Monday, January 15, 2024

Sigurd Grindheim on Hebrews 9:27

  

The expectation of judgment after death was widespread in the ancient Near East, although some philosophers rejected it. Biblical and Jewish sources tend to associate judgment with the eschatological end, rather than with the time immediately after death. Hebrews and the rest of the New Testament writings belong in this tradition (cf. Heb 12:26-29), but they are distinguished by tying judgment to the person of Jesus Christ. (Sigurd Grindheim, The Letter to the Hebrews [The Pillar New Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2023], 464-65)

 

On p. 465 n. 731, Grindheim references Dan 12:2; 1 Enoch 1:7; 4 Ezra 14:35 and Rev 20:12-13:

 

And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. (Dan 12:2)

 

And earth shall be rent asunder; and all that is upon the earth shall perish. And there shall be a judgment upon all, (including) the righteous. (1 Enoch 1:7)

 

For after death the judgment will come, when we shall live again; and then the names of the righteous will become manifest, and the deeds of the ungodly will be disclosed. (4 Ezra 14:35)

 

And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered to their works. (Rev 20:12-13)