HEAVEN

Although Believers will Face Death
They will not Experience It 

“whoever obeys my word will never see death. . . (nor) taste death." John 8:51-53

"whoever believes in me will never die." John 11:26

"we do not want you to . . . to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him" I Thessalonians 4:13-14

"Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? . . . .thanks be to God! He gives us the victory though our Lord Jesus Christ. " I Corinthians 15:54-57

The Bible tells us that death is an enemy. It is the result of sin. It is an intruder, an alien force to be defeated. We are taught that Jesus defeated evil, sin, satan, and death on the cross. At funerals we should grieve. We should grieve at our loss and even experience anger. But we can grieve differently because death has been defeated. Believers who die do not experience death. Instead, having “fallen asleep” (the biblical image), they awaken renewed and refreshed in the temporary place of rest and restoration we call heaven.

"we do not want you to . . . grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope." I Thessalonians 4:13-14

"encourage each other with these words." I Thessalonians 4:18

HEAVEN

Your Future is an Embodies Life on a Restored Earth
Heaven is Just Temporary

“until the final restoration of all things." Acts 3:21

"at the renewal of all things." Matthew 19:28

"in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness." 2 Peter 3:13

The Bible does NOT teach that believers go “up” to a disembodied place somewhere in the air where we will only sing among clouds, harps and angels.  

The Bible DOES teach that when believers die they will meet God in Jesus Christ, be judged, spend a limited amount of time reunited with those who have gone before in the temporary, intermediate place we call heaven. There believers await being reclothed with a new body and being relocated back onto the renewed and restored earth. Life there will be vibrant, happy, embodied, material, purposeful and will have tasks that we will joyfully complete.
 
Is this new information for you? Actually there’s much, much more. I’ll be sharing the rest in May’s Sunday Messages and in this month’s series of reflections. What you’ll be learning is a very, very big deal. So stick with it and don’t miss a Sunday!

HEAVEN

Who Goes to Heaven?
 
“You know the way to where I am going.” “No, we don’t know, Lord,” Thomas said. “We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me." John 14:4-7(NLT)
 
Do you know who goes to heaven and who doesn’t? First of all I’m not sure that’s a question we’re supposed to know the answer to. Second it’s a very difficult question to try to answer. Personally I think there will be a lot of surprises when we see who’s there and who isn’t! Think of the story of the prodigal son. The ungrateful brat gets in and the faithful, church going, did-everything-right older brother is on the outside (hell) looking in.
 
John 14:6 is an answer to Thomas’ question, not a propositional, doctrinal statement..
 
My point is that I see too many people using John 14:6 almost as a weapon to tell people who’s in and out or to scare people into accepting Jesus. But the context doesn’t suggest this use of the passage. It’s a conversation between Jesus and his disciples that only John remembered and Jesus is offering reassurance to legalistically trained, works oriented, Jewish followers.
 
Yet, of course, what Jesus says is true. Therefore it is true that all who enter “heaven” get there only through the death and resurrection of Jesus. This also makes a lot of sense. John 3:16 and 17 tell us that Jesus came to save everyone, not just those who have heard of him. The Gospels are pretty clear that you and I were saved from our sins 2,000 years ago when Jesus died on the cross. I may have come to believe this recently, but my belief didn’t save me, Jesus did.
 
Romans 1:19 and 20 tell us that God reveals Himself to every person who ever lived either through conscience or nature, which means each person has a chance to submit to God or reject God. Those who submit to whatever of Himself God has revealed to them, even those who have never heard of Jesus, will discover in “heaven” that their salvation was won for them by Jesus on the cross even though they never knew about it.
 
There’s an analogy I thought of that works for me. I can simultaneously pick up my cell phone, call California, talk to my aunt, and have no clue that electromagnetic waves are what connected me. I may even disbelieve that there is such a thing as electromagnetism. Yet I am talking to my Aunt!!!! I could even say, “No voice gets to California by cell except through electromagnetism” Electromagnetic waves are what transports my voice to my aunt, whether I believe it or not. 

In the same way, if I connect to God, it is through the fact of Jesus’ intervention on my behalf. There isn’t any other provision (which removes the sin barrier between God and me)
 
This is to say, because of Romans 1:19, 20 and John 3:16, 17, I find it difficult to believe that anyone will be in hell just because they never heard of Jesus.
 
What this does then, is put all people in the same boat. Romans 1 goes on to say that every single human being on earth is a rebel and is in trouble. Every one of us needs the fact of the cross. Every one of us needs to humble ourselves before God and ask him to do for us what we cannot do. God is consummately fair. He leaves no one without a chance to repent and come to him.

Comparing Notes – The Importance of Mutual Encouragement

C.S. Lewis was a world renowned scholar in 16th century English Literature. He wasn’t a theologian, pastor, or priest. And so, in the introduction to his book, Reflections on the Psalms, he acknowledges with sincere humility his lack of professional training in the field of theology. And yet, he points out that often we learn more from fellow students than from the experts, especially when it comes to matters of faith. He writes:

This is not a work of scholarship. I am no Hebraist, no higher critic, no ancient historian, no archaeologist. I write for the unlearned about things in which I am unlearned myself. If an excuse is needed (and perhaps it is) for writing such a book, my excuse would be something like this. It often happens that two schoolboys can solve difficulties in their work for one another better than the master can. When you took the problem to a master, as we all remember, he was very likely to explain what you understood already, to add a great deal of information which you didn’t want, and say nothing at all about the thing that was puzzling you. I have watched this from both sides of the net; for when, as a teacher myself, I have tried to answer questions brought me by pupils, I have sometimes, after a minute, seen that expression settle down on their faces which assured me that they were suffering exactly the same frustration which I had suffered from my own teachers. The fellow-pupil can help more than the master because he knows less. The difficulty we want him to explain is one he has recently met. The expert met it so long ago that he has forgotten. He sees the whole subject, by now, in such a different light that he cannot conceive what is really troubling the pupil; he sees a dozen other difficulties which ought to be troubling him but aren’t.

In this book, then, I write as one amateur to another, talking about difficulties I have met, or lights I have gained, when reading the Psalms, with the hope that this might at any rate interest, and sometimes even help, other inexpert readers. I am “comparing notes,” not presuming to instruct…The thoughts it contains are those to which I found myself driven in reading the Psalms; sometimes by my enjoyment of them, sometimes by meeting with what at first I could not enjoy.1

Don’t discount the knowledge and experience that God has given you to share with fellow believers. If, like Lewis, in humility you are willing to “compare notes” with other inexpert believers, you may be joyfully surprised at the results. As well, if you are a “teacher,” in humility, be ready to learn from your pupils, especially when it comes to matters of faith.

I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong — that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.
Romans 1:11-12 (NIV)

The Risk of Love

In a world of smart phones, text messages, Facebook, and e-dating, many are creating virtual relationships which mask a person’s true identity in an attempt to protect themselves from the reality of real relationship. They want to avoid the possible heartache and pain that can occur when love is not reciprocated. Others fill their lives with work, recreation or entertainment in an attempt to avoid deep relationships. And yet, as we attempt to protect ourselves, we become less human, and wander farther from the Creator’s purpose for our lives which is to love both God and neighbor as ourselves.

In his book The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis writes:

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

I believe that the most lawless and inordinate loves are less contrary to God’s will than a self-invited and self-protective lovelessness. It is like hiding the talent in a napkin and for much the same reason ‘I knew thee that thou wert a hard man.’ Christ did not teach and suffer that we might become, even in the natural loves, more careful of our own happiness. If a man is not uncalculating towards the earthly beloveds whom he has seen, he is none the more likely to be so towards God whom he has not. We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it.1

As we look at the relationships in our own lives we might ask the following questions. Am I holding back my love toward God and others out of the fear of being wounded in the fray? If so, am I willing to begin to trust God with my life and open up the gateways to my heart so that I can both give and receive love as God intended me to do?

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.
For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
We love because he first loved us." I John 4:18-19 (ESV)

Communicating "Mere Christianity"

“Mere Christianity” was a term adapted by C. S. Lewis from the writings of the 17th century pastor, Richard Baxter, who defined the expression as “mere Scripture Christianity,” and “the ancient, simple Christianity,” held by “all true Christians on earth.”1 It is not a mere idea or an attempt to narrow down Christianity to the least common denominator for the sake of unity at all costs. Rather it is the essential truths of biblical, orthodox Christianity as communicated to the church by the apostles without getting caught up in secondary doctrinal divisions.

Lewis writes in his preface to his book, Mere Christianity:


Ever since I became a Christian I have thought that the best, perhaps the only, service I could do for my unbelieving neighbors was to explain and defend the belief that has been common to nearly all Christians at all times. I had more than one reason for thinking this. In the first place, the questions which divide Christians from one another often involve points of high Theology or even of ecclesiastical history, which ought never to be treated except by real experts. I should have been out of my depth in such waters: more in need of help myself than able to help others. And secondly, I think we must admit that the discussion of these disputed points has no tendency at all to bring an outsider into the Christian fold. So long as we write and talk about them we are much more likely to deter him entering any Christian communion than to draw him into our own. Our divisions should never be discussed except in the presence of those who have already come to believe that there is one God and that Jesus Christ is His only Son. Finally, I got the impression that far more, and more talented, authors were already engaged in such controversial matters than in the defense of what Baxter calls ‘mere’ Christianity. That part of the line where I thought I could serve best was also the part that seemed to be thinnest. And to it I naturally went…For I am not writing to expound something I could call ‘my religion,’ but to expound ‘mere’ Christianity, which is what it is and what it was long before I was born and whether I like it or not…So far as I can judge from reviews and from the numerous letters written to me, the book, however faulty in other respects, did at least succeed in presenting an agreed, or common, or central, or ‘mere’ Christianity…Far deeper objections may be felt—and have been expressed—against my use of the word Christian to mean one who accepts the common doctrines of Christianity…The name Christians was first given at Antioch (Acts 11:26) to ‘the disciples,’ to those who accepted the teaching of the apostles.”2

As we begin a new year let us, like C. S. Lewis, prayerfully consider how we might best present “Mere Christianity” to our unbelieving neighbors by living as Christians in thought, word, and deed.


Then Agrippa said to Paul, “Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?” Paul replied, “Short time or long—I pray to God that not only you but all who are listening to me today may become what I am, except for these chains.” Acts 26:28-29 (NIV)

Three Kinds of People

In just a few words, C.S. Lewis helps us make sense of the world, the church, and the true disciple. Then he points the way to freedom:

There are three kinds of people in the world. The first class is of those who live simply for their own sake and pleasure, regarding Man and Nature as so much raw material to be cut up into whatever shape may serve them. In the second class are those who acknowledge some other claim upon them—the will of God, the categorical imperative, or the good of society—and honestly try to pursue their own interests no further than this claim will allow. They try to surrender to the higher claim as much as it demands, like men paying a tax, but hope, like other taxpayers, that what is left over will be enough for them to live on. Their life is divided, like a soldier’s or a schoolboy’s life, into time “on parade” and “off parade,” “in school” and “out of school.” But the third class is of those who can say like St Paul that for them “to live is Christ.” These people have got rid of the tiresome business of adjusting the rival claims of Self and God by the simple expedient of rejecting the claims of Self altogether. The old egoistic will has been turned round, reconditioned, and made into a new thing. The will of Christ no longer limits theirs; it is theirs. All their time, in belonging to Him, belongs also to them, for they are His.

And because there are three classes, any merely twofold division of the world into good and bad is disastrous. It overlooks the fact that the members of the second class (to which most of us belong) are always and necessarily unhappy. The tax which moral conscience levies on our desires does not in fact leave us enough to live on. As long as we are in this class we must either feel guilt because we have not paid the tax or penury because we have. The Christian doctrine that there is no
“salvation” by works done according to the moral law is a fact of daily experience. Back or on we must go. But there is no going on simply by our own efforts. If the new Self, the new Will, does not come at His own good pleasure to be born in us, we cannot produce Him synthetically.

The price of Christ is something, in a way, much easier than moral effort—it is to want Him. It is true that the wanting itself would be beyond our power but for one fact. The world is so built that, to help us desert our own satisfactions, they desert us. War and trouble and finally old age take from us one by one all those things that the natural Self hoped for at its setting out. Begging is our only wisdom, and want in the end makes it easier for us to be beggars. Even on those terms the Mercy will receive us.1

"Have mercy on us and change our hearts, O Lord.
Help us to desire you above all else in life.
And grant us to delight in your will and walk in your ways
for the glory of your name. Amen."

Note: If you would like to read more from the C.S. Lewis Institute go to www.cslewisinstitute.org