Both under the Judges and later under the Kings, the history of the Jews is one of rebellion against God followed by defeat and captivity. When they repented and turned back to God, they came out of exile and prospered.
Thomas Thayer: "The entire history of the Jewish people as a nation, and as individuals, from generation to generation, shows with what exactness the threatening of the law was fulfilled in judgment. When they were obedient, the Lord prospered them, and rewarded them with fruitful seasons, with increasing wealth and power, and made them superior to their enemies. But, when they were rebellious and wicked, then followed adversity, defeat, captivity, and all the physical calamities threatened in the Law. But, all this while we have not one syllable of an endless woe, which is to be added to all the other woes. In no instance of rebellion against God, not when their corruption and idolatry were at the highest reaches of crime and blasphemy, do we find them threatened with the torments of a hell beyond the present life." "Origin And History Of The Doctrine Of Endless Punishment"
All the blessings and all the punishments of the Law were physical in their lifetime. Punishment or reward after death is not promised. For thousands of years throughout the Old Testament, God warned of punishments in this lifetime if anyone did not keep the Law, but not one warning that anyone has a “soul” in them that would "go to Hell" after they were dead. Death (mooth) is used hundreds of times, and except the few times it is used in a symbolic passage, it always means an actual physical death. The concept of Heaven is in the Old Testament, but only as the dwelling place of God (Psalm 11:4; 33:13-14), and of angels (Genesis 21:17; 22:11; 28:12). Heaven in the Old Testament was not a place where any person would ever expect to be, not a place where a soul that was in them would live forever; there is no description or promise of a resurrection to life in Heaven after death as there is in the New Testament, no promise of immortality to any individual. The God of Israel was a God who would protect them, give them blessings in this lifetime, and give them a long lifetime if they were faithful to Him, and punish them only in this lifetime if they were not. “The dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any who go down into silence; but as for us (the living), we will bless the Lord from this time forth and forever” (Psalm 115:17-18); today’s belief of many that a soul that has gone out of the dead goes to Heaven after the death of the person it was in cannot be read back into their beliefs; death was the end of both blessing from the Lord and praising the Lord.
The savior they looked for was a human person like David (not the Son of God) who would restore Israel as a nation as David did, and he would make Israel again be superior to other nations. When the multitudes saw Jesus make bread as Moses did (John 5:14-66) they said, “This is of truth the Prophet who is to come into the world,” and “were intending to come and take Him by force, to make Him king.” When Jesus made known unto them that He had not come to set up a political kingdom of Israel, but His kingdom was an entirely different kind of kingdom, “As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew, and were not walking with Him anymore” (John 6:66). He was not the earthly king they were looking for that they thought would restore the earthly kingdom of Israel. Even after His death and resurrection, His apostles still thought the Christ they and all Israel looked for would restore the nation of Israel to their land and rule national Israel in his lifetime, that He would be a human king only of Israel only in his lifetime as David had (Acts 1:6). A resurrection to immortality and life in Heaven was a new teaching by Christ (2 Timothy 1:10), and was unknown in the Old Testament. The word resurrection is used forty-one times in the New Testament but not once in the Old Testament.
One of the great difficulties with the eternal torment view is the profound silence of the Old Testament about it. How could God have warned Israel in detail about punishments in this life, droughts, plagues, and other punishments, and not say one word about an eternal Hell which would be the worst of all punishments? The total silence of the Old Testament for thousands of years about endless torment for souls is proof that it does not exist.
“I WILL SING…WHILE I HAVE MY BEING” Psalm 145:2
Hebrew dualism, saying the same thing in two ways.
· “I will praise the Lord while I live”
· “I will sing praises to my God while I have my being”
To live was to have being, not to live was to not have being.
"IN MY FLESH SHALL I SEE GOD" Job 19:25-27
In "Reason and Revelation" May 2000, Dr. Bert Thompson used this question that Job asked to prove a person has a part in him or her that will live after the death of the person. If I understand Dr. Thompson right, he is saying Job said without his body he would see God. Job said, "Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God; whom I myself shall behold, and whom my eyes shall see and not another." He is reading into this passage that Job is saying he has a immaterial something living in him that cannot die, and reading in that it is not Job, but only this immaterial no substance something that was in Job that will see God.
What was Job really saying? Job and his three friends were unaware of the decisions made between God and Satan to let Satan tempt Job as we know now when we read this book. Job had much but lost everything, and his friends and wife was telling him it was because he had sinned, and he was then in his life time being punished for, as it is taught in the Law, God punished those that sinned and rewarded those that keep His word. Much of Job’s book is made up of speeches by his threes friends accusing Job of sin because of what had happened to him, and that he was at that time being punished for something he had did, and Job's response to them accusing him of sin. They had no revelation of punishment after death and his three friends said nothing to him about any punishment after his death; the only punishment they said anything about was the punishment they thought Job was already receiving at that time for something they thought he had did. Earlier in Job's third response he had said, "For there is hope for a tree, when it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and its shoots will not fail. Though its roots grow old in the ground, and its stump dies in the dry soil, at the scent of water it will flourish and put forth sprigs like a plant." For a tree that has been cut down Job sees hope that it will live again. "But man dies and lies prostate. Man expires, and where is he? As water evaporates from the sea, and a river becomes parched and dried up, so man lies down and does not rise. Until the heavens be no more, he will not awake nor be aroused out of his sleep." He sees hope of life for a tree cut down, but for a person he sees no hope of life (Job 14:7-12). In Job's time, what would be understood by "until the heavens be no more"? In the Old Testament the heavens were thought to be forever, their end was not known about. See Psalm 89:29, 148:6. In his hopelessness he could see hope for a tree cut down, but for person after death he could see no hope "until the heavens be no more," which he may have thought would never be. This is one of the many expressions of hopelessness that are throughout his speeches. He sees a person as dead, not as being alive.
In his fifth speech in chapter 19, Job seems to be at his lowest level of hope, but in his hopelessness he may see a ray of hope. "And as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the earth." His Redeemer shall manifest Himself as Job’s vindicator; there is nothing said about any resurrection. Many see Christ as being the redeemer Job was speaking of, but there is no revelation that had been given at this time from which Job could know about Christ being the redeemer, or that God his redeemer would ever leave Heaven and come down to this earth as Christ did. God was seen as the redeemer and deliverer of those that kept His law, Christ and the Holy Spirit being God had not been revealed to them. See Psalm 19:14; 78:35; Proverbs 23:11; Jeremiah 50:34. Over and over Israel sinned, and went into bondage and God their Redeemer delivered them when they repented. Even in the time of Christ, the Jews thought their Christ would be a man like David, a redeemer of their nation from Rome, not a redeemer of individuals from eternal death.
R. L. Harris, as quoted by Homer Hailey said, “The primary meaning of the root [ga’al, to redeem; go’el, redeemer] is to do the part of a kinsman and thus to redeem his kin from difficulty or danger…There is the very common usage prominent in the Psalms and the prophets that God is Israel’s Redeemer who will stand up for His people and vindicate them.” “A Commentary On Job,” Religious Supply, Inc. page 176.
"Even after my skin is destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God," the translators had difficulties with understanding what the Hebrew says in this passage, the King James says, "in my flesh," the Revised Standard says, “from my flesh.”
“This is a stupid error in our version, which fortunately, is rare enough in the ASV; but there is no doubt of it here. The proper rendition here is, ‘In my flesh, I shall see God,’ as properly rendered in the AV, the new RSV, and in the Douay.” James Burton Coffman, “Job” page 175, Abilene Christian University Press.
The Revised English Bible translates this passage, "But I know that vindicator lives and that he will rise last to speak in court: I shall discern my witness standing at my side and see my defending counsel, even God himself, whom I shall see with my own eyes, I myself and no other." Is the fulfillment of this after God his redeemer had delivered and vindicated Job? (Job 42:5), "I know of you only by report, but now I see you with my own eyes, therefore I yield, repenting in dust and ashes" The Revised English Bible. His three friends and his wife accused Job of sin, but he knows he had not sinned, and God, his redeemer, lived and in the end he would be vindicated. In the end of the book of Job God his redeemer vindicated him, and Job saw God standing at his side”; “day” in the King James Version is not in the Hebrew, it was added by the translators. “And the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than beginning, he had 14,000 sheep, and 6,000 camels, and 1,000 female yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys. And he had seven sons and three daughters. And he named the first Jemimah, and the second Keziah, and the third Keren-happuch. And in all the land no women were found so fair as Job’s daughters; and their father gave them inheritance among their brothers. And after this Job lived 140 years, and saw his sons, and his grandsons, four generations. And Job died, and old man and full of days” (Job 42:12-17). God his defending counsel and redeemer had vindicated him.
“O Lord, You did plead my soul’s (nehphesh) case; You have redeemed my life” (Lamentations 3:58). This was said while the writer was living. Just as with Job, God was his defending counsel and delivered him.
It is difficult to read Job and the Old Testament and not read into it things that were not made known unto the New Testament, or things that we have been taught by the theologies of today that are not in the Bible. The concept of Heaven is in the Old Testament, but only as a place where God and angels are, not as a place where the just would ever be and where they would live forever. Job would never have said he or any person would be in Heaven; the resurrection and immortal life in Heaven was not made known before Christ made it known. All the rewards and punishments in the Old Testament were in this lifetime, not after death. The teaching of Christ cannot be read into the words of Job, Daniel, or anyone in the Old Testament.
Job or no one will literally see God while they are in the flesh; the nearest anyone has came to seeing God was Moses when he saw God’s backside, but not His face (Exodus 33:20-23; see Exodus 3:6). The dead are sown with a natural body and raised with a spiritual body (1 Corinthians 15:44) in a moment (1 Corinthians 15:52). Immortality was brought to light through the gospel (2 Timothy 1:10), Job did not have the gospel; Job could not have known anything about life without end after death.
“Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God” (Job 19:26). In the light that no person has ever seen God, this seems to be saying after his afflicted skin that was covered with boils will have been destroyed by being replaced with an un-afflicted skin without boils as it later was, yet in his flesh he would see God as his redeemer and vindicator standing by his side.
ALBERT BARNES: His notes on this are many pages; I have taken excerpts from what he says, read all he says if you have his book. “For I know that my Redeemer liveth - There are few passages in the Bible which have excited more attention than this, or in respect to which the opinions of expositors have been more divided. ...The Hebrew word, גאל g o'al, is from גאל ga'al, ‘to redeem, to ransom.’ It is applied to the redemption of a farm sold, by paying back the price, Lev 25:25; Rut 4:4; Rut 4:6 to anything consecrated to God that is redeemed by paying its value, Lev 27:13 and to a slave that is ransomed, Lev 25:48-49. The word גאל go'el, is applied to one who redeems a field, Lev 25:26; and is often applied to God, who had redeemed his people from bondage, Exo 6:6; Isa 43:1...The meaning of this word would be met, should it be understood as referring to God, coming forth in a public manner to vindicate the cause of Job against all the charges and accusations of his professed friends; or to God...’I know that my Redeemer live's,’ he will have peace. And that he shall stand - He will stand up, as one does who undertakes the cause of another…There is clearly no necessary reference in this word to the resurrection. The simple meaning is, "he shall appear, or manifest himself, as the vindicator of my cause"…At the latter day - The word "day" here is supplied by the translators... The meaning is, that however long he was to suffer, however protracted his calamities were, and were likely to be, he had the utmost confidence that God would at length, or at some future time, come forth to vindicate him. The phrase, ‘the latter day,’ has now acquired a kind of technical meaning, by which we naturally refer it to the day of judgment. But there is no evidence that it has any such reference here...The words does not necessarily imply any visible manifestation - though such a manifestation would not be forbidden by the fair construction of the passage. I say they do not necessarily imply it” Job, pages 324-328, Baker Book House, 1955.
WHAT ABOUT ENOCH AND ELIJAH?
Did either one go to Heaven?
ELIJAH 2 Kings 2:9-18
There are three heavens spoken of the Bible.
· First heaven, the air around us, “the birds of heaven,” and “the dew of heaven.”
· Second heaven(s), the heavens that God created in Genesis 1:1, where the stars are. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows his handy work” (Psalms 19:1).
· Third Heaven, where the throne of God is.
A whirlwind is in the first heaven, it picks up things from the earth and always puts them back down on the earth; it never takes anything into the second or third heaven. Elijah was moved from a place of danger to another place. The sons of the prophets thought that God had moved Elijah to the mountains or some valley and wanted to go look for him (2 Kings 2:16). Elisha know before hand that God was going to move Elijah (2 Kings 2:9), and know God that God had moved Elijah to a safe place and did not want prophets who were at Jericho to go look for him. They thought he had been cast by the whirlwind “on some mountain or into some valley” (2 Kings 2:16), they may have thought he would be in need of help. Neither Elisha nor the prophets thought Elijah was in Heaven; the prophets looked for him on this earth where they thought the whirlwind might have taken him, “fifty men searched three days but did not find him” (2 Kings 2:17). Elisha did not tell the prophets that Elisha was in Heaven, and they surely would not have sent fifty men looking for him if they thought he was in Heaven; it is beyond doubt that Elisha and the prophets thought the whirlwind had put Elijah down someplace on earth, not that it took him to Heaven.
Thirteen years after the whirlwind had taken him up a letter came from Elijah the prophet to Libnah (2 Chronicles 21:10-12); there was no mail deliver from Heaven.
It was Elisha the person that was taken away by the whirlwind, not an immaterial soul or a spirit that was in him that was taken to Heaven by a whirlwind. Those that believe there is an immaterial soul in a person that leaves that person at their dead do not be an immaterial soul can be taken anyplace by a whirlwind; it was his mantle (2 Kings 2:14) that fell from his body (not fell from his soul) when he was up in the air. Nothing is said about Elijah being translated to Heaven without dying.
As has already been said about many other passages, this passage say nothing about a soul, but it is repeatedly used to prove the soul that had been in Elisha went to Heaven at that time
“The ancients of Elijah’s day would not have known of ‘heaven’ as we know it from later Scripture.” F. LaGard Smith, “After Life, A Glimpse of Eternity Beyond Death’s Door,” page108, David Lipscomb University.
If this were saying God took Elijah to Heaven it makes the Bible contradict the Bible. According to the teaching of many,
· God took Elijah to Heaven.
· But no man has ascended into Heaven but Christ (John 3:13).
· Therefore: if Elijah went to Heaven the Bible contradicts the Bible.
To put it in syllogistic form:
1. Elijah was a man.
2. No man has ascended into Heaven but Christ (John 3:13).
3. Therefore: Elijah has not ascended into Heaven.
In the New Testament, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip (Acts 8:39-40), but after Philip was caught away from the Eunuch he, “Found himself at Azotus; and as the passed through he kept preaching he gospel to all” (Acts 8:40).
ENOCH
Genesis 5:21-24: “Enoch lived sixty-five years, and became the father of Methuselah. Then Enoch walked with God three hundred years after he became the father of Methuselah, and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.” Took him where and how? This is used by some to teach that (1) God took Enoch to Heaven; (2) by others that God took the soul that had been in Enoch to Heaven.
· “And he was not.” What dose that mean? If taken purely literal then it is saying Enoch did not exist after that, but no one I know of believes that.
· “For God took him.” Took him where? To Heaven is added. It says God took Enoch, somehow, someplace, not that God took the soul that was in Enoch to Heaven; dose any one believe God took the flesh and blood body of Enoch to Heaven?
Genesis 5:
1. Adam died, verse 5.
2. Seth died, verse 8.
3. Enosh died, verse 9.
4. Kenan died, verse 14.
5. Mahalalel died, verse 17.
6. Jared died, verse 20.
7. Enoch was not…God took him, verse 24.
8. Methuselah died, verse 27.
9. Lamech died, verse 31.
· When these died their bodies existed where they died. Is this saying Enoch’s body did not exist on earth for God took it to Heaven?
Hebrews 11:4-13 list five people and in verse 13 says, “These ALL DIED in faith.”
1. Abel “died in faith” Hebrews 11:4.
2. Enoch “died in faith” Hebrews 11:5.
3. Noah “died in faith” Hebrews 11:7.
4. Abraham “died in faith” Hebrews 11:8.
5. Sarah “died in faith” Hebrews 11:11.
· “These ALL DIED in faith” verse 13. All five that were named in verses 5-11 all “died in faith.” Not only four of the five “died in faith.”
The word that is translated “was translated” in Hebrews 11:5 is “metatitheemi.” It is used only six times in the New Testament.
1. “And were carried (metatitheemi) over into Sychem” Acts 7:16.
2. “That you are so soon removed (metatitheemi) from him” Galatians 1:6.
3. “The priesthood being changed (metatitheemi)” Hebrews 7:12.
4. “By faith Enoch was translated (metatitheemi)” Hebrews 11:5.
5. “Because God had translated (metatitheemi) him” Hebrews 11:5.