Paul, Hosea and the Messiah
O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” 1 Corinthians 15:55 NASB
Death – thanatos. The end. Dead. Finished. Qohelet is right. Without a resurrection, the rabbis provide a stark assessment:
“We know nothing about death, nothing beyond the one fact that we shall ‘die’—but what is that, to die? We do not know. We must therefore assume that death constitutes the final limit of all that we are able to imagine. The desire to extend our imagination into the beyond of dying, to anticipate psychically what death alone can reveal to us existentially, seems to me a lack of faith disguised as faith. Genuine faith says: I know nothing about death, but I do know that God is eternity; and I also know that God is my God.”[1]
But Paul is a rabbi, and he doesn’t agree. He claims there is more than a reason to hope. There is proof! How can he make such a claim? It’s obvious. The Messiah returned. The Messiah is the only one to give us proof-positive confirmation that death is not the end. The Messiah is the first and only man to come back from the dead permanently. If you thought the resurrection was about forgiveness of sin, you missed the point. We don’t need a resurrection for forgiveness. God forgives without the resurrection. We need the resurrection so that we have hope! We need a resurrection so that our imagination can exceed the limits of this life. The resurrection isn’t about forgiveness. It’s about genuine faith—faith that knows God will resurrect all of us because He already did it in Yeshua. Death doesn’t sting because someone came back and told us.
It’s unfortunate that Christianity puts such emphasis on sin. Oh, sin is a problem, no doubt. But it isn’t the final problem. The final problem is that we all die, whether we have been forgiven or not. The final problem is that all of this comes to a screeching halt. If there is no resurrection, then what difference does sin make? If I sin, I die. If I don’t sin, I still die. What’s the difference? That’s why Yeshua needs to provide a difference. The Messiah demonstrates that how I live now matters after I die. You and I might not have any first-hand information about what it means to die, but he does—and we can trust him to tell us what it’s all about. The Messiah answers the real problem, the final problem, for all men. Death is done.
With the rabbis, I can still affirm that I don’t have existential information about death, but because of the Messiah I am not left without any information. I know that God raised him from the dead, and I know that he tells me God will do the same for me, and he is my Messiah.
Topical Index: death, thanatos, resurrection, Messiah, Hosea 13:14, 1 Corinthians 15:55
[1] Chaim Stern (ed.), Gates of Forgiveness, Central conference of American Rabbis, 1993, p. 13.
Now that’s truth,what poetry in motion ,Skip thanks.
EXCELLENT
“If you thought the resurrection was about forgiveness of sin, you missed the point. We don’t need a resurrection for forgiveness. God forgives without the resurrection.” – SO TRUE
BUT… YHWH required reparation (balancing of the scales of judgement / Geburah) and that means that someone had to die for the sins (of Idolatry – “sins unto death”).
The Gesed is in the resurrection.
“We don’t need a resurrection for forgiveness. God forgives without the resurrection.”
and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.
1 Corinthians 15:17 NASB
http://bible.com/100/1co.15.17.NASB
Without the resurrection you empty the cross there is no forgiveness just an illusion just patterns of behaviour or words or worse empty religion.
Faith is being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see. Though i have not seen him i love him. Blessed are those who believe withour seeing. My heart can call out Abba Father with groans. (Me rambling lol?)
As far as i see it today we do need a resurrected messiah for forgivness else the hope is in vain. When God says he has forgiven me i know the ultimate consequences (eternal separation second death) have been dealt with because of the resurrection the “all in Christ”.
The resurrection is the consequence of sins forgiven its effects null and void its effects undone. Everytime we truly repent in our lives today we experience a mini resurrection a peice of the kingdom comes. Its a complere pi ture of a compkete whole. Is the Messiah not the living torah ?
The resurrection brings the cross alive it transforms the appearance to some it remains the stench of death. We do need a resurrection for wholness for completeness to return us to God …..for forgiveness of sin.
Happy to dialogue enjoying reading and having paradigms challenged so i can be a ‘healthier” follower of the way.
God bless M
When will i learn to proof read better lol sorry for being sloppy
The last five Christian funerals I have attended have not mentioned the resurrection even once! Why is that? Because they preach that the hope of the believer is to immediately go to heaven, meet departed ones, worship God etc. I ask Why even bother to come back here for another body? I find it interesting that if this same logic applied to Jesus then it could have been argued that Yeshua simply went to heaven to resume his role as deity and await the rest of us to join him for eternity. He would not even need to be raised from the grave! However, the early believers were given a HOPE that there would be a physical resurrection with new bodies to enjoy a restored earth. In the meantime the “dead know nothing”. And Paul said if Yeshua is not raised our faith is in vain!
HSB, what is even scarier is that people who have to think in dualistic terms about the separation of soul and body have these awful mental pictures of the afterlife! They have no real confidence that they will even know themselves or loved ones, either. I don’t know about you, but the very thought that I may one day be reduced to a mere disembodied ghost floating around haunting the living scares me even more than I would scare them.
The worst thing, however, about the denial of the physical resurrection at the end of the age is that it flings the door wide open to spiritualism, which the rest of the world practices as the worship of the dead. People who are afraid of ghosts are worshiping (fearing) the dead. There is no barrier to the mind if we think the dead are still around. At that point, people put more energy, either fear or reverence, into the dead than into God, and the first and second Commands are broken by this power from the grave.
C.S. Lewis writes in his book, Miracles, that there are two pieces of evidence that show that we know there is something beyond the physical: “Almost the whole of Christian theology could perhaps be deduced from the two facts (a) That men make course jokes, and (b) That they feel the dead to be uncanny.” We have no barrier between us and the worship (fear) of the dead if we do not have the resurrection to correct us. The dead are only “uncanny” if we have to think that they are not really dead!
It is a HUGE relief to be able to state with confidence that the dead are all asleep. The rest of the world suffers from the thrall of the dead (which apparently is hardwired in us) and, again, when we look at the orthodoxy on both ends: Catholic and Talmudic (as well as Kabbalah), we can see this enslavement. It also ruins the perfectly sound teaching that Yeshua now resides in a physical body. There is no way to explain that to someone who does not think they will have the same after death.
Good TW for me, Skip. Thanks.
Laurita: a few years ago my brother told me he thought each of us was a trinity composed of body, soul and spirit. On death the body goes to the grave, the spirit to God and the soul to Paradise, now heaven after the cross. Somehow each of these parts was itself the whole… I told him it sounded like a car crash… the chassis wraps around a tree, the engine is flung in one direction and the transmission in another…and NONE of these is the car.. you actually need all of them working together to have a car.
On another note my sister in law lost her husband to death a few years ago. Her son said that the father spoke directly to him in a dream and told him to tell her to get on with her new life and relationship..so she did.. wedded a guy and divorced him within the year. Both the wife and son would claim to be born again Christians. Is it unkind to force the issue out in the open…either the dream of dad speaking was simply that, a dream (they claimed it was the deceased speaking from heaven!) or else it was all a terrible joke played on her by the departed spouse… isn’t this sick and tragic!!
Hi HSB
Your brother is on the right track. But the terminology, as usually, is confusing. The body returns to dust (likewise the car, engine and gearbox turns to rust). The emotions / instinct, to do with survival, cease to exist as it is not necessary any more (car computer). The spirit returns to the Creator (fuel leak out, ignites, etc.) who is in Heaven. Mind (not soul, as the soul is the term used for the combination of body and spirit) / or will [the driver] goes to Sheol (not Paradise or Heaven) [hospital] which is a holding place to await the second coming.
It could not have been “the husband” that spoke as he would have been in Sheol. It was probably a “familiar spirit” which explain the adverse outcome from obeying this demon. You cannot blame the dead as they “know (/interact with) nothing”.
My understanding has always been that, the blood sacrifice and death of Yeshua covers our sin…His resurrection conquered death. Now, death has no sting for those who belong to Him.
I just love how Skip sets the theological table and the rest of us get to digest it (or regurgitate it), and enjoy the fellowship, and maybe even re-set the table. This TW will give me much to digest for the next few weeks. Thanks Skip for laying it out there and challenging our assumptions and yours as well. Very risky indeed, but well worth the effort!
I thought Paul was clarifying the prophetic reason to cast away our sins as God has no desire in those death’s. Redemption and resurrection are synonyms each the result of casting away our sins. Yeshua is the process to achieve this. If this reality was not possible then faith has no meaning. Faith is here and now, redemption here and now, death here and now which do we choose to follow. Light, darkness, mixed principles or wait till we meet face to face one day with eternal light or darkness for as this tree falls so does its works follow. Not a new life but a result of a life revealed…
Sorry just my unredefined thoughts.
Yeshua’s resurrection answers mankind’s deepest mystery.
Death is the doorway to eternal life.
Yeshua’s reaction to Lazarus’ death previewed it all. “Our friend Lazarus
has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”
Then Yeshua saves the final word for Himself: “I am the resurrection and the life.
He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me
will never die. Do you believe this?”
“Yes Lord”, she replied,…..:)