Sabbath, saturday 23rd october
Before i start my text, i would like to make it clear that the Gospel, or the mysteries of GOD are not exclusive only to those who study Hebrew or greek; because i think this is generally proclaimed alot in these times. To reach salvation you dont need to even know the word Shalom, but i use Hebrew or greek because sometimes it is extremely helpful due to many generations of human error and the target audience, mixed into the WORD of GOD.
This article is about natural death, and following it in a second part will be about spiritual death.
LET THE DEAD BURY THEIR OWN DEAD
———————————————————————————————-
Famous words of Christ that still remain as brutal today as they were some 2000 years back; but do people really get the message here?
Let us but look to the situation;
So here we have Christ in the early part of his ministry, preaching about the kingdom and a man hears truth in what he says and decides to take the pledge of a disciple. On one condition, that he can first attend his fathers funeral to say his final goodbyes.
At first glance what he is asking of Jesus is not something really radical or unfair, also nothing un-biblical. Funerals are in the jewish culture, very much so. There were 30 days of mourning when moses died, and as for the new testament the apostles all weeped and mourned for the death of stephen the martyr, but in this case Jesus replied to the man
”Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.”
We hear no more of this wanna-be-disciple later on, so im guessing he sheepishly turned his back and went to the funeral.
I think that the common understanding of this verse, or rather the underlying moral is that this is the conditions of every serious disciple of Christ, to give up all for him. And this is true, but i believe that there is something more that Christs words imply, and that is of the soul and life after death.
Death n Permanent end of life in a person or an animal.
Let the dead… ” implies here that the mans father is literally dead/ in sheol.
Sheol, in the Hebrew bible appears well over 60 times in reference to the place where we go when we die, the only way to translate it correctly into english would be literally the state of being completely dead. Now if a person is dead, another part of them cant be living somewhere else; it kind of surpasses all logic. Say for example im awake, but i say im actually asleep someplace else, this makes absolutely no sense, its totally inaccurate.
But it is steeped in the traditions of men that the soul/ghost lives on after the body dies.
If the person served God to heaven, or if they were not christians to the pits of hell. The main reason for this would be mistranslation of Sheol, for english and greeks didnt have a word for the state of being dead- because they didnt believe in it. This is when hell and hades were birthed, ………….neither are in original texts.
שְׁאוֹל
””Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope: Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” - Psalm
Let us read what Paul says some generations after David, concerning the state of his soul.
” Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day…..For David is not ascended into the heavens” - Acts 2:
David was a man of God, surely Paul wasnt saying he then descended into hell? Not at all.
See, david said ” you will not leave my soul in hell” does that mean that he will endure hell fire breifly until the resurection of the just?
The word hell here should actually be SHEOL, and as i mentioned before it literally means the grave/ the state of being dead. David is in the grave.
The jews have a much more beautiful metaphor for death, and that is sleep/lie down/ shakab- שָׁכַב
Deu 31:16 And Yĕhovah said unto Moses, Behold, thou shalt sleep/ lie down with thy fathers;
Isa 14:8 Yea, the fir-trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down, no hewer is come up against us.
Isa 14:18 All the kings of the nations, all of them, sleep in glory, every one in his own house.
Job 3:13 For now should I have lain down and been quiet; I should have slept; then had I been at rest
However, no one looked forward to death, the idea was horrific. Many times in Tenach we here men ofGod pleading not to die because there is no comfort in the grave!
Psa 30:9 What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit(sheol)? Shall the dust praise thee? shall it declare thy truth?
Ecc 9:4-6 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 anything, 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 perished
If I wait, the grave is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness.
I have said to corruption, Thou art my father: to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister.
And where is now my hope? as for my hope, who shall see it?
They shall go down to the bars of the pit ( sheol ), when our rest together is in the dust…….
Oh that my words were now written! oh that they were printed in a book!
That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!
For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:
And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: ( Job 17: / Job 19: )
At this point someone may ask: But this is old testament stuff, we are in the new covenant! Or the jews were wrong!
To that i would give a beautiful example of the Messiah and the raising of Lazarus.
” After he said this, Jesus went on speaking to them. “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep,” he said. “But I am going there to wake him up.” John.11:11
Remember that sleep is a way of explaining death. So here Christ truly raises Lazarus from the grave, from sheol. If Lazarus had gone to ‘hell’ then surely Christ would have said something like ” our friend Lazarus has gone to hell, im gonna go and bring him out.”. If he was alive in his soul, then its not accurate to say he is dead.
I think it is more than necessary to outline the biblical definition of ‘soul’ , so that we can see if its actually possible to live on after death, and find truth in this matter.
We then must go back to genesis, where God created the life force that is soul.
” And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” Gen.2:7
Life = Soul
Soul is used in many ways in the bible, it can be ascribed to a person, to a feeling (soulful), to the emotions. In the KJV soul/ NEPHESH is translated as; appetite, beast, body, breath, creature, dead, desire, ghost, heart, life, lust, man, mind, mortally, person, pleasure, self, soul,
thing, will
So when these words are used in the wrong context you can see how a wrong understanding can be formed. ( all these words come from the one word, nepesh)
Gen 35:18 And it came to pass, as her soul was departing (for she died), that she called his name Ben-oni: but his father called him Benjamin.
The body cannot live without the soul as we see here in gen 35, i want to put forth that as the body cannot live without the soul, the soul cannot live without a body to inhabit. Soul is the animating life force created by God to give natural life to man and animals alike. Does this mean we are like animals in the sight of God? Not at all, ” God created man in his image” if this is to mean thought, logic, conscience, emotions etc; that are by popular myth in the soul, then it would mean animals are created in this image also, making God an animal. Which is blasphemy.
Animals have the same soul as humans? That sounds totally unbiblical, and a little bit vegan pro.
Yes it does if you are a king james fan, but as i mentioned earlier the pure word for soul-
NEPHESH נֶפֶשׁ , is translated in many ways leading to misunderstandings.
Gen 1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures ( nephesh ) after their kind, cattle, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth after their kind: and it was so.
Gen 1: 21 And God created great whales, and every living creature ( nephesh) that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Life is soul and soul is life, natural life. Just as the spirit gives spiritual life, the soul gives natural life. And when the body gives up its breath, the soul dies just as the body for they cannot exist without eachother. Thus when a human dies, its dead. It rots in the ground and it is no more. It does not partially exist some other place according to its good or bad life. The grave does not have respect to your theology, the righteous and unrighteous die and thats it. The christian hope, according to the bible, is not that when you die your soul lives on. If that was the case, what would be the point in the resurection?
The hope of one who follows Christ is that he will pull us out of the grave with a shout from heaven, and we will be raised, even as he was raised from the DEAD ( Yes, Jesus died. He did not go to hell for 3 days, neither heaven. Jesus laid in a tomb, totally dead for 3 days. ) in newness of body; not one powered by a corruptible soul, but powered by spirit. We will not have ghost bodies contradictory to tradition, but as Jesus’ body was after his ressurrection so will ours be.
”Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” Luke.24:39
Amen.
