HEAVEN?

 

HEAVEN?

Is heaven real? If so, how does a person get into heaven? And, why should I care?

Put in the simplest of terms, the Bible says heaven is real, although, probably not like what you may think. It is beyond your wildest imagination in glory, and magnificence.  The Bible also tells you of the only way to get into heaven, and I think you should care because the Bible says the only alternative is an eternal torment in a lake of fire, also known as Hell.

Christianity is the only religion that teaches that a person can do nothing to earn or pay his or her way into heaven. Humankind, a slave to the sin nature he was born with, must completely rely on the grace of God in applying Jesus Christ’s sacrifice to the sins of the believer. People are saved by faith in the death and resurrection of Christ. Upon death, the spirits of Christians go to heaven, while the spirits of unbelievers go to a temporary holding place called hell. At the final judgment, unbelievers are separated from God for eternity in the lake of fire. The odd thing about all of this is that you have the power to choose to believe or to reject God’s offer.

I have been a Christian for about 49 years, and during that time, I have been a student of the Bible, to the best of my ability. I have had classroom training on and about the Bible, God and Christianity. I have been, and am now, a Bible teacher, a pastor, and an evangelist. I can quote the scriptures relating to a person’s salvation and heaven.  But being perfectly honest, I know that it is hard to understand WHY ‘confessing your sins with your mouth to Go and saying I that will repent or turn away from your former sinful ways to follow Jesus and His teachings, and asking Him to take up residence within your heart, mind and body, can possibly save your corpse from rotting in a grave and your essence or your soul from perishing after you die.

The Bible says this matter of heaven, hell and salvation is nonsense to those who do not believe, and that you or I must believe in Jesus and His power to forgive us and cleanse us of our sins and of our sinful nature, and to save us from perishing and giving us a home, in heaven, with Him.

Now, please allow me to change the paradigm.

You came into being from nothing. (And, yes, I know the biology. But what came before the sperm and the egg? And, do you really buy the alternative ‘swamp goo’ theory of evolution?)

According to the Bible, you were born with a sin nature. Yes, even that cute little, innocent and harmless baby was born with a sin-nature deep within his or her core. The process after that is far too complicated to discuss, but the outcome can be obvious. You are considered a good person or a bad person, or somewhere in between. Regardless, the Bible teaches that without a supernatural intervention by the God Who created you, you will die, rot and perish. Just like a flower that sprouts, blooms and dies and is soon forgotten. But this is the natural view of this matter.

Spiritually speaking, your spirit (or soul) is given a body at birth and your mind is a blank slate. Your experiences and what you may be taught, then create ideas, feelings, core values, mindsets and attitudes. Over time, those things are expressed in your behaviors and actions. Additionally, all of these things are, or can be, influenced by DNA and genetics. In time, however, you are revealed to be what you have become. Good, bad or in between.

If you have some kind of philosophical view that good and evil don’t exist, this will be especially difficult for you. But even if you think ‘a basically good person’ will get into heaven, then defining what is good becomes problematic, because only God can set that standard. The Bible tells us that “No one is good. No, not even one” (see Romans 3:10-12), and that even your best efforts at ‘being good’, still will not get you into heaven.

So, if you think, given your few years on earth, you know better than the prophets of God and His written Word, perhaps you should ‘get saved’ or have died as an innocent infant so you can think you at least have a chance at heaven. But alas, this is all too subjective, and too confusing to work this out by our shallow reason or our flawed logic.

A natural approach of human logic based on feelings and emotions is futile, so, at this juncture, we are left only with spiritual avenues.

For example: You are who and what you are at any given time. Your destiny, at present, is set by the way you believe and think. The only way to influence or affect your ultimate fate is by non-physical or other-worldly means, i.e., by the Spirit.

We consider the spirit of a man or woman is as the Bible teaches. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for spirit is: רוּחַ. Transliteration: ruach; Phonetic Spelling: (roo’-akh); Definition: breath, wind, spirit.

In the New Testament, the Greek word for spirit is πνεῦμα, ατος, τό; Transliteration: pneuma; Phonetic Spelling: (pnyoo’-mah); Definition: wind, spirit, breath.

The Bible teaches that our physical life springs forth from this spirit. The Hebrew word for our natural body is ‘nephesh’, or flesh, and the Greek word is ‘soma’ or body.

Everything that emanates from the flesh, (our natural body, mind and soul), originates in and comes from the spirit. Our mind, will, emotions (a.k.a. the soul) and our body is determined and sustained by the spirit of our natural life.

After our physical death, our body goes to the grave to dissipate, but the spirit within us, our true essence, lives on for eternity, either in the terror of fire and darkness or in the peaceful presence of God in heaven. These are spiritual matters, first told about by the prophets, and by Jesus Christ, and then recorded by men under the influence and inspiration of God.

We therefore know that it is only when the Spirit of God intervenes and intersects with our spirit, after our natural birth, that our spirit is made alive, giving our essence, (our spirit), a divine-like eternal nature. We are made alive or quickened as the Bible states. This is called ‘being born again’ by the Spirit of God. Jesus said it best, as found in John 3:3, when H said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

So, when Jesus teaches and demonstrates the nature of the Good News, of His New Covenant, His new contract with His creation, which, as the Bible says, “Is written in His Blood”, what He is doing is explaining how one can be “born again to a living and eternal hope”.

He is also warning of the obstacles and pitfalls to obtaining and walking in this new life, and He puts His Message in a form that the human mind can accept and understand. Jesus spoke in the dialect of the ‘nephesh’, the ‘soma’ and of the ‘psuché’, (Hebrew and Greek words from the Bible which describe the natural flesh; a soul, living being, life, self, person, desire, passion, appetite, emotions).

Jesus, as I have previously stated, did not come to start a religion or a denomination. He did not come to put new laws in place to regulate our lives. He came to tell us how to get out of the lost and miserable state we find ourselves and to find our way to God and how to live a meaningful, purposeful life now, and later, how to enter heaven for all eternity. Jesus proved all this by His life, death, His resurrection from the grave and His ascension to heaven.

I would suggest we quit thinking and reasoning with our natural minds. I suggest we stop reading the Bible as some sort of religious artifact; and I suggest we stop living our lives as if religion and going to church is some ritual or practice to ‘fit into’ for our enjoyment until we die. Furthermore, I suggest that we read the Bible as it is written and as it is intended: A love letter written to you for your good and for your salvation!

Finally, please try to grasp the idea that Jesus not only told us of the way, but He has showed us the way. He says we just follow Him, and He will get us to safety!

Your Brother and Friend,

Mike Young.

“God gave His only Son, so that whoever would believe in Him will not perish, but will have eternal life.”