When it comes to heaven, our primary source of information comes from
the book of Revelation. Yet, by consensus, Revelation is one of the
most perplexing books of the Bible, outside of, say, Leviticus and
Numbers.
If you want to understand a concept like death, a
book like the Revelation, or a construct like Heaven, you should
search for corroborating
evidence and attestations
from the Bible and consider
the context.
One other piece of information, which applies to
the idea of Heaven that I am going to dive into momentarily, is that
this Bible and the book of Revelation, where many of the references
to Heaven make their home, is to understand that the
Revelation is a Jewish-centric book.
Evidence for this assertion
comes from Revelation 1:2, where we immediately encounter the
proclamation that all of this is "the
testimony of Jesus Christ.”
This pronouncement should make us concentrate on the fact that the
book of Revelation is focused on a Jewish man, God's Son, and the
journey He is taking us on.
The
second thing that plays a role in how you read and understand the
Revelation is that John, for the longest time, focused his attention
on the Jewish believers. In other words, John’s primary audience
was Jewish believers.
Saul/Paul was in hearty agreement with putting the believers to death. And on that day, a
great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and they
were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria,
except
the apostles.
(Acts
8:1 NASB)
Their
staying in Jerusalem was not fearlessness but a dedication to the
Jewish community who accepted Jesus Christ as the
Messiah. John maintained a strong Jewish connection and
motivation. However, he assumed the reins of one of Paul's
established churches with a large congregation of Gentile believers
alongside the Jewish followers.
Thirdly,
look at the terminology that John uses in Revelation 2:8,9.
"And
to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: The first and the last,
who was dead, and has come to life, says this: 'I know your
tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich), and the blasphemy by
those
who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue
of Satan." (Revelation
2:8-9
NASB)
Why
say something like this unless there are Jewish believers there?
Gentiles did not go to the synagogue; Jews did, and it would be
foolish to use terminology that would make no sense to the Gentiles.
These
same concepts apply to the entirety of the Bible, and you see strong
evidence for that in Paul's letter to the church in Rome. You also
see comparable evidence in the letter to Hebrews – Jewish
believers. So, if your Gentile mind is struggling, it will be better
for you if you can see it through the eyes of a Jew. (That
may sound impossible for some, but you may have to trust the Holy
Spirit if you get stuck.)
The
motivation for writing about Heaven initiated with the study I have
been doing on the Revelation chapters 20-22. These chapters focus on
the end of judgment and the new heaven and a new earth. I share these
studies with the guys, and they always have questions. Heaven was one
of those questions.
One
of the men asked about death and Heaven, which prompted
him to buy a copy of the book Heaven by Randy Alcorn. I have a copy
of that book, but I have little interest in opening it. The first chapter I read
started on page twenty-three. By the time I got to chapter five, page
41, I had run into this statement by Randy Alcorn.
“When
a Christian dies, he enters into what is referred to in theology as
the intermediate state, a transitional period between our present
lives on earth and our future resurrection to life on the New Earth.”
The
Oxford Languages Dictionary tells us that "theology
is the study of God and religious belief."
While Wikipedia conveys the idea that it is
“the
systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of
religious belief.”
So,
for someone to say it
is referred to in theology, they
might as well be telling me that it is the opinion of others;
this is effectively what Randy Alcorn conveys to me when he starts
talking about a transitional
period.
I refuse to accept your opinion as something more reasonable than an
understanding of the word of God. What matters is what God has to say
about it. If your opinion enhances my understanding, great, but you had better come up with scriptural witnesses to back up your opinion.
I
have read through the entire Bible and have done much studying. Not
once did I find the terms
transitional
or intermediate.
I have at least 30 translations of the Bible, and some border on
being woke, yet
none of them used those terms.
So again, I am stuck with the idea that this "transitional or
intermediate period" is something that religious folk did with
their spare time as they looked for ways to make the Bible more
complicated. Now, I can see things that I might interpret as
transitional or intermediate, but since scripture does not make a
doctrine out of vague allusions, neither am I.
Oh,
doctrine,
by the way, is
“anything
taught.”
Just
because I teach, it does not make it right or Godly. When doing Bible
study, a couple of rules are context
and applicable
scriptural witnesses.
So these two terms by Alcorn lean toward strikes one and two in my
book.
Alright
then, let's examine this part of Randy Alcorn's statement.
“a
transitional period between our present lives on earth and our future
resurrection to life on the New Earth.”
Just
the fact that I am standing here on earth, as a Christian awaiting
the call to go home, indicates that I am in transition (I
am thinking of my permanent home in heaven, which is with the Father.
The
details are of minor importance because I will own nothing and be
happy about it.
I
no longer have to fear anything because I will be immortal,
untouchable, and, as I said, with the Father.)
The problem is, most of us do not seem to know that.
But
that does not seem to be what Randy Alcorn is saying. Instead, he
implies that we go to some transitional place when we die.
Why
would you write something that conflicts with the Apostle Paul’s
assertion that our separation, as followers of Christ, from this
physical body puts us in the presence of the Lord?
"Therefore,
being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home
in the body, we are absent from the Lord--for we walk by faith, not
by sight--we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be
absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord." (2
Corinthians 5:6-8
NASB)
I
get it; Paul’s statement is written in reverse, as Paul
acknowledges “that
while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord.”
But it is not that difficult to comprehend the inverse, that for the
believer, we
are instantly in the presence of the Lord at death.
A
quick definition. Death is a complete and total separation from His presence. It is not God who has done this; it is
you by your rejection of Jesus Christ.
Let's
talk about resurrection for a moment.
In
the Revelation, we are told the martyred saints are raised from the
dead – in other words, their bodies are reattached to their
spirits. I do not know why. You
see this first resurrection in Revelation 20, verses 4 and 5.
"Then
I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them.
And I
saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their
testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had
not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark
on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and
reigned with Christ for a thousand years.
The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years
were completed. This
is the first
resurrection."
(Revelation
20:4-5 NASB)
These
martyred saints reigned with Christ for a thousand years. I suspect
that means they rule over the earth with Him. Ah, but what of the
believers? I don't know. I know that we are in Christ, but
what that means exactly is not spelled out for us.
Randy
Alcorn said we are in "a
transitional period between our present lives on earth and our future
resurrection to life on the New Earth.”
Surely
that means that we are next on the list to be resurrected, right?
We
already lost out on the first resurrection opportunity, so maybe we
will be next. Wait a minute; Revelation 20:5 tells me that the rest
of the dead get resurrected at the end of the thousand years.
Dead?
It is unmistakable that we who are in Christ never die.
As I was
sitting with my friends, talking about Revelation 20, I was asked, " When do we die, and where do we go?
The answer was, we don't. The
Word of God never deems us to be dead (for those who love to argue,
the scripture tells us that we were dead in our sins. But having
accepted our redemption through Christ, we do not live enslaved to
sin anymore, do we.)
Revelation 20:12,13 tells us that the dead
are resurrected and brought before the great white throne at the end
of the thousand years. They are raised to life again for the sole
purpose of standing before that throne. Matthew's gospel in chapter
25 tells us that the nations are brought before the same throne, and it makes no mention of whether these people were dead or not.
Why do
you suppose that is?
Because the soul never dies, and they are being
identified by that soul and its actions. So, the second
resurrection, the last resurrection, has nothing to do with believers
who, according to Randy Alcorn, are in a transitional phase when we
die.
I
am not very familiar with other religions, but one of the Cults
believes wholeheartedly that their works may earn them a resurrection
to a planet of their own. This bizarre familiarity naturally raises
serious concerns about Mr. Alcorn's teachings and even more serious
concerns about those pastors who rave about Randy Alcorn's book,
Heaven.
I
asked the question, at
what point does this tired body release its hold on the spirit?
When
we physically die or depart with the catching away of the church.
I
have no idea or care about the body's importance in this transition, as mine is old, fat, and hurts everywhere. I do, however, know that
Jesus had Thomas touch His scars to prove that He was real, and Jesus
sat on the beach and ate fish with the guys. Apparently, it takes a
body to do those things. Death
for those who are not believers is quite the opposite.
"For
the living know that they shall die; but the
dead do not know anything,
nor do they have any more a reward; for their memory is forgotten."
(Ecclesiastes
9:5
MKJV)
Let's
say you are proficient with the scriptures and can easily see a
context to this verse that leans toward understanding your fate. You
might be right; however, if you were to look up the Hebrew for the
words know
and anything,
you would realize that it refers to
those whose fate is death without apparent hope.
To
know
is the Hebrew word yâda'
and carries the meanings of
perceiving, see, distinguish, recognize, and consider.
In other words, in this example, the dead did none of the above.
The
Hebrew word for anything
is me'ûmâh. It also means a
speck or anything
at all.
So, neither do the dead consider, but once they are dead, they think of nothing.
Since
Ecclesiastes is marginal as a witness, I suppose you need
another to hopefully convince you about this dead "know"
nothing stuff.
"Do
not trust in princes, In mortal
man, in whom there is no salvation. His spirit departs, he returns to
the earth; In that very day his thoughts perish."
(Psalms
146:3-4
NASB)
First
off, the psalmist talks about mortal man "in whom is NO
salvation." This is not a judgment call; it is simply an
observation. While the believer returns to the Father, the mortal man
returns to the dust, where his very thoughts perish, on that day.
Again, the critic might say, of course, in time, we forget about that
person unless they made some decisions that we live by.
But a statement like this shows that you missed the fact that their thoughts perish, not yours. Like I pointed out with the
example from Ecclesiastes, the thought process ceases.
Consider
this: if
you are transitioning, do you know where to?
Dear
Lord, I hope so; this is one of the reasons that we learn that Jesus
died on a cross for our sins. I believe in that sacrifice that gives
me eternal hope in heaven and a life with the Father.
“These
things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of
God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” (1
John 5:13 NASB)
On
page 42 of his book Heaven, Randy Alcorn says,
“usually
when we refer to heaven we mean the place that Christians go when
they die. This is what I am calling the present or intermediate
Heaven.”
Paragraph
two, according to Randy Alcorn, says,
"by
definition, an intermediate state or location is temporary. But,…
still, the intermediate or present Heaven is not the place we are
made for – the place God promises to refashion for us to live
forever."
This
place we are living in is only temporary.
Consider what the writer of
Hebrews tells us.
“All
these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but
having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance,
and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the
earth. For
those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a
country of their own.
And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they
went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is,
they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God
is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for
them.”
(Hebrews
11:13-16 NASB)
Having
seen them?
How
could they have seen heaven or the millennial kingdom? They could not
unless they saw it through faith. Jacob saw a ladder (of sorts)
coming down out of heaven, and the angels were ascending and
descending on that ladder. The Apostle Paul, in 2Corinthians 12:2,
tells us that he was caught up to the third heaven.
What
does that mean?
We
will allow Paul to explain.
“I
know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago--whether in the body I do
not know, or out of the body I do not know, God knows--such a man was
caught
up to the third heaven.
And I know how such a man--whether in the body or apart from the body
I do not know, God knows--was caught up into Paradise
and heard inexpressible words, which a man is not permitted to
speak.” (2
Corinthians 12:2-4 NASB)
It
sounds like a vague reference to someone who doesn't want to identify
themselves. Paul is merely trying to keep the focus on Jesus, as the
Apostle John frequently did in his writings.
Three
things jump out at me when I read this passage.
The
first is caught up.
Many people rant because the word rapture
is not in the Bible, and it is not unless you are familiar with the
Latin Vulgate, in which case they used the word rapiemur.
In our Bibles, the New Testament uses the term Harpazo,
which means the same thing and implies
a rapid snatching away. The
word harpazo is used 18 times. One of those speaks about a
wolf snatching
a sheep.
"He
who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the
sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and
the wolf snatches them
and scatters them." (John
10:12
NASB)
Luke
24:51 is a gentler depiction of harpazo,
as it shows Jesus returning to the Father gently and slowly. However,
the Apostle Paul used the term in 1Thessalonians
4:17 to describe a rapid, almost violent removal of the saints out of
harm's way.
Secondly
is the focus on "the
third heaven."
Seeing as we have NO further "witnesses" and NO direct
instruction on how to comprehend this, I would not make a big deal
out of it or start a new church based upon the phrase. However, if we
were so inclined, we could dig into the scriptures and find things
that may clarify.
Heaven,
as used here, is ouranos.
According to Mounce's dictionary,
it conveys
Matthew
5:18; Matthew 16:1; Matthew 24:29;
The air, atmosphere, in which the clouds and tempests gather, the birds fly, etc.
Matthew
6:26; Matthew 16:2-3;
And,
heaven as the peculiar seat and abode of God, of angels, of glorified spirits, etc..
Matthew
5:34; Matthew 5:45; Matthew 5:48; Matthew 6:1; Matthew 6:9-10;
Matthew 12:50; John 3:13; John 3:31; John 6:32; John 6:38; John
6:41-42; John 6:50-51; John 6:58.
In
the Old Testament, the word used is sha^mayim or sha^meh and is
defined as 1) heaven, heavens, sky; 1a) visible heavens, sky; 1a1) as
an abode of the stars; 1a2)
as the visible universe, the sky, atmosphere, etc.; 1b) Heaven (as
the abode of God)
An
example is Genesis 1:8.
"Then
God said, 'Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters,
and let it separate the waters from the waters." God made the
expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from
the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so. God
called the expanse heaven.
And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.”
(Genesis
1:6-8 NASB)
Since
we effectively don't know where God is, let us assume that He lives
somewhere in the expanse of the heavens above the waters of the earth
that we call the atmosphere. The UCAR Center for Science Education
tells us that "Earth's
atmosphere has
a series of layers, each with its own specific traits. Moving upward
from ground level, these layers are called the troposphere;
stratosphere; mesosphere; thermosphere; and exosphere. The exosphere
gradually fades away into the realm of interplanetary space.”
Does
God need a humanly defined, breathable atmosphere in which to
survive? NO, so we could find Him anywhere, but something seems
apparent. He chose to put this planet at just the appropriate
distance from the Sun so that plant and human life would be able
to live and coexist. We have not done an outstanding job of that, but
that is irrelevant because all of creation became severely damaged
and corrupted and handed over to our enemy, Satan. There, somewhere
among the atmospheres, God saw fit to send His Son to become a
bloodied sacrifice on our behalf.
What kind of person would do
that?
An unusual and loving one for sure. No matter what "heaven"
He lives in, we will be welcomed there, with Him someday soon.
The
third thing I wanted to point out from 2 Corinthians 12:4 is the word
Paul used, translated as "Paradise."
This Greek word paradeisos
is a word that the Muslims also use to explain where a martyr goes
when he dies in Jihad. When Paul wrote these words, there were no
Muslims, so don't lose your mind over it. The word aptly describes
the world that Adam walked in and had dominion over before the
entrance of sin. Mounce's definitions explain that it is "a
park, a forest where wild beasts were kept for hunting; a
pleasure-park, a garden of trees of various kinds; used in the LXX
for the Garden of Eden; in NT the celestial paradise.”
Examples of the word paradise usage include the brief conversation that
Jesus had with the thief on the cross when He said, " This day, you will be with me in paradeisos.
(Luke
23:43). In Revelation 2:7, Jesus' letter to the church in Ephesus
told them, “To
him who overcomes,
I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise
of God.”
Paradise = paradeisos.
I
can't begin to tell you the impaired things I have heard, as
“learned” people have tried to explain where Paul went.
Paradise
is where the Apostle Paul also went. So I must tell you, you would be
hard-pressed to get me to leave such a place.
Our
Old Testament "role models," although skewed, like Samson
or slightly less than brave, like Gideon, all seemed to understand
that "The
LORD God planted a garden.” A place “of
abundant trees, water, fruits, and vegetables-where conditions for
life are maximized.”
(Word Study Dictionary)
And this garden conveys Heaven for them, and they put their hopes in
the God that did this, just as He has asked us to do.
Hebrews
11 speaks to this very hope.
They
understood that this earth, in its present state, is transitory,
intermediate, and NOT permanent. And they also knew that this was NOT
their home; heaven is.
The
psalmist, most likely King David, said this.
"Hear
my prayer, O LORD, and give ear to my cry; Do not be silent at my
tears;
For I am a stranger with You, A sojourner like all my fathers.
(Psalms
39:12
NASB)
Again, we hear from
King David.
"For
we are sojourners before You, and
tenants, as all our fathers were; our days on the earth are like a
shadow,
and there is no hope. (1
Chronicles 29:15
NASB)
There
is no doubt that many longed for this heavenly country; what is not
clear is how this got explained to them. It seems that God
demonstrated this idea of sojourning by having them live it out; this
is why we see Abraham, Moses, and Jacob speak of the temporary nature
of their journeys. They were always looking for their permanent home,
and none of them spoke of an intermediate destination.
That
better country is the heavenly one. And what a shock, as the
millennial kingdom also has the Holy City sitting in its middle. That
sort of says that heaven begins with the millennial kingdom.
One
last thought.
Just
a few days, as I was writing and trying to work this out in my head,
it occurred to me that we would be caught up in the rapture and spend
seven years with Jesus – doing what? If, as I have come to realize, heaven is paradeisos
or
Paradise, the most spectacular garden you have ever experienced,
won't it be a bit of a letdown to have to return to the earth that
won't be purged with fire and restored to its original condition for
another thousand years? But then it occurs to me that heaven will be
excellent as long as I am with my Jesus, and I will be.
If
I must get stupidly technical, then I suppose that the seven years of
mind-blowing beauty, like the thief on the cross, was promised, could
be deemed a transitional or intermediate place. Again, that would
stink if I had to migrate through this earth once again. No one seems
to speak about this Holy City made of translucent gold, and
considering its size, it will consume the entire Middle East. You
could put quite a garden in there, but I digress.
Obviously,
God is deeming the entire migration until the great white throne
judgment and a few seconds or minutes after that, because that small
gap in time is where the earth and the "heavens" are burned
up and replaced. Ah, once again, my broken thinking comes into play
as I try to assign God a specific time frame within which to work.
But, considering that He spoke the worlds into existence, who am I to
say? And, again, I am reminded that where He is will be heaven.
Now,
since this treatise emerged from several painful paragraphs from the
book Heaven by Randy Alcorn, let's address this horrid statement -
"our
future resurrection to life on the New Earth.”
If
you are reading this, you are not dead, broken perhaps, but as I
addressed in this attempt to understand heaven, death
is nothing less than the complete separation from God.
There
is only one place that happens, and it is at the great white throne.
If you read Matthew 25, where we see the sheep and goat judgment,
mercy is being demonstrated for some. The Bible clearly defines only
two resurrections: the martyred saints at the end of the time of
wrath and the dead who are brought before the throne at the end.
Never are we Christians treated or seen as dead. And, if you are not
dead, you can pull out your sword of the spirit and fight for the
kingdom by telling someone, as I did the other day, that God loves
you so much.
