#STRask - Won’t Jesus Only Be Able to Interact with One Person at a Time?

Episode Date: June 27, 2024

Questions about how being with Jesus continually will be the highlight of eternity if he’ll only be able to interact with one person at a time since he has a physical body and how a scholarly Jewish rabbi would defend his position that Jesus is not the Messiah. It seems like being in Jesus’ presence continually will be the highlight of eternity, but since he has a physical body, won’t he only be able to interact with one person at a time? How would a scholarly Jewish rabbi defend his position that Jesus is not the Messiah?

Well, we are back. It's hashtag STRS time. We are. Thank you for joining us today. Now, Greg. Amy. In our last episode, we ended by talking about Jesus interacting with sinners. So there's an incentive for everyone to go back and listen to the previous show before they hear this one. But this question follows from this, and I'm very interested to hear what you think about this, because I think about this. Actually, I've thought about it a lot over the last, I don't know, several years.

Well, maybe you should answer the question. I don't know if I have an answer. All right. So this one comes from Krista. Being in Jesus' presence continually seems like the highlight of eternity, but since he has a physical body, won't he only be able to interact with one person at a time in heaven? Any thoughts on how this could play out? play out? Yeah, I think that this is an example, I think, of how—let me back up. The question is based on an understanding of what heaven's going to be like. And what happens is Christians, and especially pastors, make comments that are of a spiritual nature or a spiritual reflection, but they're not always theologically sound.

Now, it doesn't mean they're heretical or even heterodox, but we are not going to be in the sweet by and by, you know. We are going to be here on earth. to be in the sweet by and by, you know. We are going to be here on earth. When we get our resurrected bodies, God is going to remake the earth, and we are going to abide here on the earth, okay? So that means there's things that we're going to be doing. Paul says in 1 Corinthians that we'll judge angels. We'll be ruling angels. So if you're going to rule angels, why can't you rule yourself, is part of his point. But it's tempting for especially pastors to talk about, you know, this beatific vision, and we're just going to be lost in this gaze, and we're going to be chatting with Jesus for hundreds of years. And if I'm chatting with Jesus, that means everybody else is in line behind me, and I'll say, sit down, shut up, we got eternity, I'm talking to Jesus. Wait your turn.

Well, there is a liability if that's the way it's going to be, but I don't think it's going to be just me and Jesus talking together, or everybody talking to Jesus, there is obviously going to be communion of some sort. And I don't know the nature of that communion. The Scripture is not clear on that. But a lot of what's said about what's going to happen is generalized, kind of spiritualized language, all right? And that's where the whole idea of sitting on clouds with harps came from, you know. We know, well, we're not going to be doing that, but what are we going to be doing? Well, the Scripture does talk about it. There's going to be—it's going to be a location. There are going to be things happening. We're going to be greeting each other. We're going to be reunited with people that are in Christ,

that have gone on before us. We are going to be involved in meaningful activity. There's a great book that really covers a lot of these bases. It's just called Heaven, and I'm just taking for the author's name now, you know. Randy Alcorn. Yeah, Randy Alcorn. Sorry, Randy. My bad. But he's written quite a few good things, but that one is a great one to give you a biblical perspective on what heaven will be like. great one to give you a biblical perspective on what heaven will be like. And when we die and go to paradise to be with Jesus, that isn't our final destination. You know, Jesus said to the thief on the cross, today you will be with me in paradise. But of course, it won't be just Jesus and the

thief. There's a whole bunch of people that are going to be with Jesus in paradise for a season until the general resurrection when the earth will be remade. And there's a—I mean, how one plays out their eschatology is different based on different ideas of how that works. But ultimately, though, the new heavens and the new earth are going to be made, and that's going to be our eternal abode. I do not believe that our eternal destiny is to be locked into a beatific vision where we just behold the glory of God and we're just awestruck forever. Some people think that. And I've even heard noble people say that. I won't mention their names because I don't want to discredit them, but I was actually a little bit stunned when I heard that from this particular individual. But that doesn't seem to be what Scripture seems to indicate. And so a lot of times when, you know, we go out of time into eternity,

that's what people say. Well, we'll never go out of time. If we go into eternity, that is, we're in an eternal moment, then nothing's going to happen. If something happens, that means time is passing, because there are past events now. As event B happens, event A before it is now in its past. So, yeah, we will live forever and ever. There will be no ending, but we will be involved in activity that's going to be meaningful and satisfying, and a lot of that will be, in some sense, fellowship with Jesus.

But he does have a glorified body that has a locus. It's got a locale. It's not—well, at least on my understanding, others may disagree, but it's not omnipresent. Jesus' physical body is not omnipresent. It seems to me that's obvious given the nature of physicality. I agree. We will be doing things on the new earth just as Adam did things, and he was walking with God as he did those things. So I think there'll be a sense that our relationship with God will be much more tangible. I don't mean physical, but just it'll be much more present and aware, our walking with God as we are doing

things. So it's not like sometimes we're with God, sometimes we're doing other things. No, it's all one thing. It'll be the way it was meant to be. By the way, that's something we can be cultivating now. It's captured in the Latin phrase, Coram Deo, C-O-R-A-M-D-E-O, Coram Deo, which means before the Lord. And part of the things that I'm trying to continue to cultivate is just this sense that God is always with me and I'm always with him. There's a companionship there. And so that makes it easy to converse with him on and off throughout the day, but just to be aware of his presence. But that takes a little bit of discipline and development. In the case of heaven, that won't be necessary.

But I'm very sympathetic to this question because I have wondered the same thing. And it's tempting to think of, it was funny the way you described at the beginning where somebody's taking the mic and they're taking all, it's like a giant Q&A session where somebody just won't get off the mic and they just keep talking. And the people behind are waiting. And so it's tempting to feel like heaven's going to be where I'm kind of in the back and all the great people will be ahead of me talking to Jesus. And I'm just not really going to, I'm just going to be kind of in the shadows in the background. And that cannot be the way it's going to be. I don't believe that's the way it's going to be. I do think that Jesus will be located in one space as a fully human being. And I think that does limit who he can speak to in that way. So that is true.

However, you have to look at all of the ways God interacts with people even now. So even now, there are times when our awareness of God is much stronger than other times. And there's something very real about that communion at that time, even though we're not talking to a physical Jesus. So it's not that that's the only way we will interact with God. Think about Paul. Paul has a vision of Jesus. I mean, Jesus didn't come back to earth to speak to Paul. He had a vision, and he interacted with Jesus without having Jesus' physical body present. So that's another example. Adam and Eve walked with God. God didn't have a physical body. So I think there are all these ways we see that God now is interacting with people.

It's just that all of our sin will be taken away from that. And our awareness of the fact that he is already present and interacting with us everywhere will be made clear to us. So even though, even if we don't, even if there are turns taken to speaking to the physical Jesus, we certainly see examples of how God interacts with people because he's present everywhere. So I don't think we need to worry about being shuffled off into the shadows and not being able to interact with God because that's not how it's ever described. Yeah, and think of there are three persons in the Trinity. We're talking here about Jesus, but we have the Holy Spirit that's already inside of us. Our bodies are the temples of the Spirit. So there is a close union that will never change,

that communion with God through the Spirit that we have. So it isn't like, oh, well, I wanted to talk to Jesus, and I got third string here. I got the Spirit. Oh, well, I'll just have to settle for that, you know. No, I think it's going to be much more rich and profound than that, you know, and God is God. There's only one God, and we're going to have access to that God in multiple ways and in richer ways, I think, than we ever did before. Though I think those ways are analogous to the kinds of ways that we experience Him now. That's just what you're saying. But whatever you do, do not picture it as being in the background of everybody else, because God has an intensely personal, unique, loving,

choosing love for every person who is following him. And he's not going to forget about you because there are all these other people. God's not limited by the number of people that there are, despite the fact that Jesus' human nature is obviously limited in that way. So don't give in to thinking that, whatever you do. But I know I'm tempted to think that way, so I won't yell at you too badly. So Kristen, you're in good company with Amy. Okay. And both of you are at the back of the line, so.

That's true. All right, here's a question from Patrick P. If I were to speak to a very scholarly Jewish rabbi, how would he defend his position that Jesus is not the Messiah? Does he simply deny the statements about Jesus in the Old and New Testament, or would he present a factual basis for his position? Well, I actually have not spoken to a Jewish rabbi in the same way. I've actually been on a number of radio shows with Dennis Prager back in the 80s, a Jewish man himself, though very friendly to Christians. And in that setup, there was Dennis and me when I was a guest on that show, and I did that almost 25 times,

as I recall. And there was a Roman Catholic priest and a Jewish rabbi, so we had interfaith dialogue. But most – a lot would depend on which kind of rabbi you talk to. If you talk to a liberal rabbi or reform or a conservative or orthodox or Hasidic, you know, these are all levels of theological intensity, maybe for lack of a better word, and they have different points of view. But I think the simplest way to go about this, if I were a Jewish rabbi, regardless of what my convictions were, if I did have a sense that, yes, there was a Messiah to come, and by the way, not all religious Jews believe that, okay? But if there was a Messiah to come, I think what I would say is the same thing that the early Jews understood,

that when the Messiah comes, he's going to restore Israel. He's going to cast off the oppressors of Israel. He's going to cast off the oppressors of Israel. The kingdom will be here in the ways that the kingdom was described in the Old Testament, okay? The promises that were made by various prophets regarding the primacy of the nation of Israel now casting off its chains of other cultures and being led by the Davidic king, the Messiah. Okay? And if that's the way it's going to be, and I think there's good reason to think that that will be the case, well, the kingdom isn't here yet. That hasn't happened yet.

So, therefore, the Messiah hasn't come yet. When the Messiah comes, the kingdom will be here. The kingdom is not here. Therefore, the Messiah hasn't come yet. When the Messiah comes, the kingdom will be here. The kingdom is not here, therefore, the Messiah hasn't come. Now, I think that's a very credible way to argue. I think it misses some things, and that is that the Messiah's coming accepted by Judaism now, there was confusion by Jewish scholars way back in the early days because sometimes the Messiah was depicted as a conquering Messiah and sometimes as a suffering Messiah like Isaiah 53. hand-waving dismissals of Isaiah 53, but it's very difficult to read Isaiah 53 and not see an individual who is suffering for the sins of the people. And the sins of the people in particular are the Jewish people. So it isn't the Jewish people suffering for the sins of the Jewish people.

It's someone else suffering instead who did not deserve the suffering. So how do you make sense out of these two different pictures of Messiah? And by the way, when Jesus did come, the emphasis was on the first picture, not on the second, which is why even the disciples were confused all the way to the resurrection. They knew Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God. In fact, they said this at different times. In fact, I just read it last week, John chapter 11, here, raising of Lazarus, both Mary and Martha tell Jesus, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died. The two sisters, right? And they both confess that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God.

That's very high Christology, okay? the Son of God. That's very high Christology, okay? But even so, what the expectation of the Messiah was by most of them was to bring this, usher this kingdom in. In fact, in the book of Acts, as Jesus, this is post-resurrection, right? And Jesus is about to ascend into heaven. And so he's had all this time to talk with them, preparing them for his final departure. And they say to him, and I'm just looking it up now, it says he presented

himself to these over a period of 40 days. Okay, verse 6, so when they had come together, now this is post-resurrection. This is Jesus' ascension. Do you get it yet? So when they had come together, they were asking him, saying, Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom to Israel? They're still thinking the same way.

Now, it's understandable because that certainly was part of it. And Jesus says, well, it's not for you to know times or epochs, which the Father has fixed by His own authority. But here's your marching orders. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, the uttermost parts of the earth. So he didn't deny the expectation. He just told them this wasn't the time for the fulfillment. That is the expectation of, I think, religious Jews who have a belief there will be a Messiah for them. That's the kind of expectation they have. will be a Messiah for them. That's the kind of expectation they have. And since that kind of kingdom is not in the offing right now, there is no one person leading them into that circumstance then. And certainly Jesus didn't do that historically, not yet. They look back on Jesus,

well, he didn't bring the kingdom, so he couldn't have been the Messiah. I think that is the biggest thing that I hear, that all these promises about, you know, the lion laying down with the lamb and all these things that will happen have not happened. So, therefore, he wasn't the Messiah. I mean, that's just their, you know, the bottom line. And they deny, you mentioned this, you didn't explicitly say this, but they say Isaiah 53 is about Israel. And as you said, it can't be about that because he's dying for the sins of Israel. Just read it. Just read it. And by the way, that is the current dismissal, but it isn't the view that has consistently been held in the past by the Jews, okay?

Because they understood this to be something different. There is a servant earlier in Messiah that could be identified as Israel, but it is the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 that seems to stand out, okay? So, you know, this is going to be the kind of challenge, and I understand that people will push back for this reason, you know, but there's another element here. How did Jesus deal with that confusion to persuade people that he actually was the Messiah? He worked miracles. He did all kinds of things. He raised Lazarus. Okay, for example, and I've just read, you know, right now in Passion Week here in the Upper Room Discourse, but I just read John 11 the day before yesterday. And it was such an amazing miracle that many people were believing in him even though they were confused. What prophet comes from Nazareth?

Where's that? That's what the Jews were saying. Show me if the Scripture says a prophet comes from Nazareth. This guy's from Nazareth, you know. And so there were complaints. But he doesn't, he violates the law. He doesn't keep the law. He doesn't keep the traditions of the elders actually, but they had different complaints. But even though the people were confused, they say, wait a minute, do you think the Messiah, when he does come, is going to do more than this guy has done? That's what they said.

So look at what he's doing. And many believed in him as a result. So, which is why not only did they want to kill Jesus, but they also wanted to kill Lazarus. This is in John chapter 12, you know, because Lazarus was the living, walking, breathing testimony of Jesus' messianic power. That's his creds. threads. So even though there were confusion about what would happen and what would take place, and why isn't the kingdom coming in right now the way we expected? Well, that's a question, fair question. But Jesus is saying, look at this, John 5, you don't believe me, okay? Then believe the works because of the works that I do, or believe because what Moses said about me, the prophet that would come, for example, in Deuteronomy. Believe what John the Baptist said. He's the precursor.

Make straight the ways of the Lord. Believe what the Scriptures say about me. And there were many different ways that the apostles used Scripture, especially Apostle Paul, to demonstrate that the Christ had to suffer and die and rise again. And think here, road to Emmaus, conversation with Jesus post-resurrection. So, it isn't as if this is totally foreign to the biblical record. It wasn't the expectation of the people. They were focusing in on one particular thing, and that blinded them to other options. But Jesus didn't just say, no, you're wrong. I'm going to die, and I'll come back in a couple thousand years or so. He said, no, you're that understanding. I get it. But watch this. Lazarus, come forth, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So he had the creds. He

demonstrated with power, which is why John wrote the gospel. He says that in John 20, these signs and wonders I've included so that you would believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and in believing have life in his name. There are also many other objections that a scholar might bring to you about Jesus, and I'm not as familiar with these, but about his genealogy or even the fact that he claimed to be God. They would have an issue with that. His maybe his view of the law. I mean, there there are other things.

Now, if you want to learn about what those objections are and their answers, then I recommend Michael Brown, who's a Messianic Jew. And he has a website called, let's see, I think it's called realmessiah.com. Yes, realmessiah.com. And he has a whole section here called Find Answers. And he's got historical, theological, Messianic prophecy, all these sorts of things. And you can find out what are the specific objections, because I know there are other technical objections that people have. I just, I'm not that familiar with them. So you can read about what they are.

You can read about answers from Michael Brown. And hopefully, maybe just if you have a Jewish friend, ask them what their objections are and start there. And then you can find out the answers. But just be confident that there are many reasons to think that Jesus is the Messiah. that there are many reasons to think that Jesus is the Messiah. Right. Incidentally, when you talk to Jewish people about this matter, many of the objections you're going to get from the Jewish person are not Jewish objections, but they're secular objections because they're secular Jews. You can't presume just because they're Jewish that they have a commitment to Judaism that theologically, at its core, is inconsistent with Jesus being the

Messiah. There is no inconsistency there, but there's a cultural inconsistency. If you're Jewish, you don't believe in Jesus. I mean, that's kind of almost the only requirement. You can be an atheist and be Jewish, but you can't believe in Jesus and be Jewish. I mean, this is the way, in a sense, the rhetoric has been working. And it is kind of ironic. Why is that? Well, that's a question for another time because we're out of time, Greg. Well, thank you, Krista and Patrick, for your great questions.

We love talking about Jesus. So thank you for directing us towards him today. And if you have a question, send it on X with the hashtag STRask or go to our website at str.org. And all you need to do there is just go to our hashtag STRask podcast page, and you'll find a little link there. You can send us your question. We look forward to hearing from you. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kokeoko for Stand to Reason.