Transcription
[music] Welcome to Bible Project podcast. Today we [music] continue our conversation on the spirit of God, or in Hebrew, ruach Elohim.
One way of defining ruach, it's [music] an invisible, personal, life-giving energy. It's the thing animating every living thing.
You only get [music] two sentences into the Bible before you encounter God as Ruach hovering [music] over the dark, abysmal waters, ready to bring order. This is the biblical portrait of God's spirit [music] creating and holding everything together.
Ruach is intimately involved and present [music] with all creation, sustaining its existence moment to moment.
Last week's discussion oriented us to how the ancients thought of ruach. It's the power that rushes through the trees. It's the energy we breathe into our lungs. [music] It's the vitality that we have that lets us comprehend the world. In the Bible, this energy is a gift, and it's [music] the very life presence of God's self. Humans cannot exist without it.
This is the biblical author's way of exploring [music] humans as mortal, as not sustaining their own existence.
But the story of the Bible begins with an invitation to [music] experience eternal life.
Whatever immortal life that humans are going to [music] experience is not something they have of their own nature. It's something that is given to them as a gift.
Because humanity cannot exist without [music] God's ruach, its very presence reminds us of our own frailty. Job refers to God's breath as the only [music] thing keeping him alive, but also it's the sign that he's not even sure how much longer he'll be alive because [music] it's not his possession. It was something that was gifted to him. Today we examine the inherent mortality of humans and [music] the marvelous gift of God's ruach.
Ruach is such an unmerited, undeserved, uncontrolled gift that it should humble me.
Thanks for joining us. Here we go.
Hey Tim.
Hey John.
Hey. We're continuing this conversation on >> the spirit of God.
Yes, we are.
And what we've attempted to do [music] just briefly in our last conversation was >> or not so briefly. [laughter]
Yeah.
Try to get into the ancient imagination of this word spirit.
And actually, this is a pillar of ours that we talk about. The Bible is ancient literature.
Yes. Right. And so it's an exercise of not bringing our own >> present-day understanding of words and concepts and imposing them on the Bible, but trying to empathetically get into the imagination of biblical authors and the way they viewed the world.
It's challenging sometimes.
Yeah. It's an exercise in extreme empathy. [laughter]
Yeah.
Yeah. Which I guess is about imagining the feelings of another person.
Yeah.
But this is about imagining the ideas of another person. I've actually used the phrase intellectual empathy >> before to talk about this. Yeah.
Yeah. So that's what we're doing specifically around the word spirit, but also our word wind and breath.
Breath.
And perhaps even mind.
And there's one Hebrew word.
Yeah.
Ruach. So what does it mean >> to think of all those things together? And how does the Bible use that word? And what's your summary of of [laughter] our conversation? One way of defining, trying to capture a definition, which is like capturing water, you know, with your hand.
It refers to something invisible. You cannot see it. You see its effects.
Okay.
That's true of wind and breath.
Yeah.
And mind.
It's personal. It's based on a conviction of the biblical authors that there is someone who is the creator of all that is and the sustainer, who's intimately involved and present with all creation, sustaining its existence moment to moment.
Okay.
So it's an invisible, personal, life-giving energy. [laughter] So life-giving means it's the thing animating every living thing, but energy, and it's a thing animating non-living things that is like wind in the trees.
Yeah.
You know, wind can knock down a tree. It can move waters. Whole bodies of water can be moved by the wind.
So invisible, personal, life-giving, and animating energy. Yeah. Yeah. Very. What was really helpful for me there was a moment where you said when we think of the wind, we think of something physical.
Mhm.
Because we understand the physical nature of air.
Yeah.
But an ancient thinker did not. It was more like a, what you said, like a force, like we think of gravitational force or these kinds of things.
Yeah. In our modern contemporary cosmology, the slot that is occupied by these mysterious, all-pervasive, reality-sustaining forces >> Yeah. >> gravity, electromagnetic, strong and weak nuclear is the slot occupied by God's ruach in the biblical author's imagination. Now, it's not precise.
It's not exact, but it's pretty pretty close.
Mhm. Because in our modern mindset, those forces may or may not point us to a person. More often, they're just stated to be impersonal laws.
Yeah.
So, insert God's transcendent, personal being into our concept of modern forces, and we're very close to the concept of ruach in the Bible.
It's pervasive. It comes from the one who is above all things. But it also is the way that that one who is above and beyond all is personally present, sustaining everything that is.
Yeah. And so this then frames, invites us into some mysteries.
Yeah.
Which is when I see the wind moving through a tree, am I seeing God's >> personal energy?
M.
Or am I seeing God sending what I would call an impersonal force?
Yeah. Something distinct from God. Right.
And I want to make a clear distinction.
Yeah.
And are we saying the ancient imagination is saying, "Yeah, there's a distinction, but don't make it so sharp."
Yeah. I mean, these are almost impossible mysteries, but there has to be an absolute difference between God and creation from one point of view.
Yeah. Mhm.
I'm not all that God is.
Yeah.
Like, very clearly.
Yeah.
Ask my wife >> or [laughter] my kid. You know what I mean? Really quite a frail, mortal, fragile being on many levels.
So there's an absolute distinction between me as a weak, little, temporary creature and the infinite, eternal creator of all. But the only way for anything temporary and finite and small and frail to exist is to be so closely sustained and held in existence by God's ruach that another way to say it is like the way Paul says it, in God we live and move and have our being. Yeah.
In God >> he says >> yeah. Um, or like he says in a little prayer at the end of Ephesians, the Father who is over all and through all and in all things.
Yeah.
Over all, through all. In all.
Yeah.
And he's holding together things that we find almost impossible to hold together. He's trying to >> Yeah. >> And Ruach is one of the ways the biblical authors are naming what is from our point of view like a paradox.
Yeah. Okay. So, invisible, personal, life-giving energy.
Okay. What I'd like to do in this conversation is really hone in on ways in the Hebrew Bible, the ruach is inviting us into the meeting place of life and death, or existence and non-existence.
So, spirit is associated with life. Breath is associated with life.
Yeah. And I think what struck me in new ways was that in many cases where ruach in the Hebrew Bible is associated with life, in the context, it's very much also associated with the unpredictable nature of [music] life and death.
H. I don't appreciate what you're getting at. So let's just get into it maybe.
Deal. Let's start on page [music] two. Okay.
[music] [music]
Okay. So, there's two narratives at the beginning of the book of Genesis. The first is the seven-day creation story, and God's ru is there, hovering, fluttering over the waters. The second narrative begins in Genesis 2:4 with a little heading saying, "These are the birthings of the skies and the land." And it begins with a lifeless desert, and there's no plants, no human, and no water. So God provides a spring that pops up out of the ground. Surprise. And when the spring water saturates the ground, the narrative doesn't explicitly say, but it's pretty obvious what you're supposed to imagine. Mix water with dirt, you get >> mud.
What has been my entire backyard for about a decade with my boys is a huge mud pit >> that they love to dig in.
So clay or mud. Mhm. So what we're told then is something God does with that wet dirt. Genesis 2:7. Then Yahweh Elohim, Yahweh being the one who is, that's what it means, is the personal covenant name of Yahweh with Israel. Yahweh Elohim formed vetser. It's a it's the word used to describe what potters do with clay. Okay. Elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, Jeremiah 18, kind of most well-known.
So he formed Adam, the human, from afar min. So afar is dust from the ground. So, we're talking about the topsoil.
Oh, okay.
And dust is the most common English word in our English translations used to describe this. But when I think of dust, I think of >> like the >> dry.
Yes.
Not wet.
Right.
For me, dust is the opposite of wet.
Yeah. So, this is topsoil.
Topsoil. It's the top layer.
Moist. Topsoil.
And the ground is the word Adamma, >> which has all the letters of the word Adam in it. Human. Human from the humus. Yeah, >> is one way to talk about it. And then dust is referring to the topsoil.
Okay. So human comes from the ground, molded from the ground.
Yeah. So that's one thing. Formed human from the topsoil.
Is that word human from the humus? Humus can mean >> I think humus. Humus is an old English word. Topsoil.
Is it? Oh, cool.
Mhm. [clears throat] Also the same letters >> as hummus >> from it. Mhm. [laughter]
It's one of the most delicious foods. Really is >> history of human food making. But anyway, um [laughter] that's different than the English which refers to topsoil. Okay. Yahweh Elohim formed human from the topsoil of the Adam and he breathed into his nostrils the nishmatim, breath of life, and human became a nephesh, a living being. So breathe and breath here, neither one of them's ru >> but they're synonyms.
Okay.
So breathe is for, and then breath is from nama >> and they more precisely refer to inhalation, inhaling, or exhaling.
So ru can be the stuff in the trees, in the hummingbird >> in me >> and the stuff in between. And the verb breathe here and breath is referring to that stuff when it's coming in and out of my nose and mouth and throat.
Okay.
Inhalation or something like that.
Yeah.
Exhalation.
Why use a different word?
Yeah. Maybe we're emphasizing when the ruach of God becomes a gift to the human person. So that in a sense, it becomes their >> ruach. We're emphasizing the human experience and possession of the ruach within their own body.
Okay?
And nama signals that this is the most common synonym of ruach and appears two dozen times in the Hebrew Bible. Okay?
And often in interesting ways.
So this is one of them.
So the dust here just signals the topsoil, like on the level of the narrative.
Then it comes up out of the ground. So on one level, humans are earthlings. Like we come from the ground.
Okay.
What we know about the ground is that it's a neutral canvas >> that doesn't produce life in and of itself.
It's material that cannot. This is in the narrative because it begins with a lifeless des >> needed something outside of itself, the water of God, >> but then when combined with that life-giving substance, it can generate life. And in this narrative, it's the water that God brings up out of the ground. But then also, >> humans need more than just >> the clay, like they're, as it were, material.
They also need some life source. Just like the ground needs something outside of itself to place life, >> the human, once formed, needs something outside of itself. And that's the role of the divine breath. So I think >> very clearly God's breath.
God's breath. Yeah. But that becomes the human, thus the word. It becomes >> the human's breath >> native to the human as a living creature. Theirs, so to speak, quote, their breath.
Yeah. So this is the biblical author's way of exploring humans as frail, as mortal, as not sustaining their own existence or originating their own existence.
For some reason, growing up, >> I had this image of humans being immortal in and of ourselves.
Oh, yeah.
And I remember you talking here about look at how the narrative actually makes you think about it. It's not that the human is immortal. The human is dust.
But then is given life.
Yeah. Here, given life. Yeah. Like just base life.
Yeah. Just base life.
And then later in the story is given the opportunity to eat of eternal life, which is a gift from God outside of him. So >> sorry. But that's, I think that's important because whatever immortal life that humans are going to experience is not something they have of their own nature.
Yeah. It's something that is given to them as a gift.
Yeah.
Now, humans are the kind of beings within the Bible that are capable of living forever. And in that sense, we image God.
But we are also dust. Actually, we're to it. We're right to the thing that I want to highlight.
So, this is the beginning of the Eden story. If we turn to the end of the Eden story, after Adam and Eve's folly at the tree of knowing good and bad, when God sings this poetic lament over the man and the woman, what he draws to their attention is that because of their folly, they have introduced a grief into the very processes that God gave them for the gift of life. So he highlights reproduction >> for women, conception and the raising of children will be fraught with grief.
Many of our English translations say pain, like labor pains, but that's not what it refers to or means, but grief. And then when he refers to the man, he talks about how the ground is cursed, and in that same grievous toil, you will eat from it all the days of your life. M >> So instead of garden existence where God just overabundance popping up out of the ground to get abundance out of the ground, now you're going to have to >> lot of work.
Lot of work, and it's a work that will wear you out. In verse 19, Genesis 3, "By the sweat of your face you will eat your bread until you return to the adama >> the ground, because from it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you will return."
Mhm.
So from dust to dust.
That's the picture here.
Yeah. And so then what happens to this >> God breath that we were given?
I know, it's a great question >> that the narrative raises, right?
Yeah.
Apparently, you give it up.
So I'm just going to stick within Yeah.
The story world given to us. If I received it as a gift that was not my own, then when I go back to the ground, what else does that mean but a surrendering of the ruach of the breath?
And if you watch someone die,
Yes.
You watch them take their last >> actually, what happens. Yeah. And any creature. Yeah. You surrender the ruach.
Mhm. I think what's significant is that this close association of dust and spirit is really important.
Okay?
Because what you'll find is that when dust or dirt is brought up elsewhere throughout the Hebrew Bible, I'm about to show you a bunch of examples. Spirit and dirt or spirit and dust often appear in the same context. And spirit or breath primarily signals a creature's fragile existence in ways that more years I've sat with it, it feels really significant.
Okay.
So maybe that's just it. Ruach, this divine breath spirit, as should signal in our minds when we come across it in the Bible, as much the miracle of life that life exists, period, and that I am alive. It's just a sheer [music] miracle. And at the same time, the very fact that I have life should signal to me that I'm dying and that I'm fragile and mortal [music] >> and my existence really isn't my own. And both of those feelings, I think Ruach [music] is meant to signal in certain passages. So, should we just look at them?
Yeah, let's look at them. [music]
[music] [music]
So in Genesis chapter 18, there's a moment when God told Abraham his cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, there's so much injustice happening, and the cry of the oppressed has risen up to him.
Mhm.
That he's going to destroy these cities. And Abraham steps in and he says, "Wait a minute. You're the judge of all the land. Won't you do what's right? What if there's people who do right by you and neighbor there in that city?" And so when he introduces that intercession, what he says is, "Please, my Lord, I am being so bold to speak to you, even though I am dust and ashes."
Yeah.
That's how dust works in the Bible.
Okay.
I am dust, and so are you.
Yeah.
So this is used to much effect in the book of Job. There's many places where humans as dustlings are referred to. Here's just a couple examples. In Job 4:119, Job calls humans people who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundations are in the dust.
Yeah.
So your body is a little clay house [laughter] and the foundation of your little clay dwelling that is your body is dust.
Yeah.
So it feels real. This, what I was trying to say in the last conversation. You and I think of ourselves as real. [laughter]
Yeah, of course I do.
In one in one sense, we are.
You keep telling me I'm not real.
Freaking out. But dude, because we're like, we're going to die, and in a hundred years, like no one's going to even remember anything about us, is we'll be like we never were.
What you and I are is so fragile and temporary.
Okay. But that's different than real. [laughter]
Fragile and temporary.
Yeah. Uh, I sure >> I I think I know what you're saying though.
Yeah. For you and I to have these experiences as real creatures.
Yeah.
There must be something or in biblical thought, someone who's the ground of it all, who precedes us, will be long after us, and who is so intimately related to every single micro part of whatever it is that I am, keeping it all going.
So to whatever degree you're real, that thing is more real.
Yes, that's right.
That's what you mean.
It's a relative real.
You, you and I are relatively real. [laughter]
And that's what these passages are trying to say. We live in clay houses with dust foundations. The foundation of my house.
Oh yeah, tell me about it.
Southeast Portland, a house that was built like 110 years ago.
Mhm.
When we got the house inspection, it was this one thing that made us be like, should we do this?
Is the foundation material is made out of river rock, sand from the Willamette River, like right down a mile from my house.
Yeah. And if I were to just start digging into it just with a hand shovel, I could just start break.
Yes.
Yeah.
But then the inspector told us, "Yeah, every house in this entire part of town is built with this."
Yeah.
So I was like, "Yeah." So what about when the big one, the earthquake comes? And he's like, "Yeah, this is all toast." [laughter]
Cuz it's basically just being held together by it being compacted by gravity of the house lying on it. So it keeps it sturdy. Yeah.
But the moment that foundation in the dust smile >> people listening, what you mean by the big one?
We live in constant kind of psychological >> Yeah. >> terror.
Yeah. [laughter]
Of the fact that one day, any day >> Yeah. >> a massive >> Yeah. >> earthquake >> could just destroy everything over here.
We live in the Cascadia subduction zone.
Yeah. Two huge tectonic plates.
To dust we will return.
Yeah. Yeah, man. That's exactly it.
Yeah.
Yep. That's it. Okay. I thought, well, I'm going to read Job 10:8 and 9. But I say them as my own words. This is Job talking to God. "God, your hands fashioned me. You made me altogether. And then Job says, "Look at my life now. You've also destroyed me. Please remember that you made me as clay. And are you turning me back into dust again?" So Job's talking about his suffering and all the terrible things that happened to him, and he's this is the classic problem of evil then for a conception of the world and of God that at its core to the Jewish and Christian tradition, which is God is the source of all reality. If all reality only is real, relatively real, because it participates in God, what is God's relationship to all of the terrible pain and suffering and evil in creation? Right, that's them.
Yeah.
The classic knot that >> problem of evil.
Problem of evil. And Job's exploring that in his own way. And he says, "Listen, you >> you made me like clay." What this means is this is saying what human existence is in its nature, >> yeah, >> is fragile and mortal. It doesn't sustain its own existence. The only way it would even exist and the only way it will have any continuing existence is if God continues to provide the gift of the ruach. In other words, ruach is as much a signal of life as it is of the fragility of life. And this is why, especially in the book of Job, Job refers to God's breath as the only thing keeping him alive. But also, it's the sign that he's not even sure how much longer he'll be alive because it's not his possession. It was something that was gifted to him.
The nature of breath as gift.
Yeah.
Both [clears throat] refers to the miracle of life and to >> Yeah. The fragility.
Fragility of life. So in chapter 27, this is one of his moments where he's pretty angry at God. And so he says, "As God lives, the God who has taken away my rights, the Almighty who has made my soul bitter, as long as I have in me, and as long as the ruach of God is in my nostrils, I am not going to speak anything unjust. My tongue will not utter deceit." And what he goes on to say, essentially to his friends, is, "You guys are accusing me of having done something wrong, and that's why I'm suffering."
Suffering.
And I'm telling you, I haven't done anything wrong to deserve all this suffering.
The problem isn't with me. I didn't do anything. So, however this happened, it's God's issue, and I'm going to take up my issue with God. So, that's one thing.
Okay. But then what he's naming is the paradox, which is that the only way I can take up my case with God >> oh, is with breath that is a gift to me >> is that if he keeps me alive, but my whole point is that he's slowly taking away my life >> but as long as I have a little bit left, I'm going to keep >> as long as >> giving my case >> as long as so that as long as is really a way of talking about the essence of the biblical picture of human existence. It's >> fragile. It's contingent, dependent, impermanent, temporary, but it's also a generous gift and a miracle. [laughter]
Yeah.
But also can't be taken for granted.
Yeah.
That's ruach. As long as the is in me. As long as the ruach of God is in my nostrils. What a bold phrase. The ruach of God in my nose.
Yeah, that one's sticky.
Mhm. In my mind because it really forces me >> to not make a clear distinction between breath and spirit of God.
Oh, sure. That's right. Yeah. Yeah.
It really just jams them together.
Yeah, that's right. And isn't it great? It's poetry. The only real adequate way to address that. Yeah.
So, I see what you're saying that dust is about >> death.
Mhm.
So, you've got ru >> and then you've got dust. Oh yes. Ruach is life.
Ruach is life. The dust represents this temporary, fragile, impermanent thing. That's right. Where the ruach is >> that's good.
Permanent.
Yeah. When you think of ruach as life breath, the biblical authors also want you to think about our nature as dust >> and hold those two.
Okay.
In our minds.
Yeah. As soon as you start really reflecting on, I have life because of a gift outside of me.
Mhm.
You are just one thought away from, oh, I am dust.
I'm d. That's right. That's right.
Okay. So let's look at another poem that explores [music] this in a surprising way, and it'll be similar ideas. We're just going to run through them again, but from another poet. The poet who wrote Psalm 104.
[music] [music] [music]
Psalm 104 is a beautiful meditation on creation. Represents somebody who has read and thought a lot about the seven-day creation narrative and the Eden narrative because it joins vocabulary of both together in this poem.
And it's just gone through and talked about how all of the creatures in the skies, the host of heaven, >> like the lights in the sky and the messengers, the angels, should praise God for their existence. It went through and talked about the creatures of the land, and then the creatures of the sea.
Okay.
Kind of just moved through from top to bottom.
How they all should praise God.
And how they literally, in the paragraph right before where we're going to pick up in verse 27, the poet was just like marveling about the feeding patterns of wild goats and rock badgers. [laughter]
Okay.
So kind of >> the order of creation.
Mhm. Yeah. So verse 27 begins with, "All of your creatures wait for you to give them their food in due season."
Every creature on the planet, when it is hungry, what it's longingly waiting for is the hand of God.
"You give to them and they gather it up. You open your hand and they are satisfied with Tove, with good." So notice how the biblical authors actually have a nuanced way of thinking about cause and effect in the world.
And so sometimes they'll talk about God as the provider or maker of something, and then five effects down the chain, you know, somebody receives something. Mhm.
But often, when they want to highlight God's intimacy with the world, they'll just put all of the cause-effect chain in the parenthesis and just go God to creature.
Your hand feeds every little rock badger >> and wild mountain goat.
Direct from God's hand. Just like >> Yeah.
It's a very poetic way to think of a field growing grass as God's hand lifting up food for the animal.
Yeah. And ancient people knew that like, there's all sorts of minerals >> and seeds >> and things in the ground that are important, and then air, temperature, and they knew about the stuff way more than you and I do.
So they know there's all these other links in the chain.
Yeah.
But they're thinking in terms of ultimate cause.
Yeah.
They talk about God.
Okay.
Okay. So verse 28, "You open your hand and every creature is satisfied with goodness. But if you hide your face, they are dismayed." So God gives with his hand. But if he hides his face, >> which is an image of loss of intimate connection, right? If you hide your face from another person, you're signaling a distance there.
Yeah.
If you hide your face, they are dismayed. "If you take away their ruach, they expire and return to the dust." There we go.
Yeah. Their breath is gone.
Their ru.
They're gone.
Their ru.
So you're like, "Oh, I guess it's theirs." We're talking about it from the angle of it being their possession, >> as it were.
But God can take it away, and does God can and does take it away.
And they return to the dust. Verse 30. "But you send forth your ruach and they are created." It's the word barah, from Genesis 1:1.
Mhm.
So we normally think of creation as being the thing that happened a long time ago. And here, create is used to refer to the new birth of every generation of every species of living thing.
H.
So you take away their ruach, they return to the dust. You send forth your ru, creation.
So I'm looking at a bunch of wild animals.
Mhm.
I'm observing that at some point they die and they stop breathing. And I would say, as someone who believes in God who animates everything and is responsible for life, it say God took away their ru.
Yeah.
And then I watch a baby goat come into the world >> and then have its first breath.
Yeah.
And I would say, "Huh, God sent forth his rock."
That's right. Creation. Creation.
Let there be baby goats. [laughter]
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah. That's the idea. So, two things must be true about the Jewish-Christian conception of God: that God is above and beyond all, the one who is.
God doesn't depend on something else to exist. God is existence. So, there couldn't be anything more remotely different than God than a baby goat.
[laughter]
Like, none of those things are true of the baby goat.
Yeah.
But if God were, I mean, language fails us. That's why poetry is so important. If God were to show his face >> and shine his personal light, day one, let there be light [clears throat] >> to bring about something that is distinct from God, but yet depends completely upon God for everything that it is.
[snorts]
You could say that God is sending out his own ruach, that anything that it is, and every new breath of life of a creature is like this intimate kiss from God. Now, of course, there's a lot of cause and effect things that come in between. Mhm.
We know that. The poets know that. But they want to shrink that chain up to say, ultimately, what we're really talking about is that anything that exists, especially a living creature, only exists because God is directly creating and sending forth his ruach for every living thing.
Yeah.
It's a very powerful >> beautiful view of reality.
And your point in this conversation is to say, look at the juxtaposition between >> life and death.
Yes. But that sending forth of the ruach is joined in parallel poetic lines with God taking away their ruach. So >> it is a gift.
That's right. So clearly, this poet also is reflecting not just on God's ideal for creation, but also the fact that we're outside of Eden >> returning to the dust. He uses that phrase from Genesis 3.
So this is a meditation on God's relationship to a world that is intimately connected with God.
Yeah. To be alive, but also is estranged from God.
So in Genesis 2 and 3, you get this picture of humanity given the ru of God >> and then in proximity to God >> being able to >> never have to give that up >> in the garden. Yeah. To eat from God.
God would never have to take it back. You always get to have it.
But it wouldn't be because humans inherently possess it of their nature.
They receive it as a gift. And it's only then outside of that reality, in that proximity to God, in that state, that God says, "Well, you're going to return to the dust." And so implicit in that is, "I will take back my ruach."
Yeah. Yeah. So really raises the question of a reading of the Eden story. Why would God take away his ruach? God's ruach is infinite and eternal. So presumably, if he allowed it to remain in a creature, it would participate then in God's infinite life. Mhm.
And so here we're to the severe mercy that the exile from Eden represents, >> which is if God's spirit were to sustain the eternal existence of a creature that insists on asserting its wisdom of discerning good and bad >> Yeah. >> over and against God's wisdom, >> in which case they find pain.
Yeah. Then that would be hell. That to live forever in that state.
Yeah. So the severe mercy of the exile from Eden is as if God's infinite rock is too much for the humans.
It's too real and >> it's too permanent.
It's too permanent.
And it's actually a mercy that humans can only live and do so much damage to ourselves and other people before we have to go back to the dust.
It's like a mercy on ourselves and those around us.
Yeah. Interesting. But it's a part of the crisis of the biblical story then is like, but aren't we made for that >> for eternal life?
Yeah, we're capable of it. In other words, we've been made as a kind of creature that can receive it and participate in it >> and experience it.
But yet, paradoxically, it's like too much for us. It goes to our heads, >> right? And we take this gift of breath and we do all these horrible things like we've been doing throughout human history. And like the Hebrew Bible is constantly all these case studies and people abusing the gift of breath that God has given them.
Did the goats get to eat [clears throat] of the tree of life?
I don't know.
You know what's interesting is the tree of life, as we talked about in our tree of life podcast series, >> was a common ancient Near Eastern icon. Yeah. Symbol. And in most depictions of the tree of life down in Egypt or Mesopotamian art and literature, it's actually a pair of mountain goats. It's funny you say that.
Yeah.
The icon is a pair of mountain goats, even from the tree of life.
Yeah. Sweet. Good for them.
You know, and I never would have thought about this until within the last year, my family and I got a dog. [laughter]
Yeah. People want to live with their dogs forever.
And it's a regular conversation now with my boys about the gift of God that this little creature is to our family. And >> we would be sad to think of a future without without Pippen. [clears throat]
Yeah.
Or a little dog.
All dogs go to heaven.
Yeah. So notice this is a meditation about animals. This paragraph we just read in Psalm 104. And look at how the psalm ends.
"I will sing to Yahweh throughout my life." This is verse 33. "I will sing praise to my God while I remain alive." Notice the note.
I'm not going to be alive forever.
Relatively real.
Yeah.
Right.
So [snorts] may my meditation be pleasing to him. I will be glad in Yahweh while I remain alive. So it just signals that note like what's true of the creatures >> is true of me.
Yeah.
And I have this gift of Ruach. I don't know how long. It's not even my it's not even mine. [clears throat] But the good that I do get to experience as a result of being alive, I just am going to thank God for that every day. [music]
But it's God's prerogative also to take away my ruach here outside of Eden as that severe mercy. And when God chooses to do that, I'll return to the dust. And and >> that's it. That's game over.
Okay, dude. Here we go. [clears throat]
Let's conclude with Ecclesiastes. [music] Okay.
[music] [music] [music] [music]
The author of Ecclesiastes is pretty hm. M. Is a realist.
Yeah.
About going back to the dust and really wants to probe the psychology and the feel of living outside of Eden. And the poet of Psalm 104 can like sing a song about it.
Yeah.
"I'll praise God as long as I remain alive." Poet of Ecclesiastes is a little more like Job.
As long as I have Neesh, I'm going to actually >> say something that bothers me. [laughter]
I'm going to complain.
Yeah.
Yeah. I'm gonna talk to the manager.
Ecclesiastes chapter 3. It's the most famous poem in Ecclesiastes. There's been songs made about it.
"There's a time for this and a time for that. There's an appointed time for everything under the skies."
"A time to give birth and a time to die."
"A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted."
"A time to kill, a time to heal, a time to tear down, time to build up," and so on. goes to the poem. So out here outside of Eden, things are not permanent. Constant cycle of flux and change. And for every little Eden gift of birth and planting and healing and building, there is its opposite >> death and uprooting and killing and tearing down. And humans, we can't seem to escape that cycle of opposites. It's like we're trapped.
Yeah. That's the reality. Yeah.
Of life under the sun, as he puts it in the book. So he comes to the end of that poem and just says, "So let me ask you this. For all of the work and the toil that somebody does in this world, what profit is there?"
Yeah.
"Everything you build is going to get torn [laughter] down."
Yeah.
"Your life is going to end."
What is the point?
Yeah. Yeah. So [snorts] then he ratchets it up a notch in verse 17 of chapter 3. He says, "Okay, so I say to myself, here's something as an Israelite, I confess is true. God is going to judge both the righteous man and the wicked man for a time and every matter and every deed." That's like classic.
What does he mean by that?
Oh, foundational beliefs of being an Israelite in the covenant. There is a God that my decisions matter. Because the poem might make you think, well, everything I build is going to get torn down. My life's going to be taken away.
Okay. Why do anything good?
What profit is there?
Yeah.
Why do anything?
Okay. And then so here he's saying, well, >> God's watching and he will make a judgment on good and bad.
That's right. So he's holding together two things. From one point of view, I can't see from my limited, mortal, fragile existence the point of it all. I just don't know.
Okay.
And I can't control the outcomes of my life.
But God knows the point.
But I have this confession. God will hold people accountable for their choices, and it does matter. It matters cosmically. And the author of Ecclesiastes is living in that paradox. There is meaning and purpose. I confess that. But for the life of me, literally and metaphorically, I can't figure it out, and I won't be able to. It's actually beyond my ability. So he goes on to say, "God is surely testing the sons of Adam so that they can see that they are but animals."
Whoa. [laughter]
Because the fate of the sons of Adam and the fate of the animals, it's the same.
Yeah.
One dies, so does the other. Indeed, they all have the same ruach.
Yeah. We share that with the animals.
Me and that hummingbird. There's no advantage for a human over an animal. Listen, this is he. This is vapor. Everyone goes to the same place. Everyone comes from the dust. Everyone goes back to the dust. And then this is probably the most, what do you say, risque? This is like the Job moment.
Okay.
In Ecclesiastes, "Who even knows if the ruach of a human ascends upward and the ruach of an animal descends downward to the earth? Who can actually prove that?"
What's he referring to?
I know. [laughter]
So in Genesis 2, >> yeah, >> the ruach comes from God.
Yeah. But there's no talk about what happens to rock, >> right? Once you breathe it out, just the human goes. So this image of the ruach of a beast going down, but the ruach of a human going up.
Yeah.
So he appears to be referring to some kind of idea that >> what's after death.
What's after death and what happens to the ruach? So if the idea of a human ruach comes from God, Genesis 2, Genesis 2 doesn't describe the origin of the life breath of the animals, >> right?
It just says that God brought them up out of the ground.
Yeah.
That's what it says. So is it possible that the author of Ecclesiastes is addressing this kind of popular conception that's like, "You think even in death, there's a difference between you and the animals? That maybe the human ra is connected to God so it goes back to God in the heavens >> that we can exist beyond after >> and then maybe that the animals exist in a different way." This line would make my sons really sad about our dog.
But maybe that's where the difference is. And but then his point is, yeah, who can prove that? [laughter]
You can't prove that.
We don't know.
We don't know. So even if you want to eat some guarantee of meaning out of how humans are different than animals and death, you can't really. You don't know. So he, it's so fascinating. I love that Ecclesiastes is in the Bible [laughter] >> because he's saying from our experiential vantage point >> Yeah. >> we don't know. Yeah.
And that lack of knowledge is uh >> well, and that's what makes the resurrection of Jesus such good news.
110%. [laughter]
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was fast-forwarding in the story, but I'm also trying to empathetically and have it just Ecclesiastes.
I just see some people getting a little itchy.
Okay, that's good. But the vantage point of Ecclesiastes is just trying to meditate on life outside of Eden under the sun.
Mhm.
We just have no guarantees out here from one point of view.
Yeah. And that's true even for me. Yeah.
Thousands of years later, as a follower of Jesus, >> right?
The only hope that I trust in >> is in the resurrection and new creation of all things.
Right.
But I can't prove that with certainty.
Yeah.
What I can point to is the testimony of the apostles, right? But over my own life and the outcomes of my life and my breath and what I want to build.
Mhm. Zero guarantee. It's all fragile.
So that's the main point I want to highlight is in all these passages where breath and returning to dust comes up. Breath is such an unmerited, undeserved, uncontrolled gift that it should humble me.
Ruach is >> Ruach is >> that it's as much a miracle of life.
Yeah.
As it is a sign of my mortality and death. Mhm. Are we going to get into more about what happens to your spirit after you die?
Will that be a conversation for later?
Yeah, we should when we get into the prophets.
Okay.
And then in the New Testament, of course.
But I also found there's merit in just sitting in these earlier parts of the Torah and prophets and Psalms and just >> letting these fundamental passages about spirit and breath and dust kind of sink in. It makes the good news even more good, I guess, is one way to put it. So ending with Ecclesiastes is always a little risque. [laughter]
Yeah. [clears throat] What is the point?
Yeah. So one of the surprises of Ruach in the Hebrew Bible is that it's associated with life primarily. But second place award of most common associated ideas of God's spirit is wisdom.
H.
Related to wisdom.
Yes. The spirit and life, and the spirit and wisdom are all closely connected. And so what I want to look at next is spirit and wisdom. And actually, I think we'll see how deeply connected it is to the stuff we've just talked about for the last couple episodes. Great. [music]
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