable end of man. The prophet Micah, speaking for God, predicts: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes.”[5]

Other indicators exist. These are merely illustrative.

Old Testament Theocracy

As we move through this study, we will explore passages in the OT that hint of life after death, but as already noted, they are relatively rare and do not promise the people of God the hope of heaven after death.

With the establishment of the Theocracy, God dwelt among His people in a sort of kingdom of God on earth. With the disintegration of Israel as a nation ruled by God (first with the loss of the ten northern tribes in the Assyrian captivity and then the Babylonian captivity), you gradually see the emergence of the individual as the focus of the Old Testament writers.

The continuity of God’s commitment to the nation did not require a hope of heaven; that commitment can be kept indefinitely in a temporal environment. When it came to the individual, God’s commitment had to transcend the temporal, simply because of man’s mortality. A cursory analysis of life reveals that a temporal hope alone is no hope at all. Without an eternal hope, life is futile.

The word “heaven” is used in the OT as the abode of the stars and some times as the abode of God. Deuteronomy 26:15: “Look down from thy holy habitation, from heaven, and bless thy people Israel.” And again, 1 Kings 8:43: “Hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place.” On occasion an oath was made using heaven as surety: Deuteronomy 30:19: “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.” As far as I can tell, the ascension of Elijah is the first reference of a person going to heaven.

Psalm 139:8: “If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, thou art there.” This seems to be the first reference in Scripture to both heaven and Sheol in the same thought; Sheol and heaven are separate places. David says that it is possible for a person to “ascend up into heaven,” the first such reference since the ascension of Elijah. Also, Amos 9:2: “Though they dig into Sheol, thence shall mine hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down.” As far as I can tell, these are the only OT references to people going to heaven, and even here I am not sure if the author means the abode of God or merely disappearing in the clouds.

Proverbs, possibly more than any other OT book, talks about Sheol as a place akin to the New Testament understanding of hell.

New Testament Teaching

Jesus discusses the eternal destiny of individuals, but doesn’t tie their destiny to His substitutionary death. He came to present the kingdom of God to the Jews, and it wasn’t clear until after their rejection of Him and His crucifixion that His was a propitious death for the sins of the world. Interestingly, throughout the gospels you find the Baptist, Jesus, and His disciples all preaching the kingdom of God. But nowhere that I can find do they give the content of the message. It seems reasonable to assume that whatever its content, it had to be understood by the masses, and thus given in OT terms.

Not until you get into the epistles do you find the purpose of Jesus death amplified, as well as an emphasis on the individual and the necessity of his receiving forgiveness of sin through the blood of Christ as a necessary condition for inheriting eternal life. This, according to the Apostle Paul, takes place because the “wild olive branch” has temporarily replaced the “natural olive branch” until “the fulness of the Gentiles is complete.”[6]

Conclusion

In the New Testament, then, we as the “wild olive branch” are to be included in the kingdom of God. In Matthew 5:9 Jesus establishes a condition: you and I are a child of God only if we become a peacemaker: “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they be called the children of God.” You will not be able to meet this condition of the Master unless you obey His admonition in v. 44: “I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” Until you can love, bless, and pray for your enemy you will never be at peace with him.

Those with a temporal hope will find themselves at war with their fellow man, for temporal resources are finite and people compete with one another in an endeavor to obtain them. Peace, with self and with others, is impossible without an eternal hope. With self because you say with the Apostle Paul, “Having food and raiment, let us therewith be content,”[7] and with others because you are no longer competing with them. You “look for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”[8] An eternal hope ensures your dependence upon God, for clearly only He can provide the object of an eternal hope.

When a man declares his autonomy from God he guarantees the anarchy of his passions. In the heat of passion a man will do what under the influence of reason he abhors. If you renounce your autonomy in favor of being God’s slave, He will help you control your passions, alter your hope, and empower you to be a peacemaker.

In I Corinthians 13:3 Paul ties love to profit: if I don’t transfer my hope for gain into the eternal, I won’t be able to love in a way different from the world. It seems to me this is the gist of Jesus’ words in John 13:34-35.

Maranatha,

March 2003

Part Two

Introduction

When it began to occur to me that God’s promise of eternal life to the individual cannot be found in the Old Testament, I was surprised and troubled. For years I have read the Old Testament through the eyes of the New Testament rather than through the eyes of those living during those ancient times. What, I asked myself, are the implications of my discovery? I am still trying to answer that question. Did others before me make the same discovery? Yes, but almost exclusively by those who were not in sympathy with the New Testament message.

In this issue I will begin exploring relevant passages in the first five books of the Bible – the Torah. I make no claim that my study will prove exhaustive, and I invite you to call to my attention passages I have overlooked or areas where you disagree with my conclusions. All Old Testament quotes are from the Hebrew Scriptures, the Tanakh, marked JPS in the footnotes.

Reflections on Genesis, Exodus, and part of Leviticus

Genesis – When God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden, He called attention to two trees: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve’s preoccupation with the latter alerts us to the fact that as human beings we desire autonomy, more than eternal life. It is clear from Gen. 3:22 that the fruit of the tree of life was understood to bestow immortality. But when God said, “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die,”[9] He linked death and sinning. Thus, if man did not eat of the fruit he would not die, implying the immortality of man. Although God does not resolve this conundrum, you can see why man was attracted to the tree promising autonomy rather than the one promising eternal life. When Adam sinned, God barred access to the tree of life.[10]

Gen. 25:8; 35:29; 49:33 tells us that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were each “gathered to his people.” “It would seem, therefore, that the existence of this idiom, as of the corresponding figure ‘to lie down with one’s fathers,’ testifies to a belief that, despite his mortality and perishability, man possesses an immortal element that survives the loss of life. Death is looked upon as a transition to an afterlife where one is united with one’s ancestors. This interpretation contradicts the widespread, but apparently erroneous, view that such a notion is unknown in Israel until later times.”[11] Gen. 25:17 tell us regarding Ishmael, “and he expired and died; and was gathered unto his people.” Ishmael was not a child of God’s promise, and yet Genesis makes no distinction between where he went after death vis-à-vis Abraham. This would seem to indicate that the abode of the dead was viewed at that time differently from how those in the New Testament viewed it. I can find no indication of an individual expressing a personal, eternal hope, or of God offering one.

Exodus – Exodus 32 – 34:10 (or maybe to the end of chapter 34) form a unit: Moses delays his return from Sinai and Aaron makes for the people an idol shaped as a golden calf. God threatens Israel’s destruction and Moses interceded saying that God should forgive the people because: 1) – God would look bad in the eyes of Egypt, and 2) – It would violate the covenant God made with Abraham. God relents. In v. 35 “the Lord sent a plague upon the people, because they made the calf which Aaron made.” When the Levites executed God’s justice in Exodus 32:25-29 you notice three groups of Hebrews: the innocent, the tempted, and the tempters. Moses does not make clear how many from each group were killed; God controls the destinies of people. But there is no reason to assume that the innocent were spared God’s wrath. In v. 30 Moses says, “You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.” In v. 32 Moses tells God, “If Thou wilt not forgive their sin, blot me out of Thy Book,” to which God responds, “Whoever has sinned against me, him will I blot out of My book.”

In Exodus 33 the people mourn when they hear of God’s anger and in v. 6: “Therefore the people of Israel stripped themselves of their ornaments, from Mount Horeb onward.” The rest of the chapter is devoted to God agreeing to lead the people and His revealing Himself to Moses. In Exodus 34 Moses prepares two new tablets for the Law and meets God on Mt. Sinai. We find God’s self-revelation in vv. 6-7: “And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, 7 Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.” This self-revelation of God seems to be a counter-point to the Decalogue of Exodus 20.

Moses responds in v. 9, “And he said, If now I have found grace in thy sight, O Lord, let my Lord, I pray thee, go among us; for it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance.” God says, “Behold, I make a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been wrought in all the earth or in any nation; and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the LORD; for it is a terrible thing that I will do with you.”

In light of this, it seems best to conclude that when God says, “The LORD, The LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin,” He refers to the nation as a whole, which seems to be His assurance to Moses in v. 10. He does not offer His grace and longsuffering to the individual; He refers to the individual Hebrew in Exodus 32:33: “Whoever has sinned against me, him will I blot out of My book.” – i.e., God will do to the sinner what Moses requested God does to him in v. 32. In none of this does God offer an individual eternal hope.

Leviticus – Although we could have looked at the sacrificial system in Exodus, I instead waited for Leviticus simply because the Exodus account of sacrifices gives no hint of an eternal hope.

Because Christ became the sacrificial Lamb of God, I thought perhaps I would find a connection to His death and with it a glimpse of God’s eternal plan for the believer. Not only do we find an absence of such hope, we discover that God does not offer much in the way of a temporal hope for those who sin willfully.

God instructs Israel in Leviticus 1:4: “he shall lay his hand upon the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him.” Many sins that individual Hebrews committed were not a direct, apparent violation of the law. For example, a man has angry thoughts because of what his parents did to him, and then wonders if he has violated the fifth commandment, or he has a sick child that he must tend and wonders if he violated the fourth commandment. In such matters, he wants God to “cover” his possible transgression, and thus he makes this sacrifice.

Leviticus 5:1-2 describes a sacrifice designed for an individual who has opportunity to testify the truth regarding a matter, but refrains, and later regrets his silence. Leviticus 5:20-26 describes the person who commits a crime dealing with another’s property, deceitful acts or theft, robbery, or fraud in which none can verify his crime, and he later comes forward of his own volition and confesses. In these cases, even though the crimes were intentional, God made available expiation because the offender took the initiative and volunteered his guilt. (Cf. Numbers 5:5-7.) If, however, witnesses testify of his guilt, the sinner could not hope for expiation. This is an exception to the law stating that sacrifices cannot cover intentional sin. Still, God makes no mention of the person accruing an eternal hope because he offered such a sacrifice.

Numbers 15:30-31 tell us that willful or defiant people are cut off from the believing community, or in the case of capital offences, they forfeit their lives. Because sacrifice did not atone for willful sin, we need to address the question of Yom Kippur, perhaps the most holy of all Israel’s celebrations. Leviticus 16 outlines the procedure. “The primary objective of expiatory rites like the ones set forth in chapter 16 was to maintain a pure sanctuary. An impure, or defiled, sanctuary induced God to withdraw His presence from the Israelite community…(N)o ritual of purification was actually performed over the people, as was the case on other occasions… Out of love for his people Israel, God manifests His presence among them, but only on condition that the Israelite sanctuary be maintained in a state of purity. God’s forgiveness, coming at the end of the expiatory process, can be anticipated only after the purification of the sanctuary is satisfactorily accomplished.”[12] Note how God words it: “And he shall make atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleannesses of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions, even all their sins; and so shall he do for the tent of meeting, that dwelleth with them in the midst of their uncleannesses.”[13] God does not offer any individual an eternal hope, and God does not promise to pardon the individual for willful sin in the temporal.

Conclusion

When Moses pleads before God on behalf of the nation after the Golden Calf incident, he said, “Now therefore, I pray Thee, if I have found grace in Thy sight, show me now Thy ways, that I may know Thee, to the end that I may find grace in Thy sight; and consider that this nation is Thy people.”[14] Moses wanted to understand the ways of God. The Psalmist notes, “He made known His ways unto Moses, His doings unto the children of Israel.”[15] God granted his request; He made known to Moses His ways while the nation only got to see his doings.

One of my prayers through the years has been that God will show me His ways. Seeing Him in action is not enough. In a love relationship we want to do more than observe a person, we want to understand the person.

You can view biblical application from the perspective of a “do list,” or from the perspective of seeking to understand God’s ways – convinced that the better you know Him, the greater your appreciation and the better the chance you will have to emulate Him. All permanent change in a person’s life comes about by the altering of his thinking; to become godly requires understanding Him and thinking His thoughts so that you respond biblically to the circumstances of life.

This doesn’t mean that doing is unimportant. James says, “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”[16] In this study on eternal hope, however, I seek to understand the ways of God. Although you will not have many “do list” items, hopefully you will have opportunity to grapple with understanding His ways.

His … Yours,

Walt

May 2003

Part Three

Introduction

In the material contained in this study, I have endeavored to present as accurately as I can the conclusions of my research. Obviously, this does not mean that I haven’t made mistakes. One of the blessings in sending this to those who love me and seek my good is that you may see something I missed and call it to my attention. I encourage you to do this if you see anything you feel is wrong, or that I missed, or that you feel was inadequately explained.

Man has always wrestled with possibly the most perplexing question in life: What is our reason for existence? The first duty of any religion is to define purpose, not to provide salvation. From this question of purpose flows questions regarding our mortality and our desire for immortality. Most people love their lives and therefore do not want to die. Ponce de Leon’s quest for the Fountain of Youth illustrates this. Additionally, people have recognized that they have at least two parts to them: soul and body. When the body dies, what happens to the soul?

“Religion surely is like an arch resting on one pillar, like a bridge ending in an abyss. It is very gratifying, therefore, to the believer, and a fact worthy of notice, that the affirmative on this question [i.e. defining purpose] is assumed more or less by all the nations of earth, so far as our information reaches at the present day, although, it is true, their views often assume very vague and even materialistic forms….

Bishop Warburton, on the other hand, derived one of his main proofs of the divine mission of Moses from this supposed silence on the subject of immortality. ‘Moses,’ he argues, ‘being sustained in his legislation and government by immediate divine authority, had not the same necessity that other teachers have for a recourse to threatenings and punishments… in order to enforce obedience’…. Moses and Confucius did not expressly teach the immortality of the soul, nay, they seemed purposely to avoid entering upon the subject; they simply took it for granted.” The article concludes: “But, although the position here assumed seems very tenable, it is nevertheless true that the Israelites certainly did not have a very clear conception of the future existence of the soul, and ‘that life and immortality’ were not brought to light very distinctly before Christ came, for whom the office was reserved of making clearly known many high matters before but obscurely indicated.”[17]

Yom Kippur in Israel’s History

In order to understand Yom Kippur, it is necessary to divorce it from New Testament concepts of sin and grace. For example, in the Old Testament God linked illness and disease to sinfulness. Diseases such as leprosy were included under God’s broad category of impurity. Leviticus 14 (cf., esp. v. 7) instructs the priest to take a bird and offer it as expiation for the individual’s uncleanness, while setting another bird free, to communicate the idea of riddance. The scapegoat was also set free, and in bearing the sins of the nation it played a central role in the ritual of Yom Kippur.[18] As Hebrews 9 (cf., esp. v. 7) reminds us, Yom Kippur could not atone for willful sins committed by an individual, only sins committed in ignorance; it was a national rather than an individual expiation. “… Yom Kippur became the major occasion for communal penitence.”[19]

By way of illustration, let’s say that on the Day of Atonement recorded in Leviticus 16, ten people from among the tribes sinned without being exposed. Two of the ten committed adultery, one stole from his neighbor, etc. The nation, ignorant of these sins, offers Yom Kippur in order to assure God’s continued presence with Israel. Although Israel had sinned, the nation’s guilt was expunged by the sacrifice simply because the nation had no way of determining the individual guilt of the law-breakers. If, after Yom Kippur, one who committed such a crime was discovered, he still had to be either expelled from the community or put to death.

When the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies with the blood of a bull, he sprinkled the blood on the Mercy Seat for his own sins committed in ignorance. If he had committed willful sin, he could not have functioned as High Priest. If he was aware of the sins committed in ignorance – i.e., he became impure and learned after the fact that he had done it – he would have offered the appropriate sacrifice at the time. Thus, this sacrifice in the Holy of Holies deals with those sins committed unintentionally and without awareness. Because God ties impurity with sin, the priest would not be acceptable to God without this sacrifice of purification at the beginning of the Yom Kippur ritual.

“That repentance by itself in Numbers (and in the preceding Torah books) is incapable of shriving sin is evident from the fact that Moses never asks God for forgiveness nor his people for repentance. He takes for granted that punishment is the ineluctable consequence of sin. True, he asks for reconciliation (salah, 14:19); however, this means only that God should not abandon Israel but should continue to maintain His covenant with them.”[20] Questions of sin, atonement and retribution in the Torah are always temporal. To the extent the Israelites lacked an eternal hope they must also have lacked a fear of hell.

As noted earlier, God says that He is a “’God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth; keeping mercy unto the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and unto the fourth generation.’”[21] Note that God begins by promising mercy and then calls attention to the fact that mercy does not cancel justice: He merely postpones both to future generations. Thus, God says, “And your children shall be wanderers in the wilderness forty years, and shall bear your strayings, until your carcasses be consumed in the wilderness.”[22] We note the same principle in God dealing with David’s sin – He killed David’s son. God does not bind Himself to individual retribution prevalent in human justice.

After the golden calf incident at Mt. Sinai, note Moses’ intercession and God’s response: “And he said, If now I have found favor in thy sight, O Lord, let the Lord, I pray thee, go in the midst of us; for it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance. And he said, Behold, I make a covenant: before all thy people I will do marvels, such as have not been wrought in all the earth, nor in any nation; and all the people among which thou art shall see the work of Jehovah; for it is a terrible thing that I do with thee.”[23] Moses does not intercede for sinful individuals, but for the nation – that God will fulfill His gracious covenant with Israel. In response to Moses’ prayer, God does just that; He reaffirms His inviolable commitment to Israel.

God does not offer any individual eternal hope, and God does not promise to pardon the individual for willful sin. He pardons the individual committing sins in ignorance as illustrated by: “And all the fat thereof shall he make smoke upon the altar, as the fat of the sacrifice of peace-offerings; and the priest shall make atonement for him as concerning his sin, and he shall be forgiven.”[24] But when Moses struck the rock, after being told to speak to it, God would not pardon him, even though he pled with God: “But the LORD was wroth with me for your sakes, and hearkened not unto me; and the LORD said unto me: ‘Let it suffice thee; speak no more unto Me of this matter.’”[25]

Although you find ample evidence of people confessing and repenting as a condition for forgiveness in the literature following Deuteronomy, you will not find it the first five books of the Bible. Not only so, nowhere in the Torah will you find God calling upon man to repent, or His representative calling the people to repentance. Israel may commit apostasy, as when the spies reported on the Promised Land in Numbers 14, but God never calls upon the nation to repent. When violating the expectations of God, Israel could expect God’s retribution. In this material, when repentance occurs, people rather than God initiate it. Moses may intercede for the nation, seen in the passage discussed above when Aaron made the golden calf, and he may intercede for an individual, such as his sister Miriam: “’Let her not, I pray, be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out of his mother’s womb.’ And Moses cried unto the LORD, saying: ‘Heal her now, O God, I beseech Thee,’”[26] but God does not expect Moses to call the people to repentance in order that they may taste of His grace.

Even in the post-Torah literature, forgiveness of willful sin remains uncertain for both the individual and the nation. For example: “And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God; for He is gracious and compassionate, long-suffering, and abundant in mercy, and repenteth Him of the evil. Who knoweth whether He will not turn and repent, and leave a blessing behind Him…”[27] God does not enact the full force of the law on David for his crimes, but he does taste the terrible consequences of his sin.[28] After God pronounced judgment on the nation, God told Jeremiah not to pray for her.[29]

Israel as a Missionary Nation

We will note, as we process the data contained in Scripture, that the calling of the nations to follow Yahweh without an individual eternal hope, lacks the basis for an individual purpose. God chose Israel, not vice versa. What would a people like the Philistines accrue from following the Lord? They were not chosen, and when comparing the chosen Israel with the surrounding nations, we see that during most of her history Israel enjoyed less temporal blessings than her neighbors, recalling the “terrible thing” of Exodus 34:10.

“It must be remembered that the ger, the resident alien of biblical times, is a far removed from the ger, the convert of rabbinic times. Conversion as such was unknown in the ancient world. Ethnicity was the only criterion for membership in a group. The outsider could join only by marriage (e.g., Ruth). In fact, it was not those who intermarried but the subsequent generations that succeeded in assimilating and even then not always (e.g., Deut. 23:1-9). Some gerim, like the Kenites (Moses’ family; Judg. 1:16), were ultimately absorbed into Israel, presumably by marriage. Others, like the Gibeonites, maintained their slave status throughout the biblical period (Josh. 9:27; cf. Ezra 2:58).

The first glimmer of a new status for the ger is found in the words of the Second Isaiah at the end of the sixth century B.C.E. In the Babylonian exile, non-Jews had been attracted by the Jewish way of life, particularly by the Sabbath. Isaiah calls upon these would-be proselytes to ‘make ‘aliyah’ with the Israelites; and although he cannot promise them that they will be part of the ‘am, the peoplehood of Israel – conversion as such was unknown – he assures them that the Temple service will be open to them because ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples’ (Isa. 56:7). The way is now open to the next stage of religious conversion, a stage already reached by the year 200 B.C.E. At that time Antiochus III issued a decree fining any foreigner who entered the Israelite court of the Temple (equivalent to ‘the entrance of the Tent of Meeting’) the sum of 3,000 silver drachmas, payable to the priests – a far cry from the biblical ger who could enter the Tabernacle court to offer his sacrifices. Clearly, the Jews of the third century B.C.E. were not in violation of the Torah for by then they had reinterpreted the Torah’s ger to denote the convert.”[30]

Conclusion

Before bringing this issue to a close, let me share an observation for the purpose of application. We notice a striking contrast in attitude toward barrenness in the Old Testament vis-à-vis the New Testament. When Rachel could not conceive children, she complained to her husband Jacob that without the ability to have children life was not worth living.[31] The Apostle Paul, on the other hand, encourages women not to marry and have children.[32] In the Old Testament, God did not encourage people to see this life as preparation for eternity; in the New Testament He does.

We must be careful when studying and applying Scripture that we maintain this distinction, lest we invest our time and energy in the temporal – in violation of Jesus’ command to labor for the eternal.[33] God gave His Old Testament saints the task of creating a Theocratic Kingdom in Israel. In the New Testament He charges His people with the task of depopulating hell and populating heaven.

His to command,

Walt

July 2003

Part Four

Introduction

In the last issue we looked at Israel as a missionary people. Through the centuries the church has debated the question of whether God did or did not assign to Israel the task of making His name known among the nations. God speaking through His prophet says, “I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and have taken hold of thy hand, and kept thee, and set thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the nations; to open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison-house.”[34] The Jews address the question of a missionary mandate as follows: “As in Jer. 1:5, the messenger has been ‘created’ and ‘appointed’ to bring God’s word to the ‘nations.’ In the present case [Isa. 42:2-5] God also calls upon His servant to serve as a ‘covenant’ people and a ‘light of nations.’ These expressions are difficult. Rashi understood the addressee in Isa 42:5 to be the prophet himself, who was called to restore the nations to God’s covenant; these nations are the tribes of Israel. On the other hand, it is possible to interpret the messenger as an individual whose task is to reestablish Israel so that they may serve as a beacon of light for all people (Ibn Ezra). If, however, the messenger is Israel, then the phrase would mean that God has established the entire people for a universal mission (Kimhi).”[35] Thus, we see that the Jews themselves are divided on this subject.[36]

It seems to me that bringing God’s word to the nations implies an eternal hope for the individual, for apart from the hope of heaven, what attract the nations to follow Yahweh? More likely, because God did not give the Old Testament individual the promise of eternal life, the Hebrews never saw bringing the message of Yahweh to other nations as something they should do. Although we cannot be dogmatic on how passages such as Isaiah 42:2-5 should be interpreted, we do know that in the Old Testament God did not give an individual the promise of eternal life, and we find no indication that Israel saw the necessity of encouraging other nations to follow Yahweh. For those who argue that Israel had a missionary obligation to the nations, Naomi certainly didn’t sense it: “And she said, Behold, thy sister in law is gone back unto her people, and unto her gods: return thou after thy sister in law.”[37] Naomi encouraged both Orpah and Ruth to return to their gods. To the present time the Jews have never been a missionary people.[38]

In the last issue we also noted that the various words associated with regeneration, the sine quo non of eternal life, such as “contrite, repent, confess,” apply to the nation of Israel but never to the individual, in Genesis through Deuteronomy. This, in turn, attests to the absence of an individual eternal hope in these opening chapters of the Bible. Christianity is a missionary religion simply because the individual’s eternal destiny hangs in the balance, and because we have been commanded to evangelize. If Old Testament Israel had an eternal hope, their failure to evangelize would constitute a cold indifference to the fate of others, contrary to God’s command to love their neighbor. Israel has never been a missionary religion, even to the present time.

In the Pentateuch, you find no reference to the eternal. If I counted correctly, this material uses “Sheol” seven times.[39] Sheol is “the most frequently used term in biblical Hebrew for the abode of the spirits of the dead. The region was imagined to be situated deep beneath the earth and to be enclosed with gates. There is no concept of ‘heaven’ and ‘hell’ in the Hebrew Bible. The underworld received all men – good and bad, great and small – and all are equal there. It was a place of unrelieved darkness and gloom and of complete silence. None who entered it could return. The etymology of the word ‘Sheol’ is uncertain, and the term in unknown in other ancient Semitic languages.”[40] Note Deuteronomy 31:16: “And the LORD said to Moses, ‘Behold, you are about to sleep with your fathers; then this people will rise and play the harlot after the strange gods of the land, where they go to be among them, and they will forsake me and break my covenant which I have made with them.’” The word for “sleep” is: 1) to lie down; 2) to lie down (in death); 3) to rest, relax. In the Septuagint (LXX) it is the same word used in John 11:11 referencing Lazarus being “asleep.”

The concept of humbling oneself before God occurs for the first time in 2 Samuel 22:28: “Thou dost deliver a humble people, but thy eyes are upon the haughty to bring them down.” Again in 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” Prior to that time, Deut. 8:2,16 tells us that God humbled His people in the wilderness. The word “humility” appears the first time in Proverbs 15:33.

We find the word “contrite” for the first time in Psalm 34:18: “The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.” The word contrition does not appear in the Bible.

The word “repent” first appears in Exodus 13:17: “When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, “Lest the people repent when they see war, and return to Egypt.” In this instance, God does not want His people “repenting” in their commitment to Him. It is not until I Kings 8:47 that the people “repent” before God.[41] Other uses prior to this refer to God “repenting.”

“Confession” is a bit different: The word “confess” appears when sacrifice is made to God, but such confession cannot atone for willful sin as seen in Numbers 15:30-31. Words such as “confessed, confession, confessing” do not appear until much later.

Moses, in Deut. 3:23-26, repents of his sin in hitting the Rock instead of speaking to it, but to no avail. He is barred from entering Canaan and God says to Him, “Speak no more unto me of the matter.” Moses’ heart of repentance may have enhanced his relationship with God, but it in no way altered the consequence for the act.

Speaking of the nation rather than the individual, God says in Lev. 26:40-42 and Deut. 4:29-31 that when His people repent God will bring them back to Himself, but in contrast to the prophets, it terminates the punishment rather than preventing its onset. Moses intercedes on behalf of Israel in passages such as Ex. 32:11-14, but not once is he expected to bring Israel to repentance so that they might merit divine forgiveness, and nothing prior to the fact ensures they will be forgiven – save God’s unconditional covenant with the nation. It is to that covenant that Moses appeals! Abraham intercedes on behalf of Lot and his family in Genesis 18:23-33, with God agreeing, but without the cities being spared. Again, Abraham turns to God asking for God to repent; he does not go to Lot or Sodom seeking their repentance.

In Numbers 14 the nation repents that it responded in unbelief when the spies returned with an evil report, but to no avail; they wandered in the wilderness forty years.

In Deut 30:1-10 Moses prophecies Israel’s return to the Promised Land after God scatters them. In a promise similar to the New Covenant of Jeremiah 31, he says in Deuteronomy 30:6: “And the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.” This, like Jeremiah 31, applies to the nation rather than to the individual.

I can think of no place in the OT where a person was warned of eternal consequences for temporal behavior. The sacrificial system covered sins, meaning that the “offender” did not have to face temporal consequences. Capital offenses listed in Leviticus rested outside the atoning of sacrifice, and the author does not discuss what happens to the person when he dies. Sheol was/is the abode of the dead, and as already noted, evidence suggests that both the good and evil dwell there.

Reflections on Joshua, Judges, and Ruth

God comments on Israel passing into the promised land: “When all the kings of the Amorites that were beyond the Jordan to the west, and all the kings of the Canaanites that were by the sea, heard that the LORD had dried up the waters of the Jordan for the people of Israel until they had crossed over, their heart melted, and there was no longer any spirit in them, because of the people of Israel. At that time the LORD said to Joshua, ‘Make flint knives and circumcise the people of Israel again the second time.’ So Joshua made flint knives, and circumcised the people of Israel at Gibeathhaaraloth. And this is the reason why Joshua circumcised them: all the males of the people who came out of Egypt, all the men of war, had died on the way in the wilderness after they had come out of Egypt. Though all the people who came out had been circumcised, yet all the people that were born on the way in the wilderness after they had come out of Egypt had not been circumcised. For the people of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, till all the nation, the men of war that came forth out of Egypt, perished, because they did not hearken to the voice of the LORD; to them the LORD swore that he would not let them see the land which the LORD had sworn to their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey. So it was their children, whom he raised up in their stead, that Joshua circumcised; for they were uncircumcised, because they had not been circumcised on the way. When the circumcising of all the nation was done, they remained in their places in the camp till they were healed. And the LORD said to Joshua, ‘This day I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.’ And so the name of that place is called Gilgal to this day. While the people of Israel were encamped in Gilgal they kept the Passover on the fourteenth day of the month at evening in the plains of Jericho. And on the morrow after the Passover, on that very day, they ate of the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. And the manna ceased on the morrow, when they ate of the produce of the land; and the people of Israel had manna no more, but ate of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.” [42]

When Israel passed over Jordan on dry ground (a repeat of the parting of the Red Sea), several things transpired: 1) – The surrounding nations trembled at Israel’s presence. Rahab said, “For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt.”[43] The nations knew of the parting of the Red Sea, and now saw the parting of Jordan. 2) – The men of Israel were circumcised. God had commanded that the male children be circumcised: “And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.”[44] Israel neglected this clear command, and God did not rebuke them. You cannot predict the response of God when you neglect or break His commands. We are best served living in obedience to His will. 3) – It took the army several days to heal from their circumcision, during which time they were vulnerable to attack from the enemy. The walk of faith requires His followers to step outside their comfort level. (Interestingly, they would not have had to demonstrate their vulnerability if they had obeyed God and circumcised their children when commanded.) 4) – “This day I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” Moses said: “lest the land from which thou didst bring us say, ‘Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land which he promised them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to slay them in the wilderness.’”[45] This reproach involved the thoughts and sayings of the Egyptians that God had brought the Israelites out of Egypt to destroy them in the wilderness. When Israel circumcised the males, God declared the restoration of the covenant that He would give Israel the land of Canaan for their inheritance. 5) – Israel arrived in Canaan the first day of their new year, and celebrated the Passover. Deliverance from Egypt was now completed. 6) – At that time the manna ceased; Israel began eating of the fruit of the Promised Land. 7) – Joshua meets the Commander of God’s army, thus assuring that victory is certain.

Conclusion

Nothing in the first eight books of the Bible indicates that people looked to God for salvation through the forgiveness of their sins. God’s inviolable commitment to Israel meant that, upon repentance, the nation would be forgiven its sins and restored to God. But nothing in the material indicates that the people saw in this a picture of how God relates to the individual. God made an unconditional commitment to Abraham (God never charged Abraham with a wrong), and possibly to Isaac and Jacob, but to no other individual in these books – not even to Moses. (In Exodus 32:11-14, Moses pleads for the nation, but not for any particular individual.) But this individual commitment involved their progeny, not the eternal destiny of the individual.

From the New Testament we learn that certain people in the Old Testament had a belief in an afterlife. Speaking of the Patriarchs, the author of Hebrews says, “For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.”[46] Although the OT does not promise individual salvation, those who attained it did so by believing God when He promised temporal blessing, such as deliverance from enemies (e.g. as seen in the Pascal Lamb). We have no evidence to suggest that this faith extended to looking to God for the forgiveness of their sins.

Rejoicing in His grace,

September 2003

Part Five

Introduction

Some of you who read this have responded to my request for feedback. One of the brothers asked if an eternal hope and belief in an afterlife are the same or different. It was a distinction I had not thought about. I believe the distinction exists, and would like to articulate what I believe are some of the ramifications.

It seems to me that most people believe in something after death. All religions have this belief in common. Only a minority believes that when a person dies he ceases to exist. The Hebrews who lived as slaves in Egypt were exposed to a belief in an afterlife – as attested by the pyramids. With or without a promise of eternal life to the individual in the Old Testament, I think the average Hebrew believed in an afterlife, even though it may have consisted in nothing more than an eternity in Sheol. A belief in an afterlife however is very different from an eternal hope.

Hebrews 11:1 says: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hope defines the object of our faith; we express faith in the direction of our hope. In the Greek, faith and believe are the same word; faith is the noun and believe is the verb. Faith/believe is commitment without knowing. Therefore we can define faith as “risk taking.” When we say that we have faith in the airline getting us to our destination, or we have faith in the surgeon’s ability to perform a successful operation, we are saying that we take a risk in flying or having surgery.

Thus, hope defines the object of our faith. We say we hope the operation will be successful, or we hope we will arrive safely at our destination. We define hope in terms of what we perceive to be gain. We never say that we hope the operation will be a failure, or we hope we lose our money invested in the stock market; we always say the opposite. In summary, we take our risks in the direction of what we consider to be gain.

Biblical faith is always active, never passive. James talks about a passive faith: “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.”[47] Faith without taking the risk of obedience is “dead faith.” James says, “Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”[48] We demonstrate our hope in the promises of God by being His obedient servants; the risk of faith is found in obedience.

We can have a strong conviction in an afterlife without being the obedient servants of God. Thus, we can say that we hope in eternal life, but because we take no risks in the direction of that hope, we cannot, in a biblical sense, say that we hope in the fulfillment of God’s promises. The existence of hope always requires risks. James says such people have a “dead faith:” “faith without works is dead.”[49]

We can easily deceive ourselves on this issue: We can confuse obedience with agreement. Many appear to obey God in the sense that they agree with His expectations; they are moral people. You cannot say that you obey God unless you have confronted the issue of finding yourself not wanting to do His will, voted against yourself, and did it anyway. For example, the only recorded instance of Jesus meeting God’s will and not wanting to do it is the agony through which He went in the Garden of Gethsemane. “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.”[50] We learn obedience when we, like Jesus, know God’s will and don’t want to pay the price of doing it, but because of our eternal hope, nevertheless obey Him.

Many in the body of Christ live lives of selective obedience, that is, they “obey” when they agree. If they don’t wish to obey, they call the biblical command “cultural,” or they say, “I know God prohibits divorce, but He wants me to be happy, and besides, He will forgive me.” Such people may believe in life after death, and even say they have an eternal hope, but James says that their faith is dead.

Hebrews 11 gives an account of Old Testament saints who had an active faith, taking risks in the direction of their hope: “And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: 33 Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. 35 Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: 36 And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: 37 They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; 38 (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. 39 And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: 40 God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.”[51] So also, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego demonstrated an eternal hope when they chose the fiery furnace: “If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us, He will deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and out of thy hand, O king. 18 But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.”[52]

So we see then, that many of God’s people in the Old Testament had an eternal hope, demonstrated by the risks they took in choosing death rather than disobedience – in spite of Scripture never recording the promise of an eternal hope to the individual. Conversely, many today claim the promises of an eternal hope offered in the New Testament, while refusing to take the risks inherent in a life of obedience. Such people deceive themselves. They think they have an eternal hope when in reality they have nothing more than a belief in an afterlife.

As one of the brothers said, “Most people, professing Christians as well as non-Christians, have definite beliefs about the afterlife, at least as it pertains to them. Most professing Christians think their afterlife will be no different from the apostle Paul’s. They would either not agree with or not understand the distinction you make when you tie hope to obedience. So in their thinking, belief in an afterlife is synonymous with an eternal hope. They hope to spend eternity with Jesus, just as you and I do. All this to say that I would characterize their problem as being out of touch with what the Bible teaches.”

Continued reflections on Joshua, Judges, and Ruth

From the death of Moses to the death of Joshua, God expressed no displeasure with Israel, except in the case of Achan taking of the spoils of Jericho. With Achan, the nation responded in accordance with the command of God, and all was well. When the individual sins and the nation responds biblically, God is satisfied and the nation remains secure.

Israel spent the time between the deaths of Moses and Joshua in war as she conquered the land. Judges records a series of cameos in which Israel continually strays from God. When Israel is secure she sins and when in captivity, she repents. We are never more vulnerable to temptation than when all is well. Tribulation stimulates dependence.

God calls to Israel’s mind His deliverance from Egypt when the people sin and need deliverance from their enemies. “When the people of Israel cried to the LORD on account of the Midianites, the LORD sent a prophet to the people of Israel; and he said to them, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: I led you up from Egypt, and brought you out of the house of bondage; and I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians, and from the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you, and gave you their land; and I said to you, `I am the LORD your God; you shall not pay reverence to the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell.’ But you have not given heed to my voice.”[53]

Salvation/deliverance by God for the nation of Israel began in Egypt and had nothing to do with the people’s sin. Jesus used the Passover to commemorate His death. It dealt with temporal deliverance rather than eternal deliverance. Thus, when David gave thanks when bringing the ark to Gibeon from the home of Obed-edom, he prayed: “Say also: ‘Deliver us, O God of our salvation, and gather and save us from among the nations, that we may give thanks to thy holy name, and glory in thy praise. Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting!” Then all the people said ‘Amen!’ and praised the LORD.”[54] Salvation was God’s deliverance from the hostile nations. So also David prayed when God promised to establish his house forever: “What other nation on earth is like thy people Israel, whom God went to redeem to be his people, making for thyself a name for great and terrible things, in driving out nations before thy people whom thou didst redeem from Egypt?”[55]

Scripture teaches that “believing” God constitutes the condition that people in both the Old and New Testaments must meet in order to have a relationship with Him. But God, not man, defines the content of what must be believed; we cannot assume because we must believe that we are sinners in need of God’s salvation that God imposed the same condition on the people of Israel.

Grateful for an eternal hope,

November 2003

Part Six

Introduction

In this series, we have been looking at what the Old Testament teaches about eternity, and thus, trying to understand how the nation of Israel viewed issues of salvation and the hope of heaven. As noted in an earlier issue, at least 17 times from Judges to Nehemiah, God makes reference to the fact that He delivered Israel from Egypt. The word “salvation” appears about 63 times in Psalms, and most, if not all of these references, apply to temporal salvation. At least 56 times “deliver/deliverance” appears, but I am less certain about the eternal/temporal distinction; I am not sure if the phrase “deliver my soul” refers to the temporal or the eternal.

Note the response of Israel to Joseph’s request regarding his bones: “And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they in Shechem, in a parcel of ground which Jacob bought of the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem for an hundred pieces of silver: and it became the inheritance of the children of Joseph.”[56] It is said of Jacob: “And he bought a parcel of a field, where he had spread his tent, at the hand of the children of Hamor, Shechem’s father, for an hundred pieces of money.”[57] In Genesis 34 Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi killed all the males in Shechem because of what they did to their sister. When Joseph died, he wanted his bones buried in the parcel of ground owned by his father; this “and the field of Ephron, which was in Machpelah, which was before Mamre,” were the only two parcels Israel owned before the conquest of Joshua. When Abraham and Jacob bought these two parcels, no mention was made of an eternal hope; Joseph did not say that his desire to be buried in the Promised Land was linked to an eternal hope. The generations of people living between Abraham and Joshua never realized the fulfillment of God’s promise: “In that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying: ‘Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.”[58]

References to Eternity in I Samuel through II Kings

1 Samuel – You will find the word “heaven” mentioned twice[59] in this book, neither of which refers to where people go, but rather to where God goes. “Sheol” is mentioned once, in the psalm of Hannah (after God gave her Samuel): “The LORD killeth, and maketh alive; He bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up.”[60]

God rejects Saul as king of Israel, after which Saul fights the Philistines. Distraught because God refuses to give Saul counsel, the king goes to the Witch of Endor. God had commanded that all witches, fortune-tellers, etc. be executed,[61] and Saul had placed such an indictment on them.[62] This Witch of Endor, though the anathema to God, had the ability to call Samuel, the prophet of God, back from the dead. Samuel protests, “Why have you disturbed me and brought me up?” Where was Samuel after he died, and how did the witch garner the authority to call him back from the grave?

2 Samuel – David mentions neither “heaven” nor “Sheol” in his dirge after the death of Saul and Jonathan.[63] At the end of his life, David uses the word “Sheol” (the only time the word is used in 2 Samuel) in his psalm: “The cords of Sheol surrounded me; the snares of Death confronted me.”[64] This book mentions “heaven” four times, and in each case “heaven” probably refers to the sky rather than to the abode of God; I can find no mention of “heaven” referring to where people go after death.[65]

David commits adultery and murder, after which Nathan the prophet confronts David with God’s judgment; He will kill the child of this adulterous relationship. (Interesting – The Law says adultery is a capital offense,[66] and so God kills the child rather than the adulterer.) David pleads with God for the life of his son, and when the child dies, David says, “I shall go to him, but he will never come back to me.”[67] Those of us who tend to interpret such passages from a New Testament perspective conclude that the child went to heaven and David, when he died, followed him there. But the passage can as easily be interpreted to mean, “I shall join the child in Sheol.”

Returning to David’s psalm at the close of his life, he says: “For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all His ordinances were before me; and as for His statutes, I did not depart from them. And I was single-hearted toward Him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity. Therefore hath the LORD recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to my cleanness in His eyes.”[68] Evidently, David’s relationship with God was such that even though he committed murder and adultery, God viewed him as a righteous man, one who had not “departed from” Him. As we will note in the Psalms, David’s confidence in God’s acceptance of “a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart”[69] in light of such reprehensible behavior, constitutes entirely new revelation.

1 Kings – The word “Sheol,” used in the RSV and translated “grave” in the KJV (and sometimes “hell”) and NAS, appears 65 times in the Bible. When David prepares to die, he says to Solomon, “I am about to go the way of all the earth… Then David slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David”.[70]” He expresses no hope of being with God or going to heaven. In 2 Samuel 7, David hopes in the perpetuation of His kingdom, not eternal life for himself.

When David counsels his son Solomon, he tells him, “Do therefore according to thy wisdom, and let not his hoar head go down to the grave in peace,”[71] referring to Joab, the commander of Israel’s armies. There are only two references[72] to “Sheol” in 1 Kings. Of the fifteen references to “heaven” (most found in Solomon’s prayer dedicating the Temple), all pertain either to where God lives or the sky above, and none to where man goes. I can find no reference to the eternal, with the possible exception of God’s promise to Solomon regarding the nation, “If you will keep my laws… I will abide among the children of Israel, and I will never forsake My people Israel.”[73] Nothing in this material suggests that God committed Himself eternally to the individual.

In Solomon’s dedication of the Temple he says, “If they sin against thee — for there is no man who does not sin — and thou art angry with them, and dost give them to an enemy, so that they are carried away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near.”[74] This is the first indication that I have found that God’s people in the OT called themselves sinners.[75] (As noted above, David considered himself a righteous man, even though he committed murder and adultery.) This, of course, does not include the Psalms, Proverbs, or Ecclesiastes. Solomon may be referring to “sins committed in ignorance,” for which sacrifice had to be made.

From 1 Kings 13 forward, during the time of the divided kingdom, God displays His supernatural power through a series of miracles, including raising the dead,[76] all performed by His prophets. From these the people can clearly see that Yahweh rules the world. But could they legitimately conclude that they would be with Him when they died? I can find no commitment from God to this effect in the Old Testament.

God, speaking to Solomon, said: “But if you turn aside from following me, you or your children, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them; and the house which I have consecrated for my name I will cast out of my sight; and Israel will become a proverb and a byword among all peoples.”[77] Prior to the Monarchy, God held the people accountable for keeping the law and receiving His favor. Now, God holds the king accountable. If the king sins, the people suffer. This pattern can be seen throughout the time of the Monarchy.

2 Kings – The phrase “slept with his fathers” appears eleven times in 1 Kings, fourteen times in 2 Kings, eleven times in 2 Chronicles, and not at all in 1 Chronicles. Each time the phrase refers to the destiny of a king, irrespective of whether he was good or bad.

Earlier we noted that the departure of Elijah in a fiery chariot was one of the evidences of an individual eternal hope in the Old Testament. “And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, which parted them both assunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.”[78] We can only guess at what the people of Elijah’s day thought had happened to him (did the prophet Samuel go to a different place?), but Malachi the prophet promises Elijah’s return in the last days: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD.”[79]

Isaiah the prophet came to Hezekiah, one of Judah’s good kings, with news that he was about to die. “Then he turned his face to the wall, and prayed unto the LORD, saying: ‘Remember now, O LORD, I beseech Thee, how I have walked before Thee in truth and with a whole heart, and have done that which is good in Thy sight.’ And Hezekiah wept sore.”[80] We of course cannot know whether King Hezekiah had an eternal hope, but his view of death indicates that he did not. The Apostle Paul said, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”[81]

Closing Comments

In Matthew 18 Peter asked Jesus how often he should forgive – seven times? Jesus responds to this magnanimous gesture on Peter’s part with “seven times seventy.” I think all would agree that He did not mean after 490 times we would be through. Nothing in revealed religion up to this point would have suggested that such a thing is possible – that God will forgive us an unlimited number of times. Numbers 15:30-31 tells us that God will not forgive willful sin. When Moses sinned (the only recorded time of his sinning) God denied him entrance into the Promised Land. When David committed murder and adultery, although God forgave him, David paid dearly for his crime. It would be preposterous to assume that David, on the basis of God’s forgiveness, could have committed those crimes again and again be forgiven by God! As I said, nothing up to this time would have led a person to conclude that God will forgive seven times, much less seven times seventy.

Never lose your sense of awe that God, irrespective of the number of times the believer sins, will nonetheless forgive the broken and contrite heart. Charles Wesley, the hymn writer, wrote: “And can it be that I should gain an interest in my Saviors blood? Died He for me who caused His pain, for me whom Him to death pursued? Amazing grace. How can it be that Thou my God should die for me?” Likewise, never lose sight of the fact that God’s forgiveness does not eliminate eternal accountability for those sins.

His… Yours,

January 2004

Part Seven

Introduction

It is interesting to note, when considering eternal hope, that the Hebrew word “forever” (olam) appears more than 300 times in the Old Testament. It can refer to anything between remote time and perpetuity. No general word exits for time in Hebrew, nor for ideas like past, present, future, and eternity.[82] Combined with “live,” i.e., “live forever” olam appears approximately thirteen times. Of these, the first references the Tree of Life: “And the LORD God said: ‘Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.’”[83] Another refers to God: “For I lift up My hand to heaven, and say: As I live for ever…”[84] Six more appear in reference to the phrase, “Let the king live forever.” Job says that he does not want to live forever, obviously referring to temporal existence: “I loathe my life; I would not live for ever. Let me alone, for my days are a breath.”[85] In the Psalms David say, “The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the LORD! May your hearts live forever!”[86] I am not sure if David means eternally, or if he uses it in the sense of “Let the king live forever.” Another Psalm calls attention to the folly of trusting in wealth, noting that such a person thinks, “that he should continue to live on for ever, and never see the Pit.”[87] Finally, the prophet reminds the people: “Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?”[88]

Most translations render olam “everlasting” when referring to God or His commitment to Israel. For example, the Lord says to Abraham, “And I will establish My covenant between Me and thee and thy seed after thee throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee.”[89] The Lord refers to Himself as an “everlasting God.” “And Abraham planted a tamarisk-tree in Beer-sheba, and called there on the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God.”[90] Note that Jacob, when blessing his sons, says that God “…said unto me: Behold, I will make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a company of peoples; and will give this land to thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession.”[91] God calls His commandments “everlasting:” “’And this shall be an everlasting statute unto you, to make atonement for the children of Israel because of all their sins once in the year.’ And he did as the LORD commanded Moses.”[92] When Moses blesses the nation, he talks of the land in the same terms: “And for the tops of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the everlasting hills.”[93]

When Isaiah prophesizes against the wicked he says, “The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling hath seized the ungodly: ‘Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?’”[94] Does olam mean “eternal,” or is the NAS correct when it translates the word “continual?” When Isaiah talks of the return of the Jews he says, “And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come with singing unto Zion, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”[95] Again, should olam be read to mean “eternal” or “continual?” When prophesizing the ultimate restoration of Israel he says, “O Israel, that art saved by the LORD with an everlasting salvation; ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end.”[96] When condemning the false prophets, does Jeremiah mean that “everlasting” and “perpetual” are the same, or different? “… and I will bring an everlasting reproach upon you, and a perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten.”[97]

Ad, another Hebrew word similar to olam, can mean “eternal, forever,” etc., usually denoting the unforeseeable future. Thus, the prophet uses the word to communicate, “He standeth, and shaketh the earth, He beholdeth, and maketh the nations to tremble; and the everlasting (ad) mountains are dashed in pieces, the ancient (olam) hills do bow; His goings are as of old (olam).”[98]

These references, all using olam and ad, call attention to the ambiguity you face when choosing an English equivalent. From what I can tell, the context seldom helps; mostly you must decide on the basis of your theological bias.

Reflections on 1 Chronicles through Nehemiah

1 Chronicles – When King David brought the Ark of God from the house of Obed-edom, he commissioned Asaph to write a Psalm, which in part says, “Remember His covenant for ever, the word which He commanded to a thousand generations; The covenant which He made with Abraham, and His oath unto Isaac; And He established it unto Jacob for a statute, to Israel for an everlasting covenant.”[99] Here we see a clear “everlasting covenant” established with the nation. I know of no such commitment on the part of God to an individual in the Old Testament. David wanted to build a house for God (Temple) and God wanted to build a house for David (dynasty).[100] This covenant with David regarding his dynasty was perpetual, but God never promised David eternal life.

David warns his son Solomon as he is about to turn his kingdom over to his son: “And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father, and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind; for the LORD searches all hearts, and understands every plan and thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will cast you off for ever.”[101] Note the conditional aspect of the relationship; evidently, forsaking God was an unpardonable sin. Later David prays, “For we are sojourners before Thee, and tenants, as all our fathers were; our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no hope.”[102] Does David tell us that he died with no hope, or that this life contains nothing worthy of a man’s hope? If the latter, then David does not amplify by telling us the object of his hope or that he has an eternal hope.

2 Chronicles – The word “heaven” appears 24 times in this book, 12 of them in Solomon’s dedication of the Temple. All refer either to the abode of God or the sky above, and none to the object of man’s hope. “Sheol” and “hope” do not appear in 2 Chronicles, nor does any expression of man’s anticipating an eternity with God when he dies.

Ezra – Ezra, possibly the first scribe,[103] was commissioned of God to get the Temple rebuilt after Cyrus decreed that the Jews could return to the Promise Land. Upon laying the foundation of the Temple, the people rejoiced: “And they sang one to another in praising and giving thanks unto the LORD: ‘for He is good, for His mercy endureth for ever toward Israel.’ And all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid.”[104] At the end of the book of Ezra, the people repent of their sin of intermarrying, and in their prayer say: “Now therefore give not your daughters unto their sons, neither take their daughters unto your sons, nor seek their peace or their prosperity for ever; that ye may be strong, and eat the good of the land, and leave it for an inheritance to your children for ever.”[105] These are the only two verses using olam in Ezra. The first refers to God’s covenant with Israel, and the second with an appeal on the part of the Jews to be God’s covenant children. The word “heaven” appears nine times, all in the phrase “the God of heaven.” In their prayer acknowledging their guilt regarding marrying foreign wives, the people refer to their “hope” in God.[106] This is the only use of “hope” in Ezra; the word “Sheol” does not appear at all.

As far as I can tell, Ezra doesn’t mention anything pertaining to the eternal, with the possible exception of the above two verses using the word olam. No individual expresses hope in spending eternity with God and God does not offer eternal life to any individual.

Nehemiah – The book of Nehemiah follows the same pattern as Ezra with the exception that God commissions Ezra with the task of rebuilding the Temple, Nehemiah with rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem. Four of the ten times he uses “heaven” referencing “the God of heaven,” with the rest referencing where God lives, what God does from heaven, or the sky from which acts of God come. At no time does he refer to heaven as the place where people go. He uses olam “forever/everlasting” three times, once in reference to the king: “And I said unto the king: ‘Let the king live for ever: why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers’ sepulchres, lieth waste, and the gates thereof are consumed with fire?’”[107] Twice he uses it in reference to God: “Then the Levites, Jeshua, and Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and Pethahiah, said: ‘Stand up and bless the LORD your God from everlasting to everlasting; and let them say: Blessed be Thy glorious Name, that is exalted above all blessing and praise.”[108]

The words “hope” and “Sheol” do not appear. As with Ezra, I cannot find any individual expressing even a desire to be with God in heaven forever, nor can I find God making such an offer to an individual.

Conclusion

In the OT, because God committed Himself to the nation and established no eternal commitment to any individual, and because no individual expressed an eternal hope, we can conclude that from the OT people’s perspective, there would be no need for Messiah to function as a sin substitute. God did not say anything in the OT, that I can find, that suggests the need for propitiation. I tie the propitious death of Christ to an eternal hope, for without an eternal hope, why would the death of Christ be necessary? In the Old Testament, God’s people don’t look for Him who would be “just and the justifier,” for the temporal circumstances of those favored by God do not differ appreciably from the circumstances of those who ignore God. Can we say, for example, that the temporal circumstances of Israel were more favorable than those of ancient Midian, Moab, Philistia, Greece or Rome? I think not. For this reason (as noted in an earlier issue), Naomi counseled her daughter’s in law to return to their gods; she saw no practical reason to encourage Ruth to worship the God of Israel. God killed her husband and two sons. Why would Ruth consider the worship of Yahweh superior to that of the gods of Moab?

When the OT Hebrew committed willful sin, no redemption remained open to him; he was either executed or exiled.[109] Christ’s death for the satisfaction of sin only becomes relevant from an eternal perspective. The moment you introduce the possibility of an eternal hope, you are forced to answer the question, “How can a holy and just God take the sinner to heaven without violating His justice and making heaven dirty?” Without this eternal dimension, you may see from the perspective of ultimate reality why people should worship Yahweh, but you find no pragmatic reason.

Grateful for the hope of heaven,

May, 2004

Part Eight

Introduction

As we noted in the last issue, no general word exits for time in Hebrew, nor for ideas like past, present, future, and eternity. From this we noted that the context seldom helps; mostly you must decide on the basis of your theological bias.

Beginning with this issue we will briefly look at the book of Esther, and then the devotional literature of the Old Testament – Job through Ecclesiastes.

Reflections on Esther

Many have questioned the presence of the book of Esther in the Old Testament. You find no mention of God in the book. Words like “forever, everlasting, eternal, redemption, forgiveness, forgive, brokenness, dependence, contrite, spirit,” cannot be found. You find no reference to relating to God, either as a nation or as an individual, much less expressing an eternal hope.

Mordecai required the daughter of his uncle to compete for the hand of a pagan monarch in a beauty contest in which each contestant spent one night with the king, after which, if she did not “win,” she spent the rest of her life in his harem. God had expressly forbidden Jews marring outside of their race, as so forcefully illustrated in both Ezra and Nehemiah. Nothing about Mordecai affirms that he followed Yahweh in any meaningful way. Esther makes no reference to her own faith in God. The most you can say about her is she obeyed Mordecai, her authority figure.

Reflections on Job

Although the authorship and date of Job remain a mystery, the following can be deduced from internal evidence: Job wishes to engage God in conversation, expecting such to be possible, and shows no surprise when God at last comes to him. You find a highly developed moral code throughout the book; the author makes frequent reference to not abusing the widow, orphan and poor. We see in the book that Job was not deceitful and walked in integrity, and considers adultery wrong. Bildad says: “How then can man be righteous before God? How can he who is born of woman be clean? Behold, even the moon is not bright and the stars are not clean in his sight; how much less man, who is a maggot, and the son of man, who is a worm!”[110] In this he shows that he believes in the depravity of man. No reference is made to the Mosaic Law, and Job offers sacrifices for his family. Still, you find no unclean animals (such as pigs) in his flocks, nor are any mentioned in the book. In light of this, Job probably takes place sometime between the Flood and the Exodus, and may have been written by Moses whose education in Pharaoh’s court prepared him for his literary work.

One of the most familiar passages in Job dealing with an eternal hope comes from the mouth of Job himself: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then from my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!”[111] Because this seems to be an oasis in a desert of eternal hopelessness, I spent time trying to decipher what Job says. Keil-Delitzsch seems to give the best interpretation: “God Himself will avenge Job’s blood, i.e. against his accusers, who say that it is the blood of one who is guilty… We cannot in this speech find that the hope of a bodily recovery is expressed… he looks for certain death, and will hear nothing of the consolation of recovery (ch. xvii. 10-16), which sounds to him as mere mockery; that he, however, notwithstanding, does not despair of God, but by the consciousness of his innocence and the uncharitableness of the friends, is more and more impelled from the God of wrath and caprice to the God of love, his future Redeemer; and that then, when at the end of the course of suffering the actual proof of God’s love breaks through the seeming manifestation of wrath, even that which God had not ventured to hope is realized: a return of temporal prosperity beyond his entreaty and comprehension.”[112] However, even if we take exception with this Old Testament commentator, we still find no promise of an eternal hope given by God.

Let’s look at another passage needing analysis: “If a man die, may he live again? All the days of my service would I wait, till my relief should come.”[113] Again Keil and Delitzsch say: “…Job wishes that Hades (Sheol), into which the wrath of God now precipitates him for ever, may only be a temporary place of safety for him, until the wrath of God turn away… that God would appoint to him… and when this limit should be reached, again remember him in mercy. This is a wish that Job marks out for himself. The reality is indeed different: ‘if a man dies, will he live again?’ The answer that Job’s consciousness, ignorant of anything better, alone can give is: No, there is no life after death. It is, however, none the less a craving of his heart that gives rise to the wish; it is the most favorable thought, – a desirable possibility, – which, if it were but a reality, would comfort him under all present suffering: ‘all the days of my warfare would I wait until my change came.’”[114] As Job says in a rhetorical question, “But man dieth, and lieth low; yea, man perisheth, and where is he?”[115] The context of his remarks suggests that he would answer, “he doesn’t continue to live!”

The thesis of the book requires a belief in judgment and accountability after death. The argument of Bildad, Zophar and Eliphaz centers on the idea that Justice demands accountability and that right verses wrong is more than an abstract concept in the mind of man. Job does not argue against such reasoning, but rather that you cannot guarantee that you can find it in this life. The Law of the Harvest[116] requires an afterlife where the just and unjust reap what they have sown.

If Job in fact had an eternal hope, evidenced from these verses, it seems to me that its significance would have been so overwhelming that he would not have ignored it through the rest of his discourses. Instead, Job says, “When a cloud vanishes, it is gone, So he who goes down to Sheol does not come up.”[117]

The word “conscience” does not appear in Job. Still, he appeals to his conscience when defending himself against Providence, and uses this in rebutting his three friends.

When Elihu enters the dialogue late in the book, he says: “Then He is gracious unto him, and saith: ‘Deliver him from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom.’ His flesh is tenderer than a child’s; he returneth to the days of his youth; He prayeth unto God, and He is favourable unto him; so that he seeth His face with joy; and He restoreth unto man his righteousness. He cometh before men, and saith: ‘I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not.’ So He redeemeth his soul from going into the pit, and his life beholdeth the light.”[118] Note Elihu’s use of words in these verses: “ransom”[119] and “redeemed.” The context appears to be temporal rather than eternal; God will deliver Job from his temporal consequences. The word “redeemer” appears only in Job 19:25, discussed above, and “redeem” as follows: “In famine He will redeem thee from death; and in war from the power of the sword.”[120] Here Eliphaz, in seeking to show that you can apply the Law of the Harvest to the temporal, argues that God will redeem the righteous from premature death. “’Deliver me from the adversary’s hand’? or: ‘Redeem me from the hand of the oppressors’?”[121] In his rebuttal to Eliphaz, Job questions the assertion that God redeems people from temporal circumstances.

For years I assumed the presence of an eternal hope in the Old Testament based on passages such as those discussed above. When I strip my mind of all assumptions, seeking to resist reading back into the Old Testament the hope proffered in the New Testament, I find the eternal hope evaporating. I don’t mean by this that the Old Testament saints necessarily lacked an eternal hope, only that God did not offer them an eternal hope.

As stated in the first issue, Hebrews 11 clearly teaches that the Patriarchs had an eternal hope. However, with the frequent expression of God’s people anticipating Sheol,[122] I am left wondering if the Old Testament saints actually had an eternal hope, or whether the New Testament imputes such a hope to them.

Conclusion

Consider the three words “selfless,” “selfish,” and “self-interest.” The New Testament encourages “self-interest;” it discourages “selfishness.” You manifest “selfishness” vis-à-vis “self-interest” when resources are limited. Because the resources of heaven are inexhaustible, God motivates the believer with “self-interest.”

Because, in the Old Testament, God makes no promise of eternal life to the individual, He admonishes His people to be “selfless” rather than “selfish.” Combined with this you note in the Old Testament the absence of the worth of the individual and the presence of an emphasis on the communal good as an end in itself rather than as the means by which to accrue eternal gain.

Man has always perceived that he can escape the temporal consequences of his behavior, if he does not overdue it. What person has not exceeded the speed limit? Of course, the more successful you are in escaping such consequences, the more bold you become in stretching your luck. You can see why, to the degree that a person does not believe in eternal consequences for temporal behavior, he will make morality relative in his own life, committing all manner of evil. This appears to be the case with the Hebrews in the Old Testament. Their behavior was not all that different from that of their pagan neighbors, simply because they saw no temporal benefit from obeying God. As we will note in the next issue, in David’s Psalms he talks about such people, and how they don’t appear to be held accountable.

Seeking to be His obedient servant,

July, 2004

Part Nine

Introduction

In our study of Genesis through Job we note that God never offered to the individual the promise of spending eternity with Him, and no individual expressed the hope of eternal life. God committed Himself with a gracious covenant to the nation of Israel, and He gave the Law, through Moses, establishing the basis on which the nation should be governed. When He gave the Law, God did not entertain the possibility that the individual could not meet His expectations, and thus He offered no expiation followed by restoration.[123]

Reviewing what we found in the first five books (Torah), we note: “That repentance by itself in Numbers (and in the preceding Torah books) is incapable of shriving sin is evident from the fact that Moses never asks God for forgiveness nor his people for repentance. He takes for granted that punishment is the ineluctable consequence of sin. True, he asks for reconciliation (cf. Numbers 14:19); however, this means only that God should not abandon Israel but should continue to maintain His covenant with them.”[124]

Continuing through the Old Testament, justification through the propitious work of Christ finds no place. Consequently, no one thought of relating to God on the basis of grace rather than works. Up to this point, only Moses breaks the Law without forfeiting his relationship with God. He is an anomaly in that Scripture never addresses why God didn’t exact justice from him.[125] From the perspective of the Old Testament saint, if he kept the Law, he was assured of being part of that group to whom God graciously committed Himself; if he willfully violated the Law he was either exiled or executed.

When the church embraced the view that it replaced Israel, you can easily see how they incorporated into their dogma a works-righteousness as the path to salvation. “The Church offered many ways of bridging the gap between God the Holy and man the wrongdoer. The first is the way of self-help. This was the point at which monasticism, as already indicated, afforded the greatest opportunity. As contrasted with life in the world, any form of monasticism appeared more rigorous and worthy of reward.”[126]

So too, Pope Gregory, who died in 605, said: “My pastoral responsibilities now compel me to have dealings with worldly men, and after the unclouded beauty of my former peace, it seems that my mind is bespattered with the mire of daily affairs.” [127] Just as the people of Israel were to have no dealings with the world, and especially the Levitical High Priest kept himself pure and unpolluted, so the Pope and all who wished to attain a holy life. The secular/spiritual distinction was absolute.

If Israel is the church in the Old Testament, and if the continuity of God’s program flows unchanged from the Old to the New Testament, then you have to find the offer of eternal hope and personal salvation in the Old Testament. Otherwise, what does the Old Testament Church look like? John says, “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.”[128] Even apart from “His Son,” where in the Old Testament do you lead me to see this “record that God hath given to us eternal life?”

Reflections on the Psalms

A bit of background on the exposition of the Psalms may be in order as we begin: “Our Lord Himself, both before and after His resurrection, unfolded the meaning of the Psalms from His own life and its vicissitudes… He opened up to the disciples the meaning of the Psalms. How strongly they were drawn to the Psalms is seen from the fact that they are quoted about seventy times in the New Testament, which, next to Isaiah, is more frequently than any other Old Testament book… The interpreters of the early church with the exception of Origen and Jerome possessed no knowledge of the Hebrew tongue, and even these two not sufficient to be able to rise to freedom from a dependence upon the LXX, [129] which only led them into frequent error… The mediaeval church exposition did not make any essential advance upon the patristic… If you know one of these expositors, you know them all. The most that they have to offer us is an echo of the earlier writers. By their dependence on the letter of the Vulgate, and consequently indirectly of the LXX, they only too frequently light upon a false track and miss the meaning… The mediaeval synagogue exposition is wanting in the recognition of Christ, and consequently in the fundamental condition required for a spiritual understanding of the Psalms. But as we are indebted to the Jews for the transmission of the codex of the Old Testament, we also owe the transmission of the knowledge of Hebrew to them. So far the Jewish interpreters give us what the Christian interpreters of the same period were not able to tender… It is only since about 900 A.D., when indirectly under Syro-Arabian influence, the study of grammar began to be cultivated among the Jews that the exposition and the application of Scripture began to be disentangled… Their knowledge of the Hebrew gives all these expositors a marked advantage over their Christian contemporaries, but the veil of Moses over their eyes is thicker in proportion to the conscious opposition to Christianity… When a new light dawned upon the church through the Reformation – the light of a grammatical and deeply spiritual understanding of Scripture – then the rose-garden of the Psalter began to breathe forth its perfumes… Since the time of the Reformation the exegetical functions of psalm-exposition have been more clearly apprehended and more happily discharged than ever before… After 1750, the exposition of Scripture lost that spiritual and ecclesiastical character which had gained strength in the seventeenth century, but had also gradually become torpid…”[130]

This rather long quote calls attention to a quandary the expositor of Psalms faces. The expositor seeks to decipher the intent of the author in light of the historical, cultural milieu in which it was written. Our Lord Jesus and the New Testament writers, however, used the Psalms, as a means of authenticating the gospel message. We, of course, agree that the interpretation of the Psalms given in the New Testament is the correct one, but can the interpreter use this same methodology in interpreting the rest of the Psalms? If so, this inevitably leads to an allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament. If we seek to understand the Psalms as the Jews before Christ saw them, we will not necessarily come to the same conclusions as the New Testament writers. Since my object in this series is to seek to decipher what the Old Testament readers could legitimately conclude on the basis of Revelation, I will seek to interpret the Psalms from a more “objective” perspective than might be found justifiable from a New Testament interpretation.

I make no claim that my study of Psalms is exhaustive on this important subject. If, in your study of the Old Testament in general, and the Psalms in particular, you find evidence that suggests the opposite of what I am saying, I hope you will call it to my attention.[131] I will not endeavor to address each Psalm, only those that seem relevant to an eternal hope.

“For in death there is no remembrance of thee; in Sheol who can give thee praise?”[132] No reference to life after death so far in the Psalms; this verse seems to suggest the opposite.

“For thou dost not give me up to Sheol, or let thy godly one see the Pit. Thou dost show me the path of life; in thy presence there is fulness of joy, in thy right hand are pleasures for evermore.”[133] Many have seen in this Psalm of David a beautiful reference to life after death, and have thus concluded that it offers the Old Testament saint an eternal hope. Let’s take a closer look at what David says: David does not use the Hebrew word olam[134] in verse 11. The word used by David (nesah) means, “eminence, perpetuity, strength, victory, enduring, everlastingness, endurance in time, perpetual, continual, unto the end, ever.” From this definition we see that the word can mean something different from eternal life in the Presence of God. Not only so, but Charles says, “There is nothing that necessarily relates to a future life in Psalm 16, which expresses the fears and hopes not of the individual but of the community.”[135] If the Psalmist expresses hope in eternal life, as this and other Psalms may suggest, we have to conclude that God did not support such a hope with a promise.

“As for me, I shall behold Thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness.”[136] The RSV translates this: “As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with beholding thy form.” The NAB translates it: “I am just– let me see your face; when I awake, let me be filled with your presence.” The word for “awake” (qis) means, “awake from seep, awaken from the dead (used four times).” Daniel uses qis in his famous statement on the resurrection of the dead.[137] Many Jews understood this verse to mean that “the awaking” here mentioned means nothing more than the awaking next morning, when the psalmist will join afresh in the temple worship.

“He asked life of Thee, Thou gavest it him; even length of days for ever (olam) and ever (ad). His glory is great through Thy salvation; honour and majesty dost Thou lay upon him. For Thou makest him most blessed for ever (ad); Thou makest him glad with joy in Thy presence.”[138] This verse, like Psalm 17:15, may express an eternal hope, depending on what the author means by words like olam and ad. We will note, as we move through this material, that if God granted the Psalmist an eternal hope, you find no record of His promise or the conditions that have to be met in obtaining it.

Conclusion

After His resurrection, Jesus walked with some people from Jerusalem to Emmaus, and en route “… beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”[139] What exactly did Jesus say? If He came to provide a propitiation in order that God might “be just and justifier of him that believeth,”[140] why didn’t anyone up to this point understand that the Old Testament taught this? Why didn’t those who were closest to Jesus during His public ministry understand His mission?

We will continue in the Psalms in the next issue.

Grateful for His promises,

September, 2004

In this issue I will review, in part, what we covered in Part 5, and elaborate further on the pragmatic implications of understanding what the Bible teaches on eternal hope.

Part Ten

Introduction

It seems to me that most people believe in something after death. All religions have this belief in common. Only a minority believes that when a person dies he ceases to exist. The Hebrews who lived as slaves in Egypt were exposed to a belief in an afterlife – as attested by the pyramids. With or without a promise of eternal life to the individual in the Old Testament, I think the average Hebrew believed in an afterlife, even though it may have consisted in nothing more than an eternity in Sheol. A belief in an afterlife however is very different from an eternal hope.

Eternal Hope

Hebrews 11:1 says: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hope defines the object of our faith; we express faith in the direction of our hope. In the Greek, faith and believe are the same word; faith is the noun and believe is the verb. Faith/believe is commitment without knowing. Therefore we can define faith as “risk taking.” When we say that we have faith in the airline getting us to our destination, or we have faith in the surgeon’s ability to perform a successful operation, we are saying that we take a risk in flying or having surgery.

Thus, hope defines the object of our faith. We say we hope the operation will be successful, or we hope we will arrive safely at our destination. We define hope in terms of what we perceive to be gain. We never say that we hope the operation will be a failure, or we hope we lose our money invested in the stock market; we always say the opposite. In summary, we take our risks in the direction of what we consider to be gain.

Dead Faith

Biblical faith is always active, never passive. James talks about a passive faith: “Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.”[141] Faith without taking the risk of obedience is “dead faith.” James says, “Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.”[142] We demonstrate our hope in the promises of God by being His obedient servants; the risk of faith is found in obedience.

We can have a strong conviction in an afterlife without being the obedient servants of God. Thus, we can say that we hope in eternal life, but because we take no risks in the direction of that hope, we cannot, in a biblical sense, say that we hope in the fulfillment of God’s promises. The existence of hope always requires risks. James says such people have a “dead faith:” “faith without works is dead.”[143]

Obedience and Agreement

We can easily deceive ourselves on this issue: We can confuse obedience with agreement. Many appear to obey God in the sense that they agree with His expectations; they are moral people. You cannot say that you submit to God unless you have confronted the issue of finding yourself not wanting to do His will, voted against yourself, and did it anyway. For example, the only recorded instance of Jesus meeting God’s will and not wanting to do it is the agony through which He went in the Garden of Gethsemane. “Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.”[144] We learn obedience when we, like Jesus, know God’s will and don’t want to pay the price of doing it, but because of our eternal hope, nevertheless obey Him.

Many in the body of Christ live lives of selective obedience, that is, they “obey” when they agree. If they don’t wish to obey, they call the biblical command “cultural,” or they say, “I know God prohibits divorce, but He wants me to be happy, and besides, He will forgive me.” Such people may believe in life after death, and even say they have an eternal hope, but James says that their faith is dead.

Hebrews 11 gives an account of Old Testament saints who had an active faith, taking risks in the direction of their hope: “And what shall I more say? for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets: 33 Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. 35 Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: 36 And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: 37 They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; 38 (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. 39 And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: 40 God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.”[145] So also, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego demonstrated an eternal hope when they chose the fiery furnace: “If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us, He will deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and out of thy hand, O king. 18 But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.”[146]

So we see then, that many of God’s people in the Old Testament had an eternal hope, demonstrated by the risks they took in choosing death rather than disobedience – in spite of the Old Testament Scripture never recording the promise of an eternal hope given by God to an individual. Conversely, many today claim the promises of an eternal hope offered in the New Testament, while refusing to take the risks inherent in a life of obedience. Such people deceive themselves. They think they have an eternal hope when in reality they have nothing more than a belief in an afterlife.

Fear and Love

Often people argue that fear and love are mutually exclusive, when in reality, they are mutually inclusive. Fear is not the enemy of love; fear is the enemy of security. My love identifies my hope, and hope and fear are the head and tail of the same coin. If you love your house, then you will fear losing it when threatened by a fire. If you love your wife, you will fear losing her if you discover that she has cancer. When I am in the city with my grandson, and he gets away from me and into harm’s way, and I say “stop,” I want him to fear my word. If he merely respects it, taking it under advisement, the traffic will kill him.

God is like a warm fire on a cold night. You want to draw as close as you can, but you cannot get too close without getting hurt. You may wish to argue that you respect the fire, but I suggest that if you act presumptuously, you will end in regret.

Fear and Eternal Hope

The Apostle Paul teaches, “For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.”[147] No one can be certain that they will receive the object of their hope. For this reason, they logically fear that they may not obtain what they hope for, as certainly as they fear when what they love is threatened.

Because we have an eternal hope and not merely a belief in an afterlife, what are the consequences of not taking risks (faith) in the direction of that hope? If there is no eternal accountability for temporal behavior, the risks evaporate. We are left with no difference between the person who believes in an afterlife and the person who has an eternal hope.

Scripture gives repeated warnings lest we deceive ourselves in this regard.[148] Note how John Calvin articulates eternal accountability: “What we give to our brethren in the exercise of charity is a deposit with the Lord, who, as a faithful depositary, will ultimately restore it with abundant interest. Are our duties, then, of such value with God that they are as a kind of treasure placed in his hand? Who can hesitate to say so when Scripture so often and so plainly attests it? But if any one would leap from the mere kindness of God to the merit of works (i.e., a works righteousness)[149], his error will receive no support from these passages. For all you can properly infer from them is the inclination on the part of God to treat us with indulgence. For, in order to animate us in well-doing, he allows no act of obedience, however unworthy of his eye, to pass unrewarded.”[150]

Charles Hodge says, in essence, the same thing: “Although Protestants deny the merit of good works, and teach that salvation is entirely gratuitous, that the remission of sins, adoption into the family of God, and the gift of the Holy Spirit are granted to the believer, as well as admission into heaven, solely on the ground of the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ; they nevertheless teach that God does reward his people for their works. Having graciously promised for Christ’s sake to overlook the imperfection of their best services, they have the assurance founded on that promise that he who gives a disciple even a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, shall in no wise lose his reward. The Scriptures also teach that the happiness or blessedness of the believers in a future life will be greater or less in proportion to their devotion to the service of Christ in this life. Those who love little, do little; and those who do little enjoy less. What a man sows that shall he also reap. As the rewards of heaven are given on the ground of merits of Christ, and as He has a right to do what He will with his own, there would be no injustice were the thief saved on the cross as highly exalted as the Apostle Paul. But the general drift of Scripture is in favor of the doctrine that a man shall reap what he sows; that God will reward every one according to, although not on account of his works.”[151] Hodge seems to suggest that the formula for rewards is: “faithfulness to opportunity,” as indicated by the thief on the cross.

Conclusion

All people everywhere, regardless of their religion, race, or culture, view authority the same way. If they perceive that the cost of obedience is greater than disobedience, they will disobey, and vice versa. This is a universal axiom, true for all time.

If a believer convinces himself, regardless of Scriptural evidence, that he does not face eternal accountability for temporal behavior, then for him the Ten Commandments become the ten suggestions. In denying eternal accountability, he also denies that he has an eternal hope, practices a dead faith, and merely believes in an afterlife.

Yours for the glory of God,

Walt

November, 2004

Part Eleven

Introduction

God faults the nation of Israel for many things, but I know of no place where He charges them with a lack of faith. God never required the nation to believe. For this reason, OT Israel becomes a better illustration of grace than God’s commitment to the individual in the NT, in as much as the individual must meet the condition of believing or having faith. He placed no such condition on the nation.

Continued reflections in Psalms

“The LORD knoweth the days of them that are wholehearted; and their inheritance shall be for ever (olam)… Depart from evil, and do good; and dwell for evermore (olam).[152] For the LORD loveth justice, and forsaketh not His saints; they are preserved for ever (olam); but the seed of the wicked shall be cut off. The righteous shall inherit the land, and dwell therein for ever (ad).”[153] This illustrates the dilemma facing the interpreter; he knows that words like olam and ad don’t necessarily carry the same connotation they do with our English equivalent. As noted in Part 6 of this series, no general word exits for time in Hebrew, nor for ideas like past, present, future, and eternity.

“LORD, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; let me know how short-lived I am.” Then David prays: “Look away from me, that I may take comfort, before I go hence, and be no more.” [154] In this Psalm David expresses no eternal hope.[155] From this we see that although David may have meant “eternal”[156] in the sense we use that word, from this Psalm we learn that he in fact lacked an eternal hope. Possibly, in Psa. 37:18 his hope was in an inheritance for his children, but not for himself. In II Sam. 7 God tells David that he will always have a descendent sitting on the Throne of Israel.

“And as for me, Thou upholdest me because of mine integrity, and settest me before Thy face for ever (olam).”[157] This and Psalm 37 face the same problem when it comes to interpreting olam.

“Truly no man can ransom himself, or give to God the price of his life, for the ransom of his life is costly, and can never suffice, that he should continue to live on for ever (nesah), and never see the Pit.” “No man can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him – For too costly is the redemption of their soul, and must be let alone for ever (olam) – That he should still live always (nesah), that he should not see the pit.”[158] Although “the sons of Korah” use the phrase “no man can ransom himself,” they make a distinction between the just and unjust: “Like sheep they are appointed for the nether-world (Sheol); death shall be their shepherd; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their form shall be for the nether-world (Sheol) to wear away, that there be no habitation for it. But God will redeem my soul from the power of the nether-world (Sheol); for He shall receive me.”[159] Since v. 14 represents Sheol as a place where the wicked are punished, it seems to suggest that the righteous do not go there; God “ransoms” them from Sheol’s power. In this Psalm God reserves Sheol for the wicked in contradistinction to His “receiving” the righteous. This seems to teach an eternal difference between the just and unjust, but a difference determined by the merit of man rather than the grace of God.

Psalm 73 marks the end of David’s Psalms and the beginning of those composed by Asaph. Asaph calls attention to the fact that the righteous seem to suffer and the unrighteous prosper…” Until I entered into the sanctuary of God, and considered their end. Surely Thou settest them in slippery places; Thou hurlest them down to utter ruin.” Then he says: “Thou wilt guide me with Thy counsel, and afterward receive me with glory (kabod).”[160] The word for “glory” (kabod), when referencing God calls attention to His presence, usually in the Tabernacle or Temple.

Three thoughts on this:

1 – Frequently in the Psalms the writer calls attention to the fact that because God is righteous, He will bring the unjust down in ruin and lift up those that trust in Him. If the Psalmist has in mind the temporal, this would call into question the message of Job.[161] But in truth, I gain the impression that the Psalmist does in fact have in mind the temporal – at least most of the time.

2 – When Asaph says, “Thou dost guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory,” I am not sure if “afterward” refers to eternity or after guiding with His counsel. With my NT worldview, it is easy for me to conclude the former.

3 – The Psalmist contrasts the fate of the righteous and wicked: “My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the rock of my heart and my portion for ever (olam). For, lo, they that go far from Thee shall perish; Thou dost destroy all them that go astray from Thee.”[162] Thus, the righteous are received to “glory,” while the wicked “perish.” This seems to suggest an eternal hope. Does olam in v. 26 suggest that the soul lives on after the body is destroyed?

Throughout Psalm 88 the author, Herman the Ezrahite, writes in terms of this life being all there is; it is as though he is rejecting the notion of the resurrection – as illustrated in: “Wilt Thou work wonders for the dead? Or shall the shades arise and give Thee thanks? Shall Thy mercy be declared in the grave? or Thy faithfulness in destruction? Shall Thy wonders be known in the dark? And Thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?”[163] The word “shades” means, “’the dead inhabitants of the netherworld’… appears exclusively in poetic passages… ‘ghosts (of) Sheol.’”[164] Thus, the Psalmist may believe that the spirit lives beyond the grave, but he offers no hope of it being a happy destiny.

“Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His saints.”[165] This passage does not teach eternal life for God’s people, but by inference one may conclude that since God considers the death of His saints precious, it must mean that they go from this life to live with Him.

“If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there; if I make my bed in the nether-world, behold, Thou art there.”[166] The Psalmist recognizes the possibility of a person going to heaven, but does not say that is where people go. Heaven, in this verse, is a different location from Sheol, although we cannot be certain that it is the presence of God. Finally, when the Psalmist says, “Who redeemeth Thy life from the pit; who encompasseth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies,”[167] it probably has the same meaning as Jonah 2:7, when God saved His prophet from the belly of a fish.

Reflections on Proverbs

“I was set up from everlasting (olam), from the beginning, or ever the earth was.”[168] “When the whirlwind passeth, the wicked is no more; but the righteous is an everlasting (olam) foundation.”[169] “The lip of truth shall be established for ever (ad); but a lying tongue is but for a moment.”[170] “A false witness shall perish; but the man that obeyeth shall speak unchallenged (nesah).”[171] “For riches are not for ever (olam); and doth the crown endure unto all generations?”[172] “The king that faithfully judgeth the poor, his throne shall be established for ever (ad).”[173] These are the only verses I can find dealing with “eternity/forever/everlasting/eternal/ancient/always.” Even the context makes it difficult, if not impossible, to determine if any of them refer to an eternal hope.

“The nether-world (Sheol) and Destruction (Abaddon) are before the LORD; how much more then the hearts of the children of men!!”[174] “Abaddon,” the same in Hebrew (abaddon) means, “to die, pass away, destruction. Probably the main theological question about this root is whether it refers merely to physical death or also to eternal punishment. It is not an easy question… One’s conclusions will doubtless be influenced by general considerations.”[175] In other words, your theological bias will be a determining factor in coming to a conclusion. Revelation 9:11 uses “Abaddon” as a name of the devil, called in Greek “Apollyon.”

“The path of life goeth upward for the wise, that he may depart from the nether-world (Sheol) beneath.”[176] The Hebrew word for “depart” (soor) is the general word for “to turn aside, depart.” RSV translates “avoid” and the NAS “keep away.” The wise man can follow the path of life, avoiding Sheol in the process.

Twice Proverbs tells us that Sheol can never be full/satisfied: “The nether-world (Sheol) and Destruction are never satiated; so the eyes of man are never satiated.”[177] “There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four that say not: ‘Enough’: The grave (Sheol); and the barren womb; the earth that is not satisfied with water; and the fire that saith not: ‘Enough.’”[178] Interestingly, Proverbs never says that heaven is not full/satisfied. In Proverbs people go to Sheol, but I can find no reference to people going to heaven, with the possible exception of Proverbs 15:24.

Conclusion

Proverbs, as the word suggests, is a book of non-obligatory truths. Something may be true without obligating a person to apply it. For example, Solomon says, “The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.”[179] Although this is true, it does not mean that the rich should not rule the poor or that a person should not borrow. God expects His people to be instructed by them, but their application has to remain an individual matter. Not all truth is law.

Starting with the poetic or devotional literature there emerges the beginning of an eternal hope, based not on the promise of God’s future Propitiation, but rather on the deeds of man. We see this hope, not offered by God, but declared by the saints. The authors legitimately had this hope because they wrote by inspiration of God. However, nowhere in this literature does God make a promise of eternal life to any individual or group of individuals.

Grateful for His promise of eternal life,

Walt

March, 2005

Part Twelve

Introduction

Note the contrast between the Hebrews at Kadesh Barnea and Muslim terrorists today: Numbers 14:2 records, “And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron; and the whole congregation said unto them: ‘Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! or would we had died in this wilderness!” Hardly a day passes without reading of a Muslim who destroys himself in a suicide attack against an opponent. Why does the Muslim freely destroy himself while the Hebrew longs to return to slavery rather than face his enemy? I suggest the difference resides in eternal hope. Islam assures the martyr perpetual bliss in eternity while God never offered the hope of eternal life to His people.

G.K. Chesterton notes, “The moment we care for anything deeply, the world – that is, all the other miscellaneous interests – becomes our enemy. Christians showed it when they talked of keeping one’s self ‘unspotted from the world;’ but lovers talk of it just as much when they talk of the ‘world well lost’… Thus Mr. Kipling… knows England as an intelligent English gentleman knows Venice. He has been to England a great many times; he has stopped there for long visits. But he does not belong to it, or to any place; and the proof of it is this, that he thinks of England as a place. The moment we are rooted in a place, the place vanishes. We live like a tree with the whole strength of the universe.”[180]

I suggest that this describes the eternal hope of the follower of Christ: he is “rooted” in heaven. It matters not how much of this world’s good God has lavished upon him, only one longing occupies him; Christ is his life! “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”[181]

Reflections on Ecclesiastes

Solomon’s Ecclesiastes seems to give conflicting evidence regarding the hope of life after death: “He hath made every thing beautiful in its time; also He hath set the world (olam) in their heart, yet so that man cannot find out the work that God hath done from the beginning even to the end.”[182] I am not sure why the JPS and KJV translate olam “world;” the NAS and RSV use “eternity.”

“Even though he should live a thousand years twice told, yet enjoy no good — do not all go to the one place?”[183] “For all this I laid to my heart, even to make clear all this: that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God; whether it be love or hatred, man knoweth it not; all is before them. All things come alike to all; there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not; as is the good, so is the sinner, and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath. This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that there is one event unto all; yea also, the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead. For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope; for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they shall die; but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. As well their love, as their hatred and their envy, is long ago perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.”[184] Solomon acknowledges the depravity of man, but seems to suggest the absence of hope beyond the grave. Does Solomon suggest that the fate of the individual is tied to the nation? “One fate comes to all, to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil…” Without an eternal hope, corporate accountability destroys individual accountability – if the individual in question can hide his crime.

“In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider; God hath made even the one as well as the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him.”[185] This passage follows Psalm 88:10 in seeming to reject the idea of a resurrection.

“Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and terrors shall be in the way; and the almond-tree shall blossom, and the grasshopper shall drag itself along, and the caperberry shall fail; because man goeth to his long (olam) home, and the mourners go about the streets… And the dust returneth to the earth as it was, and the spirit returneth unto God who gave it… For God shall bring every work into the judgment concerning every hidden thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.”[186] Contrary to what he has said earlier, Solomon seems to suggest that the soul of a man does not perish. The “spirit returns to God” and “judgment” takes place after death.

Reflections on Song of Solomon

Like the book of Esther, Song of Solomon makes no reference to God. I can find nothing pertaining to life after death, judgment, sin, accountability, or godly hope. Read literally, it is a love poem between a man and woman. Those who find it edifying usually give it an allegorical interpretation – e.g., the relationship of the believer with Christ. In either case, I can find no reference to an eternal hope.

From here we move to the prophetic books of the Old Testament.

Reflections on Isaiah

The Israelites believe in a material recreation of the world. Much of their understanding comes from Isaiah. He prophesizes a time of universal peace: “And He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”[187] This is a time when “the wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox; and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, saith the LORD.”[188] The prophets do not make clear how this eschatological hope unfolds, but from Isaiah you receive a clear picture of the temporal and eternal blending together.

Note another passage referring to this eschatological hope of a material recreation: “And He will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering that is cast over all peoples, and the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death for ever (nesah); and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the reproach of His people will He take away from off all the earth; for the LORD hath spoken it. And it shall be said in that day: ‘Lo, this is our God, for whom we waited, that He might save us; this is the LORD, for whom we waited, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.’”[189] It is as though the temporal blends with the eternal; the distinction between the two vanishes.

“The sun shall be no more thy light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee; but the LORD shall be unto thee an everlasting (olam) light, and thy God thy glory. Thy sun shall no more go down, Neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; for the LORD shall be thine everlasting (olam) light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. Thy people also shall be all righteous, they shall inherit the land for ever; the branch of My planting, the work of My hands, wherein I glory. The smallest shall become a thousand, and the least a mighty nation; I the LORD will hasten it in its time.”[190] This hope, offered to the nation of Israel, effortlessly combines the temporal and eternal in an eschatological promise.

In preparation for this time of renewal, God promises Judgment as a means of purging. This theme of judgment plays a prominent role in Isaiah. The people may perish, but God’s eternal commitment to the nation remains inviolable.

If God had not elected a nation such as Israel, the depravity of man is such that man would blot out any and all manifestations of God. As it was, Israel constantly played the whore with God, and only God’s persistent commitment to Israel kept her from totally stripping from her presence any and all manifestations of God. As He says: “O LORD our God, other lords beside Thee have had dominion over us; but by Thee only do we make mention of Thy name. The dead live not, the shades[191] rise not; to that end hast Thou punished and destroyed them, and made all their memory to perish. Thou hast gotten Thee honour with the nations, O LORD, yea, exceeding great honour with the nations; Thou art honoured unto the farthest ends of the earth.”[192] What we know of God comes through the revelation of Himself to His elect nation, Israel.

In this context, Isaiah seems to speak of the resurrection: “Thy dead shall live, my dead bodies shall arise – awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust – for Thy dew is as the dew of light, and the earth shall bring to life the shades.”[193] These are the bodies of Yahweh’s people. Note that Isaiah talks of the resurrection of the just, but makes no mention of the resurrection of the unjust. Evidently these righteous await the resurrection in Sheol.

Isaiah prophesizes: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting (ad) Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of [his] government and peace [there shall be] no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever (olam). The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.”[194] Notice how the JPS translates this: “For a child is born unto us, a son is given unto us; and the government is upon his shoulder; and his name is called ‘The Mighty God is planning grace; the Eternal Father, a peaceable ruler’[195] – In token of abundant authority and of peace without limit upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to establish it, and to uphold it through justice and through righteousness from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts doth perform this.” Although the two translations differ in regard to ascribing deity to the Son, both have in common that God will create a kingdom, with His anointed sitting on the throne of David.

Conclusion

As far as I can tell, the Old Testament saints never cried out to God that they could not properly relate to Him because of the inadequacy of the Law. I know of no place in the Old Testament where the author says his sins or the sins of others blocks the path to God – until we come to the sin of King David and his confession in Psalm 51. Also, Paul quotes David in Romans 4:7-8: “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.”[196] Elsewhere in the Old Testament, the sinner may be alienated from God, but such a person expresses no desire for a relationship with God. King David appears to be an anomaly in the Old Testament; he is the first to suggest that “a broken spirit and contrite heart”[197] can bridge the gap between the sinner and God.

Eagerly awaiting His return,

May, 2005

Part Thirteen

Introduction

One of the more difficult tasks facing the interpreter is determining whether God has given the promise to the nation or to the individual. For example, in a passage discussed earlier in this series God says, “The LORD, the LORD, God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth; keeping mercy unto the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and unto the fourth generation.”[198] It seems to me that this must apply to the nation in that the generation that sins does not experience God’s justice, but rather “the third and fourth generations.”

God speaking though the Psalmist says, “Who forgiveth all thine iniquity; who healeth all thy diseases.”[199] If you apply this promise to the individual rather than the nation, you will conclude that God promises you will never contract a disease, and if you do, then God has failed in keeping His promise. When God promises, “I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake; and thy sins I will not remember,”[200] if we were Old Testament Jews, could we apply this individually? On what basis do you make the determination? Obviously, as a New Testament saint, you can claim a similar promise, for He said, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,”[201] keeping in mind that you cannot assume that He will “not remember you sins.” In the New Testament, God speaks to the individual rather than the nation.

During the Monarchy, God made a promise to Hezekiah: “Go, and say to Hezekiah: Thus saith the LORD, the God of David thy father: I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears; behold, I will add unto thy days fifteen years.”[202] Obviously, you cannot appropriate this promise, gaining assurance that you will live an additional fifteen years. Note, however, that God made this promise to an individual rather that the nation as a whole.

Look at another promise God made: “Bring ye the whole tithe into the store-house, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall be more than sufficiency.”[203] Here, you can easily run into trouble. Promises such as this were given to the nation, not to the individual. God did not guarantee that every individual who tithed would prosper temporally, and yet pastors frequently preach on this verse when emphasizing the importance of generosity.

Note a national promise frequently applied to the United States: “If My people, upon whom My name is called, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their evil ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”[204] God did not commit Himself to any nation other than Israel. Just as Old Testament Egypt had no right to claim this for herself, so also no country in existence today can make this claim, with the exception of Israel; only the nation of Israel can claim to be “My people, upon whom My name is called.”

During the days of the Old Testament, the individual follower of God could not claim for himself national promises, nor can His followers today. You must determine the promises God gave the nation of Israel vis-à-vis the individual, and then determine if you can legitimately claim the individual promise for yourself.

Continued reflections on Isaiah

In part 5 of this series I noted that if Hezekiah had an eternal hope he did not act like it when Isaiah came informing him that God was planning on taking his life. The book of Isaiah covers the same material. In Hezekiah’s poem of praise for the added fifteen years, he says: “In the noontide of my days I shall go, even to the gates of the nether-world (Sheol); I am deprived of the residue of my years. I said: I shall not see the LORD, even the LORD in the land of the living; I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world. My habitation is plucked up and carried away from me as a shepherd’s tent; I have rolled up like a weaver my life; He will cut me off from the thrum (loom); from day even to night wilt Thou make an end of me… For the nether-world (Sheol) cannot praise Thee, death cannot celebrate Thee; they that go down into the pit cannot hope for Thy truth (grace).”[205] If he is going to praise and worship God, it must be in the temporal life God gives. These do not sound like the words of a man who has an eternal hope – and Hezekiah was considered a good king.

I have no idea how the Old Testament Jews understood Isaiah 53, or how they saw it fit into the mosaic of God’s program for Israel. Some argue that the Jews saw this passage as part of the Suffering Servant motif in the latter part of Isaiah. To interpret verses such as, “But he was wounded because of our transgressions, he was crushed because of our iniquities: the chastisement of our welfare was upon him, and with his stripes we were healed. All we like sheep did go astray, we turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath made to light on him the iniquity of us all… Therefore will I divide him a portion among the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the mighty; because he bared his soul unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors,”[206] as referencing Messiah paying the penalty for the individual’s sin, implies a promise of eternal life to the individual. As already noted, an eternal commitment to a sinful nation does not require the substitutionary death of Christ. Since the New Testament applies this to Christ, we conclude that either those in the Old Testament simply did not understand this passage, or God gave to the Old Testament people, but never recorded in Scripture, the promise of eternal life.

Beginning with Isaiah God offers to the individual the promise of a personal relationship as evidenced by passages such as: “For thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity (ad), whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. For I will not contend for ever, neither will I be always wroth; for the spirit that enwrappeth itself is from Me, and the souls which I have made.”[207] Earlier, King David said that God would not reject the contrite and humble spirit,[208] but now God Himself says it. The passage comes short of offering eternal hope, but at least God takes note of the individual, offering him temporal hope.

Isaiah 61-62 gives Israel a beautiful hope, but it is temporal rather than eternal in nature. “And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall renew the waste cities, the desolations of many generations. And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and aliens shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers. But ye shall be named the priests of the LORD, men shall call you the ministers of our God; ye shall eat the wealth of the nations, and in their splendour shall ye revel… For as the earth bringeth forth her growth, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord GOD will cause victory and glory to spring forth before all the nations.[209] Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken, neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate; but thou shalt be called, My delight is in her, and thy land, Espoused; for the LORD delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be espoused. For as a young man espouseth a virgin, so shall thy sons espouse thee; and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee… Behold, the LORD hath proclaimed unto the end of the earth: say ye to the daughter of Zion: ‘Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold, His reward is with Him, and His recompense before Him.’”[210] In the last issue we noted how Isaiah blends the temporal and eternal, but in these chapters, God makes no reference to the eternal. In chapter 65 He says, “I am creating a new heaven and a new earth,”[211] but He does not blend the temporal and eternal in a material recreation. “The time cometh, that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come, and shall see My glory… And they shall bring all your brethren out of all the nations for an offering unto the LORD… to My holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the LORD, as the children of Israel bring their offering in a clean vessel into the house of the LORD. And of them also will I take for the priests and for the Levites, saith the LORD. For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before Me, saith the LORD, so shall your seed and your name remain.”[212]

Conclusion

In part 2 of this series we briefly looked at repentance in the Old Testament, noting that in the Pentateuch God never calls upon people to repent, nor does He say that the nation must repent of her sin in order to maintain His covenant with her. Abraham may intercede on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah,[213] Moses on behalf of the nation,[214] and Job on behalf of his friends,[215] but God’s representatives never turn to man urging repentance.

Repentance, however, is a sine qua non for securing individual forgiveness as we move through the post-Pentateuch literature. Inner brokenness and contrition must be followed by the outward acts of turning away from evil[216] and turning toward righteousness.[217] Ritual acts, such as washings and sacrifices, have never, by themselves, found acceptance with God. “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me? saith the LORD; I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come to appear before Me, who hath required this at your hand, to trample My courts? Bring no more vain oblations; it is an offering of abomination unto Me; new moon and sabbath, the holding of convocations – I cannot endure iniquity along with the solemn assembly.”[218]

So also today; baptism, church attendance, seeking His forgiveness, admitting that you are wrong – none of these can function as a substitute for inner brokenness and contrition followed by outward acts of turning away from evil and turning toward righteousness.

His servant… your friend,

July, 2005

Part Fourteen

Introduction

In part 4 of this series we called attention to the fact that, although we have no way of knowing who did and who did not have an eternal hope during the Old Testament times, the author of Hebrews says that the Patriarchs (recorded in Genesis) had an eternal hope: “For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.”[219] I am not sure, however, how clearly the Patriarchs saw this hope. For example, Paul says, “And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.”[220] Most agree that Paul defines the Gospel as: “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.”[221] Can we conclude that God revealed the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ to Abraham when Jesus said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.”[222] What exactly did Abraham “see?” If we conclude from these verses that God revealed the propitious death of Christ to Abraham, then why didn’t Satan try to stop Christ from going to the cross?

Returning to Hebrews, the author says, “And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.”[223] Does this “promise” pertain to Christ? It probably does, but if so, what did the Old Testament saints understand about this promise? When God said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel,’”[224] did they see God sending His Son to destroy the work of Satan, and that in the process the Son would be “bruised?” We, in New Testament times, may look back at such promises and conclude that God spoke of His redemption in Christ, but this is different from saying that the Old Testament saints understood it this way. If you conclude that the above promises were clearly understood by the Old Testament people of God as His provision for their eternal hope, then why didn’t anyone in the New Testament prior to Christ’s resurrection, including His disciples, understand His mission?

Twice during the Exodus, when the people were thirsty, God provided water through a rock. The first time, God instructed Moses to strike the rock;[225] the second time He told Moses to speak to the rock.[226] Commenting on this, Paul says, “And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was Christ.”[227] Evidently, the Rock was Christ, and He was to be smitten only once. Did Moses understand this? I cannot be sure, but I doubt it.

When Hebrews says the Patriarchs looked for a “heavenly country,” did they have in mind the land given to them and their progeny? I do not know. I am dubious however that God gave to those in the Old Testament a clear, eternal hope, when nothing in the record indicates that God revealed such a hope to them.

Reflections on Jeremiah

When God created Israel at Sinai, the people’s hopes were tied to the nation; when the nation prospered because of Providence, the people prospered, so also the opposite. Most of the pre-Exile prophets preach judgment for the nation, with little or no hope offered to the individual. During Jeremiah’s ministry, when the sun began to set on Israel, God initiated a shift from an emphasis on the nation to the individual. “In those days they shall say no more: ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ But every one shall die for his own iniquity; every man that eateth the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge.”[228] There was the time when God tied the fate of the individual with that of the nation. But now things change; each individual is responsible for his own relationship with God. Jeremiah lays the foundation for an emphasis on the individual as the nation slips into captivity; when God affirms his inviolable commitment to the nation, He also emphasizes the importance of the individual. While Isaiah blended the temporal and eternal in affirming God’s commitment to the nation, he did not place the emphasis on the individual that we see in Jeremiah and those prophets that followed him.

It is in this context that we read of the New Covenant: “Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; forasmuch as they broke My covenant, although I was a lord over them, saith the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the LORD, I will put My law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people; and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying: ‘Know the LORD’; for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more.”[229] Note the following:

1 – Jeremiah taught the depravity of the individual. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is exceeding weak – who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.”[230] Man can no more reform his own life than a leopard can change his spots.[231]

2 – The New Covenant will provide the individual with a new and supernatural ability to obey the Law, and thus the nation will be free of the unrighteousness that had earlier brought God’s retribution.

3 – This New Covenant will include both Judah (preparing to enter her exile to Babylon) and Israel (the ten northern tribes disbursed and seemingly lost through the Assyrian Captivity).

In Jeremiah, God continues to affirm His inviolable commitment to Israel: “Then will I cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers, for ever (olam) and ever (olam).”[232] Eight times Jeremiah uses the word “repent,” and each time it refers to God as illustrated by: “If ye will still abide in this land, then will I build you, and not pull you down, and I will plant you, and not pluck you up; for I repent Me of the evil that I have done unto you.”[233] Twice God says the people refused to repent.[234] If I counted correctly “heaven” appears 24 times in this book, and none of them use “heaven” as the place where people go. I could not find the word “Sheol” in Jeremiah.

Reflections on Ezekiel

Ezekiel picks up where Jeremiah left off. As already noted in our study of Job, although God promises blessing on the righteous and retribution on the sinner, care must be taken in making application. From the perspective of those having an eternal hope, “the law of the harvest” can easily be applied: application may happen in the temporal, but will for sure happen in the eternal. In the Old Testament, where hope in life after death is at best oblique, application of “the law of the harvest” is a bit more difficult. God tells Ezekiel, “Son of man, when a land sinneth against Me by trespassing grievously, and I stretch out My hand upon it, and break the staff of the bread thereof, and send famine upon it, and cut off from it man and beast; 14 though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord GOD.”[235]

In Ezekiel 37:1-14 God’s prophet receives a vision in which a valley of dry bones comes to life. God says it is “the whole House of Israel” and that they will come out of their graves and inhabit the land. Read literally, this means the lost House of Israel could anticipate a time when they would be resurrected from the dead to inhabit the Promised Land – a resurrection, not to join God in heaven, but rather to join their people in a reconstructed nation. Would this physical resurrection mean that these people would never again die, or did the people of Israel read it to mean that after a period of time these people would again die?

Conclusion

Earlier in Israel’s history, when God found fault with the nation, all the people partook of the retribution. Often, a later generation suffers the effects of their father’s sins. Now God promises that men like Noah, Daniel, and Job will be delivered because of their own righteousness, even though their children will not be spared; God judges each person individually. In Ezekiel deliverance vs. retribution is temporal, and he makes no effort to reconcile this with the teaching of the Book of Job. In Ezekiel, however, God clearly deals with the individual and not just the nation. The individual has worth independent of the corporate whole: “All souls are Mine.”[236]

As noted when looking at Isaiah, the Exile and post-Exile prophets call attention to Messiah governing a future Israel, characterized by righteousness, justice, and purity. At that time His rule will extend over all the nations of the earth. The objective of judgment is to purge Israel and prepare the way for the Messianic kingdom. Unlike the pre-Exile prophets, the post-Exilic prophets no longer emphasize doom and judgment, but rather a material recreation and with it the blessing of God. “And it shall come to pass in the end of days, that the mountain of the LORD’S house shall be established as the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many peoples shall go and say: ‘Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths.’ For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”[237]

Ezekiel teaches that after the establishment of the Messianic kingdom, a confederation under Gog, from the land Magog, will rise in rebellion.[238] The exact place of this rebellion in the scheme of eschatology has generated a great deal of debate among Christians. John, in his Apocalypse, places it at the end of the millennium: “And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”[239]

Therefore, anticipating His early return,

September, 2005

Part Fifteen

Introduction

God grants assurance to the nation that He will not revoke His commitment to them. From Exodus forward, I know of no place where God makes that commitment to an individual, with the possible exception of people like Jeremiah (“Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee; I have appointed thee a prophet unto the nations”).[240] Elijah, caught up to heaven in a fiery chariot, may be another exception.

God promised David, who committed adultery and murder, “Thy house and thy kingdom shall be made sure for ever (olam) before thee; thy throne shall be established for ever (olam).”[241] Even though Moses struck the rock, God said of him, “And there hath not arisen a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face.”[242] Both men stand as conundrums: They are the only people, of which I am aware, of whom God charged them with willful sin, and still maintained a relationship with them. With all the others, such as Jeremiah, Elijah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God never charged them with a crime. God, if He comments at all, calls them righteous. For example Daniel says: “Then said Daniel unto the king: ‘O king, live for ever! My God hath sent His angel, and hath shut the lions’ mouths, and they have not hurt me; forasmuch as before Him innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt.’”[243]

But God does hold the individual accountable, sending judgment when he does wrong, as illustrated by the following: “Then a spirit lifted me up, and brought me unto the east gate of the LORD’S house, which looketh eastward; and behold at the door of the gate five and twenty men; and I saw in the midst of them Jaazaniah the son of Azzur, and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah, princes of the people. And He said unto me: ‘Son of man, these are the men that devise iniquity, and that give wicked counsel in this city; that say: The time is not near to build houses! this city is the caldron, and we are the flesh. Therefore prophesy against them, prophesy, O son of man’… And it came to pass, when I prophesied, that Pelatiah the son of Benaiah died. Then fell I down upon my face, and cried with a loud voice, and said: ‘Ah Lord GOD! wilt Thou make a full end of the remnant of Israel?’”[244]

Reflections on Daniel

Daniel makes reference to life after death: “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting (olam) life, and some to reproaches and everlasting (olam) abhorrence. And they that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn the many to righteousness as the stars for ever (olam) and ever (ad).”[245] He also references the “eternal” nature of God’s kingdom in passages such as when he interprets Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and says, “And in the days of those kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never (alam)[246] be destroyed; nor shall the kingdom be left to another people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, but it shall stand for ever (alam).”[247] Again, when Daniel interprets his own dream, he says, “But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom, and possess the kingdom for ever (alam), even for ever (alam) and ever (alam).”[248] Finally, when God gives Daniel the sequence of events surrounding the coming of Messiah, He says, “Seventy weeks are decreed upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sin, and to forgive iniquity, and to bring in everlasting (olam) righteousness, and to seal vision and prophet, and to anoint the most holy place.”[249]

Daniel makes reference to his own sin,[250] when reminding God that the seventy years of exile prophesied by Jeremiah had come to an end, but apart from this, he doesn’t mention man’s alienation from God and the need for God to provide a way whereby man can spend eternity with Him. The “eternal hope” found in this book deals with the nation rather than the individual.

Later, when Daniel confesses the sins of his people, reminding God that the promised 70 years of captivity had come to a close, he says: “O LORD, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against Thee. To the Lord our God belong compassions and forgivenesses; for we have rebelled against Him; neither have we hearkened to the voice of the LORD our God, to walk in His laws, which He set before us by His servants the prophets. Yea, all Israel have transgressed Thy law, and have turned aside, so as not to hearken to Thy voice; and so there hath been poured out upon us the curse and the oath that is written in the Law of Moses the servant of God; for we have sinned against Him.”[251] Daniel identifies with the nation, saying that he rebelled and sinned against God, when in fact he had not. The nation sinned and Daniel was part of the nation. Daniel’s fate was inextricably tied to that of Israel. When God answers through His messenger Gabriel, He says: “At the beginning of thy supplications a word went forth, and I am come to declare it; for thou art greatly beloved; therefore look into the word, and understand the vision. Seventy weeks are decreed upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sin, and to forgive iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal vision and prophet, and to anoint the most holy place.”[252] After assuring Daniel that he is “greatly beloved,” God promises at a future time that He will “finish the transgression, and to make an end of sin, and to forgive iniquity.” What God will do regarding the nation has nothing to do with whether Daniel is righteous or sinful. Nothing in this prophecy, or any other in Daniel, suggests that Messiah must atone for the nation.

At the end of the book the angel says: “But go thou thy way till the end be; and thou shalt rest, and shalt stand up to thy lot, at the end of the days.”[253] Some interpret “stand up to thy lot” to mean “rise again for your allotted portion” (cf. NAS), in which case we have a clear promise of eternal life offered by God. As far as I can tell, this constitutes the sum of what Daniel says about the eternal hope of God’s people. Daniel does introduce the certainty that all men will be resurrected and stand before God in judgment. Thus, it seems that although the hope of the righteous Hebrew is tied to the Messianic hope of the nation, Daniel now promises that the unrighteous Hebrew will not partake of that hope. “It is most noteworthy that this doctrine of the resurrection of the wicked is attested only three or, at most, four times in Jewish literature prior to the Christian era… Although this book is the forerunner and herald of most subsequent apocalyptic developments, its own outlook is in the main confined to this world. Its hopes are directed, not to the after-world, with its retributions for the individual, but to the setting up of a world-empire of Israel, which is to displace the heathen, to an eternal Messianic kingdom on earth. Accordingly, it extends neither promise nor threatening to the individual as such, but only to those individuals who have in an extraordinary degree helped or hindered the advent of this kingdom… Thus the claims of the individual are only very partially recognized in the eschatological system of Daniel.”[254] Daniel contains no specific reference to Messiah or His ministry, with the exception of His being inferred in Daniel’s dream of the Seventy Weeks.[255]

Reflections on the Minor Prophets

Hosea – a contemporary of Amos, Isaiah, and Micah, he calls attention to an important component in a person’s walk with God, first articulated by King David: “For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt-offerings.”[256] Isaiah emphasizes the same thing: God listens to a person’s prayers with a stethoscope.[257]

Israel, like the wife of Hosea, is a whore. Nevertheless, God commits Himself to her irrevocably: “And I will betroth thee unto Me for ever (olam); yea, I will betroth thee unto Me in righteousness, and in justice, and in lovingkindness, and in compassion.”[258] As far as I can tell, this is the only reference to the eternal. “After two days will He revive us, on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live in His presence,”[259] refers to the nation, and this transformation may be similar to what Ezekiel says in his parable of the dry bones: “And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, and caused you to come up out of your graves, O My people.”[260]

Joel – God promises a glorious future to Judah: “But Judah shall be inhabited for ever (olam), and Jerusalem from generation to generation.”[261] As far as I can tell, this is the only reference to the eternal in Joel. In Acts 2 Peter quotes the prophet Joel: “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions; And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out My spirit. And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.”[262] Joel applies this prophecy to the nation: “And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the LORD your God, and there is none else; and My people shall never be ashamed.”[263]

Amos – a book of judgment, nevertheless gives a word of hope to Israel: “In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof, and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old; That they may possess the remnant of Edom, and all the nations, upon whom My name is called, saith the LORD that doeth this. Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that the plowman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt. And I will turn the captivity of My people Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be plucked up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God.”[264] Like so often in the Old Testament, when God commits Himself to Israel, He blends the temporal with the eternal. I find no other reference to the eternal in Amos, with the exception of God saying that “His anger did tear perpetually, and he kept his wrath for ever (nesah).”[265]

Conclusion

In the OT if a nation such as Edom acts unjustly toward Israel, as depicted in Obadiah, God condemns the offending nation. Rahab the harlot betrayed her country into the hands of Israel in order to save her life, and because of this God records her in the “Hall of Fame”[266] and includes her in the genealogy of Jesus Christ.[267] I know of no instance where God rebukes Israel or holds her accountable for injustices committed against other nations. When Great Britain (and other nations as well) perceived itself as God’s chosen, inheriting the mantle of Israel, it encouraged the imperialism of the nineteenth century.

Grateful that “He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him,”

Walt

November, 2005

Part Sixteen

Introduction

God calls upon people to believe, as first evidenced in Abraham.[268] Although the Lord never promises that those who violate the Law have any chance for a relationship with Him, you must consider David’s insight that God will not reject a broken spirit and contrite heart.[269] As far as I can discover, the first time God takes the initiative to forgive willful sin is when in the gospels Jesus forgives the sinner.[270] As noted earlier, Moses and David are the only two examples, of which I am aware, in which God gives reason to be assured that one who commits willful sin can still maintain a relationship with Him.

Continuing Reflections on the Minor Prophets

Obadiah – In this short book of 21 verses, the prophet rebukes Edom for her sin against Israel, promising: “For the violence done to thy brother Jacob shame shall cover thee, and thou shalt be cut off for ever (olam).”[271] This is the only possible reference to the eternal that I can find.

Jonah – God’s prophet sent to warn Nineveh of Judgment, makes no mention of the eternal destiny of people. In seeking to understand the message of Jonah a Jewish commentary notes: “If Jonah is to be rid of the notion that divine compassion expresses weakness of mind and softness of heart, he must experience the Lord’s heavy hand directed against himself. He must realize that the God who shows clemency to malefactors makes no concession to His prophet – who pretends to know better than his God how the world should be conducted… Only when the proponent of strict justice realizes his own humanity can he understand the fundamental dependence of mortals on human and divine mercy.”[272] Note that Dr. Simon does not know how to reconcile God’s justice with His mercy; he does not see the solution to this dilemma in God’s wrath against His Son so that He can be both just and merciful.

God’s commitment to the nation of Israel does not necessitate the death of Christ, for the institution does not need propitiation. Dr. Simon assumes God’s commitment to individuals in the OT – i.e., God promises the individual eternal salvation – and thus he faces the dilemma of how God can be both “just and the Justifier.”[273]

Micah – a contemporary of Isaiah, Micah prophesied in Judah. He is quoted in the Gospels: “But thou, Beth-lehem Ephrathah, which art little to be among the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall one come forth unto Me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from ancient days (olam).”[274] Here you have Messiah with a possible eternal past, but no reference to the future. Micah uses olam in reference to the temporal, as illustrated by: “The women of My people ye cast out from their pleasant houses; from their young children ye take away My glory for ever (olam).”[275] Thus, it is hard to determine what God has in mind when He promises: “For let all the peoples walk each one in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the LORD our God for ever (olam)[276] and ever (ad).”[277] It seems certain that He has in mind His Messianic Kingdom when He promises: “In that day, saith the LORD, will I assemble her that halteth, and I will gather her that is driven away, and her that I have afflicted; 7 And I will make her that halted a remnant, and her that was cast far off a mighty nation; and the LORD shall reign over them in mount Zion from thenceforth even for ever (olam).”[278] So too, He seems to have in mind the nation of Israel when He says, “Who is a God like unto Thee, that pardoneth the iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He retaineth not His anger for ever (ad), because He delighteth in mercy. He will again have compassion upon us; He will subdue our iniquities; and Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. Thou wilt show faithfulness to Jacob, mercy to Abraham, as Thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old.”[279] I can find no promise of eternal salvation made to the individual.

Nahum – Jonah brought to Nineveh a message of repentance; Nahum prophesied God’s Judgment on Nineveh. I could find no reference to the eternal in this short book.

Habakkuk – God raised up Babylon to bring God’s judgment upon Judah. Habakkuk acknowledges Judah’s sin, but complains that Babylon is worse. How can a just God use Babylon to bring judgment on God’s people? Habakkuk ends in a note of hope, but not a hope rooted in the eternal.

Zephaniah – The prophet calls upon the people to return to the Lord. God looks for “righteousness and humility,”[280] the two key ingredients necessary to please Him. “In that day shalt thou not be ashamed for all thy doings, wherein thou hast transgressed against Me; for then I will take away out of the midst of thee thy proudly exulting ones, and thou shalt no more be haughty in My holy mountain. And I will leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall take refuge in the name of the LORD. The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies, neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth; for they shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid.”[281] God promises that the restored nation shall be righteous because He will remove all proud, unrighteous people. The nation is righteous, not because God imputes righteousness to the individual, but because He removes unrighteous people. Apart from this blending of the temporal and eternal in the restored nation, I find no reference to the eternal, and no individual, eternal hope.

Haggai – a post-exilic prophet, called by God to motivate the people to rebuild the temple. In rebuking the nation for their neglect, Haggai makes a direct connection between obedience and temporal prosperity: “Ye have sown much, and brought in little, ye eat, but ye have not enough, ye drink, but ye are not filled with drink, ye clothe you, but there is none warm; and he that earneth wages earneth wages for a bag with holes.”[282] This sorry condition can only be rectified by obeying God and rebuilding His Temple. Mysteriously, he closes his prophecy with the promise that sometime in the future God will bring judgment to “the heavens and the earth.”[283]

Zechariah – Many Messianic passages fill the pages of this prophecy. He clearly has in mind the fulfillment of God’s promise to the nation when he says: “For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, but the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when He fighteth in the day of battle. And His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleft in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, so that there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south… And the LORD shall be King over all the earth; in that day shall the LORD be One, and His name one… And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations that came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles.”[284] Zechariah doesn’t discuss the eternal dimension of this kingdom, nor does he offer an eternal hope to the individual.

By way of application, God says, “And it came to pass that, as He called, and they would not hear; so they shall call, and I will not hear, said the LORD of hosts.”[285] When God speaks to us and we neglect His word, He says he will ignore us when we find the need to call for Him. You cannot expect God to come to you in the hour of your need if you fail to respond properly to Him when He speaks.

Malachi – The last of the prophets to the restored remnant after the Babylonian Captivity, Malachi contrasts the love of God with the sins of the people, and warns of the coming Day of the Lord: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the LORD.”[286] I could find no reference to an eternal hope offered to the individual, nor could I find an individual expressing an eternal hope.

Conclusion

Faith in a future life plays so important a part in our religion that we are surprised to find it appearing with so little explicitness in the religious thoughts of the Old Testament saints. When we ask why this lack of emphasis on the afterlife exists in the Old Testament, our answer will reflect our understanding of the purpose of the Bible. Our answer cannot be based on the supposition that the ancients did not think of it: death and immortality occupied a prominent and engrossing place in the minds of other nations, such as the Egyptians.

Davidson argues, “In the present day we are more inclined to conclude that the methods pursued by revelation were simple, and, if we can say so, natural; that is, that its great object was to enable men in each age practically to live unto God, and that at all times it gave them light sufficient for this; but that on other subjects it left them very much with the ideas which they had.”[287] It may be that God left the Old Testament saints with their own ideas of eternity, shaped by their culture, much like He leaves the New Testament saints to conclude for themselves how the Sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man blend.

Genesis records God’s dealing with individuals, not the nation of Israel. Yet, in this first book of the Bible, God records no eternal hope on the part of His people, with the possible exception of Enoch.

I prefer to believe that God’s purpose in revealing Himself, first to individuals, then to Israel, and finally to the world, was to demonstrate the futility and stupidity of rebelling against Him. As already noted, God’s commitment to Israel arguably demonstrates His grace more clearly than any other method. His purpose, therefore, resides not so much in our best interest, but rather His own; through creation and revelation He glorifies Himself.

This will close the first major section of this study: exploring the presence of an eternal hope in the Old Testament literature. Next, we will look at the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. The former was written between the closing of the Old Testament and the beginning of the New Testament. We are less certain regarding when the Pseudepigrapha was written; much of it paralleled the writings of the New Testament, and some of it may have followed. I hope it will prove to be as interesting a study for you as it was for me.

Grateful for our eternal hope,

January, 2006

Part Seventeen

Introduction

Man’s quest for immortality appears opaquely in the Old Testament. For example, we read in 2Samuel 18:18: “Now Absalom in his life-time had taken and reared up for himself the pillar, which is in the king’s dale; for he said: ‘I have no son to keep my name in remembrance’; and he called the pillar after his own name; and it is called Absalom’s monument unto this day.” Evidently, Absalom reached for immortality via this pillar. It may be that the levirate[288] marriage functioned in the same capacity: Deuteronomy 25:5-10 sets forth the procedure by which the brother of the deceased is obligated to perpetuate the name of his brother, “that his name may not be blotted out in Israel.”

James reminds us in James 4:14: “Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” If a man understands that his life is short, and if he does not have a strong eternal hope, he will seek to immortalize himself here on earth –through great deeds or possibly via some kind of memorial in his name. Solomon said, “He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). The word “world” (olam in Hebrew), means “eternity.” Man has an inner voice telling him that if he doesn’t live forever, he ought to. The skeptic can argue that it is cultural, and seek to drum it out of his life, but that inner voice will not be quieted. Thus, men with sons and grandsons long to perpetuate the family name. Kings and leaders of industry seek to establish their dynasties. Even those who profess faith in Christ, and who ought to know better, find themselves preoccupied with their legacies. The only thing that will quiet that inner voice is an eternal hope. Because the follower of Christ hopes in the promises of God, he does not seek to create or build anything; his sole preoccupation is being the obedient follower of Christ. Why invest his energies in the temporal when God offers him immortality, which is not only infinitely better, but also where God wants him to direct it?

The Apocrypha

The word Apocrypha[289] originally meant “esoteric, hidden, concealed,” and pertained to literature meant to be understood only by the initiated and capable of being understood by no others. Later, the term came to connote “spurious.” Many of the Patristics used the term with this negative connotation. The Christian Bible is not a work of literature the understanding of which is limited to the initiated or select few.

The Apocrypha came to be known as a collection of religious writings written mostly during the years between the close of the Old Testament canon (Malachi) and the beginning of the New Testament. A list of the books in the order in which they occur in many Bibles: 1 Esdras, 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, The Rest of Esther, The wisdom of Solomon, Ecclessiasticus (also called Sirach), Baruch (with the Epistle of Jeremiah), The Song of the Three Holy Children, The History of Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, The Prayer of Manasses, and 1 & 2 Maccabees. “Uncertain as may be the dates of individual books, few, if any, can be thrown farther back than the beginning of the third century B.C. The latest, the 2nd Book of Esdras, is probably not later than 30 B.C…”[290]

We find an absence of the prophetic element in the Apocrypha; no one speaks because the word of the Lord came to him. “…the rhetorical narrative of the Exodus in Wisd. xvi-xix indicates the existence of a traditional, half-legendary history side by side with the canonical. It would seem, indeed, as if the life of Moses had appeared with many different embellishments. The form in which that life appears in Josephus, the facts mentioned in St. Stephen’s speech and not found in the Pentateuch, the allusions to Jannes and Jambres (2 Tim. Iii, 8), to the disputes between Michael and the devil (Jude 9), to the ‘rock that followed” the Israelites (1Cor x, 4), all bear testimony to the wide-spread popularity of this semi-apocryphal history.”[291]

The Church Fathers (Patristics) differed among themselves regarding what to do with the Apocrypha. For example, Irenaeus argued that they had no place in The Christian canon, while Clement of Alexandria recognized 2 Esdras as fully canonical. In the eastern and western churches the books of the Apocrypha formed an integral part of the canon. The Reformers included the Apocrypha in their translations of Scripture, but considered them non-canonical. By a national synod held at Jamnia in 90 A.D., the Old Testament canon was, for all practical purposes, closed. Probably the fact that the Apocrypha is absent from the Hebrew canon influenced the Reformers in their decision.[292]

In this study, I will look at the Apocrypha in the order used by Charles.[293]

Reflections on the Historical Books – 1 Esdras though 3 Maccabees

1 Esdras – The book covers the time from Josiah, King of Judah to the time of Ezra and his dealing with mixed marriages after the captivity. I found no reference to an eternal hope or the thought that Heaven is where people go after death.

1 Maccabees – deals with the High Priest Mattathias and his sons as they perpetually fight the descendents of Alexander the Great to keep their country free. Filled with intrigue, betrayal, and continuous war, the book records the hopeless struggle waged against Israel’s enemies. I can find no reference to the eternal or any hope of an afterlife.

2 Maccabees – This is not a sequel to 1 Maccabees, but rather a second book dealing with the Maccabean struggle. It chronicles the heroic deeds of Judas Maccabaeus, the death of Antiochus, and the two festivals of the Hanukka and Nicanor’s day. I have gleaned from the book the following pertaining to the after-life: We are told of the godly Eleazar refusing his eat swine, suggesting it was better to be “dispatched to Hades (Sheol) at once”[294] rather than disobey God.

Dealing with the martyrdom of the seven brothers, we find: “You accursed wretch, you dismiss us from this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life, because we have died for his laws.”[295] As one of the brothers surrendered his body he says, “I got these from Heaven, and because of his laws I disdain them, and from him I hope to get them back again.”[296] And when he was near death, he said, “One cannot but choose to die at the hands of men and to cherish the hope that God gives of being raised again by him. But for you there will be no resurrection to life!”[297] Their mother seems to reference the resurrection when she encourages her sons to be martyrs: “I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in order the elements within each of you. Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of man and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws.”[298] Again, the mother admonishes her sons: “Do not fear this butcher, but prove worthy of your brothers. Accept death, so that in God’s mercy I may get you back again with your brothers.”[299] Interestingly, each of the brothers, as they face death, testify that they are dying for their own sins. No thought is given to the idea that the righteous suffer unjustly, or in defense of the truth.

The author says of Judas Maccabees: “He also took up a collection, man by man, to the amount of two thousand drachmas of silver, and sent it to Jerusalem to provide for a sin offering. In doing this he acted very well and honorably, taking account of the resurrection. For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead. But if he was looking to the splendid reward that is laid up for those who fall asleep in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Therefore he made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin.”[300] In these short verses we find the justification for the Roman Church’s teaching that God’s people should pray for the dead, and that indulgences free souls from purgatory.

3 Maccabees – This book takes place in the reign of Ptolemy IV[301] in 217 B.C., and narrates the pagan kings attempt to enter the Temple in Jerusalem. Defeated, Ptolemy wreaks vengeance on the Jews of Alexandria, Egypt, by allowing drunken elephants to trample them to death in the Hippodrome. An angel visits the king; he repents, and becomes a patron of the Jews. I could find no reference to a Messianic hope, apocalyptic ideas, or life after death.

Reflections on Quasi-Historical Books Written with a Moral Purpose

Tobit – a book of 14 chapters deals with an exiled family from Israel living in Assyria. The plot line has his son Tobias going to another part of the realm – led by the angel Raphael – where he obtains his father’s inheritance and a wife (Sarah) from his kin.

Tobit 4:17 notes, “Pour out your bread and wine on the tomb of the just, and give not to sinners.” As seen in our study of the Old Testament, Sheol was, for both saints and sinners, the abode of the dead. Evidently the ancients believed that the living could assist the spirits of the dead, and I can find nothing in the Old Testament prohibiting this practice. Regarding their tithe, in Deuteronomy 26:14 people had to vow before God: “I have not deposited any of it with the dead.”

I found traces of the supernatural (even fantastic), but no mention of an eternal hope or resurrection from the dead.

Judith – contains 16 chapters dealing with the wrath of Nebuchadnezzar toward the nations along the Mediterranean Sea who did not respond to his call to help him with one of his wars. He sends Holofernes his general, offering mercy to those who acknowledge their wrong and confess Nebuchadnezzar as their god. Israel, of course, refuses, and the army of Holofernes is arrayed against her. Judith, a godly widow from Bethulia, deceives her way into the company of Holofernes, beguiles him with her beauty, and when unsuspecting, cuts off his head. The army panics and Israel slaughters them. Judith is a type of Deborah the Judge. I found one reference to hell: “Woe to the nations that rise up against my kindred: The Lord Almighty will take vengeance of them in the Day of Judgment. By putting fire and worms in their flesh, and they shall be weak and feel their pain forever.”[302] Charles dates this work about 50 BC.

Conclusion

All people are motivated by their hope; no other motivation can influence us like hope. Hope defines our sense of well being, how we perceive success, what constitutes security, as well as our expectations. We can allow it to move us in a course of action without taking time to evaluate its validity. The line between faith and greed is real but invisible. We can easily cross it without giving serious thought to what we are doing.

If a man makes himself truly accountable to a band of brothers “who watch for his soul as they that must give account,”[303] he will find them calling into question proposed courses of action that appear valid, simply because he is motivated by his hope. Objectivity from an outside source can bring moral clarity to decisions that otherwise appear ambiguous.

As people of God, we must constantly call into question the object of our hope to ensure that it does not slip from a legitimate to an illegitimate hope. Jesus prayed for His disciples, “I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.”[304] Keeping guard of our hope is essential if we wish to remain in the world and not become part of it.

Yours for a legitimate hope,

March, 2006

Part Eighteen

Introduction

From the last half of the first century (BC) forward, an expectation of the imminent coming of Messiah finds expression in most of the Apocraphal writings. Although any answer to why this happened is conjecture, it seems most probable that the Jews read and followed the chronology of Daniel’s seventy weeks: “Seventy weeks are decreed upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sin, and to forgive iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal vision and prophet, and to anoint the most holy place. Know therefore and discern, that from the going forth of the word to restore and to build Jerusalem unto one anointed, a prince, shall be seven weeks; and for threescore and two weeks, it shall be built again, with broad place and moat, but in troublous times. And after the threescore and two weeks shall an anointed one be cut off, and be no more; and the people of a prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; but his end shall be with a flood; and unto the end of the war desolations are determined. And he shall make a firm covenant with many for one week; and for half of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the offering to cease; and upon the wing of detestable things shall be that which causeth appalment; and that until the extermination wholly determined be poured out upon that which causeth appalment.”[305] Daniel divides the seventy weeks of years into three sections: First, seven – equaling 49 years; Second, sixty-two – equaling 434 years; Third, one – equaling 7 years. During this last period “the wing of detestable things shall be that which causeth appalment.” Jesus tells us this takes place prior to His return,[306] and John talks about Daniel’s seventieth week in Revelation[307] where he refers to two three and a half year periods. Thus, although the Jews may not have known how to calculate exactly when the first two periods ended, they knew that they were living in the time of its fulfillment.

Reflections on the Wisdom Literature

Sirach – also called Ben-Sira’s Book of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus – has 51 chapters. Fashioned after Proverbs it covers the full range of Wisdom Literature, seeking to address general questions of life. It was probably written sometime during 200 – 175 B.C. The author seems to follow the Psalms in viewing death as the end, not the beginning of eternal life. “Give, and take, and indulge yourself, because in Hades one cannot look for luxury… Every work decays and ceases to exist, and the one who made it will pass away with it.”[308] Although a person has no hope beyond the grave, he may be concerned about the perpetuation of his name: “He will find gladness and a crown of rejoicing, and will inherit an everlasting name.”[309]

“A gift is acceptable in the sight of every man living, and also from the dead withhold not kindness.”[310] As noted in Tobit 4:17, Old Testament believers thought that the living could assist the spirits of the dead (cf. also Deuteronomy 26:14).

“Who will sing praises to the Most High in Hades in place of the living who give thanks? From the dead, as from one who does not exist, thanksgiving has ceased; those who are alive and well sing the Lord’s praises.”[311] “The thought is that God’s delight is in those who live and can therefore praise Him, not in those who go down to Hades and are cut off from communion with Him; the teaching here coincides with the normal teaching of the O.T., that God’s interest in man is restricted to this world”[312] If God does not judge the sinner when he arrives in Sheol, then there can be no relationship between how a person behaves in this life and the consequences of that behavior in the future life.

“The days of a person’s life are numbered, but the days of Israel are without number. One who is wise among his people will inherit honor, and his name will live forever.”[313] “These verses give interesting expression to one ancient view of immortality. A man’s memory might live on in honor in the life of his people. The nation could be regarded as immortal. There is no hint of a survival of the personality of the individual (c. 2 Macc. 14:15).”[314]

“This is the Lord’s decree for all flesh; why then should you reject the will of the Most High? Whether life lasts for ten years or a hundred or a thousand, there are no questions asked in Hades.”[315] “Since in Sheol it will be found that the same fate has overtaken all men, it will be immaterial whether one man lived longer on earth than another; men will not quarrel about that.”[316] In essence, Solomon says the same thing: “Yea, though he live a thousand years twice told, and enjoy no good; do not all go to one place?”[317]

“Enoch pleased the Lord and was taken up, an example of repentance to all generations.”[318] Jewish commentary on this passage, combined with their commentary on Genesis 5:24, argued that Enoch in fact was not translated without dying. “In the Targum of Pseudo-Jonathan (on Genesis 5:24) he…is represented as a pious worshipper of the true God, who was translated to heaven and received the names and offices of metatron and ‘great scribe.’ This doubtless was made possible after controversy with Christians had ceased”[319] Note that Charles argues that When Christianity embraced the belief in the resurrection from the dead, the Jews, in reaction to Christianity, rejected the resurrection.

“May their bones send forth new life from where they lie, and may the names of those who have been honored live again in their children… May the bones of the Twelve Prophets send forth new life from where they lie, for they comforted the people of Jacob and delivered them with confident hope.”[320] “There is, of course, no reference to a resurrection here. The word means literally ‘to send out shoots’; here it has, no doubt, a metaphorical meaning such as, ‘May their memory flourish,’ or the like; but originally the idea of the bones ‘sprouting’ must be graves, which suggests the idea of causing something to grow. Among the Arabs one of the usual prayers for the dead was that Heaven might send rain upon their graves”[321]

He tells us of the inadequacy of sacrifices: “The Most High is not pleased with the offerings of the ungodly, nor for a multitude of sacrifices does he forgive sins.”[322] The sacrificial system was designed for those who keep the Law: “The one who keeps the law makes many offerings; one who heeds the commandments makes an offering of well-being.”[323]

The writer believes in the Law of the Harvest, but only in the temporal: “The sinner will not escape with plunder, and the patience of the godly will not be frustrated. He makes room for every act of mercy; everyone receives in accordance with his or her deeds.”[324]

Book of Wisdom – otherwise know as The Wisdom of Solomon. Although Jewish, the author was influenced by Greek philosophy. The first section deals with eschatology; “it would be difficult to find five other chapters in the OT Scriptures with so much departure from traditional views.”[325] Other sections in the book deal with “wisdom” and an historical retrospect of Israel in the Torah. The authorship of the book is unknown and was probably written after 50 B.C. The editor calls attention to “And I will bring clad in shining light those who have loved my holy name, and I will seat each on the throne of his honor”[326] as a cross reference for the eschatology found in the first section of this book.

Although he makes no mention of Messiah, the author does talk about what appears to be the Messianic kingdom: “Do not invite death by the error of your life, nor bring on destruction by the works of your hands; because God did not make death,

and he does not delight in the death of the living. For he created all things that they might exist, and the generative forces of the world are wholesome, and there is no destructive poison in them; and the dominion of Hades is not on earth. For righteousness is immortal.”[327]

The opinions here put into the mouth of the godless were probably borrowed from Ecclesiastes. Note the purposelessness and futility of life: “For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves, ‘Short and sorrowful is our life, and there is no remedy when a man comes to his end, and no one has been known to return from Hades. Because we were born by mere chance, and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been; because the breath in our nostrils is smoke, and reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts. When it is extinguished, the body will turn to ashes, and the spirit will dissolve like empty air. Our name will be forgotten in time and no one will remember our works; our life will pass away like the traces of a cloud, and be scattered like mist that is chased by the rays of the sun and overcome by its heat. For our allotted time is the passing of a shadow, and there is no return from our death, because it is sealed up and no one turns back.”[328] The same sentiments are put into the mouth of the ungodly in 1 Enoch 102:6-8.

The injustices of this life are compensated by the hope of immortality: “For though in the sight of men they were punished, their hope is full of immortality. Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good, because God tested them and found them worthy of himself; like gold in the furnace he tried them, and like a sacrificial burnt offering he accepted them. In the time of their visitation they will shine forth, and will run like sparks through the stubble. They will govern nations and rule over peoples, and the Lord will reign over them for ever.”[329] The writer seems to make a reference to the Enoch of Genesis 5:22-24: “There was one who pleased God and was loved by him, and while living among sinners he was taken up.”[330]

The author calls attention to an eternal hope, one of the many benefits found in having “wisdom:” “But the righteous live for ever, and their reward is with the Lord; the Most High takes care of them. Therefore they will receive a glorious crown and a beautiful diadem from the hand of the Lord, because with his right hand he will cover them, and with his arm he will shield them… Because of her I shall have immortality, and leave an everlasting remembrance to those who come after me.” [331]

As for the ungodly, they will die without hope, subject to pain, and aware of what they missed in being unrighteous: “The unrighteous will see, and will have contempt for them, but the Lord will laugh them to scorn. After this they will become dishonored corpses, and an outrage among the dead forever; because he will dash them speechless to the ground, and shake them from the foundations; they will be left utterly dry and barren, and they will suffer anguish, and the memory of them will perish…Then the righteous will stand with great confidence in the presence of those who have oppressed them and those who make light of their labors. When the unrighteous see them, they will be shaken with dreadful fear, and they will be amazed at the unexpected salvation of the righteous.”[332]

Grateful for our eternal hope,

July, 2006

Part Ninteen

Introduction

Charles notes that four of the books of the Apocrypha flow from Alexandrian Judaism. “The literary representatives of this phase of Judaism are the Book of Wisdom, the writings of Philo, the Book of the Secrets of Enoch, and 4 Maccabees. All these works are more or less leavened by Greek philosophy. But their writers, however saturated with Greek ideas, remain essentially Jews… The chief fundamental doctrines of Alexandrian Judaism as distinct from Palestinean, are three: (i) The eternity of matter, and its essentially evil nature. From this philosophical dogma it at once follows that there can be no resurrection of the flesh… (ii) In the next place, the doctrine of the soul’s pre-existence is taught, not, however, as it appears in the Platonic philosophy, but in such a way as to be consistent with monotheism… (iii) Souls enter immediately after death on their final award, whether of blessedness or torment.”[333] As we will note later in this series, the Secrets of Enoch is designated 2 Enoch in contradistinction to the older book of Enoch which is designated as 1 Enoch.

Reflection on “Additions to and Completions of the Canonical Books”

1 Baruch – Attributed to the secretary of Jeremiah, Whitehouse concludes that it was probably composed about 78 A.D.[334] “As will be shown in the sequel the tragic events of 597 B.C., which heralded the exile, constitute a thin historic drapery which invest the yet greater tragedy of the Jewish race in A.D. 70. It is now generally accepted by recent critics that Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar represent the persons of Vespasian and Titus… The influence of the book on ecclesiastical Christian literature has been far greater than upon the Jewish.”[335] The early Church Fathers assumed Baruch wrote the book during the time of Jeremiah the prophet. Messianic, apocalyptic, and eschatological ideas are conspicuously absent from the book.

This book of five chapters begins by calling on the exiles in Babylon to send money for an offering to the Temple in Jerusalem, praying for the King of Babylon – that peace may come to Israel. Then Baruch prays for the sins of the nation and finishes giving hope to Israel – much like Isaiah 40-66.

The last two chapters deal with the fulfillment of Israel’s hope. The author reminds the people, “It was not for destruction that you were sold to the nations, but you were handed over to your enemies because you angered God.”[336] God’s anger will not last indefinitely, “For he who brought these calamities upon you will deliver you from the hand of your enemies… My children, endure with patience the wrath that has come upon you from God. Your enemy has overtaken you, but you will soon see their destruction and will tread upon their necks… For he who brought these calamities upon you will bring you everlasting joy with your salvation… Wretched will be the cities which your children served as slaves; wretched will be the city which received your sons. For just as she rejoiced at your fall and was glad for your ruin, so she will be grieved at her own desolation. And I will take away her pride in her great population, and her insolence will be turned to grief. For fire will come upon her from the Everlasting for many days, and for a long time she will be inhabited by demons… Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height and look toward the east, and see your children gathered from west and east, at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing that God has remembered them. For they went forth from you on foot, led away by their enemies; but God will bring them back to you, carried in glory, as on a royal throne. For God has ordered that every high mountain and the everlasting hills be made low and the valleys filled up, to make level ground, so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God. The woods and every fragrant tree have shaded Israel at God’s command. For God will lead Israel with joy, in the light of his glory, with the mercy and righteousness that come from him.”[337] I could find nothing in Baruch of an eternal hope.

Charles identifies two other books by Baruch, but places them in the Pseudepigrapha because they are apocalyptic in nature.

The Epistle of Jeremy – “It is nowhere stated in the body of the letter that Jeremiah wrote it.” One chapter of 73 verses, it is a polemic against idolatry of Babylon. “Not Babylon in its glory, but Babylon in its decay … as Alexander saw it, crumbling slowly away, yet still, in its ruined majesty, preserving enough of its ancient splendor to induce the conqueror of the world to choose it for his future capital and seat of empire.” Jeremy says, ‘So when ye be come unto Babylon, ye shall remain there many years, and for a long season, even for seven generations: and after that I will bring you out peaceably from thence’ (v. 3). Seven generations, allowing forty years to the generation according to OT reckoning, would cover 280 years. If we count from the exile of Jechonias (597 B.C.), this brings us to the year 317 B.C., or counting (as the author may have done) from 586 B.C., the year of the final Captivity, we arrive at 306 B.C., some thirty years after the arrival of Alexander in Babylon.”[338] If Ball is correct, the letter was written about 306 B.C.

I can find no reference to the eternal or an eternal hope in the letter. “Whether it be evil that one doeth unto them, or good, they are not able to recompense it.”[339] This verse refers to the idol’s inability to hold people accountable for their deeds.

Prayer of Manasses – A short penitential Psalm written in Greek, it divides into three parts: vv. 1-7 – An invocation of the Deity, vv. 8-10 – a confession of sin, vv. 11-15 – an entreaty for forgiveness. Evidently the writer draws from the story of the Old Testament King from Judah, Manasses: “Wherefore the LORD brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh with hooks, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon. And when he was in distress, he besought the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. And he prayed unto Him; and He was entreated of him, and heard his supplication, and brought him back to Jerusalem into his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the LORD He was God… Now the rest of the acts of Manasseh, and his prayer unto his God, and the words of the seers that spoke to him in the name of the LORD, the God of Israel, behold, they are written among the acts of the kings of Israel. His prayer also, and how God was entreated of him, and all his sin and his transgression, and the places wherein he built high places, and set up the Asherim and the graven images, before he humbled himself; behold, they are written in the history of the seers.”[340]

“The record of his idolatry and of his persecution of the servants of Jehovah had stamped his name with infamy in the annals of Judah. But side by side with his wickedness were commemorated the unusual length of the king’s reign and the quiet peacefulness of his end… Henceforth his name was associated by Jewish tradition not only with the grossest acts of idolatry ever perpetrated by a king of Judah, but also with the most famous instance of Divine forgiveness towards a repentant sinner.”[341]

In Manasses’ prayer, he said, “Therefore thou, O Lord, God of the righteous, hast not appointed repentance for the righteous, for Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, who did not sin against thee, but thou hast appointed repentance for me, who am a sinner.” [342] Evidently, God appoints repentance for some and not for others. In this prayer I find no reference to an eternal hope.

Reflections on Additions to Daniel

The Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Children – Sometimes known as the “First Addition” to the canonical Book of Daniel, it contains 68 verses divided into four parts: vv. 1-2 – introduction, vv. 3-22 – the prayer of Azariah, one of the ‘Three Children’ thrown into the fiery furnace, vv. 23-27 – the heating of the furnace and the salvation of the children by an angel of the Lord, vv. 28-68 – Song of Praise of the three children. Bennett places its composition in the first century, B.C.[343]

I found no reference to the eternal or an eternal hope.

Susanna – Consists of one chapter of 64 verses. “Two elders are made judges in a Jewish community. One evening they see a Jewess walking in her husband’s garden, and both become enamored of her. Next morning they detect each other near the garden, acknowledge to each other their passion, agree to accost the woman, and are repulsed with scorn. To protect themselves they must accuse the woman; they betake themselves to the synagogue of the city and issue a summons to Susanna. She appears with her household, and is ordered to be unveiled. The elders appear as witnesses before the assembled people. They aver that while they were walking in her husband’s garden, they detected the woman in company with a youth who escaped. Being arrested she refused to tell who her paramour was. The official standing of the elders leads the whole synagogue to believe the evidence and to condemn Susanna.

“On her way to execution, a youth (Daniel) questions the verdict, reopens the trial, and examines the two elders separately. The one says the crime took place under a mastick tree; the other says under a holm tree. The contradiction condemns both. The synagogue applauds the young man because he had proved them to be false witnesses. ‘And as the Law prescribes, they did unto them as they had wickedly devised against their sister.’ The elders are gagged, cast into a ravine, and destroyed by fire from heaven.

“The story of Susanna is a parable intended to illustrates the value and necessity of cross-examination of witnesses. It also seeks to vindicate the execution of false witnesses, although their victim may be delivered before his sentence was carried out. The story is a product of the Pharisaic controversy with the Sadducees in the later years of Alexander Jannaeus, c. 95-80 B.C.”[344] I found no reference to the eternal.

Bel and the Dragon – This book contains one chapter of 42 verses, giving us two stories of Daniel’s experience with the Dragon in Babylon: vv. 1-22 and vv. 23-42. In the first, Daniel contests the belief that the idol eats the food set before him. When challenged, Daniel has the king place the food before the idol and lock the temple. Surreptitiously, Daniel sprinkles ash on the floor. The next day they find the food gone, but the footprints lead to a secret door of the priests. Thus, the plot is exposed and the priests are killed. In the second story, because Daniel refuses to worship the idol, he is cast into a den of lions. Habakkuk, sent by God, feeds Daniel. When the king finds Daniel alive, he worships God and casts Daniel’s adversaries into the lion’s den.

“Bel and the Dragon forms the third of the Apocryphal Additions to Daniel… The other two Additions are the Song of the Three Children and Susanna. In the Greek and Latin texts the three Additions to Daniel constitute an integral part of the canonical Book of Daniel, and were recognized as such, and therefore are themselves canonical, by the Council of Trent… The meaning of the word ‘dragon’ denotes originally a large serpent.

“There is no allusion to any distinctively Jewish beliefs or practices. The law is not mentioned nor is the existence of a Divine revelation to man implied. The tract is silent as to sacrifice and temple, and even as regards priesthood.”[345] I could find no reference to the eternal or an eternal hope.

Conclusion

We need to explore one more book from the Apocrypha. Because we are out of space, we will look at it in the next issue.

In Christ,

November, 2006

Part Twenty

In this issue we will finish the Apocrypha and start our study of the Pseudepigrapha. The closer we move to the New Testament, the more prevalent the references to an eternal hope, and the more elaborate and detailed the understanding.

Reflection on The Additions to Esther

The Additions are six in number (A-F), totaling 107 verses. Although not found in the Hebrew text, they were inserted in the LXX[346] as of amplification of the book of Esther. Many differences exist between the ‘Additions’ and the book of Esther: God is mentioned in the former and not the latter, and the former is contradicted by the latter in several places, such as the king decreeing that the feast of Purim be kept by all the people and not just the Jews.

The six parts are as follows: A – A dream of Mordecai followed by his discovery of the plot two eunuchs have to kill the king. B – The letter of Artaxerxes exalting Haman. C – Mordecai’s prayer to God followed by Esther’s prayer. D – Esther appears before the king, and it looks as though he will not accept her. E. – Artaxerxes letter/decree countering the letter in section ‘B’. F – The interpretation of Mordecai’s dream. Gregg feels that we cannot date the work more closely than sometime between 125 B.C. and 90 A.D. [347]

“There is no mention of the Law or of a future life; the temple and the altar are only mentioned metaphorically (D 20). There is one reference to angels (D 13).”[348] I can find no mention of the eternal or an eternal hope.

Introduction to the Pseudepigrapha

The Pseudepigrapha (false writings) differ from the Apocrypha in two important ways: First, they are called “Pseudepigrapha” because the authors are all pseudonymous (false names), having borrowed the names of their books from famous Old Testament characters, ostensibly to give them added authority. Second, they are apocalyptic in nature, dealing with the end times. For the most part, the Apocrypha is not apocalyptic. In the New Testament, the only apocalyptic book is The Apocalypse of John, otherwise known as Revelation.

Apocalyptic writers were similar to the Old Testament prophets, in that both predicted the future and referenced the coming Messiah. They differed in that the prophets were primarily preachers of righteousness, using promised judgment as both a threat lest the people fail to repent, and as authentication of the prophet’s calling. For the apocalyptist, a call to righteousness was not his goal; he sought to spell out the events surrounding the time when God will bring to an end the world system.

R.H. Charles[349], in his introduction to the Pseudepigrapha, says, “The apocalyptic and legalistic sides of pre-Christian Pharisaism – starting originally from the same source – developed into Christianity and Talmudic Judaism.” During the inter-testamentary period, there was no distinction between these two strains of Judaism. “To all Jewish apocalyptic writers, the Law was of eternal validity, but they also clung fast to the validity of the prophetic teaching as the source of new truth ….Jewish scholars in the past, and to a considerable extent in the present, have denied to apocalyptic[350] its place in the faith of pre-Christian orthodox Judaism.” Charles notes that this denial appears irrational, in that both Judaism and Christianity have always been indebted to this prophetic/apocalyptic emphasis in Scripture.

When Christianity embraced this apocalyptic emphasis, as seen in various passages throughout the New Testament and especially in Revelation, Judaism abandoned the apocalyptic and majored on the Law. Charles argues that this was due to a Jewish desire to pull away from anything remotely Christian. “The Judaism that survived the destruction of the Temple, being almost wholly bereft of the apocalyptic wing which had passed over into Christianity, was not the same as the Judaism of an earlier date. Before A.D. 70 Judaism was a Church with many parties: after A.D. 70 the…party (emphasizing the Law) succeeded in suppressing its rivals, and so Judaism became in its essentials a Sect. In modern times Judaism is striving to recover the liberty of prophesying.

The writers of this apocalyptic literature, in order to gain acceptance with their readers, used well-known Old Testament men in the titles of their work – like The Assumption of Moses. “Jewish apocalyptic has been always pseudonymous from the third century B.C. onwards. This pseudonymity due to the absolute supremacy of the Law …left no room for prophecy. The prophetic spirit cannot openly declare itself in Judaism save by a breach with Talmudic Judaism…in Christianity, for the first century B.C. at any rate, apocalyptic ceased to be pseudonymous, and the seer came forward in his own person.”[351] At the same time (from the third century B.C.) that Jewish apocalyptic became pseudonymous, the Law came to be understood as the final, supreme revelation of God. “When once this idea of an inspired Law – adequate, infallible, and valid for all time – had become an accepted dogma of Judaism, as it became in the post-Exilic period, there was no longer room for independent representatives of God appearing before men, such as the pre-Exilic prophets…The prophet who issued a prophecy under his own name after the time of Ezra and Nehemiah could not expect a hearing unless his prophecy had the imprimatur of the Law. Nay more, according to Zech. xiii. 1-5…if a man declared himself to be a prophet his father and his mother were to put him to death…when once the prophetic Canon was closed, no book of a prophetic character could gain canonization as such.”[352] This Canon was considered closed by 200 B.C. “Moreover, all the great Jewish apocalypses which were written before A.D. 10, and which carried on the mystical and spiritual side of religion as opposed to [emphasizing the Law], Judaism dropped and banned after its breach with Christianity, just as it dropped and banned the Greek translation of the Old Testament.”[353] From this time forward, the Law became the determining characteristic of Judaism.

A clear link can be seen between apocalyptic, accountability, and the need for hope. During tribulation, people cling to their hope in God’s deliverance, and thus they turn to apocalyptic writers. If the people did not believe in a future judgment when God will apply the scales of justice to the affairs of man, they would despair and fall away. For this reason, apocalyptic literature has always been ethical in nature; future judgment ensures accountability for present behavior. “Prophecy has always been recognized as the greatest ethical force in the ancient world…The ethical element is the fundamental element in the chief books of this literature. What else but an inexpugnable sense of truth and duty to truth inspire the refusal of the three children in Daniel to fall down and worship the image that the king had set up?”[354] This link between apocalyptic, accountability, and the need for hope exists on the individual rather than the national level. In the Old Testament prophetic writings, God promises repeatedly a future restoration for the nation. In the Pseudepigrapha we find expressed an eternal hope for the individual who remains faithful in his walk with God.

God’s promise to Israel that He would send Messiah was linked to a material recreation of the world[355] where He would rule the nations in righteousness and justice. As Jewish eschatology evolved to a belief in a personal immortality and the resurrection of the body, especially in the first century BC, this world came to be regarded as unfit for the manifestation of His kingdom. It wasn’t until the coming of Christ and the teaching of the New Testament that the synthesis of these conflicting ideas was fused together.

Addressing the extra-biblical writings of the first century AD, Charles adds, “Thus the breach which had set in between the eschatologies of the individual and of the nation in the preceding century has been still further widened in this century, and the differences in the two eschatologies developed to their utmost limits. Either the nation has no blessed future at all, or at best only one of temporary duration. With this the individual has no essential concern. His interest centers round his own lot in the after-life. Thus Judaism has surrendered in despair the thought of the divine kingdom, which was the bequest of the Old Testament prophets.”[356]

Conclusion

Part of the reason the eternal appears muted in the Old Testament may be due to God’s emphasis on the nation rather than the individual. Old Testament Israel is a picture of God’s grace. God shows through Israel how He deals with His elect; He may chastise and send her into captivity, but He will never forsake her. Thus, the judgment pronounced upon the nation must, by its nature, be temporal.

Grateful for Redemption,

January, 2007

Part Twenty-One

Introduction

In the last issue, we looked at how apocalyptic literature, having been born in a Jewish ethos, was rejected by its mother because of the prominent role an eternal hope played in Christendom. In this issue, we will explore more fully the dynamics that brought this to pass.

Evolution of Apocalyptic Literature and an Individual, Eternal Hope

Understanding the development of an eternal hope in the Old Testament requires a brief look at how God revealed Himself to His ancient people. Genesis 4: 26 tells us, “At that time men began to call upon the name of the LORD.” Exodus 6:2-3 says, “And God said to Moses, ‘I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them.’” In both passages, the word LORD is Yahweh. In whatever way you seek to reconcile the seeming discrepancy, you have to conclude that a continuity of revelation exited between Abraham and Moses.

To Moses God revealed Himself as One who is ethical and experiential rather than metaphysical and dogmatic, allowing for an unhampered growth of piety;[357] when Yahweh revealed Himself, He combined the Law with the promise of His perpetual presence. You find the opposite with Abraham: God did not give Abraham ethical rules, and He did not constantly abide with Abraham. God claims in Exodus 20:2, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage,” an assertion He makes repeatedly to the nation of Israel. Israel worships a God of national redemption. A God of justice and purity, He insists that Israel adhere to His expectations to the exclusion of all other allegiances. Israel exists for Yahweh, not vice versa.

“Through their living communion with God, the prophets made it known, in terms that could never be forgotten, that Yahweh pursued His own righteous purposes independently of Israel. Thus it was that Yahwism did not perish with the nation, and that true religion survived the destruction of the state. In the religion thus enfranchised from national limitations, the individual becomes the religious unit, and is brought into immediate communion with God. Thus the way is prepared for the coming of Christianity…In the parallel development initiated by Ezekiel, monotheism is a living and fruitful doctrine for Israel, but not for the nations…Such a false conception of Yahweh’s relation to the nations in due time reacted on Judaistic monotheism, and explains in large measure its subsequent barrenness.”[358]

Prior to the Babylonian Captivity, God revealed Himself primarily as One who is committed to the nation, not the individual. “…though an organic connection exists between its theology and the eschatology of the nation as a whole, this connection does not extend to the eschatology of the individual Israelite…Thus it is only in respect of the nation that Yahwism can be said to have possessed a definite eschatology till long after the return from Exile.”[359] Charles conjectures that because God committed Himself to the nation of Israel but offered no eschatological hope for the individual, the Hebrews filled in the gap by returning to their heathen belief in Ancestor Worship.

To substantiate his claim, Charles calls attention to Genesis 31:1, 35:4, and I Samuel 19:13, 16, which reference the teraphim, and which Charles says refers to the worship of ancestors. In Deuteronomy 26:14 God instructs His people to say, “I have not eaten of the tithe while I was mourning, or removed any of it while I was unclean, or offered any of it to the dead; I have obeyed the voice of the LORD my God, I have done according to all that thou hast commanded me.” God prohibiting His people offering to the dead may imply that such practices were common.

From the beginning, God revealed Himself as a God of righteousness, justice, and purity. In this, He differed from all other gods. “As a national God…He was popularly conceived as being concerned only with the well-being of the nation, and as possessing neither interest nor jurisdiction in the life of the individual beyond the grave.”[360] God evaluated the righteousness of the nation, however, by the behavior of the people. When Achan took of the spoils of Jericho God defeated the nation at the battle of Ai. “Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them. And they have even taken some of the things under the ban and have both stolen and deceived. Moreover, they have also put them among their own things.”[361] It only took the sin of one man to bring God’s retribution upon the nation. Israel could never know how many people had to sin, nor how unrighteous their behavior had to be, before God would bring judgment on the nation. Note that God did not kill Achan at the battle of Ai, something He could have easily done. Instead, He killed other soldiers to drive home the point that He holds the nation accountable for the sin of one man.

God’s covenant with the nation assured Israel that no matter how severe His judgment, His commitment to her was inviolable. When God said to Abraham, “And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God,”[362] He introduced an eternal dimension into His relationship with the nation, but not with the individual. As the early parts of this series have demonstrated, I have found no place in the Old Testament where God offers an eternal covenant of grace to an individual. Because Achan sinned, he and his family were executed. God offered no hope of salvation for the individual who willfully sinned.[363]

As noted earlier, Moses and David are the only two individuals who maintained a relationship with God after God accused them of evil. Moses struck the rock instead of speaking to it, and God said he could not enter the Promised Land.[364] Nothing in the Old Testament indicates that Moses died with an eternal hope. David committed murder and adultery[365] and God forgave him; instead of executing David, God executed David’s son. When David says, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise,”[366] he introduces a completely new idea. For the first time we learn that a flagrantly guilty person can be reconciled to God. Still, nothing in the Old Testament indicates that David died with an eternal hope. As far as I can tell, God never charged others whom Scripture indicates had a relationship with God, with violating His expectations.[367]

From the time Judah went into captivity (the ten northern tribes had disappeared after God dispersed them among the nations via the Assyrians) until the present, Israel ceased functioning as a nation ruled by God.[368] Thus, the emphasis naturally turned from the nation to the individual. By the time you reach the New Testament, you discover a fully developed individual eschatological hope evidenced by passages such as: “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,”[369] and “But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.”[370]

Sheol, as the abode of the dead, naturally conflicts with an eternal hope. From wherever Israel obtained her belief in Sheol, people came to realize that individual hope required a distinction between the destinies of the righteous and unrighteous. Yahweh’s revelation of Himself as righteous, just, and pure, combined with conscience, forced this distinction.

Conclusion

One of the marks of God’s image that man bears is a sense of justice; each person ought to reap what he sows. This life empirically demonstrates that people do not necessarily experience justice: The righteous suffer and the ungodly prosper.[371] Eternal accountability answers this question of fairness. Justice may not happen in this life, but will for sure take place in the life to come. Because of the lack of emphasis on eternal hope in the Old Testament, this question of justice remained answered.

Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28-30 contain a series of promises pertaining to this question of justice – applied to the nation rather than the individual. Two important principles of biblical religion appear in these passages: free will and accountability expressed in rewards and punishments. Thus, God affirms His justice as He deals with national Israel, while leaving un-addressed how this indispensable principle of justice applies to the individual. Eternal accountability for the individual may be assumed in the Old Testament; only in the New Testament is it explicitly taught.

In the Old Testament man acknowledges his need to repent and asks for God’s forgiveness. By the time you reach the prophets, repentance with a heart for change becomes the sine qua non for securing God’s forgiveness; man must humble himself, acknowledge his sin, purpose to make restitution, and change – as seen in passages such as: “Wash you, make you clean, put away the evil of your doings from before Mine eyes, cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”[372] In the Old Testament, as well as the New, the writers considered it unthinkable that a person can receive forgiveness from God without remorse translated into deeds.

Committed to a life of brokenness and dependence,

May 2007

Dear Co-laborer,

Part Twenty-Two

Before embarking on the next portion of our study, the Pseudepigrapha of the Intertestamentary Period, we will take two issues to look at the relationship between eternal hope and sanctification.

Introduction

From the Church’s conception to the present, Christ’s followers have agreed on what Scripture teaches regarding justification,[373] while disagreeing on what constitutes a biblical view of sanctification.[374] For example, His people unite in believing that God saved Old Testament saints because of the propitious death of Christ.[375] However, how did God sanctify the Old Testament saint? Again, God’s people find general agreement regarding Romans 1-4 (devoted to the doctrine of justification), and have never been able to agree on Paul’s teaching in Romans 5-8 (devoted to the doctrine of sanctification).

In the next two issues, we shall look more closely at the relationship between sanctification and an eternal hope, for it seems to me that the imputed sanctification[376] of believer is not only past, but also future.

The Task of Sanctification

When God told Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, He did not say that if they ate, they would know good from evil. God does not want man trying to decide, and even though he tries, he cannot make the determination. In God’s command concerning the tree we see that God tested Adam and Eve with an issue that separates that which is intrinsically evil (disobedience) from that which is intrinsically good (obedience); Adam and Eve failed the test, sought autonomy, and committed an intrinsically evil act.

You may not be able to connect the command to some aspect of God’s nature, but trying to maintain a distinction between intrinsic evil and a violation of God’s command is fallacious; you must assume one defines the other. If you endeavor to separate His commands from that which is intrinsic to His nature, you will succumb to the temptation of seeking to define good and evil (as noted in the illustration of divorce discussed later in this issue).

When God redeems a man through the propitious blood of Christ, he places before that man a choice: does he wish freedom, or would he, like the freed slave in the Old Testament, want his Master to bore a hole in his ear and make him a slave forever? In essence, God places before each individual the same choice given Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden; you must decide that you would rather be His slave than have autonomy, irrespective of whether or not you believe that being completely autonomous is possible.

In saying this, I do not mean to suggest that in evangelism you are obligated to call attention to all of God’s commandments and tell the person he must become God’s slave, all before he receives Christ. Rather, when a person becomes a Christian, the Holy Spirit, in His time, will surface issues needing attention. At that point, the new believer confirms his conversion by yielding to God’s will.[377]

If God calls something sin, then whatever it is, it violates His will, and therefore violates His nature; you cannot separate His will from His character. (This, of course, does not include God expressing His will to an individual, such as His commanding Hosea to marry a whore.[378] We will address this more thoroughly later in this issue.) As you evaluate that which God calls sin, you must ask and answer at least three questions:

1 – Is the temptation to sin a test through which God insists that all people pass? Your biblical answer must be, “yes.”

2 – Should you consider the violation of God’s command a sin? Again, to be biblical, your answer must be “yes.”

3 – Is it sin because it violates His will, or because it violates His character (i.e., intrinsically evil)? You cannot be certain of your answer to this question; Scripture does not say.

At this point, you have two choices, equally valid: You can conclude that because God did not repeat certain commands present in one dispensation as He moved into another dispensation a distinction exists between God’s will and His character. (By way of example, God permitted divorce in the Old, but not the New Testament, and therefore divorce may violate His will, but not His character.) Alternatively, you can conclude that every command God has ever given reflects not only His will, but also His character. (For example, even though God proscribed eating shellfish in the Old, but not the New Testament, eating shellfish in this dispensation violates the essence of His character.)

Those believing the first choice rebut the second choice by noting that God solves the dilemma, in that, He records His will in each Testament, and that the believer is free to do whatever the Bible does not prohibit. Also, note that with conscience and reason you cannot affirm those commands found in one dispensation, but not the other. (For example, reason and conscience do not factor into people’s right to divorce.)

I suggest, however, that when you accept the premise that some commands reveal His will but not His character, you naturally use the template of reason and conscience on New Testament commands, and on that basis apply or ignore them. Those believers neglecting New Testament commands do so reasoning that they represent the culture of those times, and not our own culture.

If you disagree with my suggestion that God’s character and will cannot be separated, and choose to conclude that many sins violate God’s will but do not necessarily violate the essence of His nature, you must decide which sins fit which category. Properly categorizing biblical sins requires relying on conscience and reason. Scripture teaches that although conscience and reason are authoritative, they can never be absolute. Your making these determinations is dangerous; better to assume God’s will and His character are one.

You find a good illustration of this when looking at the Bible’s teaching on divorce. Note that divorce does not offend conscience and reason under many circumstances. Moses allowed what Jesus prohibited.[379] Malachi, centuries after Moses, said, “I hate divorce.”[380] If divorce does not violate the nature and character of God, why does He say that He hates it? If divorce violates the essence of God’s character, why did He permit it in the days of Moses?

Individual vs. General Commands

At this point, you may very well ask if this line of thinking applies to commands given to individuals. For example, in the Old Testament, God commanded Ezekiel to lie on his left side for over a year.[381] In the New Testament, Jesus instructed His disciple to catch a fish, extract the coin from its mouth, and pay the tax.[382]

As noted above, such commands do not reflect the essence of God, unless you wish to argue that the lesson derived from the command reflects his character, such as the need to pay tax to the government. Such commands do not reflect God’s nature, and He does not expect you to obey them. I cannot lead you to a specific Scriptural teaching to this effect, and I cannot prove that I am correct.

However, if you wish to be His obedient slave, I recommend that you obey all general commands in the New Testament and consider all Old Testament commands normative for that dispensation only. If you do not make a distinction between individual and general commands, you will conclude that just as God does not require that you lie on your side for over a year, so also He does not want you to obey those commandments in the New Testament not supported by conscience and reason.

Conclusion

Having laid the groundwork for the question of sanctification in the Old and New Testaments, we will more fully explore this issue in Eternal Hope, Part 23.

By way of application, if your conclusion that some commands are cultural flows from a reluctance to obey God’s will, you are obviously impeding the process of sanctification. When that happens, you forfeit your biblical right to consider yourself a Christian. You cannot detach surrender to His will from the process of sanctification.

Yours, for a life of obedience,

Walt

July 2007

Part Twenty-Three

In the last issue of this Co-Laborer series, we explored the necessary link between an eternal hope and the need for sanctification. Before continuing with the rest of the history of eternal hope, we will give thought to what is involved in sanctification.

In May we noted that individual commands in both Testaments do not express the essence of God’s nature and need not be followed by any but those to whom they were given – e.g.: Abraham offers Isaac as a sacrifice, Joseph takes Jesus to Egypt. Most commands in both Testaments are not addressed by conscience or reason – e.g.: touching a corpse is a sin requiring sacrifice, women not having authority over men, not bringing litigation against a fellow-believer. Quite the contrary; a case can be made that they violate reason and, thus, our conscience as well. Many commands appear in one Testament but not another – e.g.: divorce, drunk­enness, head covering, bastards not attending the congregation of the Lord.

You can argue that a distinction exists between His character and His will when applied to general commands; most believers probably do. Although I do not agree, I do not disapprove either. Scripture is too unclear to be dogmatic. If you say a difference between His character and His will exists in these matters, then how do you make the determination between them? Divorce? bastards in the congregation? drunkenness? At this point you turn to reason and conscience – which, I suggest, will lead you where you do not want to go.

Sanctification in the Old and New Testaments

We find in the Old Testament three types of sin:

1 – The violation of God’s moral code, for which there existed no sacrifice, resulting in death.[383]

2 – Sins committed by the individuals, of which the nation as a whole was unaware, and for which the priest made sacrifice once a year at Yom Kippur (cf. Leviticus 16). We looked at this in the third issue of Eternal Hope. Please note, by way of review:

“In order to understand Yom Kippur, it is necessary to divorce it from New Testament concepts of sin and grace. For example, in the Old Testament God linked illness and disease to sinfulness. Diseases such as leprosy were included under God’s broad category of impurity. Leviticus 14 (cf., esp. v. 7) instructs the priest to take a bird and offer it as expiation for the individual’s uncleanness, while setting another bird free, to communicate the idea of riddance. The scapegoat was also set free, and in bearing the sins of the nation it played a central role in the ritual of Yom Kippur.” [384] As Hebrews 9 (cf., esp. v. 7) reminds us, Yom Kippur could not atone for willful sins committed by an individual, only sins committed in ignorance; it was a national rather than an individual expiation: “… Yom Kippur became the major occasion for communal penitence.” [385]

“By way of illustration, let’s say that on the Day of Atonement recorded in Leviticus 16, ten people from among the tribes sinned without being exposed. Two of the ten committed adultery, one stole from his neighbor, etc. The nation, ignorant of these sins, offers Yom Kippur in order to assure God’s continued presence with Israel. Although Israel had sinned, the nation’s guilt was expunged by the sacrifice simply because the nation had no way of determining the individual guilt of the law-breakers. If, after Yom Kippur, one who committed such a crime was discovered, he still had to be either expelled from the community or put to death.

“When the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies with the blood of a bull, he sprinkled the blood on the Mercy Seat for his own sins committed in ignorance. If he had committed willful sin, he could not have functioned as High Priest. If he was aware of the sins committed in ignorance – i.e., he became impure and learned after the fact that he had done it – he would have offered the appropriate sacrifice at the time. Thus, this sacrifice in the Holy of Holies deals with those sins committed unintentionally and without awareness. Because God ties impurity with sin, the priest would not be acceptable to God without this sacrifice of purification at the beginning of the Yom Kippur ritual.”

3 – Unintentional sins, which could be expiated by the sacrifice of an animal.

In the Old Testament economy, God clearly states that He did not provide sacrifice for intentional sin: “But the person who does anything defiantly, whether he is native or an alien, that one is blaspheming the LORD; and that person shall be cut off from among his people. ‘Because he has despised the word of the LORD and has broken His commandment, that person shall be completely cut off; his guilt shall be on him.’”[386] He did establish sacrifices for sins the people could not control – such as the uncleanness of a woman after she had a baby, touching a corpse, or unintentionally eating unclean food: “Speak unto the children of Israel, saying: If a woman be delivered, and bear a man-child, then she shall be unclean seven days; as in the days of the impurity of her sickness shall she be unclean… And when the days of her purification are fulfilled, for a son, or for a daughter, she shall bring a lamb of the first year for a burnt-offering, and a young pigeon, or a turtle-dove, for a sin-offering, unto the door of the tent of meeting, unto the priest.”[387]

Israel viewed sanctification as the necessary means by which she could ensure God’s presence corporately. God assured His people that through the sacrificial system He imputed sanctification to them. However, God’s refusal in the Old Testament to record a promise to the individual granting eternal life seems to indicate that God did not intend Israel’s corporate sanctification to transcend temporal goals and objectives. I can find no compelling reason to conclude that Yahweh’s Old Testament followers thought in terms of individual sanctification.[388]

By way of illustration, note the interaction between Jesus and Peter: “And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him. But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.”[389] Obviously, Peter did not see Jesus as the one making it possible to go to heaven; he saw Him, like the rest of Israel, as the conquering King. Jesus never accused the disciples of sinning, and therefore they had no reason to believe they needed individual sanctification. Messiah came to earth; His people did not go with Him to heaven.

In the New Testament, God intends sanctification to prepare His people for an eternity with Him. Unlike the Old Testament paradigm, we go to Him; He does not come to us. He imputes to the believer sanctification, rendering sacrifice unnecessary, while allowing the Holy Spirit to reside in His people. We see this illustrated by Paul addressing 1Corinthians to “the saints in Corinth,” followed by 16 chapters rebuking the Corinthians for ungodly behavior.

We can only conjecture how this life prepares the believer for eternity. Note that God clearly teaches that the believer’s behavior in this life appreciably influences the quality of His eternity with God. Not only so, we cannot imagine a meaningful relation with another person without the involvement of the will. In eternity, will you find yourself meeting the will of God and not wanting to do it? (Jesus did in Gethsemane.) If so, you are best served spending this life schooling yourself in being His obedient slave.

With all commandments, God tests His people, and with the general commandments calls to their attention what He considers intrinsically evil. The violation of every command in Scripture, like the choice facing Adam and Eve in the Garden, is both failing a test and committing an intrinsically evil act. As in the Old Testament, God declared those committing sins of ignorance holy, after they offered a sacrifice, so also in the New Testament God declares us holy by imputed sanctification.

Just as in the Old Testament God did not address issues like drunkenness, hatred, and lusting after a woman, so in the New Testament He does not address issues like touching a corpse, eating of various foods, and laws of cleanliness. Paul, in Romans 11, notes that God did not demand compliance with the Old Testament Law because it would be a barrier to Gentiles coming to Christ. The New Covenant, exposited in Hebrews 8, includes the Law, and God will enforce it during the millennial reign of Christ.

It may be that all the commandments contained in Scripture are “just the tip of the iceberg.” When we arrive in glory, we may find a host of other commands reflecting the nature of God. Just as you should consider evil the violation of New Testament commands, so also, whatever commands await us in glory He will consider them sin if they are transgressed. However, just as God did not hold the Old Testament saints responsible for many of the commands mentioned by Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount, and just as God does not hold the New Testament saints responsible for many Old Testament commands, so also, He currently does not hold people responsible for obeying laws that He may reveal in heaven. His imputation of sanctification makes it possible for us to fellowship with Him.

Obeying God’s commands does not make a person legalistic[390], but rather the opposite. When you major on a life of obedience to God’s commands, you will find yourself tolerant, even when you disapprove of those things not proscribed by Scripture. By way of contrast, when people do not consider violation of God’s commands intrinsically evil, they not only ignore those commands not affirmed by conscience and reason, but they also tend to make non-essentials normative in the lives of others[391].

Progress in Regression

Paul argues in Romans 1:18-32 that the natural flow of religion begins with God and ends with moral degradation. Idolatry, an irrational worldview, flows from man’s insatiable desire for autonomy, which in turn drives man to seek a perpetual state of happiness. Post-modernity leads religion in a quest for this perpetual state of happiness found in autonomy.

Once a person begins this descent described by Paul in Romans, nothing can turn him back but Divine intervention, known as regeneration. Those on the path to moral degradation have neither the desire nor the power to change. The quest for happiness becomes a right, which, when not experienced, breeds anger and even greater degradation, so that eventually the unnatural becomes natural. Idolatry and the quest for happiness cohabit; they are two sides of the same coin.

As the Roman Empire slipped from its former greatness, reflected in its republican form of government giving way to dictatorship, the great minds of the republic saw that man left to himself moved ever more deeply into decadence and degeneration – and the gods were of no help. The Apostle Paul starts here, giving the Christian philosophy of history: God alone can help, and He must take the initiative.[392] The moral bankruptcy of man is such that he cannot find an exit from this abyss.

For this reason, sanctification can never originate with the will of man. For example, when Paul says, “…receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet,”[393] he may be saying that homosexuals are locked into the perception of who they see themselves to be. When David confessed to murder and adultery, he confessed to what he did, not who he was. So too with most sins. However, homosexuality is different today in that such people view it as not what they do, but who they are.

Conclusion

At this point you may be asking, “So what? What difference does this make?” I suggest four fundamental reasons why it is important:

1 – Failure to understand that in the Old Testament God did not record His giving the individual an eternal hope can easily lead you to conclude that He sanctifies His people the same way in both Testaments. This means that the Mosaic Law continues in the New Testament, and you are faced with the application of commandments such as, “A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD.”[394] Does this mean that if your great, great grandfather was a bastard, you cannot go to church?

2 – You may conclude that because many Old and New Testament commands differ from one another, such commands do not reflect the nature and character of God, and therefore conscience and reason determine whether you should obey them. Such reasoning can easily lead you to disobedience. Once again, note that when you accept the premise that some commands reveal His will but not His character, you naturally use the template of reason and conscience on New Testament commands, and on that basis apply or ignore them. Most New Testament general commands are not addressed by conscience. Those believers neglecting New Testament commands do so reasoning that they represent the culture of those times, and not their own culture.

3 – I suggest that in your quest for sanctification, you should understand what God expects of you. For example, some argue that sin must involve the will; if you behave poorly in reaction to something, and you do not involve your will, you cannot call it sin. Others argue that with grace, obligation to keep the commandments does not have a place in sanctification; your sense of obligation is legalism. What did Paul have in mind when he told Timothy that he was “the chief of sinners?”[395] Do you consider yourself, like Paul, the “chief of sinners?” If so, why? If not, why not?

4 – Understanding the ways of God constitutes one of the fundamental reasons for studying Scripture. “As a man thinks, so is he.”[396] Thinking biblically helps you become godly.

Rejoicing in who He is,

Walt

September 2007

Part Twenty-Four

Introduction

As each reader knows, we live in an age in which the queen of virtues is tolerance. Basking in the grace of God means that we need not concern ourselves with obligation. We are free in Christ. Obedience should not be obligatory – that is legalism. Therefore, an emphasis on a life of obedience is an expression of intolerance.

All people in all ages and cultures have believed that truth is absolute. You know this because everyone judges; they cannot help but judge. When you judge as wrong what another does, says, or thinks, you are insisting that not only is truth absolute, but you should be the one defining absolute truth; it is right or wrong not only for you, but also for the person you are judging.

If you argue that those who say Christians must obey the commandments of God are intolerant, then you are left with your own standard of right and wrong. You might say, for an example, “It is not wrong for a man to pray with his head covered, but it is wrong when my neighbor allows his dog to bark all night when I am trying to sleep.” As noted in the last two issues of this letter, such people rely on reason and conscience for their definition of truth. Understand, biblically, such people forfeit their right to an eternal hope, and should plan on spending eternity separated from God.

The Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament

Reflection on The Ethiopian Enoch

This is one of the most, if not the most important documents of the Pseudepigrapha for our study of eternal hope. For this reason, we will spend extra time exploring it.

The Ethiopian Enoch, also called 1 Enoch, differs from the Secrets of Enoch or 2 Enoch in that the former was probably penned in the second century BC, and the latter between 30 BC and 70 AD. “The Book of Enoch is for the history of theological development the most important pseudepigrapha of the first two centuries BC. Some of its authors – and there were many – belonged to the true succession of the prophets, and it was simply owing to the evil character of the period, in which their lot was cast, that these enthusiasts and mystics, exhibiting on occasions the inspiration of the O.T. prophets, were obliged to issue their works under the aegis of some ancient name. The Law which claimed to be the highest and final word from God could tolerate no fresh message from God, and so, when men were moved by the Spirit of God to make known their visions relating to the past, the present, and the future, and to proclaim the higher ethical truths they had won, they could not do so openly, but were forced to resort to pseudonymous publication.”[397]

“Nearly all the writers of the New Testament were familiar with [the Ethiopian Enoch], and were more or less influenced by it in thought and diction.[398] It is quoted as a genuine production of Enoch by St. Jude, and as Scripture by St. Barnabas. The authors of the Book of Jubilees, the Apocalypse of Baruch, and 4 Ezra, laid it under contribution. With the earlier Fathers and Apologists it had all the weight of a canonical book.”[399] Most Evangelicals, of course, do not accept it as canonical, due to the exclusion of all the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha from the canon by the Reformers.

Charles dates the two segments[400] of this work between 187 – 161 BC. The author deals with individual retribution rather than what happens to the nation of Israel. The righteous man suffers in this present life, just as the wicked prosper, but justice reigns in the life to come. “And thence I went to another place, and the mountain of hard rock. And there was in it four hollow places, deep and wide and very smooth. How smooth are the hollow places and deep and dark to look at. Then Raphael answered, one of the holy angels who was with me, and said unto me: ‘These hollow places have been created for this very purpose, that the spirits of the souls of the dead should assemble therein…Then I asked regarding it, and regarding all the hollow places: ‘Why is one separated from the other?’ And he answered me and said unto me: ‘These three have been made that the spirits of the dead might be separated…Here their spirits shall be set apart in this great pain till the great day of judgment and punishment and torment of those who curse forever and retribution for their spirits. There He shall bind them forever. And such a division has been made for the spirits of those who make their suit, who make disclosures concerning their destruction, when they were slain in the days of the sinners. Such has been made for the spirits of men who were not righteous but sinners, who were complete in transgression, and of the transgressors they shall be companions: but their spirits shall not be slain in the day of judgment nor shall they be raised from thence.’ Then I blessed the Lord of glory and said: ‘Blessed be my Lord, the Lord of righteousness, who ruleth for ever.’”[401] Note that the eternal condition of people is determined by the moral choices they made while living; I find no reference to people relating to God by grace. Each person’s eternal destiny is forever fixed by how they lived on earth.

God raises the wicked at the Day of Judgment and at that time they receive punishment and torment. It appears that their souls are raised for this event, but no mention is made of their bodies. “Then said I: ‘For what object is this blessed land, which is entirely filled with trees, and this accursed valley between?’ Then Uriel, one of the holy angels who was with me, answered and said: ‘This accursed valley is for those who are accursed for ever: Here shall all the accursed be gathered together who utter with their lips against the Lord unseemly words and of His glory speak hard things. Here shall they be gathered together, and here shall be their place of judgment. In the last days there shall be upon them the spectacle of righteous judgment in the presence of the righteous forever: here shall the merciful bless the Lord of glory, the Eternal King. In the days of judgment over the former, they shall bless Him for the mercy in accordance with which He has assigned them (their lot).’ Then I blessed the Lord of Glory and set forth His glory and lauded Him gloriously.”[402] This “accursed valley” may refer to Gehenna.

The second section of Enoch, which Charles considers written by the Essenes, was embraced by Christians and thus rejected by the Jews. “So thoroughgoing, indeed, was this rejection, that, although he was the chief figure next to Daniel in Jewish Apocalyptic prior to 40 AD, in subsequent Jewish literature his achievements are ascribed sometimes to Moses, … Ezra or else to Baruch… It is to the Christian Church that we owe the preservation alike of Jewish apocalypses and of the Septuagint.”[403] It deals with the undeserved calamities of God’s people; how can a just God inflict such pain on His own? God answers by noting that although Israel sins, the undue severity of retribution comes, not from God, but the angels or shepherds into whose care He entrusted His people. “And He called seventy shepherds, and cast those sheep to them that they might pasture them, and He spake to the shepherds and their companions: ‘Let each individual of you pasture the sheep henceforward, and everything that I shall command you that do ye. And I will deliver them over unto you duly numbered, and tell you which of them are to be destroyed-and them destroy ye.’ And He gave over unto them those sheep. And He called another and spake unto him: ‘Observe and mark everything that the shepherds will do to those sheep; for they will destroy more of them than I have commanded them. And every excess and the destruction which will be wrought through the shepherds, record (namely) how many they destroy according to my command, and how many according to their own caprice: record against every individual shepherd all the destruction he effects. And read out before me by number how many they destroy, and how many they deliver over for destruction, that I may have this as a testimony against them, and know every deed of the shepherds, that I may comprehend and see what they do, whether or not they abide by my command which I have commanded them. But they shall not know it, and thou shalt not declare it to them, nor admonish them, but only record against each individual all the destruction which the shepherds effect each in his time and lay it all before me.’”[404]

In the last days, “While the struggle is still raging, God will intervene in person, and the earth will open her mouth and swallow them up (xc. 19, 16, 18). Then a throne will be ‘erected in the pleasant land’ (xc. 20), and first the lustful angels, who had wrought such woe through their sin with women, will be judged and condemned to the abyss of fire, which is full of fire and flame and pillars of fire, and likewise the seventy angels who had dealt treacherously with Israel (xc. 20-25). The apostate Jews are next judged, and cast into Gehenna (xc. 26, 27). With this last act the great Assize will close. Then God Himself will set up the New Jerusalem (xc. 28-29, and the surviving non-Jewish nations will be converted and serve Israel (xc. 30), and the dispersion will be brought back, and the righteous dead of Israel will be raised to take part in the kingdom (xc. 33). Then the Messiah will appear amongst them, and all the righteous will be transformed into His likeness (xc. 38); and God will rejoice over them.”[405] According to Enoch, only the righteous dead experience the resurrection, at which time they are transformed into the likeness of Messiah.

Note too that the author of Enoch has a developed concept of hell: “I tell you, ye sinners, ye are content to eat and drink, and rob and sin, and strip men naked, and acquire wealth and see good days. Have ye seen the righteous how their end falls out, that no manner of violence is found in them till their death? ‘Nevertheless they perished and became as though they had not been, and their spirits descended into Sheol in tribulation.’”[406] “Know ye that their souls will be made to descend into Sheol and they shall be wretched in their great tribulation. And into darkness and chains and a burning flame where there is grievous judgment shall your spirits enter; and the great judgment shall be for all the generations of the world. Woe to you, for ye shall have no peace.”[407]

Enoch divides history into ten weeks of varying length.[408] “And after this, in the tenth week in the seventh part, there shall be the great eternal judgment, in which He will execute vengeance amongst the angels. And the first heaven shall depart and pass away, and a new heaven shall appear, and all the powers of the heavens shall give sevenfold light. And after that there will be many weeks without number for ever, and all shall be in goodness and righteousness, and sin shall no more be mentioned for ever.”[409] Enoch seems to suggests that because the angels sin and will be judged, God needs to create a new heaven as well as a new earth.

Conclusion

We noted as we began this issue that this work is probably the most strategic of the extra-biblical writings. For this reason, we will need to spend added time on it in the next issue.

Eager for His return,

Walt

November 2007