BibleProject - Heaven and Earth Part 4: How Did the Biblical Authors Imagine Life After Death?

Episode Date: February 12, 2016

This episode is the backstory to a question that we ask ourselves a lot at The Bible Project. Maybe you ask yourself this question too. What happens when we die? Where did the biblical authors think a person went after they died? Do we go to heaven, and what does the Bible tell us about heaven? This is a question that is really helpful to work and think through, and there’s a ton to unpack. We put all of our thoughts into a new workbook we created called, "Heaven and Earth." Look for the link to download in the credits below. In the first part of the episode (02:22-37:10), the guys talk about some of the confusing language in the Bible about heaven. In the Gospel of John, Jesus talks about "his Father's house" and him "going to prepare a place for you." What ideas were Jesus and John trying to communicate with these sayings? The ideas might surprise you. In the second part of this episode (37:27-55:19), the guys talk about what it means for heaven and earth to overlap. In his gospel, John talks about Jesus followers being “not of this world.” What does this mean? Is Heaven wholly other? And what is the purpose of heaven and earth meeting if we are just going to fly off to heaven when we die? Tim unpacks the way John uses language in his gospel and what this phrase might mean. God’s world is good, and it’s worthy of being redeemed, and this is crucial to grasp in how we think about heaven. 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 References: Heaven & Earth workbook by The Bible Project: https://thebibleproject.com/product/heavenbook/ The Gospel of John and Christian Theology by Richard Bauckham Show Music: Defender Instrumental by Rosasharn Music Analogs by Greyflood

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.

This is John at the Bible Project. Tim and I wrote a book. It's called, When Heaven Meets Earth, a biblical study on the theme of heaven in the Bible. It's set up like a workbook. There's 12 sessions that you could go through by yourself or with others. One of the first videos we made was a video on the biblical theme of heaven and earth. It's the story about how God created heaven and earth united, how they were driven apart, and how God plans to bring them back together again,

and our role in that entire story. The video does a really good job of showing an overview of this theme, but we couldn't really get into a lot of the juice. And so what this workbook allows us to do is dig in. There's 12 sessions. It goes through the entire story arc of the Bible from the beginning to the end.

There's essays by Tim and I. There are geek out sections that allow you to get really geeky if you want to. There's dig deeper sections, which allow you to open up the Bible, read scripture, and engage with it yourself. And then there's discussion questions if you want to do this with a group. You can find it at thebibletproject.com slash heavenbook.

You can download it for free, and you can reorder a physical copy. Okay, so since that workbook was on the brain, this podcast episode is us talking about heaven and earth, uniting, but me asking some questions around some things that Jesus says in the Gospel of John, that to me doesn't feel like heaven and earth uniting.

It feels like us teleporting away to heaven when we die. And if it's surprising you that you don't fly off to heaven when you die, consider this. Never once in the Bible is the phrase go to heaven used to talk about what happens after you die, not even once. So what happens when you die? Why does Jesus talk about going away

and preparing the place for us in the Gospel of John? We're going to talk about that in this episode. Here we go. Earth. It's a biblical paradigm. Yes, but it's not the one that I grew up with. And I don't think a lot of Christians did. And so it feels like it We're rediscovering it. Yeah, you had some questions about the language of heaven and earth and this world and not of this world from the John. Yeah, so the gospel of John. And how that fits in because we don't talk about it that much in the workbook. And we didn't talk about the gospel of John's heaven and earth language that much in the podcast. We make a really, really thorough, excellent case, not that a case has to be made, but that

the way to think about heaven and earth is not that one day I leave Earth to go to some final resting place up in the sky. That's very unbiblical. However, with that in mind, in the Gospel of John, Jesus talking to his disciples says a couple things that can easily be interpreted in my mind as this paradigm of zapping out of Earth to go to heaven. Yeah, just as a preface, if you already have that story in your mind of the story of the Bible is about the world is bad, Jesus came not of this world into the world to become human,

but then to save us from this material world, to go to a disembodied, non-material heaven forever, and that is salvation. If you already have that story in your mind, from your church, or youth pastor, or whatever, then you come to the Gospel of John, and out of all of the four Gospels, Gospel of John will be the friendliest. To that. To that, the language and imagery used in the gospel of John can be easily converted into that storyline, even though that's not actually what is going on

in the gospel of John, but it's... Okay, so you tell me what passage, what part of the gospel of John, are you thinking of it? Yeah, so let's start with John 14. Jesus is talking with disciples. This is all part of what's called the up-for-room discourse, right? Yep. Yep. Because they're in a room that's high. What is it called the up-for-room discourse? Yeah, it has to do with where Jesus celebrated the Passover. The Passover meal. Yeah, the night before he got arrested. It's in a room that's above some other. Yeah, it's just the gospel's called an upper

room. Yep. They call it the upper room. Yeah. And they have a discourse. And yeah, in exactly. He says in John 14, I'll just read the verse chapter 14 verse 1, Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. In my father's house, there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself. So that where I am, you will also be. And you know the way to the place where I am going.

And then Thomas is like, uh, Lord, we don't know the way. We don't know where you're going. And then he says, the famous, I am the way. Famous line. You do know the way because I am the way. I am the way truth and the way. And do know the way because I am the way. I am the way truth and life. And you know me.

Yeah. So when you read that, you... Well, first of all, think what? Do you remember audio adrenaline? You weren't really following Jesus back in audio adrenaline days. No, I don't know what that means. It's a Christian band. It's a band.

In the 90s. I was able to put that much together. Okay. And they're just like a Christian rock band in the 90s. I was able to put that much together. Okay. And they're just like a Christian rock band in the 90s and they had this song about it was out from this verse. It goes, come and go with me to my father's house. Come. Oh yeah. It's a big big house Yeah, I remember I remember I was like 20 of the new Christian and I'd never really been around Christian camp ever but I Had some friends who invited me to come be like a counselor I had some friends who invited me to come be like a counselor. Well, they had a skate ramp at the Christian camp and so I was like the skateboard ramp instructor

at the breakout time. Oh, nice. So, anyway. And they were playing that song. Yeah, but it like the camp fired times at night, they would sing that song. Oh, they would sing it. Yeah. They sang that song, like all the kids.

Yeah. And I didn't understand why they were okay. Yeah, so it's a very, it's a very captivated image. It's a song based on this. It's a song based on this, which is this image of in heaven, God has this mansion, this massive house, and it's got lots of rooms, and he's gonna go, and he's gonna like get it ready, make sure the lawns manicured,

make sure everything's tight because we're going to go meet him there. And that seems like what he's saying here. In my father's house there are many dwelling places and I'm gonna go with a pair of place for you. Okay. And then I'll to go to the pair of place for you. Okay. And then I'll come and I will take you. Yeah. I will take you to myself. Yeah, I got it. So you're like my, yeah, heaven is the golden mansions, whatever in the sky. He's going there. Jesus is going there. And then he's going to return and zap us all out of the world. And so we can go live in the FMARAL,

Cloudy, Golden mentions forever and ever. Yeah. Yeah. Seems very clear. Yeah. And it probably has a really great back. Yeah. Oh man.

Yeah. This, this, this, this thing is so cool. There are really cool things happening here. Okay, well first just think in terms of what you already know, think back to the, I think it's three part having a nurse podcast. Okay. And your nation is relight.

And one of your main frameworks is corresponding to the temple that you see in Jerusalem that corresponds to, that gives you a concrete image of God's own dwelling place, which overlaps right there in the temple. But then also is a mirror of God's dwelling place above the skies, above the dome. So the temple that I can go check out in the middle of the city

wherever it is is where God dwells. It's like some portal. Yeah, portal between heaven and earth. But also represents God's dwelling place. Yeah, I think of the Psalms that say you, O Lord, dwell above the heavens. You created heaven and earth. You founded your throne above them all. Yeah, that kind of thing. So, this is why Isaiah, when he's in, has his vision, vision, it's vision. He wasn't actually there. He has a vision of being in the Holy of Holies, because he would never get allowed to be in there, only the high priest could. So he has a vision that he's in there, and what he sees is the lower half, right? Of God's robe and feet and the train of his robe. And the other half is in the upper part of the portal

going, and it represents the mirror of the earthly temple, which is the heavenly temple. And the heavenly temple is like what John, the visionary sees in the book of Revelation. He has that vision, the heavens open, and he sees above the sky dome. And what he sees is the heavenly throne room and all the angelic creatures. This is in Revelation.

This is in the book of Revelation. Yeah, so you have this, this is a, remember, so the biblical world, the ancient authors, they're thinking of a three-tiered universe, the land, the waters under the land, and then the sky, and then what who reigns as transcendent King above it all? God does. So, my point is, is that in this conception of God, when we talk about God living in the heavens, this is an image of God as the transcendent king, and the way the heavens are high above the land is an image of God's rule as being high above any human rule.

So this is connected to the image of God's dwelling place in heaven, the heavenly temple. So the temple in Jerusalem had tons of rooms. In fact, the temple building itself in Solomon's temple had all these store rooms around the outside, and then they're called the Lichkot, the store rooms. And that's where, it's like the treasuries, you know? It's where, when you bring a tenth of your produce, of your wheat field, like where does all that get stored? There's all these storey rooms.

Different priests and Levites who were on rotation could stay in these rooms. These rooms? They're mentioned all over. They're mentioned in all these different stories in the Old Testament, the rooms. So that's what Jesus is picking up on here. The heavenly temple,

where God rules and reigns over the world. And in my father's house, there are many rooms. So in the temple, there are many rooms. Yeah, when Jesus used language of my father's house, house is the main word for temple in the Bible. The house of God means temple. So in my father's heavenly temple, there's many rooms. Just like in the Jerusalem temple.

And then what he's saying is- And these rooms were used for work. Yeah, they were used for the work of the temple. Yeah, yeah, that's right. So my point is just he's using an image that the disciples would know and be familiar with. Okay. And this is why, you know, think of the Psal Psalms like Psalm 42 or 87, my soul longs to be in the courts of the Lord.

And this image of being in the temple and near God's beautiful presence, it's awesome. And this image of intimacy and closeness. So Jesus is telling his disciples, I'm about to, I'm going to die. I'm going away. And he's trying to let this sink in that he's been with them, but now he's not going to be with them. And then what he's saying is, I'm going to open up the way to God's temple. He's going to repair the disunity between heaven and earth. So when he says I'm going to prepare a place for you, a place for you to be in God's heavenly temple.

Correct. But they wouldn't be thinking, oh right, because I'm going to go up into heaven and live in God's heavenly temple, they would have understood that means access to God's divine presence. Oh, I got it. So now we're to it. So the question is, what does I will come again and take you to myself that you may be where I am? So there's a couple of things relevant here.

And these are just kind of more detailed interpretation things. But if you go down in the teaching, just a few paragraphs later, in verse 18, he says, I'm in verse 16, excuse me, chapter 14, verse 16, I'll ask the Father and He's going to give you another helper or another advocate, the spirit of truth. And then he says, I won't leave you as orphans. I will come to you. So he's the whole things about I'm going away. She's trying to get them ready for that. So here's a place a little bit later. He says, I'm going away and God's the father's going to send you the Spirit. Mm-hmm.

Who's going to come to you? He will abide with you and be in you. And then the next sentence is, I won't leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Mm-hmm. And you're like, wait, I thought the Spirit's going to come to me. Mm-hmm. Yes.

Wait, is Jesus going to come to me? Mm-hmm. Or is the Spirit going to come to me? And he just says both. Yeah. In the two sentences, the Spirit will come to be with you and I will come to you. It's kind of like how the New Testament authors will often interchange Jesus, the Spirit of Jesus and the Spirit of God. And the Holy Spirit of God. Yeah, that's right. So that's interesting, but he uses the language of I will come to you. or the Spirit of God. Yeah, that's right. So that's interesting,

but he uses the language of, I will come to you. Then just a few sentences later, in verse 23, Jesus says, Jesus answered and said to Judas, not a scarier, who betrayed him, but another Judas, verse 23, if anyone loves me and keeps my word,

my father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him. And that word abode is the same exact Greek word as the word rooms. Up in the, I don't know why that our English translations use different English words because it hides... Abode. Yeah, abode. That word abode in verse John 14 verse 23 is the same Greek word Monet as what Jesus says up in in my

Father's house are many. What's the Greek word Monet Monet? Mm-hmm isn't a boat got like a B-like a bite a bite. Yes. Yeah, so there's, it connects to a verb that's used all throughout the Gospel of John, Menno. So, Monet is the noun, dwelling place, or abiding spot. And then, Menno is the verb abide. All the famous lines of like abide in me, I abide in you. That's all menne.

Um, if the, you know, the branch in the vine, I don't know. If the branch in the vine, if the branch abides in the vine, it will produce much fruit. So, abide is this image of intimacy and connection. To abide in Jesus means to give my allegiance to him, to trust him, to trust his love for me, to trust him, to trust his love for me, and to follow his teachings. And so my point is, is within one chapter, John 14, this image of Jesus abiding, or us abiding in Jesus, or Jesus coming to be with us, it's a really fluid dynamic image. It can refer to the coming of the Spirit in Pentecost. I'll send you the Spirit and I will come to you. Or it can refer to me and my father, anyone who obeys me and follows me.

God's loving presence is with that person. And you can say God's abode is with them. So bring us all the way back to the beginning of John 14. So when he says I will come again. Yes Well, so that's the debate. The debate is when Jesus says the beginning I go to prepare a place for you and I will come again and take you to myself Question is what's that talking about? Some people think that's talking about Jesus appearing after the resurrection. Some people think it refers to Pentecost in the coming of the

Spirit. And there are some people who think Jesus is here referring to his return at the end of the age to receive them to himself. Now I'm gonna surprise you. I love it. I'm going to surprise you. I actually think that third option makes the most sense. That he is referring in context. It seems like he's referring to, I will come again and take you to myself. Meaning that, well, yeah, whenever Jesus returns, he's going to receive his people to himself so that they can be with him But not in some Like well, yeah, I don't remember remember there's this category that all of the apostles have the death cannot

Break or get in the way of God's love for me or his commitment to me. And so Paul has this category of being with Jesus. Being with Jesus after death, but that's not the end of the story. What the end of the story is recreation and new creation and resurrection body and so on. So he could just be referring to, I'll kind of collect you up when you die? Yeah, I think Jesus, and a whole point is comfort. What he just said, don't let your hearts be troubled. He is talking about, he's going to talk about how the world hates you.

They're going to kill you. Nobody's going to like you. So Jesus isn't trying to give them a lecture on the nature of the afterlife. He's trying to give them words of comfort as a friend, that even though things are gonna get terrible, I'm going to prepare a place for you, which doesn't mean he's zapping up to heaven to like start building the heavenly temple.

It already exists. So how does Jesus prepare a place for other people to enter into the Holy of Holies? He's and it's what's gonna happen in the story. He's gonna die for the sins of the world. That's him preparing a place. Yeah him dying and being raised on behalf of sinful, broken humans is how he's preparing a place. And then Jesus is the trailblazer of the reunion of heaven and earth. So what Jesus' focus here is is that I'm opening up the gateway between heaven and earth and I'm going to take you to beat myself and the focus just for pastoral

reasons, just giving them an image of comfort. So it's just the equivalent of what Paul says with, should I, I might get killed in a Roman prison here, which should I prefer? Man, I'd be with Jesus. That'd be awesome. But it's better for you that I remain. So I can keep planting churches and traveling about. So I think that's what Jesus is focusing on here. He's not focusing on the end game, which is the reunion of Heaven and Earth. He's focusing on the interim period that's very foggy. All it describes here is that you may be where I am.

But Jesus doesn't, his whole plan is not to stay in heaven or for heaven and earth to be disconnected. So when they, when he says, and if I go, is this clear to the disciples, he's talking about dying? Well, actually, through the whole Upper Room discourse, chapter 14, 15, and 16, he's trying to make it clear to them that that's... What is talking about? What he's talking about, and they keep going like, where are you going?

How long will you be gone? Yeah. And so the disciples in Upper Room become this kind of stand-in for you, the reader, for whom you've, you know, I've never seen Jesus. And so there are questions kind of become my questions of like, oh yeah, I've never seen Jesus. Where is he? Is he gonna come back?

What's he gonna do? What do I do in the meantime? Is he with us or is he not with us? So yeah, so let me put it simply and then maybe you can say you always do a great job of summarizing. So I think what Jesus is talking about here is that same in-between period where people are going to hate you, they might even kill you, you might die, but don't worry. What I'm about to do in my death and resurrection is opening up the way to God's heavenly presence. And I'm going to take you. You'll never be separated from me, not even in death.

And at the end of the age, you and I are going to be together in God's presence. What he's not focusing on is the culmination of the story, say in the book of Revelation, where then that heavenly temple, the New Jerusalem, comes to be reunited with earth and new creation. And that's just not Jesus' focus here, because he's not giving a lecture. He's talking to his friends and trying to comfort them here because he's not giving a lecture. He's talking to his friends and trying to comfort them that they won't even death, won't separate them forever. So there's this in between time that Paul talks about being with Jesus. Jesus here talks about being with him where he is at and that there's a place for them in

God's heavenly temple. So there's something happening here and it's very foggy. We don't have a clear perspective of what it is. Yeah, Jesus called it paradise to the guy crucified next to him. Today you'll be with me in the Garden of Eden. Yeah. That's what he says, which was a cosmic temple. Is this a disembodied state?

I think it has to be. There is some sort of interim disembodied state that Jesus and Paul both talk about. Yep, yeah. Yeah, but it's not a permanent state and it's not the end of the story because it doesn't solve the problem. The problem is about the relationship between heaven and earth. That's the biblical drama, but that's not what Jesus is talking about in John 14. He's talking to his friends who were traumatized by the fact that he just said, I'm going to go get crucified. During first century Judaism, what were the paradigms that they had of after death, pre-resurrection? Well, state. We talked about this in the Holy Spirit question and

response about your soul or body. Right. Spirit. Yeah. So the conviction is, if my life belongs to God in his love, then death is not the end. And God's love is going to bring new life and bring new creation. That's the biblical drama, the biblical storyline. What that leaves, a question of, is, okay, so what happens to me, if I die, this side of the new creation and in that time period before, what do I cease to exist? And that's at least that's not how any of the biblical authors put it. How they put it is God will take me to Himself that He will sustain me by His love and creative power. sustain me by his love and creative power and by nature that has to be in a non-embodied state.

Because you don't have my bodies in the ground. Decomposed. Yeah. But yeah, none. There's just... Unless you have some sort of different type of body. Yeah. But the idea is that you're going to be united with your body. Yeah, the hope is what happened to Jesus, the empty tomb, is what will happen to his people

in the resurrection and in the new creation. And so Jesus, again, we're back to, we have a whole session on this in the Heaven and Earth book is Like John in the Revelation John didn't have a little video camera that he looked into To wonder what the new creation would be like They they were eyewitnesses to the resurrected Jesus they ate food with him They touched him and He was the same Jesus that they walked around with in Galilee But he was at the same time a different Jesus, fundamentally, like his body had really strange properties. And at some

moments they couldn't recognize him, like Mary or the two on the road to a mass. And so these are ways of talking about how whatever the new creation is, it's a renewal of this world, but it will be so fundamentally transformed that it's also not this world. This is also the same dynamic at work in the of this world or not of this world, language in the gospel of John. Right, which I want to talk to you about. Yeah. So maybe we could jump there.

Yeah. So it's by nature a disembodied state after death, and you're with Jesus. He says it here. Paul says it. Jesus said it to the guy crucified next to him. But again, as we say in the video, that's not the focus of

the story. There was such this conviction that, you know, you are a body and you don't really have an essence outside of your body. Then how can there be a sense of a disembodied state? Yeah, well, yeah, we just don't have, you know, in the Old Testament, you just die. And you're in the brain. Did they summon a spirit and someone summoned some sort of spirit? Man, there's one occasion.

Yeah, the Witch of Endor. Oh, so, and I write at the end of first Samuel. Yeah, such an amazing, I still remember reading that story for the first time in the little title summary. Just a Switch of Endor. Just a Switch of end or the witch of end or you're like am I reading Tolkien? Yeah, yeah, he's she summons up the Ruach of Samuel the breath from the dead. Yeah, it's a bizarre story

So that's some sort of disembodied state. It's the only story like it in the entire Bible where a person who's dead, their presence or life presence is makes it an appearance to somebody in some kind of magic ceremony. Seriously, it's the only place in the entire Bible where that happens. That's a strange story. It's a very strange story. But obviously there's some sort of category then.

Yeah. There's a category for disembodied essence of who you are. Yeah, that's right. But it has nothing to do with the inherent immortality of the human soul, it has to do with God's commitment to not let his beloved people be destroyed by death, but that he preserves the life of his people beyond death and through death and then out into new creation. Yeah, just the biblical authors don't have much more to say about it except for these images of being with Jesus or being in the temple, even in God's heavenly temple. I wish there was just like a journalist back then who just drilled Jesus on some of this

stuff. I feel like you could have been a little more thorough. Well, you can go to other Jewish literature, of the period, Dead Sea Scrolls. They're really interested in the heavenly temple, and Filo, who was a Jewish philosopher, roughly contemporary. He wrote a ton, but he was also trying to integrate the Hebrew Bible with the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle.

And so he's fully transformed the Hebrew thought categories. Yeah, what you want to know is what did Jesus think? Yeah, there's probably different opinions floating around Judy as well. Well, you know, he tells that parable about the rich man and Lazarus. Yeah And actually I know there's even some Debate not not that much debate Among scholars about whether or not that's a parable But I think it has all the clues of one of Jesus parables

But he just uses the phrase Abraham's bosom. Yeah. Right. The poor man Lazarus dies and he's in Abraham's bosom. Yeah. Which of course is a metaphor. So because of because we're the seat of Abraham. Well, it's the family of Abraham is God's covenant people. Uh-huh. And so your bosom is like your, yeah.

Oh yeah. So like holding you close to your chest. Oh. You're getting a bear hug from Abraham? Yeah, yeah. It's actually not too different than in my father's house or many dwellings. In the same way, those temple rooms are so close to the temple to be able to have your own personal one as like being in God's bosom.

It's like getting a bear hug from God. Totally, yeah. So the rich man is not in neighbor, hems bosom, and poor Lazarus, even though he was rejected, he was a member of the covenant people and so God won't forget him. And he's taken into the bosom of the father of the covenant people.

So it's a rich metaphor for the same idea to be with God, to be with Jesus. And it's like we're being asked to hold on to an idea very lightly. Like, we're not given very clear. It's like Jesus wanted them to be comforted. Don't let your heart be troubled. Trust in God and trust in me. But his comfort didn't come with a lot of information.

It's, you know, I mean, he kind of in the sense that they get it enough, like I guess they're following it enough to get comforted, but I would have been like, whoa, where are you going? Like, well, that's what he does say. Yeah, sure. He says, I don't know how to get where you're going. Yeah. But, and then what, again, and his point isn't to feel speculation Right, yeah, Thomas says we don't know the way and he doesn't say oh, sorry

What I meant was the heavenly temple and in the interim period Death and Privat what Jesus says is just Thomas I am the way yeah So he's constantly redirecting attention just to himself So he's constantly redirecting attention just to himself. The hope isn't in an idea. So it's this thing of like, they've become really attached to Jesus. Yeah. But he's going away. And so he is the way.

And it's as simple as just hanging with me and everything's going to be all right. Yeah. And you get that message enough and then Jesus says, actually I'm leaving. Yeah. Then your world's going to be rocked. Yeah. Because your strategy is just, I'm just going to hang with this guy. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's why he says later, don't, I'm going away, but I'm not leaving you as orphans. Yeah. I will come to you through the spirit's coming to you. And the reason I'm going away is because I want to connect you with the presence of God himself. Yeah, I'm going away.

So the spirits coming in between period, you're right, but now and when I come again. And then also, when I do come again we will be fully reunited in and together in God's heavenly temple presence. Which wouldn't be possible for you aside from what I'm about to do in my death and resurrection on your behalf. But again, even all of that is about their personal hope. He's not talking about the whole storyline of the Bible, which is about that heavenly temple presence of God, with all the people who are waiting to be re-embodied in the new creation when heaven and earth are reunited.

I mean, these disciples of Jesus, they're Jews, and they must have, and they have some sort of training or understanding of scripture before Jesus. Sure. And so what would their expectations of, I mean, if you're a Jewish person and you're following the law, you're not worried about whether

or not you're going to be part of God's house. You are a part of it, right? They wouldn't have had this category of like, well, maybe when I die, it won't be a part of God's heavenly dwelling. But we're not just reading the writings of what's an average Jewish person. We're reading the Gospel according to John. And so the whole Gospel is framed as Jesus comes as Israel's Messiah to show that true faithfulness to the God of Israel and the storyline of the Old Testament is now fulfilled in Jesus. And so how you respond to Him is how you respond to the God of Israel now. So the whole point is he's kind of redrawing the boundary lines of who is a part of the

covenant people. And those who don't recognize him don't actually know the God of Israel. I mean, that's how starkly he puts it at many points. So the point is that Jesus alone is now the gateway. I'm the way the truth are like. No one comes to father. That's right. And that exclusive claim is matched by the most radically open, armed claim that God loves the world. John 3.16, God doesn't hate this world. He, right? This world is under the hostile influences, and so God loves it, and Jesus came in order to do for it what it couldn't do for itself, so that He could redeem it. Let's talk about that then, just to wrap this up. Yeah. The next chapter, Jesus says chapter 15, if the world hates you, beware that it hated me

before I hated you. If you belong to the world, the world would love you as its own, because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. What? This is the NRSV. Okay. Therefore, the world hates you. Remember, the word that I said to you, servants are not greater than their master. If they persecute me, they will persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also. So yeah, first, this is really helpful thing to know.

The Gospel of John, the way John tells his story, the way he narrates, the way the whole story. The way Jesus talks is actually really different than how he talks in Matthew, Mark, or Luke, in most places. So the vocabulary of the Gospel of John is permeated with what different commentators call dualisms or dualistic phrases like light and dark or above and below. in below heaven and earth good or evil blind or sight. Actually I've got an essay by one of my favorite New Testament scholars Richard Bacchum. His collection of essays on the Gospel of John. He has a whole chapter on this. I mean he just says tons of these. Oh well. There's a whole page of sex to two pages. Yeah, and it just characterizes

glory. You receive glory from humans or glory from God. There's a ruler of this world, and God, Jesus' kingdom, is not of this world. There's the father of lies, but the spirit of truth. Children of the devil, children of God. The thief and the bandit versus the shepherd of God's people. Slavery versus freedom. So this just a mark of the vocabulary. And it's all part of John's effort, as he says at the end, to persuade you to believe that Jesus is the Son of God

and that you might believe in him and have life through his name. So Gospel John is a persuasion document and he's using one of the most common techniques of persuasion. Well, sure. Yeah, the best part of the word. Actually, most forms of human communication are propaganda. If you mean just trying to persuade you to think or do something. Yeah. But yeah, he just employs this technique of like black and white contrasts. So of this world and not of this world. Yeah. So when he says, so I think of, yes, I belong to this planet or I don't belong to this

planet. Correct. And yeah, if I'm going to be zapped away to be a part of some sort of heavenly kingdom one day, then I'm cool with you saying I'm not, I don't belong to this planet. That works perfectly in that paradigm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if you say, hey, no, heaven and earth are going to unite, and we are earthlings that will live on earth in a new earth, then it's like, well, then I am of this world.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, the point of him saying, and he says, you're not of this world, he doesn't mean you're not physical. Right? What he means is your value system is no longer based in something that's apart from Jesus or apart from God. It's not merely humanly derived. It's very similar, a great analogy is when Jesus is being tried before pilot. And pilots asking, are you the king of the Jews? And you say so. Jews and you say so yeah you say so

Actually, that's the Matthew marker look In John Jesus answers my kingdom is not From this world If my kingdom were from this world my servants would be fighting So that I wouldn't get arrested But as it is my kingdom's not of this world, my servants would be fighting so that I wouldn't get arrested. But as it is, my kingdom's not of this world. So whatever not of this world means for Jesus, it doesn't mean not physical. What does it mean to be of this world in his conversation with Pilate? If my kingdom were of this world, my disciples would be a military crew doing special ops.

Like, you know? Maybe seals. Leaping in through the windows and slitting your neck right now. If my kingdom were of this world. If we had the values of the way the world works. Yeah, yeah, you tell me. Like when he says, if my kingdom was of this world,

I'd have the assassin crew on you right now and you'd be dead. Yeah, if I was to say, well, it could mean, and the paradigm I grew up in, it would mean, if what I was trying to do was something political right now versus, I just want to make sure you guys all can go to heaven. Yeah. So my kingdom is the kingdom of heaven. But that's not what he says. I know. But that's what I'm saying.

You're saying what could it mean? If Jesus meant my kingdom's not of this world, so because I'm all about heaven and getting people I've here to go to heaven, then he would not say, if my kingdom were of this world, then my servants would be fighting as it is my kingdom is not of this world. He would say something like, my kingdom is not of this world, so none of this matters we're all going to heaven, if my kingdom were of this world, like it's not the right contrast.

I don't understand. It's not the right contrast because... My kingdom's not of this world. If it were, if it were of this world, then we'd be launching revolution right now. Oh, I see. But if we're going to go up heaven one day, I'm not going to launch revolution. It fits. I mean, it fits. A paradigm fits within what Jesus is saying. Oh, yeah, you're right. It does. But but it seems like the other way to take it is saying My my ways are not of this world. The ways of this world would be to take to take this by force

That's right with violence. Yeah, and Overthrow you the way that we've seen a hundred times before. Correct. A thousand times before. Yes, by mentioning a military revolution, he shows that what he's not talking about is a destination. A few times. He's talking about a method of becoming king.

He's talking about how, yeah, how you exercise power in the world. Kingdom. So. He's not talking about where he's going to become king. He's talking about how he's going to become king. Yeah, that's right. If my kingdom had the value system of this world, it'd be revolution time right now. So when he says of this world, he means having the value system of this world. Yeah, my kingdom doesn't work by the value system doesn't work by the value system of normal kingdom. And what's this word here of the world?

Ah, cosmos. Cosmos. Yeah, and the cosmos is the thing that God loves. In John 316. God loves the cosmos. That's why he's that way. And it's not a globe or a planet. That's not the idea.

No, it's just the world, the ordered world and the humans inhabit. Creation. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. The order. Yeah. And there's a it's under the influence of hostile powers. And that is the not influence being under that influence is being of the world. is being of the world. Correct. That's right. That's why in a dialogue in John chapter 8, Jesus is talking to a bunch of Jewish leaders who reject him, and what he says to them, John chapter 8, 23, he says, you are from below. I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world. And it's the same.

I am an alien. Yeah, totally. Yeah, it's not saying I'm not human, clearly. So this whole point is, it's like what he says in Nicodemus. If I speak to you about earthly things, worldly things. How can we have a conversation about heavenly things. Worldly things. How can we have a conversation about

heavenly things? So this heaven and earth of this world, not of this world, contrasts and John. It's about value systems. It's about value systems, it's about worldview, it's about what story, it's about, is this merely a human concoction? Is there a verse or is this a thing that will receive as a gift from God's own life and love and creative power? Is there a verse that says don't be of the be in the world but not of the world? Yeah, that's in that's in the first letter of John first John. Yep. Yeah. So yeah, same thing What does it mean to be of this world? You could be in the world without being of the world. Yeah, and he talks about pride Okay

And that's right. Yeah, okay So I guess the thing is is like as I as I move my paradigm to being hey, I I want to I want to participate in what God's doing here in in this world preparing for new creation, which will be a new earth. I am an earthling. I will always be an earthling. There might be this time, interim period, that's pretty foggy.

That's a disembodied state. Well, not might. I mean, I think Jesus and Paul, like there is a time. There is a time. If I die before the new creation, they want me to know with confidence that they've got me. Okay. And that I'll be with Jesus in that my life won't escape

from this job. So according to Paul and Jesus, this is happening. But they don't call that heaven. That's Abraham's bosom or that's a room in the father's house or that's being with Jesus. With Jesus. Yeah, all these different ways to talk about but the But the room in God's temple is in the heavenly temple. Yeah, so it's in heaven Sure, I'm just saying the heavenly temple. It's still it never was referred to it's significant There's never once in the Bible is the phrase go to heaven used right to talk about what happens after you die not even once

Right there's all these other ways of talking about it But when you use those other ways of talking about it They remind you that oh, yeah, this isn't the end of the game. Yeah, this is the temporary thing The game is being on earth in a new in a new new creation, a new creation, a union of heaven and earth. A union of heaven and earth. So as I shift to that paradigm, I feel like it gives me so much more traction for life now, because it's not going to be so different. I mean, it's going to be different, but it won't be some new paradigm. Well, yeah, it'll be, again, it'll be what the apostles experience when they met the risen Jesus. It's that, but the whole universe.

So it's not like, I mean, if it's some heavenly,, disembodied state forever that I don't really fully understand, there's not a lot I can hold on to. It's just kind of like, yeah, well, I'll wait it out. And until then, I'll just kind of do what I need to do. But if it's something like this, then like I said, there's more traction, there's more like what I do now is actually preparing me for the reality because it's not going to be so different. And so as I prepare myself for that, and I think about that, a verse like this trips me up because I actually want to use the phrase I am of this world. Oh sure. In the way of like, I made for this world. Yeah, that's right.

I made to be a different thing with a human body. I'm not, when I hear the phrase I'm on this world, that's a category for me of, oh yeah, I'm supposed to be this disembodied soul that gets apt to some other. Got it. Yeah. Platonic state after that. And that's because you're using that word world in a way that's different than how John is using the word world. Yeah, John's using it to talk about a value system

where I'm talking about physical language. This is actually, I have to remind myself because of my tradition that I actually know this, I belong here, this is good, being in God's world. And ultimately, this needs to be redeemed. But that's not what the gospel of John need to remind people of. And you remind people of the value systems that have been running this world are going to be going away.

And you need to be a part of the value systems that are to come. And so this is just, I'm just thinking about this and this really is a whole, almost a whole other conversation. But I think that also a person's social location will shape how they, how they think about all of this. In other words, if you're a nice house If you have yeah, if you're if you are living a fairly comfortable life and you have the ability to Free choices and shape the world around you right then you like being here

And you don't want to leave here. Yeah, and this world's yeah screwed up But it's not it's also a lot of beauty in it. So I want to be here and see this improve and even better. However, there are many times in history. In fact, the majority of humans for the majority of human history, including the early Christians, were living in an extremely hostile environment. They had no influence over how the Romans viewed them or saw them. They were just perpetrated against or hunted down. And so in that kind of scenario, you don't want to be of this world. And what you're looking for is something radically different than the current age. And so to me, it's significant that the New Testament

talks about this from both sides, both ankles. You get a beautiful image like Paul's creation, but redeemed, liberated from decay, and made to be fully what it is and all of its beauty and goodness. But then you also get John, you know, the gospel of John, or letters of John, that's just like the world's grabbed our, we're not of this world. And so both of those can be true at the same time and in different seasons of the person's

life, I think they will speak different things. So I think it's good to remember what we tend to do is take one of those if they're like on a spectrum of how do I feel about the world today? You know what we tend to do is take one end of the spectrum the world's bad And then we make the whole Bible about escaping the world or you can go the other extreme though and be like no the world's not that bad Yeah, so let's just improve move improve things here and it'll just be a better version of that whatever the new creation is so I just think we need to try and balance both of those it'll be a heavens and earth but it'll be a new heavens and earth it'll

be a redeemed version of creation. And the true north of the compass for the apostles, again, isn't some crystal ball, that they actually saw what the new creation is going to be. What they saw was the risen Jesus, and then they concluded that what they encountered, the person they encountered, is a preview of what's going to happen for all of creation. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Bible Project. The workbook on Heaven and Earth can be downloaded for free at thebibeproject.com-havenbook. The Bible Project is a non-profit. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus and

has profound wisdom for the modern world. We make videos and resources that help explain that and they're all free. It's on our website thebiproject.com. Say hi to us, we're on Twitter at JoinBibletproject and on Facebook. Facebook.com slash join the Bible project. And our YouTube channel is youtube.com slash the Bible project. Thanks for being a part of this with us. you you