Olam Hazeh עולם הזה
and
Olam Haba הָעוֹלָם הַבָּא
are both referenced in
Matthew 24:3 Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives and His disciples came to Him and asked, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?”
And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the Disciples came unto him privately, saying,
Tell us, when shall these things be? (regarding the destruction of the Temple)
And what shall be the sign of thy coming (His return)
and of
the end of the age. (His Reign following all things being completed.)
The second two questions are the same ones believers ask today!
What shall be the sign of thy coming?
and
when is the close/end of the age?
The olam hazeh עולם הזה is this world age
Pronounced: oh-LAHM hah-ZAY.
olam haba הָעוֹלָם הַבָּא is The World to Come
The spiritual afterlife is referred to in Hebrew as
Olam Ha-Ba
Pronounced: oh-LAHM hah-BAH.
There are other references to this age and the age to come:
Matthew 12 :32 Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in
this age – olam hazeh עולם הזה ;
or in
the age to come – olam haba הָעוֹלָם הַבָּא
He was speaking of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit/His spirit of Holiness/Ruach haKodesh.
The original words in Greek,
ουτε εν τουτω τω αιωνι, ουτε εν τω μελλοντι,
may be rendered,
neither in this age, or dispensation,
nor in the age, or dispensation, to come,
(οὐ μὴ ἀφεθῇ).
Neither in this world (age, aioni), neither in the world to come.
The age to come (העולם הבא) olam haba.
Luke 18:30 Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God 30 will fail to receive many times more in this age and in the age to come, eternal life.”
Who shall not receive manifold more in this present time/olam hazeh, and in the world to come/olam haba, life everlasting. Kjv.
1John 5:10-13. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life/chayai olam, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
John 17:3 And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
Hebrews 6:5. 4. It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age/olam haba, 6and then have fallen away—to be restored to repentance, because they themselves are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting Him to open shame.…
Olam Hazeh –
This World – עוֹלָם הַזֶה
is the world in which we live, where each of us is given the opportunity to honor the Name of the Lord by performing
Mitzvot
מצוות
Mitzvot is the plural of mitzvah,
and means: commandment.
People in Israel often use mitzvot as a kind of shorthand for being observant of traditional Jewish laws and traditions.
This means being a doer of the things/teachings/commandments. James 1:22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
DO what it says.
Luke 11:28 He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”
Luke 8:21 But He replied, “My mother and brothers are those who hear the word of God and carry it out.”
John 13:17 If you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.
John 6:27 Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.
The single most important mitzvah of all of Scripture is
to trust in Yeshua/Jesus as our LORD and Savior.
Everything else centers on this.
The two great commandments are the Ve’ahavta
Love the LORD with all your heart
and the obligation to love others as yourself
For the Hebrew the
heart or lev
is
the centre of being where all parts of our soul existence converge.
The lev/levav /heart, is not the seat of emotion.
The heart is
the point of convergence for all aspects of the human existence,
while it manifests emotion
it is NOT the sole domain of emotion.
Therefore, we understand heart to mean core being.
Thus when the Scripture says
The heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9)
it does not mean
The emotion of man (alone) is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked,
rather it means:
Humanity now has a fallen nature that is manifested within the core of its existence.
In terms of rabbinical definition this sin affected aspect of our nature is called:
Yetzer ha-ra – inclination of the evil.
The lev/levav /heart…..
…the convergence of our entire being.
We now know His Glory,
and even though our EYES fail us,
our hearts, the convergence of our entire being,
SEEs beyond the power of death to the Olam Haba/world to come.
This is ahava/love, because this is what remains and while we live in this fallen world we have faith, hope and love however, in the world to come/olam haba, only love will remain. Why? because faith is belief against fear and doubt, in the Olam Haba there will be neither. Hope is the assurance of things unseen, in the Olam Haba ALL will be revealed.
(Matt. 22:36-40). 36 “Rabbi, which of the mitzvot in the Torah is the most important?” 37 He told him, “‘You are to love Adonai your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.’[a] 38 This is the greatest and most important mitzvah. 39 And a second is similar to it, ‘You are to love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All of the Torah and the Prophets are dependent on these two mitzvot.”
Basically the meaning is that, if you do the above
you will not lie to, covet, or steal
what belongs to your neighbor;
you will not murder him,
nor commit adultery with them.
It includes ALL that is incorporated in the 10 sayings.
He did not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it
and the greatest commandment is love not sacrifice.
Matthew 5:17. Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. 18 For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.
This He completed perfectly.
The greatest act of love is to lay down one’s life for a friend. He called us His friends and laid down His life and it should follow that if He is our friend then we are to be willing to do the same for Him.
This is what we are told to be doing with our life by Messiah, our Lord and Savior Yeshua HaMashiach/Jesus the Christ.
Why do we keep questioning and discussing who is called and who is not?
We are all called ….it is simply up to the individual whether we hear; and when we do, do we accept and answer the call, or continue with our own life?
People continually ask what is the will of God for me? It is so clear in Messiahs own words… It’s just that most choose to ignore it saying and thinking it’s for someone else to do.
This is what we are to be doing in Olam Hazeh
it will determine our future in Olam Haba.
Those things that Yeshua/Jesus told us to occupy our time with are all listed in…
Matthew 25:35-40 and Matthew 28:19. Amp. Bible.
Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations [help the people to learn of Me, believe in Me, and obey My words], baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
And we are to be occupied with learning and teaching His Word, according to his or her gifts, and behaving in an honest and decent manner with our fellow human beings.
1 Timothy 3:16.
Remembering that how we treat others and what we do to them; or what we do for or against them, we are in fact doing it to Yeshua/Jesus in both word and deed. Matt.25:40.
In Judaism and classical Jewish theology
Olam ha-zeh – עולם הזה – this world,
is a concept of: the real world.
Olam hazeh means: the everyday world that we live in.
Life in this world – olam ha’zeh; is also called:
Chayei Sha’ah – חיי שׁעה – Fleeting life.
So called, because it is absorbed in the physical and social structures of this worlds’ systems: working, eating, pursuing pleasures, etc., etc.
The ideas about Olam Hazeh and Olam Habah are to be understood rather as cosmic and metaphysical.
Why?
Because they relate to the universe outside of ourselves and they are in terms of the all encompassing goal, pattern and plan, that our Heavenly Father has put in place for His creation.
From the point of view of the human soul, these are experienced as
Chayei Sha’a – fleeting life and
חיי שׁעה
Chayei Olam – eternal life, respectively.
John 17:3 In the New Covenant/Testament/brit Chadashah,
eternal life/chayei olam,
is identified as:
the knowledge of the one true living God. The One Who sent His Son Yeshua into the world /Olam as the Messiah.
Eternal life/chayei olam, is having and maintaining a conscious relationship with the Father/God, through His Messiah, Jesus/Yeshua. Because our Father abides in eternity this means we are to live in the here and now by faith and have the understanding, the reality, that the eternal elements of the unseen realm of the spirit exists all around us.
We could say that our faith SEEs the Olam Haba/the world to come, and is preparing us to enter into its reality even while we are still in the Olam Hazeh/This world.
Heaven in Judaism – Shamayim שָׁמַיִם šāmayīm, the Hebrew word for heavens, (literally heavens, im for the plural), identifies one element of the three-part biblical cosmology.
Which comprises:
Heavens, Earth, and the underworld.
The Hebrew Bible depicted a three-part world, with the
heavens – shamayim above,
Earth – eres in the middle,
and the
underworld – sheol below.
After the 4th century BCE this was gradually replaced by a Greek scientific cosmology of a spherical earth surrounded by multiple concentric heavens.
Revelation 5:13 And every creature which
is in heaven,
and on the earth,
and under the earth,
and such as are in the sea,
and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. King James Version (KJV
John is recording his vision in the book of Revelation when he writes, And no man
in heaven,
nor in earth,
neither under the earth,
was able to open the book. Rev. 5:3
Philippians 2:10 in the New King James Version says, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
of those in heaven, and
of those on earth, and
of those under the earth.
The Hebrew word for heaven is
שמים shamayim.
Strong’s Hebrew: 2319. חָדָשׁ chadash – new
Strong’s Hebrew: 776. אָ֫רֶץ erets – earth, land
ארץ חדש
in Jewish theology,
olam ha-ba/the world to come,
is either
the world after death
or
the new creation
or
restoration of the world that is to follow
the messianic millennium.
Because this latter interpretation came from the teachings and exhortations of the prophets, it was especially popular during the period of the Second Temple in Jerusalem (516 BC–AD 70). Whatever the interpretation of ʿolam ha-ba, for Jews it meant the end of uncertainty, miseries, and strife.
In Jewish literature olam ha-ba and olam ha-zeh/this world, are in contrast to one another. They believe that olam ha-zeh/this world, is a time to prove oneself worthy of participating in the world to come. Their understanding of the resurrection of the dead is that it will occur in the messianic age, a time referred to in Hebrew as the Olam Ha-Ba, the World to Come, but that term is also used to refer to the spiritual afterlife. For them, when the Messiah comes to initiate the perfect world of peace and prosperity, the righteous dead will be brought back to life and given the opportunity to experience the perfected world that their righteousness helped to create. The wicked dead will not be resurrected.
We understand that Messiah has already come and are awaiting His soon return.
Following the millennium, it describes a time after the world is perfected under the rulership of Messiah.
This term also refers to the afterlife where the soul passes after the death of the body.
It can be contrasted with olam hazeh, this world.
Ephesians 1:21
Yochanan/John Chapter 3:3 speaks of
SEEing the kingdom of God
Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot
SEE the kingdom of God.
The kingdom of heaven [of God]
resembles a concept in rabbinic Judaism called
tikkun ha-olam,
which literally means:
mending the world.
Tikun Olam – Repairing/mending the World.
When one enters (or joins) the kingdom of heaven, one becomes a partner with God in spreading redemption throughout a hurting world. That person goes out and feeds the hungry; clothes the naked; visits those who are in hospital and prison; prays for the sick and defends the rights of the orphan and widow. A person who has entered the kingdom of heaven gets involved in people’s lives. He or she pursues a lifestyle characterized by
tikkun ha-olam
or mending our world:
where there is hatred, he or she bestows love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
In John 3 we see Yeshua/Jesus discussing aspects of this with Nicodemus:
“If one is not fathered, born from above, he cannot have power, permission, ability to see the kingdom, dominion, rule, royal power, kingship of the God.”
There are many points to this teaching; in essence Yeshua/Jesus is saying that the Kingdom of God/Malkut Shamayim, cannot be gained through Torah observance alone. He is also saying that being born physically into the sin affected world is a death sentence, unless… one is born anew from above by His Spirit.
He is also indicating to the power/Spirit/ruach of God being essential in order to walk continually in righteousness and to enter into the Olam Haba/World to come.
The sight, He is referring to is, spiritual sight that can only be received from Our Heavenly Father by His Spirit and through His Son the King, Messiah Yeshua/Jesus.
All of this teaching is directly opposed to the teaching that says that repentance, Torah observance, mitzvot, and prayer alone can earn one entry into the Olam Haba.
Therefore, unlike the rabbis of the Talmud,
Yeshua/Jesus does NOT teach that conversion to Judaism will birth a person anew, instead, that:
ONLY repentance and salvation through the redemptive work of God through His Messiah, will bring newness of life to the individual.
Kingdom of the God –
Malkut Shamayim – Kingdom of the Heavens
Dan. 4:3; 1 Chr. 29:10-12,
This points to our Heavenly Father’s divine reign over the present world made new; rid of all sin and evil etc.; and it’s a more correct understanding than the traditional and extra Biblical, Christian concept, of a heaven somewhere in the clouds.
Instead, by the tikun olam/repairing of the world,
it indicates that the present world will be
cleansed, restored, and renewed
by
God
through the atoning Blood
of His Son Yeshua/Jesus,
and He will transition it into the
Olam Haba/world to come.
Interestingly this is supported by both the Old Tesament/Tanakh and the New Testament/Brit Ha-Chadashah.
Messiah simply points to the physical birth first and says that both it and a spiritual birth are needed. He doesn’t tell Nicodemus that he is incorrect and continues to explain that everyone is born through the mothers waters breaking, but something more is needed if we are to enter God’s Kingdom/Malkut Shamayim.
We must be born of God’s Spirit,
born anew,
from above.
The words water and Spirit can be found in both
the
tevilot/immersions/baptisms of
Yochanan/John the Immerser /Baptist
and Messiah/Yeshua/Jesus.
Water represents the tevilah/baptism of repentance
and
The Spirit the tevilah/baptism of Spirit and Fire from above.
Without Messiah Yeshua/Jesus’
tevilah/baptism of death and His resurrection
we are unable to receive His Spirit.
In Him alone we have access to what is needed for our Salvation, His very own Spirit, and the Spirit of His Father in us.
His Spirit births in us the desire to repent/teshuvah/turn around, to turn back to God. Then only through Messiah are we able to receive the fullness of the gift of His Holy Spirit/Ruach haKodesh/Spirit of Holiness
Who births us anew from above
into a life reconciled to God.
Born out of water refers to the breaking of a mother’s waters at physical birth and it speaks of being born into this world/God’s creation affected by sin.
And of the Spirit refers to being born anew, fathered by God through His Spirit. In the same way that physical birth breaks water and through blood brings new life into the present world, so too spiritual birth breaks the living waters of MessiahYeshua/Jesus and through His blood atonement, it births anew the soul of a human being into the Olam Haba/world to come.
This means that an individuals entry into the Olam Haba/world to come, starts at the moment of being born anew by His Spirit through Messiah Yeshua/Jesus and continues all the way through physical death and into everlasting living.
This is why Messiah said:
I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believes in me, though he dies, yet shall he live: And whosoever lives and believes in me shall never die.
John/Yochanan 11:15-16
In the previous verses the earthly things are explained and show the progression from physical birth, through spiritual renewal and into the Olam Haba. It seems that Messiah is not making a separation between the physical and the spiritual as some might think, instead, the earthly things include spiritual things and are the explanation of a merging between the physical birth and the spiritual birth from above.
Here is appears Yeshua/Jesus’s teaching shows the final shape of tikun olam/repairing of the world. The Bible clearly teaches a renewed heavens and earth and New Jerusalem descending from heaven at the end of the age.
Through Yeshua/Jesus, as His children, we are empowered to begin the work that will be completed by Messiahs return and the Father dwelling with His own/ finally fulfilled in Tabernacles/Sukkot.
This we must understand will be under a renewed heavens and not in some Greco-Roman, gnostic inspired, heavenly kingdom in the sky.
Those who accept God’s redemptive offer have already begun to live eternally v.16.
Those who refuse God’s redemptive offer are already dying eternally v.18.
All creation is offered an opportunity to receive Our Heavenly Father’s offer of redemption and to be born anew from above.
11. Do this, knowing that at the present time/olam hazeh, it is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep;
Verse 11 begins a repetition of metaphors which contrast evil and good: sleep/death and salvation, night and day, darkness and light.
When a person with a hebraic mindset reads, Present time, he understands it to refer to the olam hazeh/present world, our current existence within time and space. Here Paul/Shaul, compares the present state of the world to death, using sleep which was a metaphor common to the rabbis teaching, and was also used by Yeshua/Jesus Himself as a reference for death/temporal death while awaiting final judgment.
Paul/Shaul told them to:
Stop living as though you are still dead like those living under wrath, you’re not, you’re a new creation, act like those who are awake/already alive eternally in Messiah. For now salvation/Yeshua/Jesus, is nearer to us than when we first believed. 12 The night/olam hazeh/the present world subject to wrath is almost gone, and the day/olam haba/the world to come is near.
This salvation is the final resurrection and the
olam haba/world to come,
the physical return of
Salvation/Yeshua/Jesus/Himself.
The night, a symbol for this present age/olam hazeh
and the dark acts of humanity, is almost finished.
The day, a symbol for the world to come/olam haba,
is very close in terms of our Heavenly Father’s plan for the reconciliation of creation.
Sometimes it may seem so far off, however, we are cautioned that we should understand our position from His perspective. This present darkness is only temporary, and just like any night, it will end and if, as Paul/Shaul tells us, it is near, then we are now quickly approaching the dawn.
Here we are informed that there are clearly two worlds:
the olam hazeh,
literally translated as: world this one,
and olam haba
world the coming or the world to come,
meaning: eternity.
In Messiah Yeshua/Jesus, we need not fear what comes next because what comes next is:
the Olam Haba/world to come
which is, through Him.
In Messiah Yeshua/Jesus,
we are assured of everlasting life,
not because we won’t die physically
but because having died to self, we will live in Him.
No longer do we need to surrender to the power of death which is the fear of the unknown because the promise of Our Heavenly Father is that we are known in Him and that through His Son we will exist in right relationship with Him for all eternity and in Him there is no unknown.
Any religion that teaches we can repair the world by our own efforts is a religion of anti-Christ.
