Tag: 2 Corinthians 5

Do Humans Have a Body in Hell and Sheol?

I bet you were lying in bed wondering about this very question. I grant you that it is an obscure issue for which we have little information but it is a parallel to the important issue of whether we have a body in Heaven (to which I say yes), and it connects to same verse in Scripture, which is 2 Corinthians 5:1f.

5 For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, 3 if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. 4 For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

2 Corinthians 5:1-4(ESV)

Our body that we have during this life is a “tent”. It houses our spirit, but it is a legitimate part of what we are. That is why there is a resurrection of the body. Paul says that we do not wish to be “unclothed”, which means without a body. Can such a situation even exist?

The Bible does not say where Heaven, Sheol, or the final Lake of Fire actually are. The ancients conceived of Sheol as the center of the Earth, and Heaven as being outside the furthest reach of the universe; but that does not make it so. Recent work in theoretical physics uses the concept of other dimensions. Albeit these dimensions are not observable because they are very small. There is no constraining reason why they must be small. What if they are unobservable just because we are constrained to live and observe in only three spatial dimensions. What if other dimensions do exist, explaining some of the odd behavior of gravity and quantum physics, but actually define the space of parallel universes. These universes would not have to be in lock-step with ours because they are only connected at the quantum level. This could define the space of Heaven, Sheol, the Abyss, and possibly Hell.

Going with this very unprovable theory, that would be why an “earthly” body is Earthly. It only can move in the dimensions of this space-time. And why a “heavenly” is Heavenly. It moves in Heaven’s dimensions. Could Sheol be its own space-time with a Sheol appropriate body. Not sure of the adjective for that one.

Descriptions of Sheol (please use the Search box if you are not familiar with this term to find posts about it) seem very physical. For example the rich man in Luke 16:

23 and in Hades (same as Sheol), being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. 24 And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’

Luke 16:23-24 (ESV)

Flame, water, cool, tongue all seem very physical. This would also connect to the general resurrection of the dead. The damned would need an earthly body to stand before God at Judgment Day on Earth. It would also connect to the destruction of those Earthly bodies:

“For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. 2 But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. 3 And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.

Malachi 4:1-3 (ESV)

They won’t be needing those bodies where they are going next. Is the final Lake of Fire (i.e. Gehenna or Hell) also a “bodily experience”? Maybe it is not even connected to our multi-dimensional reality. Maybe “forsakeness” means total disconnection from creation? I think that is an interesting and disturbing thought.

One final thought. Paul speaks about being “unclothed”. The spirit of Samuel is “raised up” from the good neighborhood of Sheol by the Witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28:13-15). He seems “unclothed” in the bodily sense. He appears “wrapped in a robe”. What about ghosts? I don’t know how they would fit in the model given us by Scripture. Are they figments of a person’s imagination? Are they demonic? Are they people “brought up” from Sheol and left here? Are they just part of a tired sit-com (I prefer the British version)? The disciples thought they were seeing a ghost when Jesus came to them walking on the water. From where did such an idea come? I don’t know.

Again, most of this post is unproveable and unstated by Scripture verbatim. But it does make sense to me. I hope you find it thought provoking and may be only find through experience about the Heavenly body and your Resurrected body.

The Human Soul

The text explores the concept of consciousness, discussing its relationship with the body, spirit, and soul from both scientific and biblical perspectives. It argues that while natural materialism reduces humanity to the body, biblical teachings emphasize a multi-faceted existence. Death is viewed as unnatural, separating spirit and body, necessitating a heavenly counterpart.

From a scientific standpoint, we speak of such things as consciousness as being the mysterious part of the human experience. Is consciousness an illusion? Is it just the chemical and electrical activity among our neurons or is there something more?

The Bible talks about our spirit, soul and body. Natural materialism wants to reduce us to one thing–a body. The Bible speaks of three. The body is easy to identify. The spirit seems to be something not of this three-dimensional space, but rather something connected to the body during our lifetime. The “soul” is sometimes used as a synonym for the spirit like here:

28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Matthew 10:28 (ESV)

This passage is interesting because it speaks of destruction, which apparently doesn’t refer to elimination. It also speaks of a body in Hell. Even the lost get a resurrected body, but it seems to be turned to ash according to Malachi 4. This must be a body for the space of Hell, the counterpart to a Heavenly body for the redeemed. The necessity of an accompanying body to our spiritual component is what is relevant to my blog today.

Paul says,

23 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Thessalonians 5:23 (ESV)

Here Paul is either being redundant or he is making a distinction between soul and spirit. The soul seems to be the interaction of spirit and body. It may be what you see when you image a brain. The soul could include our consciousness or just be an element of it. Where do such things as cognition, memory, self-awareness reside? When we are as we are created to be, a body and spirit united, then the answer is all of the above. Our memories are stored in our brain (a part of the body). The soul is the functioning of spirit and body together.

Death is an unnatural thing when compared to how God designed us. It is because of God’s sentence on sin that spirit and body are torn apart. Cognition, memory, consciousness go with the spirit. Be we are not whole without a body. We are “found naked” .

5 For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, 3 if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. 4 For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

2 Corinthians 5:1-4 (ESV)

“Unclothed” must be a ghost-like state, lacking the benefits of spirit-soul-body. It is because of this passage that I am convinced we have a heavenly body. The idea that Heaven is a part of an other-dimensional space than Earth helps this to make sense. Our bodies that we possess now are constrained to occupy the three-dimensional space of this universe. A parallel universe, like Heaven could be, would require a different body. Perhaps Hell would require a different one yet.

With each body-spirit combination comes a soul. The interaction of body and spirit. The description of our resurrected, earthly body as being “spiritual” (1 Corinthians 15:44) may refer to the ability to unite them both–our spirit with both the resurrected, earthly body and the heavenly body.

How far can science probe this? Not very. It can measure the explosion of energy when the spirit and body disconnect-likely the temporary disappearance of the soul. But science is also constrained to examining these dimensions. It certainly points to the existence of others through quantum mechanics, but that is all.

Revelation from God, though sometimes cryptic, gives us a greater insight into ourselves–an exciting insight.

Confusing Heaven and the New Earth

One thing that seems to escape many Christians, even clergy and theologians, is that Heaven and the New Earth are two separate places. The idea that there is just Heaven and Hell has been broadly taught for generations. We have even gone soft on these. “Heaven” is almost never capitalized. Does this mean that the editors of various hymnals and Bible translations consider “Heaven” to be a concept rather than a place with a name? And many Christians don’t believe in Hell.

If you are of the impression that there is only Heaven and Hell, where did you learn that? What Bible passages were used? Or was this just the general description given you as a child by adults who never studied the Scripture for this topic? Such an idea can become entrenched in our mind. We are certain that it must be in the Bible, but it is not.

A couple of linguistic things add to our confusion. First, the Greek word for “Heaven” is used to describe “the atmosphere” (first heaven), “the universe” (second heaven), and the dwelling place of God or what I would describe as “Heaven” (third heaven).

“Hell” an English word with a long history of where it came from, is often sloppily assigned to two Aramaic words, “Gehenna”, which was just transliterated into Greek (so it is a Greek word too), and “Sheol” which is translated into Greek as “Hades”. I think it is interesting that one word is just borrowed by Greek (like the word “hard drive” is rarely changed in other languages) and the other is assigned a word with a lot of meaning. “Hades” is also a place of the dead for the Greek people. From this I would conclude that “Gehenna” and “Sheol” are not synonyms. They are two place names, and the latter conceptually fits with the Greek idea of Hades. The result is the tendency to merge places that exist before Judgment Day with those that only exist after Judgment Day.

Heaven, as most of us would think of it, clearly exists now. It is the visible dwelling place of God, the Cherubim (also called Seraphim) and the angels. It will continue to exist after Judgment Day but will not be the visible dwelling place of God. The New Earth is something spoken of in both Old and New Testaments. It is not Heaven and only will exist after Judgment Day. It becomes the formal dwelling place of God with the arrival of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21.

Sheol/Hades is a place for the damned (and until Jesus made atonement for sin, the Old Testament righteous) that exists today. What I would call “Hell”, Jesus calls “Gehenna”, and John calls the “Lake of Fire”; does exist until after Judgment Day. That it is something distinct from Sheol/Hades is established in Revelation 20:14 where Hades is thrown into the Lake of Fire. I guess at that point they become the same thing.

So will we be in Heaven forever? With the resurrection of our bodies on Judgment Day, the New Earth will become both our permanent dwelling and the dwelling place of God (Rev. 21:1-4); but there are some clues that Heaven remains in the mix somehow. First there is this:

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

2 Corinthians 5:1

Does Paul mean “heavens” as the universe or as the current dwelling place of God? Is “heaven” wherever God dwells or a place of its own? I believe Paul is not speaking of the universe and that Heaven is a place, even after God dwells with man on the Earth. Another passage:

According to his (God’s) great mercy he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.

1 Peter 1:3-4 (NIV 1984)

We do go to Heaven when we die. God and probably the New Jerusalem are a part of Heaven that is eternal, but will move to the New Earth. Still, I think this is saying that part of our eternal inheritance is Heaven, the place. The New Earth and Heaven could be our home eternally. There is the movement of the New Jerusalem, which could be the sum total of Heaven, to the New Earth. This would create a parallel to the merging of Sheol and Gehenna described above, but symmetry is all that interpretation has going for it.

While I can see that some of the questions that can be raised about our eternity are unanswered, merging Heaven and the New Earth doesn’t honor the Scriptures, which clearly describes them as distinct. Either way, these things are ours by grace. God prepares for us a body or bodies and a sin and curse free place of existence where we are with Him.

What Is Death?

We all have to go through it.   This is the “After Death Site”.  So what is death?

If you are a strict materialist, you believe that death is the end of a living creature–nothing more.  This is what it looks like for sure.  But revelation from all corners of religion and near death experiences, let alone just the experience of being conscious suggests that death is something more.

Medically death is easy to measure.  The heart stops. Brain activity becomes immeasurable in a short period of time.   The experience from the inside, as reported by those who went through a near death experience, is very similar for all people.  You experience a tunnel with a light at the end.  The light has proven to be Heaven, or Hell (technically Sheol), or something that appears heavenly but is likely a deception.

What has happened? Not having direct experience myself, I lean on 2 Corinthians 5:1-4 for insight:

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.  For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked.  For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened–not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

This passage is a little confusing in that it weaves two metaphors for our bodies–a dwelling and clothing.  When we are “alive” here on Earth our bodies are referred to as a tent because they are temporary and fragile.  We groan while in them, because we are aging, experience pain, and want, and Monday mornings.  That being true, we still have the will to live.  We do not want to be “unclothed”, meaning that our spiritual self would have no connection to our physical self.

Death “unclothes” us for a moment.  Our earthly body is too damaged to go on, and we drift free of it.  It is the nature of our “soul/conscious” to reconnect, but not on Earth.  We don’t reincarnate.  We are drawn away instead and reconnect to a body either in Heaven or Sheol.  This is what the Bible refers to as the “first” death.  Could this process be sloppy, allowing some to reincarnate and others to drift free like ghosts?  I don’t know, but the Bible would suggest not.

For those who have a Heavenly dwelling because of Jesus, death has a two-edged significance.  To be separated from our bodies is part of the punishment for sin.  Our bodies are sin damaged and we must leave them.  So death is bad.  But on the other side, death allows us to connect with our Heavenly dwelling (further clothed), or as 2 Corinthians says, “be swallowed up by life”.  So death is good.

For those who do not have a place in Heaven, they emerge in Sheol (please see the other articles on Sheol in this blog).  This is not good.  You are aware of the judgment that has befallen you and you have a physicality that can experience the harshness of your new environment.  It is not the final judgment, but it much like it.  Those who have experienced this through a near death experience have reported about it with terror and shame.  They did not want to return.

Death can be as scary as Halloween presents it, or it can be the greatest moment of your existence to date.  Jesus is the difference maker.

Let not your hearts be troubled.  Believe in God; believe also in me.  In my Father’s house are many rooms.  If that were not so, I would have told you.  (John 14:1-2)

Do You Get a Body in Heaven?

Do you like your body?  Probably the majority of people have some complaint about their bodies.  Either they are the wrong shape or size or their functioning is poor.  Or both.  If you have a body that you consider beautiful, that is great.  Don’t get to comfortable with it.  Age comes to everyone.

We will all grow old, unless we die young.  We will acquire physical misfunctions.  That is the way it works in a world altered by sin.  And that is really all we deserve.  It is only by the forgiveness that comes through Jesus’ death and resurrection that we have a promise of more.

This blog has tried to bring out what is promised in the Bible about life after death.  There is Sheol and then, after Judgment Day, the lake of fire for those who remain unforgiven.  There is Heaven and then, at Judgment Day, a resurrection of the body and a New Earth for those who belong to God.  Details are limited.  Questions are abundant.

Do we get a body in Heaven?  The resurrection of the body is for the New Earth, so is Heaven a sort of body-less dream state?  There is surprisingly little said about our heavenly experience, but there is enough said to establish that Heaven is a destination for the Redeemed.  A couple of passages talk about our heavenly “physicality”.  First, 2 Corinthians 5:1-5:

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, 3 if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. 4 For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5 He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

Because Paul is using a metaphor, you might not catch that “the building” is your heavenly body.  Our spirit is “clothed” with a body (house) “eternal in the heavens”.  Now that is confusing.  We know that we will have a resurrected body on a New Earth from the Bible.  How can we have also a body that is eternal, not temporary, in the heavens?  Furthermore, why would you want a resurrected, earthly body if you have an eternal, heavenly body?  What are the differences?

I will be honest, I don’t know.  But I am really excited to find out.  I also have a theory that I can neither test nor substantiate.  More about this in just a bit.  Another passage that seems relevant here is 1 Corinthians 15:39-41:

39 For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40 There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. 41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.

While “heavenly bodies” may refer to the type of thing mentioned in verse 41, but I think it is referring to our heavenly bodies.  The glory of that body is different than the glory of our resurrected earthly body, but we have no details of how they are different.  They both glorious, however.

When we consider the complex creativity of the function of our present bodies, you could say that they have a glory of their own.  It is a glory altered from the original design, accumulating genetic flaws as we move generation to generation, and slowly dying because of sin.  We can count on sin, aging, defect and disease being gone in our future bodies.  Isn’t it exciting to think about what capabilities God has in store for us and what beauty!

A metaphor that comes to mind is the girl who was awkward and a little homely in middle school, who grows up to be a knockout as an adult.  We might be quite a mess at this point, but just wait.

The converse is true for the damned.  There seems to be a body for those in Sheol, for they suffer physical torments.  The resurrection of the body is for all, but the damned are forsaken by God and cast into Hell.

So besides the vague description of differing glories, how can we have an eternal heavenly body and a resurrected earthly one?  My theory is that it has to do with where you are dimensionally.  I think Heaven is in a different dimensional space, so our heavenly bodies are constructed to be a part of that “universe”.  Our resurrected and current bodies are for this dimensional space.  Perhaps, after Judgment Day, we can move freely in both.