The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #2 Once, Twice, Three Times a Sinner3/10/2016 Courts can be rather intimidating places. They should be - after all the dispensation of Justice is extremely important. The judges are usually imposing figures, the courtrooms are hushed and respectful, the clerks and officials note and record everything and dispense justice quickly and efficiently. There is no room for disagreement with the final decision or sentence and bad behaviour in the courtroom is not tolerated. Even the furniture of the court emphasises the solemn importance of what is going on there, with the judge usually seated 'up on high' and the accused 'spotlighted', sat or stood separately, in a place reserved for them, alone and isolated from family and friends. But all of this is nothing compared to the scene of post-mortem judgement described in the Jewish/Christian writing known as the Testament of Abraham. At one point in this ancient Jewish story, in which Abraham tries (with great comic effect) to evade Death, we read how Abraham follows the archangel Michael through the gates of heaven and find himself at the tribunal where the dead are judged. There he finds an awesome, even terrifying vision of divine justice in action, a scene that includes a magnificent judge, gigantic books, glowing tables, scary angels and of course thousands of souls being weighed, burned and whipped! And this, he is told, is just the first stage! This wonderful comic novel originally written by a Jewish writer and then used and preserved (and perhaps adapted) by Christians, dating from perhaps the first or second centuries A.D., provides a wonderful insight into how ideas about heaven and hell and the judgement that sends us there, were developing in the first centuries after the birth of Jesus. In this post I try to describe the elements of divine justice as shown to Abraham and what they mean and why they are there.
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What does God do? It might sound a strange question to ask, after all God is simply God. The good theological answer is probably just to say that God simply is (we can think of the Lord's reply "I am who I am" to Moses at the burning bush!). But throughout the Hebrew Bible there is another very clear answer - God rules, i.e. God is king, ruling over the cosmos, the creation. And because heaven is God's home, heaven is imagined in the Hebrew Bible as a divine, cosmic throne room. In accounts of visions of God, God is almost always shown seated on a throne, surrounded by angelic beings who represent the powers and forces that govern the cosmos. Heaven is the kingdom of God, the place where God's rule is absolute and unquestioned. In contrast to the earth where so often sin and rebellion defy the purpose of God, in heaven God's will is done. That's why Jesus taught his disciples to pray"thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven." In this post I discuss these visions of God in the Hebrew Bible and try to show that rather than being the eternal destination of the righteous, heaven was seen as a real, functioning work space where the real (i.e. hidden) business of the cosmos was being conducted. "The throne was a reminder that God ruled, that God was ultimately sovereign that the universe did not behave in a random way nor that the heavenly forces (the 'powers and principalities') were allowed to run free. The idea of the heavenly court elaborated that, with the added benefit that the thought of all angelic beings belonging to the divine court/council (even such dubious characters as the Satan and the lying Spirit), meant that they too fell under God's authority and control. In other words nothing bad could happen in the cosmos without the authorization of God. Now that might not bring much comfort to Job when he is devastated by his sufferings or to the friends and family of king Ahab when he dies in battle, but for the faithful community, who were usually on the wrong side of the power dynamics in ancient Israel, the thought that God was a king like, but much bigger and more powerful than the kings and rulers they knew, could be a powerful, even revolutionary idea."
Many christians say that they believe heaven is 'real'. By that they mean it really exists, somewhere, in an invisible, spiritual dimension. But even the most fervent believer in heaven probably doesn't think heaven is as real as the ancient Hebrews did. For them heaven existed up above their heads, on the other side of the sky. Heaven was the home of God and he lived up there where he could be close to his creation and watch over his creatures. Heaven was not far, far away in a place beyond space and time: it was very firmly located in space and time, just beyond the solid (if a bit see-through) blue 'firmament', its doors opened to let the weather through and it could be reached by ladders (well, if you were an angel). When the Hebrews said 'heaven is for real' they meant, (as Genesis tells us) that it is part of the creation, just as much a part of the creation as the earth on which we stand. Only if we understand this can we begin to understand what heaven is for and so begin to grasp how impossible it is for heaven to be 'our eternal home'. Heaven is God's home. Just like the earth, heaven was made, created. And one day, heaven will be destroyed a new heaven created. In the Hebrew Bible and Christian New Testament heaven is as real and physical as the earth beneath our feet. "This is the point. In the ancient world the spiritual and the physical were two sides of the same thing. The one could never be divorced from the other. God was as real as the ground on which people stood, and God's home was visible, 'up there' above the sky. God was near. Living life as a human being was to live under the watchful gaze of God. But in our age we have spiritualised religion, and therefore God, thereby negating the importance of God for daily life. Heaven belongs to a level of reality 'far, far away' and is somewhere we go when we die. Whether it's the 'popular' view of heaven as sitting on clouds holding harps or the view espoused by Colton Burpo and Don Piper of a far away land of make believe and wish fulfillment, we have pushed heaven as far away from our everyday lives as possible. And that's not good."
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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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