Transcription
(upbeat music) - [Jon] This is Jon 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 thebibleproject.com/heavenbook. You could download it for free and you can pre-order 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. - [Tim] Never once in the Bible is the phrase, "go to heaven" used to talk about what happens after you die. Not even once. - [Jon] So what happens when you die? Why does Jesus talk about going away and preparing a place for us in the gospel of John? We're gonna talk about that in this episode. Here we go. (upbeat music swells)
What I really wanna talk about is there's the whole idea of heaven uniting with earth. - [Tim] Uh huh. - [Jon] It's a biblical paradigm. - [Tim] Yes. - [Jon] But it's not the one that I grew up with, - [Tim] Hmm. - [Jon] and I don't think a lot of Christians did. And so it feels like we're rediscovering it. I forgot what we're talking about. - [Tim] Yeah. You had some questions about the language of heaven and earth and this world, and not of this world. - [Jon] Oh yeah. - [Tim] From the gospel - [Jon] Yeah, so the the gospel of John. - [Tim] of John, and how that fits in. 'cause we don't talk about it that much in the workbook, - [Tim] and we didn't talk about the gospel of John's heaven and earth language that much - [Jon] Yeah. - [Tim] in the podcast either. - [Jon] 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. - [Tim] Correct. Yeah. - [Jon] That's very un-biblical. 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.
- [Tim] Yeah, maybe 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 - [Jon] To that. - [Tim] 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, - [Jon] Okay. So, - [Tim] So you tell me what passage, what part of the gospel of John are you thinking of? - [Jon] Yeah, so let's start with, in John 14, Jesus is talking with his disciples. - [Tim] Yes! - [Jon] This is all part of what's called the upper room discourse, right? - [Tim] Yep. Yep. - [Jon] Because they're in a room that's high. (laughing) Why is it called the upper room discourse? - [Tim] Yeah. It's 'cause it has to do with where Jesus celebrated the, - [Jon] the Passover. - [Tim] The Passover meal. Yeah, the night before he got arrested. (bell chimes) - [Jon] It's in a room that's above some other things. - [Tim] Yeah, just the gospels call it an upper room. Yep. - [Jon] They call it the upper room. - [Tim] Yeah. - [Jon] And they have a discourse - [Tim] And yeah exactly. - [Jon] He says in John 14, I'll just read the verse chapter one, er, chapter 14 verse one. "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? - [Tim] We don't know the way. - [Jon] we don't know where you're going." (Laughs) - [Tim] And then he says the famous, "I am the way." - [Jon] Yeah. Famous line. - [Tim] You do know the way because I am the way, (bell chimes) - [Jon] I am, the way the truth and the life, - [Tim] And you know me, yeah. So when you read that, you think what?
- [Jon] Well, first of all, do you remember Audio Adrenaline? You weren't really following Jesus back in the Audio Adrenaline days. - [Tim] No. I don't know what that means. (laughing) - [Jon] It's a Christian band. - [Tim] It's a band. - [Jon] In the nineties. - [Tim] I was able to put that much together. Okay. - [Jon] Okay. And they, they're just like a Christian rock band in the nineties and they had this song, About, it was about, it was from this verse, about, it goes, ♪ Come and go with me to my father's house ♪ ♪ Come, ♪ - [Tim] Oh! - [Jon] Hear that song? ♪ It's a big, big house ♪ - [Tim] Yeah! Oh, that's where that song came from. ♪ With lots and lots of rooms ♪ - [Tim] Yeah! I found, I remember, I remember I was like 20. I was a new Christian, and I had never really been around Christian camp ever. But I had some friends who invited me to come be like a counselor. Well, they had a skate ramp at this Christian camp. And so I was like the skateboard ramp instructor at the breakout times. - [Jon] Oh, nice. - [Tim] So anyway, - [Jon] And they were playing that song. - [Tim] Yeah. But at, like, the campfire times at night, they would sing that song. - [Jon] Oh, they would sing it? - [Tim] Yeah. They sang that song, like all the kids? - [Jon] Yeah. - [Tim] And I didn't understand why they were, okay. - [Jon] Yeah. So this, it's a very, it's a very captivating image. - [Tim] Yeah. It's a song of, based on this. - [Jon] 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 lawn's manicured, make sure everything's tight. - [Tim] Yeah. - [Jon] 'cause we're going to go meet him there. And that, that seems like what he's saying here. (laughing) In my father's house there are many dwelling places. - [Tim] Yeah - [Jon] And I'm gonna go And prepare a place for you. - [Tim] Yeah, okay. - [Jon] And then I'll come and I will take you, I will take you to myself. - [Tim] Yeah, got it. So you're like, my, yeah. Heaven is the golden mansions, whatever in the sky. - [Jon] Yes. He's going there. - [Tim] Jesus is going there. And then he's gonna return and zap us all out of the world. And so we can go live in the ephemeral, cloudy, golden mansions forever and ever. - [Jon] Yeah. - [Tim] Yeah. Yeah! Seems quite, seems very clear, doesn't it? - [Jon] Yeah. (laughing) and it probably has a really great backyard, swimming pool. - [Tim] Yeah. Oh man. This, yeah. This, saying is so cool. There's 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 Heaven and Earth podcast. And you're an ancient Israelite. 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.
- [Jon] So the temple that I can go check out in the middle of the city, or wherever it is, is where God dwells, in some kind of mortal way. - [Tim] It's like a portal between heaven and earth, so to speak, - [Jon] but also represents God's dwelling place - [Tim] Yeah. - [Jon] Above the sky. - [Tim] Think of the Psalms that say you, oh Lord, dwell above the heavens. You created heaven and earth. You founded your throne above them all. - [Jon] Yeah. Okay. - [Tim] 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. 'cause 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 (laughing) and it represents the mirror of the earthly temple, which is the heavenly temple. - [Jon] Hmm. Okay. - [Tim] 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. - [Jon] This is in Revelation? - [Tim] This is in the Book of Revelation. - [Jon] Okay. - [Tim] 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. - [Jon] Okay. - [Tim] So they, my point is, is that in this conception of God, when we talk about God living in the heavens, this is, 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. God's, the heavenly temple. So the temple in Jerusalem had tons of rooms. In fact, the whole, the temple building itself. In Solomon's temple had all these store rooms around the outside, and then, they're called (speaks in foreign language) the store rooms. And that's where this, like the treasuries, you know? it's where when you bring a 10th of your produce, of your wheat field, like where does all that get stored? - [Jon] Oh, right. - [Tim] There's all these storage 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. - [Jon] Hmm. - [Tim] 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. - [Jon] So in the temple, there are many rooms. - [Tim] 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. - [Jon] Just like in the earthly temple. - [Tim] Just like in the Jerusalem, Jerusalem temple. And then what he's saying is, - [Jon] And these rooms were used for work, essentially. - [Tim] 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. - [Jon] Okay. - [Tim] And this is why, you know, think of the Psalms, like Psalm 42 or 87. "My soul longs to be in the courts of the Lord." And you know, it's this image of being in the temple and near God's beautiful presence. It's awesome. It's image of intimacy and closeness. - [Jon] Okay. - [Tim] So Jesus is telling his disciples, I'm about to, I'm gonna die. (laughs) - [Jon] Yeah. - [Tim] I'm going to, 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. - [Jon] So when he says, I'm going to prepare a place for you, A place for you to be in God's heavenly temple. - [Tim] Correct. Yeah. Correct. - [Jon] But, but they wouldn't be thinking, oh, right, because I'm gonna go up into heaven and live in God's heavenly temple. They would've understood, that means access to God's divine presence? - [Tim] Oh, got it. Okay. All right. So now we're, 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 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, um, 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, this whole thing's about, I'm going away. He's trying to get them ready for that. So here's a place a little bit later where he says, I'm going away, and God's, The father's, going to send you the Spirit - [Jon] Mm hmm. - [Tim] 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." - [Jon] Hmm. - [Tim] And you're like, wait, I thought the spirit's going to come to me. Yes. Wait, is Jesus going to come to me? - [Jon] Hmm! - [Tim] Or is the spirit going to come to me? And he just says both. - [Jon] Yeah. - [Tim] In this two sentences, the Spirit will come to be with you, and I will come to you. - [Jon] It's kinda like how the New Testament authors will often interchange Jesus, the Spirit of Jesus and the Spirit, - [Tim] And The Holy Spirit. - [Jon] The Holy Spirit - [Tim] or the Spirit of God. Yeah. That's right. So that's interesting. But he uses 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 Iscariot, 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." - [Jon] Hmm. - [Tim] And that word abode is the same exact Greek word as the word rooms up in the, I don't know why there are English translations use different English words. 'cause it hides, - [Jon] Abode. - [Tim] Yeah. Abode. That word abode in verse, John 14, verse 23 is the same Greek word, (speaks in foreign language) as what Jesus says up in my father's house are many, - [Jon] What's the Greek word? (speaks in foreign language) (Tim speaks in foreign language) - [Jon] Isn't abode got like, like abide abode? - [Tim] Abide! Yes! Yeah. So there's a, it connects to a verb that's used all throughout the gospel of John, (speaks in foreign language) So (speaks in foreign language) is the noun, dwelling place or abiding spot. And then (speaks in foreign language) is the, is the verb abide. - [Jon] Yeah. - [Tim] All the famous lines of like, abide in me, I abide in you. - [Jon] That's all (speaks in foreign language). - [Tim] If the, you know, the, the branch in the vine abide, 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, and to follow his teachings. And so my point 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 to bring us all the way back to the beginning of John 14.
- [Jon] So when he says, I will come again. - [Tim] Yes. Well, so that's the debate. The debate is when Jesus says at the beginning, "I go to prepare a place for you, and I will come again and take you to myself." The question is, what's that talking about? Some people think that's talking about Jesus appearing after the resurrection. - [Jon] Hmm. - [Tim] 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 don't know, maybe I'm gonna 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. - [Jon] But not in some like, unearthly, - [Tim] Yeah, well, remember there's this category that all of the apostles have that 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 - [Jon] Being with Jesus. - [Tim] 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. - [Jon] So he could just be be referring to, - [Tim] Yeah. - [Jon] I'll kinda collect you up when you die. - [Tim] Yeah. I think Jesus, and the whole point is comfort. What he just said, "don't let your hearts be troubled." He's, he is talking about, he's gonna talk about how the world hates you. They're gonna kill you. Nobody's gonna 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. - [Jon] Mm hm. - [Tim] 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. - [Jon] That's him preparing a place. - [Tim] 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 gonna take you to be to myself. And the focus just for pastoral reasons, is just on (laughs) giving them 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. (laughs) 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.
-[Jon] So when they, when he says, "and if I go,"
-[Tim] Mm hmm?
-[Jon] Is this clear to the disciples, he's talking about dying?
-[Tim] Mm. Well, actually through the whole upper room discourse, chapters 14, 15, and 16, he's trying to make it clear to them that that's
-[Jon] What he's talking about.
-[Tim] what he's talking about. And they keep going, like, "Where are you going? How long will you be gone? Where?" (laughs)
-[Jon] Yeah.
-[Tim] And so the disciples in the upper room become this kind of stand in for you, the reader, for whom Jesus, you know, I've never seen Jesus. And so their 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 gonna 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, I'm, 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.
-[Jon] Okay.
-[Tim] And that's just not Jesus' focus here, 'cause he is 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.
-[Jon] 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.
-[Tim] Correct.
-[Jon] So there's something happening here, and it's very foggy. We don't have a clear perspective of what it is.
-[Tim] Yeah, yeah. Jesus called it paradise to the guy crucified next to him. "Today you'll be with me in the garden of Eden."
-[Jon] Yeah.
-[Tim] That's what he says. Which, which was a cosmic temple.
-[Jon] Is this a disembodied state?
-[Tim] Well, I think it has to be.
-[Jon] Yeah.
-[Tim] Yeah.
-[Jon] Okay. So there is some sort of interim disembodied state that Jesus and Paul both talk about.
-[Tim] 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 are traumatized (laughs) by the fact that he just said, "I'm gonna go get crucified."
-[Jon] During first century Judaism, what were the paradigms that they had of a after death pre-resurrection state?
-[Tim] We talked about this, um, in the Holy Spirit question and response. About your soul or body, or spirit. So the conviction is, if my life belongs to God and his love, then death is not the end. And God's love is going to bring new life and bring a new creation. That's the biblical drama. The biblical storyline. What that leaves a question of is, okay, so what happens in the, 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, and by nature that has to be in a non-embodied state.
-[Jon] Because you don't have a body.
-[Tim] 'cause my body's in the ground, you know, cremated or in the ground.
-[Jon] Decomposed.
-[Tim] Yeah. But yeah, nah, there's just,
-[Jon] Unless you have some sort of different type of body.
-[Tim] Yeah.
-[Jon] But the idea is that you're gonna be reunited with your body.
-[Tim] 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 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, you know? (laughs)
-[Jon] Yeah.
-[Tim] And at some moments, they couldn't recognize him, like Mary, or the two on the road to Emmaus. And so these are ways of talking about how, whatever the new creation is, it's a renewal of this world.
-[Jon] Yeah.
-[Tim] But it will be so fundamentally transformed that it's also not this world.
-[Jon] Yeah.
-[Tim] This is also the same dynamic at work in the, "of this world or not of this world" language in the gospel of John.
-[Jon] Right, which I want to talk to you about.
-[Tim] Yeah.
-[Jon] So maybe we could jump there.
-[Tim] 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.
-[Jon] If there's 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?
-[Tim] Yeah. Well, yeah. We just don't have, you know, in the Old Testament, you just, you just die and you're in the grave.
-[Jon] Didn't they summon a spirit? Didn't someone summon some sort of spirit?
-[Tim] Man, there's one occasion. Yeah. The witch of Endor (laughs) and, right at the end of First Samuel.
-[Jon] Yeah.
-[Tim] Such an amazing, I still remember reading that story for the first time, and the little title summary. (laughs)
-[Jon] Just says, "the Witch of Endor"?
-[Tim] American Standard Bible, the Witch of Endor.
-[Jon] And you're like, "Am I reading Tolkien?"
-[Tim] Yeah. Yeah. He's, she summons up the ruach of Samuel,
-[Jon] the breath
-[Tim] from the dead.
-[Jon] Yeah.
-[Tim] It's a bizarre story.
-[Jon] So that's some sort of disembodied state.
-[Tim] It's the only story like it in the entire Bible where a person who's,
-[Jon] Dead.
-[Tim] dead, their presence or life presence is, makes it an appearance to somebody in some kind of magic ceremony. (laughing) Seriously. It's the only place in the entire Bible where that happens.
-[Jon] Yeah, yeah. It's a strange story.
-[Tim] It's a very strange story.
-[Jon] But obviously there's some sort of category then
-[Tim] Yeah, Yeah. There's a category for,
-[Jon] Of post-death, disembodied, essence of who you are.
-[Tim] 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.
-[Jon] Hmm.
-[Tim] And just, yeah. Just the biblical authors don't have much more to say about it except for these images of being with Jesus (laughs) or being in the temple, even in God's heavenly temple. Yeah.
-[Jon] Man, I wish there was just like a journalist back then who just drilled Jesus on some of this stuff.
-[Tim] Yeah.
-[Jon] I feel like he could've been a little more thorough. (laughing)
-[Tim] Well, you can go to other Jewish literature, you know, of the period, Dead Sea Scrolls, they're really interested in the heavenly temple. And Philo, 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.
-[Jon] Yeah.
-[Tim] And so he's fully transformed the Hebrew thought categories.
-[Jon] Yeah. What you wanna know is,
-[Tim] In history, in Greek philosophy,
-[Jon] what did Jesus think?
-[Tim] Yeah. Yeah.
-[Jon] Because there's probably different opinions
-[Tim] Sure, yeah.
-[Jon] Floating around Judaism.
-[Tim] Well, you know, he tells that parable about the rich man and Lazarus?
-[Jon] Yep.
-[Tim] And actually, I know there's even some debate, not that much debate (laughs) among scholars about whether or not that's a parable. But I think it has all the clues of one of Jesus's parables. But he just uses the phrase, "Abraham's bosom." (laughs)
-[Jon] Yeah. Right.
-[Tim] The poor man Lazarus dies and he's in Abraham's bosom.
-[Jon] Yeah.
-[Tim] Which of course is a metaphor, so
-[Jon] Because we're the seed of Abraham?
-[Tim] Well, it's, the family of Abraham is God's covenant people. And so,
-[Jon] But your bosom is like your,
-[Tim] Yeah. Oh yeah. It's like holding you close to your chest.
-[Jon] Oh, you're getting hugged, you're getting a bear hug from Abraham?
-[Tim] Yeah. Yeah. It, 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 is like being in God's bosom.
-[Jon] It's like getting a bear hug from God.
-[Tim] Totally. Yeah. So the rich, the rich man is not in Abraham's 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.
-[Jon] It's like we're being asked to hold onto an idea very lightly.
-[Tim] Yeah.
-[Jon] Like, we're not given very clear, It's like Jesus wanted them to, to be comforted.
-[Tim] Comfort. "Don't let your hearts be troubled."
-[Jon] Yeah.
-[Tim] "Trust in God and trust in me." That's the opening line of John 14.
-[Jon] But his comfort didn't come with a lot of information. It's, you know?
-[Tim] Yeah, well,
-[Jon] You kinda get a sense that they get it enough. Like, I guess they're like, they're following enough to get comforted. But I would've been like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Where you talking? Where are you going?" (laughing) Like, well, that's what he does say.
-[Tim] Yeah, sure.
-[Jon] He says, "I don't know how to get where you're going."
-[Tim] Yeah!
-[Jon] But,
-[Tim] and then what again, and his point isn't to feel speculation.
-[Tim] Right?
-[Jon] Yeah.
-[Tim] Thomas says, "we don't know the way," and he doesn't say, "Oh, sorry. What I meant was the heavenly temple," (laughing) and in the interim period between death and pre-res, what Jesus says is just, "Thomas, I am the way."
-[Jon] Yeah.
-[Tim] So he's constantly redirecting attention just to himself. The hope isn't in an idea of life after death,
-[Jon] So it's this thing of like they've become really attached to Jesus.
-[Tim] Yeah.
-[Jon] But he's going away. And so he is the way, and it's as simple as, "Just hang with me and everything's gonna be all right."
-[Tim] Yeah. Yeah.
-[Jon] And you get that message enough. And then Jesus says, "Actually, I'm leaving."
-[Tim] Yeah.
-[Jon] Then your world's gonna be rocked.
-[Tim] Yep.
-[Jon] Because your strategy is just, "I'm just gonna hang with this guy."
-[Tim] Yeah. Yeah.
-[Jon] And,
-[Tim] So that's why he says later, "Don't, I'm going away, but I'm not leaving you as orphans."
-[Jon] Yeah.
-[Tim] "I will come to you through the spirits coming to you."
-[Jon] And, and the reason I'm going away is because I want to connect you with the presence of God himself.
-[Tim] Yeah. Yeah. I'm going away. So the spirit's coming in this in-between period that you're, right?
-[Jon] Mm hmm.
-[Tim] Between I 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.
-[Jon] Yeah.
-[Tim] 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.
-[Jon] I mean, the, these disciples of Jesus, they're Jews. So, and they, they must have, they have some sort of training or understanding of scripture before Jesus.
-[Tim] Sure.
-[Jon] And so what, what were their expectations of, I mean, if you're a Jewish person and you're following the law, you, you're not worried about whether or not you're gonna be part of God's house. You are a part of it, right?
-[Tim] Uh?
-[Jon] They wouldn't have had this category of like, "Well, maybe when I die, I won't be a part of
-[Tim] Sure, sure.
-[Jon] God's heavenly dwelling."
-[Tim] 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 (laughs) at many points. So the point is that Jesus alone is now the gateway.
-[Jon] "I'm the way, the truth, and the light."
-[Tim] Yeah.
-[Jon] "No one comes to the Father except through me."
-[Tim] Yeah. That's right. And that exclusive claim (gentle upbeat music) is matched by the most radically open-armed claim that God loves the world. John 3:16. (laughs) 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. (gentle upbeat music swells)
-[Jon] So let's talk about that then. Just to wrap this up.
-[Tim] Yeah.
-[Jon] The next chapter, Jesus says, chapter 15.
-[Tim] Mm, mm. Yep.
-[Jon] "If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it 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 NRSV. Okay. "Therefore, the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, servants are not greater than their master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also."
-[Tim] 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.
-[Jon] Hmm. Mm hmm.
-[Tim] So the vocabulary of the gospel of John is permeated with what different commentators called dualisms or dualistic phrases.
-[Jon] Hmm.
-[Tim] Like light and dark.
-[Jon] Hmm.
-[Tim] Or above and 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 Baulkham, his collection of essays on the gospel of John. He has a whole chapter on this. I mean, he just has tons of these.
-[Jon] Oh, wow. There's a whole page of,
-[Tim] Yeah, It's actually two pages.
-[Jon] Oh, Front and back.
-[Tim] (laughs) Yeah. Yeah, and it just characterizes glory. (Jon coughing) 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.
-[Jon] Hmm.
-[Tim] Children of the devil, children of God, the thief and the bandit versus the shepherd of God's people, slavery versus freedom. So this is just, just a mark of the vocabulary, and it's all part of John's effort to, 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.
-[Jon] Hmm.
-[Tim] So the gospel of John is a persuasion document, (Jon laughing) and he's using one of the most common techniques of persuasion,
-[Jon] It's propaganda. (Tim laughing)
-[Tim] Well, sure.
-[Jon] Yeah.
-[Jon] In the best part of the word.
-[Tim] Actually, most forms of human communication are propaganda.
-[Jon] (laughs) Yeah.
-[Tim] If you mean just trying to persuade you to think or do something.
-[Jon] Yeah.
-[Tim] But yeah, he just employs this technique of like black and white contrasts, so, of this world and not of this world.
-[Jon] Yeah.
-[Tim] So when he says,
-[Jon] So I think of,
-[Tim] Yes!
-[Jon] I belong to this planet, or I don't belong to this planet.
-[Tim] Correct. Yeah.
-[Jon] And if I'm gonna 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.
-[Tim] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
-[Jon] 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."
-[Tim] Yeah. Yeah.
-[Jon] Then it's like, "Well, then I am of this world." Right?
-[Tim] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the point of him saying, and he says, "you're not of this world," he doesn't mean you are not physical.
-[Jon] (laughs) Sure. Yeah.
-[Tim] Right? What it means is your value system is no longer based in something that's apart from Jesus or apart from God.
-[Jon] Okay.
-[Tim] It's not merely humanly derived. It's very similar. A great analogy is when Jesus is being tried before Pilate and you know, Pilate's asking him, "Are you the king of the Jews?" And,
-[Jon] "If you say so."
-[Tim] (laughs) Yeah, "you say so." Actually that's in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. 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." So whatever "not of this world" means for Jesus, it doesn't mean not physical. He's, 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?
-[Jon] (laughs) Navy seals.
-[Tim] leaping in through the windows and slitting your neck right now if my kingdom were of this world.
-[Jon] If we had the values of this, of the way the world works?
-[Tim] Yeah. I, yeah. You tell me. Like what, 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."
-[Jon] Yeah. If I was, well, it, it could mean in the paradigm I grew up in, it would mean if what I was trying to do was something political right now versus, "I just wanna make sure you guys all can go to heaven."
-[Tim] Yeah.
-[Jon] So my kingdom is the kingdom of heaven.
-[Tim] But that's not what he says.
-[Jon] I know. But that, I mean, that's what I'm, you're saying, "What could it mean?"
-[Tim] If, if, if Jesus meant "my kingdom's not of this world," so
'Cause I'm all about heaven and getting people out here to go to heaven.
-[Jon] Yeah.
-[Tim] Then he would not say, "If my kingdom were of this world, then my servants would be fighting." As it is, my kingdom's not of this world. He would say something like, "My kingdom's not of this world, so none of this matters. We're all going to heaven. But if my kingdom were of this world," Like, it's not the right contrast.
-[Jon] Um, I don't understand. It's not the right contrast because,
-[Tim] My kingdom's not of this world.
-[Jon] Yeah.
-[Tim] If it were, if it were of this world,
-[Jon] yes.
-[Tim] Then we'd be launching a revolution right now.
-[Jon] Mm hmm.
-[Tim] Oh, I see. Yup.
-[Jon] But if we're gonna go up to heaven one day, I'm not gonna launch a revolution right now.
-[Tim] I'm not gonna launch a revolution.
-[Jon] It fit, I mean, it fits. A paradigm fits within what Jesus is saying.
-[Tim] Oh. Yeah, you're right. It does.
-[Jon] But it seems like the other way to take it is saying, "My ways are not of this world." The ways of this world would be,
-[Tim] Yeah, what,
-[Jon] To take this by force.
-[Tim] That's right.
-[Jon] With violence. And overthrow you the way that we've seen a hundred times before.
-[Tim] Correct.
-[Jon] A thousand times before.
-[Tim] Yes. By mentioning a military revolution, he shows that what he's not talking about is a destination after you die.
-[Jon] He's talking about a method of becoming king.
-[Tim] He's talking about how, yeah. How you exercise power in the world.
-[Jon] I see.
-[Tim] Kingdom. So,
-[Jon] He's not talking about where he's gonna become king. He's talking about how he's gonna become king.
-[Tim] Yeah, that's right. If my kingdom had the value system of this world, it'd be revolution time right now.
-[Jon] So when he says "of this world," he means having the value system of this world,
-[Tim] Mm hm, yeah. My kingdom doesn't work by the value system of normal kingdoms.
-[Jon] And what's this word here? The, of the world. (Tim speaks in foreign language) (Jon speaks in foreign language) (Tim speaks in foreign language) Yeah. And the (speaks in foreign language) is the thing that God loves in John 3:16. God loves the (speaks in foreign language).
-[Jon] God loves the (speaks in foreign language).
-[Tim] That's why he's not,
-[Jon] It's not, it's not a globe or a planet. That's not the idea.
-[Tim] No. It's just the inhab, the world, the ordered world, and, that humans inhabit.
-[Jon] Creation.
-[Tim] Yeah. Yeah.
-[Jon] Okay.
-[Tim] The Order.
-[Jon] And so there's, and there's a,
-[Tim] It's under the influence of hostile powers.
-[Jon] And that is the, that influence being under that influence is being of the world.
-[Tim] Correct. That's right.
-[Jon] Okay.
-[Tim] That's why, in a dialogue in John chapter eight, 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,
-[Jon] I am an alien.
-[Tim] (laughs) Yeah, totally. Yeah, he's not saying I'm not human. Clearly. So his, this whole point is, it's like what he says in Nicodemus, "If I speak to you about earthly things,"
-[Jon] Worldly things,
-[Tim] How can I, how can we have a conversation about heavenly things? So this heaven and earth, of this world not of this world contrast in John,
-[Jon] It's about value systems.
-[Tim] It's about value systems, it's about worldview. It's about what story. It's about is this merely a human concoction?
-[Jon] Is there a verse? Isn't there a verse,
-[Tim] Or is this the thing that we'll receive as a gift from God's own life and love and creative power.
-[Jon] Okay. Is there a verse that says, "Don't be of the, be in the world, but not of the world?"
-[Tim] Yeah. That's in, that's in the first letter of John, first John.
-[Jon] First John.
-[Tim] Yep. Yeah.
-[Jon] So
-[Tim] Yeah. Same thing. What does it mean to be of this world?
-[Jon] You could be in the world without being of the world.
-[Tim] Yeah. And he talks about pride. And, that's right. Yeah.
-[Jon] Okay. So I guess the thing is, is like as I, as I move my paradigm to being, hey, I want to, I wanna participate in what God's doing here in, in this world, preparing for new creation, which will be a new earth.
-[Tim] Yes.
-[Jon] 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.
-[Tim] Well, not might, I mean, I think Jesus and Paul, like, there is a time.
-[Jon] There is a time,
-[Tim] If I die before the new creation, they want me to know with confidence that they've got me. And that I'll be with Jesus, and that my life won't escape from his love.
-[Jon] So according to Paul and Jesus, this has hap, this is,
-[Tim] But they don't call that heaven.
-[Jon] That's Abraham's bosom (laughing) or that's the room in the father's house, or that's being with Jesus.
-[Tim] With Jesus. Yeah. There's all these different ways to talk about what that is,
-[Jon] but the room in God's temple is in the heavenly temple.
-[Tim] Yeah. Yeah.
-[Jon] So it's in heaven.
-[Tim] Sure. I'm just saying
-[Jon] It's in the heavenly temple.
-[Tim] It's still significant,
-[Jon] but it never was referred to as heaven.
-[Tim] That never once in the Bible is the phrase, "go to heaven" used
-[Jon] Right.
-[Tim] to talk about what happens after you die. Not even once. (laughing)
-[Jon] Right.
-[Tim] 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. This is a temporary thing.
-[Jon] End of the game is being on earth, in a new earth,
-[Tim] In a new creation.
-[Jon] A new creation,
-[Tim] which is,
-[Jon] and new bodies,
-[Tim] a union of heaven and earth,
-[Jon] A union, a union of heaven and earth. And so as I, as I shift to that paradigm, I feel like it gives me so much more traction for life now, because it's not gonna be so different. I mean, it's gonna be different.
-[Tim] Yeah!
-[Jon] But it won't be some new paradigm.
-[Tim] Well, yeah. It'll be, (laughing) yeah. Again, it'll be what, what the apostles experienced when they met the risen Jesus.
-[Jon] Right.
-[Tim] It's that, but the whole,
-[Jon] All of creation.
-[Tim] but the whole universe. Yeah.
-[Jon] So it's not like, I mean, if, if it's some heavenly, strange, you know, disembodied state forever, that I don't really fully understand, there's not a lot I can hold onto. And 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, 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 gonna 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."
-[Tim] Oh, Sure.
-[Jon] In the way of like, I'm made for this world.
-[Tim] Yes. Yeah. Made for it.
-[Jon] I'm made to be an earthling with a human body. I'm not, when when I hear the phrase "I'm outta this world," that's a category for me of, oh yeah. I'm supposed to be this disembodied soul that gets zapped to some other,
-[Tim] Got it. Yeah.
-[Jon] Platonic state after that.
-[Tim] And that's 'cause you, you're using that word, "world," in a way that's different than how John is using the word "world."
-[Jon] Yeah. John's using it to talk about a value system. Where I'm talking about,
-[Tim] Physicality.
-[Jon] This is actually, I have to remind myself, because of my tradition, that I actually, no, this, I belong here. This is good.
-[Tim] Yeah. Yeah.
-[Jon] Being in God's world. And this is, ultimately this needs to be redeemed, but that's not what the gospel of John needed to remind people of and needed to remind people of the, like, the value systems that have been running this world are gonna be going away. And you need to be a part of the value systems that are to come.
-[Tim] Yeah. 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 are,
-[Jon] You have a nice house.
-[Tim] If you have Yeah. If you're, if you are living a fairly comfortable life and you have the ability to have free choices and shape the world around you,
-[Jon] Right.
-[Tim] then you like being here and you don't wanna leave here. And this world's, yeah, screwed up, but it's not, there's also a lot of beauty in it. So I wanna be here and see this improve, and even better. However, there are many times in history, in fact,
-[Jon] Most of it, yeah.
-[Tim] probably 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, you know, perpetrated against or hunted down or, and so in that kind of scenario,
-[Jon] This world is rough, messed up.
-[Tim] Yeah. You want, 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 angles.
-[Jon] Yeah.
-[Tim] You get a beautiful image like Paul's. You know, creation, but redeemed, liberated from decay and made to be fully what it is in all of its beauty and goodness. But then you also get John, you know, (laughs) the Gospel of John, or letters of John that's just like, "The world's corrupt."
-[Jon] Let's get outta Dodge.
-[Tim] We're not of this world. (gentle upbeat music) And so both of those can be true at the same time. And in different seasons of a person's life, I think they will speak different things. So I think it's good to remember of what, 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? (laughing) 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. 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's gonna 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. (upbeat music swells)
-[Jon] Thanks for listening to this episode of the Bible Project. The workbook on heaven and earth can be downloaded for free at thebibleproject.com/heavenbook. The Bible Project is a nonprofit. 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, thebibleproject.com. Say hi to us, we're on Twitter @joinbibleproj, and on Facebook, facebook.com/jointheBibleProject. And our YouTube channel is youtube.com/theBibleProject. Thanks for being a part of this with us. (upbeat music continues)