How big is our God? That is probably the most important question we can ever ask ourselves about our faith. The question isn't "do we believe in God?". Many people believe in a small, mean-minded, culturally bound, limited kind of God, a God who only loves some people, who can only work if we have enough faith, and who is a slave to our desires and longings. But the bible consistently speaks about a God who bursts the limits of our expectation and imagination. The God of the bible constantly surprises and astounds His people by revealing Himself to be much greater than they had thought possible. For some writers and readers of the Hebrew bible there were some places even God couldn't go, for example Sheol, the land of the dead. For these writers that was a place outside of God's view and a place beyond the life-giving grace of God. But for others, with a bigger view of God, there was nowhere beyond reach of their God. Even Sheol was open to His gaze and to his love. The God they believed in was a God who could redeem even those who had passed beyond life. This, I believe, is the God revealed in Jesus who died and rose again as victor over the power of death. In this post I look at some of thse texts which point to that greater faith in God and what they meant for the larger tradition of God's victory over death itself. "It is that vision of the bigger God that serves as the background for the christian belief that Jesus is the manifestation in flesh of this 'bigger God', the God who not only sees into Sheol but who descends to Sheol to bring the dead out of their captivity to death. This is one very early interpretation of the resurrection of Christ. The death and resurrection of Jesus were seen as God entering into the realm of death in order to defeat it and overthrow it's power. Later traditions spoke of Jesus actually going down to 'hell' to rescue the godly men and women who had lived before his coming (the Harrowing of Hell). That's why resurrection is so important to the christian faith. Anything less that resurrection speaks of a small and limited God, a God who rescues the soul out of this horrible world, but who has no power to restore dead bodies or heal a broken world. Resurrection, the resurrection of Jesus and our own, speaks of a bigger God, the only God worth worshipping".
In the previous posts I suggested that the view of Sheol in the Hebrew Bible is that it is a miserable, meaningless place where even God is unknown and where those who inhabit it are beyond God's knowledge and love. It is on that basis that the Psalmist in Psalm 88 "bargains" with God - he urges God not to let him descend to a place where he can no longer praise or serve God (Psalm 8.10-12). Other similar references are Psalm 6.4-5; Psalm 30.8-10; Isaiah 38.17-18. The God who sees into SheolOn the other hand there are references to the power of God over Sheol. These verses suggest a bigger conception of God, a God without limit, whose knowledge and power extend even to the shadowy underworld. Probably the most famous and striking is Psalm 139 Where can I go from your spirit? What is striking is that God can find the Psalmist even in Sheol. This is something remarkable; an exception to the way things are supposed to be that reveals the power and wonder of God! Even in that dark miserable void, the antithesis of everything meaningful and good, God can be present. In Job 26, Job replies to Bildad's assertion that no man can be righteous (as Job claimed himself to be) with an assertion of the limitless knowledge of God. God who created the whole cosmos knows the details of creation, and He alone is able to judge the honesty of Job's heart. That knowledge extends even to the realm of the dead. The shades below tremble, This is a supremely powerful and all knowing God. Notice that here the knowledge of God even of Sheol/Abbadon is tied to the notion of God as creator of the entire cosmos. If God has made everything then even the land of the dead beneath the earth also belongs to Him. The same idea forms the basis for the Lord's eventual rebuke of Job. God first asks Job if he has done the work of creation as God has. Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? It is this God, the creator of all things, the one who has sunk earth's foundations and who laid its cornerstone, who knows Sheol. Does Job question the justice of God? Is Job the creator, the One who sees even into the depths of death? ‘Have you entered into the springs of the sea, If the Psalmist was hopeful because God could find the dead in Sheol, and if God's knowledge of Sheol was something that challenged Job's assumptions, then Amos portrays God's power over Sheol in a thoroughly scary light. When judgement comes, even Sheol will not be sufficiently deep or dark to hide the wicked from God's wrath. Though they dig into Sheol, The God who brings the dead out of SheolIn some texts God is not just the God who sees and knows the darkness of Sheol, He is the God who can bring people back from Sheol. 1 Kings 17.17-24 records the story of the raising to life of the widow's son by Elijah, and 2 Kings 4.32-37 records the story of the raising of the Shunammite woman's son by Elisha. The God of these passages is the God who can raise the dead, in other words the one who can find and restore those who have gone down to Sheol. In fact the many instances of God preserving life are also signs of God's power over Sheol. The boundary between death and life was not as clear-cut in the Hebrew bible as it is for us today. Sickness, infertility or abject poverty could all be regarded as a kind of death (because hey deprived people of true life). Whenever God heals, restores fertility or feeds the starving and helps the poor He is affiriming his sovereignty over the realm of the dead. The God who breaks the rule that everyone goes to SheolHe is also, of course, the God who can break the rule that everyone descends to Sheol at the end of their life. Instead of "going down to Sheol" Elijah is lifted up by the fiery chariot to heaven. As they continued walking and talking, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah ascended in a whirlwind into heaven. Elisha kept watching and crying out, ‘Father, father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!’ But when he could no longer see him, he grasped his own clothes and tore them in two pieces. 2 Kings 2.9-12 (NRSV) The God who enters Sheol to rescue the shadesIt is that vision of the bigger God that serves as the background for the christian belief that Jesus is the manifestation in flesh of this 'bigger God', the God who not only sees into Sheol but who descends to Sheol to bring the dead out of their captivity to death. This is one very early interpretation of the resurrection of Christ. The death and resurrection of Jesus were seen as God entering into the realm of death in order to defeat it and overthrow it's power. Later traditions spoke of Jesus actually going down to hell to rescue the godly men and women who had lived before his coming (the Harrowing of Hell). That's why resurrection is so important to the christian faith. Anything less that resurrection speaks of a small and limited God, a God who rescues the soul out of this horrible world, but who has no power to restore dead bodies or heal a broken world. Resurrection, the resurrection of Jesus and our own, speaks of a bigger God, the only God worth worshipping. You might also be interested in
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April 2016
GalleryThis blog is as much about images as it is about text. Below is a slideshow of the pictures and images used in this blog. Click on any of the pictures to go to the post where that image is featured.
PostsLocating Paradise #1 In a Garden, Far, Far Away
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #5 'Stuck in the Middle With You'
The Resurrection According to Rahner
Today You Will Be With Me in Paradise
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #4 'And Who by Fire'
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #3: Held in the Balance
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #2: Once, Twice, Three Times a Sinner
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #1: The Broad and Narrow Gates
Daily Dante 7: Many Rivers to Cross
Daily Dante 6: 'You Gotta Serve Somebody'
In Hell Everyone Can Hear You Scream. The Vision of Tundale #3
Teeth, Spikes and Cleavers: At the Sharp end of Hell. The Vision of Tundale #2
'No Pain No Gain': The Vision of Tundale #1
'Hellzapoppin':
Illustrations from Le Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur, #2 'It's The End of the World as We Know It (and we feel fine)'. Illustrations from Le Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur, #1
Visions of Heaven. Botticini's Assumption of the Virgin #2 Blinded by the Light
Visions of Heaven. Botticini's Assumption of the Virgin #1: Glorious and Immortal
Daily Dante 5: What the gates said.
Daily Dante 4: When I find myself in times of trouble
Daily Dante 3: I'll take you there
Daily Dante 2: Fierce creatures
Daily Dante 1: If you go down to the woods today
In Seventh Heaven or 'What Enoch Did Next'
A World of Fire and Ice: Heaven according to Enoch
The Power and the Glory: Visions of God as king in the Hebrew bible
The Beautiful Bestiary of Catherine Cleves: Monsters and Demons in detail.
Heaven is for Real: Heaven as a physical space up above the sky
Resurrecting the Dead or Reviving the Flowers? The loss of resurrection faith in Judaism.
The Defeat of Death #1: The promise of resurrection in the Isaiah Apocalypse.
The Defeat of Death #2: Death as a hostile power and promise of God's victory in Isaiah
Scary Monsters and Super Creeps: The 'Last Judgement' according to Stefan Lochner
Hell in the Hospital: The 'Last Judgement' of Rogier van der Weyden in the Beaune altarpiece.
'Hell' in the New Testament #2: The gates of Hades shall not prevail
The Hours of Catherine Cleves: Imagining hell and purgatory in Catherine's prayer book
'On Earth as in Heaven': The kingdom of God as a revelation of heaven
'Hell' in the New Testament #1: Gehenna
Lost in Translation #1: How the King James version got it so wrong about hell
Heaven is not our home
Domes, Depths and Demons: The cosmology of the Hebrew world
A Bigger God
"See you in Sheol" - Sheol, the common destination of all
Heaven, Hell and Christian Hope
BooksBelow are some of the books which have helped me the most in the research and writing for this blog. Click on any image to find out more about that book at its page on Amazon uk.
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