BibleProject - Heaven and Earth Part 2: When Heaven Meets Earth

Episode Date: February 4, 2016

In this episode, Tim and Jon continue their discussion from last time about what it means for God to be in “the heavens” and transcend humans. They’ll go a little bit deeper and talk about what it looks like for God’s space and human space to overlap. The biblical story begins with the mingling of these two spaces, and it was only after human rebellion that they became separated. The guys take a look at what Scripture says about heaven and earth and the future hope that one day God’s presence will permeate all of creation again. In the first part of the episode (02:19-19:43), the guys discuss the imagery of cherubim in the Bible. The picture that most of us have of cherubim––chubby babies with wings––is pretty far off from what the Bible is trying to tell us about God’s heavenly space. Eden was a picture of God’s ideal––human and heavenly space intermingling––and Jesus is a representation of that. In fact, you can’t separate Jesus from God’s presence and holiness. There are little explosions of Eden everywhere that Jesus goes. In the second part of the episode (20:11-24:34), the guys talk about the concept of resurrection and new creation. The redemption of creation that is promised is completely wrapped up in the idea of God’s presence once again filling human spaces. In the last part of the episode (25:08-36:58), Tim and Jon look at the symbolism behind temples in the Bible. Kings built temples as symbols of hope for restoring God’s presence among his people, but Jesus declared that he was the new temple and God’s bodily presence on earth. Video: This episode is designed to accompany our video called, “Heaven & Earth.” You can view it on our youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy2AQlK6C5k Book References: The Resurrection of the Son of God by N.T. Wright Scripture References: Genesis 1-2 Isaiah 2 Isaiah 11 Psalm 73 Isaiah 26 Daniel 12 Ezekiel 37 Show Music: Defender Instrumental by Rosasharn Music Blue Skies by Unwritten Stories Flooded Meadows by Unwritten Stories

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

Hey, this is John Collins, and this is part two where we talk with Tim Mackey, PhD, about heaven. In the last episode, we talked about on the Hebrew language, the word heavens is always plural, and it always refers to the sky. And it is assigned as a place where God's presence dwells. Biblical authors will use the sky as a way of talking about the nature of God's space, that it's high, it's transcendent, it's authoritative, it's where he sees everything. But in Biblical thought, God's presence isn't only in the sky.

We know that they believe that God's presence was accessible here on earth, his throne in heaven overlapped with earth. In fact, the whole point of creation is for God's space and our space to be united. And in the story of the Bible, it begins with God's space completely overlapping with human space. That's the ideal, that's the whole point. That's the whole point, but it is in our reality right now. And so in Hebrew thought, in biblical thought,

there was still a place where you can find God's presence, where God's presence overlaps with ours, and that's the temple. Temples are the pointers to the reality that God's presence should ought to and will one day once again permeate all of this world, just like it was back in the ideal. It raises the question, where did it go? Why isn't it everywhere anymore? And that is how this whole set of concepts is a really cool way of looking at the story of the whole Bible

as the story of the reunion of Heaven and Earth. So here we go, part two of the three-part conversation on Heaven. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. Now you are the children's feast with the best. Now it's time to rest. Okay, so the story of the Bible begins and we have Adam and Eve and we have God and the Garden of Eden. So we're humans live and we're God dwells. That's the same space. There's no distinction. So God's space and our space are completely overlapped.

But then there's a schism, something happens. So what's the story there? The story is that heaven and earth, God's space and human space, overlapped in the garden, humans rebelled. And so found themselves banished from God's space and live in the world where they die and horrible things happen and people do horrible things to each other. So we explored this in the video just in terms of the rebellion of

humanity is what disqualifies them. So yeah the rebellion that the vision can we talk about how God put a Sphinx thing in front of the garden. Oh, that's interesting. Okay. Yeah, so the idea is after the humans rebell against God Rebellion says command and so on They don't drive God out of the world. What they are is banished out of the garden, we're having an earth overlap, out into a place where God's presence isn't as immediately accessible. And the guardian of that boundary line And the guardian of that boundary line is called a Ketervim, or a Cherubim in English how we refer to them. Ketervim, which in Hebrew Bible are not human-like figures.

They might have some human features, but always mixed together with animal-like features. So they have wings, but they are not people with wings. There are no human figures with wings in the Bible. That's a strange mutant that appeared somewhere later in medieval church history. All of the winged figures that are connected with God's presence in the Bible are a mix of animal and sometimes they have like human hands or some part of a human face but not a human body or feet or anything like that. So and what these creatures are have parallels in among Israel's neighbors about these animal like multi-form, multi-animal creatures that are guardians

of the Divine Space. And so this thing is one of those. So it's the guardian of the King's burial chambers that are the pyramids. And so it's a lion-like figure, but with one of the pharaohs heads. And we know these figures like the Assyrian Lamasu statue is of a... Like a box or like a... I think it's a lion's body. But with the King's head and some wings.

And some wings, yeah, wings. The way that the Chairbeamer described in the temple is also of these multi-form animal-like creatures that have wings, azekiel's vision, and they are in the holy police. And they are over the ark. Yeah, they shadow the ark. And there's a psalm. There's a few places in the psalms where goddess said to dwell above the caravim, the one

who isn't thrown above the caravim. So yeah, that's what these creatures are. So when Adam and Eve are banished from God's presence, right there is a figure who the Israelites would know the figure associated with God's presence in the temple. Yeah. So let's talk about this finks then in Egypt. And what way was it actually guarding the tomb?

Because it's just a statue. It's not going to like get me if I try to go in and steal the king's body or something. Yeah, I mean it's symbolism. And again, to that point again, was it just a symbol? They knew that there was some protection around this temple and they symbolized it Yeah with these statues correct. Yeah, and and what these which seemed really amazing I mean I can imagine walking up to one and be like whoa this is intense. It's very impressive Very impressive. Yes, this thing still today is extremely impressive

Yeah, I've just it's yeah, it's very profound thing. You're also looking at it with a thousand other people, cameras and so on. I've got to diminish the effect. Taking the best photo ever of the Sphinx. That's right, but imagine being, you know, just yourself and if you other people walking up to the pyramids and you have to pass on the road, this enormous, intimidating creature. Yeah. And yeah, the symbolism of all different kinds of creatures, it's as if all creation, it's standing guardian of the creator's space.

I mean, it's a place, it's transcendent, you know, it's a gateway to the most important thing in the world. Many cultures have a concept of the divine space being marked by a boundary where you meet some animal life protector creatures. I keep thinking of, did you ever watch the Never Ending story growing up? Dude, I was just about to bring it up. Really?

Yeah, it's those two statues. And then their lasers shoot out and they throw anybody who passes. Yeah, their tents, they their like guardians, right? Yep. Those things, man, I remember as a kid just being. Yeah. So there's something of that idea.

In the Garden of Eden, because the caravame guarding, the Garden of Eden has a flashing sword, a sword that's flashing. Woot, woot, woot, woot. Yeah. Yeah, these things have wings, massive wings, and they're kind of like a woman-slash leopard, or I don't know, like, yeah, yeah, wearing it. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, those are totally Caribbean-like figures. And they guard, yeah, the different presents. They're guarding there. So if I were an ancient Israelite, and I was like, hey, how did this all start? It would be like, well well there's a garden, Eden and it's out there somewhere. I mean because if you if you go try to find it, if you happen to run into it you're gonna run into a share of a Caribbean. How do you pronounce it?

Caravim. Caravim. Caravim. It's gonna be this caravim there with a flaming sword and it's not going to let you pass. And then I'd be like, whoa, that sounds intense. This is somehow related to the idea of God's holiness as being powerful and good and also dangerous at the same time. Right. Like, yeah, it's super good. It's a great place. It's the sword of our life.

But to get there. To get there on your terms, this thing's going to destroy you. It won't be good for you. You can't even get in. Just like I don't get to determine the terms of the sun and my is really the sun in my relationship. That's bad English. I don't get to determine the terms of my relationship to the sun. I, you know, the sun's really good.

I'm really happy for it, but I can't. Let's keep it a couple million miles away. Yeah, fly a million miles to it, and not wear sunscreen, and think that it's all everything's going to be fine. So, these images are getting at this idea of the transcendent otherness of God as holy and the creator. And so... So, whether or not someone back then really was like, oh man, I could actually run into this place or not.

Or they're like, oh, I get it. That's a rich metaphor for something. Regardless of that, that's the image. And it's pretty intense. Yeah, this is there. But the thing is, you could imagine, like, let's say you live back then, and you show up in Egypt. You've never been there before, and you run into this thing. It was the first time you've ever seen it, and you just didn't know it was there.

That'd be so intense. You'd be like, whoa, and you'd go back and you'd tell stories about how intense this thing was. So, I mean, it isn't that ridiculous to have a story about if you go and find this place, it's guarded by this crazy creature. Creature. Yeah. Yeah. Little slay-o. It actually doesn't say the sword. Well, hold on, let me just if I remember correctly. It says light saber. Is it? Is it Hebrew? Light saber? Yeah. There's no mention of the caravim holding the sword. It just says he placed there on the side of the garden

caravium and a flaming sword that was flashing back and forth. And Hebrew it's really, yes, it's the word turnover. So it doesn't even say there's anybody holding the sword. So it's the idea of a sword floating there, going like spinning around, doing ninja moves by the entrance so that you can't pass it. That sounds annoying. It's like a really intense mini miniature golf obstacle. I think I know the plot for the next missing impossible.

So my Tom Cruise has gotta get through there. Yeah, he could do it. Yeah, I bet he could. I bet he could, like ballet. So all to say, that was a vision of heaven, God's presence, guarded by a flaming sword in the Cherubim, Cherubim, I'll get it. I'll just say, I'll just do English, Charibim.

Yeah, just do that, do that way. You speak English. I speak English, it's Cherubim, right? It that. Do that way. You speak English. I speak English. It's cherim, right? It's still that's a weird word too. It is. The problem is that that word makes you think of the tiny plump naked babies with wings. Yeah, I know.

Caravim. And that's definitely a mutant. A mutant creation. Yeah. A cute one, a cute mutant. A cute, yeah. So nothing like that in the Bible. And then, so we've got this picture of Eden being God's presence.

We've got this picture of the skies above this dome. That was the understanding back then. That's where God's presence is. And then we have this idea of the temple. This place here on earth is very special location, a hotspot, where God's presence is. But then Solomon would be like, yeah, but it's not like God can really be here fully. And when Isaiah has the vision, half of them's there, half of them's not there, and then

God's like, look, I'm everywhere. Yeah, so yeah, there's an acknowledgement that the temple is itself one huge elaborate symbol, a pointer to the fact that God's purpose is for his personal presence to fill and permeate the whole of creation, as it once did or was supposed to, and as it will again, one day in the future. So all of the key passages in the prophets that point to the hope of the world, it's not of people leaving earth and going up to God's space. It's the opposite.

It's of God's space coming to fully overlap with Earth. So Isaiah 65, which the first mentions of the phrase New Heaven and Earth. God says I'm going to create a new heavens and Earth. The new sky and a new... Yeah, new sky, new land. Yeah, new sky, new land. So a new or a whole new order. Because the former thing,

the order of the world as we knew it, won't be remembered. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create. I will create Jerusalem to be a delight in its people, a joy. And modern Western readers were like, wait, is he creating a new creation or is he creating a new creation,

or is he creating a new city in Jerusalem? But in the biblical imagination, those are the same thing because the Jerusalem temple is itself an image of the joining of heaven and earth. And that's where the God of Israel's presence uniquely was. And so it's so to speak the epicenter where the new creation will emanate out of. So the Jerusalem temple and the new creation is joined together in the prophets. So at the conclusion of the book of Joel, you have this image of I, the Lord your God, will dwell in Zion, my holy hill. Zion being Jerusalem. Zion is another name for the mount where the temple was.

My holy hill. Jerusalem will be holy, foreigners won't invade her anymore. In that day the mountains will drip with wine and the hills will flow with milk. The ravines will run with water. A fountain will flow out of the temple, the Lord's house. It's all this garden, a venetary where you had, out of Eden temple of the Lord's house. It's all this garden of Eden imagery, where you had out of Eden was a river, was the fountain head of a river, goes out,

and there's wine and milk just falling out, flowing out of the milk. There was no wine and milk in the unit, right? Oh, sorry. This is imagery of garden imagery. So vineyards, hills flowing with milk, because it's a metaphor of abundance. So hills don't flow with milk and animals

who eat the grass on that. That'd be pretty crazy if there was just milk flowing out of the hills. But this is poetry. It's poetry. Yeah. So oh, super abundance. Super abundance.

Food just, food for everyone just flows out of creation with no effort as a divine gift, which it does normally. It just does that at a slower pace. So these are Joel 2 as A65, Azecu 47 has the stream emerging out of God's temple and it leaves, it goes down to the Dead Sea, the most barren spot on planet Earth and it fills it with life and green trees and so on. So all of these passages

connect the hope for our world in the image of, in temple language and garden of Eden language. And it's all... So when heaven and earth unite on God's space comes down and its fullness And in Earth, Unite, on God's space, comes down, and its fullness is just abundance, the food, the wine, the water. Abundance. There's an abundance of it. Yep. Yeah. Which, boy, for people who live in super-developed countries, they have an abundance of water.

Yeah. But don't. Lack of water. Yes. So I say that again. I just turn off faucet and have an abundance of water. Yeah, especially in Portland. Maybe not in California.

Yeah, all right. There's a job there. And many, not all Americans, many Americans have access to abundant food, even if they can't always afford it. Right. It's there. You go to the market and you're like,

whoa, look at all this food. So these images don't strike people who live in those kinds of cultures with Near the effect where you're scrounging for water and food and if there wasn't abundance that would be create. Yeah, yeah Totally. Yeah, so yeah, I think parts of the world were waters very scarce. Yeah, and where food is very scarce And these images would be otherworldly. Yeah, yeah to you and these images would be otherworldly. Yeah. Yeah, to you. So yeah, super abundance of creation

is a Eden, Garden of Eden imagery. So the point is that the hope is not for humans to go somewhere else. It's for God. It's not like, hey, you know, life is rough. This really stinks. But you know what? One day, you're gonna go to this new place and things are going to be great.

Everyone you love is going to be there. That was never the narrative. The narrative was, one day God will come here in a new way. And life is rough. It's always hard to find food and there's poverty and there's injustice and there's all of these horrible things violence, but that's all going to be reversed and there's going to be an abundance. And it's going to be here. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, so yeah, you can read these passages in context. They're always joined to other images of God confronting evil and injustice among the nations and making that all right. No more war like Isaiah 2, you know, people turn their swords and spears into ploughshares and pruning hooks, gardening instruments. Yeah, the war instruments that turn them into gardening instruments. Yeah, that's right. And there's no more war, there's peace.

Isaiah 11, creation produces its superance because there's peace among the nations and peace among creation. So even the most violent creatures in creation, lions and lambs and snakes and children, all coexist in peace. So it's just the visceral sense, there's something wrong with the world, there's something wrong with me, it's out of order. There's the ancient motif about human relationships to animals. That somehow we know that's out of whack too. And that rift will be healed. It's part of our relationship to creation will be healed. And that's hinted at

in one of the gospels. It's very interesting, yes. When Jesus comes and he goes out to the wilderness after his baptism, Mark includes a little detail that he was there with the beasts, it says. So he's out there in the wilderness with beasts. And many interpreters think that's an illusion, that's a garden illusion of Adam with the animals. Yeah, so where Jesus goes, there's little explosions of Eden surrounding him.

It's very cool. Yeah. So we're up through the prophets and at this point in the Bible, if you were to ask, are you going to go to heaven when you die? The look back would be this blank stare of like, you're going to go to the sky and you die. No, this is the opposite direction. Yeah, you're going to go in the ground when you die. Yeah.

Yeah, but won't my like spirit go to the sky and just be like. What? What? You must be a can tonight. Right? You must not have ever read the Hebrew script. You don't know the Bible. But what about resurrection?

Yes. Was it there was, this might be a complete tangent. Yeah. Here's what we can say. In the history of the development of the scriptures, and of the prophets and their reflections on the scriptures, their merge to conviction, that because God was the creator of the world, and because the world has been so messed up by humans, that God's going to have to recreate and make new his world, and not abandon it. And so if God is going to do that, that means His love and His commitment to humans who are earthlings also needs to somehow go beyond the grave, and redeem even the grave.

And so you will redeem my life from the grave. Yeah, the Psalms are filled with metaphors of God, rescuing me from a hard time in life, but they use the language of rescuing me from the grave. And then there are Psalms 49, 73, that even begin to press these metaphors into reality almost, where God is the only one who could redeem a person from death. And the author of Psalm 73 hopes for such a thing

that he'll redeem me. And then Isaiah 26, Daniel 12, those images become a reality and a hope that the prophets believe that when God comes back to make all things new, that those who have put their hope in him will be re-embodied to live in the new creation.

There are two passages where it clearly appears. One is Isaiah chapter 26 and the other is Daniel chapter 12. And then a famous image of resurrection in Ezekiel, the Valley of Dry Bones, there it's an extended metaphor to describe God recreating his covenant people who are spiritually dead sitting in exile and if they're ever going to love and follow him he's gonna have to send a spirit to literally make them make new humans but that's an image of Israel's restoration. It's one of these things where the metaphor almost becomes the reality kind of like the way. Lewis I think thought of Christianity as the true myth. The myth that is the true one to which all the other myths point. So these images of God redeeming my life from the grave become a reality and hope for the

prophets. Man if somebody's if you're interested in that really great book is the comprehensive study of resurrection by NT Wright, called the Resurrection of the Seven of God. You'll learn more about ancient beliefs about what happens when you die in Greece and Rome and ancient Israel, but it's so interesting how these ideas have developed. So, in Jerusalem, so you got the Mount of Olives, and there's a ton of graves there. Oh, today. Today. Yeah.

And it's like premium real estate to get buried after Jew. Yeah. Because the belief is there would be some sort of resurrection. Uh, yes, the idea, the idea of humans being recreated to a new kind of existence, to inhabit this world forever and ever is a uniquely Jewish idea. Is realite Jewish idea that Christianity inherited and developed because of Jesus' resurrection. But yeah, this was just, it's speaking a foreign language in the ancient world. The idea was mocked. Oh, this idea that you'd be resurrected.

Yeah, it's like what an absurd idea. Right. It still is today. I mean, it's hard to believe. Yeah, it's a big deal. Oh, yeah. Oh, really is. I mean, I can't wait until we talk about resurrection. Yeah.

I don't know when it's going to be, but I just have a thousand questions. Yeah, so, yeah, and yeah, the resurrection is bound up with that's the idea of the new creation. Okay, to summarize, the Old Testament story so far through this theme, heaven and earth were unified in the Garden of Eden, God's space and our space together. We rebelled and there was this schism, this division, and now we don't have access to God's space. In fact, it's protected in this very amazing way. But there are still temples, hot spots where God's presence is. And those temples pointed to a future hope that once again God's space and human space will overlap and everything will be healed. And so that's what the prophets hoped for. And that hope was also referred to as the Kingdom of God.

Yes, because using heaven as the image of God's space is connected to his rule, God is enthroned above the heavens and he sees what people do. So the hope is that one day God's space and rule will fully overlap and permeate all of creation. And so when Jesus comes onto the scene and does what he does, he's introduced to us by the New Testament authors with language and imagery that's all drawn from this heaven and temple, Garden of Eden, set of ideas.

So the Gospel of John presents Jesus as the Logos, as the word God's second self that God uttered to bring about all of creation. And then John says in chapter 1 verse 14, that that word became a human flesh and it dwelt among us. We did highlight this in the video that that word is the word for tabernacle. It's set up the tabernacle It's a reference to the tabernacle temple

What a crazy God's word is the power to create with authority. Is that what they're referring to? The creative act of speaking, creation into being, became a human. Yes. And that human is God's tabernacle amongst us. Yeah, it's God's very royal, personal, temple presence as a human. Yeah. Yeah. So Jesus is. So you read the first two verses of John, or is that just the first one? And you, and right away, the opening paragraph with like, what the heck? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a very tall claim being made about Jesus right there. Right there. You're scandalizing the Jews and you Yeah, yeah, it's a very tall claim being made about Jesus right there.

Right there you're scandalizing the Jews and you're... And you're scandalizing Greeks. The idea that the eternal, anything eternal in divine would become human. Yeah, it's offensive and ridiculous. So yeah, and then Jesus, and then that's the same chapter where Jesus then describes himself as the ramp of Jacob's dream. So John chapter one is just shot through with all of this heaven and earth temple imagery. And the way that the other gospel's Matthew, Mark, and Luke do it, is through Jesus' announcement that

the kingdom of God, or in Matthew, the kingdom of heaven, has arrived in and through him and what he's doing. So that's a way of talking about God's rule and reign, but God's presence in heaven always had those connections of God's authority and rule and kingdom. And so the whole point is that God's heavenly kingdom is now becoming an earthly reality in and through Jesus. And for Jesus to make those claims in a time where the Jerusalem temple still existed, and like think of Jesus writing into Jerusalem and everybody like, you're the Messiah, it's

the kingdom of God, prophet. Yeah. And then he marches into Jerusalem. And the first thing he does is go to the temple. And- Turn over some tables. Yeah, pull this stunt, which itself is a prophetic symbol that I think did a lot of things at the same time. It's showing Jesus opposition to the leaders who allowed the markets to

be in the temple courts. It's also Jesus exercising authority in the place of Israel's leadership. So the kings build temples, David, Solomon, and their Deherid, and Jesus is shutting down the sacrificial system by cutting off the supply of animals. He's acting like he owns the temple. And then in John's version of the account, he just says, destroy this temple and I'll raise it up again in three days. And they're like, what took us four decades to do it?

And then John tells us, no, actually Jesus was talking about his body. That's another development of the Jesus as the temple. So Jesus is action in the temple and then is predictions to follow that the temple would be destroyed. The image of at Jesus' crucifixion, the curtain of the temple being ripped. So there's a lot of bad stuff being said about or happening to the temple through Jesus. And that's really, it's that this idea that the temple under the leadership of Israel had become corrupt and distorted.

Instead of being the meeting place of heaven and earth, Jesus said it's now a den of thieves and robbers. So he claimed to replace it and to rebuild the temple in the form of his own resurrected body and then his body, the community of his followers who will become the new meeting place of heaven and earth. So it's with Jesus that this idea of the new temple being not a building like the prophets described in their poetry But a community of people who are the reality to which the building always pointed Which offended a lot of well, it offended a lot people and also was very

Highly political thing to say. Yeah, imagine somebody doing something parallel to the White House in our day. Yeah, but it's actually, it's kind of more complicated. It's like, imagine, I don't know if it's useful or not, but like, Rome ruled over Jerusalem. So it was kind of like, it would be, let's imagine like, China took over. Let's imagine something more of this. North Korea takes over.

Comes over, and now they run the United States, but but they're cool with us and they like our culture and stuff and They let us kind of keep doing things so they let us have the White House and they're like hey, you still have your president Yeah, the White House thing puppet rulers. Yeah, they got coming so we still get to do the whole we get to vote and Every four years we vote and stuff, but it really North Korea that's in charge and but that's how we still feel American We still like but we still get to do our primaries. Yeah, that's right And the Iowa caucuses are coming up and we just still feel like really American about it all and But we're also really bitter because North Korea like it is taking away our gun rights and all these other things so they're getting really bombed we're getting bombed as well

and then this guy running for president says like right now you're president no no he just he's an upstart from was constant rural was constant people are following around and he's like he starts a movement saying the new america is here new The new America is coming. Let's tear down the White House. You would get torn apart.

Yeah, why would you do that? That's the symbol of who we are. Yeah, how ridiculous. And then to actually make a big event of going to DC entering the White House. And kind of messing it up up like he owns the place he gets in and you like graffiti's the front door and he's like this place it's like denim robbers yeah that's good thank you John that's helpful it's a good

the thing is we don't have a spiritual sense of the White House there there's a spiritual sense of the temple of that's what God's presence is We're just kind of like yeah, that's where the I mean there is a sense of the about the authority of the state Yeah, which is very mystical. Yeah, what what what authority and is a symbol of identity and who we are as a You know it symbolizes America the dream story the vision identity Yeah, it's a good and now a massive wrench in this thing. Yeah, I often use the White House as a way to illustrate what Jesus was doing in Jerusalem.

I've never made it this elaborate. This is elaborate. Yeah, yeah. But yes, that's the gravity of what Jesus was doing was like that. But he's picking up on a theme. He wasn't the first prophet to condemn the temple and its leaders and say God's done with this building before Isaiah, Jeremiah, Amos, and they were underdogs in their own day.

Nobody, nobody listened to them, but they all said because of Israel's hypocrisy God's done with this building, because you say we're the nation, we're heaven and earth meets, in our capital, but you don't live like it. And so God's done the right thing. So he had precedent for that. Yeah, that's what's interesting about Jesus is he, he acts like a prophet, but then he also acts like the ones fulfilling the prophets. And yeah, as the king to which the profits point. All right, thanks for listening to the second part of this discussion on heaven and earth. We're going to wrap this up in the next episode. Part three, we're going to look at how Jesus' followers saw themselves collectively as God's temple, carrying on Jesus' legacy. We're going to see how that all culminates in the revelation,

this apocalyptic vision of heaven and earth coming back together in reuniting creation. If you want to watch the video that we made, it is at youtube.com slash the Bible project. It's called heaven and earth. It's a five-minute animated overview of this topic. It's a great way to introduce people to these ideas. There's a lot of other videos on our YouTube channel. We're really proud of them. Check them out. YouTube.com slash the Bible project. Also say hi to us. We're on Facebook, Facebook.com slash join the Bible project on Twitter at join Bible Proge. If you're really enjoying these conversations like I am, a way to help us is you can go on iTunes and you can write

a review and you can also just share it with other people. Alright see you next time. Left my body in the North Come and visit me, I'll be home I am here you