If Satan falls, where is he now? The Old Testament's most common word for the afterlife is Sheol, and Sheol is not simply hell. Everybody in the Old Testament goes there, righteous and wicked alike, and not everyone who goes down experiences the same thing. It is the realm the serpent was cast down to in Genesis 3:14, and it overlaps our world like a fog.

In this episode Pastor Andre goes back to the curse on the serpent in Genesis 3:14, you will eat dust all the days of your life, and asks the question the language of humiliation does not answer: if Satan is a spirit, where does he dwell? Following Michael Heiser's reading of the curse through Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, the serpent is cast down to the Eretz, the ground, a Hebrew word whose range overlaps hugely with Sheol. The one who wanted to be most high is made most low, and for the first time in the biblical story his domain is created and given a name. Sheol is below the ground and part of the realm of the dust, yet it is not part of the visible material world, because the way the Bible teaches us truths about the invisible realities we cannot see is by showing them to us through visible realities we can see.

Along the way: Augustine's picture of Sheol as a foggy atmosphere around our world, so that we are in some sense walking through the fog of Sheol, of Hades and of hell; how Hebrew Sheol became Greek Hades, Latin infernus and our word hell, and how the lake of fire got muddled in with it; Saul and the medium of Endor in 1 Samuel 28, and why she is terrified: not because a trick unexpectedly worked, but because seeing Samuel reveals that the man in front of her is Saul, the king who ordered mediums executed; why the law against consulting the dead exists because the danger is real, not because it is not; Genesis 6, Genesis 19 and Aquinas on angels who assume human form, with Meredith Kline's demonically driven kings as another option on the table; Hans Boersma's sacramental ontology and Kline's earthly ectype and heavenly archetype, mountain to mountain and earth to Sheol; Azazel, Lilith and the gates of hell at Mount Hermon; and Luke 16, where the fixed chasm sits between regions within Sheol, not between the living and the dead. And finally, from Ephesians 1:10, Colossians 1:20 and Romans 8:20, why God's redemptive intention was never limited to people alone or to the visible realm alone: the kingdom of God is actively reclaiming ground, not only people but territory temporarily ceded to the kingdom of darkness, though not everyone and everything will ultimately share in that renewed creation.

REFERENCED ALONG THE WAY

- Michael Heiser on the serpent cast down to the Eretz, read through Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, and on a second wordplay on rock at Caesarea Philippi (a reading Andre says deserves more scrutiny than he can give it here)

- Augustine on Sheol as a foggy atmosphere around our world

- Aquinas on angels assuming human form, appearing to eat, and Genesis 6

- Meredith Kline on the sons of God as demonically driven human kings, and on earthly ectype and heavenly archetype

- Hans Boersma's sacramental ontology

- Scripture: Genesis 3:14, Genesis 6, Genesis 19, 1 Samuel 28, Isaiah 14, Isaiah 34, Ezekiel 28, Matthew 16, Luke 16, Romans 8:20, Ephesians 1:10, Colossians 1:20, Revelation 12

This is a follow-on from the episode on angels and demons, and it sets up the next episode on what we needed from a Saviour: someone to not only save people but also to redeem place.

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