The believers at Thessalonica were troubled about friends and loved ones who had already died, and, yet, the Lord hadn’t come (1Thessalonians 4:13). What would become of them? The pagans had many practices, whereby they mourned their dead (cp. Leviticus 19:27-28), but the word of God clearly claimed the dead slept and had no conscious awareness of the world in which they once lived (Ecclesiastes 9:10). They weren’t even able to think (Psalm 6:5), neither was there any interaction between God and the dead one (Psalm 88:5). The state of death was simply blackness of darkness—complete unconsciousness (2Peter 2:17; Jude 1:13). Nevertheless, they who knew the Lord died knowing they would never return to their former existence (Job 7:9-10), yet the believer was still able to hope for a future resurrection (Job 14:13-15), in which he, the very same person who had once lived, would arise in the latter days, and he would behold his Redeemer with his own eyes (Job 19:25-27). Yet all Jews didn’t believe in the resurrection, and apparently this was so at Thessalonica.
Pagans believed in God, but had no hope after death. Originally, Jews who believed the word of God did have hope after death. Nevertheless, many had exchanged that hope for evil and lies, and by the first century AD it was commonly taught that the dead ‘lived’ in a spirit state in a dark world, wherein both the righteous and the wicked were present, but were separated by a great gulf (cp. Luke 16:19-30). When Jesus spoke the story of Lazarus and the Rich Man (Luke 16:19-30), he was repeating a rabbinic myth,[1] not offering a parable of the truth, as some assume. Instead, he used the rabbis’ own false teaching that there was no resurrection to destroy their argument (Luke 16:31).
Similarly, when Peter mentioned the grave (tartarus; G5020) in 2Peter 2:4, he was describing a state of darkness in which God held the dead until the judgment (Romans 1:21). But in Greek mythology tartarus was personified to indicate a figure who held the dead captive. The false doctrine was a very strong belief and widely held among the gentiles, as is understood in Luke’s account of Paul’s appearance before the Greeks in the Aeropagus (Acts 17:18-32). There, he spoke of the resurrection, at which the majority of Paul’s audience mocked. They both believed and taught the words of Apollo, who upon the installation of the court of the Areopagus said, “When the dust hath drained the blood of man, once he is slain, there is no return to life” Eumenides 647-48), and this was the understanding held also by many Jewish rabbis, as well, which the Scripture, Luke 16:19-30, seems to convey. It was to this error that Paul wrote in 1Thessalonians 4:13.
There is only one reason why the believer has hope after death, and that hope is grounded in the fact that Jesus both died and rose from the dead (1Corinthians 15:12-14). If God raised Jesus from the dead, then there is hope he will raise us up, as well. Otherwise, there is no evidence that, if a man die, he would live again (Job 14:14). So, if we believe Jesus died and rose again (1Thessalonians 4:14), then only in this could we ever hope that he would fulfill his promise that he would return and reward all, including the dead, according to their works (Matthew 16:27-28). Moreover, the time frame for our reward, and, therefore, for the resurrection of the dead, isn’t some vague promise that it would occur sometime in the far and unimaginable future. No! the Lord did say that some of those who heard him speak would live to see that day (Matthew 16:27-28), and all would occur within that generation in which Jesus was crucified (Matthew 24:30-34; 23:29-36; Mark 8:38; 9:1).
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[1] See my earlier studies on Luke 16:19-31: Who Is the Rich Man?; The Rich Man and Resurrection; Is Experience Better Evidence for Truth?; Luke and Egyptian Folklore; Is Abraham in Hades? Another Jewish myth is recorded in Matthew 22:23-28, which teaching Jesus destroyed in Matthew 22:31-32.
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3 responses to “The Hope of Those Who Had Died”
Well Done Eddy! If we believe and keep faith alive in “our blood” and “our blood” is not drained out of our faith bodies by stone cold unbelievers, mortal man, people, will return to life over and over again. In the mythology of the ancient Greeks, Apollo was a prophet and in 1 Corinthians 3:5, Paul is reminding the Corinthians that it is Apollo who waters the seeds of faith planted by Paul (because the dead do rise 1 Corinthians 15:16). And so I think it is reasonable to assume, Paul was planting seeds of faith from the Psalms that you mention. Seeds planted in the dark sprout when warmed by “solar” light and watered. Psalm 90:3 speaks to the dark psalms …singing boldly You return man to dust, saying, “Return, O sons of mortals.” …GROW!!! Psalm 90:4 reminds mortals that what seems like a thousand years, is but a day in God’s sight. Many believers today discredit myths as if they were inferior to “sacred” texts. However, as you mention Eddy, Jesus told the Jewish Myth of Lazarus and the Dives (rich person) for a reason. You reasoned that it was to counter the argument held by those who refused to believe in the Resurrection of the Dead and to show them they were wrong and spreading falsehood. I think there is also some room for another explanation. In Cyrene in North Africa where Simon’s blood originated…there was a plant called silphium* that was pretty much a miracle cure all. It made the country of Cyrene and the people rich and it was over exploited. And then…what seemed like overnight the country became poor and silphium became extinct (or lost…hidden). Marketeers rose up and sold plants that looked like silphium…but it smelled terribly…so silphium became known as Laser. So I think it is reasonable to think that Jesus told the story of Laser and the Dives to illustrate how people get exploited…become over worked, flogged and drained of all their rich faith heritage and get buried without much hope of ever seeing and feeling the light and the water bringing them to life.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20170907-the-mystery-of-the-lost-roman-herb
We disagree on many points in your comment. You seem to say otherwise, but we disagree.
The Gospel has nothing to do with the Greek and Roman gods. Judaism drew arguments from their myths to support their various heresies, but the Gospel has nothing to do with that sort of thing.
Well Eddy, I agree with much of what you say. However you are right. It is fair to say, I do disagree with your assertion that the Gospel has nothing to do with the Greek and Roman gods. I for one see how the Gospel has incorporated the gods and the faith stories of their neighbours to foster peace. Although it is fair to say, there were likely many Greeks and Romans and Hebrews then and now who would disagree with me.