Hello All,
(Just a general disclaimer that I must insert here at the beginning. I am but a lay person, like most of you. And these weekly “thoughts” are but my own. Not the definitive word on this or any topic. Just my own conclusions derived from my own study and faith in God. The greatest hope I have for these weekly “thoughts” is to have them be a springboard for further study on your part. Not to be a weekly treatise to be blindly accepted. So, please read them with this intent, this motive in mind).
This week’s lesson from “The Adult Sabbath School Guide” is titled “The Old Testament Hope”. Have you ever stood at a gravesite? It doesn’t take much thinking to be aware that the deceased person is not there hovering around in some alternative state. Most cemeteries are quiet, scenic, lending themselves to peaceful reflection and meditation. No ghostly apparitions. No disembodied souls. “Quiet as a tomb”, as they say. Quiet as a sleeping chamber. Most people are unaware that the very word we use for this burial place… “cemetery” is from the Greek koimētērion meaning “sleeping chamber”. Which is from the Greek koiman “to put to sleep”. Even our English language portends this understanding. That the dead are sleeping, not existing somewhere else in another form. Our lesson this week underscores this realization. The Old Testament writers had no misconception regarding the true condition of the dead. Asleep.
Remarkably, though, this was not the motivation for those writers (to awaken from the sleep of death in any resurrection). Their motivation was to see God, to be with God. An eternal life after awakening from their death-sleep was not their sole motivation. Their motivation was to awaken and ever be with the Lord. This is not splitting theological hairs. This is vital to understand.
Do I want to be a teacher in order to help students learn to grow-up? Or do I want to be a teacher in order to have summers “off”? Do I want to go to college to learn? Or do I want to go to college in order to eventually play professional sports? Do I want to marry you because I love you and you love me? Or do I want to marry you because your family has wealth… or (any other reason than love)? You get the point here. Do I want eternal life to have an endless life? Or do I want to be with our Father always? Each finale is the same (eternal life). But “why” is always the question (as the late Graham Maxwell once said about his class exams; he would give one point for a “what” answer. But 2 points for a “why” answer). “Why” is everything.
The scripture from Job in Sunday’s lesson is an example of this Old Testament rationale of ever being with God:
For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!
Isn’t this perfectly marvelous! Isn’t this what your heart really wants? An eternal life without our loving Husband would be torturous… it would be like hell. But life with Him… now that is something to desire above all desires. Something to rest our hope in!
With brotherly love,
Jim