Not Worth Dividing For Part 2 - Atonement Questions Answered - THF Q&A With David Bercot

Hey, welcome back to another Engage the Faith Q&A with David Berceau. Today we're going to be answering the questions that came up from the last Atonement Live Q&A. Unfortunately, today's is not live. David and I had a conflicting schedule, and so we're pre-recording this, but this is being broadcast, as you know, for the first time on the Historic Faith YouTube channel. So if you haven't already, subscribe and hit the notification bell so that when we put up any exclusive content, you'll be notified. If you have any follow-up questions, send them to the Historic Faith in the live chat. Even though we're not live, we're broadcasting this and we have someone monitoring the chat.

And if you don't get it live, you can put it in the comments below. But we will only be answering follow-up questions from the YouTube channel. If you want to ask new questions about new topics, you will have to be a subscriber to the Historic Faith online courses, and you'll have that privilege. We have an exciting evening. Let's jump right into things. Are you ready, David? I'm ready. David, the first question is, what were the animal sacrifices for in the Old Testament? Were they also some sort of sacrifice to Satan? Well, first, I think there's a misunderstanding here. Under the early Christian model, Christ's death was not a sacrifice to Satan. Jesus sacrificed his life on our behalf as an offering to his Father.

It was not an appeasement to pacify the wrath of God, nor was it an offering to satisfy God's justice. Rather, it was an offering of love and obedience. Christ let Satan torture him and kill him in order to set us free from Satan and ultimately in order to defeat Satan. It was his Father's will that he make this sacrifice on our behalf. But ultimately, Jesus chose to follow the route of self-sacrifice and obedience to his Father. Nobody forced it upon him. So although Jesus sacrificed himself to save us from Satan, I myself would never use the phrase that it was a sacrifice to Satan.

Okay, now back to the animal sacrifices.

What they were not. We should not imagine that God received some kind of appeasement or vicarious enjoyment from animal sacrifices. Now, Isaiah 1:11 says this, God asks, "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to me?" says the Lord. "I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle. I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or goats."

So God didn't personally gain anything from these sacrifices. Furthermore, those animal sacrifices did not take away anyone's sins. I mean, the letter to Hebrews tells us, this is Hebrews 10:4, "For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins."

So what was the purpose of those sacrifices? Again, Hebrews explains this time in chapter 10, verses 1 through 3. It says, "For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image or substance of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect.

For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers once purified would have had no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins every year." So Hebrews says that those sacrifices actually reminded the Jews of their sins. They helped the Jews to see that some kind of redemption was necessary.

Secondly, they also prefigured the sacrifice of Christ. Once more, Hebrews tells us this time, chapter 9, verses 9 through 10. It says, "It was symbolic," it's talking about the law, "for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered, which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience, concerned only with foods and drinks, various washings and fleshly ordinances, imposed until the time of reformation."

In summary then, the Old Testament sacrifices had at least two purposes. They reminded the Jews of their sinfulness, and they pointed to the perfect sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf. In the animal sacrifices, an innocent victim would be sacrificed because of the sins of somebody else. And that's exactly what happened to Christ. He was an innocent victim being sacrificed for our sins.

Great. Thank you so much for such a thorough answer. It is very helpful for me understanding this better. And thank you for the person who wrote this question. And also, this is the same person, question two, anonymous. What does it mean, "Without shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins"?

Okay, the verse you're referring to is Hebrews 9, verse 22. So let me read that. It says, "Indeed, under the law, almost everything is purified with blood. And without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins." So that actual verse is talking about what happened under the law. It's not necessarily a universal law throughout the entire universe or anything like that. It's talking about under the law.

He says, "Almost everything was purified with blood. And without the shedding of blood, there was no forgiveness of sins." But as we've seen, those sacrifices really didn't take away sins. Nor could human blood, if it had been offered, could it cleanse anyone from sin? So we don't have a God who thirsts for blood. It was primarily for the purpose of pointing to Christ's death that these sacrifices were made. In reality, the only blood that cleanses from sin is the blood of Jesus Christ.

So let's talk about that blood and that provision for a moment. Now, last month, and this lesson this month, we're following up some questions that were asked at the end of last month's session. Last month, we were talking about the Christus Victor model of the Atonement, which focuses on the binding and conquering of Satan by Christ. And I mentioned last month that there is more to the Atonement than just that. Freeing us from the grasp of Satan was only part of the solution.

More was needed for us to be fully reconciled to God. Because even if we are free from the power of Satan, sin still alienates us from God. So we needed to be cleansed from sin. Now, under the penal substitution model of the Atonement, somehow Christ's blood appeases God's anger and satisfies his justice. Christ's shed blood brings about a change in God. But under the early Christian model, Christ's shed blood brings about a change not in God, but a change in us. Again, under the penal substitution model, man himself is no different after the Atonement than he was before it. He still lives in sin. But under this model, he now has a new legal standing before God because the price for those sins has already been paid.

The punishment has already been dealt out. I remember 30 years ago, back in Texas, there was a popular bumper sticker that said, "Christians aren't perfect. They're just forgiven." And the message behind that slogan was that Christian sin just like everybody else. The only difference is that they're forgiven.

However, under the early Christian model, it's not that way at all. It wasn't God's heart that needed to be changed. Rather, it was our nature that had to be changed. For by its very nature, sin alienates us from God. And I'll give you an illustration. Imagine that your best friend has just been sprayed by a skunk. And now he calls you up. He hasn't been cleansed. He calls you up and he says, "Hey, David, I'd like to come over and spend some time with you."

Well, now you may feel fine towards your friend. I mean, you still love him and you like normally being around him. However, until something changes, you are not going to be able to invite him into your home. You're not going to be able to have close fellowship. There's going to be an alienation between the two of you. Not because you have to change, but because he has to change.

So it works that way with the Atonement. We needed changing. We needed cleaning up. God didn't need to change at all. But a holy God cannot have close fellowship with a person who is unholy. God loved us and he was willing to forgive us. But the sin in us made a barrier between us and God.

As James tells us, he says, "Draw near to God and he will draw near to you." So it's we who have to move towards God. God hasn't moved. We're the ones who have moved away from him and we're the ones who need to move back towards him. In fact, in that same verse, James continues, this is James 4:8. He says, "Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded."

So that's what enables us to draw close to God. When we get ourselves cleansed from sin and turn from unholy living to godly living through the grace of God and through the power of Jesus's blood. So any model of the Atonement has to take into account the power of Christ's blood.

So again, according to the early Christian understanding of the Atonement, Christ's blood doesn't change the ledgers of heaven. There's no bookkeeping change that occurred by which our sin, the debt of our sin, has been paid for us. Rather, Christ's blood cleanses us. We are actually free from the stain of sin. It's not just a fictitious ledger entry in heaven. We really are cleansed from sin.

So the early Christian model of the Atonement amplifies the significance of Christ's blood. One of the typical expressions I hear from evangelical Protestants is that Christ's blood covers our sin. In fact, I remember when my family and I were members of an evangelical church about 40 years ago.

And I remember once hearing a sermon about how the blood of Christ covers our sin. And the preacher said that when the Father looks down from heaven, he doesn't even see our sin. Instead, he just sees the blood of Christ, which covers over us.

Well, that may sound comforting, but it's not how the early Christians understood things. It's sort of like painting over something to cover it up. I mean, back in Texas, often we would get mildew on the wooden areas of the outside of our house because where we lived in Texas, people think of Texas as very dry, but East Texas, where we lived, was very warm and humid.

Now, when you have mildew on the outside of wood on your house, sure, it's easy enough just to paint over the mildew and cover it up. But if you do that, that mildew is eventually going to bleed right back through the paint. Or maybe I should say the mildew is going to grow back through the paint because mildew is actually a living and growing thing, and paint by itself doesn't kill it. So to do the job right, at least, let's say, 30, 40 years ago, you first had to wash down your wood with a bleach solution to kill the mildew.

And then you'd clean off the residue of it. And then if you actually needed to repaint the wood, then you would repaint it once you had cleansed away the mildew. I think now they have paints that have a chemical in them that will kill the mildew as you paint, and you don't have to do the two stages. But that's the way things were, let's say, 40 years ago.

Okay, so the early Christians understood Christ's blood to be like that, that bleach solution. It doesn't just cover over us like paint, but rather it actually cleanses us. It gets rid of the sin inside of us.

Okay, so I have a question. So you mentioned that he didn't come to change something with the Father, but he came to change us, which I completely understand. But was there any—do you know of any early Christians' theories on—it seemed like it also changed something with Satan. He came to destroy the works of Satan, and he changed something. Do they have anything with that?

Yes, definitely. And that's what we were talking about last week. The whole Christus Victor model is that, yeah, Jesus came, and one of the major things he did was to bind Satan and plunder his goods. So Satan seems to have permanently lost—he's still around, but he seems to have permanently lost the power that he used to have before Christ came to the earth. And so the way is now open to the gospel that wasn't available before Christ came. Amen. Thank you again. And we have one more question from the same person. They said, "Why does it say that it pleased God to bruise the suffering servant in Isaiah 53:10? I know it's different in the Septuagint, but why would it say that in the Masoretic?"

Okay, I'm glad you asked this question because actually last month, I wanted to talk about Isaiah 53, but we ran out of time. And so I was so glad when I saw this question come through because it's like, "Oh, I want to talk about that." Because really, if you're going to understand these questions about the Atonement, you have to address Isaiah 53.

And there's a reason why the penal substitution model of the Atonement didn't gain traction until the Middle Ages. And there's a reason why it was embraced in the West. It still is, but never in the East. And the reason for that is the Latin Vulgate translation, which was made in the early fifth century. It didn't become widespread until maybe another century after that, until perhaps the sixth century. Now, if you're not familiar with the Latin Vulgate, it is a translation of the scriptures into Latin that was made by Jerome.

And what is unique about it is that Jerome, when he went to translate the Old Testament, instead of using the Septuagint, which is what Christians had always used from the days of the apostles until his day, he, in his own arrogance, decided he would go to the Masoretic text that the Jews were using, and he would translate the Old Testament from the Masoretic text.

And this had some significant results.

And as you pointed out in your question, Isaiah 53:10 reads significantly differently in the Septuagint than it does in the Masoretic text. And it's my opinion that a major reason for the idea of the penal substitution view came from this reading of Isaiah 53:10 in the Masoretic text. Without that verse from the Masoretic text, you really don't have anything in scripture that clearly would give you the idea that God received some kind of pleasure by punishing, hurting his son, that somehow that made him happy or pleased him in some way, satisfied him.

And again, that's why you don't see this theory of penal substitution before the Latin Vulgate had come out. And as I said, it's why you don't see it in the Eastern churches through this day because they still use the Septuagint as their Old Testament.

Now, Isaiah 53:10, how it reads in the Masoretic text, this is from the New King James, it says, "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He has put him to grief. When you make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. He shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand."

Now, in the Septuagint, it reads quite differently. Isaiah 53:10 in the Septuagint says, "The Lord wishes to take away the pain of his soul. And if you make an offering for sin, your soul will see long-lived offspring." And then it goes on and matches the Masoretic in the rest of the verse fairly closely.

So as you can see, the difference in these two renditions is considerable. The Masoretic text says, "It pleased the Lord to bruise him." This implies, as I said, that God gets some kind of pleasure out of hurting his son.

In contrast, the Septuagint says that the Lord wishes to take away the pain of his soul. I mean, this is a 180-degree difference. Rather than receiving pleasure from bruising his son, the Father desires to take away the pain that his son was receiving, that his soul was receiving.

Now, when I first began sharing the early Christian view of the Atonement, this would have been like 30 years ago, people who were struggling with the early Christian view, and I was certainly never trying to impose it on anyone. I was just sharing what I had discovered. Well, invariably, they would go to Isaiah 53:10, and they would quote it to me. They say, "Well, look, it says it pleased God to bruise his son."

And originally, I didn't know how to respond because I didn't realize that this verse read differently in the Septuagint. I mean, 30 years ago, you didn't have the Orthodox Study Bible, which I use just as my regular Bible. I take it to church. It's my everyday Bible. I mean, back then, the only English translation you had that was widely used was the Breton translation.

And it was in archaic English, and the print was really small. It was in a heavy hardback. It was just inconvenient to use. So I didn't just sit and read it all of the time. It wasn't intended for that when he did the translation. And like I say, it was hard to use it that way. So I didn't realize that the answer just lay in the Septuagint. So I had to tell people, "Look, I don't know the answer, but I am sure that there is one." Well, eventually, I discovered that Isaiah 53:10 reads totally different in the Septuagint. And of course, that cleared up the problem.

The reason I say it cleared up the problem is because the Septuagint was the Old Testament of the New Testament church and of the early Christians. The Masoretic text back then was the Old Testament of the unbelieving Jews. So yeah, naturally, you go with the Septuagint because that was the Bible of the apostles.

Now, in your question, you also asked, "Why would it say that in the Masoretic text that it pleased him to bruise him?" Of course, when copyists were making copies of the scriptures, they didn't know what this prophecy was talking about. And they probably weren't thinking deeply. They were just copying down the words. It may have been dictated to them, or they may have had an exemplar in front of them that they were copying from.

And actually, there are a number of verses that read differently in the Masoretic text than in the Septuagint. And I think it's because of errors that were made by copyists through the centuries. In fact, a lot of the problem passages from the Old Testament, contradictions and things like that, those problem passages exist only in the Masoretic text. They're not in the Septuagint. And I'm certainly personally convinced that they're there because of errors that copyists made.

I mean, I think every copyist made mistakes when they copied. Nobody is infallible. And I mean, in those days, all of the text ran together. They didn't have clear punctuation between sentences and all of that. It would have been very difficult to copy that tedious text and not ever make a mistake anywhere. And just one letter difference would create often an entirely new word. And I believe, because I support the early Christians and the New Testament, I firmly believe that the Septuagint was translated from a Hebrew text that is older and more accurate than the Masoretic text. Okay, so here in Isaiah 53, I think the scribes obviously made an error somewhere. Now, Philip Hess actually shed some light on this, on what this error was, why the Septuagint and the Masoretic text read differently.

Now, this is just a theory, but it's a very good one. Now, in English, these two texts sound just radically different. I mean, how could you get such a difference in teaching? But Philip points out that the crux actually comes down to just one word in the Hebrew.

And that is that phrase, "Did it please the Lord to bruise him, or did it please the Lord to take away his pain?" Now, the Masoretic text uses the Hebrew word to ca, which means to crush or to bruise.

Don't pay any attention to my Hebrew pronunciation. I'm not versed in Hebrew. Okay, but the Septuagint translators, Philip thinks, were apparently translating a text that used a very similar Hebrew word, zaca. That means to cleanse or to take away. So in other words, the two words in Hebrew, to punish or to bruise or to cleanse or take away, they're almost the same word in Hebrew, and they would sound very similar in pronunciation if somebody was copying and listening to somebody else.

In short, what appears in English as a very different reading may have turned on only one word in the ancient Hebrew. And as I said, none of the copyists of scripture were infallible, and they made mistakes when they copied. Of course, the proponents of the Masoretic text would say, "Oh, the error was made by those who were copying the text for the Septuagint." And of course, proponents of the Septuagint would say, "No, the error was made when people were copying the text that eventually became the Masoretic text."

Well, I'd have to say, since the Septuagint was the Bible of Jesus and the apostles, I would have to argue that the copyists of the Masoretic text were the ones who mistook deca for zaca if that was what caused this error.

But Philip points out that this difference could have another basis. And that is that that Hebrew word, deca, maybe has changed over time in meaning. I mean, English words, what they meant 500 years ago, are often radically different than what they mean today. In fact, often they mean the exact opposite. And I've talked about that before in a number of my messages. So it may well be that in the time of the prophet Isaiah, that Hebrew word, deca, meant to cleanse or to take away, and that the meaning is what changed over time.

And so the translators of the Septuagint may have been preserving the original meaning of that Hebrew word. Now, that's just, again, another theory. I'm just saying there's more than one possibility here. And these are things that Philip Hess has pointed out. So I find it really curious that it didn't take me long at all when I heard about the Septuagint to figure out that Jesus and the apostles quoted from the Septuagint. And if it's so easy, I didn't have a clue that people were against it until I was trying to share it with just some friends, lifelong friends. And they basically disowned me because I was reading the scriptures that Jesus and his apostles quoted from.

Do you have any idea why in the world that would be? Yes, because I have dealt with this ever since I started talking about the early Christians, ever since I read them and then began sharing with other people. I mean, to me, it was exciting. Wow, look at what it was in the beginning.

And like I say, the teachings of the early church, you could just back them up with scripture after scripture. And the whole teaching on the Septuagint was exciting. Oh, no wonder that the New Testament, when they quote from the Old Testament, this is the reason why it doesn't match the Old Testament in our Bibles. So to me, that was good news. I naively thought, "Well, yeah, it'll be good news to everyone else." The problem is nobody likes to have their cake turned upside down. Their whole spiritual world turned upside down. Now, to me, I had already gone through such an upheaval in my own spiritual life and my own theology that I was like, "Okay, I was ready to lay everything on the table, and I just want to find out what the truth is."

But if you've been entrenched in a particular way of thinking, then you feel very vulnerable if someone comes along and says, "Oh, it wasn't this way." Even if you're not trying to start an argument with them or anything else, people get very defensive over that. So on the Septuagint, well, one thing you have King James-only people. So since the King James was translated from the Masoretic text, when you bring up the Septuagint, it's like, "Oh, that throws everything in an upheaval." And so they're going to fight against that to the very death. If you're talking about somebody who isn't necessarily married to the King James, still, a lot of their favorite verses are from the Septuagint.

And some of their doctrines have been built on how I may have said that backwards. On the Masoretic text is what I meant. And so a lot of their favorite doctrines are built on how the Masoretic text reads rather than the Septuagint. And so even though they're fighting against what the Bible the apostles clearly used, they do it because it's so entrenched. Like I say, people don't like their world, their spiritual world, or their political world, whatever it is, turned upside down. And I'm sympathetic towards that. I mean, I didn't want mine turned upside down. It got turned upside down. So I had to find out truth and cling to that. But if you're not in that dilemma, yeah, I mean, I think it's human nature to just resist anything that's going to be changed.

But I think we all owe that responsibility to dig out truth. I mean, it could affect, and for a lot of people, it is going to affect their eternal destiny, not because they have a doctrine wrong like on the Atonement or something like that, but because there are commandments that they've been told they can ignore or they've been told, "Hey, you can live in sin, and once you've been saved, you're always safe, so you don't have to worry about losing it." Some things like that can have some very dire consequences. So it's why I've spent most of my adult life trying to get this message out. I'm not trying to get anyone in a particular denomination or particular church, something like that.

But hey, look at what the original faith was. I mean, prove it against the scriptures. And I know I thought to myself, "This has been a rude awakening." I mean, it was hard for me to accept at first. But I remember, and I've shared this before, I remember saying to myself, "I am glad I'm getting this rude awakening now when I can still make changes in my life rather than getting it on Judgment Day when I find out, 'Oh, I've been wrong my whole life. I've been doing this or that, and it's too late now.'" So one way or the other, people are going to get a rude awakening. And now is when you want to get it because now you can still change things.

Very good. And then the other question I had, and it kind of starts with just a theory that I've heard, and I just want to know if this theory has any validity. So I've heard why the Masoretic has a lot of the prophecies missing or changed is not necessarily them translating from a different Hebrew text, but because the Jews were somewhat behind purposely not wanting these prophecies that were pretty clear that Jesus was the Messiah in there, and they were there behind trying to get them out. Get them out, yeah. Is there any validity to that, or is that just a? Yeah, the early Christians, they always throw this out to the Jews that they altered their scriptures and took out these prophecies from there.

Now, I think that's the right thought, but I'm thinking one possibility is that these prophecies were accidentally dropped because the Masoretic text would go back, or at least the proto-Masoretic text would go back before Jesus was even born.

So I don't know that the Jews understood how those prophecies would be fulfilled. Because even the Christians, even his own apostles, Jesus's apostles, they didn't understand these prophecies until he opened their eyes. So I don't know that they deliberately necessarily took them out. Rather, I think this was, yeah, I think there's a lot of sloppy things that these prophecies were lost. Or again, sometimes they're really different in the Masoretic text. And then when you track it down, it'll be one letter of one word will totally change the meaning. What I do think happened was in the scribes and Pharisees, the Jews had been using the Septuagint, not there in Palestine, but throughout most of the world, which spoke Greek.

The Septuagint was a Jewish translation. It was approved by the synagogues. It was used in the synagogues. And then at the end of the first century, the scribes and Pharisees said, "No, no. Got to get rid of the Septuagint." Now, I think there's absolutely no doubt that that was because the Christians were pointing out to all of these prophecies that were in the Septuagint, and they discovered, lo and behold, these are missing from the Masoretic text. Well, okay, let's sponsor the Masoretic text because it throws out all of these prophecies. But I think it was probably just copious errors that made those prophecies disappear. I don't think that part was deliberate because I don't think they knew what the prophecies meant.

Okay. Yeah. For some reason, I thought the Masoretic was translated hundreds of years later. No. It was just the decision to make it the official one that came later. Oh, okay. The fourth question of the night is from Sarah Nolt. Did the Jews and early Christians believe people were inherently immortal, or is that something that came with Greek philosophy? In other words, you have a never-dying soul that will live forever in heaven or hell.

Okay. Well, the short answer to your question is that both the Jews and the early Christians believed in the existence of the soul. And at least by the time of Jesus, I would say most Jews taught that the soul is immortal.

But just addressing your question in more detail, I would encourage you not to fall into the trap that so many people do, and that is of accusing or believing that either the Jews or the early Christians obtained their beliefs from Greek philosophy. I mean, I hear that claim all the time that this belief or that belief of the early Christians, "Oh, well, that came from Greek philosophy." I don't know of any doctrine they had that came from Greek philosophy. And certainly, the early Christians would have vehemently denied that. Their doctrines, they testified, came from the apostles. And when you look at their doctrines, every one of them has clear scripture support for it.

So like I say, this claim that, "Oh, that's from Greek philosophy." I've heard it about the soul. I've heard it about the Trinity. I've heard it about Hades, on and on about free will. I mean, you just whatever you want to what you don't like, it's just so easy to say, "Oh, well, that came from Greek philosophy." And it's always a bogus claim.

And in fact, it's an example of the fallacy that just because two people or two people groups believe the same thing, that, "Oh, one of them must have borrowed their belief from the other." But in reality, the fact that two people believe the same thing, it proves nothing. They may not even know each other, may not even be familiar with what the other one believes.

I mean, both the Jews and many of the Greek philosophers, such as Socrates, believe that there is only one God. Now, does that mean that one of them borrowed their belief from the other? Well, if it does, then it would be Socrates who borrowed it from the Jews because the Jews were teaching it long before he was even born. Of course, secular scholars would scoff at the idea that the Greeks borrowed any of their beliefs from the Jews.

And perhaps they're right. But it's equally absurd or unproven that the Jews or the early Christians borrowed any of their beliefs from the Greeks. In fact, what the early Christians believed is that there are universal truths that are inherently known to all mankind in every culture. For example, in every culture, people have believed in the existence of God or of gods. In every culture, they believe there's a creator. In every culture, they've offered sacrifices to the gods or to God, and they've prayed to these gods. Now, these beliefs and practices seem to be an inherent recognition in mankind of an eternal truth rather than something that, "Oh, this culture borrowed the idea of God from some other culture."

No, it's imprinted, I think, in our DNA. Likewise, in most cultures, there is the belief that we have a soul that survives our death. It wasn't just the Greeks who believed this. All kinds of Eastern religions across the whole world, a lot of the barbarian religions throughout Europe, the people that the Romans viewed as barbarians, they believed in the existence of a soul. So yeah, it's not something unique to the Greeks. And the fact that the Jews and early Christians taught it, it's just absurd to say, "Oh, well, they must have gotten that from the Greeks." But people use that because they want to just sling mud on the whole teaching about the soul.

Now, the teaching about the soul is not as clear in the Old Testament as it is in the New, but it is there in the Old Testament. For example, in Genesis 35:18, reading about the death of Rachel, it says that her soul left her. Now, people who don't believe in the soul will say, "Oh, well, that just means her life left her." But yeah, Moses could have said that, but he used the Hebrew word nephesh, which is the word for soul, and he said, "Her soul left her." I mean, even more telling is Saul when he went to the witch of Endor and asked her to bring Samuel back from the grave, from Sheol, which is the Hebrew word that's the equivalent of the Greek word Hades.

And in the account there in Samuel, Samuel actually does appear, and he rebukes Saul. And he actually prophesies what was going to happen to Saul, that he and his sons were going to be killed in the upcoming battle. Now, the early Christians were divided as to whether this was really Samuel or not who came up. Some of the early Christians said, "No, that was just a demon impersonating Samuel." And others said, "No, that actually was Samuel." Well, either way, the fact remains that Saul believed that Samuel's soul lived on in Sheol after Samuel had died. And this was long before the Greek philosophers. So that idea of a soul living on after we die, like you say, you can see it among the Jews clearly, like in the case of Saul, long before the Greek philosophers.

And then when we go to Psalm 49, it talks about the rich and how the riches cannot ransom them after they die. But then verse 15 goes on to say, and this is the psalmist speaking, he says, "But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me." As I said, Sheol was the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek word Hades. It was the realm of the dead. So the psalmist talks about his soul being alive in Sheol and that God would ransom him from there. And again, this was long before Socrates and Plato.

And then there are other examples throughout the Old Testament. But then when we get to the wisdom of Sirach, this was written about the year 200 BC. Now, this is one of the books that was part of the Septuagintal canon that Jerome gave the name Apocrypha to. And in Sirach, we read expressly that the soul is immortal.

And it doesn't matter whether you view Sirach as scripture or if you just view it as a Jewish writing that was well-read and received in the year 200 BC. Either way, it's obvious that Jews by that time believed that the soul is immortal.

Now, and again, this is at least 200 years before Christ. Now, I should point out that immortal doesn't necessarily mean indestructible. Immortal can simply mean that something doesn't die on its own. Like humans, even if nothing kills you, you are going to eventually die. Your body isn't going to go on forever.

Now, when we get to the New Testament, Jesus clearly taught the existence of the soul. It's in a number of verses. Probably the clearest is in Matthew where he said, "Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell." Or the Greek word there is gehenna. That's Matthew 10:28. So we definitely have a soul that is different from our body and that can be destroyed after we die in hell or gehenna.

And this fact is also clear from the parable or the narrative of the rich man and Lazarus, where you have these two men. They die, and their soul is taken to Hades. The soul of the rich man and the soul of Lazarus is taken to Abraham's bosom, which in Jewish teaching was a place. It wasn't Abraham's literal bosom. It was a place where they believed Abraham resided, and it was the equivalent of paradise.

Now, back there in Matthew 10:28, Jesus said that the soul can be destroyed in hell or gehenna. So it doesn't necessarily mean that the soul must live on indefinitely. But I do want to explain that the Greek word that's used there in Matthew 10:28 is a polemy. And I notice that most of the early Christians do not give that word quite the same meaning as our English word destroy.

I say that because they talk about the soul being destroyed in gehenna, but then they talk about it as still being alive. So they seem to use the Greek word a polemy in the sense of being lost or ruined.

Nevertheless, some of the early Christian writers do seem to use it more in the sense of our English word destroy, meaning to annihilate. So there are some differences there of how they interpret the immortality of the soul. That was quite interesting.

I'm glad it tied together with the Septuagint there. And this is the last question for the night, and it's another one from Sarah Nolt. Did Jesus' sacrifice give us heaven, or did it give us eternal life? I don't quite understand it, but I'm glad you're answering it. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. The question is actually more perceptive than it might seem to most people. They maybe have never even thought about it, eternal life. They just equate with heaven. They don't think about it otherwise. But strictly speaking, I would say that Christ's sacrifice, his death on the cross, gave us eternal life. The gift of heaven is actually a separate gift that is also promised by Christ. But in the Old Testament, we don't normally find people expecting to go to heaven.

Instead, they're looking forward to the resurrection, and I think they're looking forward to a resurrection here on the earth. Heaven is a new promise that was introduced by Jesus. For example, in John 14, verses 2 through 3, Jesus says this, "In my Father's house are many mansions." Now, that's more of a King James term.

In the old English, mansions meant just a dwelling. Okay. In my Father's house are many dwellings. We could say that. If it were not so, I would have told you, "I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also." So I think that's pretty clear about heaven. I mean, Jesus, after his resurrection, he eventually ascended back into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father. So he dwells in heaven. And when he says that, "Where I am, I will come back and get you and then bring you to my abode, that where I am, you may be also," he's clearly talking about heaven.

And then there are other passages. Paul talks about it, etc. So nearly all the early Christians taught that the ultimate dwelling place of the righteous will be in heaven. However, since you've asked, I will mention that Irenaeus, who's a very respected early Christian writer and church leader, he taught that some of the righteous would live forever here on a new earth.

So for people who would find that more inviting than heaven, there is some support for that idea among the early Christians. And of course, the teaching on that that Irenaeus points out is based on all of these Old Testament prophecies that talk about a new earth and all of these wonderful things that would take place in it.

Very good. Thank you so much for joining us. And I hope you were edified as much as I was. I always learn so much in these, and I love editing them after because then I realize how much I actually missed. And if you're like me, go back and watch this again. It is already online. And we will see you next time. And remember, if you're watching this on either the Sound Faith channel or the Scroll Publishing channel, if you want to ask follow-up questions, you will have to leave them at the Historic Faith YouTube. We're not going to check the other two channels for follow-up questions. Thank you so much. God bless.