Heaven & Hell and the More Important stuff (4)

Redemption

How did all we have been talking about come about?  Let’s turn once again to the apostle to whom was given the revelation of the new covenant good news and of the ekklesia of God: Paul. (See Galatians 1:11-12).

In chapter 4 of this same letter, he couldn’t be much clearer:

Now I say, as long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave although he is owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by the father.  So also we, while we were children, were held in bondage under the elemental things of the world.  But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.  Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”  Therefore you are no longer a slave, but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God.

Our righteousness and our justification come as a direct result of the redemption that Jesus accomplished by his death, burial and resurrection.  The result is our full and total salvation.  Time and again I refer to this illustration.

 

I have a more extensive treatment of this subject in my “Household of God” series; if you haven’t seen it, I can send you a copy upon request.  Let me highlight a little of it here.

Redemption is a practice common to many societies throughout history.  It often refers to matters of land title and ownership.  It is also a part of what has been, throughout history, one method of borrowing money and raising capital for some particular purpose.  An item of value (often land) is given up in exchange for cash or in payment of a debt.  When the original owner of the item of property is ready to reclaim it, he approaches the one to whom it was surrendered for a price to ‘redeem’ his property.  When the price is paid, the item is released from its bondage and returned to its owner.

In ancient Israel, the legislated practice was that such an exchange could not be permanent when it came to land.  In the “Year of Jubilee”, all land reverted to its original owner, outstanding debts were cancelled and slaves released.  A central reason for this practice is that, without it, life can spiral into poverty and the inevitable injustices that come with it.  Leviticus 25 explains a lot of the detail of this special part of old Hebrew society.

This is the root of the concept of redemption – whether the price is paid, or the obligation cancelled because of the ‘Jubilee’.  This is what lies behind Paul’s words to the Galatians above.

And this is the idea that comes from the heart of God not just in matters of human labour, monetary debt and land title, but in terms of the spiritual health and well-being of the human race.  We are part of His creation who have been traded for a bit of tawdry gain; His plan and program is to pay the price and redeem us – buy us back – and the asking price was the death of His son, Jesus of Nazareth.

The Psalmists in Psalm 49 well understood that “No man can by any means redeem a brother or give to God a ransom for him—for the redemption of his soul is costly, and he should cease trying forever...  But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol, for He will receive me.”

We cannot redeem ourselves; neither can we (as I argued earlier) justify or ‘right’ ourselves.  No other human can redeem, justify or right us either, despite what many religious persons think and practise and theologise about.  And no religious practice or rite can redeem, justify or right us either – no matter how often or how sincerely it is done.

And we should note that God is not waiting for us to decide in favour of Him before He takes action to redeem us; even while we were still in the place of rebellion or total ignorance, He has effected His plan of redemption.  That’s what Paul was writing about in Galatians 4 above.  It was also what he was writing about when he wrote to the Romans (chapter 5):

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly... God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.  For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.  And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

In this small passage alone, we are saved, justified, reconciled by the love of God operating in and through the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.  Small wonder Paul says, ‘and that’s not all; we exult in God via Jesus because of it.’

For a moment, let’s focus on this word reconciled.  The word that is used here was originally what we might call an accounting term – used in the context of finance and keeping accounts.  When two people with a common interest in a transaction had differing views of that transaction, to reconcile was to come to the same view – to agree and settle on a figure.

 

If your financial records show a balance of $1000 but your bank statement shows a different figure, you need to reconcile them.  When the various additions and subtractions are made and the balances agree, your account is reconciled – you’re no longer at odds with your bank.

So let’s apply this.  God believes the state and condition of our ‘account’ before Him (without the death and resurrection of Jesus) is an impossible debt; then God (Galatians 4) “...sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, so that He might redeem those who were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.”  With the death and resurrection of Jesus, the price is paid and the “impossible debt” is eradicated.  All that is necessary is our coming to agree with God on this (i.e. repentance) and fully trusting in God to keep His word (i.e. faith).

 God’s redemption and reconciliation; our repentance and faith; new birth, adoption as sons, the free gift of righteousness in the Holy Spirit.  “Those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.”  (Rom 5:17)

As Paul said: we were enemies; and while we were still enemies, God – through the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus of Nazareth – reconciled us to Himself.  The result: we are justified and counted righteous and the righteousness of Christ is credited to our account as a free gift.  Paul expressed it this way: “He made Him who knew no sin [i.e. Jesus] to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him [i.e. Jesus.]

Songwriter David Ingles in 1976 penned this verse:

I am the righteousness of God in Christ

A brand new creation in him

I can now approach the presence of God

With no condemnation of sin

I am the righteousness of God in Christ

I am now complete in him

I’m a partaker of his divine nature

On me he will not impute sin.

And John Wesley penned this one:

My God is reconciled;

His pardoning voice I hear;

He owns me for His child,

I can no longer fear;

With confidence I now draw nigh,

And ‘Father, Abba, Father’ cry.

 

Reconciliation is not awaiting our good behaviour; it has already been achieved.  It awaits our full trust – our return from ‘exile’, so to speak, to the open arms of the Father.  (See Luke 15).

 

 

This simple illustration from “The Art of Soichi Watanabe” evinces the humility, repentance, trust and worship of the son, along with the love, forgiveness, mercy and grace of the Father.

Reconciled!  And in the Luke 15 story, a party ensues as the Father welcomes home the son he had lost but is now returned.  But to me, the most precious moment in this story from Luke is verse 20: “So he got up and returned to his father.  But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”

But there was a son, an older brother, who didn’t go “off the rails” and run away.  He stayed (albeit grudgingly) and worked for his father and asked for nothing in return.  And he resented the fact that his father welcomed the other son back and threw a big party for him.  The two sons represent Israel and their religious system (the older brother) and Gentiles who were considered ‘dogs’ by the Jews at the time (the runaway).

While this was a story Jesus told, he told it illustrate how God the Father relates to and deals with his runaway humans – us.  So let me pose a bit of a tricky question: what’s the difference between this story of the ‘prodigal’ son and New Testament passages like Matthew 23:13ff with its “Woe to you...  Woe to you...  Woe to you...”?

“Woe” is to those who know the truth; who have known and experienced first-hand the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth; and who flatly refuse and reject that love and kindness, and who do so a) to the murder of Jesus and b) to their own last dying breath.  Clearly that is not a description of the prodigal son; he repented and returned in contrition and confession to his father – who was watching and waiting for his return!

However, time after time, right up to the days of Jesus himself, Israel has had access to everything God has to offer but they chose their beliefs and their system of law over God.  That choice was set in concrete as Peter said to them on the day of that first new covenant Pentecost (Acts 2):

Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know—this one, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death.  But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power...  This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses.  Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear [right now]...  Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him, this Jesus whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.

Peter was here addressing the Jews in Jerusalem.  A few short years later, one of the apostles is writing to the Jews (Hebrews) and saying this (6:4-6):

In the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.

It seems to me that both are addressed to the same people – perhaps not exactly the same individual human beings, but people of the same heart and spirit, and maybe the next generation; people who had lived through the crucifixion, resurrection and that first Pentecost.  In the Acts account, many comprehended their guilt and repented like the prodigal son.  Clearly, many others did not and pursued Jesus and his apostles to their death.  Perhaps the “woes” and this Hebrews passage apply to such.



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Heaven & Hell and the More Important Stuff (3)

Righteousness / Justification

The book of Hebrews in the New Testament is a letter written to first-century Jewish (Hebrew) disciples of Jesus.  If we take the standard of that letter, then many of us, even perhaps after a lifetime, remain infants sucking on milk.  If you do not understand the teaching about righteousness, says the writer, you are still a baby who cannot tolerate solid food (chapter 5), reiterated in 1 Corinthians 3.

And what we are faced with is a double problem: the first issue is getting a handle on the original concept that comes to us in the Greek text of the New Testament (what was the original concept in the writers’ minds?); the second issue is the English words we now use to communicate the original concept (what English words are in our bibles, what did they mean five centuries ago, and what do they mean today?).

This next section is, unashamedly, a bit of an analysis of the concept of ‘righteousness’.  And the first thing we note is that righteousness and justification are not the same even though the two words share a common Greek root and the New Testament Greek words are quite similar in appearance.

http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/dikaioo.html

 
The figure above is a snip from the ‘biblestudytools’ website shown.  The English word ‘righteousness’ comes from the Greek root dikaioo, but so does the English word ‘justification’.  However, the form of the word used and its context generally determine its translation into English.  It is also worth noting that the verb form of the word ‘righteousness’ is essentially the verb “to right” [to redress or to correct] while ‘justify’ is a common verb in English.  The “NAS Word Usage” section in the figure above shows the English translations (other than ‘righteousness’) given to this word in the New Testament.

Another important thing to note from the above figure is the clause “ought to be” (twice) or “wishes himself to be considered”.  This actually is a pointer to an important aspect of the meaning of the root word, and we shall come to that in a moment.

Before we get there though, please take a look at an excellent piece of work by Lionel Windsor of Sydney, Australia.  He has a blog post “Justification and Righteousness are not the same”  [http://www.lionelwindsor.net/2011/02/21/justification-and-righteousness-are-not-the-same/].  It really is worth the time to read this post.  He has a very useful table that highlights the difference between the usages of the word.

As you can see from the figure above, two-thirds of the occurrences of this word in the New Testament are from Paul.  And as Windsor points out, they display a “forensic” or legal context and meaning.  Imagine a courtroom setting and/or legal proceedings.  Note his paragraph (in reference to his table on his blog page):

The fairly obvious conclusion from this table is that the “righteousness” of a defendant and the “justification” of a defendant are not the same. Righteousness, in the normal forensic usage, is a quality that the defendant possesses on the basis of something which is not strictly dependent upon the courtroom – it means being in line with moral / legal standards. “Righteousness” is a quality, not a status. Justification is the outcome of the courtroom process, if the courtroom finds that such righteousness is indeed present. Therefore, in its noun form, “justification” is a status conferred by the court.

God justifies, but He doesn’t have to justify Himself; He is, according to Paul who received this revelation from the Holy Spirit, both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.  The result of the just God justifying we who totally put our faith in Jesus is righteousness.  We are, in God’s reckoning, righteous.

Now I want to combine this forensic understanding with the “ought to be” phrase I pointed to earlier.  Imagine, if you will, a couple of practical illustrations that I think serve us well in this matter.  Consider the two pictures below.

The Costa Concordia ran aground and listed badly; the truck skidded and flipped onto its side.  In both cases, they could no longer perform the functions and duties they were designed, built and put into service for; they were not as they “ought to be”

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the right, the truck, with the help of a crane, is being “righted”.  Back on its wheels, hopefully it can go back to doing what it was designed built and purchased for – being what it “ought to be”.

On the left, the Costa Concordia we now know has actually been righted (put back in the position it “ought to be”, i.e. right) so it can possibly be salvaged and re-commissioned as a cruise ship.

Both vessels, if they had human personalities, might very well have spent some time “wishing themselves to be” right; but, for a time, they were not.  For a time, they were “unrighteous”; with outside help they were “justified” (because they couldn’t right or justify themselves); now they are “righteous” – given a new life and placed in a state and condition where they can be what they “ought to be” and do what they were made to do.  This is the teaching about righteousness in relation to the truck and the Costa Concordia.

In similar terms, this is the teaching about righteousness in relation to us humans:

For a time, we were unrighteous, sometimes wishing ourselves to be right.  While we were still in that state, outside help came in the form of Jesus.  We couldn’t right or justify ourselves, so God did it for us in the sacrifice of Jesus.  Now those who fully trust in Jesus for their right standing before God are righteous – given a new life and placed in a state and condition where they can be what they ought to be and do what they were made to do.

The word ‘righteousness’ is an Old English word.  It consists of three parts: right-eous-ness or right-wise-ness.  ‘Ness’ means ‘a state of being’; ‘eous’ (or wise, wards or ways) means ‘in the direction of’ (like clockwise, backwards, sideways); and ‘right’ means how a thing ‘ought to be’ or ‘as it was made to be’.  Hence, righteousness is the state of being in the direction or way of right – as a thing ought to be or was made to be.  It is the state of being right, true, correct when measured against original intention and specifications.

This lies at the heart of the Ephesians 2 passage quoted earlier; and this is the central teaching of apostle Paul as we find it in his letters to the Romans and the Ephesians particularly.  And the righteousness that is credited to us is not earned, it is given; it is the flip-side of the repentance, faith, baptism and gift of the Holy Spirit that the first apostles taught and proclaimed as we see in the book of Acts.

And so we come to what I believe is actually the most important question of all: not ‘are you going to heaven when you die?’, but ‘are you fully trusting in Jesus for your righteousness before God?’  Self-righteousness, priest-righteousness, church-righteousness, law-righteousness simply don’t, can’t and won’t cut it.  We as humans can be reconciled to God, but if we imagine we can be reconciled on our own terms, not His (i.e. being ‘wise in our own eyes’), there is, as wise King Solomon noted many years ago, more hope for a fool than for us.  We do not get to dictate or determine our righteousness or the terms of it; that righteousness and those terms were established on the day Jesus rose from the dead; and they are the same no matter who we are or who we think we are.

Hence Paul would say: “we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” (2 Corinthians 5:20) and then note:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  Galatians 3:28

There is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him.  Romans 10:12

There is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.  Colossians 311

This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who trust. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile.  Romans 3:22

 

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Heaven & Hell and the More Important Stuff (2)

The Kingdom of God

On the other hand, the kingdom of God (kingdom of ‘heaven’ in Matthew) is a different matter altogether from 'heaven' and 'the heavens', but there is a connection between them.  Those who are “in Christ” as apostle Paul describes it are those who are “born again” as Jesus describes it.  As such, they are no longer simply members of the kingdoms of this world, but members of the kingdom of God and “joint heirs with Christ” and “heirs of God”.  [See Romans 8:17; Galatians 3:29 & 4:7]

To understand the kingdom of God, I find it useful to bring together two streams of thought and use a strongly visual language.  The first stream of thought is simply the use of two related words: enclave and exclave.  In the diagram below, C is an exclave of B, existing within A to which it is an enclave.  To illustrate, if A is Australia and B is Greece, C is an exclave of Greece, existing within Australia as an enclave.  You will find such a thing in the city of Melbourne, Australia.  You will also find this repeated many times over within Australia and throughout the world of today.

Now let’s transfer this illustration to our discussion here.  A is our world – what I call the kingdom of man; B is ‘eternity’, God’s zone – the kingdom of God; C is an exclave of eternity (God’s zone), planted and growing as an enclave in our world; in the kingdom of man; in amongst the human race.

Now let’s transfer this illustration to our discussion here.  A is our world – what I call the kingdom of man; B is ‘eternity’, God’s zone – the kingdom of God; C is an exclave of eternity (God’s zone), planted and growing as an enclave in our world; in the kingdom of man; in amongst the human race.

 

Consider the parable Jesus told as recorded by Luke (13:18-19): “So He was saying, ‘What is the kingdom of God like, and to what shall I compare it? “It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and threw into his own garden; and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air nested in its branches’.”  Jesus came to our world, as that mustard seed, to establish and grow the kingdom of God for the ultimate good of our world, the human race and the eternal kingdom of God itself.

Consider Jesus’ own words as recorded by John (12:24): “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”  Like a grain of wheat or corn or a seed, Jesus ‘fell into the earth’ and died – and from that lone seed sprang up a new tree, the kingdom of God on earth, to nourish and shelter any of us whose desire and passion is towards the God who inhabits eternity; Jesus’ Father and now ours.

As I said, God “inhabits eternity” (Isaiah 57:15) – eternity is His zone.  So, for me, the kingdom of God is eternity plus the spaces or environments in all of creation where his dominion, power and authority are welcomed and embraced.  And, for me, that comes down to the individuals who yield their lives to his dominion, power and authority and the corporate spaces where those people gather together in twos and threes and in larger numbers – God’s ecclesia – but not the buildings, because “God does not dwell in buildings made with hands”.

So consider Matthew 18:20: “For where two or three have gathered together in my name, I am there in their midst.”  Where two or three are gathered together under His dominion, power and authority, that is a gathering “in my name” as Jesus said, and He is present.  As such, it is an outpost of the kingdom of God on earth – an exclave of eternity, existing in the human time-space-matter continuum here on earth and we can personally experience it.

The kingdom of God arrived on earth in Jesus and has been taking root and growing ever since.  It is a spiritual kingdom and we enter it by a spiritual (second) birth as Jesus taught.  The future return of Jesus ushers in the consummation of the kingdom, but in the meantime, we live and move and have our being in a zone of mixture where the old is passing away and the new is taking root and expanding.

Paul gives one of the purposes of this temporal or ‘exclave’ phase of the kingdom of God on earth in his first letter to the Corinthians: “For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” (4:11)

Paul could say, “I die daily” (see 1 Corinthians 15:31).  That’s the disciple life for us humans; for as we die, the life of Jesus is manifest in us.  The boundaries of the kingdom of God on earth (the exclave) are extended; the light shines in the darkness and the darkness does not understand what is going on.  And the kingdom of God grows and provides shelter and food for those who seek God and put their faith in His righteousness.

All of us who are fully trusting in Jesus for our right standing before God are joined to Christ in an organic union; we are part of the kingdom of God, though we still have roots in the earth (“in the world but not of it”).  Like all the saints before us (see Hebrews 11:13) we are, in this world, an enclave of “strangers and foreigners” because we are now part of the exclave of eternity (the kingdom of God) on earth.  But, consistent with apostle Paul, as far as God our Father is concerned, “You are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.” (Ephesians 2:19-22)

The second stream of thought concerns “citizenship”.  I am not a Jew; I am not writing from a Jewish perspective; and I am not writing with a Jewish audience in mind.  I mention this because the two passages from apostle Paul on the subject of citizenship are likewise focused on non-Jews – Gentiles.  The Ephesians 2 verses above come at the end of the section I want to now focus on:

Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “Circumcision,” which is performed in the flesh by human hands—remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel [citizenship], and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.  But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.  For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity.

And he came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near; for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.  So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.

The “Commonwealth of Israel” Paul speaks of is not the same thing as the “kingdom of God”.  In God’s heart, intention and plan, His kingdom knows no racial boundaries or lineages; it is equally open to Jew and non-Jew, male and female, slave or free-man, circumcised or uncircumcised.  But the crucial question is: wherein is your righteousness?  Expressed another way, what is your claim to right standing before God based on: yourself; a parent; a ‘priest’; the law; or Jesus?

Christ-righteousness is available equally to everyone – and it is the only righteousness that has the imprimatur of God; the Divine stamp of approval.  Self-righteousness, priest-righteousness and law-righteousness all fall short and disappoint God and man alike.  We shall return to this matter of righteousness shortly.

And Paul wrote this to the Philippians, a largely Gentile congregation in modern-day Europe:

For many walk (of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping) as enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.  For our citizenship is in the heavens, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.

Just as the first disciples had seen Jesus disappear from among them into “the heavens”, they describe their anticipation of his return from out of “the heavens”.  The consummation of the kingdom of God on earth, rolled into the eternal kingdom, begins with the appearing of Jesus in “the heavens” and runs into the transformation of our humble, earth-bound bodies into bodies that conform with his body, which in turn conforms with eternity, the dwelling-place of God.  He is the glorious King who has the power to subject all things to himself; that same power will transform our mortal bodies (dead or alive) to conform with their new ecology: eternity.

For this perishable must put on the imperishable; and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’.” (1 Corinthians 15:53-54)

From there it rolls into the new heaven, the new earth, the new Jerusalem and the wedding-breakfast for Jesus and his Bride, the ekklesia, the Christ-righteous ones.  And so begins the eternal reigning of Christ and his Bride, judging the world, judging angels, administering the realm, reigning with Christ.

But note this: a) nothing in New Testament scripture indicates that this transformation happens immediately upon death; b) the New Testament record strongly suggests that this transformation happens coincidentally with our resurrection, when our spirits are reunited with our new ‘transformed’ bodies.  Note the apostle “whom Jesus loved” (John) wrote of the return of Jesus this way: “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared [been revealed] as yet what we will be.  We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.  And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” (1 John 3:2-3)

Now either we accept the apostolic understanding of how things work out or we don’t.  And I’m the first to admit I don’t know or understand it all; even the apostles themselves were not clear; they simply trusted themselves to the keeping of God and of His Christ.  And, as their scriptures reminded them, in the words of Abraham: “Far be it from You to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are alike. Far be it from You!  Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly [do right]?” (Genesis 18:25)

One thing we cannot do is decide it’s stupid or discriminatory or fanciful or whatever and make up our own version.  Such an action is guaranteed disastrous (Revelation 22:18).  I’m with Paul who said to the Galatians, “we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness.” (5:5) 

Eternity is the kingdom of righteousness and the home of righteousness; the triune God is the personification of righteousness; God is the righteous father and judge; and righteousness is both the character of Christ and the family name and heritage.

It would be so good if we all had the same understanding of ‘righteousness’ and ‘righteous’; it would be even better if the understanding we all shared was an understanding that was grounded in the scriptures and routed back to the teaching of Jesus and the apostle Paul.  Sadly, most often it is neither.  But it is not alone in this: choose just about any subject you like within the gamut of what we call christian theology and you will most likely find that the common understanding of it falls woefully short of what the bible actually says and what Jesus and the first apostles actually understood and taught.

Sometimes, if we would simply read the bible under the direction of the Holy Spirit and without the spectacles we have become so used to wearing, we would see for ourselves amazing truths that we have not come into contact with before.  As we’ve seen in the paragraphs above, the common understanding of the kingdom of God is woefully truncated and inadequate and simply does not fit whole tracts of the New Testament.

In my experience, most ‘christian’ people don’t understand the concept of the new covenant, yet that is the covenant with God that allows and enables us to be genuinely a Christian – a full member of the household of God and of His Christ.  Similarly, many of the key terms we readily use and which fall so easily off our lips are so truncated and inadequate in our own experience and understanding that our use of them sounds like gobbledygook to outsiders.   Terms like salvation, redemption, justification, sin, sanctification and so on; all too often, the one who faithfully teaches about such terms will be maligned and accused of being overly intellectual.  At the same time, what congregations generally hear about these terms is, as I said, woefully truncated and inadequate.  Sadly, that's how many Pastors have it and intend to keep it.

Consistent with my earlier post "Fetish for Control", I agree with a quote attributed to Maximilien Robespierre: "The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant."

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Heaven & Hell and the More Important Stuff (1)

Heaven and Hell

Type “are you going to heaven when you die?” into an internet search engine and you will likely get a list beginning something like this:

• Are You Going to Heaven? an on-line film • ChristianAnswers.Net

• You Can Know For Sure That You're Going to Heaven!

• How to Know You Are Going to Heaven | Z3 News

• How can I know for sure that I will go to Heaven when I die?

• How to Know That You Are Going to Heaven As a Christian: 13 Steps

Pull up just about any list of “evangelical preachers” and ask them what is the single most important question we humans face and it is likely to be “are you going to heaven when you die?”

However, read the New Testament and you will find neither the question nor even the idea that this is a central issue within the writings of Jesus, Paul or any of the others.

The personal philosophy of so many people the world over is that if you are a ‘good person’ you will go to heaven when you die and if you are a ‘bad person’ you will go to hell when you die.  I am sure many many people actually wish that their expletive “go to hell” did in fact work like a curse: “I judge that you are an evil person and that you deserve to go to hell, so ‘go to hell!’; preferably now, via the needle or the electric chair”; and it happens as they have spoken.  Fortunately for us all, it doesn’t.

Then, of course, there are others who generously suggest that we all go to heaven, because all of us have some redeeming feature that will get us over the line, no matter how terribly we have behaved on this earth.

And, of course, when little children die as “innocents” they become angels and fly around heaven with their wings amusing and pleasing God and their relatives who have died and gone to heaven before them.

Where on earth did we get these ideas from?  The answer is in the question: “on earth”.  They are earth-bound ideas we humans have cobbled together from all sorts of places and fastened securely to our own world-view and to our ‘church teaching’.  And generally we pull together the ideas we like the most and ‘preach’ them to our family, our friends and our willing congregations.

We are also, generally, very good at proof-texting our views from the bible when they are challenged, taking questionable ideas and teachings and doctrines and making scripture repeat our philosophy and theology back to us so that nothing in our world shakes too much.

This is all the natural flow-on of culture-christianities from nations all around the world: enculturated religion, specifically designed to comfort us on the one hand, and on the other hand, to not disturb or agitate us or get us to re-think our pre-suppositions.  It doesn’t much matter what our views are so long as we hold them sincerely; because God who loves us will tolerate our views and modify his actions and reactions to suit our wishes, dreams and preferred outcomes.  At least it appears that’s how we think.

In other words, at the heart of our thinking is a god made according to our wishes and imaginings; he/she will do what we say he/she should do.

And don’t pretend it isn’t so.  The very idea of going to heaven when you die is a grossly misleading corruption of the truth and a redefinition of all – yes all – the ideas involved in living and dying, good and evil and heaven and hell.  It is a gross over-simplification to which we have added commercial value and then sold as truth to a gullible audience; and it doesn’t much matter whether we’re talking about “getting saved” or “being healed”.

We make repeated claims to being “christian”, yet our ideas of much of what is involved in that are so wide of the mark that a disinterested observer would be hard pressed to see any connection between what the bible says and what we say it says.  Our ideas of God and Jesus and salvation and heaven and hell and right and wrong are our own private constructs, proof-texted by bible passages misinterpreted and taken out of context.  To many of us, the bible says what we say it says without reference to what God himself thinks or what gifted teachers contribute to its understanding.  And many of us accept or reject teaching based entirely on whether we like it or not; whether it suits our personal philosophy or not.

Try to imagine how that would have worked for Jesus with his first group of 12 disciples; pretty much everything he said was antithetical to the Jewish religion they had all grown up with.  Imagine Peter and John and Matthew reinterpreting all Jesus said to fit with either the system of the Pharisees or of the Zealots (or some private mixture of the two) and then teaching and making disciples to their particular interpretations.  Under such a scenario, the tree of the kingdom of God was dead even before its seed sprouted.  The issue for these first disciples – the point of being a disciple in the first place – was submission to the undoubted and obvious authority of Jesus.  “To whom else shall we go” Peter said, “You have the words of eternal life”.

Not so for many of us; our hubris has almost completely cut us off from seeing, hearing, comprehending the truth.  As a result, many are “wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight!”  Woe to them, says Isaiah (5:21).  King Solomon once said, “Do you see a man wise in his own eyes?  There is more hope for a fool than for him.” (Proverbs 26:12)  And Proverbs 3: “Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD and turn away from evil.  It will be healing to your body and refreshment to your bones.”

So – coming back to the search engine list at the head of this paper, it really doesn’t matter what these writers say as to the ‘steps’ involved (one has 13 steps for example) – the ‘answer’ they give.  The real problem issue is the question they’re asking; and it is a question born of our human self-centredness, self-interest and self-preservation.  Self-interest leads us to ask the question of ourselves; and our sense of common interest or superiority leads us to ask the question of others: “I’m going to heaven when I die, are you?”

And to many, that’s all that matters.  Every other question we ask or want to ask is of lesser status than this one question; it’s the ultimate question.  And for most people who are asking this question of others, they have already answered the question of themselves – in the affirmative.  For example, a parent can say to a child: “Sure, a career is important; choosing a life partner is important; but they’re a lot less important than ‘do you know you’re going to heaven when you die?’  I know I am, and I desperately want you there with me.”

Self-interest from start to finish; and a terribly simplistic, even childish, understanding of heaven and hell, life and death, human relationships, work and labour.  And we are so maniacally protective of our ‘understanding’ that to suggest we might need some correction leads to outbursts of protest about “the bible says” and being “too theoretical; too academic”.  This question is most often far more important to us than ANY OTHER QUESTION, even the question, “is it God’s idea?” or “does the bible really say that?”

“This is what I believe and you’d better get with my program or you’re going to hell and we’ll be separated for ever.”  This is the primary motivation for much so-called evangelism.

What happens to you when you die is the central and paramount question;

I know the answer to that question, so listen to me and do what I did;

I won’t be truly happy and at peace until you do.

But what if everything we ‘know’ about what happens when we die (or most of it) is wrong?

If you are a nihilist (from Latin meaning ‘nothing’, hence a belief that life has no meaning or purpose and there is nothing after death), there is probably ‘nothing’ beyond this point for you.  For the rest who are not nihilists, it might be worth considering what lies beyond this point.

If you have decided to read on, let me then ask you – plead with you – to read a book; in fact, to read several books.  Reading books has become tiresome and irrelevant to many, but the truth is, whether you read digital versions – eBooks – or printed versions, reading books is the best way in current circumstances to learn.  I say ‘in current circumstances’ because, largely, teaching has become a lost and dying art and the least-favoured occupation in modern church life.  If you regularly ‘attend church’, chances are you will receive little or no sound, solid teaching of the primary truths of Jesus and the first apostles.

In my youth (1960s and 70s), this kind of teaching was front and centre in my local congregation.  Now my children are the age I was then, and it has almost completely disappeared; replaced by so-called inspirational talks or simply haranguing captive audiences with trifle, nonsense and regurgitated opinions.  Sure, there are exceptional congregations who do hear sound, solid teaching, but these, few and far between, are surpassed thousands of times over by noise factories, many of which operate better in industrial estates than in residential neighbourhoods – in part because noise is a measure of success these days.

If you do nothing else this month, read Surprised by Hope, Tom Wright, SPCK 2007, ISBN 9780281064779 [eBook ISBN 9780281062584].  Following that, read (with discernment) Erasing Hell, Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle, David C Cook 2011, ISBN 9780781407250 [eBook ISBN 9780781407533].  Before, after or during this, read From Eternity to Here, Frank Viola, David C Cook 2009, ISBN 9781434768704.

But before you do any of that, take note of two New Testament principles that come to us from first-century history recorded by Luke in Acts.  First, Acts 15:28 – “It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us...”  Their decisions were not simple votes or expressions of interest or ‘seemed like a good idea at the time’; they lived with the dynamic presence of the Holy Spirit given to them by Jesus and faithfully promised to all Jesus-followers who would come after these first generation disciples.  The ekklesia of Christ has within and among it the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:15-16) in the person of the Holy Spirit.  Astute disciples and students of Christ defer to the Holy Spirit, as we see in Acts 15:28.

Second, Acts 17:11 – “They searched the scriptures daily to see if these things were so”. Unlike the Thessalonians, the residents of the next town on Paul’s road trip, Berea, listened attentively to Paul’s teaching then tested what he was saying with the scriptures they knew (our Old Testament probably).

This is both best-practice and standard practice for true believers: when you hear or read a teaching, take care to 1) defer to the Holy Spirit; 2) use the scriptures as a measuring line to test what you are hearing or reading.  And remember, these two things are available to us because our heavenly Father cares; He cares enough that we be led into all truth that He gave us the Son and the Spirit to open the Father’s heart and the scriptures to us for our life and growth.

The Church – and the vast majority of Christians – have come to certain beliefs, sometimes even enshrining them in statements of faith or manifestos.

There is a ‘heaven’; sometimes visualised as in the bible book of Revelation, sometimes visualised from some artist’s imagination – or our own imagination for that matter.  In our imagination, heaven is the final resting place for all ‘good’ people; and it is a place of joy, peace, happiness, pleasure and love, without turmoil, war, sadness, illness, pain and hatred.  And certainly such a concept can be found in scripture.

There is a ‘hell’; again, variously visualised from words in the bible or our own imaginations.  And hell is the final resting place for all ‘bad’ people; a place of endless torment.  Again, such a concept is found in the scriptures.  Jesus tells of a very troubling place “prepared for the devil and his angels” in Matthew 25:41.  Here it is called “eternal fire”; in Revelation it is called “the lake of fire”

There is a ‘judgement’ after death (Hebrews 9:27).  And this judgement is referred to several times and in different ways throughout the New Testament.  The Matthew 25 account above includes a judgement inference.  The graphic depictions of this judgement throughout history are many and varied.

There is also a ‘resurrection’ prepared for all of us humans.  Jesus talks about two resurrections in John 5:25-29 and there is no shortage of other references in the New Testament scriptures.  There is a resurrection to life and a resurrection to punishment.

I am not questioning the reality of these things.  If I become wise in my own eyes, I am no better than a fool – as we saw earlier.  My concern – and it is a very large concern – is that in our manic quest for simplicity, we have conflated all of the biblical ideas and references into one hotch-potch of food-scraps only fit to be fed to wild beasts.

The New Testament nowhere says that you go to heaven when you die, if by heaven you mean our romanticised notions.  Furthermore, it is quite unspecific in terms of timing, place and nature if we measure the scriptures by our definitions.  But as I said, we are supposed to not do that.  We can and should measure our definitions by the scriptures (but not the other way around); and when we do so, our definitions are found wanting – seriously.

When you read in the New Testament book of Matthew about “the kingdom of heaven” do you do what most people do and mentally remove “the kingdom of” and simply read it as heaven?  If you do, there is a very real probability that you will thereby default to your prepared definition of ‘heaven’ and get Matthew entirely wrong.  Try reading the same parable as written by Luke and you will read “the kingdom of God” where Matthew says kingdom of heaven.  Do you then say that “kingdom of God” in Luke equals “heaven” in Matthew?  Whole church belief systems are based on just that – and it is patent error.

The “kingdom of God” is not the same thing as the “heavens” through which Jesus passed when he ascended to the Father after his resurrection; and it is not the same thing as the “heavens” in which Jesus will appear in the days of his glorious unveiling; and it is not the same thing as the “paradise” Jesus promised the dying thief on the day of his crucifixion.

At this point, let me refer to my other work “What is TheKingdom of God?”  [Email me for a copy if you need.]  We need to understand that, to the Jews of Jesus’ day, there were multiple ‘heavens’: a minimum of three.  “The heavens” (according to Dr Edward Robinson in 1837) are believed to be “the expanse of the sky, the apparent concave hemisphere above us, which was regarded by the Hebrews as solid.” (Robinson’s 1837 Lexicon, p. 599)

Robinson goes on to say, “In common usage, it included the regions above the sky, where God is said to dwell (Psalm 2:4) and likewise the region underneath and next to the firmament, where the clouds are gathered and birds fly (Genesis 1:20, 26).”

Of the idea of “hell” we can say this: There are three words translated “Hell” in the New Testament, Hades and Tartarus, which are Greek, and Gehenna, which is the Greek form of the Hebrew words Gee and Hinnom, meaning "the valley of Hinnom." [Thomas B. Thayer in “The Biblical Doctrine of Hell” 1855]

Hades:  I agree with the old Orthodox scholar Dr Campbell that the Greek word “hades” should never be translated “hell” for the basic reason that “hell’ now carries its own inherited cultural and quasi-christian meaning and has lost its true original meaning of, simply, the place of the dead.  As Dr Campbell says, “hades” (Old Testament “sheol”) “...signifies the state of the dead in general, without regard to the goodness or badness of the persons, their happiness or misery.” (Prelim. Diss. vi, Pt. ii.)

Tartarus:  Used only once in the New Testament, it refers to that place of torment within hades.  Remember, hades, the place of departed spirits characterised in the parable in Luke 16, consisted of two ‘compartments’: paradise and torment.

Gehenna:  This speaks of a place of terrible judgement and torment.  It is a graphic expression or description of horrible judgement.  We might today say of a person ‘he met his Waterloo’ meaning that person has met his final, insurmountable challenge.  In like manner, the ancients might have said ‘he met his Gehenna’ meaning that person has come face-to-face with his own terrible judgement.  Although there is no apparent link between Gehenna and “eternal fire” and the “lake of fire” mentioned earlier, there is little doubt an inference can be made: Gehenna’s fire was continuous and perpetual (‘eternal’) for many years; and it would often appear to be like a lake of fire.  There is a final judgement place for “the devil and his angels”; I suspect that some people – people who steadfastly refuse and reject the kindness and forbearance of God right up to the last moment (see Romans 2:1-11) – will share that space with the devil and his angels.

Take a look at Mark 3:28-29.  There is, according to Jesus here, one and only one unforgivable sin: to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit.  In this context, Jesus’ antagonists saw his work and attributed it to the devil (an “unclean spirit”); that work was in fact a work of the Holy Spirit.  In effect, the Scribes were guilty of attributing a work of the Holy Spirit to the devil i.e. blaspheming against the Holy Spirit, the unforgivable sin.

I infer from this that some humans (at least these Scribes and maybe many others who think and act in the same manner) will share the lake of fire (that place of which Gehenna is both symbol and type) with the devil and his angels (for whom it was specifically prepared).

But a word of caution here: there is nothing in the New Testament to say that this judgement happens immediately upon physical death.  In fact, the judgement issuing in the lake of fire seems quite clearly to be after the resurrection of the human race – which may well be still in the future.  If that resurrection and judgement are still in the future, then so is the experience of the lake of fire.  So where are the spirits of the dead between their death and their resurrection?  In the scriptural model, in hades.

Some assume that when Hebrews 9:27 says “it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment” it means that the judgement immediately follows death.  But even in our own language we can say one thing follows another without inferring any length of time between them, from one second to a thousand years.  We can infer that the latter is the consequence of the former without any implication of time at all.  To say that judgement immediately follows death is to say something the scriptures do not say; it is also to disregard the usual meaning of the biblical idea of hades/sheol – the place of departed spirits.

The ‘sleep of death’ implies the possibility of the separation of the body from the spirit; and in old Jewish thought, the idea of death (for instance when Adam “died” but continued living in Genesis!) was much more the idea of separation.  I think death is the separation of body and soul from the spirit; and resurrection (for those “in Christ” at least) is the re-connection of what Paul sees as the new “resurrection” body with the Spirit.

Where is that spirit in the meantime?  The scriptures are not absolutely clear, but it is either in the “paradise” part of hades/sheol or “with Christ”, “in the heavenlies”.  But when it is time for the resurrection, “...the dead in Christ will rise first.  Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall ever be with the Lord.” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)

At this point, I strongly recommend chapter 11 of Tom Wright’s book I mentioned earlier.

Read Matthew 27, especially the latter part.  Towards the end you will find this (50-53):

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit.  And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth shook and the rocks were split.  The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many.

To some extent at least, the paradise part of hades/sheol was depopulated after Jesus’ resurrection.  Did you know that?  It says it happened to “many” “saints”; it does not say it happened to “all” who were there.  We are simply not told how many.

There are some things we do not know – they are not clear.  What we do know is that, upon death, the spirit is separated from the body/soul and goes to hades/sheol while the body returns to the dust one way or another.

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