Resurrection in the Old Testament

Transcript

the topic for tonight is the resurrection in the Old Testament

it got to thinking a lot of what we know about the resurrection we find from New Testament teaching and even the Old Testament scriptures that speak to Resurrection often we're interpreting them through the exposition of the New Testament authors I'm thinking of of uh the passages cited by Paul in First Corinthians 15 but Peter in Acts chapter 2 among other places and it got me thinking well what would the concept of Resurrection be for somebody in Old Testament times because somebody in the time of the Patriarchs or perhaps later in the time of of Moses and the Exodus or the time to the judges all these different periods of Israel's history leading up to

um the time of Christ in the New Testament what did they think about Resurrection what did they know about it

um relative to what we we do now in light of the New Testament teaching

um it was just curious you know it's one of those put yourself in their shoes kind of things

um

I just want to share an entry on Resurrection from the international Standard Bible encyclopedia

uh it states that it's very remarkable that a doctrine of life after death as an essential part of religion was a very late development in Israel although this Doctrine often highly elaborated was commonly held among the surrounding Nations uh the chief cause of this lateness was that Israel's religion centered predominantly in the ideal of a holy nation consequently the individual was a secondary object of consideration

um this is interesting um it's it's basically saying that Resurrection was an idea that was formulated later in Israel's history because their corporate identity as a nation kind of subsumed their identity as individuals

um and so they were all about the the the the faith the blessing or cursing that the nation would receive rather than the individual accountability accountability that each person would receive how I understand the entry anyway so to support that the ISB references Ezekiel 18 verse 2 the fathers had eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth are set on edge right this was a proverb that apparently was widely spread in ezekiel's time uh this idea that the individuals of one generation would be responsible for the sins of the former and of course we know that there is truth to that but that passage of course goes on to famously say

um behold All Souls are mine God says the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine the soul who sins shall die so really this is a statement about individual accountability before God so Ezekiel was sort of you know God through the prophet was was reorienting the people towards their own individual accountability even though all those individuals in Babylon were currently experiencing judgment that happens corporately on the nation

um so you know that's another part to hold in mind when we're thinking about how individuals thought about their own Futures uh Beyond Death

um

the the entry in the Bible encyclopedia continues nonetheless with the Fuller knowledge of God wider experience and deeper reflection the doctrine was bound to come that's that is the doctrine of individual Resurrection

uh so this is a view of the Resurrection in the Old Testament I found in many Publications as I've read on this topic and I think it is to some extent supported by the explosion of interest in Resurrection that that appears in books that are often dated as appearing later in Israel's history for example two of the clear statements on Resurrection are often dated to the time period of the Captivity I'm thinking of Isaiah 26 19 and Daniel 12. so let's let's go to Isaiah 26 first

and in my mind and as I surveyed the passages that speak to Resurrection the Old Testament these two really are sort of the most Vivid the most detailed uh the most clear-cut hate you really can't be talking about anything else except for body Resurrection after sleep death

um so Isaiah 26 and starting in verse 19. we read

thy dead men shall live together with my dead body shall they arise awake and sing ye that dwell in dust for thy Jews as the duo verbs and the Earth shall cast out the Dead and verse 21 behold the Lord comes out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the Earth for their iniquity the Earth also shall disclose her blood and shall no more cover her sling

so there's there's three details particularly that I want to draw attention to in these verses um one is death as sleep

um in verse 19 we we have you who dwell in the dust awake so awake from your slumbers

the second is that the resurrected the dead will be reconstituted from dust you who dwell in the dust the Earth will give birth to the Dead the Earth will disclose the Bloodshed on it

um those are three really important details uh well two important details the other is Judgment of the righteous and wicked I think this is a little more clear in Daniel 12 but you have those who awake and sing for joy in verse 19 of Isaiah 26 and then in verse 21 you have the Lord coming forth to punish those

um inhabitants of the Earth for their iniquity hey Ben can I ask a question certainly what is it what do you think it means in that last verse in the chapter where it says the Earth will disclose your bloodshed

how do you understand that

uh the Earth will disclose the Bloodshed on it and we'll no more cover it slain so the the dead of the earth those who have died whose blood has been shed are are in the earth in some sense right and now the Earth is bringing them forth it's being disclosed

yeah yeah okay so you think of somebody that died you know in the Revolutionary War for example you know their memory is gone nobody thinks of them and I suppose so disclosing them will be they'll be remembered again they'll be raised again if is that where you go certainly certainly yeah yeah okay thanks man sorry are you talking about the end of verse 19 there

it was verse 21. oh I'm sorry I'm sorry all right thanks

yeah it's interesting Steve to think about disclosing the blood of those who have been shed um you know thinking about the blood of like Abel right uh you know the the blood of you know these these people that may have been forgotten um being in God's book of remembrance that idea isn't found here but uh the idea that they they are hidden until the Earth discloses the blood I like the way that's worded

the first half of that verse if you link it together like because it's talking about Judgment of the uh inhabitants of the Earth makes me think that these are people who were maybe killed um because of the iniquity of the uh of the Killer and you know their blood is hidden I mean you could think of like you know these these horrible uh

trenches where they do genocide and they just you know bulldoze over the bodies and stuff like that and that in that sense the the ground is hiding their their their body and their blood but God's going to turn that around and bring not only life back to to people

um but also the Judgment upon the you know the people who've done the atrocities

um yeah my mind goes to Genesis where uh you know it says of Babel's blood you know your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground

um you know while just well they may be forgotten by man

it's not by God and God will disclose it so that others will see foreign

prophecy he's he's kind of his last Showdown with the Pharisees he says that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of barakaya whom you will kill between the temple and the altar okay uh and that idea but I I something I did get lost on when we were where was that Chris that's Matthew 20 it's quite a quite a blowout between him and the Pharaohs this is yeah he's laying out of the line now he's basically putting it right to him but that's Matthew 23 right before that's a great connection yeah

and then he goes on to say oh Jerusalem Jerusalem how often I would have gathered you but you just would not allow you know God to gather you together but uh I if I might use this occasion with one idea get lost on the Civil War reference and uh you know perhaps like soldiers getting killed and so forth I wasn't I didn't follow that what was that point uh

you know because obviously it's who's responsibility to the resurrection you know not not everybody is responsible to the resurrection so uh I I don't know if that's where we were going with that or not you know so if you want to come back I think you're just talking about people who have died in the past I don't think you're really referencing yeah I'm not kidding yeah all right so it's a period of time in the past where who knows who these people are other than other than a grave site you know yeah you know my mom was down this past weekend and she was talking about our ancestors great-grandparents and I don't know anything about those people and it's only a few Generations back so you know we very we have short memories unless somebody's very famous unless they put their name on some building somewhere where you know have an equation named after them like some of these scientists did right Bernoulli's equation right

um they're just forgotten and so I think that the idea that God calls that to mind in fact this is one of the key things I found as I was going through this is that

really if God's judge for God's justice to those who are righteous and yet are downtrodden in this life and persecuted and never have anything good happen to them God God has to raise them up so that they can be exalted in due time

um I I think that's a theme that comes up over and over again and even if the Old Testament faith will don't have the precise understanding of Resurrection that we've gained from the New Testament writers they must have seen that Injustice and understood that for God to abolish death and all these things about the grave being done away with

um that there would have to be a resurrection but but if I but I would hold okay that you know the resurrection was tied to the promises made to Abraham uh the promises made to David and those in Covenant relationships so that I don't know uh if we're you know going Beyond Israel so uh you know to people that are not in Covenant relationship

certainly so Isaiah 26 and Daniel 12 are kind of my two Heavy Hitters for uh Resurrection passages in the Old Testament in Daniel 12 I'd probably put a little bit higher um all right you all know where I'm going with this Daniel 12 starting in verse 2. many of them that sleep in the dust of the Earth shall awake press to your point many not all right some will keep on sleeping some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt and they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament and they that turn many into righteousness as the Stars forever and ever and so you see those three points I brought before it you know death as sleep those who sleep in the dust shall awake you know they're reconstituted from the dust and finally that there is Judgment of the righteous and the wicked some to everlasting life shame to some to shame and everlasting contempt thank you

all right so so those those two come to mind uh first of all

um you know I was looking at the the Bible encyclopedia and some other authors and a lot of them pointed out that in the inter-testamental period between the Old Testament and New Testament uh there's all these apocryphal texts right there are texts that the Jewish uh the the scribes the editors of the masoretic text did not consider to be inspired but they still had some significance in terms of reflecting popular views not not God inspired views necessarily but things that were sort of swirling in The Ether of Jewish thought

um and you see a lot of statements about resurrection and various views about the afterlife appearing in those so all I only mentioned this to to suggest that there was a you know a lot of interest in this topic in the Years preceding the Advent of Christ

um and certainly by the time that Jesus appeared there was a distinct Group which disavowed the resurrection entirely

um they would ask Jesus questions about seven brothers and you know they all married the same woman and and who's whose wife would that serially bereaved Widow be in the resurrection

um and and by implication when Matthew identifies the Sadducees as they who say that there's no Resurrection he's distinguishing them from another group that that does believe in the resurrection so it's not like they just started believing their Resurrection at that time

um and so you know this I'm not going to lean on the scholars here I'm just telling you sort of what's in

um you know sort of popular thought in the the various readings that I did preparing for this class there's a lot of folks that are saying that this doctrine of the Resurrection was progressively became more common

um during the second temple period so in the 500 years before Christ's Advent and you know Chris made the point just a few minutes ago about how we as christadelphians and our understanding of the promises to Abraham understood that this was baked in from the very beginning and there there are things that God has said about his faithfulness to his people

um reflecting their faith for him of course that's that requires that there be a resurrection right so we've already looked at the blood of Abel crying from the earth for justice um we we haven't mentioned yet um Abraham's faith in offering Isaac

um you know believing that he would receive the dead to life again right the promised Heir for him to be the father of many nations and to also put his his only son to death requires Resurrection

and then of course uh you know David's prophecies that God would not abandon messiah in the grave to be corrupted um and the interesting thing about all of those examples Abel Abraham and David is that their their their elaborated upon and exposited upon in the New Testament so that we understand with Crystal Clarity that this is talking about Resurrection just like God was faithful to his son and bringing him from the grave

um but it's interesting to think about you know without that new testament commentary how those Old Testament folks would have thought about this uh certainly Abraham was faithful he understood the resurrection David was but was your everyday um you know person from whatever tribe

um you know was were the priests preaching about the resurrection um we don't see that necessarily

how widespread this this understanding was any thoughts or comments on that in job 1926 so y'all knew about this and when was job around

um

Abraham's time or before I'm not exactly sure when Joe was supposed to be written but it says after my skin has been destroyed yet in my flesh I will see God I am a selfless see him with my own eyes I am not another how my heart earns within me so we can see there Joe believed that and this is soon after I guess maybe around Moses

hi what was that reference again he was talking about

Steve can you repeat the reference yeah job 19 verse 26. thank you

that's that's great

uh there's there's another interesting one in job that um you know you don't hear about quite as after often in chapter 14 if y'all are in the The Book of Job um

well Steve Bros job 19 verse 26. which is um you know it's it's in Handel's Messiah it's one of my favorite lines about I I know that my redeemer lives so I'm not going to try singing it and at the last you will stand upon the Earth after my skin has been destroyed in my flesh I see shall see God that that's beautiful

um and that's definitely a high moment of job's Faith you know job is kind of going through a low point in chapter 14. um the passage is is a fascinating Resurrection passage but begins with the sort of dismal observation in verse one John 14 verse one man is born of a woman is a few days and full of trouble he comes out like a flower and Withers he flees like a shadow and continues not just job remarking on the brevity of life it's not optimistic but it might be realistic

job continues the analogy to plant life right he's talking about man like a flower so this analogy to plant life is continued in verse seven uh for there is hope for a tree if it be cut down that it will Sprout again and that shoots will not cease though it's root though it's root grow old in the earth and its stump die in the soil yet at the scent of water it will bud and put out branches like a young plant

isn't that interesting the trunk of a tree that's that gets cut down you know the trees cut down

but there's still New Life coming out of that sheet coming out of that stump so in a sense a tree can have a second life after it's been cut down and so job goes on to compare this to a to a man in verse 10 but unlike the tree a man dies and is laying low man breathes his last and where is he you know he doesn't exist anymore as Waters fail from a lake and the river wastes away and dries up so A man lies down and Rises not again till the heavens are no more he will not awake or be roused out of his sleep so so brother Stephen brought us to a very assertive statement about the resurrection and that now job doesn't seem so sure

um it's a strong statement about the permanence of the death state that that's what I would say you know our general experience is that dead bodies don't get up and walk around again I don't think he's necessarily teaching against the resurrection in job 14. he's just acknowledging the ordinary Human Experience that's common to us

um and notice he he does call it sleep

um he says you won't wake out of that sleep but he refers to his sleep which we don't typically think of as a permanent state

so verse 13 job says to God oh that you would hide me in sheol or the grave that you would conceal me until your wrath be passed that you would appoint me a set time and remember me

if a man dies shall he live again all the days of my service I would wait till my renewal should come you would call and I would answer you you would long for the work of your hands

I love the passage because it's almost as if job is grappling with a reality that's too good for him to believe it there's this glimmer of hope that he when he dies and suddenly he felt very low and close to death that he would be like that tree sprouting up again and that God would recall job as a beloved creation the work of God's hands and we call him from the grave and so cool to think about God calling and job answering or us from the grave hearing the call and answering As We rise out of our Graves I I just I love this passage so much

uh as attractive as the job statements are they really have absolutely nothing to do with Resurrection and these are ones we should probably leave off the table in this discussion uh in the context that job he's only talking about his Vindication of his righteousness

with his friends there's uh if he had actually had that as a hope the the whole book would be uh turned on a very different uh

angle

but the context in this is pleadings with his friends it is about his Vindication and when he says that I know my redeemer lives he says talking about someone who's going to eventually stand up for him uh that that word actually translated Redeemer

even though uh you say it ended up very nicely and through the pen of Charles Jennings handles librettist has nothing to do with the Redeemer in the theological sense it's uh

it's about someone standing to take his place more like a courtroom Advocate who would say yeah Dojo is actually right he's being punished unfairly by God

although those pastors are not tested in the New Testament or proven and it's say they're they're pretty attractive as they sound but in reality they're really talking about something I really did let me ask you about that because because I understand where you're coming from and the the drama that's unfolding in the Book of Job uh job has something specific in mind

um but but don't you think there is an uh you know some sense in which we might apply this you know with the lens that we view job through that you know Christ is our paraclete our our Advocate and Comforter

um you know could could be seen overlaid in in these words

who said if that were the case

uh a A or say it would be completely uh

uncontextual for what he's really getting at and B if

putting jobs the theological

uh issue of the Book of Job which is really about God's contributed Justice if job really believed in a resurrection where everything would be made right at that time his his whole uh basis of all his other speeches would be very different about how how he would be approaching the situation he would not be questioning in other words that our concept of the Resurrection is based on the fact that we are raised by God's grace and that's not at all where where job was coming from

in the sense that job is complaining that God is uh unjust and punishing a righteous man is that what he's he never says that God's unjust he's he continually says that he cannot understand how this could happen to him because

yeah he he says a couple times I know God is just but how is this happening because I don't deserve it this is big question for him to understand and it's an answer that can never be resolved inside of his framework of theology four or the three friends they all have the same framework

you know all of those speeches have to be interpreted understanding their language in their their Pursuits of what their uh their their what they're going after so how do you take the verse that um Stephen brought up from job 19 where he speaks about uh is flesh being destroyed or his body being destroyed and then he would see his

what's the verse Steve uh it's verse 26 it's his skin being destroyed but yet in his flesh you shall see God so I was wondering does that mean like this you know the the boils or whatever on his skin he isn't actually dying and being raised I mean because I've heard the same view David and I've wrestled with that a little bit too is that what you think it means in that context well yeah because that was literally happening to him he was being destroyed and he's still hoping

that it's some some way somehow that he will understand why God brought all this upon him he said there is an answer out there someday we'll have it it's not happening right now he's looking for this answers to what's going on under the assumption that what is happening to him has it's like an impossibility

uh let me think of it as a flip side of of the passage in Deuteronomy where it says that cursed is the man who hangs on the tree

okay Jesus hung on a tree but yet he was sinless this created an impossible situation and it is part of the death of the law because the Theology of the context of Deuteronomy could not accommodate the someone hanging on a tree

who had an old right yeah and in job's theology he's trying to say I cannot how do you solve this problem of of a righteous person suffering

they can't come up with an answer and they never will until uh well later in the book with the later revelation of the law healing in God but they're not going to figure this out so that's why you have all these statements that Joe makes it's like pleading I know there's an answer I know I might be dead

someday someone will figure this out but say it won't happen until uh

New Testament theology enters in

um

but Job 14 I I think it's very clearly talking about about death you know you start starting off about being born a few of days right

you know oh that you would hide me in the grave until the appointed time so the appointed time is after he's been hidden in the grave

I'm gonna have to to I think grapple with that one a little more to

and maybe just study the whole context of the Book of Job to understand more fully uh your point on that Brother David Ben if I might while we have a a moment here and I appreciate brother David's comments and uh you know actually hey I think it's something we'll certainly to look into but then your class wasn't intended to be on job open we ended up in job because you were looking for we were looking for very old references to resurrection and the answer that Jesus gives to the Sadducees okay at that time is bringing us way back okay he says I am the god of Abraham I am the god of Jacob and and uh Isaac and Jacob so and and they just didn't understand the idea that I am or I will be okay the god of the living uh but that certainly is an old that goes back to Exodus you know three so that goes way back and that's that's Jesus's answer actually to them about the the fact there is no Resurrection

yeah thank you

I did want to look at a couple passages that address the the point made in the Bible encyclopedia about um National Resurrection um and how that there was sort of this this corporate view of of

you know the the people the children of Israel as being part of a nation that would be judged not as individuals that we would be judged as righteous or Wicked and and one of those passages is is found in the book of Hosea in a chapter 13. so if you if you turn with me there

was it 13. so this is a prophecy

against Israel

um

Hosea prophesied during the reign of jeroboam 2 which was in the final years of the the Northern Kingdom of Israel and um

in

Isaiah 13 verse 4 we read yet I am the Lord your God from the land of Egypt and you shall know know God but me for there is no savior beside me verse 9 up on down verse 9 o Israel you have destroyed yourself but in me is thine help

um

and verse 14 is the important one here I will Ransom them that's that's Ephraim you know compared to verse 12. a ransom Ephraim from the power of the Grave I will redeem them from death oh death I will be thy plagues o grave I will be thy destruction repentance shall be hid from mine eyes

um and so there's an interesting Connection in here in verse 14 that might easily become Lost in Translation

um instead of oh grave I will be thy destruction which is the King James version um if you have the ESV or the nasb you have where is your sting

um and maybe Brother David or someone else who can can speak a little more to sort of the textual background of these texts you know you know destruction versus stings those are very different things and I wonder if there is a difference between the the Septuagint and the masoretic text here

um and possibly the ESV and ASP are doing us a favor by using the language of the sting that's familiar to us from First Corinthians 15 54. oh death where's my sting oh grave Wears Like victory

um ESV and nasb give us standstat destruction

um like the King James version and even other modern versions like the NIV say

um oh grave I will be thy destruction

so that was kind of an interesting one um Paul appears to be quoting Hosea 13 in First Corinthians 15 54. um but it would be easily missed um

in certain translations of Hosea

so I kind of skipped around a little bit verse 4 9 and 14. um you know Hosea 14 is all about judgment on Israel but interspersed between them is is a message of Hope in God you're kind of reading between the lines picking out verses four which speaks of God as the Savior verse 9 which speaks of God as a helper verse 14 which speaks of God as the Redeemer from the power of the grave

um but you may come across somebody who objects to the idea of bodily Resurrection being taught in the Old Testament saying well Jose is talking about the Israel as a nation it's not necessarily talking about individuals right that's what the Bible encyclopedia was sort of saying you know there was this corporate it was the nation

um and I think that's poured out in Hosea 14. um but using for example when he says I will Ransom them from the power of the Grave right grave is a metanim for death

um he basically means death you know holes in the ground where bodies are placed don't need to be they have no power of themselves there's no power to Ransom them from

um you know I think about at work we talk about killing a project right it doesn't mean that there's like uh we gotta kill the project you know there's everybody understands it just means we're going to stop working on it but we would never say I'm killing a project where we're going to tell a project if there wasn't some other sense in which death was understood so when God talks about ransoming Israel from the power of the Grave sure he's talking about Israel's Nation not only dying but being brought back to life and hosea's audience knew what it meant for a human to die but I want to know what they understood about being redeemed from Death was there some understanding of the substance behind the metaphor that would allow God and Hosea to use that kind of language

was just a thought

I think even these passages that speak of national Resurrection sort of assume some awareness that individuals uh could would be Resurrected

lots of comments before we move on

Ben I just just to uh to support what you're saying is you know they would say to Jesus will you at this time set up the kingdom as as if uh you know they didn't have really this expectation that there was going to be uh that the kingdom was going to be established uh uh in after the resurrection in in the next life okay that they just thought the Messiah would come and he would run the Romans out and set up the kingdom okay and they had really lost sight of this whole aspect

hey Ben do you have more uh more sections on National Resurrection

oh they do there are other examples okay

are we uh changing years

no I was just gonna wait

oh no don't wait Jim let us have it uh Ezekiel 37 the valley of dry bones yes yes okay all right

yeah that's the one I mean I I would put that maybe even after Isaiah 26 and Daniel 12. maybe it's Ezekiel 37 right I was wondering why you didn't laughs

Jim why don't you take us there oh no no you studied it I I just it came to mind and when I read it I thought oh that is the nation being raised up it's not individuals it's the whole nation that he's talking to about raising them from the dead it's not it's not an individual issue at all uh he he pictures the whole of Israel

Ezekiel 37 is like it's one of those prophecies that that I love like I I find a hard time with some of some of the prophecies where you don't receive the interpretation

um you have to figure it out on your own Ezekiel 37 it's it's pretty clearly spelled out

um Jim would you do us uh the kindness of reading verses one through ten

yeah sure uh NIV or King James do you care well whatever you prefer all right

the hand of the Lord was upon me and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of the valley it was full of Bones he led me back and forth among them and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley bones that were very dry he asked me son of man can these bones live

I said oh Sovereign Lord you alone no then he said to me prophesy to these bones and say to them

Dry Bones hear the word of the Lord this is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones

I will make breath enter you and you will come to life I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin I will put breath in you and you will come to life then you will know that I am the Lord so I prophesied as I was commanded and as I was prophesying there was a noise

a rattling sound and the bones came together bone to bone I looked and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them but there was no breath in them then he said to me prophesy to the breath prophesy son a man and say to it this is what the Sovereign Lord says come from the Four Winds o breath and breathe into these sling that they may live so I prophesied as he commanded me and the breath entered them they came to life and stood up on their feet a vast Army

all right

so you have the three stages the dry bones the

re-assembled but still dead bodies and and then finally the living beings with the breath in them and um like I was saying the verses that follow just

described what Ezekiel Saw and interpret the prophecy verse 11 says these bones are the whole house of Israel so in ezekiel's time

the valley of dry bones and they're they're described as being dry because they weren't recently dead they were surely thoroughly dead and decomposed and and those substance left to them and and they're scattered throughout across the valley so they're really in a state of disarray and disorder um and that's sort of what this state of the nation was um in this period of captivity that's how they they saw themselves

um in terms of possible references to Resurrection what is this book of remembrance that Moses didn't want to be taken out of and that is referred to at the very end of the Old Testament uh in Malachi does that indicate that this book of remembrance stood it says um Malachi is written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name they shall be mine future says the Lord of hosts in the day when I make up my treasured possession whenever that is so was there in the book of remembrance a hidden reference perhaps to uh Resurrection

thanks sister that's a good thought uh what was the reference again in Malachi

um it's right at the end it's uh chapters three at the end of the chapter starting I guess you'd say with verse 16 but the it's verse yeah the end of verse 16 and then it gives you that context

um

yeah that's that's a good one um I think that comes back to that that verse we were talking about with Steve about the Earth disclosing its dead and sort of that God remembers and calls them back to mind again Moses though also speaks of

pizza too so it wasn't something that just came up at the end of the writing of the Old Testament somehow Moses already knew about this book of remembrance

um

what's the reference to Nexus 32 um just let me get it for you here um Exodus 32 32. if you will forgive their sin if not let me I pray thee out of thy book which thou is written

so this is Moses interceding for the people

offering himself to be blotted out

of the book

oh and then verse 33 the Lord said to Moses Whoever has sinned against me him my blood out of my book that kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier about the individual accountability that God has always in the ultimate sense maybe there's National judgment in you know

in some sense but in the ultimate sense it's those who have sinned who are blotted out of the book

yeah that's really interesting so so God's book of remembrance here you're connecting that with Malachi 3 verse 16 and exodus 32 verse 32. foreign

hey there that's better

uh you mentioned

uh briefly the uh Abraham's belief in the resurrection

because of the uh

your ultimate necessity for to fulfill the promises

uh it's a little actually uh it's it's stronger than that

um in Genesis 22 where he and Isaac

are headed up to Mount Moriah

and he says to the servants we will go and worship afar and return to you uh

the the word return is actually in uh it's a plural form he I don't know if too many English versions uh mention this but it would be properly translated we will go and we will return to you and at that point uh they were going with full intention that that there was going to be a a death that he was going to actually slay Isaac

and the resurrection of Isaac would occur

we're going in we're going to come back so in it so that was like a pre-figurement of of you know of Greater Resurrection to come but it's uh

that was certainly an expression of Abraham's Faith at least in an immediate Resurrection I think that would certainly be one of the strongest uh indications of belief in God's power over death in the Old Testament

and the writing of the Hebrews picks up on that too dude does does any David yes yeah that is and I think those are important points too is you know where in the New Testament do you find uh

their interpreter uh affirmation that this was what was going on in the Old Testament

considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead from which figuratively speaking he did receive him back

Hebrews 11 verse 19. yeah so brother Dave can I ask you a question about um you said in Genesis 22 verse 5 in my English translation it says abide ye here with the ass and I in the lad will go Yonder In Worship

and come again to you there's no pronoun we will come again or I will come again is is that more clear in the Hebrew yes yeah it's it says we will come again to you that that's unambiguous oh that's awesome and it's

Brian you're on mute

sorry it's all three verbs we will worship as well as one of the ones that also has that we in it

we will return and we will worship

worship then return yeah okay we will go we will worship and we will come again

I'm gonna have to mark that in

that's a good one

Ben can I just pick up on Ethel's point about this book of remembrance yes please

um so in Malachi chapter 3 is I think the passage that Ethel had referenced which is uh speaking specifically about this book of remembrance um but about that same time period in history you know we find Nehemiah and there's a passage in Nehemiah chapter 13 where uh the prayer is that God will not forget uh and and I think the exact wording in the in the NIV is remember me for this oh my God and do not blot out but I have so Faithfully done as though there was this book and you know where the name was written or the name could be blotted out

um and you go to you know the end of Revelation when the books are opened and I just can't help but think is this the book of remembrance is this the Book of Life are they one and the same kind of a kind of an interesting study but maybe for another day

yeah there's there's so many um so many passages that speak to Revelation uh Resurrection I should say

um you know there were a number of passages in the Psalms um that we could have gone to if we had time psalm 16 is the one that Peter quotes and in Acts 2 you will not abandon my soul to sheol or let your Holy One see corruption

you make known to me the path of life in your presence there's fullness of joy at your right hand are Pleasures forevermore right the Son of God sitting at the right hand of the father experiencing Pleasures forevermore because he did not leave his soul and Shield or let the Holy One see corruption I you know that's a great Resurrection Passage uh there's many others um that the Old Testament is full of teaching on the resurrection

um so you know some of them are a little more clear than others I really enjoyed kind of putting myself in in the shoes of somebody from that period and thinking about to what extent would I be able to discern this you know what we consider now a truly fundamental teaching

um and I think the answer is that you know it was always there right so those who were spiritually perceptive

could always have accessed it um you know Abraham was the father of the nation and these promises were so important to the people and and knowing that Abraham did not receive them that the land in his lifetime

um would have made them think I mean there's many things that would have made them think so

um this was a fascinating study I'm grateful I was able to share it with you we've got a few more minutes here if if anybody has any other thoughts or comments they'd like to share Floors open

but Ben you mentioned that Sadducees so that they had the same scriptures and yet they denied so the teaching is there but for somebody who's not wanting to see they can you know it's like a lot of scriptural truth you can kind of ignore things too and deceive yourself into you know Jesus said you greatly air I mean that's that's what we can do if we're not careful to read what what the scriptures are saying my mind Brian goes to the uh the bronze serpent where ultimately they were told to melt it down because they had lost all Effectiveness you know they they looked upon the bronze and they no longer saw what they were supposed to gather the spiritual significance was lost and uh it seems the same thing with the word of God that the the uh suggestive uh understanding that was coming out of I am the god of the living uh and these various things that David says you know David is told that you shall see thy son sitting upon the throne okay yeah those subtle

mocks were lost over the course of time and so forth

Brother Richard keeps raising his hand

mentioned Lazarus

uh Mr Martha knowing that he was going to be raised from the dead so she was she was a Jew who had not witnessed the resurrection of Jesus

um and she was confident the her brother would be raised in the last day and you know certainly that's not a reference to just a couple days that day right right

Benny I think that Richard's microphone is not working tonight oh

oh we can't hear you Richard um

he wants to jump in I was feeling so bad I know so just so I can help out God is not a man who can lie

laughs

Richard you might yeah I was just going to say you know it's interesting you make that point that it was there and yet and yet people didn't see it um that's no less true today you know there's all kinds of Bible truths that are the pair there that people don't see because they don't you they don't look at the Bible as

um a holistic um saying they look at you know you can find whatever you want in scripture you know if you want if if you want to make a point you know you can find it the the challenge is to let scripture speak to you and I don't I don't think that practice has really changed whether it's Old Testament or new the practice of I'll have it say what I wanted to say because this is what I believe

um we're just incredibly blessed to have the opportunity to say well we can't believe that because the scripture also says this or It also says that so you know you want to believe you go to heaven then you go to the parable of Lazarus you know it's there if you want to believe it and then you just stick to your beliefs as opposed to sticking to the word of Truth so that that's that's the blessing that we have in my opinion people don't want to bring the Bible into it when you when you come up with something you know when they they come up with something about having going say or and you you out you say well you know if if you look if you look here if you want to read this and they they just turn cold that's my my like go to the Bible are you kidding me

like no it's just

oh they'll go to the Bible where it where it fits their argument and then any other argument yeah one verse

that's just the way that's just the way it is that's the way it's always been yeah

Ted sleeperhead is saying that some people re some people read the Bible to believe what they find and some people read the Bible to find what they believe um

yeah so true

dang that was one of the things that struck me about your opening comments I'm not sure you were reading uh referring to uh

you know a writing on the development of the concept of Resurrection but uh where Israel had a national identity and more so than an individual Identity or promise versus the surrounding Nations which held to uh Resurrection but I think more of a heaven-going afterlife type Resurrection but it struck me because one of the first things that will hit you if you were not raised in the truth and you come to start reading the Bible as an adult is the Bible is very much about the Earth and God's plan for the Earth and about the land uh versus the teachings and the religions around you which is always mythical mystical and about spiritual Heaven going okay and then when you start reading the Bible you say it's not about that at all it's very much about God's plan for the Earth and about the land and about Israel and about the nationalism of it so you can see how Israel could lose that okay the subtle aspects of it and just held on to the meat of the promises in the land and the Nations

compared to the Nations around them

yeah well thank you everybody for your your comments and thoughts contributions I really enjoyed that I hope it was helpful

um we're at time now