Life after death is a significant topic, and in today’s discussion, we dive into whether it’s truly a divine promise or just a figment of human imagination. We start by exploring how the Old Testament addresses this critical question, emphasizing that God desires a relationship with us and has provided scripture to guide us toward understanding our salvation and the promise of everlasting life. Contrary to some beliefs that the early followers had only a vague notion of the afterlife, we’ll uncover various passages that clearly affirm a longstanding belief in life beyond this world. We’ll also touch on how this understanding impacts our daily lives and the choices we make, highlighting that our beliefs shape our actions and accountability in this life. Join me as we unravel the Scriptures and affirm the hope that lies in our faith, grounded in the timeless truth of God’s Word.

Takeaways:

• In this episode, we discuss how the Bible communicates God's desire for us to know Him personally, emphasizing that the scriptures are essential for understanding our salvation.
• We explore the Old Testament's perspective on life after death, challenging the notion that ancient believers had only a vague understanding of the afterlife.
• The Apostle Paul reminds us that our hope in Christ extends beyond this life, affirming that those who trust in Him are assured of eternal life with God.
• We examine Job's profound declarations about seeing God after death, which provide early evidence of a belief in resurrection and life beyond the grave.
• The podcast emphasizes that the belief in life after death is not only present in the teachings of Jesus but has deep roots throughout the Old Testament scriptures.
• We conclude by reinforcing that God's love and desire for a relationship with humanity spans both the Old and New Testament, promising eternal connection with Him for believers.

Links referenced in this episode:

• www.bible805.com
• bible805.com

Welcome to the Bible 805 podcast.

God wants us to know him and the Bible is one of the ways he's communicated everything we need for our salvation and a closer, more personal walk with him now and forever.

In this podcast, which comes out every Wednesday morning with supporting materials published by Friday each week on www.bible805.com I take sometimes difficult sounding Bible topics and them easy to understand and apply. At least that's what my students tell me.

See for yourself as we get started on our topic today, which is--

Life after death, God's gift or man's wishful thinking?

This lesson today will talk about how the Old Testament answers this very important question.

Now why ask this question?

Reality is that life isn't easy and contrary to what some say, becoming a Christian does not mean you'll be prosperous and free from troubles. Quite the contrary, we may have more testing trials and challenges than we can imagine because of that.

The Apostle Paul said, if in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

But he went on to share that because of Christ's death and resurrection, this life is not all there is, and that those who have trusted Christ for salvation are assured of an eternity with Him. But the question comes up did people always believe that?

We know the New Testament is very clear about a belief in life after death after the resurrection of Jesus. But what about in the Old Testament? Some say that people back then didn't believe in a real life after death.

They say people only had a vague,.

Shadowy idea of an existence in Sheol, some kind of shadowy netherworld, and that the idea of life after death was man's invention. Over time, starting with vague ideas and developing through the Old Testament.

When I first heard that, it deeply disturbed me because one of the core beliefs of my personal pilgrimage to an assurance of Jesus as Savior and everything else about the truth about the Bible, the Christian faith is that if something is true, it should be true for all time. What I learned about the history of the Bible verified that.

And please do take time to listen to the lessons that I talk about how history helps us verify the Bible. You can access all of them on the Bible805.com site.

But for this lesson, when I heard that claim people in the Old Testament really didn't believe in life after death, I was upset because I believe that God is true and trustworthy and that he doesn't change. And though much revelation is progressive in.

That we understand things more and more.

As we go through biblical history. For example The Old Testament prophesied about the Messiah, but we don't personally meet the Messiah Jesus until the New Testament.

Seem to me that the core beliefs for something as important as bodily resurrection, that this truth ought to be taught clearly from the first to the last of the Bible. My conclusion, after extensive study is that it does clearly teach this truth from first to last.

Not only is the truth consistent, but so are false beliefs in that they've always been around. Our situation today is very similar.

Similar to when Jesus was on earth and he was arguing with the Sadducees, who they didn't believe in the resurrection either. In the midst of that exchange, he challenged them by saying, you are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.

At the resurrection, people will neither marry nor be given in marriage. They will be like the angels in heaven. But about the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what God said to you?

I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

In saying this, Jesus affirmed the resurrection going back to the founder of the Jewish faith, Abraham, to prove it. Now, why did the Sadducees believe this?

The common scholarly consensus is they did not believe in the resurrection because they only accepted the first five books of the Bible, the Torah, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Some go on to say that these books don't teach there's a resurrection from the dead.

One obvious example though, is a story of Enoch, who walked with God and one day God simply took him to be with him. Somehow they ignore that passage. Do they think that he took Enoch with him to just poof, dissolve him? No, I don't think so.

God took Enoch to be with him, to walk with him forever. Their behavior, unfortunately, as many say, I think much more correctly, determine their theology.

While we can't judge their hearts, their behavior, that of the Sadducees, seem to determine their theology. Because while a belief in life after death can be comforting and hopeful, there's also the reality of accountability.

If we know we'll face God one day and be judged for what we.

Did in this life.

If you don't believe in that, if you believe this life is all there is, you'll most likely live very differently than if you believe you'll give an account one day for how you live. And that is precisely what we see in the Sadducees, who are known for.

Their wealth, power and political connections, not.

For the God centeredness or caring for others actions of their lives.

Now, regardless of the source of their.

Beliefs, if it was to justify their lifestyle or simply what they accepted because that's what their fellow Sadducees believed.

A denial of life is what they.

Believed and what they held to. But Jesus very clearly told them they.

Were wrong because they didn't base their.

Beliefs on the clear teaching of Scripture. It's the same with people today where.

Incorrect beliefs come from.

Then those who do not believe that.

The New Testament, excuse me, that the.

Old Testament clearly affirms the resurrection today, regardless of lifestyle reasons seem to come to this view from these sources. This is what I've in doing a lot of study on them.

First of all, an unexamined acceptance of a faulty scholarly view based on texts that are not in the Bible.

These have been disproved by well respected Bible scholars who support the view of life after death and the extensive biblical documentation of it in the Old Testament.

But most important of all is the scholars can debate this and that and the other and they can quote this and they can quote each other and they can go back and forth and all that. But what you just need to do is just read the Bible, read the original declarative and definitive documents about this issue.

They are in the Old Testament, as Jesus said then and now. People don't know the Scriptures and because of that they come to incorrect conclusions, like many things we've studied.

We won't spend our time in this lesson tracking down all the incorrect beliefs and why they're false. We're going to look at the simple reality of the extensive teaching on life after death that we see in the Old Testament.

And so that's the good stuff. So let's get started on that. Now, what the Old Testament says about the belief in life after death. Now, what follows is a selection of verses.

There are many, many more, but I selected ones that span much of the.

History of the old testamen.

We're going to start with Job, arguably the earliest book written in the Bible. Now check out the lessons Genesis and Job. Answers to the big questions in life. If you want documentation on the dating.

Of Job, we'll then go through Psalms.

And two prophets, Isaiah who lived before the Babylonian captivity and then Daniel, who lived during and slightly after it. Again, though much more could be quoted. This is a good representative collection of quotes spanning most of Old Testament history.

And let me just say with Job, I may not have been clear about it. I believe, as do many biblical scholars and Jewish. The Jewish view of it is that Job was the first book written in the biblical account.

So it's very, very old.

It's the foundation for many things written by Moses, probably that he got the material when he was in his 40 years in the desert after he had to flee Egypt. But this is where we get some of our very first and foundational confirmation on life after death.

Now this passage is wonderful as it is, but let's look at it a little bit more closely.

Now, beyond the obvious belief of that statement, when I did into the Hebrew of the text, it was even more exciting because we're going to focus on one Hebrew word, Bashar. And let me just talk about this a little bit where he says, I know that my redeemer lives. In the end he will stand on the earth.

And after my skin, that's the Hebrew word, oar, has been destroyed. Yet in my flesh, basar, I will see God. I myself will see him with my own eyes. I am not another. How my heart yearns within me.

Now, the Hebrew word for skin means precisely the same word as the English word. It's the living skin of a living being.

In the next verse, in my flesh, Job does not suddenly become a ghost, because in that verse, when he talks about after he has died, he uses the word bashar. He says, basically, my exterior skin's destroyed. But this is what bashar means. It also means exterior skin.

Metaphorically, the human race used of the flesh of the living body, the whole body. There are similar, they are similar words with the same meaning, living and after death. Both words he uses mean being alive with skin on.

Here's another use of the word bashar that's used in Genesis 2:23, where Adam says, this is now bone of my.

Bones, flesh, bashar of my flesh, bashar. And she shall be called, called woman because she was taken out of man. Job uses that same word, bashar, flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone,.

To describe his existence. This is no vague, ill formed view of the afterlife, no hazy ghostly existence, but a Life as tangible and real.

As his life is now.

Where Job affirms he will see his.

This is the Hebrew word khalifa to come. Renewal. Is that this word renewal in the Hebrew khalifa. Its meaning is a change of garments.

And it reminded me a lot of the Apostle Paul where He says in 2nd Corinthians 5 For we know that when this tent we live in now is taken, when we die and leave these bodies, we will have wonderful new.

Bodies in heaven, homes that will be.

Ours forevermore, made for us by God himself and not by human hands. How weary we grow of our present bodies. That is why we look forward eagerly to the day when we shall have.

Heavenly bodies that will put on like new clothes.

In both, we see a consistent belief of God's people throughout the biblical record, not of death as an extinction, but as a change of garments in Job and a putting on of new clothes in Paul's terms, in which the soul will reside forever. Now back to the Old Testament. Saul and David moving along in biblical history.

Death in 1st Samuel 28, Paul sins by calling up Samuel who died, and Samuel tells him that he and his sons would be with him Samuel after Saul's death the next day, a clear statement of the shared belief of life after death. The battle went badly, Saul's sons were killed, and rather than be captured, Saul falls on his sword and commits suicide.

In affirming life after death, this passage is significant. For those who die by suicide, they're not abandoned by God. Samuel told Saul after his suicide he would be where Samuel was, with God also.

This passage is reassuring for those who did not die well, who die in despair and sin. No matter what the reason, they can be assured they will be with God. As C.S.

Lewis said, we shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels are put out and the clean clothes in the airing cover.

No matter how we leave, we will be welcomed home later. When David's child with Bathsheba died, his attendants asked him, why are you acting this way?

While the child was alive, he fasted and wept.

But now that the child is dead, you get up and eat. David answered, while the child was still alive, Yes, I fasted and wept. I thought, who knows, the Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.

But now that he's dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me. David is very clear in his belief in life after death.

This is also an assurance that infants too young to make a personal decision to follow Jesus have safely gone home to heaven. In Psalms, there's many passages that affirm God is our guide in life and death. Psalm 73 says, Yet I'm always with you. You hold me by my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you and on earth? I desire nothing besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Again, note that passage, you guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me to glory.

More in the Psalms, in contrast to the death of the wicked, in Psalm 49 it says, but God will redeem me from the power of death, for he will receive me. In Psalm 23 some verses out of it the Lord is my shepherd.

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Wonderful assurances that not only will we get through terrifying times, but that ultimately we will be with our God forever.

An important note on the previous Psalms these various passages in the Psalms by various authors they were by the sons of Korah, ASAP, etc. Show that a belief in life after death was not solely the belief of one person, David, who was a man after God's own heart.

We tend to think of Psalms as private devotional materials, and that can be very true.

But historically they were more these groups, the Sons of Korah and Leader Asap and of Asaph were leaders of public worship, and the songs are reflective of the beliefs of God's people. We're celebrating in public worship.

This was not just the view of a few super godly people that there was life after death, but of the community of Israel sung and celebrated together.

Now from a later prophet Isaiah's testimony, He wrote between 739 and 681 BC and in Isaiah 25 it says, on this mountain he will destroy the shroud that unfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations. He will swallow up death forever. The sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces. He will remove his people's disgrace from all the earth.

Your dew is like the dew of the morning. The earth will give birth to her dead. And just again, to emphasize the key verse from that, Isaiah 25:8. He will swallow up death forever.

The sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces. The book of Isaiah has many, many more passages about life after death and the coming eternal kingdom of God. Read it all and be encouraged.

Daniel, one of the first captives taken in the Babylonian captivity in 605 BC he lived to see the return of the people to Israel. A little side note here. The biblical story of Daniel starts when he was a teenager and continues until he was most likely in his mid-80s.

The story of Daniel in the lion's den happened when he was in his early 80s, a reminder that at any age God can challenge us and use us for his purposes. Near the end of his life, he prophesied about the end times.

And as part of that he states, multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness like the stars, forever and ever.

That is the path, the true path to stardom.

Now, based on the written record, the scriptures that Jesus referred to, it's all of the things that I've been telling you about the assurance of life after death, of conscious physical resurrection is a consistent and clear message of the Old Testament. But you've got to read it to know that the consistency of this belief makes sense.

When we look at the overall biblical narrative that started when God created people to live forever and a paradise to walk with them. But sin broke that created close relationship, but it did not break God's love, often described as it does in Jeremiah 31:3 as an everlasting love.

You'll see that love demonstrated again and again as you read through the Bible in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament, wherein God's love was fully demonstrated with Jesus death on the cross and resurrection. And because of that, not only are we resurrected, but the end of humanity story. We will find a new heaven and a new earth.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, look, God's dwelling is now among the people and he will dwell with them. They will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes.

There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away once again. Our God walking among and with his people.

The story isn't changed from the Old Testament stories of Job, David, Daniel and many others to the New Testament thief on the cross who Jesus promised today he would be with him in paradise. For some reason, the Bible calls it grace, but that's a concept almost impossible to wrap our minds around.

Our Creator loves us and wants to be with us forever. We're not a throwaway creation.

The God who created us went to extraordinary efforts to redeem us from the consequences of walking away from him from eternal death.

John 3:16 sums it up by saying, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

God gives eternal, real, physical and bodily resurrected life for people in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and for all of us who trust Jesus as Savior.

We have the assurance that we will not be blotted out or condemned to a vague ghostly wandering after this life, but that once again we will walk with our God forever.

That's all for now.

Please check out the show notes, a complete downloadable transcript, graphics mention and related materials at www.bible805.com until next time, I'm Yvonne Prynn, your fellow pilgrim, writer and teacher for Jesus, and I'd like to close with this benediction.

May you know the invitation of God to move from confusion to clarity, from wandering to rest, from loneliness to knowing you are loved, from turmoil to peace, from wherever you are in your spiritual journey to a growing knowledge of God's Word and in your personal relationship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Amen.