Episode 34
Death: What It Actually Means | NT90
What if death in the New Testament isn’t about your heart stopping, but something far deeper? In this episode of Seek Go Create, Tim Winders explores how biblical definitions of death challenge our conventional beliefs, revealing surprising insights from his intensive 90-day journey through the New Testament. Are we missing the real meaning behind “death,” “eternal life,” and the boundaries between humanity and God? Join us as we unpack ancient perspectives, rethink modern teachings, and discover why the separation from God—not physical demise—might be the most important issue at the heart of Scripture. If you’re ready to question everything you’ve been taught about death, this conversation will spark a new understanding.
"Death is not about our body; it's about our connection to God." - Tim Winders
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Episode Resources:
NT90 Hub – This is the central website for the 90-day New Testament reading plan, with downloadable, printable plans, background information, and links to all episodes and resources.
Episode Highlights:
00:00 Rethinking Death
00:23 NT 90 Reading Journey
02:27 Two Common Views
05:56 Death in the Letters
08:45 Never Die Explained
10:28 Rome and Fear
13:05 Genesis and Exile
15:01 Old Covenant Boundaries
16:58 Jesus Defeats Death
17:53 Romans 6:23 Reframed
20:04 Two Ages in Romans
21:37 Covenant Death Explained
22:57 Rethinking Eternal Life 2
4:36 Death Abolished Passages
27:14 Law Sin and Death
29:40 Fear of Death Slavery
30:53 Paul and Peter Unafraid
36:20 Why This Changes Everything
36:56 Cost of Getting It Wrong
39:25 Finished Work Freedom
40:00 Next Salvation Study
40:25 Read in Context Challenge
41:06 Reading Plan and Farewell
Transcript
The New Testament calls living people dead.
Speaker:It says Believers have already passed from death to life.
Speaker:It says, whoever believes will never die if death means your body stopping.
Speaker:None of that works.
Speaker:So what does death really mean?
Speaker:Welcome to Seek, go Create.
Speaker:I'm Tim Winders.
Speaker:I've just recently read the entire New Testament in 90 days in the
Speaker:order that it was written, not chronologically, not the order of your
Speaker:Bible, the order that the letters.
Speaker:Actually went out and what I found surprised me.
Speaker:I learned a ton.
Speaker:It challenged me, it changed my thinking on things and changed the way I
Speaker:understand scripture in many, many ways.
Speaker:This series, these episodes I'm doing are.
Speaker:Are sort of the overflow of that.
Speaker:The notes I took, the topics that kinda jumped out at me, that
Speaker:bothered me, that I needed to kind of study further things like that.
Speaker:This series is where I'm sharing those discoveries with you just to continue
Speaker:the thought process, not really claiming that I know it all or that I've got it.
Speaker:Figured out.
Speaker:Really just continuing the process.
Speaker:If you wanna do what I did, and I do encourage it, the reading plan that I
Speaker:developed is at K two M Foundation slash NT 90 K two M Foundation slash NT 90.
Speaker:You can get the plan, you can get the link to all the, All the episodes we did,
Speaker:we did short episodes for each of the 27 books plus a few more, an intro, and then
Speaker:also one we titled the end of the Age.
Speaker:And so you could go find all of that there.
Speaker:The resources, the things that we did to back up the, the order that
Speaker:we have the books in, all of those things are at K two M Foundation slash.
Speaker:NT 90 should be a link down in the, show notes, download it, read along.
Speaker:Just see what you find, see what it says to you when you
Speaker:read it in order and context.
Speaker:It was incredible for me.
Speaker:I really enjoyed it.
Speaker:in fact, I wanted to do it so bad as.
Speaker:The reason that I created it, I could not find a good in order.
Speaker:It was written reading plan, and so I developed it.
Speaker:Go check it out.
Speaker:Alright, in this episode, boy, what an exciting one.
Speaker:I'm sure this title's going to attract people.
Speaker:Death does not mean what you.
Speaker:Think it does or it may not mean what you think it does.
Speaker:At least it, somewhat surprised me.
Speaker:So, here's kind of my thinking and kind of how it led to this episode
Speaker:and why it's such a big deal to me.
Speaker:I, if you really grew up like most of us, for me and many others, I
Speaker:guess death just meant physical.
Speaker:Death, your body stops.
Speaker:That's it.
Speaker:I know I'm making light of it.
Speaker:And in culture, in society we typically do make a big deal of
Speaker:it, but that, that's kind of it.
Speaker:You know, it's really not much deeper than that.
Speaker:And then when, you get in spiritual circles and you hear
Speaker:things like eternal life, you know, that's somewhere out there.
Speaker:Not quite.
Speaker:Understood.
Speaker:Never quite connect to anything concrete.
Speaker:I'm an engineer by training, so tangible things sort of are
Speaker:things that I'm more drawn to.
Speaker:But then there's the other version.
Speaker:Let me hit this version because this I think will mean something to some people.
Speaker:I'll call it the Jonathan.
Speaker:Edwards version.
Speaker:He was the, the fiery pastor.
Speaker:I think he was in the 17 hundreds.
Speaker:and, he wrote Sinners in the hands of an Angry God wrote that death is not just
Speaker:physical, it's eternal fire punishment.
Speaker:hell fire brimstone.
Speaker:The wages of sin is death.
Speaker:That scripture we're gonna talk about in a little while from Romans 6 23 means you're
Speaker:headed for hell unless you say the right.
Speaker:Prayer.
Speaker:And that obviously has something to do with death too.
Speaker:And, you know, we've all probably seen Romans 6 23 on a
Speaker:track or some kind of teaching.
Speaker:If you've been into uh, uh, you know, southern evangelical churches, you've
Speaker:probably have heard that said so.
Speaker:But anyway, and y'all may recall, I hope you kinda listened.
Speaker:In the last episode, we kind of saw how.
Speaker:The Bible defines sin and how, for me, it was just a little bit different than the
Speaker:way I see sin being discussed today and in our churches and in our religious circles.
Speaker:It just doesn't mean crime.
Speaker:It means missing the mark.
Speaker:It is just a different definition when you get into the actual New Testament and
Speaker:reading, you know, it's a trust problem.
Speaker:It's an orientation problem.
Speaker:So what does death mean?
Speaker:If sin is not, what we were told then is death, what we were told or
Speaker:what we thought, what we believed.
Speaker:When I read that New Testament in that context, I kept.
Speaker:Seeing the word death.
Speaker:In fact, my wife would come down, Gloria would come down for coffee, and I would
Speaker:just kinda say, I say, you know what?
Speaker:I keep seeing the word death pop up, and I don't think it
Speaker:means what we think it means.
Speaker:And she would say, what do you, what do you mean?
Speaker:I said, I don't know.
Speaker:I'm still reading.
Speaker:I'm still gathering.
Speaker:This episode.
Speaker:Is me sort of still working, working that out, and you get to come along with me.
Speaker:It became clear though that death had another meaning entirely than just.
Speaker:The end or, uh, you know, going to hell or whatever, heaven And uh, the
Speaker:evidence really is pretty overwhelming.
Speaker:So let's look at some passages in the New Testament.
Speaker:I believe we'll look at that first.
Speaker:I think in just a little while.
Speaker:We'll look at the Old Testament some, but let's look at Ephesians two, one in five.
Speaker:You were dead.
Speaker:In your trespasses and sins.
Speaker:Even when we were dead in our trespasses, God made us alive together with Christ.
Speaker:These people sounds like they're walking around, breathing, living in Ephesus.
Speaker:Paul calls them dead.
Speaker:That is not.
Speaker:Physical that seems to be relational, separated from God's covenant life.
Speaker:And so, uh, that, that's one of the things we're gonna start with here.
Speaker:Let's look at Colossians two 13 and you who were dead in your trespasses.
Speaker:God made alive.
Speaker:Together with him.
Speaker:Same pattern.
Speaker:Physically alive, but covenant dead.
Speaker:John 5 24.
Speaker:Whoever hears my word and believes him, who sent me has eternal life.
Speaker:He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
Speaker:Present tense.
Speaker:Already happened.
Speaker:They haven't physically died and then come back.
Speaker:They have crossed from one realm to the other.
Speaker:Death equals the old status life equals the new.
Speaker:That was just different from me.
Speaker:That was not the way my mind thought, and as I read that, I kept going.
Speaker:Something is different here.
Speaker:First John three 14.
Speaker:We know that we have passed.
Speaker:Out of death into life because we love the brothers.
Speaker:Whoever does not love abides in death, death here is a present
Speaker:condition you can live in while your heart is still beating these.
Speaker:Living, breathing, people walking around that John is
Speaker:talking about them being dead.
Speaker:And that just didn't quite add up for me.
Speaker:So it's relational.
Speaker:It's about whether you are connected to the community and to God or outside it.
Speaker:And you know, we sort of saw the same thing.
Speaker:When we were talking about sin in the last episode, it's very similar.
Speaker:Disconnected not in the community is sin a sinner and similar things here with death.
Speaker:John 1125 through 26, who ever lives and believes in me shall never die.
Speaker:Never die.
Speaker:Believers still physically die, so either Jesus was wrong or he is talking
Speaker:about a different kind of death.
Speaker:He is talking about separation from God.
Speaker:That death for the believer is finished, not going to experience.
Speaker:It will not happen connected to God forever and ever.
Speaker:Eternally, whatever eternal means.
Speaker:I don't pretend to know that.
Speaker:I'm not addressing that here, but forever eternal.
Speaker:So, that's awesome.
Speaker:Every passage says that, that we've just gone through.
Speaker:Every passage says the same.
Speaker:Thing.
Speaker:Death is not about our body, it's about our connection to God.
Speaker:And then once you see that, especially as you're going through the New
Speaker:Testament, in that order and context that I've been talking about, once
Speaker:you see it, you cannot unsee it.
Speaker:And certain things that Jesus talks about that of course those that are writing
Speaker:the New Testament letters, Paul, Peter, and others, you just, you see things.
Speaker:Differently and especially knowing what we know, that happened in
Speaker:history that was leading up to the, the judgment of the old covenant that
Speaker:occurred in this, the year 70 ad.
Speaker:It just all kind of fits together much better.
Speaker:You just can't unsee it.
Speaker:Once you've seen that.
Speaker:Now let's talk about kinda where death came from and how it operated.
Speaker:I think it's, you know, what an exciting topic here, huh?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Let's talk more about death, because that's the title of this episode.
Speaker:It was, it's real interesting.
Speaker:I'm reading some.
Speaker:I guess deeper history on Rome right now, and I am in the first century, but
Speaker:it started 700 years before that at the formation of Rome and then the Republic,
Speaker:and then as it goes into the empire, just wanting to understand these times
Speaker:more and how it built up and led to what we read about in the first century
Speaker:with the Bible and with other things.
Speaker:But Rome death was very important to what I'm gonna call that Babylonian worldly.
Speaker:System.
Speaker:It is the death that most of us understand.
Speaker:We don't like it.
Speaker:A lot of people are really, bothered by it, but death was the tool that Rome used.
Speaker:And Rome was, it was interesting.
Speaker:It was one of the first.
Speaker:What we would call civilized societies or cultures.
Speaker:They had government, they had art.
Speaker:they worked, they had some industry, they had, some running water.
Speaker:They had other things like that.
Speaker:But one of their tools for fear was death.
Speaker:You step outta line.
Speaker:Jesus, you end up on a cross.
Speaker:That was supposed to be the final word, and there's a reason that
Speaker:Rome had those crosses and they were dotted all throughout the empire.
Speaker:It was for visibility so that people could see what happened when you got
Speaker:outta line and they left people hanging there and people witnessed and saw what.
Speaker:Death meant Rome thought that they had instilled that fear when they
Speaker:killed Jesus, but he absorbed it, overcame it, and walked out of it.
Speaker:The weapon did not work.
Speaker:That's very important, especially the first century believers that
Speaker:Jesus defeated that what we'll call the natural or the Babylonian death.
Speaker:Now, hold that thought.
Speaker:The deeper death separation from God.
Speaker:And this is the one that we're sort of deeper into and
Speaker:looking at with this episode.
Speaker:Rome's death was not the death the Bible was most concerned with.
Speaker:That's what we really saw as we read it.
Speaker:that death goes.
Speaker:To the beginning.
Speaker:So we're gonna go back to the Old Testament here.
Speaker:Genesis two 17 in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die.
Speaker:The fruit of the tree, Adam and Eve, however they ate of that fruit, but
Speaker:they didn't physically die that day.
Speaker:They didn't just eat it and drop.
Speaker:They actually lived for hundreds of years.
Speaker:Past that, what happened that day is a great clue to us on what we're looking
Speaker:at In the New Testament, they were expelled from the garden and they were
Speaker:separated from God's direct presence that.
Speaker:Is the pattern.
Speaker:Death enters as relational separation, not immediate physical
Speaker:death or cessation or ending.
Speaker:It's really more of a relational thing, a disconnect.
Speaker:you're, you're now away from that presence.
Speaker:And that example in Genesis is probably a great example for us because they still
Speaker:lived, but they didn't live in the garden.
Speaker:They didn't walk in the cool of the day with the creator with God.
Speaker:They were disconnected and they were sent out.
Speaker:And and so remember that everything that follows in the biblical story
Speaker:is about an attempt to restore that presence or that relationship.
Speaker:The tabernacle was an attempt.
Speaker:The temple, the priesthood, the sacrifices.
Speaker:All of that was a system for managing that separation and in some way trying
Speaker:to bring it back to bridge the gap between a holy God and a people who
Speaker:had been expelled from the garden.
Speaker:That's the entire old covenant structure.
Speaker:And listen, this is important.
Speaker:It was built around that death, the veil.
Speaker:Was a separator.
Speaker:It separated the people from God's presence.
Speaker:It kinda got God close, but not close enough, not as close
Speaker:as it had been in the garden.
Speaker:Only one person the high priest could enter one day a year.
Speaker:And there was such a purification that had to occur.
Speaker:It was incredible to, to listen to, or to read through what was required.
Speaker:The purity codes determined who could approach and who was cut off being cut
Speaker:off from the people was the covenant death penalty, not just execution, but.
Speaker:Exile from the community and from God's presence.
Speaker:That was, I mean, that's kind of taking it a step further.
Speaker:there's cutoff from God and then there's cutting off being cut
Speaker:off from the covenant community that existed and that occurred.
Speaker:There was God's people.
Speaker:Then it was being sent out from God's people being cut off there.
Speaker:So there was a death that occurred there also.
Speaker:That word was used.
Speaker:The sacrifices were the system for maintaining access.
Speaker:it was a, a substitution, and not a great substitution.
Speaker:It was just a way that the people can maintain some degree of access,
Speaker:but it wasn't the access they once had, and that never finished the job.
Speaker:When we looked to Hebrews 10, one through four, it never was enough.
Speaker:The whole system.
Speaker:Was death mediated access, restricted presence, endless repetition, never
Speaker:enough, the veil standing between you and God every single day.
Speaker:That reminder that you were dead and you didn't have connection to the living God.
Speaker:So death operated on two levels.
Speaker:Rome used it to control bodies.
Speaker:Control people their mind.
Speaker:The old covenant used it to mark the boundary between the person, you and God.
Speaker:This is the power of Jesus Christ.
Speaker:He defeated or solved.
Speaker:Both.
Speaker:And he took Rome's worst tool and rendered it powerless.
Speaker:And he took the veil that stood between us, me, you, and God.
Speaker:And he wiped it out, tore it, tore that veil.
Speaker:The weapon broke the gap or the disconnect closed.
Speaker:And we now.
Speaker:Have been reconnected and that, that's the gospel right there.
Speaker:That's the power of the resurrection and all that occurred.
Speaker:Alright, let's look at a, let's look at a big deal scripture
Speaker:when we talk about this topic.
Speaker:Roman 6 23 is, one that most of us that have been around churches have heard.
Speaker:We've talked a little about death and we're gonna keep talking about death
Speaker:'cause that's what this episode's about.
Speaker:Roman 6 23 says this.
Speaker:For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal
Speaker:life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Speaker:So we've got.
Speaker:two big words.
Speaker:A lot of big things really in that verse.
Speaker:but we talked last episode about sin.
Speaker:We're now talking about death.
Speaker:We've got two of those big ones here in this, in this episode
Speaker:that we're talking about.
Speaker:Let me read it one more time.
Speaker:Romans 6 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God.
Speaker:Is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
Speaker:This is the verse.
Speaker:We've seen it on tracks, probably have seen some degree of it on billboards.
Speaker:It's the one that fuels most, if not every altar call that those of us that have been
Speaker:in and out of churches have seen you send.
Speaker:You are a sinner.
Speaker:The price of that is death.
Speaker:And death means eternal conscious torment in hell.
Speaker:Unless you make a decision, say a prayer, go to the altar.
Speaker:That is the formula for overcoming those things.
Speaker:And, but listen, here's the interesting thing.
Speaker:Yeah, Paul in Romans, he wasn't writing a tract.
Speaker:He's actually writing two believers in Rome while the old
Speaker:covenant system is still standing.
Speaker:So we gotta step back and really ask ourselves, what does
Speaker:this scripture really mean?
Speaker:It's not a get saved.
Speaker:necessarily, scripture.
Speaker:So what was Paul talking about here?
Speaker:And I think it helps us understand more about, well, sin that we've
Speaker:talked about, and then also death, because when Paul writes this, the
Speaker:temple is actually still operating.
Speaker:The priesthood is still functioning.
Speaker:The overlap between the old age, we think Paul wrote Romans right around
Speaker:the mid fifties, something like that.
Speaker:And it's another 15 years or so in 70 AD when the temple will be
Speaker:destroyed and there'll be no more sacrificial system that exists, but
Speaker:the priesthood is still functioning.
Speaker:At the time he wrote this, the overlap between the old age.
Speaker:The new age is still in full effect, and we just saw what
Speaker:death means in the New Testament.
Speaker:Not your body stopping its separation from God.
Speaker:It's covenant death life under a dying system.
Speaker:So let's look at the context again.
Speaker:Roman six seems to be about the two ages, the old self.
Speaker:The new self baptism as death and resurrection.
Speaker:Our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin
Speaker:might be brought to nothing.
Speaker:That's in six.
Speaker:Six for one who has died has been set free from sin.
Speaker:That's in six seven.
Speaker:The death Paul seems to be describing.
Speaker:Is a covenant death, life under a dying system.
Speaker:Separation from God's presence.
Speaker:That covenant system, old covenant system that had been in place that was
Speaker:attempting to give some connection to God that had been lost in the garden.
Speaker:Was dying itself.
Speaker:It was going away.
Speaker:It had started when Jesus Christ went to the cross.
Speaker:And during the generation, this generation that Jesus speaks about, it was in the
Speaker:process of dying and it would die and go away and be done and be judged in
Speaker:the event that occurred when Jerusalem and the Temple was destroyed in 70 ad.
Speaker:So separation from God's presence.
Speaker:Mediated through priest, restricted by purity laws maintained by endless
Speaker:sacrifices that could never do the job.
Speaker:That was the death that seems to be spoken about.
Speaker:That was the wages of the old system.
Speaker:so then we have to tie together something else in this scripture and
Speaker:see if we could try to figure this out.
Speaker:Eternal life.
Speaker:Zoe AOIs, I probably did not pronounce that correctly.
Speaker:does not have to mean living forever in heaven.
Speaker:There appears to be an eternal life that begins when someone understands
Speaker:what Paul just said earlier.
Speaker:The Greek can really mean life.
Speaker:Of the age, life of the age to come, the new Covenant Age.
Speaker:Which age are you living in?
Speaker:The one that is dying at the time that Paul wrote this for us, it would have
Speaker:already died if we still believe that.
Speaker:But Paul was saying it is dying.
Speaker:Or the one that has arrived or did arrive when that event
Speaker:occurred in AD 70 That determines.
Speaker:Eternal life.
Speaker:And so if we don't quite understand death, we may not also
Speaker:quite understand eternal life.
Speaker:I'm not gonna discuss that here.
Speaker:I spent a long period of time, just, this was a few years ago, like it
Speaker:wasn't my word of the year, but it was my phrase, eternal life.
Speaker:I just meditated on it, studied it, tried to understand it, and let me clue you in.
Speaker:I don't think that I made any headway at all.
Speaker:I do not think it's a concept that truthfully we can grasp.
Speaker:And if anyone says they do, I'm not sure that I would believe a lot of
Speaker:other things they said, because that concept is probably beyond our minds
Speaker:that we have been given on this earth.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:All right, let's now move on and let's talk about what it means that death
Speaker:is abolished, that that separation is done, and let's look at a few passages
Speaker:from the, the scriptures in the New Testament to see what is said about that.
Speaker:Each one of these will confirm that the death being destroyed is.
Speaker:What we've been saying, separation from God, not actually physically our heart.
Speaker:Stopping beating two Timothy one 10.
Speaker:Christ abolished death and brought life and immortality
Speaker:to light through the gospel.
Speaker:Abolished.
Speaker:Past tense.
Speaker:This was written in the sixties that Paul wrote this and he
Speaker:said it has been abolished.
Speaker:And so if that means physical death, it failed 'cause people were still
Speaker:dying if it means something else.
Speaker:Yeah, then that's more likely what Paul was talking about.
Speaker:if it means the separation, the veil, the restricted access, the system
Speaker:that stood between you and God.
Speaker:It succeeded completely because written in the late sixties, just a few years
Speaker:later, that temple system was gone.
Speaker:There was no other covenant that even allowed, even if it was a lesser covenant,
Speaker:there was no other covenant that allowed people to connect to God other than the
Speaker:New Covenant, the New Age, the Messiah Covenant, which says God is with.
Speaker:Us.
Speaker:He is in us now.
Speaker:One Corinthians 1526 says, the last enemy to be destroyed is death.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:If death means physical, dying, heart stopping beating, that has not happened.
Speaker:But if death means the covenant separation enforced by the old system, then it was
Speaker:destroyed and it was destroyed in when the temple was destroyed in 70 AD the
Speaker:veil tour temple fell, access opened.
Speaker:The thing that kept people separated from God's presence
Speaker:was removed in one Corinthians 1555 through 56 oh death where?
Speaker:Is your victory.
Speaker:Oh, death.
Speaker:Where is your sting?
Speaker:The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law.
Speaker:The law gave sin its power, and we'll go back to that last episode.
Speaker:You could connect some dots there.
Speaker:Sin gave death its steam when the old covenant law was fulfilled and set aside.
Speaker:The entire system, the chain broke.
Speaker:There was nothing there.
Speaker:It lost its power.
Speaker:Death lost its sting.
Speaker:The separation lost its enforcement mechanism, which had been the law.
Speaker:Romans eight, two.
Speaker:The law of the spirit of life has set you free from the law of sin and death.
Speaker:Two laws, two systems.
Speaker:One produces sin and death separation.
Speaker:The law, the other produces life access.
Speaker:Paul is not describing individual moments of moral failure and physical dying.
Speaker:He is describing covenant realities, two covenant realities.
Speaker:Old covenant, new covenant, the law, and Jesus Christ's life in Jesus Christ.
Speaker:Romans 8 38 through 39, neither death nor life.
Speaker:Nor anything else in all creation, we'll be able to separate us.
Speaker:From the love of God.
Speaker:Remember separation, disconnection.
Speaker:Paul defines the threat of death as separation and then declares it powerless.
Speaker:Nothing can separate you.
Speaker:The veil is torn.
Speaker:And if we recall when Paul wrote this in the mid fifties, Romans.
Speaker:Back at the cross and resurrection, we saw a shadow of that where the
Speaker:veil had been torn in the temple.
Speaker:The temple still existed, so they probably sewed it back up, I'm guessing.
Speaker:But then 40 years later, one generation later.
Speaker:The temple was totally destroyed, so there was no veil.
Speaker:This access is now permanent.
Speaker:The death that mattered, the separation from God, for us, it's over.
Speaker:It's done.
Speaker:Hebrews two 14 through 15, Jesus shared in flesh and blood that through
Speaker:death, he might destroy the one who has the power of death and deliver.
Speaker:All those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery,
Speaker:fear of death, kept people enslaved.
Speaker:I can almost correct that and say it still keeps people enslaved
Speaker:because they don't understand the concept that we're discussing here.
Speaker:They're still operating with an old covenant mindset.
Speaker:But the fear of death kept people and continues to keep people enslaved.
Speaker:The entire old covenant system ran on that fear, and we saw with Rome earlier,
Speaker:world systems ran on that fear too.
Speaker:They still do, even today, they keep people in line.
Speaker:They keep the rituals, they maintain purity, or you are
Speaker:cut off from God's presence.
Speaker:Jesus, 2000 years ago, destroyed that.
Speaker:Not by preventing physical death, by removing our separation, our
Speaker:eternal separation from our creator.
Speaker:Now let's look at our first century, maybe examples that
Speaker:we have from the New Testament.
Speaker:Let's look at how Paul and Peter faced death and see if we can get
Speaker:an example that might be helpful.
Speaker:To us as, as you know, I was reading through the New Testament.
Speaker:there were so many subjects, topics, thoughts coming to my mind, things that
Speaker:were changing inside of my soul and my mind just because of I'm going, okay,
Speaker:this is not the way I understood this.
Speaker:This is not what I was taught.
Speaker:This is not what I believed.
Speaker:Things are changing here.
Speaker:And one of the things that I really observed was how certain.
Speaker:People dealt with the things that they were going through.
Speaker:Peter and Paul are two of them, so let's look at these men who wrote these
Speaker:letters and see how it kinda Lived out.
Speaker:We'll read Paul's last letter, second Timothy.
Speaker:He knows he's about to be executed and there is nothing in that
Speaker:letter that appears to show fear.
Speaker:Here's what he writes.
Speaker:I have fought the good fight.
Speaker:I have finished the race.
Speaker:I have kept the faith.
Speaker:That's in chapter four, verse six and seven.
Speaker:Doesn't sound like a guy who's like, oh no, here comes death.
Speaker:Oh my goodness.
Speaker:I don't know what's going on.
Speaker:No, no fear, no grief.
Speaker:Not really any regrets or anything.
Speaker:No anxiety about what comes next.
Speaker:Nothing.
Speaker:He's really coaching Timothy on how to lead.
Speaker:After he's gone.
Speaker:Peter is roughly the same.
Speaker:Peter was writing it at close to the same time.
Speaker:We believe in the late sixties, 66, 67 maybe into 68 is when Paul was
Speaker:writing his Peter might have been just a few years before that, but all in
Speaker:within a few years timeframe there.
Speaker:Second Peter one 14.
Speaker:Peter says, I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, you know that.
Speaker:we know that means death, but that doesn't sound like the way we talk about death.
Speaker:The pud off of my body will be soon, he calls physical death pudding
Speaker:off my body, like removing a coat, like just kind of taking off our
Speaker:earthly garments or something.
Speaker:Then he spins the rest of the letter warning about false teachers and
Speaker:pointing to what is coming for the old system, talking about the
Speaker:upcoming destruction of the temple.
Speaker:His concern is the kingdom.
Speaker:Not his own survival.
Speaker:He is not trying to figure out how to, you know, live an extra few years
Speaker:or, you know, get his, get his fitness right so that he might, can, you
Speaker:know, live out a few more years here.
Speaker:Not, he's not doing any of that.
Speaker:he seems ready, Paul seems ready, and here's what you'll
Speaker:not find in their final letters.
Speaker:I'm about to go to heaven.
Speaker:That that is not said.
Speaker:I'm just ready to go to heaven and be with Jesus there.
Speaker:There's a little bit of that.
Speaker:Paul never says it, Peter really never says it.
Speaker:The closest we get is Philippians 1 23 to depart and be.
Speaker:With Christ, I guess if we want to take that and build out a go to heaven from it.
Speaker:But that's not really what it says.
Speaker:It's just go and be with Christ.
Speaker:It's presence not really a place, it's not really a destination.
Speaker:It's relationship.
Speaker:It's it's being connected and so it's just different, I think than
Speaker:I've always kind of thought of it.
Speaker:Peter points to new heavens and a new earth.
Speaker:In which righteousness dwells two Peter three 13.
Speaker:That's restoration, not souls floating around somewhere or anything like that.
Speaker:This mindset was not about where they were going when their body stopped.
Speaker:It was about faithfulness, the kingdom and the community that they were
Speaker:living behind, because the death that mattered, the separation from God.
Speaker:Seemed to already be behind them.
Speaker:That was done.
Speaker:They had already addressed.
Speaker:That seems to be years earlier.
Speaker:They had already passed from death to life and their physical bodies
Speaker:were still there and still existed.
Speaker:That seems to be what we need to take from that, and it should be our mindset too.
Speaker:But you look around and see what goes on in the world, and that's not the mindset
Speaker:that most people have, and it's definitely not the mindset that Christians have.
Speaker:Not managing fear about what happens after our body stop, but living now in
Speaker:the access that is already open and people will say something to the effect of, well,
Speaker:you don't know how bad my life is and how bad things are, look around and all that.
Speaker:You think it wasn't bad for Paul?
Speaker:Who was about to be beheaded, you think It wasn't bad for Peter who was about
Speaker:to be hung upside down on a cross.
Speaker:Both of those events were most likely within months of what
Speaker:we just read that they wrote.
Speaker:It just doesn't seem like they have that defeatist type mindset.
Speaker:It seems not even hopeful, just like expectant basically.
Speaker:And I believe that that is the way that we should live in the
Speaker:mindset that we should have also.
Speaker:Alright, so physical death is real.
Speaker:People still die.
Speaker:The New Testament does not ignore that, but the New Testament
Speaker:consistently treats physical death as secondary to the real problem.
Speaker:The real death was separation from God, the veil, the priesthood, the
Speaker:purity system, all of those sacrifices.
Speaker:They never were able to finish the job.
Speaker:That death was abolished.
Speaker:Separation is over.
Speaker:Access is open.
Speaker:what we call death today is not the death that the New Testament
Speaker:writers were warning about.
Speaker:Okay, so let's talk about what changes when we get that
Speaker:mindset and that thought, right?
Speaker:We've been sort of hitting on this, and this is just kind of a summary,
Speaker:the cost of getting it wrong.
Speaker:This is kind of the impact that we see and what we observe.
Speaker:In culture today, when we don't understand the definition that the
Speaker:New Testament talked about in the proper context, when it gets redefined
Speaker:from covenant separation to eternal punishment, everything seems to shift.
Speaker:Sin that we talked about in the last episode becomes like a scorecard.
Speaker:We're keeping track of everything.
Speaker:Every bad thought, every mistake, every failure gets tallied.
Speaker:You're never clean enough, never good enough, never done repenting.
Speaker:It's just like living with the old covenant.
Speaker:It's no different.
Speaker:It's like it never ended.
Speaker:Death becomes a threat, not covenant separation as they
Speaker:talked about in the New Testament.
Speaker:It becomes that eternal conscious torment, a punishment you carry everywhere.
Speaker:And the only way to manage it is to stay inside a system that promises to
Speaker:keep you safe, like an old covenant or some religious system, denomination,
Speaker:church environment, whatever.
Speaker:That makes you believe that you're doing all these things to manage that.
Speaker:That is not the gospel.
Speaker:That's not what the New Testament writers described.
Speaker:They described a separation that had already been resolved, done past tense,
Speaker:and that was in the, the forties, fifties, and the sixties of the first century.
Speaker:The veil had already been torn.
Speaker:Access was already open.
Speaker:But when that meaning drifts and when we start attempting to put
Speaker:stipulations, laws, structure in place, people live under something.
Speaker:The cross and what Jesus did already removed, they perform to stay safe
Speaker:instead of living from a finished work, they go places and hang out
Speaker:in places that give them formulas.
Speaker:An attempt to make them comfortable thinking that they're doing the
Speaker:things that need to be done.
Speaker:Just like the old Covenant law, they manage fear instead of walking in the
Speaker:access that we have through the life.
Speaker:The death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Speaker:If sin is a trust problem and death is covenant separation and both were
Speaker:resolved at the cross and finalized when the temple fell, then the burden lifts.
Speaker:We are free.
Speaker:We are no longer slaves.
Speaker:You're not managing a sin problem.
Speaker:You are living in what has already been done.
Speaker:Finished.
Speaker:It is finished.
Speaker:All right, so, uh, and that's exciting.
Speaker:We saw how the Bible defines sin.
Speaker:We did that already.
Speaker:We just saw how it defines death in the next episode.
Speaker:Just more exciting stuff.
Speaker:Let's see how it defines salvation, because those two are linked to salvation,
Speaker:the ones we've already discussed.
Speaker:The biggest word in the Bible.
Speaker:And this is what I found.
Speaker:It doesn't really mean what I believe that it did.
Speaker:We will cover that next time on seek Go Create, but we'll leave
Speaker:you with this last thought.
Speaker:Don't take my word for it.
Speaker:Please don't.
Speaker:I am not attempting to establish some kind of thus sayeth Tim or anything like that.
Speaker:I'm attempting to read the Bible in context and just share with
Speaker:you the things I'm discovering.
Speaker:I want you to read it for yourself.
Speaker:I challenge you the actual text in the order that was written.
Speaker:When you do that, you'll probably get some things like I've gotten.
Speaker:Maybe you'll go, yeah, Tim, I agree with you.
Speaker:Maybe you won't.
Speaker:That's fine.
Speaker:Read it in context.
Speaker:Like the one story that was told to that one generation, it will.
Speaker:Change you, I can guarantee that.
Speaker:So, reminder, you can get the reading plan K2 m Foundation slash
Speaker:NT 90 so that you can, download, you know, start wherever you want to.
Speaker:And, but I really do recommend trying to begin with James and go
Speaker:all the way to Revelation those 20 years that all of that was written.
Speaker:And I believe it'll have a big impact on you.
Speaker:and you may find similar things, you might find some different things
Speaker:that you believed or were taught differently, just pay attention to that.
Speaker:I'm Tim Winders, man.
Speaker:Keep digging, keep studying, keep reading.
Speaker:See you on the next episode.
