23 July 2024
This is not required reading by any means. I'll be addressing something more academic in nature and it may be hard to follow. Still, there are some folks in our family who are interested, and they are the ones who might be blessed by this. As always, it's just a working model, not some absolute truth. It helps us find a place to stand where obedience is easier.
It's likely you already understand that this world is not ultimate reality. We have likened it to a simulation constructed solely to imprison Satan, some fallen spirits some call "Watchers" and the spirits of their offspring, the Nephilim. But we aren't normally capable of seeing their presence here; it requires an eternal nature to sense them, because they are all eternal in nature. Flesh cannot discern them. They refer to their existence as "in the Abyss" as if it were some place attached to our world, not actually in it. They come out of the Abyss to engage in mischief among humans, but can be forced to return.
The human fleshly carcass is mortal, and participates in the mortality of all the various creatures in our world. Nothing about the human form is eternal, though we have been shown that, when eternal beings manifest in this world, they typically appear human in form. I can't say if there's something in that which is based on the essence of things, but it's what we have come to expect. But the fleshly form that houses us belongs here; it does not go into Eternity.
Some humans do have an eternal nature housed in flesh. Apparently, the majority of humanity at any given time do not manifest an eternal nature in any way. The Hebrew Scriptures are coy about this, typically avoiding clinical language. All discussion of eternal things is cloaked in parables, metaphor, symbolism, etc. This is consistent with the broader Ancient Near East from which the Hebrew people were drawn out into Covenant with Jehovah. God expresses Himself in such symbolism most of the time. It got the job done.
It's a kind of coded communication that was meant to exclude those who do not have, or fail to tap into, an eternal nature. The eternal nature is capable of operating in that kind of language. It knows what to make of it, and can then formulate a plan of action for the flesh to follow. The Law of Moses was meant to alert eternal spirits to a basic frame of reference, but the intent was to awaken the interface between the fleshly mind and the eternal spirit. The spirit knows God; the flesh does not, and cannot.
The "heart" in Hebrew thinking was the interface between spirit and flesh. The heart was to be cleansed and made fit to rule over the flesh. The heart is built into the fleshly form, but the spirit is not. Whether or not a spirit exists in humans by default cannot be determined, and doesn't matter in practical terms. It is dead until the Lord awakens it by uniting it with His Spirit. There's probably more to it than that, but we'll never know, because it's not explained in Scripture. For all we can grasp, it is flatly a matter of God's initiative.
Indeed, there are implications of things written in the New Testament that suggest eternal spirits were already preexistent before clothed in fleshly natures. It's not going to be found in proof-texts; it's the broad concept behind many passages. It encourages us to see the narrative of the Fall in terms of eternal beings compelled to descend from an eternal existence into a mortal one. The mortal body is depicted as something that will eventually fall away, while the spirit lives on.
Included in the flesh is the mind or intellect. The human conscious awareness is less a thing and more a manifestation of living flesh. Dead flesh is not conscious, but there may be a conscious awareness apart from flesh. We are forced to waffle on the term "soul" because it doesn't seem to have any precise definition. It appears in some contexts to include the intellect and connects to the heart, but does not include the spirit. It may be roughly equivalent to the conscious awareness. It's not exactly clear -- typical of Hebrew thinking. It's a functional term, not clinical. Still, it points to something that will face the diversion into either Paradise or Hell at death.
But then, there's the Final Judgment where damned souls are dropped into the Lake of Fire and that's it. They cease to exist, apparently. The reason we think so is because God had threatened to throw some of the elohim council in there, saying that He would judge them like mortals. Heiser mentions that, and it apparently includes Satan and those imprisoned with him in the Abyss. So the Lake of Fire consumes, but something Jesus calls "Hell" is a different kind of fire that torments for a long time until the Final Judgment.
Here's what makes it so hard to parse all of this out: Hebrew is the source culture for what we know. Jesus was sent to teach and preach from within that culture. Heiser explains that when that culture and language was translated into Greek (the Septuagint) a lot was lost. We went from a mystical symbolism, but with lots of different terms meant to distinguish things, to a mostly literal language of Greek with fewer terms for spiritual things. That's because Greek culture denies the existence of a Spirit Realm, or the Unseen Realm. Indeed, the Greeks believed the existence of an eternal spirit was barbarian mythology, just a figure of speech used in literature, and that the resurrection of Christ was not possible.
Heiser points out how the Hebrew distinction between angels and elohim disappears in Greek. The rebellious elohim confined to the Abyss become "fallen angels", when there is actually no such thing in Hebrew thinking. No angels have ever rebelled; they are portrayed as incapable of doing so. Meanwhile, in Greek there's no words for elohim as creatures more or less of a type that includes God. Hebrew Scripture pointedly says God is one of them (Elohim singular versus elohim plural), yet in a class by Himself. This seems to be the crux of their rebellion, since they act like they should have all the prerogatives of God. The prophets in symbolic terms accuse Satan of stepping outside his authority in claiming God's glory for himself.
The terminology of Divine Election implies that, at least in terms of a working model, some of us will eventually escape this world and return to a restored Eden. We will go back to being God's gardeners, living in a mortal world with an immortal form like the resurrected Christ -- disappearing, passing through physical barriers, transporting across great distances instantly, and probably unrestricted by time in general. Nobody says much about those who aren't Elect, except that they'll roast in Hell for a while until the Day of Judgment, and then they'll cease to exist. Whether or not they have eternal spirits is missing the point, since they'll meet the same fate as Satan and the rebellious elohim and whoever else is in the Abyss. Functionally, Hell and the Abyss are the same thing.
Any questions?
Comments
Jay DiNitto
"I can't say if there's something in that which is based on the essence of things, but it's what we have come to expect."
Perhaps not very relevant, but my convictions tell me there is something about the humanoid form in particular that is divine, and that other beings that would be parallel to us in creation somewhere -- either as ETs or existing outside of our natural domain -- would be similar in "look" to us. That's not me being human-centric but "God is trying to tell us something about Himself by making any of His likenesses similar." There's a story I have yet to write that uses this idea as a small part of it.
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