The Afterlife: A Reflection of the Fundamental Nature of Christianity

This is an essay I wrote for an “Understanding the Bible” class I took my junior year of college. I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed to write an effortpost this week, and its too early for another Spanish update, so this is what you guys are gonna get.

Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

In the Hebrew Bible, the concept of an afterlife is of little concern to the writers, if it even exists at all. In chapter three of Genesis, God tells Adam:

“‘By the sweat of your face

you shall eat bread

until you return to the ground

for out of it you were taken;

you are dust,

and to dust you shall return.’”(Gen 3:19).

This passage implies that there is no existence after death, as Adam will merely return to dust after he dies. It also serves to highlight the separation between the divine and the mundane: God is immortal and present for both the creation and death of Adam. His existence is timeless and beyond human conception.

Sheol is envisioned as sort of a permanent purgatory

Later, during the reign of the Davidic kings, the concept of an underworld, Sheol, is introduced. However, the place seems relatively unimportant as there is no survival of human consciousness, “there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going”(Ecl 9:10). Life on earth is the focus of the Jewish religion. God comes down from heaven to influence the affairs of humanity and punishments for an individual sinner affect the descendants of the sinner, rather than the sinner’s eternal soul.

Yet in Christianity, the concept of an afterlife is extremely important. In the middle ages through the early modern era, people would even pay the church an indulgence because they thought it would help them to avoid a future of eternal torment in hell and enjoy a paradise in heaven (this was one of the events that lead to the reformation and the formation of the protestant church). While many of these ideas and the imagery associated with them have their origin in later works like Dante’s Inferno or Milton’s Paradise Lost, the christian afterlife is present in the text of the Bible. In fact, the concept of an afterlife is a fundamental tool of the Christian religion, used to encourage righteous faith in God in a world where that faith is violently persecuted and to emphasize the divine nature of humanity.

The origins of this conception of the afterlife begin in the apocalyptic works of Daniel. After the books author has predicted the doom of all the kings who oppressed the Hebrews, the most recent being the Selucid ruler Antiochus IV, he gives an eschatological vision where “[m]any of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.”(Dan 12:2–3). This emphasis on eternal reward and punishment likely arises as a result of the predicament of the Jews of Jerusalem at the time of the writing of this book.

When earlier books were being written, the Jews were living in Israel and it appeared as though there was a correlation between righteous behaviour and prosperity on in the land. However, in the time of Daniel, when the Seleucid King Antiochus abolished the ceremonies at the temple of Solomon, burned scripture and attempted to introduce the worship of the Greco-Roman Gods, this correlation no longer holds. Unlike in Isaiah, “the people who are loyal to their God shall stand firm and take action”(Dan. 11:32). The people of Jerusalem fighting to uphold the laws of the mosaic covenant and yet still are punished. In his book, Understanding the Bible, Stephen Harris suggests “the author of Daniel postulated a resurrection to compensate contemporary Jews who had died defending their faith against the Syrian Persecutor”(256). The afterlife is thus a way to square the righteous behaviour of the God-obeying Jerusalem Jews with the clear earthly punishments of death and persecution. Those who do not receive just treatment for their actions will be raised again to receive reward (or punishment if they lived sinful lives). However, Daniel does not state that everyone who has died will be resurrected, only “many”, implying that those who have already received their reward or punishment on earth have no need to be resurrected. The use of the divine plane is merely to give out earthly justice.

The writers of the New Testament expand upon Daniel’s eschatological vision, bringing it to the present rather than to an indeterminate time away in the future. In Daniel, the end times are implied to come when “Michael, the great prince, the protector of your people, shall arise” (Dan. 12:1). Michael seems to be messiah-like figure, as he is a protector of “your” people, the Israelites. This description could also fit Jesus, for in the Gospels, he is hailed in Luke: “blessed is the king who comes in the name of the lord”(Luke 19:38), named by Pilate in Matthew: “Jesus who is called the Messiah”(Mat. 27:22) and has his cross labeled “‘Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews’”(John 19:19). Indeed, Jesus in the Gospels seems to also believe that the end times are imminent. In his final sermon in Jerusalem, after he predicts the destruction of the temple, Jesus states: “‘People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”(Luke 21:26–28). In Revelation, God also tells John: “‘Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near’’”(Rev. 22:10).

For those who have died, what happens when the time comes is not very different than in Daniel. Revelation states: “I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their works, as recorded in the books. And the sea gave up the dead that were in them, and all were judged according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire; and anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.” (Rev. 20:12–15). Rather than many who are raised, it is the “great and small”, which seems to indicate everyone, rather than just those who need additional reward or punishment. Indeed, Hades and Death are destroyed, meaning there is no place for the dead even to continue to exist.

John’s tone also seems to be one of anger, emphasizing the punishment for the sinful, “being thrown into the lake of fire”, rather than the reward for good behaviour that is noted in Daniel. However, the promise of justice in the afterlife seems to serve a similar purpose as in Daniel: motivating Christians to stay faithful during persecution. Harris writes: “Domitian inherited the imperial throne, accepting divine honors offered him and allowing himself to be worshipped as a god… governors and other local officials demanded public participation in the cult of evidence of citizens loyalty and patriotism”(484). The geopolitical situation during the writing of this book is very similar to that during the writing of Daniel, with Domitian and Rome taking the place of Antiochus. However, unlike in Daniel, such persecution does not seem likely to end. While the Maccabees seem likely to free Jerusalem from Selucid rule, Roman power in the early first century CE is indomitable and vast compared its tiny minority of Christians. The struggle is certain to be long and difficult. John’s emphasis on punishment serves a double role: revenge on the Romans who persecuted them and encouragement for the Christians to not break faith. While Daniel had no need to address the Jews’ Seleucid adversaries, as they were surely going to be punished because they were not the chosen people, the Romans in Revelation are gentiles that have the potential to be saved if they convert (or burn in fire if they do not).

This emphasis on faith also squares with Paul’s own emphasis in his letters. In Galatians, Paul writes: “Christ redeemed us from the curse for the law by becoming a curse for us… in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith”(Gal. 3:13–14). In a world where earthly rewards of faith are unlikely to manifest themselves (in the first and second centuries CE Roman persecution did not seem likely to abate), the afterlife is a convenient place to receive the promise of the Spirit, if one has been faithful of course.

With the introduction of a figure who is both divine and a very human, “Son of Man”, the New Testament also narrows the gap between God and humans that was made so clear in Genesis. In Luke, Jesus states “‘The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is! Or ‘There it is!’, For in fact, the kingdom of God is within you.’”(Luke 17:20–21). The idea that there is a kingdom of God within each of us, a Holy Spirit, suggests the presence of some sort of afterlife, as would be impossible for something that is a part of God to die. The existence of a heaven and a hell where the spirit goes is a way to resolve this contradiction between the existence of something divine within all humans and the fact that people die.

Ultimately, despite textual claims of divinity and the coming judgement, belief in the afterlife cannot be proven by facts in the physical world. Rather, it rests entirely on faith, which, rather fittingly, is likely exactly as Paul would have wanted.

Sources:

Coogan, Michael D, Marc Z. Brettler, Carol A. Newsom, and Pheme Perkins. The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version : with the Apocrypha : an Ecumenical Study Bible. Oxford [England: Oxford University Press, 2010. Print.

Harris, Stephen L. Understanding the Bible: A Reader’s Introduction. Palo Alto, Calif: Mayfield Pub. Co, 1985. Print.