00:00:00 Jeromy Johnson: Hey everyone. Today we are welcoming R.A. Sweeney. He is an author and Hebrew scholar whose work will help us uncover the threads of love and grace woven throughout the Bible's oldest languages. He's here to also guide us through heaven, hell, Gehenna, and everything in between. He is the author of a advent devotional book. So Christmas is coming up. It's called The Shoot of Jesse. So if you're interested in that, go ahead and pick that up. Read. Thanks for joining us.

00:00:29 Reed Sweeney: Thanks for having me. I'm really excited about this conversation.

00:00:31 Jeromy Johnson: You're out in Wyoming, right?

00:00:33 Reed Sweeney: Yes, sir. Right in central Wyoming.

00:00:35 Jeromy Johnson: You have a lot of snow right now. Or is it clear?

00:00:37 Reed Sweeney: Uh, we didn't get hardly any snow until this week. And constant snow. Just a little bit here, a little bit there. Annoying more than anything. Uh, yeah. We're expecting hopefully soon. We'll be, you know, waist deep in it.

00:00:48 Jeromy Johnson: That'll be nice. Give you lots of time to read and write, I imagine, when you're just holed up in your house.

00:00:54 Reed Sweeney: Yeah. I always laugh when I talk with people. You know? You from California or people I work with? people from Arizona as well. And when I talk about we're hoping to be waist deep in snow. Everybody's like, yeah, I don't get that.

00:01:07 Jeromy Johnson: So you are into original language stuff, right? So Hebrew, Greek. What first drew you into that? Was it curiosity? Was it a crisis of faith? Was it something else entirely? Did you just always love that as a kid? And you thought, I really want to get into Hebrew when you were four years old?

00:01:23 Reed Sweeney: Yes. Actually, no. I thought, I really want to get into Hebrew when they were four, but it was one of those things that, you know, just other cultures are really interesting. I don't like to travel and things like that, but when I do travel, I always loved the cultures. I love meeting people from different cultures and learning about their languages and their practices and their customs. Just all those things have always been fascinating. And even growing up, you know, I grew up in a Christian home but didn't have any sort of relationship with God, so was familiar with the Bible. But, you know, I wasn't studying or anything like that. You know, you had all these words in the Bible that we just decided let's not translate those like names and places. Because why would you translate names and places? But when you dive into them, they all mean things. And it's like, okay, well then that name must mean something about that reason why they named this place this because of this. And so I just started digging in to that sort of stuff of like, well, what does this place mean? And I'm like, oh, that's interesting. It was actually when I was writing a book on the Psalms that I mentioned before we started recording, just released. So I taught myself Hebrew so I could translate the Book of Psalms. And that was really my first, like big exploration into, like translating stuff. And so I taught myself Hebrew for that, and in about four months got the whole book translated. When I started writing on the gospel accounts, started teaching myself Greek, and translated, I've got the whole New Testament translated at this point too. So it's really just been I'm a huge nerd.

00:02:52 Jeromy Johnson: Wait, pause. You just said something and we're not going to let that go. You just said you just finished translating the entire New Testament from its original language.

00:03:00 Reed Sweeney: Yes, sir. From from the original Greek, with a smattering of Aramaic in there. But yeah.

00:03:04 Jeromy Johnson: I like how you just like you just pass it off as it's like, you know, I had a cup of coffee today. I translated the entire New Testament. What surprised you the most about that process? Did something unexpected show up in the language as you're going through that?

00:03:17 Reed Sweeney: Oh, goodness.

00:03:18 Jeromy Johnson: Maybe not the most. That's an extreme. What were some of the surprises that came out?

00:03:23 Reed Sweeney: Okay, I've got I've got a good one. It's probably not my favorite one. But there's the story in the gospel accounts where there's the guy who is born blind and Jesus heals him. And then the Pharisees are like, who healed you? And he's like, I don't know. I couldn't see him because I was blind. So when I wrote about it, I had just finished translating that passage, and I'm just laughing to myself because the way that it reads in Greek and I'm exaggerating here a little bit, is there's a man who was born not able to see. And then Jesus came and made him able to see. But he wasn't able to see who it was that was able to make him see. So they asked his parents if they could see it. And like just the amount of like, that's it's like tongue in cheek, like, like slapstick style humor. It's so funny to read. And that's what I feel like. One of my favorite things in the original, uh, original languages is you can see how much they had fun with it. Like, there's so much silliness where we're like, I'm gonna just make this this story that's actually pretty comical. I'm gonna make it comical, by the way I tell it. And you miss all that in English, but you see, stuff like that makes it.

00:04:30 Jeromy Johnson: So.

00:04:31 Reed Sweeney: Like, fun to me.

00:04:32 Jeromy Johnson: To, like, hear, like the Bible had, like, little tongue in cheek moments. And some of the authors didn't take themselves so seriously when they were writing. They didn't know they were gonna be writing like the Bible, right? They're just writing this thing and having fun with it. That's pretty cool. So that was like the original, like, who's on first?

00:04:48 Reed Sweeney: Yeah, I feel like the chosen series captured it in sometimes, like, there's some silly moments with Jesus where he was just playing with him, or like where something happened and they presented it in a comical way because it would have been silly. I think of the scene where the woman on the well and the disciples come back and they're like, Jesus, we brought you food. And he's like, oh, I already ate. And there's just like this, like solemn, quiet moment. And then Andrew's like, who brought you food? And it's just silly. And there's so much like that that, you know, maybe you capture some of it in, in the English. But man, when you get into those original languages, you can really get the, the nuance, you can catch the wordplay a lot more because there's all sorts of wordplay, love wordplay, because I'm a dad and a nerd. And so it falls right in with dad humor and nerd humor.

00:05:34 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah, we're always fun. And but when people approach the scripture, like, as literalists, they, they miss that. Like, people struggle with my title because they take it literal, right? Slutty grace. Okay, we're obviously not saying God is slutty, right? There's meaning behind it. There's wordplay that's happening, but they can't see that wordplay. And so then we approach Scripture and we don't look into like what the actual meaning was because they were being a little tongue in cheek. They were playing with words, which is what a good author does. Some of the some of the struggles that people have with looking at the entire scripture is it seems like God was this loving God when he created us. And then Adam made a mistake. Adam chose something. Now God is pissed off at us for the next four thousand years, and he's just vengeful and he's wrathful. And then we get to Jesus and it seems like this entirely different God. And it's like this peaceful, loving, uh, God. And then we get to the revelation and we're back to this angry, wrathful God. And it seems like there's just not in the last chapter. What's that?

00:06:35 Reed Sweeney: The last chapter. We have to revert back to the loving God because it's the New Testament.

00:06:39 Jeromy Johnson: Back to the loving God. But yes, however, most people still go to hell then I would argue, yeah, right.

00:06:44 Reed Sweeney: Well, well there's that, but we skip over that to get to the, you know, the river and the tree.

00:06:50 Jeromy Johnson: So, So what I want to know is kind of like looking at that through line of grace and love. Because if Jesus represents God, and if Jesus came to really show us who God is, then how do we reconcile all these other, other versions of God throughout Scripture?

00:07:04 Reed Sweeney: Yeah. So probably to not start at the beginning, I want to frame it with some of the pictures that you see in the New Testament with Jesus, where he extends an invitation to people and they walk away. So the one that's coming to mind for me is there's the rich young ruler who comes, hey, what do I need to do? And he's like, well, here's some of the Ten Commandments. And he's like, yeah, I do all those, which I'm just gonna say he probably was overestimating his Torah compliance, I'm gonna guess. But then Jesus is like, oh, okay. Well, uh, how about you make me more important than your wealth? And he's like, um, about that, I'm just gonna take off and she's like, okay. And he's sad about it. You know? It's not a happy moment for him. It's a oh, you came so close, man. It doesn't say man in Greek, but you think of when he comes to Jerusalem and he's grieving. He says, Jerusalem, how often I wanted to bring you to myself. Like a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. And there's this juxtaposition of what God wants and what he's willing to do to achieve it. Yes, God can do whatever he wants. I'm not saying that, but God is not going to force us to do anything. And so let's take that perspective back to Genesis one. We talked about how we're going to be tracing new creation and heaven and hell and all those things in here too. So I think that's honestly where we need to start. In English we say the abyss, typically, sometimes the deep waters, because abyss is the Greek word which means the depthless place. But in Hebrew it's to whom? Which in that whole region was this idea of what we normally picture in modern West. For hell, it's the place, like ruled by the evil being. And just like torture and destruction and mayhem and just awful. Like all like it's the kingdom of bad as opposed to what we'll later see as the kingdom of good. And when we see that picture developed throughout the Scripture, there's all sorts of slavery terms we are enslaved to that if we are not in God's kingdom. And so the enemy is saying, my will is that you are going to serve me and you're going to be in my kingdom, and I'm going to make sure it happens. And God says, my will is that you're going to serve me and we're going to have a loving relationship if you want. And that to me is a huge, huge difference that we need to keep in mind when we're looking at why God allows things to happen the way they do is because he isn't the enemy. He isn't the serpent saying, I will enslave you to do my will. He says, I'm going to create you to be able to choose what you want on your own. Because love only exists where there's the ability to not love. When we fast forward to, you know, the two trees in the center of the garden. Like the question that everybody thinks is, why would you put this tree here? God, such a bad idea. It's like, why would you leave a loaded gun in a nursery with a bunch of children, but without that tree? If Adam and Eve are in a garden, and the word garden implies that it's walled in, if they don't have the ability to say, I don't want to be here, then they're prisoners, they're trapped, and there's no ability to go out. And in that relationship, if I can't choose to not love him, how deep is my love for him? And that's not a fun like, I don't like that I'm not coming. Like, I'm so glad God did it this way. I would much rather God was like, hey, I'm not gonna allow you to mess up your whole life all the time, every single day. That'd be great for me because I do mess up my life all the time, every single day, and the lives of everyone around me, which is a huge, huge problem. But God said, this is how it's going to be, and it's going to be better than anything else that could happen. So we just we start with that. When I look at what you were saying of the loving God in Genesis one and then Genesis three, it's a completely different, just angry, vengeful God until we get to Jesus. I would answer that with like, what are you? What are you not reading the Old Testament? You know, we we have out here in Wyoming, we have pronghorn antelope or like the number one inhabitant of the state, there are millions of them. Um, and it's like a big goat that lives on the prairie. For anybody that doesn't know, if you ask anybody, they'll tell you pronghorn meat tastes disgusting. Don't eat pronghorn. They're gross. And so I very, very early in my adulthood started asking people, have you even tried it? Because it's just one of those things people say the hunters, for the most part, love pronghorn antelope meat. And everyone that's like, oh, it's gross. I'd never eat that. Have you tried it? Well, no, but I heard okay.

00:11:32 Jeromy Johnson: So true.

00:11:33 Reed Sweeney: You have no firsthand experience in this, but you're talking definitively as an expert. If you want to tell me that the God of the Old Testament is all rage and anger, and the God of the New Testament is all love and peace. I'm going to say you haven't read either one.

00:11:48 Jeromy Johnson: Walk us through some of those Old Testament thread, because that is something that that people view, maybe help us see differently. Help us see.

00:11:55 Reed Sweeney: Yeah, absolutely.

00:11:56 Jeromy Johnson: And more less a neurotic god, less bipolar god, and maybe a more cohesive God.

00:12:04 Reed Sweeney: I started with to whom? The abyss in Genesis one. We've got this dark place that is ruled by to whom? Um, and usually like the language that I think it's the King James because we all know it, the formless and void language in Hebrew, it's tohuwabohu, um, which there is nowhere in at least Biblical Hebrew that the word vohu is used without tohu. A lot of scholars think that it's like saying super duper. If I were to say duper to you, you'd be like, what are you talking about? But if I say super duper, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's it's just like this, like, weird Linguistic thing. Um, where when I rhyme it and make it double, you're like, oh, extra bad. John Walton has an excellent discussion on on what Tohuwabohu means, and he looks at everywhere that Tohu or Tohuwabohu gets used in the Hebrew Scriptures. And the conclusion he has is that it describes a world where it's not set up to support life, and it's not supporting life. You can view that in a lot of different ways. Yeah, but the way I translate it is uninhabitable and uninhabited, which is a mouthful, but I think it's a good way of phrasing it. And then you see through Genesis one, the first three days, God's addressing the issue of uninhabitable. So he's making, uh, you know, time on day one, then he's making air on day two, then he's separating the land from the water, and he's making the realms for everybody to live in. So he's making space for everybody uninhabitable.

00:13:36 Jeromy Johnson: Habitable.

00:13:36 Reed Sweeney: Right. And then the next three days, he takes what is now habitable and turns it from uninhabited to inhabited. And so over six days, we go from uninhabitable and uninhabited, halfway through where? Habitable and uninhabited. And then by the end we're habitable and habited, which is. Man, I need to come up with better words. Which is out loud. It's easier to type than to say super duper. Yeah, yeah. Um. And so then he invites humanity to come live in it with him. Then we jump into Genesis two. I don't personally see any way that you can make those stories the same story.

00:14:13 Jeromy Johnson: No. And if you asked any Orthodox Jew like they're not losing sleep over this, they're fine with it.

00:14:17 Reed Sweeney: Right. And so in Genesis two, we've got the garden narrative. He makes the garden, he puts the two trees there again because he's not willing to enslave us. In Genesis one, we see that humans are made to rule creation, and in Genesis two, they're meant to tend the garden, which is a priestly sort of term. When we look at the tabernacle, when we look at the temple, those are all meant to look like Eden. We've got kings and we've got priests all in humanity. And we find that the universe is made to work with these image bearing royal priests running things from God's temple. So then we see the serpent comes in and he tricks Eve and she eats. And I love that people are like, well, Adam wasn't there. It literally says she gave fruit to Adam, who is right there with her. Um.

00:15:03 Jeromy Johnson: This wasn't man enough to eat it, grab it himself. He had the woman do it.

00:15:07 Speaker 3: Yeah, he was right there.

00:15:08 Reed Sweeney: So they eat it, then they start blaming you. Notice that God said, if you eat from this, you're gonna die. And they eat from it. And what doesn't happen right away, they don't die.

00:15:18 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:15:20 Reed Sweeney: And even when God shows up and starts talking to him, he doesn't say you're dead. He gives them the chance to explain themselves. And when we look at the whole Bible, when we sin, what are we supposed to do? We're supposed to repent, right? Yeah. And when God says, hey, explain yourself. You can read back into that story. Like do you have anything that you want to say now that you've eaten the fruit? I told you not to. He gave them the chance and instead of repenting, they blamed him. Adam said, the woman you gave me gave me a fruit jazzed.

00:15:52 Jeromy Johnson: About a few verses earlier.

00:15:55 Reed Sweeney: Right? Yeah. Um, then she's like the serpent that you made. And you led into the garden. He tricked me. And so rather than going to him and saying, let's rebuild the relationship, they pushed him away and said, you're to blame, not me. And so then God doesn't even curse him if you read it. Nowhere does God say I'm mad. Nowhere does he say I'm doing this to you. He says, okay, because you did this. Here's what's going to happen. You you can't live here anymore.

00:16:23 Jeromy Johnson: Like there's very specific consequences. Also, what he didn't say is, because of you, every single seed that will be born of humanity will now be cursed. It's where I feel like if that was important, that would have been very important to say, like at the very beginning of the game, here are the rules of the game. Here is what's happening. And it just wasn't said.

00:16:41 Reed Sweeney: Well. And so the way I read it is you can no longer live here. You're going out there outside the garden because it does not say that all the world was like the Garden of Eden. It says God planted a garden in the Land of Eden. So like there's the Land of Eden and then a garden within it, and then obviously Eden without the garden. And then outside of Eden, even there's the rest of creation. And so he's saying, like, you're going to live out there. And if we remember at the beginning, before God started making Eden, that's to home, that's the land of chaos and death rather than the land of life and abundance. And so he says out there, here's what it's going to look like. You guys are going to have bad relationships with each other. You guys are going to have all sorts of problems. The land in here where you could just go pick from trees and you could eat it, you could pick grain and eat it. Like, not how it's going to be out there. You're going to live out there and it's going to be terrible.

00:17:33 Jeromy Johnson: As you're talking. Like, this is a great imagery of, you know, Jesus came and said, hey, the kingdom is here. The kingdom is with you. The kingdom is among you. It's this garden symbolism of what God's kingdom on earth looks like could look like the potential of it looking like. And when that kingdom is not there, it looks like all the other places the uninhabited, the the places that were separated.

00:17:55 Reed Sweeney: Absolutely. I'm actually hoping to publish a book that shows this kingdom dynamic of the struggle between the kingdom of the serpent and the Kingdom of God. Um, from Genesis one, where you start with the kingdom of the serpent. God plants, pun intended, his kingdom in the garden. And then it's this war between the two kingdoms. And it kind of illustrates the the kingdom dynamic. Yeah. So God says, here's what it's going to be like outside the garden, and it's going to be miserable because you're entering the land of chaos and death. And out there things are cursed. And it's just it's not going to be the blessings that you have in here. And then you see the Cain and Abel Enable story. Kane sheds Abel's blood. The ground, God says, drinks the blood. It says, the blood that you forced the ground to drink. And it's crying out and the ground is mad. It didn't like that. You force fed it innocent blood. What could be more grotesque to my good creation than to be force fed, innocent blood? So it hates you now it's mad. You need to make this right. And then to amplify the kingdom language, God says I'm going to be generous. You came and you didn't really apologize, but you did at least cry out recognizing that you did something wrong. So tell you what. I'll give you a sign of protection. And you don't see, Cain took it. Instead he went, and he built a city. A walled city is what it says, which is a defensible space. So no, thanks. God, I don't want your protection. I'm going to go make my own protection. And it's now an enclosure in the land of chaos and death, rather than a garden filled with life and animals and plants and things. It's going to be stones and dead wood and pavement. It's an anti. Eden is what the city becomes. Um, and so he chooses even when he's in exile already from the garden. God says, I'll protect you. He says, I'm going to go further into exile. That's fine. And he didn't like it, but he chose it.

00:19:50 Jeromy Johnson: Um.

00:19:51 Reed Sweeney: And so you see this escalating. They keep pushing away. He keeps offering generously. You get to Noah's story and Noah's story. If you've actually read the origins of I'm going to pick Greek because it's the most common, the creation of humanity in Greek. They they went through multiple iterations of humans. They made them out of different materials. And they kept being like, this didn't turn out right. Let's kill all of them and we'll just start over. And God didn't do that. When you look at the Babylonian and Sumerian stories of the flood, the gods are just like humans are gross. They're loud. We can't get any sleep. They stink. They're nasty. Let's just kill them all and we'll just start over. And one God is like, hey, I'm gonna warn you, human, so that you can build your ark and escape this. And then all the other gods are like, why would you do this? Humans are gross and loud, but with the the Noah story, it's a mercy. God finds one person to say, I'm going to preserve at least a little bit. I'm not going to fully wipe them out. Then afterward, God's like, ooh, that that was a bit more gruesome than I thought. So I won't do that again, I promise. But that's not how the story tells it. The story starts out with violence is pervading the land, and there's one man who's righteous. God allows eight humans to enter the ark and exit the ark, but only one of them was blameless, at least per the story. And then afterward they plant a new garden, and there's a vineyard. He makes an altar. He offers a sacrifice, just like Abel did, that God was like, okay, we're starting to see some good relationship building here. God said, since you are seeking a relationship with me. I won't do this again.

00:21:30 Jeromy Johnson: No. It was still driven and fundamentally about relationship.

00:21:34 Reed Sweeney: Yeah. Um. Tower of Babel. Same sort of deal. I need to stop them from getting from making things worse. They're building the Kingdom of the serpent too much. I'm going to stop them. But I'm not going to kill them. I'll just scatter them. The cool thing with that is when we see the nations all coming back together. It's not about singleness of culture. It's about a multicultural celebration of each other. The differences are what becomes the beauty when it's all reconciled. And so all of this is turning into a much bigger, beautiful thing than even Eden ever was. But God's patient with that. And he says, okay, let's just scatter you guys so that it slows things down a little bit so you don't destroy things. And I'm going to be looking for humans that can go back into the garden, because once we get a righteous human who is acting as a royal priest in the Garden of Eden, it'll start fixing things. We can start the rescue mission all over again, because Eden was always meant to encompass the entire world. And so he picks Abraham. And Abraham is not a very good dude most of the time sometimes, but most of the time he's, you know, raping his slave and tricking the king of Egypt. And so he's tricking people. He's raping people. He's not a great dude most of the time. And God's patient, you see, with Sodom and Gomorrah, like, hey, it's gotten so bad, I have to act. I can't let this go on anymore. But tell you what, I'm gonna personally go check out everything that's going on. And if it's not as bad as I think, I'll spare it. Of course, God knows it's as bad as he thinks because he's God. But he does a favor to Abraham. I'm gonna do something that's probably really obnoxious to me, because why would I need to go inspect? But I'll do it anyway. So he's very patient. He humiliates himself in order to be generous to humanity. He allows humanity to destroy creation when they're rebellious because he doesn't want to destroy them, like preemptively with the the Passover in Egypt, all the plagues. God warns them and says, anybody who wants to protect themselves, do it. I'm going to do this. Everyone's welcome to find shelter. The Passover meal is for everyone who wants to try it, not just Israelites. So when they leave, there's a mixed multitude from all sorts of nations coming with them. He's extending that generosity of anybody who wants to come and trust me, can. And I'm going to extend that generosity. And I think the best part that we see in the Old Testament is in Hosea at the very beginning, there's the story with Gomer, his wife, who runs away, and he's supposed to go buy her back. And God tells a poem about how Israel has turned away and just attributed all of her blessings to the other gods. The steam is building like, oh no, this isn't going to go well. Like right when you think he's going to be like, therefore I'm gonna kick in the door and start taking. He's like, therefore I'm gonna allure her. I'm gonna draw her back out into the wilderness where we first fell in love, and we're going to start this over again, and we're going to fall in love again. Later on, he's like, you guys are so bad, you need to be destroyed. And then there's this shift. But how can I give you up? How can I destroy you? You're my child. And it says, my compassions are kindled. My heart is torn up within me.

00:24:48 Jeromy Johnson: It sounds like. Like there's this, this picture being painted of, like, almost like an experiment where God doesn't know what's going to happen. And he's like, doing some chess moves and he doesn't know what the other person's gonna counter with. And my question is, is, what do you see as like his purpose of of having us be here and make mistakes and not choose him? Like, what's what's the risk?

00:25:09 Reed Sweeney: Um, I think in order for us to love God, there has to be that discovery to like, we have to fall in love with God. And I think freedom for us to choose and for us to make mistakes. And I mean, ideally, we'd look at God and just love him. But we didn't. Adam and Eve. I mean, I started that way, but, like, it didn't take long for them to be like, well, I want to try some other stuff.

00:25:31 Jeromy Johnson: Do you think they saw God in God's fullness, or was it still veiled?

00:25:35 Reed Sweeney: My assumption, and this is outside of anything that I can, like, nail down any evidence to. My assumption is they were too immature. And I don't mean that as like the like, oh, you're being immature. I mean, like, they just hadn't developed enough yet to really see his fullness. Honestly, I think, you know, eternity is going to be us maturing more and more into seeing his fullness. Mhm. And so my assumption is that they saw a part and as much as they could handle and were meant to grow in seeing him and see him more and more, that's my assumption.

00:26:12 Jeromy Johnson: Does that, does that mirror your life. Because that kind of mirrors my life where as you just even in this short, you know, eighty years of life here on earth or whatever it ends up being, there is an unveiling. There is a learning, there is a growing. I don't know if I could have understood the God that I understand now back when I was sixteen or seventeen. So it's kind of cool just seeing this continuous unveiling. And maybe that's part of the purpose here. Would you say like that's part of the purpose is to mature us in order to see more of the fullness of God?

00:26:43 Reed Sweeney: Yeah. I mean, I think that's why we don't get the full picture right away. I think we're not able to handle it. And we need to develop the fullness, even just think about like a child being forced to eat vegetables like it's good you need to eat vegetables, but a kid doesn't like it. They don't have a context for that. Like until they start eating nothing but junk food and get belly aches. I can't understand why you would want me to eat this gross food when there's that yummy food. And if I was able to, like, not let you have sugar for twenty years, maybe you could start to develop the mental capacity to understand it. So I'm not saying you have to choose the bad in order to understand the good. Sometimes choosing the bad in order to understand the good is the fastest route, but it's not the most desirable. I mean, no kids, like I'm gonna give myself a tummy ache. So I learn a lesson here. But, you know, we we learn from experience and we grow from that.

00:27:38 Jeromy Johnson: So there's this this individual growth as humans, right? Where we we grow and learn and we are, I think, open up to more. The veil comes, comes off a little bit more and more and we're able to see God for more who God is. Do you think that there is, as a species growing in knowledge that as time goes on, what they say that the the arc is towards justice and love? Do you think that as time goes on, there's this community knowledge, there's this community growth of us as humans learning more and more about about God and the unveiling of God's true nature. And I would say, ultimately learning more and more about God's love and how to interact with that.

00:28:16 Reed Sweeney: I've got mixed feelings on on that. So yes, to both the the Martin Luther King Jr quote that that you were referencing about the the arc of human history bending toward justice. I think the Bible says humanity left alone actually is the opposite.

00:28:35 Jeromy Johnson: But we're not left alone.

00:28:37 Reed Sweeney: What?

00:28:38 Jeromy Johnson: But we're not left alone. And that's right. But that's the great part. Humanity on its own, though. Yeah. Like as you're showing, God has been there, kind of bumping us and revealing, I think throughout, throughout our experience.

00:28:50 Reed Sweeney: Right. And so I would say, like when we look at humanity apart from God, it tends away from justice. That's what we see in all the, you know, the, uh, the flood, the Tower of Babylon, the plagues of Egypt, the exiled to Babylon, even, like all those things, are proof that humanity, when it isn't in sync with God, tends away from justice. It tends toward violence.

00:29:14 Jeromy Johnson: That makes sense. Yeah.

00:29:16 Reed Sweeney: With God in the mix. It tends toward justice and love, like you said. And I do think we started out with a perfect relationship with God. Not full, but but unhindered in the garden. And they're eating from the tree of life, which I'm very, very, very, very, very, very, very convinced as the Torah, or at least, you know, in some way the Torah. They're learning God's wisdom, they're learning who God is, how the world's supposed to operate, how they're supposed to influence the world, to become Eden everywhere. They have a very good picture. But but it's undeveloped because they weren't there long. Then outside of Eden. Then we see, you know, the story of Cain and Abel is the first real, at least recorded picture of God revealing himself, and then the next generation is going to have that story. And so, yes, cumulatively, God keeps revealing himself. Over time, we get a more and more clear picture, just like if I add, you know, a piece of a puzzle like one piece I put down every day. Eventually, it becomes a complete puzzle. Every time God reveals himself in any way. A piece is being put into that puzzle. So we are getting more and more revelation. But then you see in the New Testament there's the different religious factions. So you've got like the Sadducees, they didn't believe in anything after the Torah. They rejected the prophets, the writings, all that stuff. So they reject all that. So it's hard to say I write books on the same content just to unpack the same thing. But it all boils down to the Torah. I feel like we are unpacking it and understanding it better, but we're also being misled more and more. We have a lot of false teachers and false prophets that are complicating it more. And so my original answer yes and no. I think we have a lot more understanding, and in a lot of ways we have a lot less understanding.

00:31:02 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. To fully understand God, uh, it's impossible. Our little truth of understanding is just partial. It's just part of that. You know, I feel like that there's there's more revelation in the whole than in the part. Like none of us have the whole. We all have like little parts of the whole. As we continue to come together, continue to understand each other, think that we will honestly understand more and more of of God. I think when that happens, like you said, we, we, we build these cities with walls as defensive positions around our beliefs, around our religion. And we we just defend it. We just keep each other out. Part of what I think God's trying to do, and maybe you can see this in Scripture as you're looking at the original language, is to break down those walls, to break down those barriers, to break down. I would say that arrogance. Right?

00:31:56 Reed Sweeney: Yes. So not to disagree with you. What comes to mind for me is maybe not breaking down the walls so much as opening the gates. And the reason I make the the nuance there is because I feel like especially here in the US, we're very assimilation oriented. Hey, you're in the US. Speak English. You're in the US. You don't have whatever culture you brought with you. Like you're an American now, as opposed to the other Americans and all the other countries in North and South America. But you know what I mean? Like, we're very focused on assimilation. And so where I see the opening of the gates is like, you have something distinct. It's not all homogenous, like an unwalled. You know how like, cities grow into each other? Like there's distinctions like over here is this culture, and over here is that tradition. But the gates are open and there's free flow between all of them. There's no division between them, but they are different and they make each other more beautiful. The other thing I was thinking is you were talking was kind of like a funhouse mirror setup. You know, we we have the truth. But to your point, like, we we all have the one vantage point, but say I come from a Hebrew background, which is what I think most people would say is like, well, yeah, this is a pretty, pretty traditional background. But, you know, if I come from a Hebrew, I've got that perspective. And they have their misconceptions and their flaws and their their one perspective. And then the Greeks come in and they set up another mirror. And now I'm looking at the mirror and I'm like, oh, I've never seen it from that way before. I get that what I'm looking at is a mirror. It's not the true thing, but I'm seeing it from a different angle now and then. Maybe we bring in the Latins, you know, getting into like, the early, like Catholic Church and, oh, there's a mirror over here. And now looking in the Greek mirror, I can see the Catholic mirror, and I'm seeing another angle. And if I look just in the Catholic mirror, I see another angle. And then the Egyptian church and like. So it's all allowing us to reflect the same thing because there is that center truth. I'm not saying they're all true, but when I read those stories, I see, okay, that's a perspective I never thought about. Just like when I read the Lord of the rings. I don't think any of that's true. It's a great story. It tells a lot of truth.

00:34:14 Jeromy Johnson: It's not true. Damn it! Sorry.

00:34:16 Reed Sweeney: I mean, maybe the idea was that middle earth became our world, but I think. I don't think Tolkien ever believed that.

00:34:23 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:34:24 Reed Sweeney: Or Star Wars or whatever. Like, you can pick your story. Every story brings a new mirror for you or a lens, a new way to see what is true through this thing that at least has a little bit of truth in it. It's definitely flawed. It's definitely not God's truth, unfiltered, but it allows me then to see the truth through a different angle, and it's going to distort the truth in different angles, too. And so it's really, you know, when we are able to recognize how this is shaping my understanding, we get those, you know, learning to discern like what's true and what's not true in the mirror.

00:35:02 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. And it takes for us to be open to the other. It takes for us to be open to honestly seeing God in the other two. Absolutely. In the other understanding. Like, what can I glean from that? And with your study of the original languages, um, how did they reshape common teachings like about judgment, salvation, the afterlife?

00:35:22 Reed Sweeney: In a lot of ways it is using the same sort of language, but in surprising ways to the Jewish culture. The Hebrew culture didn't develop in a vacuum. They use other people's words. The word for Noah's Ark is an Egyptian word. It's not even a Hebrew word like there's a lot of loanwords from other cultures. They use a lot of references to other cultures, poems from other cultures, a lot of that stuff. And so it's drawing.

00:35:48 Jeromy Johnson: America and the English language.

00:35:50 Reed Sweeney: Right? Right. And so that's the one thing that I feel like a lot of people stick on is I'll be like, well, that's actually, you know, like a Babylonian story that's being quoted here. And they're like, well, no, the Babylonians stole it from the Bible. And I'm like, it didn't like, I get why you want that to be true. But like, that's not what the Bible's doing there, clearly riffing on this and being like, but really, it was me, God, not Marduk or whoever. We do see a lot of the same sort of thing. The big enemy that we see in terms of like death, especially in the Old Testament, is the grave. The Old Testament doesn't focus. I mean, we've got a few references to to whom that I mentioned at the beginning, which is not the place you go after death. It's a ruling force on the world. Now, when you die, you go to Sheol, which is the grave, which you see very, very similar in Greek mythology and Babylonian mythology. You go to the grave, you're buried, and that's not where you're supposed to be. And there is some language that fits with like the idea of, you know, like the places where a good dead people go to get blessing in the place where the bad dead people go to get punishment. And there's a few references that kind of support that. You see the idea of, like the shades of Tartarus, uh, in Greek, like, there's talks of, like, the ghosts and the shades in Hebrew scripture, whether or not they're meant to be literal or just like drawing on the other cultures, I'm inclined to think, you know, mostly because of the story of Samuel's ghost. I'm inclined to think that there are actual shades roaming around in the land of the dead, but there's that idea of like, this isn't where we're supposed to be. And that's where it does get surprising is in Greek, like, you go to the land of the dead and you're there until the world's unmade. It's basically just saying forever. Like, until what is no longer is you're going to be there versus in the Bible, it's like you're going to be there. And that's a tragedy. It's a prison. You're going to be set free from, or at least ideally, you're going to be set free from. But we do see in most of them the language isn't forever. It's until things are made new, until there's a cosmic change that upends everything. And that is kind of what the Bible teaches. Where anywhere that it says like for eternity or forever and ever. It usually has to the end of the age. I love in Hebrew there's the word olam, which means the vanishing point. So it's like, as far as I can see in the distance, it's as far into the future as I have any sort of recognition of what it would be like as far in the past as we can even recollect. So like for time, I like to translate that as beyond the horizon. That is what we see in a lot of the cultures around the Hebrew culture and around the world, is that there's going to be this point where everything's going to have to just come to an end and something new is going to have to happen. And that is exactly what we see in the Bible. God makes a new heaven and a new earth. The Bible is really about reconciliation with God more than anything else. Humans never go live on Mount Olympus. The gods in Sumeria, they flooded the world because they thought humans were loud and obnoxious. They don't want to be with us. In Norse mythology, you have. Like the the really valiant ones get to go to Valhalla or the great bards who are entertaining get to. But even Valhalla is not permanent. That ends in Ragnarok. So there's this unique depiction of what God is really trying to do is reconcile people. The mission is to get back to what Adam and Eve had with God before the fruit. I want to be united with my people. That's what we see all throughout the Old Testament, all throughout the New Testament. It's all about God is making a place, a time and a way for him to be with his people for eternity.

00:39:39 Jeromy Johnson: It goes back to that goal question. The God of the Hebrew Scriptures and the God of the Bible is looking at. The goal is restoration. The goal is to bring things back together, back to God where other gods they're like, nah, screw it dude, you messed up. You're gonna burn forever. You're going to be separated from me. And it's interesting because I feel like the the first lie at the very beginning was separation, right? Straight from Satan. You're now separated from God. God doesn't love you. God doesn't want to be reconciled with you. And that's been the original lie. And it's just interesting how how much religion still feeds that separation rather than than that reconciliation part of it. There's ways of reconciliation. I think God's ways are going to be different than ours, as Scripture seems to hint at that. We have some ideas of how this may look. And I have I have ideas on my own mind, how this could look when we're just standing in the pureness of of love and grace and and God centeredness, all things will melt away and we'll desire that. Love is all about desiring. Love is about choosing. And I think that there is a way that in our spirits, if we're wired a certain way, especially with love, because love is transformative.

00:40:51 Reed Sweeney: Well, and and you and I talked about this as we were planning for this show, that when we get into the details of what that looks like, I think that's where you and I do deviate a little bit in what we believe, and we were fine with that.

00:41:03 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:41:04 Reed Sweeney: And you know what? What I think is really important is, you know, where do you see God saying, you haven't chosen me and I'm mad at you, and I'm gonna punish you and burn you for eternity because you deserve it. Yes. Never, never. Once. There is not one. And there's going to be probably some people listening that are not liking me, saying that if you look at those stories, it's like with the curses at the garden, we're all taught like God cursed them. No he didn't. He told them what was going to happen. Now that you don't get to live here anymore, you've chosen to leave. And that's what it's like out there with the flood. I can no longer allow you to behave this way. I need to protect the rest of creation from you guys. So I have to do this. I don't want to do this throughout the prophets. I am wrestling with this because I don't want to have to stop you. But I can't let you continue. And with Jesus, if anybody was going to bring the wrath of God on people for rejection, it would be, hey, you guys are beating a crown of thorns into my head and making fun of me and spitting on me, and maybe now would be the time that I'm going to let my wrath off the leash. And he was like, no, that's not what I'm about. I can take this. I don't like it. I wish you wouldn't do it. I can take it, though. What I really want is for you to turn, and if you don't, I won't force you because you have every right not to. And that's what he did when revolutionary was like, hey, I've messed up. And you do seem like the way that I want to go. Great. You're on board. And then the other one is just mocking and he's like, okay, you do that.

00:42:41 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:42:41 Reed Sweeney: We're not hurting God physically. We're not taking away from God. I do think we are hurting him emotionally. I think that's very clear in the scriptures. He's got a lot of emotion and why wouldn't he? We have emotion. He has everything we have and more other than the bad parts and emotion isn't bad. So he's very emotional. He does get sad. He does get hurt. He does lament. He does get angry. But like he doesn't want to destroy, but he won't force. And so that's where I think we do agree, is he's not kicking anybody out and being like, I'm gonna burn you for eternity.

00:43:12 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. And that and that. His heart and that his heart leans towards restoration. That's the mystery, right? What will it look like? And I think in the end we'll know. We'll know. And and my hope is, is that with God's heart towards restoration, that God ultimately, however it works out, however it pans out that it will work out to where all will be restored and all will will eventually make that choice out of a spirit of love. And I always leave like the the openness of like maybe there's like a few guys that are just like, you know, fuck you, God, give them the middle finger. And what God chooses to do with that. It's not up to me. It's not. It's not up to me. But I agree with you. I do not think that it's going to be this reaction of anger and send them forever and ever and ever into this eternal torment.

00:44:02 Reed Sweeney: Well, and I think regardless of whether I'm going to use the word universalism, because that's what I've been taught, the idea that, like, everybody's eventually going to to love God in the end and be reconciled to him, regardless of whether or not that is true. We should all want that to be true. Yeah. As we talked, I don't I personally I'm not quite there thinking that it is true. You know, I've got my reasons why. And I do see some evidence to your point your side as well. And so like, I'm not going to just throw it out, but it's not where I'm landing with it. But I want it to be true. Because how long did I spend in rebellion and why should that be the cutoff? Like, well, I didn't go, you know, another three years, so that's okay, I made it. But you you rebelled two years longer than me. So you don't get to or you just died before and so you don't get to like. I am very glad that God allowed me to turn from my rebellion, and that he allowed me to fall in love with him and that I have a relationship with him because of that, and that's what he wants for everyone. That's what I want for everyone. And regardless of what the cutoff is, whether there's no cutoff, whether it's death, I shouldn't want anyone to ever get to that point. Every single human that has ever lived, regardless of what they've done, I should want them to fall in love with God and be reconciled with him, regardless of when.

00:45:19 Jeromy Johnson: In your studies of Scripture, maybe New Testament. Do you think that there is an openness? Do you think that there is a a door open of people being able to choose after death? Or do you think, like in Hebrews? I think it's just really one strong verse, but then it leads open to what do you view judgment as? But I don't know. That's I'm curious.

00:45:38 Reed Sweeney: That's like it's appointed to man once to die and then comes judgment. Yeah. The only verse that anybody ever quotes against universalism.

00:45:45 Jeromy Johnson: Do you think that scripture from the wholeness of it, does it leave open possibility after death to to still choose God?

00:45:52 Reed Sweeney: I have not read the Bible with an eye for like, I want to see if this is anywhere, so I'm leaving that open to. I could be wrong. I don't see it personally. I mean, God's patient, like Peter says, he wants everyone to come to to repentance and he doesn't want anyone to perish. Um, and there's a lot of things like that that suggest, like, why couldn't it? I don't see anywhere, that's for sure. Like, okay, once a human dies, their fate is sealed. That verse in Hebrews does seem to kind of condemn it, but there's a lot of ways you could interpret that, too. And you can't just take that one verse and build your entire theology off of it. What I look at is the repeated story of people hardening their hearts, and the more they harden, the more God allows it to become hardened and they wander off into destruction. And to me that suggests like at some point you hit the destruction point. There's the point of you have ruined it, you've ruined your chance.

00:46:52 Jeromy Johnson: So would you say it's more of a of a like, a annihilation if there's not this eternal, hellish place that goes on for eternity? But there isn't a choice to maybe choose God after death is really the only option. After that annihilation, you are destroyed and your spirit and soul cease to exist.

00:47:09 Reed Sweeney: Yeah, I've heard of that. That option as well. And what I would reshape that understanding with, like going back to that Kingdom narrative. We started with the kingdom of the enemy, pervaded all God, planted Eden to expand and cover the ends of everything. And then we lost it. It gets somehow isolated from us. The Old Testament is the journey to find it. Jesus comes and says, it's here now in me, and it's not a place so much as a type of existence that we get to live in now, and one day it will come and be more of a physical place than it is. And so I look at it more as, are you going to be in the kingdom or are you going to be in exile? Which is exactly how the story started with Adam and Eve. They left the kingdom and they went into exile in the land of chaos and death. Things didn't go well out there. It was a hell of their own making. They wandered into sin. Sin leads to awful instead of awesome.

00:48:05 Jeromy Johnson: And this is I'm. And this is afterlife. Exile.

00:48:08 Reed Sweeney: There's the kingdom. And then there's outside the kingdom in new creation. You know, the kingdom is described as the city that comes down, and there are those that are outside. You and I had talked as we were preparing for this of Gehenna, which I don't think is hell, like we we translated. I think that's pretty clear at this point. Hell is is not the place where the devil with his pitchfork is burning people forever, or even where God is punishing people forever. It's it's the land of chaos and death outside God's kingdom. And Gehenna is the valley outside Jerusalem where people would burn their children to the god Molech. So it's a place of idol worship. It's a place of death and nastiness and heartbreak and brutality and violence. And to me, the picture is you're either going to be in God's kingdom, where it's ruled by love and joy and generosity and mercy and those things, or you're going to be outside God's kingdom, where it's going to be idolatry and violence and awful. The mission of Eden was to cover all creation, and so does the unrepentant in life live outside God's kingdom, in the afterlife? Do they then become absorbed into God's kingdom as it expands to cover all creation? Do they get driven before the face of God's creation as it spreads until there's nothing left and they become annihilated? I don't know. I know I'm going to be in that kingdom. I know I want everyone else to be. If I tell you, hey, you can live in eternity in a place that is full of love and generosity and perfect fulfillment of everything, or you cannot be a part of that, and you can be a part of the exact opposite of that, where everything is hate and violence and misery and torturous and just like the hell of your own creation. Do you care what the end of that is on the outside? Are you like, that sounds awful. I'll take door number one.

00:49:55 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah, I think for me, like, by the time, like, you die. Right? And you understand. Oh, those were the rules this whole time. And then, like, you don't have an opportunity to make a choice based on, like, the fuller understanding of the unveiled ness, and I don't know who quote it. And I'm gonna just say either Mark Twain or C.S. Lewis, because I feel like that's where all great quotes get attributed to. Fair enough. So Mark Twain once said, and I'm kidding everyone. I don't think Mark Twain said this, but we're going to say he did that to give God the finger in that space. Is it possible? Yes, but it is. The impossible possibility is what Mark Twain said.

00:50:31 Reed Sweeney: Yeah. Who did say that? Mark Twain, apparently. We'll just go.

00:50:37 Jeromy Johnson: Mark Twain the idea. Is it possible? Yes. But I think once we understand the game, once we understand the fullness of stuff, like you said, maybe we should all hope for that. And maybe that's where we where we land on this is just maybe we can all hold on to that hope that, yes, God will ultimately restore all of creation into the fold of God and into the kingdom. And I think that's where my hope is. I think that's where my understanding is. But it's all limited. And it turns out, Reed, we're standing next to each other because we I don't know, we're both driving. We died at the same time. Um, and it turns out, you know, there is this hell and shoot. So at the end of the day, it's kind of like, what are you gonna do? Uh, it is going to be what it is. But my hope is that, um, that all creation will be reconciled back into that garden, back into Eden, back into the arms of God.

00:51:25 Reed Sweeney: Yeah. And I think the biggest, I think the biggest opposing view to that is, well, then people will just be lazy. If it doesn't matter if everybody's going to end up there.

00:51:34 Jeromy Johnson: People will just sin and people will, and it gets back to our sense of justice. It's not fair. This person was just lazy their whole life. So why do they deserve this? Yeah, but I feel like once people get rid of that fear that God's against them, once they get rid of that fear that God is is angry, or God is going to be punitive, or that you are even separated from God, that really leads to a more beautiful life that actually leads to more freedom. So yeah, you know what? I can cuss a little bit more. I can make other choices. But in the end, like, I still want to lean towards towards love. I still want to lean towards goodness because I feel like if I'm not separated from God, if God's not angry at me, that's where I want to lean. I think I'm letting go. More of that sense of justice, of that's not fair, or people are just going to take advantage of it or be lazy.

00:52:21 Reed Sweeney: I think that that's the big opposition is people will just be lazy. Well, if that's your attitude, I feel like you've got a pretty wrong conception of what the story of the Bible is about, because the Christianity is not the story of life after death. Our hope is not life after death. Our hope is just life. Jesus is like, you get that now. And so the idea of I can do what I want now, and then later I'll do the things I'm supposed to do to have eternal life. Like, no, you missed out for all that time you were, quote, doing what you want. I'm gonna wallow in this cesspool, and then eventually I'll come in and take a shower. But I want to stay in the puddle of human feces. It's built on a wrong conception of this is about what's going to happen later. It's about what's happening now that right now you can experience Eden. You can have everything you need around you. You can be fulfilled. And yes, there is a limited experience of it. But when you are, when you're doing those things, you're making Eden. God is making Eden through you, around you, when you do Eden things. And so the more you're about that, the more fulfilled you are. And that's the blessing we get in this life. And yes, there's a life after that. But if that's our hope, then we're missing out on all of this now. We're squandering the life we have, and I do believe there's a resurrection and that there's an eternal life, but there's this life now. And why squander that? If I am hoping to have something different later? Like, if that's what I'm hoping in, I'll be trying to do it now. Or at least seeking it now. Wanting it now.

00:53:55 Jeromy Johnson: Participated in it. Now get started early rather than waiting till the end. And I grew up evangelical, and a lot of the focus was afterwards, like ninety percent of the focus was afterwards. And then once you got saved from that, it was now saving other people from afterwards. I love what you're saying is that it's about now. How can we participate in love, in grace and kindness and all the Eden things and all the kingdom things now? And how can we focus on that?

00:54:22 Reed Sweeney: If you love me, you'll keep my commandments, and they won't be burdensome to you. The people who love me are the people who they're excited about what I'm doing.

00:54:29 Jeromy Johnson: Read any parting words that you want to send with me? Send with those that are eavesdropping on our conversation here in this bar.

00:54:36 Reed Sweeney: I mean, God's kingdom is all about about starting now. Like it's not a future hope. It's a reality. We get to live in, in now and experience. We get to experience a lot of it now. Not full, but we get to experience it now. I do think a lot of the afterlife focus, and a lot of the ideas we have of the afterlife are based in Greek and even Norse understanding, you know, like God wants to punish us if we reject him. And if you read the Bible that way, it's going to be really confusing. People do it all the time, and people are really confused about the Bible all the time. But when you read the Bible as like God wants people to be following him, he wants them to be living righteously. He doesn't want anything bad to happen to anyone, ever. And he's wrestling with, how do I juggle people who are choosing to do bad and wanting to be merciful to them, and also protect the rest of creation? It turns into a much different story that fits a lot better of God's just trying to produce life in abundance while allowing us the freedom to make our own choices. We're messing it up a lot. And he's patient. He's letting us figure it out and to to what we were talking about a little bit before. Like I personally don't I personally don't see that everyone's going to get to the kingdom in the end, but why wouldn't I want everyone to be? I hope I'm wrong about that. I have my beliefs, but I don't like my beliefs on that. Like I want everyone to eventually be like, I didn't realize God like job like I'd heard, but now I've seen and I put my hand over my mouth and I won't speak again because I was wrong.

00:56:09 Jeromy Johnson: Well, there's there's still time for you to to come to the truth. Read more. We'll be. I'll be patient. I'm just kidding. And that's what I love is conversations like this is we don't all have to agree or align to still be brothers and sisters in the kingdom, and just get out there and start trying to bring the kingdom here. Read. Thank you so much for hopping on. I appreciate you appreciate your mind. I appreciate all that you're doing. Read. Thank you so much for diving a little bit more into Scripture and sharing your heart. Appreciate you man.

00:56:36 Reed Sweeney: Yeah, thanks for having me on. This was a lot of fun.