II Corinthians 5:8: “We are confident I say and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.”

I had a friend who was a retired Greek professor and Greek Orthodox.  I was a retired Hebrew teacher and Baptist.  We would get together once a week for a little one on one Bible study.  He would brush up on his Hebrew while I brushed up on my Greek. So you put a Baptist in the arena with a Greek Orthodox and you are bound to have some clashing of swords. One area we touched swords is in what happens to us the moment after we die (at our ages we talked about that a lot). He believed we all go to a place called Hades where we would await the final judgment at which time the saved would go to be with the Lord and the unsaved would go to the lake of fire.  No big difference there, we all end up where we are supposed to be anyways. However, he did admit to a pet theory that is not supported by his church, and that is that Jesus will be in Hades with us (He couldn’t stomach the idea of being separated from Jesus for even a few hundred years or whatever time it takes to reach the final judgment).

Well, as far as I’m concerned we are on the same page, because if Jesus is in Hades, then that is where I want to be because anywhere with Him will be heaven to me. But there entered a third party which throw his view into confusion. He had a very close friend who is a Roman Catholic. He visited with him at least three times a week and the three of us occasionally had lunch together.  At one point this Roman Catholic friend told us something that he never told anyone. When he was in the hospital during surgery, he died two times.  His heart stopped beating and he flat lined. Two times they revived him. Each time he found himself instantly in heaven before Jesus who said, it was not his time and he had to go back.  He said it was the most beautiful experience, but there was no way he could describe what he saw. He said he wanted to stay but Jesus was sending him back.

I interrupted him and asked: “You didn’t go to Hades? You went straight to heaven, no tunnel, no trip through space etc.?”  “Nope,” replied our friend, “I just stood before Jesus in heaven.”  George just shook his head and said: “Well, I guess God can make exceptions.”

We discussed II Corinthians 5:8 and what it really means. George read it to me in Greek and explained that this does not necessarily mean we go right to heaven.  Paul uses the word Ekdemesai (absent) which means away from home or from those who you are your own type or nationality. To be present is an identical word but it has a nu in it rather than a kappa and means to be among one’s own kind or nationality.

I thought that was interesting because the Apostle Paul would have been well versed in Hebrew and Aramaic as well as in Greek and he most likely chose this word because the Greek letter “nu” parallels the Hebrew and Aramaic letter Nun. The Nun is the Hebrew word for fish and is pictured as swimming up stream. The sages teach that the Nun leads us to a jubilee of emancipation. Thus, Paul may have used this Greek word to express the idea that to be present with the Lord is a time of jubilation over our emancipation from this physical body. The Kappa corresponds to the Hebrew and Aramaic letter Kap which is the Hebrew word for the palm of one’s hand.  It also is a picture of a king. In other words the Kap represents being held in the grip of something. We are held in the grip of these physical bodies which keep us from being in the presence of Jesus. Thus to be absent from the flesh or freed from the grip of the flesh is to be in jubilation over our emancipation from our bodies and to be in the presence of the Lord.

My friend did not have to explain the word Lord in the Greek. I remembered that to be Kurios which means a master who has complete and total control, life and death control over his servant. Right now we are fighting against the control of the flesh, but one day we will leave this flesh behind and be in the complete control of our Savior. There is no inbetween there and with that my Eastern Orthodox Greek teaching friend was in full agreement. No matter where we go after this life, one thing is certain we will be under the control of our beloved Savior.