“As for me, I shall behold Thy face in righteousness. I will be satisfied with Thy likeness when I awake” (Psalm 17:15).
The next time you hear someone say the Old Testament knows nothing about eternal life or Heaven, I’d like to suggest what your response should be.
Tell them, “It would be good for you to read your Bible before making such a statement.”
Job asked the question of the ages when he said, “If a man die, will he live again?” (Job 14:14) Every generation of every culture in every civilization before and since has asked that, and each has answered it in its own way.
Five chapters later, Job answered his own question.
“I know that my Redeemer liveth, and at last He shall stand upon the earth. Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet I will see God in my flesh. I will see Him myself; my eyes will look at Him, and not as a stranger. My heart longs within me” (Job 19:25-27).
That’s outstanding, and it’s fairly plain, isn’t it? But this is only one of many references to life after death found in the Hebrew Bible (aka, our Old Testament).
The Sadducees tried that little ploy on Jesus.
The Sadducees held as sacred only the first 5 books of the OT, those attributed to Moses, and were dead certain that life after death was not to be found therein. That’s why they tossed out their little puzzler to our Lord found in Matthew 22:23-32, about the unfortunate woman who was widowed by brother after brother until finally she had outlived all seven of them. “Now,” the Sadducees asked with glee, knowing full well they had stumped Jesus, “whose wife will she be in this resurrection you speak of?”
We can almost hear their “hee hee hee.”
“You people make two huge mistakes,” Jesus said. “You do not know your Bibles and you don’t know the power of God.”
Oh my. What a thing to say to these scriptural authorities!
He’d better be able to back that up. (Smiley-face here)
“Remember how in the Scriptures, the Lord says ‘I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?'”
We can imagine the Sadducees nodding with impatience. “Yes, yes. We know what the Word says.”
“Well,” said Jesus, “He’s not the God of dead people, but of the living.”
Pow. Take that.
He knocked that one out of the park.
The Old Testament has plenty of references to life after death, although admittedly in a minor key, if we know where to look. Here are a few places….
1) Job’s rewards. (Job 42:12-15).
At the conclusion of Job’s ordeal, God gave him twice as much of everything as he had lost at the beginning of the story. Twice the sheep, twice the camels, twice the oxen, and twice the donkeys. But He gave him seven more sons and three more daughters, the same number as before (see Job 1:2). What’s going on here? Not one word of explanation is given.
The clear implication is that while the earlier animals were lost, Job still “had” his children who were killed. They were still alive (with the Lord), and did not need to be “replaced.” So, God gave Job an additional 7 sons and 3 daughters.
When we get to Heaven, we will meet all fourteen of Job’s sons and all six of his daughters. Remember, you heard it here.
2) Psalm 17:15
“But as for me, I shall behold Thy face in righteousness; I will be satisfied with Thy likeness when I awake.”
This verse comes at the end of a lament about the people of the world who live for today, “whose portion is in this life.” They have no plans for the afterlife and “are satisfied with children.”
The Apostle Paul spoke of those “whose end is destruction, whose god is their stomach, and whose glory their shame. They are focused on earthly things” (Philippians 3:19).
Believers are cut from a different mold, however.
“As for me.” Believers have “set our affections on things above” (Colossians 3:1) and are “looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2). That was true in a great sense in David’s day and is a thousand times more true in ours.
3) Psalm 27:13.
“I would have despaired had I not believed I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” (The NASB translation)
Scholars say ‘the land of the living” refers to Israel, not to some future life. This is, however, a case where the Scripture writer said more than he knew, if you want my opinion. (That happened quite often. See I Peter 1:12. Sometimes neither the Scripture writer nor even the angels knew what God was doing. So, our basic rule of interpreting Scripture is not and should never be, “what did the writer understand and have in mind?” We look back at the Old Testament through the life and ministry of Jesus.)
The land of the living is Heaven, not earth. Earth is the land of the dying. From the moment we are born, scientists say, we begin to die. But, “there’s a land that is fairer than day. And by faith we can see it afar. For the Father waits over the way, to prepare us a dwelling place there. In the sweet bye and bye….”
4) The flow of Psalms 22 and 23.
Watch the downs and ups of these two great psalms. The 22nd Psalm reads as though we are inside the mind of Jesus as He hangs on the cross. It begins “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” and continues with “everyone who sees me, mocks me; they sneer and shake their heads;” and even quotes the scoffers at the cross (“He saved others, let’s see Him save Himself”–vs. 8; see Matthew 27:43).
On and on Psalm 22 goes, chronicling the death of Heaven’s Savior. “Dogs have surrounded me; a gang of evildoers has closed in on me; they pierced my hands and my feet… They divided my garments among themselves; and they cast lots for my clothing” (see John 19:24).
It’s an amazing document.
And then, suddenly, the flow of the psalm changes. “I will proclaim Your name to my brothers; I will praise You in the congregation” (v.22). “All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord; All the families of the nations (Gentiles) will bow down before You” (v.27). And the final verse: “They will come and tell a people yet to be born about His righteousness–what He has done.”
If that’s not the Savior surviving the death of the cross and being victorious into eternity, it’s nothing. His Gospel is preached and multitudes across the globe turn to Jesus in faith.
Likewise, the 23rd Psalm goes down “into the valley of the shadow of death” and comes out victorious on the other side, where “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies” and “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
5) And in a similar fashion, Isaiah 53.
If Psalm 22 puts us inside the mind of Jesus as He is crucified, then Isaiah 53 reads almost like an eyewitness account of the same.
Isaiah 53, verses 1-9 watches the Lord dying. Then, suddenly, in verse 10, everything changes.
“Yet the Lord was pleased to crush Him…. When You make Him a restitution offering, He will see His seed; He will prolong His days, and the will of the Lord will succeed by His hand….” “My righteous servant will justify many and He will carry their iniquities.”
“Therefore I will give Him the many as a portion, and He will receive the mighty as spoil, because He submitted Himself to death, and was counted among the rebels” (v.12). “Yet, He bore the sin of many and interceded for the rebelsl” (vs.12).
We are not saying….
–that everyone will agree with our interpretation of these texts. (When did everyone agree on anything?)
–that the Scripture writers always knew exactly what their writings meant. They did not, as verified in the I Peter reference quoted above.
–that our faith stands or falls on these texts. We have a stronger word than the oblique Old Testament references. We have a Saviour who died on a Roman cross, was buried, and returned the third day and has been alive (and “around”) ever since. More than 500 witnesses saw the risen Christ at one time (I Corinthians 15:6).
–And we are not saying that these beautiful Old Testament words should have the equivalency of any one of the declarations of Jesus, such as when He called out, “I am the resurrection and the life! He who believes in me, even if he dies, yet shall he live. And whoever lives and believes in me shall never die!” (John 11:25-26).
That one is about as good as it gets.
What we are saying is that eternal life was not a new idea introduced by the Lord Jesus, but is a minor note throughout the OT Scripture. When our Lord came, that which had been subdued and in the background now stepped to the front as the major theme of His preaching and the rest of Scripture. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life!” (John 3:16).
Let’s end with this wonderful line from the Apostle Paul…
“(He) saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our own works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. This has now been made evident through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who has abolished death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:9-10).
“This hope we have as an anchor for our souls.”
What an anchor! What hope! What a gospel!