Fullness of Joy: The OT and the Afterlife (Part 1)

For centuries dying Christians have drawn comfort and hope from Old Testament passages like David’s Twenty-Third Psalm. Many scholars today, however, are charging earlier generations with reading the teaching of the New Testament back into the Old. They concede the New Testament has much to say about a resurrection, a final judgment, and eternal life. But modern scholars argue that a correct reading of the Old Testament provides little if any hope for a blissful life beyond the grave. The Old Testament believer simply lived for this world. For example, E. F. Sutcliffe, has claimed,

There has been a tendency to take it for granted that, like ourselves, Abraham, Moses, and David, and the other great men of God of the Old Testament looked forward to a judgment of their lives by God after death with a consequent apportionment of reward or punishment. But an attentive reading of the Old Testament shows that this is a mistaken notion and that for many centuries the religious life of the patriarchs and the people of Israel was based exclusively on God’s government of the world during the course of men’s pilgrimage on the earth.¹

Similarly, Millar Burrows dogmatically asserts, “Early Hebrew religion had no conception of judgment or salvation after death.”² He then accounts for belief in the resurrection among the Jews of Jesus’ day by arguing that “contact with Zoroastrianism, the religion of the Persian empire … supplied the pattern for the Jewish hope of resurrection and judgment after death.”³

Motivated by a desire to interpret God’s word accurately (2 Tim. 2:15), the Christian is compelled to reexamine the Old Testament to determine whether this modern charge is true.

Three Preliminary Considerations

To properly assess the Old Testament’s teaching on the afterlife, one must begin his study with an awareness of Israel’s ancient Near Eastern cultural milieu, an acknowledgment of Scripture’s progressive revelation, and an appreciation for the New Testament’s interpretation of the Old.

The Preoccupation of Ancient Near Eastern Society

Recent studies in ancient Near Eastern culture and religion have revealed a prevalent fascination with the afterlife.⁴ This ancient preoccupation with the afterlife may partially account for the relative paucity of a detailed revelation of afterlife in the Old Testament. God did not need to convince the Israelites of a reality they took for granted.

Furthermore, He did not want to foster an unhealthy fixation upon the life to come, which might render the Israelites “no earthly good” (cf. 1 Thes. 4:11; 2 Thes. 3:7-12) and lead them into the superstitious practices of their ancient Near Eastern neighbors. For example, the Law forbids praying to the deceased (Exod. 22:18; Deut. 18:10-12). Certainly, the Israelites would not be tempted to pray to the dead if they, as many modern scholars contend, entertained no belief in life after death.

The ancient prevalence of a belief in the afterlife also suggests the likelihood of a common innate sense of “eternalness” among human societies (Eccl. 3:11; Rom. 1:19-21), as well as a primeval revelation (e.g., Gen. 2:15-17; 3:22-24; 5:21-24), which depraved societies corrupted over time (Rom. 1:18-23).⁵

The Reality of Progressive Revelation

As a rule, redemptive truth generally becomes more detailed and clear as one approaches the New Testament era (Eph. 3:5; Tit. 1:1-3; Heb. 1:1, 2). This is especially true with respect to the doctrine of eternal life. In fact, it is not until one arrives at the New Testament that he finds a full and mature doctrine of the afterlife. Jesus Christ brought the truth of immortality out of the relative obscurity of Old Testament revelation and into the brighter light of New Testament revelation (2 Tim. 1:10). Therefore, as the Bible student searches for the resurrection and eternal life in the Old Testament, he must resist the temptation to read a fully developed New Testament doctrine into an Old Testament text where it does not belong.⁶

The Legitimacy of New Testament Input

On the other hand, Christians have the right and responsibility to take seriously the way in which New Testament writers interpret the Old.⁷ For example, the author of Hebrews portrays the faith and life of the Old Testament saints as future oriented (11:1-39).⁸ Either he is guilty of reading the New Testament hope of eternal life into the Old. Or he is properly exegeting the Old Testament texts under the Holy Spirit’s guidance. One committed to the inspiration of the New Testament must assume the latter.⁹

Three Pillars of the OT Believer’s Hope

Most modern scholars concede that one or two passages in the Old Testament may teach a future resurrection unto eternal life. But they usually date these passages after the exile and trace their teaching not to earlier Old Testament revelation but to Persian influence.¹⁰ Nevertheless, a careful examination of the Hebrew Scriptures reveals an indigenous source for these later eschatological texts. From the beginning of human history and on the earliest pages of Old Testament Scripture, God began to reveal three great truths which served as the pillars of the Old Testament believer’s future hope.