I digress-Scripture very much and emphatically speaks about being conscious after death
OK, now this is where the devil has been especially deceptive because he has turned belief in the resurrection into belief in an immortal soul. A completely contradictory scenario.
What ‘consciousness after death’ did Jesus actually speak about, as opposed to what most in Christendom believe and are taught?
When Jesus walked the earth the Bible tells us about three resurrections specifically that he personally performed (there may have been many more), but in each of the cited cases he returned a dead person to life. He did not pluck their soul from another realm to make them live again. He restored the life they formerly had, and returned them to their families and friends.
The very expression that people rely on to promote the idea that we don’t really die is never once mentioned in scripture because the two words “immortal soul” are completely contradictory. A “soul” in the Bible is a living, breathing, mortal creature. A “soul” cannot therefore, be immortal.
Two words in the Bible that have come to mean the same thing, are not the same at all......and that is “soul” and “spirit”. As one who has done extensive word studies, Johann, you will know this.
A “soul” in the Bible is never described as a disembodied “spirit”. The soul is synonymous with life, often hearing the expression "my soul" meaning all that a person is or was. A soul is the whole person and cannot live if the body dies. (Ezek 18:4)
Going back to Eden we can see what God did to
make Adam a “soul”.....he breathed “the breath (spirit) of life into his nostrils”, ‘making’ the man a soul, not ‘giving’ him one. Never was Adam told about an afterlife.
The “resurrection” that Jews believed in, and what Jesus showed them would happen in the new world to come, was a restoration of mankind back to the earth where God created them to live in the first place.
We have been led to believe that earth was merely a training ground for heaven, when this was NEVER the case. God’s purpose for his first inhabited planet never involved humans or any other terrestrial creatures, living anywhere else. This earth was designed to be our permanent home.
But do we never wonder why God chose such an insignificant planet to begin his sentient material creation? His spiritual family in heaven were created long before the universe was. The inhabitants of heaven did not need to be 'trained' to live there.
In God's vast universe, our earth is merely a tiny speck....and the sun that powers our solar system is also a very small one at the edge of an insignificant galaxy.
If we are the starting point in a much larger picture, what are we undergoing now that will benefit all creation in times to come? We can only speculate about what God has in store for the future, but wouldn’t he make sure that all the ‘bugs’ were ironed out in his prototype before he ventured out into other habitable places in the universe? Did he create such vastness for nothing? The Bible says he created the earth to be inhabited.....but why this tiny insignificant place?
We can only go by the instructions he has left us....and in the beginning there was no need of a long list of laws and penalties....no need for sin to enter the world, and so no suffering or death would have blighted our lives. No saviour would have needed to come and rescue us from our self imposed situation, and therefore no kingdom with priests and kings would have been needed to bring us back into reconciliation with our Creator.
Can you step back now and see a much bigger picture, not merely focused on God’s solution to save us from our disobedience through a very narrow lens, but seeing what could have been and how Jehovah fulfills his statement at Isaiah 55:11?
From my studies, when Jehovah starts something, he is keen to complete it. With time not being an issue to him, it can seem as if things are dragging from our limited perspective, while he fixes what got broken when both angels and man drew away from their Creator in an attempt to rule themselves without him.
He could have responded in one of two ways.....either destroy what he created and start again, (which would not have satisfied his perfect justice) and which would likely have set up a chain reaction when we understand that the first rebel was not human. Angels figure in this scenario to a greater extent than most people realize.....and the reason why time is figured in the outworking of God’s purpose in their realm, not ours. The spirit realm does not operate in earth time, governed by the rotation of our little planet.
We are the hostages in this situation, taken captive by a rebel spirit who challenged his Creator’s Sovereignty and had to be made an example of. In allowing the devil to rule his new converts, God would create a record of his dealings with mankind and he would allow the devil to rule with a relatively free hand to prove that he was the better ruler over his newly acquired subjects. In this God did not leave himself without witness, informing mankind who he was and what his expectations were concerning them, and there would always be those ones who would refuse to allow the devil to be their god. Abel was the first human to worship his God acceptably, but he was by no means the last. Hebrews 11 lists a vast number who upheld their Creator's Sovereignty.
Angels were also observing closely because many of their number were also making decisions as to whom they would serve? The true God, or the pretender whose claims
seemed to them to be valid as it did to humans.
All the while, a recording of all who remained faithful to God and who actively opposed the devil was taking place for a future “book of life”, wherein all the names of the faithful are written so that their future resurrection is assured in the new world to come. (2 Peter 3:12; Phil 4:3)
In the meantime, God chose a number of humans to rule with his son in a kingdom of a thousand years duration.....the time it would take to bring all redeemed mankind back into a sinless condition to face one last test before being granted everlasting life on this planet as God first intended.
These were to be granted a very different resurrection, from human to spirit, as Jesus was. (1 Pet 3:18) He was “the firstborn from the dead” in that respect. (Col 1:15-17) The first of those who experience the “first resurrection” as “kings and priests” (Rev 20:6) in a heavenly kingdom designed to take mankind back to God. So Isaiah 55:11 comes to its completion.....what Jehovah starts, he finishes....to his satisfaction.
The creative “days” in Genesis were all completed in the same way....all being declared “good” and “very good” from Jehovah’s standpoint......all but one, that is. The 7th day was begun, but has no conclusion declared by God. Was this an oversight on his part or was it a failure? No way that God can ever be a failure so, what did this mean?
Paul spoke of God’s “rest” as still continuing, (Heb 3:10-11) so does this mean that the 7th day was set aside for this very purpose? To address the problems that free will naturally brings to creatures who can use it for the benefit or detriment of themselves and others?
Did God need to see what his free willed creatures would do with this gift and then act accordingly to show us where it can be either a blessing or a curse? The lessons are all there in God’s word.
Again the bigger picture helps us put it all into focus, not just the bits that we seem to concentrate on and argue about....the big picture helps us make sense out of all of it...or it does to me anyway...