Tag: bible

Honoring the Elders

When I am bored sometimes, I scroll through Instagram to find an interesting video. One caught my eye yesterday. It showed a man bringing out a mummified human from a grass hut in central New Guinea. Having a mummified descendent in their home was a way for this tribe to “honor their elders.”

I clearly come from a different culture. I wasn’t that thrilled about having my parents over for a long time when they were alive. 

Honoring elders is a large part of many cultures. It is understandable why that would be. Death often creates a great sense of loss. Incorporating communication and other ritual that involves the deceased keeps them emotionally close. If you depended on the knowledge of an older generation, you might seek to have a knowledge stream continue after death. Finally, if your sense of having a relationship with God is very vague, continuing a relationship with dead ancestors might be a substitute.

Certain cultures may have stumbled or were presented with ways to communicate with the dead. Seances and Ouija are more contemporary methods of communication with the dead. The Bible also records efforts of the Canaanites to do this and there is the story of the Witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28).

Whether out of grief, need, or a sense of responsibility, honoring your deceased elders needs to have definite limits. Great danger lies in crossing the line. God warned the Israelites not to copy the practices of the people of Canaan.

9 “When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. 10 There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer 11 or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, 12 for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you.

Deuteronomy 18:9-12 (ESV)

Many people today would scoff at the suggestion that these things are even possible. But think about the following:

  1. The dead are not non-existent. Even the damned are somewhere.
  2. Creating communication with any of the dead before Jesus, or those who are still in Sheol today, is a matter of bridging the separation between Sheol and Earth.
  3. While there are no natural ways of doing this, it appears that a form of “spiritual gift” can do this.
  4. Since God forbids it, this spiritual gift comes from the power of Satan. (Pharoah’s “magicians” were able to copy Moses’ sign of turning a staff into a snake and also the plague of frogs)

Many so-called mediums are just clever con-artists. That doesn’t negate the possibility that darker means are not legitimate. But one has to consider whether attempting to exercise such a power “honors” or “dishonors” our elders. 

Disobeying God is never honorable. Why would God forbid a connection that would ease our grief? We are not privy to this answer, but several theories come to mind. First, are we treating elders like God? God will act on our behalf, dead elders can’t. God hears our prayers, dead elders can’t. Death is a consequence of sin. It is a temporary or permanent separation we must accept. God is the source of information about life after death. Information sought from dead elders may be misinformation from the evil one. 

Playing around with or seriously using purported means of communicating with the dead also seems to expose people to more serious control of the demonic.

The most famous case in the U.S. was the source of the book and movie, The Exorcist. The event happening in 1949 in Maryland and was documented by the Washington Post. A boy and his spiritist aunt played around with a Ouija board to attempt communication with the dead. When the aunt died, the grieving boy attempted the use of the same method. What happened instead was a terrifying case of supernatural events and possession that finally ended in a hospital in St. Louis. The location of their home in Cottage City, MD continued to be surrounded by horrifying phenomena. A woman was found decaying in a plastic bag nearby. A man went crazy and decapitated his mother a few doors away. Also nearby, children were arrested for hacking off the limbs of their parents. The forces of Satan are not our friends.

There is one other reason to temper communication attempts with our dead. We may not wish to hear it. Heaven is awesome. When we die in Christ, we are swept away in joy and love and probably think very little about the life we have left. Nor do we have to. God is on the job to help those still on Earth.

What would be appropriate honoring of the dead? Speak well of them. Imagine them in their new glorious state. Flowers and visiting the grave is good. Talking to them might be therapeutic for you. Don’t imagine that they are birds at your feeder (I don’t know where that idea comes from). More importantly, honor your elders while they are here with you. Make sure they know and believe that eternal life comes from Jesus’ life and death. Then honor God with your life. Over-dependency on people both in life and especially in death is a bad thing. 

When Does Eternal Life Begin?

Does this title seem like a stupid question? I hope to show you that it is more complicated than you first think. It depends on the definition of “eternal life”, so let’s start with that.

God has made human beings to be eternal creatures. Once we have begun our existence there is an innate quality that preserves our existence forever. It is part of being created in the “image of God”

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

27 So God created man in his own image,
    in the image of God he created him;
    male and female he created them

Genesis 1:26-27 (ESV)

When do we begin? The answer is probably conception. Our body and our unique genetic code begin then, and these are definitely a part of our being. The body is not just a rental. Does our spirit/soul begin then? We have no information. I think there is reason to say that the soul does not pre-exist our body, but it is possible that there might be a lapse between conception and having a soul.

The Bible does not care to refer to our existence as sinful human beings as “life”. I’ll call it “existence” instead. A definite change in our existence happens with baptism in the name of the Triune God. Baptism doesn’t look or feel like much, but God’s promise is forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). When you dig down into how we receive the forgiveness of sins, you find that these things needed to happen: Jesus, as a human, had to fulfill God’s Law perfectly, He then had to pay the Laws demands for a sinner on the cross (namely be forsaken by God), then an individual needs to be spiritually united with Jesus for Jesus’ actions to apply to him or her. God normally accomplishes the last one through baptism. I want to emphasize that this is the function of baptism, not a “sinner’s prayer”, nor coming to intellectual faith. So you could say that eternal life begins at baptism even though you still carry around an earthly body that is doomed to die.

The next choice, and most popular choice, is your physical death. At death, if you are in Christ (still connected by what God does at baptism), you temporarily leave your earthly, sinful body and your soul now joins with a heavenly body restricted to Heaven. 

 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 (ESV)

Being in Heaven does not feel like a restriction. It feels like life that is truly life and we can call it “life”. It is not complete, however. Part of you is missing still. You are your spirit/soul, your heavenly body, and your earthly body. Like I said, your earthly body is not a rental.

Eternal life made complete happens with Judgment Day and the resurrection of the body. All portions that make up what we are will be redeemed at that point. https://afterdeathsite.com/2020/02/04/we-will-be-made-multi-dimensional/

So, when does eternal life begin? You may pick the answer. Realize the process God has put in place for us. An uglier but parallel process exists for those who reject Jesus. Also understand what you are and what produces the complete you.

Jesus: God in the Flesh

Without an amazing act of love that we celebrate at Christmas there would be no point in writing or thinking about eternal life, because all that would be waiting for us would be judgement. The miracle of Christmas is all about God becoming human. But what does that mean? The discussion below is largely theoretical based on the little information that we have.

Jesus is a unique being in several ways. First, He is a being that pre-existed His conception as a human. The rest of us started our existence at conception. We were not a soul waiting to jump into a body. Jesus is the Son of God — a being united with the Father in a way that none of us can understand. Still, the Son of God is known to have acted as a distinct person in the creation of the world, in interacting with Israel during Old Testament times, and probably in many other ways. This being was a spirit. What’s a “spirit”? It is an intelligent, powerful being that has no set physical or observable form. A spirit can take on a form and “manifest” itself, but it is not bound to that form. When Jesus “manifested” in the Old Testament, as when three visitors came to Abraham, we refer to Him as the “pre-incarnate” Christ. Incarnating is not the same as manifesting.

There is no biblical glossary that sets down the defining parameters of what it means to be a spirit or spiritual. Similarly, theological terms like incarnate, pre-incarnate, triune or manifest are subject to the understanding of the user. The definition of “spirit” above is my own as I struggle to understand God, Angels, Seraphim, and ultimately humans and myself. For now, I will stand with my definition of what God and the Son of God is.

I believe Angels and Seraphim are slightly different, even though the Bible speaks of angels as “ministering spirits”. In their formal space, that of Heaven, I expect that individual Angels and Seraphim have a set form. They also seem to have the ability to access our space, this Universe, and here they can “manifest” taking any form that they wish. This would be true of Satan (a Seraphim) and demons (Angels), only now they are excluded from Heaven.

For the time being, living human beings are stuck here with a set form. We have a body, and that body’s form cannot be shifted (not including surgery). When we die, we temporarily leave our “Earthly” body behind. If we are connected to Christ, we go to Heaven and assume a Heavenly body, which again has a set form (superior to what we left behind). We cannot return to this time-space, until we return with Jesus at Judgement Day.

Christmas is the story of the Son of God volunteering to doing something that is very restricting to Him yet is a marvelous act of sacrificial love. He takes on a set human form. By incarnating rather than manifesting the Son of God is stuck with this union. He becomes Jesus.

The Angels are said to have marveled at this. They likely marveled not so much at the fact that God could do this, but rather that He would. It is akin to our choosing to be a rat. The reasoning for it is clear and beautiful. God became human so that humans could have a chance at eternal life with Him.

God is a being of laws. He had the sovereign power to ignore His laws and save sinful humans simply because He wanted to. That is not God’s idea of justice. The Law had to be fulfilled and a sinless human being would do it. Because of the process of how our sinful human nature is spread (by heredity), there was no and would be no sinless human being; so the Son of God became one. A virgin birth avoided the inheritance of a sinful nature. The incarnation put the Son of God under the Law.

The fact that Jesus is the incarnate Son of God also made possible that human beings like us could be united with Jesus in a way similar to how the Son of God is united to the Father and the Holy Spirit. This allows us to have the righteousness of Jesus and for Jesus’ forsakeness on the cross to apply to us.

20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

John 17:20-21 (ESV)

Many people think this prayer of Jesus is unfulfilled, because the Christian church is divided structurally and doctrinally. That is incorrect. We are all united in some supernatural way to Jesus and therefore to each other. This saves us.

At Judgement Day we will take the final step of our salvation. We will acquire a resurrected, spiritual body. (1 Corinthians 15:44f) What does that mean? I don’t think it means that we will be like God without form, but rather a form for this Universe and a form for Heaven with the ability to move between both. Could that be a misread? Absolutely. Whatever having a spiritual body means, it will be great; and it will be because the Son of God chose transformation of Himself.

Does Jesus remain human? I think so. What will that look like? We will find out.

Who Do You Trust?

Do you think about life after death? I expect that most of us ignore the topic until it is forced into our attention by the death of somebody or a close call for ourselves. Maybe, we feel like not much can be known, or that the topic is too discouraging.

I disagree with the avoidance of the topic of death. Death is the biggest and most certain event in our lives. We should research what can be known. We should know it well. I have spent some time researching what the Bible says about several topics related to existence after death, and I think it is fascinating and extremely relevant. Knowing what is said changes your life. I am almost certain that you will learn a great deal by reading this series of articles. There is more to know than you think.

Unlike topics such as gardening, sports and health, information about our eternal destiny is not subject to our senses or experimentation. People occasionally do have out-of-body experiences where they see heaven or hell or something like it, and we will consider those; but no other topic is as dependent on revelation as this one. This is a big problem for many people. They don’t see any reason to trust religious revelation.

Most religious revelation comes with little to no corroborating evidence. For that reason, I would dismiss it as well. Jesus, however, is a different story. Jesus can be established as a real person in history by existing ancient texts both favorable and hostile to Him that date to within a few decades of his life. His words and deeds are recorded by those who were eyewitnesses, some of whom who were once hostile converts. His life was not just an ordinary life, especially as it relates to death. Jesus raised the dead and rose Himself from the dead. Jesus claimed to be the Son of God, and both prophecies about Him and miracles done by Him support that claim. Jesus gives us that connection with history that backs up what He has to say about life after death.

It is with great seriousness that I will try to set forth what Jesus and those He endorsed said about our existence after death. Some of it is not going to be what we want to hear. Some of it will not seem rational. You need to remember that God’s ways are not our ways. What happens after death is such a serious topic, I want to know what is said regardless of whether it meets my approval. Therefore, I think it is important to cover the whole scope of what is written about life after death, both good and bad.

Please accept my invitation to look beyond the grave. You will find the following entries to be enlightening, serious, hopeful and motivating. We will all die. That much is sure. What comes next will be either the best or the worst part of our existence, and it is what Jesus has done and our connection to Him that will make the difference.

 

Next Article: We will begin to consider a biblical word that most people don’t recognize or understand—Sheol