BibleProject - Heaven and Earth Part 3: Jesus, The Ultimate Heaven & Earth Meeting Place

Episode Date: February 10, 2016

In this episode, the guys wrap up their discussion on heaven and earth. The guys will solidify the idea that Jesus is the meeting place of heaven and earth. He is God’s temple presence on earth, and his resurrection is the first part of God’s plan for a new creation. Not only do the New Testament authors draw on temple imagery to talk about Jesus, but they also use it in reference to people and communities of believers. What does this mean for followers of Jesus? And finally, what happens to us after we die? In the first part of the episode (03:06-15:28), the guys look at the story of Pentecost and the start of the Jesus movement. Because of the events in the book of Acts, we know that God’s presence exists in followers of Jesus. We’re not just humans; we’re like little mobile units of God’s presence. In the second part of the episode (15:50-27:52), Tim and Jon talk about the implications of Christians having the presence of God within them. God’s presence in us means that we are able to see glimpses of his Kingdom now while holding out hope for the fullness of his Kingdom that is coming. This is what the now-and-not-yet Kingdom of God is all about. In the last part of the episode (28:26-41:57), the guys try to shed light on the question of life after death. Though we’re given few specifics about the afterlife in the Bible, we know that both Jesus and the New Testament authors fully believed that some part of us would be in the presence of God awaiting the new creation after we die. 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 Scripture References: Acts 2 Colossians 1 1 Corinthians 6 1 Corinthians 11 Luke 23 Philippians 1 2 Corinthians 5 Revelation 6 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 in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

Hey everyone, this is the Bible Project podcast. I'm John Collins and this is a dialogue with Tim Mackie. We're both founders of the Bible Project, which is primarily just YouTube videos on the internet. It's been a pleasure making these. This is the third of a three-part series conversation on heaven. In the last episode, we talked about how heaven was perceived by the Hebrew prophets. 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. We talked briefly about the prophetic hope of resurrection from the dead. 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 then we talked about Jesus and how He is introduced to us as a person who connects God's space with our space.

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 and so the whole point is that God's heavenly kingdom is now becoming an earthly reality in and through Jesus. Then we talked about how Jesus viewed the temple in his day. 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 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. So we're going to explore more about this community of Jesus followers and their identity as the temple. And we're also going to talk about something that's been nagging me and hopefully you've been kind of wondering as we've gone through this conversation is this is all great but I'm

just kind of curious what happens when I die. Where do I go? What happens then? So we'll talk about that as well. Alright, here am here. From Jesus emerges the Jesus movement and acts to Pentecost is a really key moment in the story, in the New Testament then. So the day when the God's Spirit comes and fills the 120 in the upper room and they go

out, spill out into Jerusalem, and it said that tongues of fire appear over each, it's very, the language is very specific, over each and every person's head. And that's temple imagery. How is it temple imagery? Well, think of what happened in Exodus 40 or in first Kings 8 when, or in Leviticus 10, when God's presence comes to take up residence in the temple,

it's cloud and fire that come hover over the top of the temple. So like, so these are little mini pillars of fire. These are little mini manifestations of God's glory, taking up residence in his temple through the Spirit, except it's a collective temple because it's all these little images here. And then, yes, surely that experience is what fired Peter's imagination. So in his first letter, the first letter of Peter, chapter 2, he describes the community of Jesus as a community of living stones who are built as a spiritual house with Jesus himself as the cornerstone. Or in Paul's letter to the Ephesians, he says that Jesus' followers are God's house, built

on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Jesus is the cornerstone, and altogether it becomes the dwelling place where God lives by His Spirit. And this image of Jesus as the cornerstone that itself is a metaphor for Jesus is the first one in whom heaven and earth overlaps. Because that's the first stone you put down. Right. Yeah. When you're building a house. Yeah, the foundation stone. So here we're to Paul's... It's called a foundation stone because everything's built on it or because it's the first stone that helps you know where things go.

Well, it depends on which stone, what kind of stone we're talking about. Because you can have a key stone of an arch. Yeah. So it's load bearing. Yeah. Or if it's a cornerstone of your arch, so it's load bearing. Or if it's a cornerstone, it can be, if it's a foundation stone, it's under the ground, you don't see it. But we have symbolic cornerstones still today.

It's like on the corner of the building and it's a showcase stone, but it's also load bearing because it's pretty low to the ground so that everybody can see it. So it's going to be a beautiful stone, load bearing, strong, usually has a inscription on it. So Jesus is that. And it would be the first one you put down and then everything would build out from there. Correct. Yeah. So there's lots of references to this. Colossians 1, Paul says God was pleased to have his fullness dwell in the sun. God was pleased to have his fullness dwell in the sun. That's temple language of God's fullness, taking up dwelling or residence. That's not just talking about Jesus' deity, that's.

Well, it is, but it's using temple imagery as a way of talking about Jesus as the divine slash human one. And so out of this flow, Paul's whole theology of the church as a temple. And the two most clear expressions are in his first letter to the Corinthians. And first Corinthians three, he says, y'all are God's temple. And there he uses it to warn bad church leaders from turning the community and church community into a personality cult of just favoring different leaders and so on. And he's like, no, no, no, no, this is God's

temple. And this isn't a popularity contest. In 1 Corinthians 6, he uses the idea of your body in six, he uses the idea of your body being a temple to reinforce the holiness and purity of the temple. Therefore don't sleep around. Don't sleep around. Sleep with someone you're not married to. That's how he applies the idea there. So this is a versatile idea that Paul can use to make claims about who Jesus is. He can talk about the nature of the church as the place where God dwells.

He can use it to make moral challenges to people. You know, it is interesting when you when I really come with all this richness of the temple and how important that is and how grand that would have felt and and how that holiness to that and then so take all of that imagery and how grand that would have felt and how that holiness to that. And then, so take all of that imagery and then go, okay, you are the temple god, God's presence, which it used to be just dwelt in these places. Now you're like a little mobile unit of that, yourself. And the same what Jesus was.

That's exactly right. And when you think about that, that actually brings a lot of gravity to my life, because now I'm not just a human trying to make it in the world or whatever. I'm actually this mobile unit of God's presence that you know, this mobile unit of God's presence, that, you know,

cherubim, we're like protecting these places. There was flaming swords in front of this thing, you know, I mean, this is intense. There's a gravity to it. And so then Paul takes the gravity and says, that's why you don't sleep around. Yeah.

You kidding? It's not because of STDs. Yeah. It's not or whatever. It's because like, do you realize how important this is? Yeah. You're an expression of God's temple presence to the world. Why would you do such a thing?

Right. Yeah. You're dishonoring God. You're dishonoring your body. Your body's way more than a sex machine. Yeah. You know, it's a glorious meeting place of heaven and earth. Yeah.

It's very, yes. It's kind of like if someone was like, hey, can we go have sex next to the shared room and be like, no, that's not appropriate. You don't do that. It's very inappropriate. It's very inappropriate. Yeah. That's a holy, that's a holy plate.

So you are holy. Yeah. Let's do appropriate things. Yeah. Yes. Yes Yeah, so that's a personal kind of moral challenge Paul also uses it as a corporate moral challenge So don't put up with Bad arrogant self-serving leaders in a local church community that also dishonors God's so he's God's God you have Paul actually says, first Corinthians. If someone corrupts God's temple, if someone destroys God's temple, it's an expression in the local church. Paul says, God will destroy him. Like, it's the say, it's just the principle of James saying, yeah, not many

people should become teachers in a church, because there's an extra degree of accountability before God. And so Paul uses temple language to make the same point. Right. Ancient Israelites. Because priests would get killed if they performed the rituals incorrectly in the temple. Yeah.

That's what we're not messing around. We're not messing around. It's not JV Ball anymore. That's right. You're the temple. And there is at least one story of a remarkable tragic event in the early church and in Ison, Sapphira, who, yeah, totally.

They were cheating the early church community with its ability to have benevolence for the poor in their midst, and so they get roasted on the spot, which is a story that harks back to the two priests in the book of Leviticus who get roasted on the spot for doing the same type of thing. Yeah, it's intense. Yeah, it is intense. I admire the Catholic Church for how beautiful and holy the sanctuaries are, or the cathedrals. Yeah, like go on. Same in Eastern Orthodox. Eastern Orthodox. Eastern Orthodox. And then you still see that in Anglican or Piscopalian, which is typically have this as well, right? I don't know, I've been a lot. Yeah, more, definitely more than like American Protestant, like a multi-purpose room.

Multi-purpose rooms. I met this old gym. Yeah, and there's none there wrong with that. No, there's nothing wrong with that. Those who are in a tradition that has that, there's still a sense when you go to Sunday morning, it's like, it's different than the rest of your week. Yeah, yeah, we're doing unique practices, rituals, behaviors here that mark this as a unique time and space.

Right. Yeah, the brain. And so that all comes from this idea of the temple being a place that you go and perform these things. And then, so for Paul to say, you are the temple and you're like this little mobile unit of that. So you can't escape. It's not like you go and then you get to go away and you're done with that. It's like with you and your whole life becomes a ritual, which is pretty demanding. That's actually a pretty demanding metaphor. Yeah. I mean, Paul's just, he was the most prolific. All right, I was early apostles, so we have more of this letters. But yeah, so the practices of love of neighbor,

moral, purity, specifically sexual integrity, generosity, intense commitment to each other in the community help and support each other. And in unrelentless manner. It's not like you just do it sometimes. Yeah. And also the reading of the scriptures and prayer.

Yeah, pray always. Yeah, it's priests. Yeah. Really, it's like taking up the life of the priesthood, which is not unconnected here. Peter in the same passage, first Peter 2, says, you all are the priesthood. You're the temple and the priesthood. Because they're marked

by proximity to God's powerful presence, their lives have to have different habits. So we're talking about this because we're talking about heaven. I mean, that's where we all started. We started with heaven. Yes. We got here because it's not so simple. It's not that it's just some other place. It's a place that overlaps and in the temple is where it's specifically overlapped Jesus comes and now it's no, I'm the temple and then the Pentecost comes and All of a sudden whoa the temple We are the temple. Yeah, I

For some reason I kind of get this picture of some like movie scene where it's like you're trying to contain some power. And it's like, we're going to take it down and then all of a sudden it just multiplies and now it's like everywhere. And you're like, oh no, it's everywhere. Yes. Like that's what's happened at Pentecost. Like it's now.

Yeah. Or these people are the things. Or these people are the things. Or these people are the things. The poem that Peter uses to help explain Pentecost is from Joel chapter 2 where the spirit is described as water that God pours out on everybody. I'll pour out my spirit on everybody, men and women, old and young, everybody. It's just a huge bucket of water being tossed on a group of people. Yeah. Just abundant immersive immersive, indiscriminate for everybody. Yeah. It's very powerful metaphor and uncontrollability to it. Just like water when you pour it out.

So, so we got now okay then where is where is God? Now he's dispersed through this movement of people. Yeah, so like Solomon, we can say he's everywhere. He's everywhere. He's not in the church building, he's not just inside of me, he's everywhere. But he is especially present with me through the spirit of Jesus. And he's especially present when we all come together. And when the community comes together, there's even something more unique there.

And when that community comes together to worship Jesus, and pray in the name of Jesus, and to take the bread and the cup together, there's something really unique. And unique and special there. So that's where we find ourselves now, I suppose, is a part of the Jesus movement in this belief that Jesus is the temple and then the same divine presence and power that he has is available to us. And so that's great.

That's a nice kind of thought and it's a very beautiful way to live. But then, you know, you don't have to walk two feet before you run into something really horrible and corrupt and unjust. And you're like, God's not there. Yeah, I don't need enough to walk. I mean, I just... Yeah. You just like alone with the thoughts in my head. Right.

Yes. How has God, how is God in that thought? Yeah, like where you know? Yeah, or that outburst of anger or in patients and and and these prophetic hopes of creation being righted Yeah, that hasn't all taken place. That's true. So this is why Jesus taught his followers to perform a habit that I think he meant for us to do like the Jews pray the Shema every day or multiple times a day, the prayer, the Lord's Prayer. And the beginning of the prayer is this acknowledgement that not all of earth is permeated with heaven, neither is all of

me. And so you know, think of how the Lord's prayer began. So our father, who is in heaven, so his acknowledgment, God is above all, may your name be treated as holy, hallowed, and may your kingdom, your heavenly rule, may it come here, and may your will be done here on on earth just like it's done in your space. So that, but Jesus both acknowledges that inside of me and in our world, God's will is not always done, because our will and the will of spiritual evil is done. But we're praying and hoping for the day when the two meet together. So I was so happy with that moment in the video where the Lord's Prayer is where it all gets brought together because it's a hope, but it's also something that I'm to pray every

day and to begin to live out. And so the story of the New Testament is of heaven taking over more and more of earth, one person, one family, one neighborhood, one community at a time, all pointing to the future day of the new Eden, the new creation where heaven and earth overlap fully again because of Jesus. So we kind of went there in the video with the division, you know, the last pages of the Bible, the description of the new creation. But once again, it's the place where all of these images

superimpose on each other. So it's a new heavens on earth. But then it's just what is that? Well, that's the place where the new Jerusalem has descended out of the heavens to earth. And but then it's the Garden of Eden, but then it's a city. But then there's no temple in that city because in Throne, God and Jesus next to each other are the temple presence and from it comes the river. So it's Garden City temple all is one. Tree of life is there. Tree of life is there, the nations are all there.

No death, all that. No ocean. There's no, there's no chaotic sea. There's no sea. Yeah, there's no sea. The sea is where you go to be threatened. The Leviathan was the sea. Yeah, yeah, all that.

So no more chaos. So again, it's all these images of temple, garden, city, Jerusalem. And once again, I think we need to be very humble with what do we think that actually refers to? If we want to know what Moses thought was up in this guy, we should be humble with, well, what do we think is actually going down? That's a great way to phrase it because I mean, imagine,

I don't know, this is a weird thought experiment, but imagine 100 or 200 or 1000 years from now, there's humans, they're going to be living in a place completely different. I mean, in so many different ways, then we can imagine right now. And so even if God's kingdom hasn't come, it's just gonna be very different. Very, very different.

Even a hundred years from now. I mean, enormously different. And they're gonna look back and they're gonna be like, so these Christians really believe that whatever. Yeah. And they'll be like a big huge city in this podcast actually believe that there was like this, this river that was going to be a river on earth. A big city would descend from this guy. And they'd be like, I don't know. Because in an, and, and, and I guess if they were here talking to us, saying, did you believe that, be like, well, that's what the image we have.

Like, what else do I have? That's my, that's my, I know what a tree is and I know what a stream is. And it sounds nice. And I don't have any other way to imagine this. So, yeah, that's what I believe. But is that all it is? Well, probably not. Probably not, because the image communicates more than the image itself.

I mean, this is poetry. That is poetry. You put language together in unique combinations that communicate more than those words by themselves were capable of. And so that's the nature of metaphor and imagery. So what is a whole new creation full of superabendants? Yeah. Where God's presence is as common as, I mean, it's just like, what does that refer to? And I think that's tough for most people.

It's tough for me, and I imagine it's tough for most people to be okay with that ambiguity. Like, it's a lot nicer to be able to hold on to something very concrete. But to go, you know, we don't know what this means, but we hope in it. That's just a weird thing to say. I don't know what I'm hoping in completely, but I'm hoping in it.

Well, right? Yeah, I don't think you should say, we don't know what it means. Okay, sorry. We can study these images in the background in the Bible, and know what it means. Well, I don't know what it means if I ran into it next week, right?

If it was happening in Boston, right? And I went over there, I'd be like, I don't know what this is. And you'd be like, that's the thing, the thing, the stream, and I'd be like, I don't, like, I mean, yeah, we're talking about, like how do I know when I've seen it, right? And if I don't know when I've seen it,

how do I participate in it? And how, you know, and how do I see it? So this is where the resurrection of Jesus is the prototype of the whole thing, right? It's the resurrection of Jesus is described as the first act of new creation. So think of the way the apostles, the disciples of Jesus relate to the resurrected Jesus.

Sometimes they don't recognize Him, but other times they do. It's a very strange feature of the stories where there's continuity with the Jesus they knew before because he has the nail holes and all this kind of thing and sometimes they recognize him, but there are other moments where they have no idea who he is. It's the same person. So there's something there that he had a body, he wasn't a ghost, but his body was such that it had things about it that were indescribable and very unfamiliar, and that made it seem like I've never met this person. But there are other things about it that

was like, oh, that's Jesus. I knew and loved and followed around yowli. So to me there's something really rich about that idea that the new creation, it's a creation, I'm an earthling, I'm not meant to live without a body in heaven, I've met for the earth. And it will be a version of the world that apparently I'm familiar with that I'll know, but it will be minus the corrupting influences of death and sin and selfishness. And that will be so different that there will also be moments of like, what is this? I don't recognize it. I don't recognize it.

Right. That's a way of thinking about it. Do you think it's going to happen gradually or is it it gonna just come in a flash and boom the new creation? Yeah, oh boy. Oh, so here we go. Here we go This I mean this is all about the timing of the return of Jesus and Stages and the millennia It's very complicated because it's all described in this apocalyptic prophetic poetry. Yeah, in imagery. I just want to know like Your kingdom come you will be done on earth as it is in heaven if I pray that every morning. I should do that. I don't do that

I mean, you know, I had this vision just when you're talking of not actually praying that prayer exactly because it's become to Rote yeah, but but just praying that like, okay, God today pray your paraphrase of it. Yeah, we're here for you. Yeah. Why don't I just do that? Yeah. It's a good idea. Yeah. It's a really good. Christians have been doing it for the house. Oh, man. I'm such a bad Christian. No, you're not. So I'm praying that. Let's say I'm praying that every day. And I'm really, really anticipating that God's kingdom is gonna come today in some way. And also I know

that Jesus said that a kingdom is here. And so in some way the kingdom is here. And so I'm supposed to see it. I'm supposed to encounter it, right? Yes. So I guess my question is like, how do I know when I've when I've seen it? How do I know that that's it? That's a kingdom happening. That's kingdom coming Yeah, I mean, this is where love comes into its own as a theme in the New Testament where love is the meaning of The universe not the American version of it. This is where you break out in a song right now. I feel like Like Mulan Rouge or something. Yeah, right, right. No, I think love for Jesus, everything boiled down

to what are humans for to love one another and be loved by one another and by God. And think of where Paul, where first Corinthians 11, where he says, you know, there are just a few traits that really, if you're going to boil down the Christian life into a few character traits, it's faith, hope, and love. And so, he says, well, actually, the most important one is love because faith is temporary. Once you meet the reality, Hope is temporary once you're

hoping to fill. But love is the whole point. It's about humans knowing and being known by the creator and then expressing and showing that to one another in acts of love and being loved and accepting love. And so yeah where's the kingdom? It's where you love your neighbor and are loved and accepting love. And so, yeah, where's the kingdom? It's where you love your neighbor and are loved by your neighbor. And you realize the universe is a safe place. And I'm okay here and I have a purpose.

So when you pray that prayer, one thing you're saying is help me love people better today. I think so, yeah. And let me help me love people better today. I think so. Yeah. And let me help me create opportunities for love to exist. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, if you pair the Lord's Prayer with a great command, you know, love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself, you know, I mean, we're to the heartbeat of... That's cool. ...follow in Jesus. So we've done this couple hour conversation about heaven, heaven is way more interesting and complex of an idea than I've given it credit. I think most people do. Yeah, it's not to be mocked at. Yeah, it's not to be mocked.

It's not to be mocked at your... It's not to be mocked. It's not to be mocked. And it's connected to just living life in a really full, beautiful way now. It's kind of where we ended, which is really cool. But that's completely disconnected from why we usually talk about heaven, because we usually talk about heaven because we need an answer for what happens after I die, right? Because there's this weird abyss of like, I know what life is like now.

And then one day, the lights go out. Like my neuron stop firing, blood stops pumping. Like my body starts to decay. Consciousness is gone. And nobody knows what that's like. No one's been over there and come back and been like, here's what it's like, except for like near death experience stuff,

which some of it's shady and some of it's crazy and cool. I don't know, but like, but there's just this whole like, what happens? And so heaven has always been the answer to that. And in our conversation, heaven's not been the answer to that. Heaven's been the answer to why is earth the way it is now? And how am I supposed to live? And how can I encounter God today?

Or where do I find what God is doing right now? It's answering those questions. It's not answering what happens when you die. Yeah. So without said, what happens when I die? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't claim to know the answer to that question. We can trace through the story of the Bible how that works. So throughout most of the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, the answer is

you give up your spirit, your breath, it goes back to the one who gave it to you and you go to the grave. And the grave is never described with anything more than some kind of shadowy existence, it's usually in poetry, so we don't know quite what it's referring to. And but your name lives on through your children and your line and so on. But then we're back to this hope we described earlier, of that God's love and commitment to the creation and his people must be stronger than death itself if God is truly God. And so they're developed the hope of resurrection.

So what the hope of resurrection doesn't address is well what happens to me between after I die and when I'm resurrected and when I'm resurrected. Yes. And there are four texts in the New Testament that are extremely brief that address this. That moment that time in between your dead, and that could have been 3,000 years ago, or yesterday. And now this, which it's hard to even imagine what that is, but your body being re-made. So three passages, and they all use the same phrase, which is very interesting. which is very interesting. So the first one is the thief crucified alongside Jesus who has a deathbed, so to speak, conversion, is just dying. He says, remember me, Jesus and Jesus says, today you'll be with me in paradise. The Greek word

Paradezo was the way that the Hebrew word Eden was translated in the Old Testament. Today you'll be with me in Eden. So what he says. So once again, it's a vision that there's God's temple presidents now, you know. By saying today, he meant before the sun goes down. I think we're going to die in a matter of moments, hours here. Right. You know, when this is over, this execution will be together. Impared us.

In the temple presence of God. Was he just being kind of nice? No, I think, if Jesus meant any of what he said, he meant what he said in that moment, which is that God's love for his world and therefore my commitment to you. It extends after the moment that our bodies give out. So it's not a lot of experience. Jesus believed that.

Jesus apparently believed there was a form of existence that would that he would still have after his body gave out. That wasn't his resurrected body. Right. I mean, you're, you would think or Jesus knew the time space continually shifted after death and it would be the resurrection. Yeah, yeah. In the future. So, there's that. There's Paul makes a comment in his letter to the Philippians where he's in prison. He thinks he has a good chance of being executed soon and he says, you know, it wouldn't be so bad. In fact, I would almost rather get executed because he said, I will die and be with Christ, which

he says is preferable to going on in prison. So he's torn between the two. And then in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 he talks about how suffering makes you hope for the new creation and how death really isn't the tragedy the Greek world makes it out to be Because it's a bonus because he says if I'm away from my body. I'm at home with the Lord So all three phrases use with what what is the status of believers after they die Physically but before the resurrection with Jesus after they die physically, but before the resurrection with Jesus. That's the answer of the New Testament. Doesn't say heaven.

Which, that was three, so there's four. There's four. The last one is the apocalyptic visions in the book of Revelation. And John sees God's temple presence. And then he sees underneath the altar. So it's as if he's seeing the temple up in heaven, the heavenly temple of God's presence. And he sees underneath the altar the being, the souls, but the disembodied persons

who had been martyred because of the word of God that they maintained. So we see the martyrs in God's heavenly temple, crying out how long a Lord before you judge the earth and avenge our blood. So it's an apocalyptic vision about the martyrs crying out for justice. But the point that's consistent is that they are with God. They're with God. So what happens after you die? You're with Jesus. You're with Jesus. Paul doesn't envision this as a permanent state. And he actually doesn't even see it as a desirable state. He sees it as desirable because you're with Jesus. He doesn't view it as desirable long term because the whole point is

new creation. So for Paul and in his same letters and later in Philippians, he says we're awaiting from heaven a Savior. When he says when Paul says later on in Philippians, your citizenship is in heaven. He doesn't mean and therefore that's when you're where you're going. He doesn't mean, and therefore that's where you're going. What he goes on to say is your citizenship is in heaven, and we are expecting a savior from there to come here and transform everything. So I think, for me, and really, as a pastor, this is a very common question. Funeral, some people who lost their grandma.

Yeah. To me, I've... So how do you do a funeral? You just... You talk about, well, if someone who follows Jesus, they're with Jesus. They're with Jesus. And that's a way better form of existence for the moment.

But they are awaiting their full redemption and recreation just like I am and just like the world is. And so it's hope, but it's not the end of the story. So that's the New Testament's answer to that. And so the way we did that in the video is that's not the focus of the Bible's story. Yeah, because clearly there's just four. Yeah, we just talked for, yeah yeah two hours about heaven and then there's four brief Text five minutes of like and then address what happens to Christians after they die

And they're important to be with Jesus is rad It's really a profound hope, but that can mean so many different things. Yeah, to be with Jesus Yeah, do you have any specific hopes for the resurrection and the new creation? Anything. What do you mean specific hopes? So, I hope there's still some really good snowboarding. Right?

I hope there's some deep, deep pow. I hope there's some deep pow. Oh, yes. And then my other very specific one, we talked about this morning, actually, I want a big bushy beard. None of this scrappy, whatever I got going on. I want a full sculpted, manly, resurrection beard. Yeah, well, while we're on the topic, all right, my nerdy answer is, um,

there are so many things I would love to learn about in depth. The depth that I've gotten to study, the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, and I would love to learn astronomy and biology and chemistry. I'd love to have a brain that's capable of passing an algebra. Yeah, yeah, you know, I know. I couldn't get a brain that's capable of passing algebra. Yeah, you know, I couldn't get past algebra three, four. Yeah. So, yeah, there's that version of I just feel like there's so much. And I, you know, right now I've got to, I go, I work and change diapers and you know, manage my young kids. I love it. But I'm so aware of the universe

this complexity that I would love to learn more about. I want to learn how to play the violin. Yeah, so okay, so that's one is that. Another is to master an instrument. Yeah. Either, yeah, look at the guitar or the trumpet. Or another one would be surfing. Because I'm so deathly afraid of sharks.

Oh, you are? I can't surf. I've done it a few times. No, it's irrational. It's totally irrational, but I can't do it. Wow. I can't do it. We can get there, man.

I grew up skateboarding. How good? How different? It is very different. I mean, I know it's different, but the idea of forward motion and leveraging your body's weight, I've got that. Let's do my muscle memory now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Surf surfing, but the shark's. But there's no ocean. We already established that. So check that one off the list. Well, that's why I'm doubling down on snowboarding. That's right. Just let me know there's the mountain of the lower. We know there's mountains.

Yeah. Alright, there we go. Heaven. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I enjoyed it. We have a lot more of these coming up. Next set of conversations is going to be on the image of God. We have a video coming out in, I think it's going to come out in March on the image of God as a theme. It's a theme video that traces this phrase that pops up in Genesis and we're're gonna trace that idea all the way through scripture.

What does it mean that we are the image of God? It's gonna be, it's a great conversation, it's a great video, I'm really looking forward to it. Also, a really great way to support this podcast, if you like it, is to go on iTunes and write a review. If you don't like it, don't go on iTunes and write a review. If you don't like it, you probably didn't listen to the end. So if you're here listening to me now, go on iTunes and write a review. You can say whatever you want. You don't have to pretend

to like it. Also say hi to us. We're on Facebook, Facebook.com slash.roject.com.com Thanks a lot. Peace be with you. you you