Blurry Creatures - EP: 319 The Disciples' Darkest Day with Dr. Joel Muddamalle

Episode Date: April 19, 2025

Join us for a profound conversation with Dr. Joel Muddamalle as we explore the often-overlooked space between Good Friday and Easter Sunday—Silent Saturday. From our live event in Costa Rica, Dr. Joel Muddamalle takes us deep into the mystery of Silent Saturday—a day that feels quiet, but was anything but empty. In what some traditions call the Harrowing of Hades, Jesus disarmed death through death, robbed the grave, and set its captives free. While Jesus is doing this, rebellious angels imprisoned in the Depths of Hades (2 Peter 2:4) witness all of this unfold. Check out more from Dr. Joel here: https://humbletheology.muddamalle.com/p/the-truth-about-silent-saturday?r=22xqjx&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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What is the stuff coming out of this bag? You know, I don't think a lot of us think about maybe what we feed our dogs. And that's why we partner with rough greens. Most of us would love to have our dogs, you know, live as long as possible. I mean, I just lost my dog in December. And I would have just, I would have loved more time with Carl. And one of the things you can do to get more time with your dog is to feed them better. Dog owners don't usually realize that live nutrients, that their dog's,

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And Rough Greens really made a difference in their energy levels and the pep in their step. So if you want to do what we did, you can get a free jumpstart trial bag for your dog today. Just cover the shipping. Go to roughgreens.com and use discount code blurry. That's RUFFF greens.com discount code blurry. Rough Greens makes any dog food better. One of our good friends, Dr. Joel Mudalale, in the house. Oh, yeah. What's up? We told the origin story of how we met,

and it's so cool to be here again for another year with you and do things with you. On the basketball court, right? Yeah, it's our in-house theologian. Let's go. And it's really cool, like the way this sort of, we didn't plan this exactly, but, you know, when Tim broke down the gospel

and significance of the resurrection, it really plays into where we're going today, which is a fantastic way of Tim Albrino set in the table for this one. But we're going to go back to Silent Saturday, right? Between the cross and between the resurrection. Yeah. It gets a bit blurry.

You mind if I pull a little audible? Oh, of course. I'm wrong then. I feel like Tim always gets to pull audibles. So I feel like it's only fair that I get to pull a little bit of an audible. So I want to do a little bit of a bridge if it's okay with you. So I'm the theology guy. I'm a Bible nerd.

And so if y'all will just indulge me for a little bit, I want it to, maybe walk us through the implications of the story of the prodigal's son as it relates to the incarnation of Jesus, right? Yeah. And it's going to have some kind of fun thing. So I've got a screen share. I think the guys are going to put it up. But there's a passage in Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 6-4. This is like the epic passage of the Old Testament.

This would be anybody ever do Bible memory verse quizzes? You'd get Bible bucks for doing Bible. I'm the only one who grew up in that kind of context? Right? Okay, so you did like sword drills, the whole nine areas. Okay, this would have been the one that you had to do. And it's referred to in kind of the Hebrew culture as the shama, right? So listen, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. In this statement are massive theological implications. And so here's kind of just my basic premise right off the bat, that Jesus gives us a lived theology. All right? So a theology that is unlivable is absolutely unhelpful. And, Part of the challenge that we have today in our culture and our society is we're being peddled, a kind of theology that can't be lived and can't be experienced and can't be understood. And we've demythologized the Bible. We're trying to strip the supernatural elements out of the scriptures.

And at the end of it is frustration, you know? At the end of that is anxiety and worry and fear. It's like, man, are they just playing a big con game on us, you know? And so I want to just unpack this a little bit. This is what the text says. Listen to Israel. Now, I don't know if you guys knew this, but you're about to. get a Hebrew lesson. Is that okay? Great. I don't care because we're going to do it anyways.

That's right. So here's what I say. So listen, O Israel. And then this first word Lord is in caps. And that word is actually Yahweh. The Lord are God. Anybody know what this Hebrew word is? Elohim. Okay? So we all know our friend, the late great Dr. Mike Heiser. One of my favorite quotes of his that he would always say is that God is Elohim, but no other Elohim is. Y'all are legends. Let's go. Exactly. So you have this statement. But then what's fascinating is right next to that is the Lord, right? So Yahweh is one. Sounds simple, right, but far from being simplistic. Okay, let me just do a quick little lesson here that I think is going to be kind of important for us. In the Greek text, these Hebrew words were all translated. with some intentionality, with some intentionality. So here's how they would have been translated.

Lord would have been translated, Curious, and this was Jesus. Watch this. God, or Elohim, would have been translated Theos, and that is God, the Father. All right, I just want to let you know that the Bible is one cohesive story

and the New Testament gets its theology from somewhere. Where does it get its theology from? When Paul in 1st Corinthians 86, this is what he says, yet for us there is one God. Theos, or Elohim,

who is what? The father. Great. Well, who is this God, the Father? All things are from him and we exist for him. And then he says this, and there is one, Lord. Well, what is the Lord? This is Yahweh. But this is Curias, which means it's Jesus. Jesus Christ. All things are through him. And we exist through him. So what does all of this mean? It means, listen, O Israel. Jesus is God. And God and Jesus. And Jesus, and Jesus, Jesus,

Jesus are one. Okay? Now let me bring this to the ground. In the prodigal son, the story of the prodigal son, what you have with Jesus in the incarnation is that Jesus is the faithful older brother that should have always been. He should have been the one who actually went out and retrieved the younger brother back, right? But notice in this situation what we have with Jesus.

Jesus isn't simply the older brother. Jesus is the father himself. And so the father doesn't just sit back in the story of the biblical narrative when it comes to God. The father actually goes in to creation in order to redeem and to restore and to reconcile us, all the words that Tim had said before. So I just want to give a little bit of quick theological background for the implications of what we just spent an hour and 15 minutes talking about, kind of rooted in the text here. Let's go.

Let's go. Yeah. What are your thoughts on Bigfoot, though? Just kidding. I feel like you've drawn on some X's and O's there. It's like, like John Madden. Like, there comes the blitz down the middle. That's right.

Let's put it back up. Here's my idea of Bigfoot. So Bigfoot equals blurry. There it is. There it is. There it is. I love all the teaching that comes out of the, you know, this Bigfoot podcast we started.

It's like, I'm sitting here going, how did this all happen? How did we get here and you're breaking down the Trinity, you know, or deeper discussion about the Trinity? Exegesis, let's go. Well, let's go to Silent Saturday, Joel, shall we? Yeah. Have you ever, anybody ever wondered, like, man, we spent a lot of time talking about the life of Christ, right? And, like, what Tim talked about, too, like, and you guys were just talking about, like, yeah, there's a lot of conversation about the crucifixion. and a lot of rightfully so discussion of the resurrection.

Something that's less discussed but still discussed is the ascension, right? So we have these kind of movements of the biblical story. But have you ever wondered where the heck does Jesus go when he dies for three days? Yeah. Anybody? Any thoughts? Okay. So just so you know, kind of my vibe the way it works, I really don't enjoy like,

hey, listen to Joel. and it's like lecture and you listen. Like, that's not very fun for me. And I know it's not fun for these guys either. So we'll do a little bit of interaction here, here. And if you're silent, it's going to offend me. So there you go. So I'm just curious if you've ever heard that the place where Jesus went to on silent Saturday was hell.

Yeah? Okay. Now, when we say that, that Jesus went to hell on Silent Saturday, how many of you have a little bit of a theological alarm that goes off in your head? Yeah? Yeah. Right? Okay, so when I say the English word hell, what is the picture?

Nate, what is the picture that you have, your eyes, the way that you just looked at me? You were like, awesome. Of hell? Yes. I don't know. Just like some 80s movie of flames and, you know, it's always in that vein. That's a U.S. Just a scary place.

you know, just a lot of flames and fire and people being tortured and all the typical fear-based stuff that we hear kind of going on. Yeah. Luke? Yeah, I mean, yeah. That's the picture we've seen a thousand times. It's like the burning

inferno of eternity you know, separation from God. And that's, yeah, there's, I don't even get into it so I'm not going to read ahead. Yeah. So one of the challenges I think we have in general is a lack of precision when it comes to our language. A lack of precision when it comes to our language. And so the way that we get to hell is actually a long story that we don't have time for.

But basically, the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek, and that's called the Septuagint. The Septuagin was translated into Latin by a guy named Jerome. He actually had two women who were a massive part of the interpretation process. It's kind of sad that Jerome only gets the credit. Pertua and the other two don't, anyways. So we should acknowledge the two women, just so you know. And then that Latin phrase is kind of where we end up with the doctrine of hell, right? Like where Jesus goes to hell.

The challenge is that that Latin phrase is actually kind of imprecise. And so when we're talking about these locations, the ancient Hebrews, they kind of had a cosmology. So first thing, a way to get crazy confusion when it comes. to understanding the Bible is trying to take our 21st century understanding of science and of technology and trying to force that into ancient text. Do you go what I'm saying? Right? So I'm going to say something that might be offensive, but I'm sorry if it offends you. Just try to hang with me. The Bible is not ultimately trying to answer your science questions. That's not the goal. The Bible is ultimately trying to communicate to us the great story arc of redemption.

Right? The God's a good father. He wants to have a household of family. Sin destroys the family. And God's going to do what it takes to have that family back together, aka Jesus, the son of God himself. So in the Old Testament, they have a little thing that you guys can see here. In the Old Testament, there was this concept of the afterlife.

and it was a three-tiered kind of cosmology. So the language would have been, you know, She-Oll would have been Old Testament, and She-Ole would have been broken up into a couple different places. So one, Abraham's bosom is the place of the righteous stead, right? Like this is where Jacob, Abraham, Joseph, like the homeboys go to, the great fathers and their families, they end up. Then you have a place for the unrighteous debt. They're separated. So the unrighteous dead don't get to just hang out where the righteous dead are.

They're in a different place. And then you have this wild location that is even lower than those two places. And this place is referred to as Tartarus and Greek. And it's the place where the Genesis 6 angels are imprisoned. Right. We don't need to do any background on that. We're all in on that. Right.

In the New Testament, when Jesus and Paul are talking about these locations, they're using specific words to describe the locations. So, when Jesus and Paul use the Greek word, Hades or Tartarus, they're talking about these kind of locations. Abraham's bosom is the image of where the righteous dead would have gone. there's another word that was a bit foreign, but shows up in the New Testament. And that word is Gahena. Now, the thing about Gahena is that Gahena was a geographical location that had been associated to everybody at the time. For instance, if I were to say Michael Jordan, who's the greatest basketball player of all time, we all know this, right? No need to even discuss this.

He won three championships, took two years off, and then came back to another three championships, and where was that location? Where did he win all those rings? Chicago. Shytown, Chicago, right? Exactly. Where you're from again? Where are you from?

Happened to be from Chicago. Uh-huh, that's right. Shout out, baby. But notice you were able to make that connection without much background. Like MJ, Chicago Bulls, Chicago, that's the location. Okay, when Jesus is talking about Gahanna or hell,

in the minds of the Greco-Roman folks and the Israelites in the Second Temple period, instantly they're thinking Valley of Hanom. Instantly they're thinking Jesrael Valley. They're thinking of a geographical location, which was an absolute abhorrence to the people of God because that was the place where child sacrifice was taken on behalf of the false god Molek. When I say false God, I'm not talking about non-existence, I'm talking about non-supremacy.

Right. Right? So here's this false god. Molek, who's an actual spiritual malevolent being that is enticing Israel into child sacrifice, well, that place becomes desecrated. And eventually, by the time of Jesus, it becomes a garbage heap, right? So as a garbage heap, this is where you get the gnashing of teeth and the worms that are like all over the place.

This is a different location. This is not paradise or Abraham's bosom. This is not Hades or Shiol. Gehenna is a different location. Okay, here's another question. When Jesus comes in the incarnation, when is the new covenant established? Is it established during his life, during his death, or at the ascension? Let's do a vote of hands.

During his life, you think that the new covenant is established? No, okay, good. How about during his death? Is his death when the new covenant is established? Oh, right, I know. It's hard. Okay. How about this? How about this? Nate stressed. How about this? How about this? At the ascension. The ascension. Okay, good. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I'll give you the answer. At the ascension. At the ascension. At the ascension is when the new covenant is cut. You were close. It's like a 50-50, which is still failing. But that was good. At the ascension, okay? When Jesus comes in the incarnation, it means just follow.

me, this is important. It means that he is still under the Old Testament covenant. Okay? And the thing that Jesus does for us in the incarnation is he willfully submits himself to the law. And in willfully submitting himself to the law, he actually defeats the requirements of the law by living it to perfection. Does Jesus have any shortcuts? No. Jesus would know. Jesus would not. never have any shortcuts, right? Okay, if you live in the Old Testament, Abraham, you know, we can go to Genesis 3735, Jacob is stressed out about his son Joseph and, you know, everybody's like, pops, it's okay, everything's going to be fine. And Jacob's like, no, it's not. I want to go to, let me go to Shiol. I'd rather be in Shiol where Joseph sat, right? Or we could go to, like,

numbers 2713, where God tells Moses that he can't go into the promised land, but don't worry, Moses, it's going to be okay, because you're going to die and you're going to die and you're going to be gathered up to your fathers. But what is that phrase being gathered up to your fathers mean? Or Judges 210, that the whole generation of Joshua was gathered up to their fathers. Like, what's actually happening here? If you lived in the Old Testament covenant and you died, where would you go? You would go to Abraham's bosom. To Abraham's bosom. That's right. So, when Jesus dies, If Jesus is going to be faithful, if Jesus isn't going to cut any corners, if Jesus is going to be like, listen, I'm going to defeat death through death, and nobody can say I took a shortcut, where would Jesus have gone to Shiol? Now, where would he not have gone?

He would not have gone to the depths of Hades where the unrighteous went because he lived a fully righteous life. Sometimes it feels like when you get that phone bill, it's like the crash site document. You can't read it. There's a bunch of numbers, random fees, vague language, stuff's blacked out. You're like, what am I actually paying for? I don't know about you, but I like keeping my money where I can see it. I like to be simple. I like to be easy.

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He says, I saw the Lord ever before me because he's at my right hand. I won't be shaken. Therefore, my heart is glad. My tongue rejoices. Moreover, my flesh will rest in hope. Because what? You will not abandon me where? In Hades.

Now, look at the language. Language is precise for a reason. The text doesn't say, you're not going to send me there. Right? The text isn't going to be, oh, you can avoid that place. We've got a detour for you. the text is saying here this is what David is actually saying in the ultimate is saying man I'm going to end up there but I know that's not the end that's not the final resting place

this is what the Hebrew Bible says Psalm 16 I always let the Lord God guide me because he's at my right hand I won't be shaken therefore my heart is glad my whole being rejoices my body also rest securely why can you have this level of confidence here's why because you're not going to abandon me to shiel look at the connection from Hades to shield. You will not allow your faithful ones to seed decay. All right. Look at, I mean, we can go on, we can go on and on. There's the whole story of Jonah. Jonah is a image for us, right? Jonah gets trapped for three days where? Billy of whale, right? But where does the whale live? In the water, in case.

Well, what is the water? It's an image of chaos. Why does Jesus quote Jonah? Right? Look at this, Jonah 117. The Lord appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah and Jonah was in the belly of a fish for three days. Two-two. I called to the Lord in my distress. He answered. I cried out for help from the deep wear inside of Shiol. Right? Jonah prays to the Lord is God from the belly of a fish. And then he gets thrown out where from the heart of the seas. Let me read a commentary section for you on It comes from the dictionary of deities and demons. Yes, that's the kind of stuff I read on my spare time. It says this, that the word for the depths of the seas is the Hebrew word Mashula. Mashula is translated into Greek as Abysos. This would evoke, on the one hand, a cosmological, mythological aspect of the kingdom, of the kind normally attaching to Tom, which was a sea monster, or Rahab. Huh. On the other hand, he transposes the word into the contextual horizon of Hades or the nether world, the prison for the powers opposed to God.

I'll summarize it this way. Jonah, his body ends up in the grave symbolically, the fish. Jonah's soul ends up in the sea, Shiol. Where does Jesus' body end up when he dies? In the grave. but where does Jesus's soul end up in Hades, Sheel? Exactly. This gets us to Ephesians, right? And then we'll just summarize from here on out. It says that Jesus, if he ascended on high, he took the captives captive,

and he gave gifts to people. But what does he ascend it mean, except that he also descended to the lower parts of the earth? The one who descended is also the one who us, ascended far above all the heavens to fill all things. All right. So why am I saying all of this? And there's a purpose to it.

When Jesus dies and he goes down to the grave on Silent Saturday, Jesus goes to the location where the righteous dead are held, waiting for the long promise to Messiah. And when Jesus goes there, he proclaims the gospel, the Greek Gordiangeliang or Cariso, it can have two meanings. It can mean to proclaim to invite somebody to salvation, or it could be like Jordan raising the banners of a championship, being like, gotcha, I got all of you, I'm the one who won. I'm victorious.

So when he goes down there, he tears down the gates of Hades. He announces his victory. Well, who's at the very depths of this place? The fallen angels of Genesis 6 who are held in prison. They are hearing the victory song of the long-enointed, long-awaited Messiah. And then Jesus, he takes those who were the righteous dead of the Old Testament, and he takes them. Where does he take them?

Well, where's the council of God reside? Eden. What gets taken away in order to protect the location, the holiness in the opening pages of Genesis with Eden? Eden's taken away. Where's Jesus right now? Maybe he's in Eden. How in Revelation do you have the garden turn into a garden city? And when Tim talks about, Jesus says, I'm going to go to a place to prepare a house for you.

What kind of work is being done, right? And so this, I think, honestly, like, this is the livable theology aspect of it. Hebrews chapter 12 says there's a great cloud of witnesses that surround. us. And so, like, right now, when we die as believers underneath the new covenant, hopefully this is just an immense amount of hope for you, and even for loved ones that have passed, they don't go to Hades. That place, Shiole, is, like, abandoned. The gate is torn down. Why? Because the righteous dead now reside with the risen Messiah in Eden, in the divine counsel, which is what makes sense of Hebrews chapter 12, that there's a great cloud of witnesses

that surrounds us and is cheering us on, that they're aware that they're participating in the new humanity that they're always intended to participate in. And so I think this does matter. I think that it is a theological nuance that has immense amount of significance because it puts hope for eternity and even for the reality of what we all will experience. unless Jesus comes back. Do you think that these places were established before the fall of mankind? Like, what was their origin, you think, like these places, and why did we have to sort of go there?

Yeah, I think some of these places were established before. Time I think Eden was established before. You know, one of those, again, another Heiserite kind of statements, Heiserism. Is that a word? I don't know. Heiserism. And it is now. one of the things he would always say is, you know,

Eden was on Earth, but all of Earth was not Eden. You know, Eden was just a parchment on the Mesopotamian land. And so, yeah, I think that some of these places were absolutely created. Think about Genesis 6, that Tartars was created for these fallen angels, right? And it was meant to be a holding place until

they would be thrown into the Gehenna, the lake of fire. So even those fallen beings, those disembodied spirits, the Elohim, the sons of God, They await in torment, and it's the worst kind of torment, because they're literally watching history unfold as Yahweh promised it would unfold. It's like a reservoir that was already established before in case there was a flood of, you know, the water had somewhere to go. Sort of like a pre-plan that God could save humanity and kind of capture them all in this one specific place and then could redeem them.

Yeah, and I think the redemption is so significant because the redemption. isn't that that safety net that was created would be the final destination, but it would be a safe place of holding until the culmination of the new heavens, the new earth could come together. I think this is good because I think a lot of times we talk about on the podcast, like where do these things go? You know, like they don't just disappear. You know, you have these spirits that are these, obviously, you know,

a lot of talk about what a demon is, where does it go? What is it, what's its origin story? And obviously it has to go somewhere. And same with human beings. Where do we go? Where does the spirit of us reside and head off to? And just a lot of conversations about the origins and where we end up. And I think that a lot of times you just have these Sunday school answers.

You don't really know the details or the depths of, yeah, where did these people go? On that thought, like, I mean, in other words, a purpose for Christ. obviously he was proclaiming his victory, right? This is a victory laugh in a lot of ways. But is this because... Did you just quote Nipsey Hustle? That's awesome. I did not, actually.

Unintentionally. A poet didn't know it. No, but this is also a completion. It feels like also a completion of his humanity, right? Yeah. Like being fully God and fully human, being fully God didn't have to do that. But because he wrapped himself in humanity,

he had to go through the same door, essentially. Is that in addition to what's going on? He's like, I'm doing this the way that... Yeah, it was always intended to be. You know, I think that whole idea in Ephesians and also in First Peter, as it's talking about what Jesus does, what he accomplishes, and he takes these captives captive, is actually kind of a significant thing

because in the Greco-Roman world, and a king, when he conquered a city, would take the plunder and put the plunder out to kind of be like, yep, I'm the winner. But then behind would be a train of captive who would have been chained up, you know, as they would kind of march to their death. And so I think what Jesus ends up doing is he takes the people as his plunder, the nations of the world, this is Ephesians 2, 18 through 22,

but simultaneously he's letting the dark forces know that their end is here and it's all so on the way, you know, that they have been disarmed and their final defeat is coming as well. And the whole idea of kind of back to, Nate, which you were talking about, with, you know, this reservoir and, like, where do these spirits go and, like, what happens? Up until this point, I'm talking about the righteous dead, right? So this is, like, that moment of sobriety. Also, just so you guys know, there are very few people that can get me to get pushed into speculation, and somehow Nate and Luke have the

spiritual gift to get me to go into speculation. As an academic, a theologian, like, I hate it, right? I'm like, let me point to the text. Here's what it says. Here's the Greek. Here's the Hebrew. So this is me stepping one foot into speculation. I always love when you qualify. You're like, by the way. I don't really ever do this. That's right. But we're doing it now.

That's right. Again. Yeah. So if you want to send me an email, the email is Luke at blurry. No, I'm just kidding. So if the righteous dead end up in paradise in Eden, what happens to the unrighteous? Exactly.

What's the consequence to that, we're spirit beings. We were always intended to be embodied spiritual beings. Eden is the collision of the cosmic and the earthly coming together, right? Why is it throughout the Old Testament that we're consistently told, like, and I know we're going to talk about this later, but like, stay away from divination, stay away from magical practices that are going to open you up to the dark arts, don't fall down to the start in the sky to the host of heaven, right? Be a people that are set apart to a royal priesthood.

Like, why is all of this? Well, I think it's to maintain holiness, because if you don't maintain holiness, you become unholy, and unholy things have consequences, aka the Nephilim as their disembodied spirits. In the New Testament, the spirits are referred to as evil spirits, or dark spirits, or, you know, they use these adjectives in front of that word Numa for spirit, and that was a telltale sign that we're talking about an unclean substance.

How does something become unclean when it's an unholy mixture? So, sons of God, spiritual beings, were never given to daughters of man to cohabitate and to produce offspring. and one that takes place, you have unclean things. And then those beings are what? Stranded? Because they kind of don't have a place to go. Yeah. Because if sons of God have a place,

either the divine consul or Tartarus in prison, right? And if humans, disembodied souls have a place, either the place where the righteous dead go or the unrighteous dead go, where do half things go? They get stranded on earth is what happens. to create Gitmo Antonimo Bay send him there Jail under the jail

Yeah the jail And I think this is important Because it's more complex than people want to So you have to kind of go back and understand The complexities of these places and where they go And what things happen because you read stories like Samuel And you're like You have a wildly different interpretation

If you read the story of Samuel how he comes back You know Yeah the witch of Endor Yeah Which by the way the witch of Endor is actually seeing Disembodied Spirits everybody knows that right Yeah This wasn't a figment

of her imagination. Yeah. The reason why she freaks out is because she sees an Elohim that she's not used to. Yeah. So when she sees Samuel, she's like, whoa,

I was not expecting you. I didn't call you up. Yeah. Right? Which lets us know she was calling something up in order to have her reputation go all the way where Saul even knew,

you know, or the Saul's stewards knew where she was. Yeah, and I think a church interprets that poorly a lot. They don't see that. Very nice way for you to say. Yeah.

Because they don't have the framework. They don't have the understanding. There's all these different places. And then the ancients actually had a framework of the dead where they went, what it was called, and how it worked. And I think that in our realms, it seems to help people make more sense of different stories in the Bible. That, oh, okay, now I get it. And why do you think it is so complicated? Why do you think that it takes someone a long time to understand what these places are?

why do spirits have to be separated and go here and there? I don't know. I mean, I think that at the very basis, God desires order. You know, and so if you look at the creation narrative, Eden is a parchment of land, and it's Toho Baboho, there's wasteland and wilderness. And then God creates order through a series of separations. and he gives location and locality and place of existence.

Land animals belong in the land and sea animals belong in the sea. And so I just think in some senses, humanity bucks at boundaries. Anybody ever meet somebody who has never met a boundary that they love? Yeah, right? Like you try to establish a boundary and they're like, this sucks, I'm just going to break that boundary down. You know? there's something innate in us that does not want to submit to structure and to order and to authority. And guess what?

That's a very difficult place to be if you and I are called citizens of a kingdom. Citizens in a kingdom don't get to tell the king what to do. And so I think that there's a paradigm that's at play with the scriptures where God has order and that's for our ultimate good. And so these spirit beings have places that they're supposed to be. Again, it's wild that we always go back to Genesis 6 and somewhere somehow. But it's like the Mount Hermon event, you know, they see something they're told not to have and they're like, I want it. I have a question. I want to explain.

I think I know the answer. But like, you know, when Paul says to be absent the bodies, be present with the Lord, right? We know this is post-resurrection and all of that. Why do you think before the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus and end this event on Silent Sout? Saturday, why do you think there was, why didn't think God created a holding place and not, didn't take those that were righteous that followed Yahweh and lived that way, underneath the Abrahamic law, et cetera, that were faithful to the king, went to a holding place and not not directly to eat it?

Yes, that's the question. Yeah, I mean, I think that it's because God's working throughout the human history, throughout a storyline, you know, and so there is a precise reason why Jesus comes in time and space during the reign of the Roman Empire in the midst of the Caesars. Like, I think Tim said it once again, the story of Jesus is the greatest story that's ever been told. And there is some type of method, I think, to the brilliance of God. I was just reading this other day, and it might have been, I think it was Wes Huff.

You guys know who West Huff is? Yeah, West is brilliant, right? I think West said this, and I, like, researched it, because obviously I hear something I'm going to go and research it. And it's actually found in a book, Craig Keener called Christo Biography. This is a wild detail. But in the time of Jesus,

the Gospels are referred to as biographies, they're ancient biographies. The closest we get to the amount of ancient biographies that are equivalent to what we have to Jesus is for Caesar. And he has way less than Jesus. Now think about that. Jesus is a Jewish man born to a poor family that had to, like, run for their lives to Egypt.

You know? Like, that does not sound like the type of person that we're going to spend time, effort, money, history in order to, like, ensure that biographies are written in comparison. Like, why is that? I think there's a reason for it. Yeah, we talked to, I think it was West that talked about that with us. on the show. It was that there are more historical records of an actual Jesus

than there are of Caesar Augustus. Yes, exactly. Like by a factor of it, like I think it's four, maybe three or four. Yeah, I think it's like four to one or something like that. Yeah, it's, yeah, like you're saying, it's ironic, right? A man, if you were that was born in a manger, it has become the

you know, the preeminent essential Genesis story for all of humanity. And it's not by I just think, I find that, yeah, I find that fascinating, especially people that come into this being like, well, maybe Jesus didn't exist or maybe Christ wasn't who said he was, you know, and we talked, we didn't touch on this briefly, but like we're talking about the resurrection and why it matters, right? It mattered enough for 10 of his disciples to go to their horrific deaths. Yeah. It was like from John who lived to be old and Judas just took his life. Everyone else died. I think John wishes he died by the time he gets to that age and he suffered the way they did. I think John's kind of like, those guys got the easy way out. all these weird dreams, man. I got to have these things got to end. It's like, really, I'm the revelation guy?

Thanks. I think if some people are thinking about this a little bit more, these different holding places, what do you think the differences from like a righteous and unrighteous person? And does that work? Like, they had to do something to go into the other place

and not do other things to get in, you know, which is kind of... So part of this is simple. Part of it is far from being simplistic. What's the difference between a righteous and unrighteous person? A righteous person is, is a sinner who's saved by grace through faith in Jesus, the Messiah. So a righteous person bends

knee to King Jesus, right? And that Greek word for faith, Pistis, it's a play on words. It means so much more than just our intellectual commitment to God. It means so much more. And my fear is we've taken faith now to believe that it's like, oh, it's just me saying something, right? It's like, I say I like truly I'm a big Michael Jordan fan and you seem with LeBron James shoes somebody would call BS on that right like no way

so you say those people had knowledge of Christ before Christ showed up then so the old the righteous dead of the Old Testament are they are being judged on their life as it relates to the old covenant to the law of God that was established

and given to them And built into the old covenant is this expectation of a Messiah, right? And so in the Old Testament, they would be righteous based off of the way that they lived in light of the law of God. In the New Testament, now you and I underneath the new covenant, righteousness is like, no, it is our submission to Jesus as king of the cosmos. So the unrighteous aspect of it, this is where I'm going to go into a little bit of speculation. but it does absolutely seem to be that there are degrees of sin and depravity in the world. And the level of that engagement with sin and depravity seems to have some kind of mark on the soul, where it is degraded and corrupted in a way that is, I was having a conversation with somebody in the VIP

and we're talking about human sex trafficking, you know? I mean, that's a different level of depravity. it's a different level of sin, and I think that that is going to cause a different kind of trauma on a soul that might have a different consequence in terms of where you end up landing, and even some questions on, can human souls be tormented here, you know,

and not get to a holding place? Potentially, I think, depending on the level of depravity and the level of sin that you've opened yourself up to and practice of dark arts and magic and wicken stuff. I mean, all of that, it has a serious impact on your soul. Yeah, I mean, it just makes you think of if people had a knowledge of Christ before he came here, but also that, you know, they were being held and then waiting for Christ to actually then open the keys and open that door. He doesn't open it, he tears it down.

Sure, but it's like it's... So there's a story in judges, this is wild, of Samson. And Samson, he's sleeping, y'all knows this story? He's sleeping, and he finds out that the people are going to come and try to kill him. So he gets up, and he tears down the gates, and he carries the gates on his shoulders all the way up on top of a mountain. Just so you know, epic things happen on mountain tops. More to come on that someday. But he does that.

Well, why does he do that? This is a savage Samson moment. He does it because when he takes the gates off, the city is defenseless. So he can't defend itself, right? What does Jesus do? He tears down the gates. And Jesus physically embodies that how. He carries the cross on his shoulder as he walks up Mount Galgatha and he's crucified on the cross.

The cross is the ultimate symbol of defeat. And in so doing it, he disarms the dark powers of their ability to blind the nations of the world. Yeah. Yeah. It's shadows. It feels like, yeah, that's what I love by the Old Testament. There's these shadows. Shadows on shadows.

Yeah, I think about the gladiars, shadows and dust. But it's these shadows of what's to come, right? You have these epic figures that embody some sort of element of the Messiah, but they fall short, right? All of them fall short from Moses to David. Do you think the... Great lettuce, though. Great lettuce until he didn't have it.

Do you think the unrighteous overheard any of this and had a chance to think about things? You really love to do this to me, don't you? I just knew these on the second. I mean, think about it. I mean, it's like down in Tartarus, they're hearing, like, the, you know, the music coming from the club through the wall, you know,

and they're like, what's going on up there? Something's happening, you know? So, clearly, speculation. All right. Clearly speculation. I'm just trying to make, you know, it's complicated, and I think that's what we... Another qualifier here, yeah.

Your boss is watching, actually. Sorry, at least in the link. No, you know, I would say, Okay, so the framework of the underworld does very much seem to be that there can be at least visual like sight of what's kind of happening in the other place and even communication in the New Testament in Luke. The whole story of Lazarus and Abraham's bosom is what kind of gives us that indication that Lazarus kind of see across the chasm and see the devastation of what's happening in this place. And so yes, there's that.

And there does seem to be this, and I can't believe I'm saying this out loud, there does seem to be the possibility and potential of, I can't, where you guys, where's Tim? There seems to be the sense that there might be like Stargates or portals or something, I'm just saying, that allow spirit beings to move back and forth from realms. I think that's probably what's happening with the pigs, you know, as they go and they go into the waters, kind of that ancient worldview is that the water was actually a portal for you to get to the underworld or to Hades.

And so, yeah, if now, if I'm to seriously speculate back and forth, is it possible for messaging to take place in between these beings and go from the nether regions into, you know, the earthly realm or the existence, Yeah, it's possible. Are you happy now? You got me talking about portals. There's no human beings in Tartarus, then, the lowest of the law.

The lowest, no, that's the holding place of the angelic beings. And then there's the above it is the place of the unrighteous dead. The New Testament, I would use the phrase the depths of Hades. There's a difference between Hades, where the righteous debt would have gone. So the Greek myths do this as well, right? The Greek myths have this idea of Hades, but then also the Elysian fields. So everybody wants to get to the Elysian fields. they don't want to go to across the Sticks River to go to like the depths of Hades.

That's like the bad place, you know. So, yeah, I don't think humans end up in places where they're not supposed to be. Interesting. Yeah, it's complicated. I think that, you know, Christians like easy answers, and obviously we don't like easy answers on our podcast. No, we don't. Better answers, but a lot of times they're, you have to kind of go back and keep continuing to go back and figure it out.

You know, one of the things I remember doing is kind of looking at different atonement theories. And obviously this is something the church has struggled with since the beginning. I think there's like eight or nine of them a different atonement. There's a lot. Ransom theory, Christus Victor, substitutionary atonement. There's a whole bunch.

And I feel like Christus Victor was one that always kind of stuck out to me that, you know, that there was this sort of swindle that happened and humanity didn't realize it was being played kind of and got stuck. And Can you speak to some of that a little bit?

Yeah. Because I remember Heiser said I kind of believe they're all true. Yeah, I think it's... And I was like, oh, that's an interesting take. Yeah, and I probably land with him in this sense. I think it's just probably not a wise idea to try to reduce something as significant as the atonement down to one specific lens of how that thing has to play itself out, you know? And so, like, I hold to probably the two big ones are substitutionary atonement and Christus Victor. And I think that there are two sides of the same coin in the sense that it's through the great exchange, as C.S. Lewis describes it, that we get the righteousness of God and God gets all of our unrighteousness, that it's in that show that he makes himself, he presents himself as victorious over the dark powers.

And so there is the path to atonement, and then there is the consequence of the atonement, if that makes sense. So the path to atonement for Jesus was substitutionary atonement. The consequence of that substitutionary atonement is Christ's Victor. Yes, and. I like that answer. Yeah. And ransom, right? And that has the ransom built into it that Jesus is the scapegoat, you know,

You have that Old Testament passage. I think it's in Leviticus of the goat that the sin of the people, the tribe of Israel, is placed on that goat and it's left out to Azazel. Well, Azazel is a demonic spirit, a wilderness spirit, you know. And so again, so this is Heiser stuff, you know. This is geographical location and the impact of it. The desert was the place of the end. that the enemy kind of resided, had power in the desert, right?

So you put the sin of the society of the people on the goat and send it into where it belongs into the wilderness. But think about Jesus, who's the unblemished lamb of God. He goes to the area of the enemy, Hades. But what does he do? He kicks Hades butt there and says, you can't have this. That there is nothing on earth that is, you. your actual domain and he actually redeems it. Yeah, I think you just have to kind of outline these things to make sense of the story.

Because I think, you know, most of us grew up in the church kind of hearing the penal substitutionary atonement theory that, like, what really goes on is God's angry, he's mad at us, and so he sends his own son to, so there's really no dark character involved in that. And I think a lot of times... Oh, we're the dark character, right? We're the dark character, yeah. And so we edit out these other characters in the story, places, different... kind of put it all on God. And I think that makes a lot of people confused or pissed.

Yeah. Like, what? You know, I don't get that. I think it's in Corinthians somewhere where, you know, it says that if the dark powers, if they knew what they were doing to Jesus, they would have never sent him to the cross. Right? Well, who are these dark forces, the powers and the authorities? Yeah. It has in mind both malevolent evil, spiritual beings, powers, principalities, and authorities in the language of Paul, and human rulers. Pharisees, Sadduce, Sanhedron, and Rome. So these dudes are not brilliant on their own. There are dark powers that are playing behind and instigating and prompting. And all the while the dark powers are like, we got him. We got Jesus. Like, he's going to go to the cross, and we finally, fair.

out a way to defeat Yahweh and his family. Right? And in so doing, so this is the echo here, you all remember the story of Esther? Yeah? Remember Mordecai and Haman? Remember Haman builds a gallows, and he thinks that he's going to murder Mordecai on the gallows that he builds? But guess who gets hung on that gallows? Haman gets hung on the very gallows that he builds.

Think about Jesus? The dark powers. they have constructed the cross in order to defeat and to destroy the Son of God. But guess who gets defeated and destroyed through the very thing that they created? They do. And now, the ultimate sign and symbol of defeat turns into, 2,000 years later, actually it only took about 150 years, according to historians. Within 150 years, the cross that prior to that was about 2,000 years of total defeat,

like you would not dare to whisper the cross or crucifixion. because how horrific it was. About 150 years later, it becomes the symbol of resurrection and victory. Amen. That's not a miracle. I don't know what is. Yeah.

We talk a lot about, you know, kind of related to films and things, and I always, I said this a couple times in the show, but I always feel like the best films sort of flicker in the beginning. First, sort of the end is the beginning. And Scripture says that, you know. And I think sometimes we're afraid of kind of just drawing back and seeing the epicness of it

and making more sense of that. And I think that what people would describe on our show is seeing these flicker of darkness. They see some sort of creature in their house or like, you know, people will describe all kinds of wild stuff, seeing this hat man creature, this like sinister-looking dude with a hat on and he looks like he's evil. And how do you make sense of those things?

Or, you know, people get abducted by, you know, entities and they say this craft show up. when you sort of don't have a framework to make sense of just how vast the kingdom of darkness is and what it's trying to do to destroy us, I think people walk away from their faith because they go to the Christian, the Christians and other Christians. They don't have those answers for them of like, okay, let's go all the way back and let's look at sort of how the ancients view of the world, where these things originated from. and I just love that you're as a theologian can help us kind of put together that framework so we can see you know all right the ancients had a way broader view of all these things

and reality and the cosmos and sort of the rules behind it and how do you think that they knew these my last question how do you think they knew the delineation between these places and like you think that they were God was revealing that to them? 100% specifically. Yeah, so for everything that God reveals, there's a counterfeit, right? And I think I've shared this before on different episodes, but I'm convinced that the greatest deception,

I just posted about this other day, I'm convinced the greatest deception to Christianity and to humanity is actually not even going to be in this century, in this age and era, a denial of Jesus, or a denial of the cross, or even a denial of the resurrection. I actually think it's going to be a misappropriation. and a misdirection of who Jesus actually is and what he intended to do as a result of the resurrection.

And so, yeah, I mean, I think that when God gives the people of Israel the instructions on how to build the temple, what is he doing? He's giving them a floor plan of the cosmos. He's letting them know this is how the heavenly is worth, and this is where the king lives, And this is how, like, you're supposed to understand the Holy of Holy. Like, he's giving them a framework of the cosmic realm. Well, if you have fallen sons of God, as Job tells us, that the sons of God were present,

right when humanity is being created, the morning star is shot for joy, they're well aware of all of these plans. They're well aware of the divine counsel structure of God. And I think that one of the big issues of these fallen beings is they are rampant with pride. in jealousy and in so doing what do they want they want to create a counterfeit temple right they want to create counterfeit houses they want to create counterfeit families because that's the thing that they wanted but it wasn't given to them in the way that they were that it was allotted for them and so um you know that's how you've got the religions of the world the gods of the nations and and it's odd you're like

well you've got the um the enuma elish and you've got the epic of gilgamesh and you've got the greek myths and you've got the Temple of Dionysus, and it's like, oh, my goodness, the Israelites plagiarized and stole out of all of them. And you're like, no. Actually, the Bible is a polemic against all of those stories. They have plagiarized and counterfeited from the one true story that has lasted the ages.

And so I think that's the right deception. If only they had a little more humility. If only there was a good book on that somewhere. Yeah, right? They had had it. If only. Thank you, Dr. Joel, under my eyes. Let's go.