What Do You Want? (2) Rewind

Hey, I like this! Sin is being convinced to participate in the cutting off of my nose to spite my face. Sin makes no sense! People naturally think that what they desire is good and right for them. First lie we fall for! But not the last! We fall for all the rest to support that one. All sin is about self, which is the essence of fracturing that self off from all the interconnectedness that completes that self. An isolated human is, like Skip says above, not human. I only get to be me when I am fully plugged in to all that is not me. Self wishes to absorb all other, but my uniqueness depends upon me releasing all other to the sovereignty of its right to exist.

The largest benefit of obeying Yeshua’s requirement to let the universe off the hook (forgive it) is that because I put myself on the same hook at the same time that I put everybody else on, the only way to get myself back off is to let them off, too. All sin is about denying life by seeking to live at the expense of all other life. A study of psychopaths reveals that we have to devalue the worth of others down below what we consider our worth to be, as human, before we can hurt them. We accomplish this by choosing to believe accusations that tell us we do not have to respect others’ right to choose (much less trust them). This allows us to overwrite their choices by forcing our own. We rationalize this by choosing to believe that we are more human (worthy to choose) than they are.

We fear all that we think is not fully human, and we choose to believe that all we fear is out to get us. This is what I have to forgive; believing that all others are against me (less than human). When I do that, I lay down my arms of self, too. The fight for survival is over. I find when I do that the truth becomes apparent that all the trouble started with me. When I give others room to love me (vulnerability) I also give God room to protect and provide. How does He do that? By His original design, which is that interconnectedness that I have allowed by that forgiveness. At that point, He promises to make even my enemies “to be at peace” with me. Halleluah!

“That consistently choosing for myself ultimately makes me something other than human; something other than conformed to the image of His Son.” Sigh…I find my selfishness and my lack of discipline interchangeable. It’s like playing whack-a-mole…I zero in on a particular area to practice discipline and soon I find my selfish desires cropping up in a different area…seems to be a never ending cycle.

“Sheol – Do you find it astounding and insightful that the word she’ol is derived from the verb sha’al? Sha’al is the verb that means “to ask, to inquire, to beg, to borrow.” ”

As mentioned earlier, The atomic level of meaning is not the three-letter root. Each stroke within a letter has metaphoric meaning. These build into the meaning of the letters, which form 2-letter gates, and then roots and words from there.

Let’s start with the letters:

Shin/Sin ש – God’s word returned with an increase. As a metaphor, one can focus on the first vav as the word which came to earth, the third vav as the word returning, or the second vav as the increase. It represents the Spirit who gives life as a result of the word, as the marriage when the Word returns with his bride, etc.

Lamed ל – the shared heart of God. It is a teaching from heaven of and through the Son of God (the embedded kaf).

The gate Sh’l של means to ease or do it gently. THe bride ש is taught ל. Adding a nun as a prefix to it makes it a plural for and in “We ease”. This is used when Moses is told to remove (ease) his sandals while on holy ground. Sandals are a metaphor for being in the world but not of it. We are more than the dust or the flesh. But when we confront God face to face, we have a gentle reminded that we are but dust before him. We have nothing to offer. It is used again when the harvested was told to ease some of the harvest to the ground so taht the wbride following could glean it. This is a gentle training of the church that God does the harvest, and we are permitted to participate in it.

Aleph א – the primary metaphor is that God created the heavens and the earth. Secondary meanings are separation, the Spirit hovering between the waters, the firmament between the waters, war between heaven and earth, etc.

Ask שאל – shows that there is a level of discontent. He bride is separated from the teaching. She is unsatisfied, and asks.

Hei ה – hear but don’t understand.

Petition שאלה – The petition is a soft asking in order to understand.

When the asking becomes inappropriate it causes a separation, so an aleph is added making ‘demand’ שאלא. It is inappropriate to demand things from God.

Vav ו – The vav is translated ‘and’ but it’s primary metaphor is God speaking into the void. The sword ofhis word divides sould and spirit. It makes a distinction between two things, just as the word ‘and’ does while keeping them associated together.

Sheol שלול – pit, hell, desire, Saul. By the metaphor, sheol is the bride who is now discontent and is made distinct or separted from the teaching. This is the sense of hell. But we also learn that God gives us teh desires of our heart and lets us wallow in the consequences. Rom 1:18 ff

Saul is an example of that. God gave him to Israel because they demanded a king. He let them suffer under him.

I am familiar with a couple different takes on this both stemming from the understanding of the root word being “ask”.

First, sheol and hades are equivalent in meaning, for hades was almost always used to translate sheol in the Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures which was current in our Lord’s day. This is confirmed in Acts 2:27 by the quotation of Ps.16:10, where the Spirit uses one as the equivalent of the other.

Concerning the literal meaning of hades there is no doubt possible. It comes from A-, a prefix that is equivalent to our un-, and -IDEIN, to see, in other words, “un to see” or, the “unseen”.

But in the Hebrew the soul goes to the “ask”.

Thus the very idiom of the Hebrew language shows us that they, too, knowing the nature of the soul, entertained the same question, what becomes of the soul after death? And the Hebrew answers with a question mark (?). There is nothing in the English or Greek languages to correspond to this, but much the same indefinite, misty impression is conveyed to us by the Greek equivalent, “the unseen.” It is as if you ask a Hebrew where the soul goes at death and he should shrug his shoulders, and if you ask a Greek the same question, he should close his eyes and shake his head.

Most inspired words have suffered from lack of definiteness and exactitude, but hades and sheol have suffered from the opposite tendency. They deny definition. They suggest dimness and distance.

The second understanding notes that sheol is just as often translated “grave” in the Old Testament. And we know that the grave (and our sin which results in death) is never satisfied. Like our addictions, they continually “ask” for more and more and are never satisfied.