CHAPTER 2 - Where Do The Dead Go?If you died today, would you instantly be ushered into Heaven to walk through the pearly gates? Think about this for a second. Where will you go if you died today? This is not a question leading to a pitch on how you should get right with God. Would you go to Heaven or perhaps, if you were a wicked man would you be sent straight to Hell to begin receiving eternal torture for being an unregenerate fool? Or would you perhaps go to a place called Limbo, a place of shielding from Hell that children were told they would go if they died. A place to earn their way to a better level believed to be Heaven. If you die suddenly does your “spirit” leave your body and float over the operating table or car crash, while you watch the doctors or rescuers frantically try to resuscitate you? Do you go to a gentle business class environment, called “purgatory,” until you have sufficiently been purged of your sins and then are able to proceed to Heaven and enjoy the streets paved with gold? Alternatively, do you believe the moment you die you are no longer perceiving time or space and there is no communication from you to anyone living or to anyone spirit, until you are resurrected? What is the state of the dead and where do the dead go? Can we know? More specifically, can we find out where the Bible says we go when we die? There is a common “Christian” teaching about life after death, which teaches once dead, if you are righteous enough according to the standard of their faith, you will proceed to enter a paradise type environment in a revitalized spirit form. There you will receive the accolades of the God of your faith and there you will begin your eternal reward. Supposedly, at that time you are in the presence of countless other now immortal followers of your faith. Although this teaching is believed by billions of people, basic Bible study on this topic will conclude that it is not a Biblical teaching. “Well, I never!” some of you are saying. “This guy wants to try to tell me there is no “Satan” and now he wants me to believe there is no Heaven!” “How could he say such a thing?” I don’t blame you for feeling that way. I felt that way too the first time I heard such difficult teachings. I am however not telling you there is no Heaven; I am just telling you that you don’t get to go there. I don’t get to go there either, in fact none of us humans get to go there. Heaven is for Yahweh and when He finished His role as the crucified and resurrected Messiah he ascended, forty days after his resurrection, to resume the office of the Father from Heaven. There is no Scripture that teaches the dead who are righteous get to go to Heaven in any state, let alone a body of flesh. Here is how it goes if you look at the Bible.
How can this be you might ask. What about Elijah and Enoch? Doesn’t the Bible say they went to Heaven? This is an excellent question to ask, I will not go into the entire explanation on these two Biblical characters, but I will say that neither of them is in Heaven or the Messiah and Paul are liars. Elijah was taken up in a whirlwind and it is erroneously believed by scholars and lay persons alike, that he is in Heaven. The text does not indicate he is gone in the flesh into Heaven. We are told by Paul that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. In the context of Paul’s dialogue, the kingdom of God is most likely referring to Heaven in this statement.
Certainly more proofs could be brought to the table on this issue, proofs such as considering why the men wanted to search in the mountains for Elijah. However, discussions of those proofs will not take up our time here. I assure you, Elijah could not have been taken to Heaven at any time, especially if he was still in his body of flesh. If we take a close look at the use of the word heaven in the passage about Elijah and the whirlwind, we will see that the word used for “heaven” is referring to the part of the sky where birds fly. Elisha told others about Elijah’s departure and how he saw him get swept away into the part of the sky where the birds fly and then those he told went searching for him. Had Elisha indicated that Elijah had gone straight up and disappeared then why were those who he told of the event searching for Elijah on the ground? They were searching because they understood Elijah to have been swept away by a great big wind and therefore might have been slammed back to the ground in the vicinity.
This letter is calculated to have been written and sent by Elijah about 7 to 10 years after his whirlwind disappearance from Elisha. By comparing 2nd Kings 3:1, 1st Kings 22:42, and 2nd Kings 8:16 we can find the chronology of the letter after the whirlwind bares out. If Elijah had ascended into Heaven why then do we have correspondence from him years after his ascension? The reason is because Elijah was still on earth and in this instance he has written to Jehoram, the King of Judah. Jehoram was a king who followed a line of succession that did not obey Yahweh. Elijah cannot be used as an example of a man going to Heaven before death in an effort to support an afterlife philosophy adopted from mythology. Sure But Where Do We Go When We Die?If we don’t go to Heaven when we die and Elijah didn’t go in the flesh to Heaven when he was swept away from Elisha in a whirlwind, then where do we go when we’re dead? The idea of a Heaven as a place the soul is taken the moment a person is dead, is not a biblical concept. What has happened in order for a concept to be developed in Christianity that claims a dead soul floats up to Heaven once the physical body dies, is fairly easy to understand. The afterlife doctrine entered Christianity because of associations with pagan religions and their beliefs. Many who claim to be following the Scriptures and the Messiah have accepted and in part, reconstructed a belief from some other religion, which was based on a mythological understanding. We can see how this occurred as the Hebrew people left the Persian exile and adopted much of the Persian mythology. This would have included the place of eternal reward that was previously not part of the faith of the “Jews.” In his book, The History of Magic, Joseph Ennemoser tells of the dire influence of the last place of the Jewish exile;
Ennemoser goes on to quote Tiedemann and speak of the superstitious philosophy that was implanted in the faith of Israel and then Christianity. Our present day concept of the immortal soul of man ascending to Heaven when the physical man dies is from the same mythological culture as the whole structure of demonology that is prevalent today. The short answer to the question of where we go when we are dead is that we go nowhere. We are just dead. The common Biblical definition for being dead is “asleep” or “sleeping.” If you look through the entire Bible, you will find that one who dies is never referred to as having his or her “spirit/soul” leave the dead shell of a body and ascend to a place in the clouds, which we call Heaven. When you die, you are essentially no longer the possessor of the animating force, known as breath, from the Creator. This animating force known as breath is also called the “spirit” by many and is the Hebrew word ruachused in much of the Bible. When the Creator formed Adam from the dust of the ground and then breathed life into Adam, Adam became a living soul. What was breathed into Adam was the animating force that can only come from Yahweh. It was the breath of life so to speak; and without Yahweh imparting that breath of life then Adam would have remained at best an inanimate lump of dust formed into the shape of a human-like clay statue. Man started as dust and if we take notice of the curse on Adam, we will see that all men are understood as being the same as this animated lump of dust. Eventually we will die and return to the element we originated from. We will not ascend to Heaven. Man, being formed from the dust and then being told he will return to dust when he dies, is seen in the following verses in Genesis.
Imagine There’s No Heaven … At Least The Way Christians TeachIf you recall a much earlier discussion, we had in Volume I, Adam and Eve were permitted to eat of the tree of life and then live forever. That was if they obeyed Yahweh. If they had eaten of the tree of life, they would not have been destined to return to dust. They would have experienced a state of practical immortality that would have allowed them to dwell in Paradise, the Garden of Eden and the expanded world that would have extrapolated from their procreation forever. I suppose this would have been done with Yahweh closely participating in their lives in a more tangible sense than what you or I are able to experience today. Alas, they ate not of the tree of life but disobeyed and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Thus disqualifying them from immortality very early on in their journey of life and they were cursed, which included the edict that they would return to dust. This is the first indication of where we go when we are dead. We do indeed return to dust, but some might say, “The body returns to dust and the ‘spirit’ goes to be with Jesus.” I used to think the same thing until I took the time to see what the Bible says about this issue and not what Christianity said about this issue. The Bible teaches there is to be a resurrection of the dead at two points in the future. The Torah introduces the idea of a resurrection in Deuteronomy when Yahweh says, “I kill and I make alive.” He is teaching us here that a person who has died can and will be made alive again. Further to that teaching, He is teaching us that He is the one who does the resurrecting.
It is here that we are first informed of the resurrection of the dead. If God makes alive, then it appears to be saying that those who were dead can be brought to life again by Him. In the above passage to resurrect is to being dead as healing is to wounding. Yahweh does all these things. The resurrection is spoken about in the Book of Daniel.
Daniel is saying there are two resurrections. Some of those who are asleep in the dust will be resurrected unto righteousness and others will be resurrected unto judgment to be destroyed forever, spoken of in Daniel 12 as shame and everlasting contempt. For the moment though, notice in Daniel that the dead are referred to as sleeping and the fact that they are in the dust is indication of those who are dead as not being somewhere else in some other form. Isaiah also speaks of the dead being in the ground and at some future point they are to be resurrected. They will have their physical bodies that are dust, filled with life from the Creator once again. Just as the dust that came to be Adam, was filled with life by the breath of God. It seems that this force of life combined with the form that is made from the dust is what makes a living soul. The miraculous power of the Creator is that He constructed man from dust in the beginning and He will essentially do that again for all the dead who have returned to dust in their graves. Did Lazarus’ Spirit Come Back From Heaven?Think for a moment of Lazarus. Yeshua was saddened to hear of Lazarus’ death. And when He came on the scene to find family and friends were mourning, He decided to resurrect Lazarus. Yeshua said, “Lazarus come out!” Notice there was no breaking off a spirit of death or cutting off the hold of the “devil” on his friend Lazarus as certain prayer warriors might have done, but simply “Lazarus come out!” What happens next to Lazarus? Well, if we adhere to popular belief about where the dead go, then, because Lazarus is dead and his spirit has left him to go and be with God in Heaven, we could conceivably entertain that Lazarus would have been wise to flatly refuse the offer to re-incarnate his old fleshly body. At this point in the story, Lazarus is dead and is supposedly in Heaven with God according to a common afterlife philosophy found in major religions. Under that concept, Lazarus would be enjoying eternal peace and a pain free, trouble free existence. If we adhere to the popular belief about “Heaven,” then our dearly departed Lazarus has already taken up residence in the Paradise of God and is walking on streets paved with gold. Lazarus is by now, receiving his reward for being a good and faithful servant. If we adhere to popular beliefs about the immortal soul and where the dead go when the physical body dies, then we are saying that Lazarus, at least his spirit, had entered Heaven and would be reaping all the unspeakable blessings due him from living a life pleasing to God. Lazarus no longer desires the things of the world or flesh and is definitely not in any way shape or form, disappointed or sad for what he has lost by having his life here on earth end. If Heaven is as many have come to know it, and once you die you go there and are in the presence of Yahweh, Yeshua, and the Holy apostles, then Lazarus would be so content and happy that he wouldn’t care to come back and inhabit his old body. It makes no sense that Lazarus’ soul would go to Heaven after he physically died and began to stink, then he was told to return to his body to resume existence as a mortal. Think about this for a moment. Have you ever gone to a really fun party? I mean a party where the food is great; the people are all getting along and having excellent and stimulating conversation. You feel like you are wanted and you don’t have to be up for work the next morning? This party is so good that when it comes time to leave, you just have no desire at all to head home. But you are sent home right in the middle of a good time. Or, how about if you’re on vacation? You’ve taken plenty of vacations before with plenty of different travel companions but you can’t recall a vacation that measures up to this one. This vacation has been the best ever and you are only a week in with a full week to go. You really reconnected with your spouse in a deep and meaningful way. You were able to really shed all the stress of work and home life and in the past three or four days of the dream vacation, you have found you were able to totally relax. I don’t mean you are still running here and there to visit people and see tourist attractions, I mean it is just total relaxation. The kind where you don’t even say “Aahhh” anymore when you get to recline by the pool or beach because you are in the “Aahhh” state already before you recline. Your back and neck haven’t been stiff for days; you didn’t even keep track of how much this vacation cost or how much you’re spending on food every day because it is all expenses paid by a rich dead uncle twice removed who left you a bunch of money. Your sleep has never been better and you haven’t even gained any weight on this paradisiacal holiday. What a perfect vacation. There is nothing in you that wants to go home but all of a sudden, days before your supposed to pack up and head out, you are told by your dead uncle’s lawyer that you must end the vacation right now and head home. The reason why is something to do with the surviving aunt of the dead uncle twice removed, but it is out of your control and you need to head home. Bam! Just like that… home to be thrust right back into life… complaints, bills, work, frustrating relationships, waking up to the alarm clock every morning. It’s like being smacked in the head with a two by four when you’re not expecting it, vacation ended, paradise is ripped away from you in an instant. All the peace and calm you felt is immediately gone and you are now back in “go” mode. Just like that, back you go. Hmmm… sounds like an awful experience. Are you able to see Lazarus in this type of canceled dream vacation position? Beside the fact we would be saying Lazarus was given the reward of Heaven and then it was removed from him to be placed back on the Earth, we are claiming something else. When we say a person such as Lazarus has died and their spirit has left them to go to Heaven, and we then suggest the spirit has been put back into them, then we are endorsing a form of reincarnation. I find it difficult to believe that Yahweh decided to re-incarnate Lazarus after Lazarus had become an immortal spirit being by dying and going to Heaven. It doesn’t seem to be the case that Lazarus was forced back into a corruptible human body once he had been in Glory. This is a doctrine known as The Immortal Soul Doctrine. The Immortal Soul Doctrine claims we go to Heaven in some type of spirit form when we die. It is a bankrupt doctrine, which does not come from the Scripture, just like so many of the doctrines of man common to Christianity. The Scriptures teach that the dead are in an unconscious state of physical existence until the resurrection. Dead Until The ResurrectionYeshua chastised the Sadducees for not believing there is a future resurrection. By his own death and bodily resurrection, He proved that a resurrection of the flesh was possible. This resurrection is contested by many scholars today but one can only apply conjecture to their beliefs as there is “proof” on both sides of the resurrection debate. Debate has proliferated for centuries. Paul the apostle pitted the Pharisees against the Sadducees at one time based on their differing opinions of the possibility of a resurrection. The Pharisees, of whom not all were bad, believed in a future resurrection and the Sadducees did not. These were just two different groups of religious “Jews” which were around at the time of Messiah in the first century. Many diverse groups fashioned their own style of worship and interpretation of the Scriptures. Yeshua agreed with all of them… Yeshua also disagreed with all of them. Yeshua, while walking the Earth, agreed with all religious groups or persons on points that were in fact correct, but on those points that were not true and correct, He passionately disagreed. Herein lays an example from the King of the Universe, an example of taking or agreeing with truth no matter where it comes from. Yeshua was at least familiar with a handful of sects such as the Herodians, Essenes, Zealots, (one of his disciples was Simon the Zealot) Sadducees, and Pharisees. None of these “official” sects were in line with Yeshua and his message that fulfilled the Torah, but all of them had some truth. Agreeing with that which agrees with the Scriptures and comes from an unsavoury source is admirable and Yeshua-like. Many today choose to not hear or believe anything that is claimed to be truth, if they are not in total agreement on every doctrine with that particular group or person. This leads to sectarianism, which damages the message of the Kingdom rather than aid the correct and eternally productive dispensation of the truth. The Proverbs tell us to pursue truth. The message that comes out of the Messiah’s modeling is that we can take truth from any source, as long as we don’t begin following the source that we took the truth from. As for Lazarus, he was simply “asleep,” which is dead with no concept of time or space or sense of existing at all. When the Messiah decided to resurrect him, He placed the force of life back in Lazarus. He did not call back Lazarus’ spirit from Heaven, as one must believe when accepting the Immortal Soul Doctrine. The miracle of this healing was largely that the body of Lazarus was in the tomb for four days and would have been decomposing. The resurrection of the dead that the Messiah is able to cause to happen, overcomes decomposition of the physical body. Lazarus could not have been simply in a catatonic state for four days because as was well known, decomposition would have been happening and in the case of this recently “sleeping” human, decomposition is absolutely equivalent with being literally dead for at least four days. Science today confirms that putrefaction of the dead body begins to occur after four days of the bacterial transition and enzymatic response. Dead means dead. It does not mean the soul leaves the body and the dead one becomes immortal through the process of death as the pagan concept claims. Look at what one of the Eastern doctrines of the dead believes to happen after death. The following excerpt is from the tenets of Zarathustra and explains the procedure for burial and the spiritual state of the “soul” after death. The tenet or practice is called DAHKMA-NASHINI. In reading the following, you will see that a very specifically outlined process for those entering the afterlife was formed by the Zoroastrians. A connection to this idea by the Hebrew exiles was a big part of the Immortal Soul Doctrine that migrated into Judaism and Christianity. I see no need to comment on the process as I feel it is clear enough for the reader and I have commented sufficiently already in Volume I on the adoption of pagan after-life ideas by Jews and Christians;
It is not possible to reject equating this pagan Zoroastrian philosophy with many of the practices and beliefs regarding the treatment of the dead that are found in contemporary Christianity. A concept that preceded Christianity by hundreds of years has far too many parallels to Christianity to be overlooked as a major source affecting Christianity’s doctrines. The Scriptural facts are this; when one dies they do not go to a spirit world of reward or a paradise, they go to sleep until they are resurrected by the Creator. Spiritual and physical life is completely gone from them until life is returned to them by God. How does all this discussion about the whereabouts of the dead play into the King Saul and the witch of Endor story? Simply put, if the pagan doctrine of a person becoming a “spirit” at death is not true, then Samuel could not be raised from the grave by the witch. As we have seen, in the witch of Endor story, Samuel supposedly is able to appear in spirit form. If this were so then his appearance would be in line with the pagan belief that an enhancement of his spiritual power takes place after death. The variety of the Immortal Soul Doctrine seen here then leads us to believe that by dying a person gets more powerful not less. The facts are as they appear in the Scriptures about the dead and in fact are quite simple, so I will not cloud the simplicity of where the dead go. The Scriptures simply say of the dead that they do not think, speak, praise, or hear. The following verses put it quite concisely;
There are verses in Ecclesiastes that provide some teaching as to what goes on for the dead;
The term, “spirit” is not telling of an intangible, ghost-like part of the human composition. We are being told that the God who gave breath now takes it away. Elsewhere in Ecclesiastes, we are told that the dead are clueless to any existence at all.
The dead do not know anything according to Solomon. Therefore, a wicked person who dies will not be subjected to a tormented soul where they feel the anguish of an eternal absence from their Creator. We are given further testimony by Solomon as to the absence of any thought when we die, in this verse;
Solomon tells us there is no knowledge or wisdom in the grave. The grave here is the Hebrew word “sheol” and has been translated as “hell,” “grave,” and “pit.” Being “dead” means to go to Hell, and this means to be buried in the grave, which is the pit and is called Sheol. Being said to be in the grave or the pit does not mean a person goes somewhere in spirit form or in flesh form, rather it is understood as speaking of someone who is simply going to decompose and to become dust again until the resurrection. The first resurrection at Messiah’s return is for those who are the righteous according to His judgment and the second resurrection is for the wicked dead who will be destroyed from Yahweh’s presence forever. Paul talks about the punishment of the wicked and the book of Revelation gives us insight into the two resurrections with the second resurrection culminating in the final death, known as the “second death,” for those who are relegated to that resurrection.
When We All Get To Hell… What A Day of Nothing That Will Bethat Hell is simply the grave and when we die, we all go to Hell, the grave. According to Scripture, those who do not agree with God receive the punishment of never existing again in any form. One teacher I listened to emphasized, somewhat for shock value perhaps, how everyone who dies goes to Hell and even Jesus was in Hell for three days. Hell simply means you are dead and not able to know anything. Also, contrary to popular belief, when we die we do not go to some party environment called Heaven, where we would undoubtedly be praising Yahweh. The Psalms tell us of the lack of this type of spiritual existence when dead. Here we are also told it is Earth that is given to men to inhabit. Messiah told us the meek shall inherit the Earth, not the Heaven. Revelation 21 shows us the throne of God coming to Earth where He will dwell with men as opposed to men going up to dwell with him. This is after the resurrections have taken place and the wicked have been destroyed from His presence forever, as Paul puts it in Thessalonians above. The following passages tell that Heaven is where the Lord and the Lord only is, and also those who are dead are not able to praise the Lord because death is to be nonexistent, until the resurrection takes place. The understanding to be had regarding this passage in Psalms is that once dead, a person cannot participate in any conscious activity. Such would be the case if the Immortal Soul Doctrine were true and they had died and had ascended to a heavenly place where they are thought to be praising God before His throne. The following quote from Revelation informs the hearer that because Heaven is God’s abode, He will eventually come and dwell among men here on Earth. The intent I suppose, was that He was to be dwelling among men in Eden, but has waited until the end of days when wickedness has been completely suppressed. At that time, Yahweh will fulfill the plan to dwell on a paradisiacal Earth with His children. The point is, Heaven comes down and no one goes up to Heaven.
According to the above verses, Heaven is Yahweh’s and the Earth is for man to inhabit. When the final enemy, which is death for humans, is defeated and tossed into the burning lake of fire, then there will be no more death. All who were ever conscripted to die are now dead and there are no more who will be assigned to die physically; thus there will not be any more death at that time. Death has effectively been conquered. The metaphor for eternal death is used by the writer of Revelation when he says that death is “tossed into the lake of fire.” The famous lake of fire, where it is imagined the unrighteous go to experience eternal torture from the burning sulfur, doesn’t literally exist. This feared location is just another well-used metaphor understood to express the completion of life at death. By death being “thrown into the lake of fire,” we are taught that death will not be present anymore because all who are alive at that point will never die. A few passages from Revelation will help to comprehend that there are some who will not be affected by the second death. The second death is the last time death will be administered and that gets humanity to the place in God’s plan where “death no longer has a sting” because it is thrown into the lake of fire.
The writers of the New Testament realized that Yahweh comes to re-inhabit the Earth with the remnant of the seed of Yeshua. That remnant is now immortal, as is seen by the metaphor of “eating of the tree of life” found in Revelation 22:14.
The Dead Don’t Know AnythingUnderstanding the Scriptures and the “New Testament,” we are able to see that if one dies, they are now oblivious to any existence until a resurrection occurs. They are in the grave until a resurrection occurs and they are not able to know anything, unless there is a miraculous resurrection such as in the case of Lazarus. Otherwise, they stay dead and “asleep” until the appointed time of the last trumpet. When Is The Resurrection?The last trumpet will be when Messiah resurrects the righteous dead. I suppose if you could be looking for the time of the last trumpet, you may get a handle on the timing of Christ’s return. A little clue we are given comes through understanding that at the end of the Biblical year, on God’s calendar, there is a trumpet blown. This annual blast has been known as the “last trump.” This trumpet sounds at the end of a year and marks the beginning of the next spiritual year. Lost to most of us because of anti-Semitism in some measure, small or great, many refuse to seek understanding of the Biblical festivals because they are perceived to be “Jewish” holy-days (holidays). If we look at Leviticus 23, we will see they are not the festivals of the Jews as they came to be believed to be in the post-exilic period, and into the “New Testament”. They are God’s festivals. Leviticus 23 says of these festivals; “These are the feasts of Yahweh.” If you or I are obedient to God and believe in the Messiah at the point of our physical death, we are then considered to be “dead in Christ.” We then will be resurrected on the Last Trump, which is the Festival of Trumpets also known as Rosh Hashanah, a holiday celebrated and preserved by the Jews. The Jews typically celebrate this holiday according to a calendar that began to be codified in the 2nd century by a bunch of rabbis desiring to establish festival-keeping unity. This calendar continued to evolve until the 10th Century CE, according to a thorough and highly informative book by Sacha Stern. Stern’s book called; Calendar and Community, A History of the Jewish Calendar- 2nd Century BCE to 10th Century CE, traces the development of the Jewish calendar from its origins until it reached its present form in the 10th century CE. Yahweh though has stated this festival is to be kept on the first day of the seventh “new moon,” which is the first visible crescent after the sixth month ends. This festival is the Last Trumpet and has long been understood to be a day of resurrection.
Even after reading clear language about the resurrection, some conclude that there is no resurrection of the dead? The uniformed surmise that the spirits of the dead are somehow released from their bodies to float to Heaven, remaining there where they dwell in perfection for eternity. Some suggest the spirit will be in heaven for a short time until it is then placed back into its respective body. We will discuss more in a moment about where this pagan belief came from, but note the words of Messiah regarding this topic. He knew of a resurrection that would preclude the necessity for spirits of the dead to be taken to Heaven and then sent back to re-inhabit a physical body.
If Going To Heaven Is Not In The Bible, Then Where Did This Idea Come From?I have mentioned where the “spirit living in heaven” concept comes from several times, but now we will look at the origins of this concept a little more closely. By now you will not be surprised at the answer so I will keep it brief. It is well known that ancient cultures such as the Egyptians went to great length to prepare their dead for the afterlife. Of the Pharaohs and rulers, it was thought that these elite were Gods. Upon their death, they would be transferred into the spirit world. Once there they would maintain at least the measure of power that they held on Earth, and for many of the cases it was believed the “god” would sit alongside the other gods of the cosmos known as the “council of the gods.” Sitting among the other Gods, they would be granted an even greater measure of power. In a quest to establish that life does not end once one dies, the ancient peoples continued to purport the myth of an immortal soul concept, which allowed them comfort when one of their own died. They took comfort in the idea that their king, father, husband, or child for instance, was not really gone but merely gone from the physicality of their body of flesh. In that concept, an ancient believer of myth could reason that the one they lost to physical death is now better off. They would consider them as greater in power and abilities to affect the Earth because of their newly acquired status as a cosmic spirit. The belief in the afterlife experience is diverse and most cultures posit some manner of representing where the spirits of the dead go upon their demise. The present thinking about this in Christianity is a combination of numerous beliefs from various ancient cultures. In an article on the idea of spirit existence after death we read; In ancient Egypt, cosmic order and justice (ma'at) prevailed, but it could be temporarily distorted by human evil. The ka (spirit of the dead person) descends into the underworld to be judged by the gods (specifically Anubis). The unjust were tormented in scorching heat, while those living in accordance with ma'at rose into the eternal realm of the gods. Ancient Mesopotamian religion had little idea of heaven: The dead were doomed to unending gloom and wretchedness in the darkness beneath the earth, with the dubious consolation that the rich and powerful in earthly life would have a less miserable status in the afterlife. In early Greco-Roman religion, the souls of the dead descended to the shadowy underworld of Hades; later, the spirits of heroes were believed to escape that fate and to rise instead into the Elysian Fields, which were variously located in an earthly garden, a mysterious "land" to the West, or among the stars. Elysium, wherever located, was a place of fulfillment of earthly delights. Greco-Roman philosophers focused on the virtue of intellect and on the perfect world of ideas, toward which humans attempt to strive but can never attain. Perfect being was always beyond human reach; still, Plato argued for the immortality of the soul, which consisted of a combination of the basic life force common to all creatures with mind (nous), which was unique to humans. Plato tended to view the fields of heaven as a temporary abode for the soul before it returned to the earth in a reincarnation. The cycle of reincarnation ended with the purification of the soul—losing its bodily needs and desires—and its final union with Being itself. Cicero (106–43 B.C.E.), the great Roman lawyer, linked the divine with justice and saw Elysium as a reward for those who served the Roman state. The Later Platonists of the third to fifth centuries C.E. taught that everything in the cosmos yearns for such union and that everything, once elevated beyond matter into pure spirit, will eventually attain that happy end.[6]Going to Heaven when one dies is not a concept taught in the Bible. This concept was added to an evolving Hebrew faith by post Babylonian Jews, which had already been affected by syncretism because of the close relationship with their exile host. This ancient concept, which was found in Egypt as well as in many ancient cultures, found its way into Christianity via the path of postexilic Judaism. The Egyptian book of the dead quoted below, makes reference to the “afterlife” numerous times and tells of the special position of the dead who are judged worthy to attain to the afterlife.
Called by the Egyptians, “The Book of Going Forth,” the Books of the Dead came to be known as such in 1842 by German Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius, who published a selection of the texts. The Egyptian Book of the Dead, like similar documents from other nations, constituted a collection of spells, charms, passwords, numbers, and magical formulae used to guide the dead through their afterlife journey where they might encounter diverse trial as residents of the underworld. Happiness could be achieved by the dead if they possessed knowledge of the appropriate spells. This concept migrated into the religion of Judaism and took on still more depth as it was expanded and firmly planted in the Christian religion by Greek thinkers of the first and early centuries. The non-Hebraic thinking, first century leaders of religion tended to spiritualize almost everything that appeared in the Scriptures. Not comprehending correctly the faith of the nation of Israel, caused them to attach their own version of most stories to the faith that became Christianity. A belief in the afterlife known as an Immortal Soul Doctrine was an integral error that lead these early philosophical theologians to design spiritualistic concepts, deeply embedding them into the Christian theology. These ideas were their responses to other misunderstood biblical teachings but were based on the belief in the immortal soul. The development of “false teachings” became the norm for a culture that had already come to believe in an Immortal Soul Doctrine. For instance, belief in an Immortal Soul Doctrine that says the human soul continues to exist in the presence of God after the physical body dies, precipitated the need to develop a doctrine that describes or teaches about Heaven and Hell. After all, if it was being taught that you don’t really die when you physically expire but your personality lives on, there had to be some place for you to go. If “the soul” continues to exist in some conscious form as was claimed then the teachers had to find a teaching to explain where the personality goes after physical expiration. The biblical teaching on the resurrection and the “sleeping” dead, who are unaware of the passage of time, was not a comfortable concept to accept for many who hoped for “glory” in the spirit-world after death. The development of the Immortal Soul concept and a deep belief in Heaven and Hell played a key part in the removal of logic from the process of understanding the Bible. Theological developments became “theo-spiritual,” in a sense with a mystical twist. The long and short of it is, these teachers didn’t understand what happened to dead people so they made up their own doctrine from their convoluted understanding. The teachings became unattainable as far as understanding them on the simple level that they were given to the original hearers of the Scriptures, Gospels, and Letters. A theo-spiritual concept would be one that has an intangible quality to it because it is derived out of the imaginations of men. Men who were confused by the concrete theology of the Hebrew Scriptures and therefore they added mystical elements to the spiritual message of the Scriptures. Why Is Logic Missing From Theology?It is interesting how the word “logical” is the last part of the word “theological” yet logic seems conspicuously absent from many of the theological positions of the “Church Fathers” and church leaders today. Perhaps we could call it theo-absurdity? Should there not be logic in the operations of the Universe? After all, if Yahweh wanted his words to be understood by simple folk and not just interpreted by the ancient scholars, wouldn’t it stand to reason that logic is a major component of His words? It is tragic though that we are at a place in history where we have come so far from understanding the true intent and meaning of God’s word, that we believe it is correct exegesis to understand our English translations in a literal manner as the words before us are presented. We need to remember we are reading a Bible that is written with the thousands of years-old hearer in mind. We absolutely must attempt to look at it from that perspective. It is almost as if the “Bible” as it is presented to us in English coupled with the deep-seated doctrines falsely taught by Christianity and Jews through the last couple of thousand years, is not understandable anymore. I suppose that identifies the need to once again be Bereans and search out a matter as the men of Berea in Acts 17 did when Paul was teaching about the Messiah. One thing is for sure, I don’t want you to just believe me; but it is my desire that you find out what the “Bible” says and believe it. By studying we can then find such things as; Lazarus was not re-incarnated but was “asleep,” and Elijah was not taken up alive into Heaven but was swept away by a whirlwind only to resurface later by way of a letter to Jehoram the apostate king of Judah. We also see that there are two resurrections and according to Revelation 20, they are a thousand years apart.
From study of the resurrection, we can learn that once the second death is complete there will be no more death and those remaining will live forever from that point on. We are also able to understand that no one goes to Heaven except the son of man, Yeshua. No human can approach that light where God dwells and no one has ascended to heaven yet.
This being true we must yet account for Enoch who was “translated” according to the “Bible.” Didn’t Enoch Go To Heaven While He Was Living?It is believed by some that when the Bible says Enoch was “translated,” it means that he has been taken to Heaven in his physical body before he died.
Once again, we find an apparent contradiction. We are told that no flesh can inherit the Kingdom of Heaven and that only Messiah has entered into Heaven, but it appears we are also told Enoch was taken to Heaven for being such a good guy by the way he “walked with God.” No worries, you don’t have to toss out your “Bible” because it seems to contradict itself. The fact that the Book of Genesis says God took Enoch need not confuse us.
This does not have to mean that Yahweh snatched this special servant up to His throne while Enoch was yet alive. In the verses leading up to the statement of Enoch being “took” by God, we see a list of patriarchs. The list is telling us how long each of them lived. The term “And all the days…” indicates the death of the person happened at the end of so many years of life. No one still living would be talked about by the writer saying, “And all the days of so and so’s life were…” The writer would not use that term for Enoch if he were still alive after being taken up to Heaven in his physical body. Genesis chapter 5 contains this term often in reference to how old the Patriarchs were when they died. Here is a sampling of the use of the term, “And all the days…” seen in Genesis. Seeing how “all the days” is a clear Hebraism speaking of how old the patriarch was when he died we are able to line this up with what is said in the book of Hebrews and see that Enoch did in fact die. The one difference between Enoch’s story and the other patriarchs is that God took Enoch instead of the text saying “and he died.” This is reconciled by understanding that for God to take a person in this context simply indicates the person’s life was cut short. Enoch did not live a “full” life as the other patriarchs. He had his life cut short by someone or something and did not die of old age as the other patriarchs had. We might use the same terminology of a baby who died shortly after birth; “She lived for three days and then God took her.” Perhaps Enoch was murdered and that is the reason we hear that God took him. The assessment of Enoch’s demise reads like this;
The Writer Of Hebrews Says Enoch DiedWhen the writer of Hebrews testifies to the faith of a number of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, he or she is careful to wrap up the segment by saying they all died. This is no mistake. The writer knew all these had died and did not confuse Enoch with the rest of the patriarchs. The writer knew Enoch was no different from any other human and he too died as all humans do. The writer of Hebrews was not lying when he or she included Enoch in the list of those who had died not having received the promise but only seeing it afar off. Enoch could not have ascended to Heaven as a man of flesh, the writer of Hebrews would have known this as acutely as Enoch himself would have known. Heaven is the abode of Yahweh and man will die here on Earth. Then when resurrected, man will be assigned an appropriate place in the paradise on Earth. That is if one is blessed to attain to the first resurrection. The writer of Hebrews closes the testimony about the patriarchs by telling us they all died. All of them dying would include Enoch, who was one of those named in the writer’s list.
The solution to the problem may be that Enoch’s life was taken at a very young age compared to the other pre-flood patriarchs. A connection is made by some that the seventh from Adam, Lamech, might have been the killer of Enoch. We can see an allusion to this when he speaks to his wives and says;
This is still just a theory but to be sure, Enoch would have been seen as a young man to Lamech and having his life taken at such a young age relatively speaking, could be what is intended by the phrase, “God took him.” In fact, it is common in obituaries today to speak of someone dying at a young age by using the phrase, “God took him.” What It Might Be Like To Be “Dead”We are able to understand through listening to the Scriptures that once someone is dead they are no longer able to think, or speak, or praise, or know anything. For a dead person to communicate with the living is not possible. When one dies, they are left in the “sleeping” state and when awakened at the resurrection will not have perceived any passage of time. Do you ever remember being on a long drive with your family when you were around three or four years old? How about if you are a parent of a three or four year old and are taking a long drive into the late evening on the highway with your little one. Perhaps the scenario goes a little like this;
Within minutes of leaving the curb to hit the highway, the little honey is fast asleep. You and your spouse are tired too so you don’t chat much on the way home but a few thoughts are shared about the visit and the day as well as what’s going on tomorrow. Then after two hours, you pull into the garage and get out of the car. As you open the door of the van to carry your little, tired trooper into the house, you can’t help but smile at how soundly he’s sleeping. “Wouldn’t it be great to be able sleep like that,” you think. As you unlock the house and slip in between the doors without making too much noise, you reach over to hang your keys on the hook and they slip from your fingers to the floor. The clatter of keys hitting the floor wakes your little guy up and you say, “It’s okay sweetie, were home now, just go to sleep Mommy’s gonna’ tuck you in.” Your little snoozer lifts his head and says questioningly, “We’re home now?” then snuggles back into your chest as you carry him to his bed. As you tuck him in bed and set his teddy bear under his arm, you chuckle again knowing that your little man has no clue that two hours have passed by. “It was as if he was in a time warp,” you think, as you silently wish you could time warp yourself to get your car unpacked and teeth brushed so you can go to sleep. All’s well that ends well and Junior didn’t have a clue that time had passed because he slept the whole way. In a sense, I believe we can think of dying and being resurrected in the future, as falling asleep in the car on a long drive when you are four years old. One minute you are saying, “I’m not tired,” and the next minute you have arrived at a different location some time in the future. Reconsidering Solomon’s words, “the dead know not anything,” teaches a lot about the state of the dead. The wicked particularly are mentioned as being consigned to nothingness after death but the wise know they can look forward to a resurrection. Dead people don’t go anywhere except to the grave and cannot speak from that grave. No matter how ancient and sincere an incantation to raise the dead is, the dead are unable to interact with the living. Further testimony from Psalms and Ecclesiastes affirms the view of the Scriptures on the teaching that a person who dies decomposes and is known to lie in state, until the resurrection.
Understanding where dead people go is just part of understanding the witch of Endor story. If a person’s spirit is not able to communicate with the living, then what is thought by some to be an appearance of the Prophet Samuel from beyond the grave could not have been an actual manifestation of the spirit of a dead man. To understand further what transpired between Saul and the fortune-teller of Endor, we also need to discuss the practice of psychics and mediums. This ancient art of necromancy is a practice that presents the illusion of the presence of a dead person’s spirit. Exploring ancient and present reflections on psychics and mediums will be of great value to help us to come to a better understanding about this very tricky bit of deception. We will take a close look at more of this story in the next chapter. [4] Ennemoser, The History of Magic, Volume 1- page 221, 1970, University Books Inc [5] The Zoroastrian Dakhma-nashini mode of disposal of the dead [6] From article titled Heaven in the Encyclopedia of Death and Dying [7] THE PAPYRUS OF ANI 1240 BC,”THE EGYPTIAN BOOK OF THE DEAD,” Translated by E.A. Wallis Budge Now for a sneak peek at . . . CHAPTER 3 - Can Satan Give Psychic Power?The Psychic has long been a mystic sought after by individuals and nations to obtain information about their future. The present trend in many cultures, particularly in the North American culture, to seek the input of a spiritual advisor is significant. One manner in which we are seeing this trend take shape is through the use of a psychic. And often the psychic is the character that leads the charge in giving counsel and predicting the future. We spoke earlier of the Reagan’s use of renowned astrologist Joan Quigley in their attempts to establish the path of least resistance for the former President of the USA. Russian world leaders have used psychics for decades and have used government funding to develop the pseudo-science of psychics. In the 70’s the United States had a program within the FBI, which used a type of psychic practice in an effort to solve crimes. This program employed a technique called “remote-viewing” and involved stationing a special psychic person in a room with a pencil and paper. The “remote viewer” was left to trance out and was to draw what they saw on a piece of paper. The drawing would, at least it was believed, aid in leading the FBI to the end of the trail where they came to solve the crime. After a number of years and mountains of cash spent on developing the program and training the “remote viewers,” the program was scrapped as it was deemed ineffective. In an interesting paper compiled to address and explain some of the history and development of remote viewing and the paranormal activity that is supposedly based in the human psyche, we are told of much that is of interest in regard to this . . .(To read more of this chapter, request your copy of Imagine There's No Satan) Be sure not to miss Jim's Articles Volume 1 Volume 2 Volume 3 Volume 4 |
James R. Brayshaw