Addressing yet another biblical text that seems to contradict what we believe about death.

<p>Addressing yet another biblical text that seems to contradict what we believe about death.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Hope Channel

InVerse, 4th Quarter 2022: Beyond Death

Sikhu Daco

Justin Kim

Israel Ramos

Jonathan Walter

01 Two Voices, Two Authorities

So, there's a talking snake and what's this thing about a tree?

We're going to talk about it on this episode of Inverse.

Coming to you from Silver Spring, Maryland, welcome to Inverse, a Bible-based conversation on life principles, contemporary issues, and thought-provoking perspectives.

Now here's your host, Justin Kim, with Inverse.

Hey everyone, this is Inverse, and my name's Justin, and in the studio we have our friends here, Israel and Siku and Jonathan.

I'm very excited that you are here also, and we are entering into a new topic for the next 14 weeks.

We are looking at the topic of beyond death.

How many of you have been wondering about the question of death and what the Bible has to say about it.

Really, the Bible is the only document, only source of authority out there that talks about what happens to you after you die.

So on this week, and for every week from now on, for the next 14 weeks, we're gonna look at the topic of the afterlife, of what happens to your spirit, your soul, and your psyche.

And we're going to do all the gymnastics that are involved in that study.

And we're going to go to Genesis chapter 3.

But before we always read, We always pray before we read Scripture.

Father in heaven, we want to thank You for Your Word and that it provides guidance on this very important topic, a topic that's near to the heart of every human being.

So we pray for Your blessing, Your presence at this time.

Let's go to Genesis Chapter 3, verses 1 through 6.

We are already familiar with Genesis 1 and 2, the 2 creation accounts.

And now we enter, everything was perfect, but then we get to Chapter 3 and things are not perfect.

Now, the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.

And he said to the woman, Has God indeed said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree, which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.

Then the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die, for God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree desirable to make 1 wise, she took of its fruit and ate.

She also gave to her husband with her and he ate." Very good, very good.

So there's a lot of people who read Scripture and they read Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 of Genesis.

And how many of you out there, You're like, man, I want to read the Bible and you start right off and you're okay.

Genesis 1 and 2, this is pretty interesting.

God's God, so you can do whatever, but then you go to chapter 3 and there's a talking snake and that's also another interesting point that we can talk about or not talk about, but there's the tree factor and already people automatically think that, well, is God petty that over and Whether it's an apple or not, we don't know.

But in all the artistic depictions, the photos, it is an apple.

And then, you know, she eats, is God petty here?

So in chapter 2, God has created everything.

And then we have in chapter 2, verse 9, that out of the ground, the Lord God made every tree to grow that is pleasant to the sight, good for food.

And then he says the tree of life was also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

So it sets the stage for God created all these trees, and with all these trees, including the tree of life, they can eat freely.

But then he says, just 1 tree, I think it's verse 17, right?

And the Lord God commanded the man saying, of every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.

To put it in perspective about if God is petty, it would be a kind of pettiness where he's actually really kind, because he gives every tree to be eaten off freely.

And there's just only 1 tree that you're not supposed to eat off.

And it's kind of like, you know, like little children, the 1 thing that you tell them not to do, that's now, you become fixated on that's what I want to do.

And it's like, that's the only thing that you could ever possibly do in the whole entire world.

But he's saying, there's everything is actually free and open to you.

And there's only 1 thing that I'm restricting.

In a sense, God puts a test of loyalty, like just 1 small thing that every time you make the choice not to eat of this tree, you are choosing to obey me, you're choosing to be loyal to me, you're choosing to be on my side.

And it's a very small test really in perspective that tests their loyalty to God.

So no, God is not being petty, but the tree of knowledge of good and evil actually becomes a tree of choice.

That he's giving Adam and Eve a choice to choose to be loyal to God, to choose to serve Him.

That's a very important factor that God has created ideal conditions.

And within that ideal environment, there's this 1 little switch where you can say, hey, I'm out.

And there's a way to pull out of the scenario and God has given us choice.

I was just going to, you know, I don't know why, but as you were reading and explaining, I had to think of, you know, how we, when you subscribe to something or you sign up for something or you buy a product there's always terms and conditions and they're like pages and pages and no 1 ever reads them right unless you maybe a paid lawyer who has to read it but like no 1 ever reads them let's be real yes Sebastian does but that's Sebastian and so That's why he's not on this episode.

But I appreciate that God's terms and conditions here are very clear cut, very simple to the point.

And the reality is that because God is love and He wants us to freely love him, he had to give the option of opting out.

Because if there's no choice, then you don't have freedom.

And so he gives them the choice, and he doesn't make it complicated with terms and conditions.

He just says, hey, there's this 1 tree, don't touch it.

And it's so awesome when corporations and companies have that option to opt out, right?

And it's those emails, and if you're out there, you better be listening.

And there's emails where you can't opt out.

You just feel oppressed, that you're part of the system you can't go out of.

It shows a revelation of God's character.

More than an issue of God being petty or not, what's happening in the first 3 chapters of Genesis is the establishment of authority.

So if you look at Genesis chapter 1, Genesis chapter 2, it's important to understand that God is the active person speaking.

Sebastien Braxton

Callie Williams

02 Words Matter

Find out more on this episode of Inverse.

Coming to you from Silver Spring, Maryland, Welcome to Inverse, a Bible-based conversation on life principles, contemporary issues, and thought-provoking perspectives.

And in the studio, we have Jonathan, Sebastian, and Callie, my friends.

We're looking at the topic of beyond death.

And we're going to look at Bible texts and Bible study on the afterlife.

We want to encourage you to go to inversebible.org and you can look at our Bible study guide and it looks at all the the different Bible texts and passages that are a bit difficult and a little bit difficult to understand about what happens to you after you die.

We also wanna encourage you to go to hopetv.org slash inverse and you can actually watch last week's episode that really provides an introduction for this episode.

We've talked about last episode and You guys weren't here, but Jonathan is here.

And we talked about the snake and the tree in Genesis 3.

Really foundational text to understanding this whole confusion about what happens to you after you die.

Today we're gonna go to Genesis chapter 2.

And As I mentioned in the opener, there are just a lot of words for this, right?

You know, soul, spirit, ghost, yeah, and we need clarity.

So we'll have a word of prayer and we'll get into the text.

And there's a lot of texts we're going to get into today.

Our Father, we are grateful that we have the privilege of having Your Word to guide us and to navigate this world.

Lord, especially on the topic of death, which is something that visits every life, every culture, every country.

And we pray, Lord, that as we get into the details and we ask that you would give us understanding and clarity, as your word promises, that the Holy Spirit would guide us into all truth, is our prayer in Jesus' name.

Kelly, if you go to Genesis chapter 2, verse 7.

Okay, it says, 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 being.

That's the introductory question given to you.

Because there are, because everyone has an opinion.

Yeah, It is true that we have the freedom to think, and we are trying to make sense of the world around us.

And we live in a time and age where there is a lot of information.

And so you're trying to make sense of it as you go.

Because as you go, there's another avalanche of information coming at you.

I feel like sometimes when you look back at the olden age, it's simpler times.

Things are more black and white and clearer times, or not as clear.

But it's been, I think, we live in a time and age where confusion abounds.

We don't have any, you know, eyewitness accounts.

Like, hey, I died, but now this is what happens.

Well, it's not a universal experience, we should say.

When it comes to death, there are all these different ideologies, stories, narratives, beliefs, religions, and opinions, and confusion about this.

And I think a big part of that comes from Greek philosophy having this sort of Dualistic thing where Plato likes to kind of set parse things up and so there's like well There's the body and then there's the soul right and so this whole idea of this dualism that exists right The Bible here in Genesis chapter 2 and verse 7 is essentially speaking against that as the understanding of humanity from the perspective of the Creator.

That Greek understanding is pretty prevalent, isn't it?

In almost every movie, every cartoon, every whatever you have that like, coming out and then the body is just a shell.

That's permeated in almost every aspect of, almost every religion out there as well.

Yeah, I think another part of it is just how we take words and we just assume we know what they mean.

And it's like, oh, it says this, which obviously means this.

Because we can of course intentionally have like a Greek mindset, like Sebastian was saying.

But I think sometimes we forget that like you can think something even if you don't think it on purpose.

And so even if you didn't go out and study Greek philosophy, even if you didn't intentionally be like, I'm going to internalize this belief, just the things that we are exposed to.

There was a, there was 1, series we did about, it's different, but we opened up with about scripts.

And there's just different things that we learn.

03 The Keys of Hades

The Bible talks about the keys of hell and of Hades.

Let's unlock this question on this episode of Inverse.

My name's Justin, and in the studio we have Callie, and Siku, and Israel.

We are talking about the topic of beyond death and we want to encourage you to go to hopetv.org slash inverse and you can look at the previous episodes on about death what happens to you what we're continuing to talk about that so we're gonna get different parts of the Bible and those 3 episodes are very core to understanding the rest of this quarter.

So we're gonna go to 1 Corinthians 15-51-55.

Another word for Hades is hell, shield in the Old Testament.

And just like we did last week, we had a little word study on spirit, on soul, on ruach, and neshema and some of the Hebrew and the Greek there.

And before, stay with us, because this becomes a very awesome study, because there are keys, and who has these keys, and how does that work?

So let's have a prayer, and Siku, if you can pray for us, and let's get into it.

Loving Father, we ask that you would open our minds to understand what scripture has to say on this topic, a very important topic that touches all of us.

So help us to understand so that we can come to love you and know you even better.

We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.

In a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

So, when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory.

So Siku, if you can kind of give us a, What have we talked about thus far?

From what I recall, episode 1 we talked about just the lie of you shall not surely die.

And then we went to talk about, I know the last episode we were talking about, Shay, different words that are used, like the Hebrew and the Greek cognates that are used for breath, spirit, and understanding what the meaning of those words are in their context for being able to interpret them correctly in the Bible.

Hey, Kelly, you mentioned something in the last episode that I think was appropriate then, I think also appropriate for this study.

There's a lot of people who don't know Hebrew and Greek, and then they're also, they've just like, ah, Hebrew and Greek, and whenever pastors are like, hey, if you're looking at Hebrew and Greek, they're like, ah, blah, blah, blah.

So this is 1 of those, it is 1 of those episodes, but why is it important and why should we do that?

Yeah, it's important because we need to know what words mean when we use them.

And so we can approach something and see these different words like, oh, Hades, I saw that in a movie and I know what that means.

So we can just approach things by just getting context from other places other than scripture.

Even something as simple as like a cartoon or we heard it somewhere, I read some article, but it's like, it's in our brain.

And so we fill in the gaps with other things that are not scripture.

And so it's important to go to the Greek and Hebrew because 1, it's important to see which words overlap, even if they're translated differently in English.

And it's also important to get the context of what does this word mean in context, not based on the context of my experience, but based on the context of Scripture and by understanding what words mean, it actually impacts us in a practical day-to-day life.

So the, it's kind of like front-loaded work.

It's like, man, why do I have to read these words that I don't care about or that I don't say this language but by understanding that it does have a practical and a day-to-day impact we just have to take the time to understand what we're studying.

Now the Bible in the expression in New Testament does use the word Hades does the word and then for familiar with Hades it is the Greek god of the underworld, and we think that hell is in the world, and because of cartoons, because of mega corporation media companies from Florida that have a castle as their logo, we think of this like, you know, Hades being the underworld and fire and all that, brimstone, all that stuff.

So how can we help us navigate, especially from this passage, how do we navigate through some of these word studies here?

Before going to, I think, verse 55 from what we read is the important 1.

But I just wanted to mention with what Kelly said that even without knowing the Greek and the Hebrew, we can study scripture and understand, even without the Greek.

Just to put out there, because sometimes people feel like, you know, I won't be able to.

And this is an example, because here in verse 55, you have, oh, death, where is your sting?

And this is actually a quotation from the Old Testament.

The Bible says, I will ransom them from the power of the grave.

And the word that he's paraphrasing it, right, and the word that is translated, oh, grave, is sheol, right, in the Hebrew, And he uses the Greek word, Hades.

So you have the cognate there is, you know, Sheol is Hades in the Old Testament, New Testament.

But here, interestingly enough, he's been speaking about having victory over Hades, right?

So if Hades is this place of burning, you know, where, you know, the devil has a pitchfork and he's roasting you forever, does it make sense that the righteous are coming out of this place and saying, oh, hell, where's your victory over me?

Yet, these are the righteous who are coming out of the graves.

So just in that context, that wouldn't make sense.

The Greek word Hades can, in some contexts, in literature, means this underworld place that Greek philosophers believed in.

But we see that, as you're saying, the parallel with the Hebrew is, Sheol was just simply a grave, simply a pit, simply a place in the ground.

So here he's saying victory over, over, over death.

And to say, to follow up a little bit on what Callie was saying.

04 Absent from the Body—When?

The Bible talks about being absent from the body.

Let's answer it on this episode of Inverse.

Hi everyone, you're watching Inverse, and my name's Justin.

And on the roundtable that we have here are Sebastian and Israel and Callie and I want to say hello to them.

We are studying the topic of death and not specifically death but what happens beyond death.

And in the past couple of weeks we've looked at different aspects of what the Bible has to say about the afterlife.

We want to encourage you to study along with us, to go to inversebible.org and look at the topic of beyond death.

And this is quite the intense Bible study.

We do look at the Hebrew and the Greek and you don't have to know it but we have the Bible study guide there for you as a resource.

We also want to encourage you to go to hopeTV.org and you can back watch the previous episodes about Genesis chapter 3, Genesis chapter 2 and all the Greek and other Hebrew texts we want all throughout the Bible.

In this episode we're going to go to 2 Corinthians chapter 5.

2 Corinthians chapter 5, we want to encourage you to take out your Bibles, whether it's on digital or analog format, and also download the app.

You can download the official Sabbath School app created by Advent Tech, and there you can get Inverse on your phone and study with us as well.

And Callie, can you pray for us before we read Scripture?

Father in heaven, we thank you for this opportunity to study your word.

And we thank you that you have put so much truth into scripture that we can see what's going to happen beyond things that we're currently experiencing.

And so Father, as we study your word, I ask that you would open our hearts and minds by your Holy Spirit.

Help us to discern things correctly and help us to walk away, not just with more information, but more at peace.

Because we can trust you even in the unknown.

We ask and pray this in Jesus name, amen.

Sebastian, 2 Corinthians 5, verses 1 through 10, please.

For we know that if our earthly house, this tent is destroyed, We have a building from God, a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens.

For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven.

If indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked.

For we who are in this tent grown, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life.

Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

I should say weird in the sense that it's difficult.

There's groaning, there's houses and tents and clothes and whatnot.

I think Paul's describing the present human condition and experience.

And in the human experience that we go through in today's life, there's pain.

It's kind of the picture that he's giving is this groaning that it's what comes into my mind is the concept or the picture of let's say an animal being outside left to the elements right with no shelter it's cold it's suffering it's miserable and in in a very similar way our experiences that way is composed of suffering and difficulty We're longing for some kind of shelter, from some kind of protection from the awful elements of this world.

And what Paul is saying is that very thing that we experienced, that groaning, that being uncomfortable with the way this world is, it's actually something that God has given to us.

Series

InVerse, 4th Quarter 2022: Beyond Death

09 The Dead Who Stand Before God

Transcript

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