2. A People of Hope

Essentials

Eternal Life: The Basics

What Israel Believed About Life, Death and the Future

Herman Bavinck and Benjamin Dean

Adapted from Eternal Life: The Certainty of the Christian Hope, an updated version of Herman Bavinck, Our Reasonable Faith, trans. Henry Zylstra (Eerdmans, 1956), chapter 24.

What did Old Testament believers expect after death? Turn to Israel and you enter a very different way of thinking from ours. The Old Testament never speaks of the so-called immortality of the soul. Instead it holds unique ideas of life and death that put the future in a different light.

Death as Banishment

In Scripture death never means annihilation. It is the opposite of the full life we once had in fellowship with God, and it affects the whole person, body and soul. The dead no longer belong to the earth but to the realm of the dead (Sheol), pictured in the depths of the earth, beneath the waters and the foundations of the hills.¹

The dead still exist there, but it is like non-existence.² They are weak and powerless (Ps. 88:5 and Isa. 14:10), live in silence,³ in a land of darkness (Job 10:20-21) and decay (Job 26:6 and 28:22). God and people are no longer seen there (Isa. 38:11), the Lord is not praised or thanked there (Ps. 6:5 and 115:17), and his wonders are not seen (Ps. 88:11-13). The dead have no knowledge or wisdom, do no work and have no share in anything under the sun.⁴ It is a land of oblivion (Ps. 88:13). Israel’s saints felt death as total banishment from life and light.

Life as Fullness

Life, by contrast, was never mere existence. It meant fullness of blessing: fellowship with God, his people and his land; unity of soul and body; peace and joy. Had man stayed obedient, he would never have seen death (Gen. 2:17) but lived for ever, immortal in his whole being.

Sin brought death in. But God in grace set up his covenant with Israel, restoring that communion in principle. Fellowship with God was its first and greatest gift. God said to Abraham, I will be ‘God to you and to you offspring after you’ (Gen. 17:7), and he bound himself to Israel at Sinai.⁵

Stronger Than the Grave

So for Israel there was no joy except in fellowship with the Lord. The ungodly broke the covenant and dug broken cisterns (Jer. 2:13). But the saints sang of the Lord as their portion, their rock, fortress and shield (Ps. 16:5 and 18:2). His lovingkindness was better than life (Ps. 63:3); there was none in heaven or earth they desired besides him (Ps. 73:25). Even when hunted, they rejoiced in the God of their salvation (Habak. 3:18).

The wicked may prosper for a while but perish in the end (Ps. 73:18-20); their way leads to death (Prov. 8:36 and 11:19), but the fear of the Lord is a fountain of life (Prov. 8:35 and 14:27). God’s Spirit is present even in the realm of death (Ps. 139:7-8). Nothing is hidden from him.⁶ He kills and makes alive, brings down to the grave and raises up.⁷ He took Enoch and Elijah without death (Gen. 5:24 and 2 Kings 2:11), and can raise the dead and destroy death.⁸

In fellowship with God, Israel’s saints could transcend the misery of earthly life, the dread of death and the darkness of the grave.

A Bigger Hope Than Ours

Yet Israel’s believers lived in a different climate of thought. We think of the future almost only as our own death and our soul going to heaven.⁹ Israel’s idea of life was richer. The covenant was made not with one person but with a people and their land. So death would only be fully overcome when the Lord came to live among his people, cleansed them and let them dwell safely in peace.

The believer saw himself as part of a nation God would never forsake, and found his own future guaranteed in its future. After the discipline God would return and make a new covenant that would never be broken. Israel was a people of hope, and the promise of the Messiah was at its heart.

The Covenant That Cannot Fail

All this rested on God’s covenant. Its law warned that disobedience would be punished: because God had chosen Israel out of all the families of the earth, he would punish them for their sins (Amos 3:2). But the discipline would be temporary, and afterwards he would again show compassion and share his salvation.¹⁰

The Lord cannot forget his covenant (Lev. 26:42). He loves his people with an everlasting love (Micah 7:19 and Jer. 31:3 and 20), and his covenant of peace will not be removed (Isa. 54:10).¹¹ For his own name’s sake he will redeem his people and give them victory.¹²

The Coming King

So a day of the Lord is coming, a great and terrible day,¹³ when God will show compassion to his people and judge his enemies. His kingdom won’t grow through human moral effort; it comes from heaven, brought by the Lord’s Anointed. That promise runs back to Eden: the seed of the woman will defeat the serpent (Gen. 3:15). In Abraham all families of the earth will be blessed (Gen. 12:3 and 26:4). From Judah comes Shiloh, whom the nations will obey (Gen. 49:10). David is promised a house that will last for ever (2 Sam. 7:16 and 23:5).

The ruler will be born in Bethlehem of David’s line (Micah 5:1-2), a shoot from Jesse’s stem (Isa. 11:1-2), a branch of David.¹⁴ He will grow up in lowly circumstances (Isa. 7:14-17), come humble on a donkey (Zech. 9:9), and as the suffering servant bear his people’s sins (Isa. 53). Yet he is David’s Lord (Ps. 110:1 and Matt. 22:43), the Messiah, true king, prophet and priest,¹⁵ ruler of all nations (Gen. 49:10 and Ps. 2:12), called Immanuel, the Lord our righteousness, Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.¹⁶

A Kingdom of Righteousness and Peace

His kingdom brings spiritual and material blessing. Not everyone will return or repent; many will perish in judgment.¹⁷ But a remnant chosen by grace will,¹⁸ a holy people to whom God is faithful for ever.¹⁹ He will make a new covenant, forgive their sins, give them a new heart, write his law on it, pour out his Spirit and live among them.²⁰

Swords will become ploughshares, heaven and earth will be renewed, sickness and tears will end, and death will be swallowed up in victory. Israel’s dead will be raised (Isa. 26:19 and Dan. 12:2), the nations will acknowledge the Lord,²¹ the saints will receive dominion (Dan. 7:14, 27), and David’s son will reign from sea to sea.²²

That was Israel’s hope: life in all its fullness, with God, his people and a renewed creation.

So, in that context then, it is no surprise to see beside their statements that death seemed like a total banishment from light and life, a land of darkness (Job 10:20-21), declarations of trust, that God will not forsake them, even in death (Ps. 23:4, Ps. 16;10), a hope pointing towards the resurrection (Job 19:24-27, Dan. 12:2).

—

1
Num. 16:30; Deut. 32:22; Job 26:5; Ps. 63:10. ↩︎
2
Job 7:21; 14:10; and Ps. 39:13. ↩︎
3
Job 3:13, 18; Ps. 94:17; and 115:17. ↩︎
4
Job 14:21; Eccles. 9:5, 6, and 10. ↩︎
5
Ex. 19:5; 20:2; Ezek. 16:8. ↩︎
6
Job 26:6; 38:17; Prov. 15:11. ↩︎
7
Deut. 32:39; 1 Sam. 2:6; 2 Kings 5:7. ↩︎
8
1 Kings 17:22; 2 Kings 4:34; and 13:21. ↩︎
9
Job 14:13-15; 19:25-27; Hos. 6:2; 13:14; Isa. 25:8; 26:19; Ezek. 37:11-12; and Dan. 12:2. ↩︎
10
Lev. 26:42ff.; Deut. 4:29ff.; 30:1-10; and 32:15-43. ↩︎
11
Isa. 27:7ff.; 54:7-8; and Jer. 30:11. ↩︎
12
Deut. 32:27; Isa. 43:25; 48:9; and Ezek. 36:22. ↩︎
13
Joel 2:11, 31; and Mal. 4:5. ↩︎
14
Isa. 4:2; Jer. 23:5-6; 33:14-17; Zech. 3:8; and 6:12. ↩︎
15
Deut. 18:15; Ps. 110; Isa. 11:2; 53:1ff.; Zech. 5:1ff.; 6:13; Mal. 4:5 and elsewhere. ↩︎
16
Isa. 7:14; 9:5; and Jer. 23:6. ↩︎
17
Amos 9:8-10; Hos. 2:3 and Ezek. 20:33ff. ↩︎
18
Isa. 4:3; 6:13; Jer. 3:14; Zeph. 3:20; Zech. 13:8-9. ↩︎
19
Hos. 1:10; 2:15; Isa. 4:3; and 11:9. ↩︎
20
Joel 2:28; Isa. 44:21ff.; 43:25; Jer. 31:31; Ezek. 11:19; 36:25ff. and elsewhere. ↩︎
21
Jer. 3:17; 4:2; 16:19; Ezek. 17:24 and elsewhere. ↩︎
22
Ps. 2:8; 22:28; and 72:8 ff. ↩︎