Exploring My Strange Bible - Heaven & Hell 2 - Heaven and Zombies

Episode Date: September 18, 2017

In this lecture we tackle the biblical word “heaven," and what that does and does not mean. From there we tackle the language about life and death throughout the rest of the bible. What you’ll see pretty clearly is that biblical authors don’t see death as something that just happens to you at the end of your physical life. Rather, from page 3 of the bible on, both life and death are present realities. Basically, the concept of zombies is a biblical idea. Most of these ideas aren’t mine. I brought together what I thought were the best scholarship and thinking and observation mixed with my own observations and synthesized it into these lectures. I encourage you to get your bible out and notebook, or whatever you need, and take a listen! FREE STUDY NOTES

Tim Mackey, Jr. utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have. On this podcast, I'm putting together the last 10 years worth of lectures and sermons where I've been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith. And I hope this can be helpful for you too. I also help start this thing called The Bible Project. We make animated videos and podcasts about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology. You can find those resources at thebibleproject.com. With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week. In this episode, we're going to tackle part two of a four-part series on heaven and hell. So if you haven't listened to the previous episode, I recommend you doing so, or else

this is going to feel like a bolt out of the blue. So this was a four-part lecture series that I did a number of years ago, bringing together lots of years of reading and reflecting on what the Bible is trying to tell us about these ideas of heaven and hell and eternal life and eternal death. Most of these ideas aren't even mine. I just collected what I thought were a bunch of the best scholarship and thinking and observations mixed with my own observations and kind of synthesized it into these lectures. In this part two, after exploring and really pondering Genesis 1 through 3 and its concepts of human life and human death, what we're going to do in this lecture is first of all, tackle the biblical word heaven or heavens

and what that means and what it doesn't mean. And from there, we'll go on to tackle the language about life and death throughout the rest of the Bible. And what you'll see, it's actually fairly clear, is that the biblical authors don't envision life or death as something, specifically death. They don't imagine it as something that just happens to you at the end of your physical life, your body just giving out. Rather, ever since page three of the Bible, both life and death are present realities. They're modes of existing in the world. The concept of zombies is very much a biblical idea of living in a state of death, the living dead. And so that

language comes up in the letters of Paul in the New Testament, but it's a deeply Jewish and Old Testament idea, the living dead. And so how pages one through three of the Bible then set the trajectory for our understandings of the word heaven and our understandings of life and death as modes of existing in the world, and how that helps us think about ideas of what happens after we die and what Bible nerds call the intermediate state. What does the Bible say about the intermediate state? And not a whole lot, actually, but we'll look at the handful of biblical texts that do talk about it and then draw some conclusions and then move on into other good stuff. So there you go. I hope this is helpful for you.

I encourage you to get your Bible out in your notebook, whatever you want to do, and let's dive in. But one way to think about what human beings are made for, often we think of the idea of heaven. What's heaven in the Bible? Heaven has two primary meanings in the Bible. Genesis 1, in the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth. What are the heavens in Genesis 1? It's what's up there, right? It's the sky, because birds go in the heavens, right, later on in the story. So it's what's up there. So heaven is just the sky. There's also another way that the biblical authors use the word heaven, and that's referred to God's dimension.

So, you know, biblical authors didn't know anything about quantum physics. Neither do I. And I'm not sure that anyone who does know anything about quantum physics actually does really know about quantum physics, because it's really difficult to comprehend but whatever quantum physics tells us is that there is more to reality that meets the eye that there are more dimensions of reality than we experience we live in four that's three, one, two, three. And then time is also related to space as dimension, whatever, you know, go figure that out. Some of you know what I'm talking about. And quantum physics has opened up to us that there are actually more dimensions, but that we

aren't made to inhabit, or we just don't interact with them in the way we exist in the world. But those dimensions are out there. And in the biblical author's view, heaven is like a dimension. I think it's a helpful way to think about it in terms of modern language. Heaven is the dimension of God's space. And often people think of heaven and they think of heaven as God's space. And then they think of whatever earth or physical existence as our space. And occasionally, you know, God will do something to intervene and act like the Exodus or miracles or something like that, Jesus. This would be like the traditional view when you die. That's about going to that space or going to some other

space. That's not quite sure how hell fits into this equation. And this is not the way the biblical authors think about things. Biblical authors think about things this way, that originally heaven, God's space, and our space completely overlapped and interlocked. You know, you read Genesis chapter one and you read the descriptions of the temple or the tabernacle later on in the Hebrew Bible, in the book of Exodus, in the book of first Kings. And what kind of things were going on in the Israelite tabernacle or temple? Well, things like trees and rivers and cherubim, whatever those things are. They're not babies. They're not naked babies, that's for sure. They're like fearful serpent-like lion creatures with wings that will kill you.

That's what they are. And the inside of the temple and the tabernacle was made to remind you of God's space. And that's how things are depicted in Genesis chapter one. And so essentially, Genesis one gives us heaven and earth united. God's space and our space completely overlap. And what sin does is it brings in a schism between the two, between our space and God's space. Is it a complete schism? No, no. God's space still overlaps with ours, and that's what the temple is.

That's what the tabernacle is. If you have a divine space Geiger counter in your head, the temple and the tabernacle is where it starts to beep really loud, like this is God's space. But then also you read through the biblical narratives and you can encounter god's space in surprising places right jacob is out like traveling in the wilderness on the way from one town to the next you know the story genesis chapter 28 and he puts he he goes and sleeps uh just like on the ground puts his head on a rock, and he has this crazy dream. He encounters God, and what does he say at the end of his dream? He says, this, this is God's space right here.

Moses in the burning bush, and so on. And what's essentially what Jesus comes and says is that he is the embodiment of this overlap. And what he's doing is, what he accomplishes is returning creation back to its original state. Not the schism created by sin, but this interlocked and interwoven of God's space and our space. The story of the Bible ends saying, the story of the Bible does not end with a bunch of people going to God's space, right? The story of the Bible does not end with a bunch of people going to God's space, right? The story of the Bible ends with God's space coming to our space, right? And that's the image of Jerusalem, the place where the temple, God's presence, was coming down to earth, the dwelling of God is with humanity, and so on. And so this is directly relevant to our conceptions of heaven and hell.

The Bible is just offering us a whole different framework that many of us are kind of unfamiliar with. And so Jesus comes onto the scene, and as the overlap, in fact, what does Jesus think about the temple, the Jewish temple, as a place where God's space and our space're supposed to overlap. And he says through sin, through Israel's rebellion and corruption, the temple is now just a sham. It's being used for all sorts of political, national ends for Israel. It's no longer the dwelling place of God. Jesus says one greater than the temple is here, by which he means himself.

He is the living, breathing example of God's space and our space overlapping, and he's returning it back to its original state. And so that's a good segue for talking about what Christ does to conquer sin and destroy death. Now, this could be a whole night that we spend on talking about just the identity of Jesus, who he is, what he came to do, and so on. I'm just bringing up some biblical passages that touch on the theme of sin and death and heaven and hell. So the author of Hebrews has a very high view of Jesus. Actually, the whole New Testament does. The author of Hebrews really articulates it, talks about it a lot.

And he's convinced that Jesus is the, ooh, ooh, ooh, what? I just didn't even think about that, but that's a good one. Okay. So God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many ways. You guys know the King James here? This is great. In divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers. So this is like etiquette for deep sea divers or something like that. Divers manners. No, no, this is King James. This is 1611 speak diverse manners, namely NIV, at many times in various ways.

That's a good way. Okay, all right. So in the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets many times in various ways. But in these last days, he's spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he made the universe. This is language and ideas borrowed from Genesis chapter 1. What are human beings? We're image bearers. We too are supposed to be images and representations of God's being. Are we? Did we end up doing so?

No, we were given a choice, and through rebellion and selfishness, we forfeited, and the image and the representation became marred and broken. But Jesus comes as the true representative. He comes as the image of God. So in chapter two, this is his way of getting at the problem of sin and death, is that God himself kind of weaves himself into the story. So the verses here that I've highlighted. Because God's children are human beings made of flesh and blood, the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die. And only by dying could he break the power of the devil who had the power of death. Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying.

So what he's saying here is that death, this is the idea, he's been reading Genesis 3, death is not originally what God wanted for human beings. It's a result of our sin and rebellion and mistrust. And his death and all the facets, all the profound ways that death is unpacked there in Genesis 3. And so what does God do? He comes among us as a human being and experiences death, tastes death on our behalf. By raising from the dead, he breaks the power of death. In other words, Jesus' death and resurrection is precisely the way that God deals with the problem of sin and death. Jesus absorbs sin and it's caused death into himself.

He breaks its power and he offers us freedom. So we have the image of slavery and freedom here. This is this part unpacking the storyline of the gospel here. But this is how the gospel addresses the sin-death connection here. So through his death, he breaks the power of death. Through his resurrection, he conquers sin and death and offers us life. Romans chapter 6. For we died and were buried with Christ. Okay, let's just pause real quick here. Just say we didn't have those last two words there.

We died and were buried with Christ. Really? Really? So if you're a follower of Jesus, you're like, news to me. Like, I haven't been in a tomb lately. Like, I haven't been out of a tomb lately. What is this talking about here? This is the crucial symbol of baptism here. It's through baptism and the Spirit's working in our lives

that we die with Jesus and are raised with Jesus. His story becomes our story through baptism. Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we may also live new lives. Since we've been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. Does he say, since we've been united with him in his death, we will go to heaven forever after we die? No. What is the planned future for human beings and for Christ followers specifically? What should our real hope be in? Resurrection. Resurrection. Okay? So this is tricky because in moments of grief and in moments of death, and when you're counseling, you're with people and so on, you know, for someone who's a follower of Jesus, their greatest hope is that at this moment, they are with Christ in heaven. It's an incredible hope

that transforms grief. But at the same time, I think because in the moment of grieving, in the moment of grieving, you know, that's often kind of all that's said. For just somehow in the Christian imagination, modern Christian imagination, that has become the end of the story. Going to heaven after you die. And you read through the New Testament and you don't find that language anywhere. What you find them talking about is our hope is resurrection. Physical re-embodiment. So we've been united with him in his death.

We will be raised to life as he was. We know that our old sinful humanity was crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. Did you know this? Did you know this? So again, this is the tension because really? Because man, I just totally bit that person's head off at work. And you're telling me my sinful nature is crucified and died? Really?

Really? And Paul says, yes, you just aren't living into your true identity. You've forgotten who you are when you bite someone's head off at work. You're not truly living as who you are. We are no longer slaves to sin, and some of us are like, news to me, right? But this is what Paul's saying here. So Paul never holds, when he's talking about ethics and right and wrong choices, he never wields a hammer of authority and uses hell as some sort of like motivation to get people to do the right thing. To get people to motivate them to do the right thing. Paul always appeals to understand your true identity. Remember who you are. For Paul, that's the motivation. You're destined for resurrection. What are you doing biting someone's head off at work? Schizophrenia is what it is. You're living

as if you're two different people. Don't do that. Don't do that. I'm going to start preaching here. So verse 7, when we died with Christ, we were set free from the power of sin. Since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with Him. We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead. He will never die again. Death no longer has any power over Him. When He died, He died once to break the power of sin, but now that He lives, He lives for the glory of God. So this is the idea here. It's Jesus breaks the power of sin and death. And that's the gift that he offers to

us. And you may think, well, I sure don't feel like that. But Paul says, yes, you are dead to sin. You are, you're not, you're not a sinner. You're like, I totally am. And Paul says, no, you are dead to sin. You're not a sinner. You're like, I totally am. And Paul says, no, you just like have moments of relapse or you forget your true identity. Your destiny is for resurrection. So do you see the connection between sin and death here? From Genesis 3 and Jesus' death, resurrection, our future is for resurrection.

Okay. So check this out then. What this means is that if our future is for resurrection, if I'm a follower of Jesus, Jesus absorbs living death for me into himself, and he gives me a whole new trajectory. Now, Paul is saying, you are resurrected, alive from the dead. Now Now in this timeline, where does that happen in the biblical story? It happens here. But Paul's saying, no, no, no, no, no. You have died and you have been raised from the dead already. Do you see that? That's what he said there in Romans 6. You died and were buried. Christ was raised from the dead. We live in a new kind of humanity that's connected to Christ's resurrection. So you get a passage like, sorry, this is freestyling. This is just coming to me. But Paul

says, Ephesians chapter two, but because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, has done what? He made us alive from the dead. Wait, no, the resurrection is, sorry, I have too many screens going on here. The resurrection is out here. And Paul says, no, no, no, no. The resurrection actually begins the moment that you repent and that you receive the gift of grace and life through Christ. That's when resurrection life begins.

Physical resurrection will come here, but your spiritual relational resurrection is happening right now. So here's the idea. Eternal life, resurrection, or death in the grave, these are not just future end of the game realities. These are present realities for our identity right now. So a few passages here. These are on your handout right here. Eternal life and eternal death are present realities that set you on a track, set you on a trajectory. So John chapter five, Jesus says, I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, will have eternal life, has eternal life. Will have eternal life? Has eternal life. Will not be condemned. He has

crossed over from death to life. I tell you the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. Now, verse 25, this is very tricky here. Is Jesus talking, which moment is Jesus talking about? This moment right here? Or this moment right here? Let's read it again, verse 25. Sorry. I tell you the truth, a time is coming,

but has now already come. When the dead, who are the dead? Right, exactly right. So the dead are the physically dead, but the dead are also the zombies, the living dead. We'll hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. As the Father has life in himself,

he's granted the Son to have life in himself. He's given him authority to judge because he's the son of man. Don't be amazed at this. For a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice. Now, which resurrection is he talking about now? This one right here. We'll hear his voice and they will come out. Those who have done good will rise to live. Those who have done good will rise to live.

Those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. The resurrection is for whom? For everybody. It's for everybody. John 17. This is right before Jesus' last night with his followers is over. He's about to be arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane. He says, Father, the time has come.

Glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you. You have granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. This is eternal life, going to heaven forever and playing harps on a cloud. Okay, no, no. What is eternal life? To know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. How do you know the one true God? By knowing Jesus Christ. Wait, I thought if you know Jesus Christ, then I thought God and Jesus Christ,

I mean, they're two separate people here, right? What does Jesus say? He says, no, if you know the true God, you know me. If you know me, you know the Father. Okay, so explain that one to your kids. I don't know. So that's what Jesus is saying here. If you know me, you know the one true God.

This is eternal life. So it's the healing of that relational death, of spiritual death between humans and the Creator. So this is the healing of that schism, that relational schism in Genesis chapter 3. Eternal life is something that begins now. It's a quality of life that sets you on a trajectory for the new creation. Paul the Apostle, he has different ways of getting at this idea.

He says, for he, Jesus, has rescued us from the dominion of darkness, and he's brought us into the kingdom of the Son whom he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sin. So in Paul's language, he doesn't use the living death or zombies or whatever. What does he describe this in Colossians chapter 1? How does he describe this right here? A kingdom. A kingdom of darkness.

Darkness. Very powerful image. And we've been rescued out of this kingdom and transferred into what? Into the kingdom of the sun. So this is the kingdom of the sun. Now, what is the original vocation and calling of human beings? To rule and to reign. Royal imagery here.

So the kingdom of the sun. Restored to our original vocation. Ephesians. We've already read the first couple of verses here, but we'll see it again. You were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you formerly walked, according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirits that working in those who are disobedient. Because of his great love for us, God, who's rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ, even when we were the zombies, the living dead in transgression. It's by

grace you've been saved. God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ. So has that happened to you yet? If you had that heavenly vision, whatever, you know? Some of you are like, no, I did acid in college and I maybe had that kind of experience, but that was not, you know, no, no, that's not it. That's not it. That's not it. So what Paul is saying is our true identity is in heaven. Does that mean that our home is in heaven and that's where we're going? Where is Jesus right now?

So you've got to get this out of your head. Get this out of your head. Heaven and earth used to be like this. Sin brought the schism. Jesus Christ is now the meeting place of heaven and earth used to be like this. Sin brought the schism. Jesus Christ is now the meeting place of heaven and earth. If you are known and have relational healing with Jesus, you now live in a state where, yes, we're living in earth, but where are you also living as we live here on earth?

We're in heaven, so to speak. And Paul's not using, you know, playing doublespeak or something like that. He really means what he's saying. Heaven is an experience that can be present now. It's not somewhere you go, just somewhere, just somewhere you go after you die. It's a present reality. Eternal life is a present reality. You can experience resurrection power in the present. And he describes it as life transformation. So, you know, I don't know. Hang around someone who's been healed of a drug addiction, substance addiction of some kind, because of what God's grace is up to in their lives.

It's resurrection. It's resurrection power. Be around people who have had healed marriages. They thought for sure this was the end. And God's grace does something to humble them and give them a new passion and commitment for each other. It's a resurrection. It's a resurrection power.

The power to say no to that dark, secret temptation that's had you imprisoned your entire life. The power to finally get over that and to grow as a follower of Jesus. Paul says that's resurrection power. Do you see what I'm saying here? This is when you do that, you're participating. It's a small little taste of this full reunion of all of my life and existence in harmony, reconnected back with God.

That's the idea here. So heaven and hell, they're future realities, but they're present. They begin in the present. That's what I'm getting at with this drawing here. This is, I think, one of the most important things for us to hear as 21st century Westerners, because we've mostly just forgotten that the New Testament is talking like this, or we screen it out. I don't know, somehow none of us grew up hearing this. I don't know why. It's just like, read the pages. But somehow we've gotten this idea of heaven and hell and of God's space and our space, and it's just not what the Bible is saying. Heaven and

hell are present realities. Sin and death, eternal life and resurrection life are present realities. It'd be a good sermon, wouldn't it and resurrection life are present realities. It would be a good sermon, wouldn't it? There you go. Okay. I'm going to say this sermon right now. Here we go. How are you guys doing?

Are you tracking with me? Give me nods of affirmation if you understand what we're saying here. I believe this truth has incredible power to change people. To change people. This is not just pie in the sky. People who think that heaven is pie in the sky and they reject Christianity because they think it's pie in the sky, you need to find a way to help them see they've rejected something other than Christianity. They've rejected some fusion of Bible and Greek philosophy and 21st century American culture and all this kind of stuff.

So this is what the Bible is saying. Okay. We've got to keep going or else we're not going to make it through the notes. All right. Okay. So here we go. This is what's happening before physical death. Heaven and hell, eternal life, eternal death, they're present realities. But physical death, something does happen. There is the schism.

Because we live in a fallen, broken world, there is a schism of our material and immaterial. It's not what we're made for, it's temporary, it's the intermediate state, but there is this reality right here. And the Bible does talk about it, though not a whole lot. So let's just make clear what we're talking about here. The theological term is the intermediate state. Popular culture term is life after death. This is, in the Bible's view, the temporary state of existence between our physical death and our physical resurrection. You don't stop existing after your physical death and before your physical resurrection. Some part of you, the immaterial part of you, lives on. What is this? Okay, so the Bible's language to talk about this.

In the Old Testament, it's the word Sheol. In the New Testament Greek, it's the word Hades or Hades. Sometimes we get the word in our English Bibles. It just means grave. The grave. The tomb. And all of the dead in the Hebrew Bible, everybody, righteous, wicked, everybody goes to Sheol. So Jacob, sinner, saint, Jacob, holy cow. He's like, he's such,

such a screw up. Holy cow. But God has incredible grace on him. All of Jacob's son, his daughters come to comfort him because he thinks Joseph, his son, is dead. Jacob refused to be comforted. No, he said, in mourning, I will go down to Sheol to my son. My son just died. He's in Sheol. I'm going to die in mourning, go down and meet my son in Sheol. So his father wept for him.

Whenever you hear Sheol or the grave being talked about, especially in the Hebrew Bible, there you go. That's that. Everybody's in Sheol. And the righteous and the wicked. And what's more, what's beyond that, the Hebrew Bible gives us tiny little glimpses here. We'll see a few in a few minutes, but that's where it goes. We get to the New Testament and you are looking at the three passages in the Bible that clearly seem to tell what happens to a follower of Jesus after death. There's only three and you're looking at them. You're looking at them.

Luke 23. Then he said, I just cut and pasted this out of, who said? The other thief on the cross next to Jesus's. This is the other guy hanging next to Jesus. The guy hanging next to Jesus said, Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom. Jesus answered, I tell you the truth. Today you will be with me in paradise. Paradise. We'll do this here. Paradise is a Greek word.

Para, all caps. Paradisos is the Greek word. And the garden, it's the word for, literally, it's the word for garden. And so in Judaism, in the New Testament, what is heaven? So heaven is the place where it's God's space. In the story of the Bible, where was the perfect union of God's space and our space? Right, it was right here. And so Jesus says, today you'll be with me in God's space.

So it's against in the garden, in the garden. That's what Jesus says here, in God's presence. So give us more, unpack that for us, Jesus. Nope, I'm on a cross. You know what I mean? I'm sorry, I may be blasphemous, I don't know. But what did I say here? So, right? So he doesn't say, he doesn't give us more detail. That's all he says. This is a word of hope. Yes. Hope. Powerful hope. Does it give us all the information we want? No. This is very important for us to get when it comes to the Bible. So the Bible does not exist

to answer our theological questions. It exists to tell us the story about what God is doing about the problem of evil and sin and death in our world through Jesus. And if it happens to answer some of our questions that we come to the Bible with, wonderful. And what's more important is that we get what the Bible is trying to say, not that we make it say something that we want to make it say, but it doesn't actually say. And that's often the problem when it comes to this here. Anyway, so that's Luke 23.

The other two statements about the intermediate state for believers belong to the Apostle Paul. So Philippians 1. Paul's in prison. He doesn't know if he's going to make it out of prison alive. He says, I fully expect and hope that I will never be ashamed, but that I will continue to be bold for Christ as I have in the past. I trust that my life will bring honor to Christ, whether I live, whether I die.

For to me, living means living for Christ. Or some of you know it. What is that verse? 21? Yeah. You know it in the NIV. For me to live is Christ. But to die is gain.

What kind of lunatic thinks that their death is a step forward for them? A follower of Jesus. A follower of Jesus. A follower of Jesus. So is there a step forward because death is a good thing? What's more important is that we get what the Bible is trying to say. Not that we make it say something that we want to make it say, but it doesn't actually say. Is death good in the Bible? Is death our friend in the Bible? You need to have a quick answer to this as a follower of Jesus.

No, death is an enemy for humans. It's an enemy and an invader in God's world in its full-orbed meaning. Not just biological death, it's full-orbed meaning. It's an alien invader in God's world. It's not what we're made for. But that's not what Paul is talking about. He says, prison or being with Christ? Let me choose, right? So living means living for Christ. Dying is even better. But if I live, I can still do more fruitful work for Christ. I really don't know which is better. I'm torn between the two desires. I long to go and be with Christ, be far better for me. But for your sakes, the Philippians and the early churches, it's better that I continue to live. In the context, Paul says death is better. He's in prison, for goodness sakes, you know what I say? And he wants to be with Christ. But you have to

read this in the larger context of what he's saying. In just two more chapters, he's going to say Jesus is going to return and transform our lowly bodies into his glorious body. And is Paul excited about that hope? Yes, yes. And so in that sense, is death good? No, death is not good. Resurrection is good. Resurrection is good. Death is this painful transition to be with Christ, and then it's good, and then it's even best because it's resurrection. It's what we're made for. I guess what I'm getting at here is there is this idea,

it's become kind of popular in Christian culture, that death is not a big deal. Death is your friend because it ushers you into the God space or something like that. And you read Paul's discussions of death in terms of the theology of death. It's an enemy. It's not good. It's an invader in God's world. It has no power over followers of Jesus, but it's not good.

It's not good. Anyhow, okay. So there you see, to be with Christ. In 2 Corinthians chapter 5, therefore we are always confident as long as we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please him whether we are at home in the body or away from it. Now again, you read these verses just isolated by themselves out of context, and you say, oh, I'm away from home right now, right? So I'm in my body, so I'm not. So where is my home? And then we import this framework into

what Paul was saying and say, oh, my home is in some non-physical place in a cloud or something, being with Jesus. And no, no, no, no, no, no. You know, read the whole passage in context, read it in light of the whole story of the Bible. So we are away from the Lord right now. We are away from our home, but is our home sitting on a cloud forever? Is that what our destiny is? No, no, our destiny is to return with Christ and be physically embodied again in resurrection. So in terms of intermediate state, though, there you go. This is about what the Bible has to say about it.

What about for those who aren't believers, who don't belong to Christ? Scripture doesn't describe the existence of people who aren't followers of Jesus or whatever, who rejected God, rejected God's grace. The only language used to describe where they're at or what they're doing is Hades, the grave, the grave. So Revelation 20, this is right before the large resurrection at the end of the story. I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne. Books were open. Another book was open, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according

to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it. Death and Hades, what does Hades mean? And the grave gave up the dead that were in them. Each person was judged according to what they are done. If you're not with Christ, where are you? You're in the grave. No, we want to know more. We want to know more. The Bible does describe most of what we associate the language or descriptions of hell or of the final eternal separation for God or whatever are describing this right here. All we get is the grave and that's it. There's a few different views on what is going on in the intermediate state. Are you conscious? Are you not? Or whatever. So this is just kind of a few views and biblical passages that are relevant.

One view is that whatever that immaterial part of you is, that it's a conscious state of existence. And really, you know, you have Paul's statements of being with Christ, and apparently he's aware that he's going to be with Christ, so there's some kind of consciousness there. There's also, again, Revelation is an extremely, extremely difficult book to interpret. It's full of Jewish apocalyptic symbolism and imagery and so on, but it has the only relevant passage to this here so uh john the vision he sees into god's space and he sees under the altar god's space is depicted

as if it were like the the israelite temple but up in god's space so under the altar which is the altar of offering that's in the uh the first court of the temple i saw under the altar of offering that's in the first court of the temple. I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been martyred for the word of God, for being faithful to their testimony. They shouted to the Lord and said, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you judge the people who belong to this world and avenge our blood for what they have done to us? Does it sound like they're conscious? White robes given to each of them, they're told, rest, wait a little longer.

Until the full number of brothers and sisters, other martyrs, had joined them. In the book of Revelation, first and foremost, is literature produced by and for the persecuted church. So, you know, we mostly forget that when we turn to the book of Revelation, especially in the last hundred years or so in American culture. It's a book that was by and for the persecuted church. People who are not being persecuted and whose highest value is the liberty and freedom of the individual have real problems with reading the book of Revelation because it's full of wrath and war and violence and so on. But if your house, if your family members have been killed by people who are intent on destroying your life because you're a follower of Jesus, the game changes. And the book of Revelation becomes really a powerful word of hope. Anyhow, okay, that's a different sermon. There you go. They're in a conscious state.

Another view that's very common is called soul sleep. And it's the idea that basically the intermediate state, just you're not conscious. You're asleep, as it were. So, you know, some of you, you go to sleep. Oh, man, a full night of sleep. I can't even imagine. So before Roman came into the world, I go to sleep and then I just wake up and it's, you know, six hours, seven hours have passed like that. That's the idea. And it's because sleep is often a common metaphor for death. So in John chapter 11, Jesus says to the disciples, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep. Now you, the reader, know what has actually happened. He says,

our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I'm going to go wake him up. The disciples said, well, Lord, if he's sleeping, he's probably going to get better soon. And then John, the author's whispers in our area says, they thought he meant Lazarus was simply sleeping, but Jesus meant Lazarus had died, as if you needed the clarification, right? So sleep is a common metaphor for death. It doesn't seem like it's a literal description of the intermediate state. One that I'll mention here, purgatory. Purgatory, it has a long history and shape in Catholic tradition. It's the idea that those who were baptized, it's a password, baptized, but who haven't been faithful followers of Christ or whatever. So you're going to be in

God's space eventually because he had said the password, but you're still compromised by sin in some way. In purgatory, begin life, not really as a place or descriptions of it, but as a process. These people still need to be in a process of refinement and purification and so on. And one of the main texts that the early theologians who formed this doctrine turned to was actually not a text in the Hebrew Bible or in the Christian Bible. It was a book in a collection called the Apocrypha, which was widely read in the early church, but wasn't appealed to as scripture. And so there's a passage in a book called Second Maccabees that talks about this. The bottom line, and this is a

standard kind of Protestant position, is that purgatory, the idea that followers of Jesus who come into God's presence broken and not fully perfect and still need to like work off their sins or whatever, does this smell like the gospel to you? No, no. The whole point of the gospel is that Jesus' death completely deals with our failure and with our sin. And so purgatory, in a certain sense, is assuming that Jesus' death and resurrection

was not powerful enough to qualify you to be in God's space. So that's kind of my main problem with it, not to mention that it's not explicitly talked about anywhere in the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Bible. So that's my three-second thing on purgatory. So in terms of the views, I kind of land here because Paul in the book of Revelation seems to depict a conscious state of existence with Christ. And for those who aren't followers of Christ, it's the grave. That's the intermediate state. Okay, we're taking another pause. There are two more lectures to go in the series.

We're going to tackle then the idea of God's judgment and then the eternal existence of death and the existence of new creation and eternal life. What do these concepts mean flowing out of the story as we've explored it so far? So there you go. You guys, thanks for listening. I hope this is helpful for you. If exploring My Strange Bible is a helpful podcast for you and you want to give it some love and support, feel free to go to iTunes and write down a little blurb, give it a one to five star rating, and cheers. That would be helpful for not just for me, but actually for other people if you want other people to

hear about it. So we'll see you next time. Thanks for listening.