Nobody gets too much heaven no more

This piece of writing is intended to be an in depth study of the question concerning where we go at the point of our own death. Occasioned by the embarrassing words of well-meaning but poorly informed ministers at the gravesides of believers and non believers alike. “She has gone to heaven, so don’t mourn.” Is it even true to scripture?  And if it is not, then why is it so solidly taken to be the truth, capital T?  To question such things is to poke a hornet’s nest.

(Throughout I am using the Bible.NET)

The heading is easily recognized as a line from a song by the BeeGees and continues: “It’s much harder to come but I’m waiting in line”. Of course the BeeGees are not considering or entertaining an idea of the biblical heaven but equate earthly bliss (such as romantic love), with something ‘divine’ arising out of the ideas that anything that is very nice is in some sense is ‘heavenly’. Love on earth is in some sense always a shadow of the Love of God, but most will settle for the shadow and ignore the source of light that brings it.

They are not the only one’s confusing the two. Heaven is taken to mean “the best of everything on earth concentrated into a permanent state of bliss when we have died.” Almost as if we could remove all that is perceived as bad now and then we will be in heaven. Heaven is not a parallel to the world as we know it. Nor is it a trimmed up version of this existence. It is a totally other dimension, not even a defined space or place.

The materialist who denies anything outside of the now existing natural order rightly interprets the Christian teaching on heaven as merely “pie in the sky when you die.” And that the promise of heaven is used to keep people in ignorance, poverty, slavery and misery while on earth, on the premise: It will all be seen as worthwhile when you get your heavenly reward beyond the grave. For the materialist there is nothing beyond the grave, for the ‘heaven enthusiast’ there is everything, but mostly beyond death, in the heaven to come. Neither, on careful examination, is right.

I have no doubt that what I will be putting to print will upset a few theological apple carts and I am sure I shall be branded as a ‘heretic’ for some of the conclusions that I must draw from the evidence at hand. So be it. The truth is more important than the applause of this or that school of thought. Nobody gets to any heaven on the strength of their theological correctness. Only if we have tasted of heavenly realities here and now will there be a touch of heaven later on. We should therefore neither be treated contemptuously, or be rejected for having grappled with the entire revelation of God in the Bible and have come to different conclusions than some predecessors. For speaking the truth can never exclude anyone from ‘heaven’, while speaking lies about it certainly can and will. 

First things first: what is meant by ‘heaven’?

There are several different words used in the original languages and they have overlapping but also extended meanings. The view of the world most commonly expressed in the Former Testament is of a tri-part world. Below is the waiting room, the realm, the existence of the dead. In the middle is earth, and above it is the heavens, considered to be the created realm surrounding the earth, and so essential to the earth that it could not exist without the physical heavens, and only beyond that is the Heaven of Heavens: i e the spiritual realm which is holding all the physical “in the palm of His hand”. “Heaven is his throne and the earth his footstool.”

Sheol is that realm where all who dwell there are waiting for what they know nothing of.  The poetic book of Job puts it succinctly and in much concentrated form: 

As water disappears from the sea,
or a river drains away and dries up,
so man lies down and does not rise;
until the heavens are no more,
they will not awake
nor arise from their sleep.
O that you would set me a time
and then remember me!
If a man dies, will he live again?

Job 14:11-14

Only as he is grappling with the looming threat of death through illness and deprivation of health does man begin to face the ‘where-after’. And all he sees at that moment is a huge question mark, but it is laced with a possibility. Death may not be the end. Death is not an if, but the second absolute certainty after being born. And it is Job himself who works his way through the confusion of living at death’s door and comes to insight:

“As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that as the last
he will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God,whom I will see for myself,
and whom my own eyes will behold,
and not another.” 

Job 19:25-27

Another voice from the time before the revelation in the Lord Jesus Christ is the King Hezekiah. Close to his demise from the affairs of the world his grappling with the looming end is turned into a prayer of thanksgiving when the death he knew would certainly come is temporarily averted.

This is the prayer of King Hezekiah of Judah when he was sick and then recovered from his illness:
‘I will no longer see the Lord in the land of the living,
I will no longer look on humankind with the inhabitants of the world.
My dwelling place is removed and taken away from me
as a shepherd’s tent.
I rolled up my life like a weaver rolls cloth;
from the loom he cuts me off.
You turn day into night and end my life.
I cry out  until morning;
like a lion he shatters all my bones;
you turn day into night and end my life.” 

Isaiah 38:9-13

Solomon, arguably the most wise king of Judah and Israel, long before Hezekiah, established the universal truth in very sombre lines:

So I reflected on all this, attempting to clear it all up.
I concluded that the righteous and the wise, as well as their works, are in the hand of God;
whether a person will be loved or hated—
no one knows what lies ahead.
Everyone shares the same fate—
the righteous and the wicked,
the good and the bad,
the ceremonially clean and unclean,
those who offer sacrifices and those who do not.
What happens to the good person, also happens to the sinner;
what happens to those who make vows, also happens to those who are afraid to make vows.
This is the unfortunate fact about everything that happens on earth:
the same fate awaits everyone.
In addition to this, the hearts of all people are full of evil,
and there is folly in their hearts during their lives—then they die.

Ecclesiastes 9:1-3

In deed!  Or as in many of the Psalms:

“No man can live on without experiencing death, or deliver his life from the power of Sheol.”  

Psalm 89:48

But connected with the inevitability of death is the relentless faith that “He shall not leave my soul in Sheol for good.” Or as Psalm 139 unabashedly proclaims:

Where can I go to escape your Spirit?
Where can I flee to escape your presence?If I were to ascend to heaven, you would be there.
If I were to sprawl out in Sheol, there you would be.
If I were to fly away on the wings of the dawn,
and settle down on the other side of the sea,
even there your hand would guide me,
your right hand would grab hold of me.

Psalms 139:7-10

The concept of Sheol as the kingdom of the departed, is never once offset by a hope of Heaven, not once in either the Old or the New. For the people of the former covenant it was always Sheol that awaits them. But the righteous nourished the assurance that there would be a rescue from it by Yahweh Himself one way or the other. Of the unrighteous no more is said than that they also have a future.

Many of those who sleep
in the dusty ground will awake—
some to everlasting life,
and others to shame and everlasting abhorrence.

Daniel 12:2

Does all that change in the apostolic writings?

A number of men and women and children died during the narrative of the revelation of Christ on Earth. With many of them Jesus Christ was in direct physical contact and their deaths are recorded because Christ overruled the seeming finality of death and demonstrated what He came to manifest:

Martha said, “I know that he will come back to life again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live even if he dies, and the one who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?

John 11:24-26

After death the resurrection is next on the agenda. Not a going to heaven, not a passport to be in some location called heaven, but to be In Him in whom those who died in the faith were at their point of death. In Him! The teaching on resurrection was not primarily understood as a going to heaven but as a means to restoration of what had gone bad here on earth. Christ ascended on high where He is waiting for the restoration of all things down here, nt in heaven (Acts 3:20-21) Resurrection is closer to the second coming than to an escape from this world.

We have noticed the inevitability of the death of all for all mankind in all times and under all conditions. And when we come to the flat statement of Jesus that those who believe do not die, even if they die, brings great puzzlement until we understand that the two major events of our lives are spoken of in the same terms. We are born and will die. That is physical reality. But there is as it were a heavenly backdrop to this double reality. In fact those two things are either shadow or substance of the other coupling in the Bible: the second birth and the second death. That is why the avoidance of the physical death is impossible, but the avoidance of the second death is in your own hands. According to some biblical texts that is of a volitional character. And it is entirely dependent on the second birth. Which in turn is mandatory if you want to escape the second death.

Jesus replied, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter his mother’s womb and be born a second time, can he?”Jesus answered, “I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must all be born from above.’ The wind blows wherever it will, and you hear the sound it makes, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

John 3:3-8

The second death is only obliterated by the second birth. We are born once, subject to the conditions of the flesh and therefore we shall all die. But if we are born by the Spirit then the flesh can die without that meaning that we ourselves die. The spirit within is stronger than the outward man in his fleshly imprisonment. The second death however awaits them who did not avail themselves of the option and free offer or a spiritual regeneration.

(At that point heated arguments about predestination and election begin.)

To the Church the Spirit testified: 

Do not be afraid of the things you are about to suffer. The devil is about to have some of you thrown into prison so you may be tested, and you will experience suffering for ten days. Remain faithful even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown that is life itself. The one who has an ear had better hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers will in no way be harmed by the second death.

Revelation 2:10-11

And again also in Revelation: 

Then I saw thrones and seated on them were those who had been given authority to judge. I also saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of the testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. These had not worshipped the beast or his image and had refused to receive his mark on their forehead or hand. 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 finished.) This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who takes part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.

Revelation 20:4-6

The importance of this meme is tremendous: Born once only I would die twice, born twice I will die only once! The sting of death is only a sting to those who have not been raised to the newness of life in Christ while they were still alive in the flesh. We have the hope of resurrection, that is not another word for ‘going to heaven’ but another word for “being in Christ.” Granted that we know that where Christ is seated together with the eternal Father is called heaven we can agree that we are with Christ even now, and in that sense “in heaven”. But but not for long.

Jairus’s daughter was raised from death, so was Lazarus, but none of them were brought back from heaven but only from the “deep sleep”. In both cases Jesus, in response to the common understanding refused to call them dead but said “they are asleep”. Mark 5:39, John 11:11. Jesus refused to call them ‘dead’ in the sense of finality that the people of the time thought of it. And so it goes on. John the Baptist dies.  Note: no promise of him going to heaven. Jesus himself dies on the cross after he has commended his Spirit to the Father but leaves the earthly form to the grave and the descent into the Sheol/Hades in order to minister to those waiting in sleep for His final coming. As in his exposition concerning Jonah, Christ expressly said that He would not go to heaven but be in the earth for three days..

Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.”But he answered them,“An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. Any statement made concerning people going straight to heaven on death is poorly supported by the actual word of God.

Matt 12:38-40

Was it at this time that he did what Peter expressed?

“Because Christ also suffered once for sins,
the just for the unjust,
to bring you to God,
by being put to death in the flesh
but by being made alive in the spirit.
In it he went and preached to the spirits in prison..”

1 Pet 1:18-20

At any rate: under no rules of interpretation can it be maintained that Jesus after death went straight to heaven. Nobody who dies during the time of the later covenant is ever said to have gone to heaven. (Stephen in Acts ch 7 is no exception because what he said after having declared the vision of Christ with the father is a desire that Christ would receive his spirit. That phrase was identical to what Christ said on the cross, “Father into your hands I commend my spirit”, but he did not go to heaven until at the ascension.

And here comes the great “what about” of paradise.

Hanging on the cross between two others who had run into conflict with Roman interests, Christ is seen and heard to give monumentally important statements about several matters. One of the thieves is blaspheming, railing against Jesus and spluttering curses until death. The other turns his heart to the middleman between  man and God and begs to be remembered by Christ when he comes into his kingdom.

Christ’s answer is common knowledge: “ Then (the Thief)  he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom.” And Jesus said to him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” It begs the question: and when will his kingdom come?

Starting from number 4.

The word paradise occurs three times in the Bible. It is the Greek transliteration of a word in pharsi, the persian language, which means “an ordered and protected, walled Garden”. If the first bible translation had given a correct rendering of the paradise as ‘A place ordered by God’ we would not have come to think of paradise as a synonym of “heaven”. It is the description of the Garden of Eden as in Genesis, which was a place on Earth which God had prepared as a template and pattern for Adam and Eve to learn and imprint in their minds for the task of subduing the rest of the earth and tilling it and ruling over all of it.  Adam was not made in that Garden, but brought into it by God. Listen carefully:

The Lord God planted an orchard in the east, in Eden; and there he placed the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow from the soil, every tree that was pleasing to look at and good for food. (Now the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were in the middle of the orchard.) 
Now a river flows from Eden to water the orchard, ..The Lord God took the man and placed  him in the orchard in Eden to care for it and to maintain it.  Then the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat fruit  from every tree of the orchard,  but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will surely die.

Genesis 2:8-17

This is paradise, or was. Because as you may know mankind was thrown out of that paradise. The gates have been shut against us entering it again as long as we maintain our independence from God and continue in the idolatry of the self, which is claiming your right to yourself. (But the Garden enclosed will make a comeback!)

The Thief is promised that after the death on his own cross, that as he had turned to Christ, who is the express image of God,  he will be in a safe walled garden ordered by God.  The saving faith that thief had was threefold: He knew that Christ claimed to be King, He therefore knew that he had a kingdom that was not of this earth. And He knew that citizenship in the coming kingdom depended on trusting faith in the King. But where is that garden?  It is promised to one of the Churches in the first chapters of Revelation.

“The one who has an ear had better hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will permit him to eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God.’ “   

Revelation 2:7

Yes, there will again be a garden with access to the tree of life, but where? Is it in heaven? No, emphatically no. It is to be found on the restored earth.

Listen to the testimony:

Revelation 22 describes the restored Earth under its King of Kings and Lords of Lords. It does not describe any of the possible heavens.

Then the angel  showed me the river of the water of life—water as clear as crystal—pouring out from the throne of God and of the Lamb, flowing down the middle of the city’s main street. On each side of the river is the tree of life producing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month of the year. Its leaves are for the healing of the nations. And there will no longer be any curse, and the throne of God and the Lamb will be in the city. His servants will worship him, and they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. Night will be no more, and they will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, because the Lord God will shine on them, and they will reign forever and ever.” 

Revelation 22:1-5

Which city? The New Jerusalem which comes down from heaven! Read carefully: “ The one who conquers I will make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he will never depart from it. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God (the new Jerusalem that comes down out of heaven from my God), and my new name as well. The one who has an ear had better hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

The direction of all movement in the entire later covenant scriptures is FROM HEAVEN BACK TO EARTH! But not the Earth we know now. Because our entire world is waiting for  the release from present bondage like a woman in childbirth. See Romans chapter 8 for details of that birthing process.

As Jesus had ascended to heaven he went to prepare many mansions for His people, and He would stay there until the time came for the full completion of His purpose. See the clear statement: Acts 3:21 “This one heaven must  receive until the time all things are restored, which God declared from times long ago through his holy prophets.” And you may recall how the restoration of the kingdom was primarily seen by the apostles as the restoration of the kingdom of David: I e Israel Acts 1:6-7

Full restoration of what?

What was it that needed restoring? The fallen creature and the fallen creation. Heaven needs purging from the residue of evil left by the Devil and His crew. But it is the Earth and that of Heaven which is indispensable to Earth that is to be reborn and recreated. Belinda Carlisle is a well known pop singer and stormed the charts with a song that said that “Heaven was a place on Earth.” She was right in one sense.. That which is of heavenly character will be established on Earth. That is not what her lyrics meant to say. But she is right insofar as Heaven is a heavenly Kingdom yet to be established on Earth.

By answering the 4^th point we have also answered all the others. The word Today does not refer to this or that specific date, but to the eternal now of salvation. “Today if you hear his words, harden not your hearts.. today is the day of salvation..” The moment we depart from life we depart from the time-space limitations that we are set about on all sides. Therefore we have great difficulty in speaking of anything beyond death without using the only terminology we know. All our language about the things beyond are by necessity limited by the concepts available on this side of death.  Which leads to the last reference to paradise that we have in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthian Church.

Paul is attempting to do justice to an experience that ‘someone’ had been moved into by the Spirit of Revelation. Possibly in connection with some close-to-death experience, he had several, he knew of this man that he had been brought to the Heaven that is beyond the created Heavens. And coming to heaven he was ushered into the enclosed and God ordered ‘paradise’ where he was given understanding of things that it was not lawful for any man to speak. And he was not invited to stay there but was sent back to minister to the church in all posterity.  I would be inclined to interpret and understand the “unlawful” things as also “impossible things” because we here cannot comprehend what is going to be there, so much speculation about that is mere guesswork and should not be entertained at all. By us. Paul was told to keep quiet about what he had been told. (2 Corinthians 12:3-4  “And I know that this man (whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, God knows ),was caught up into paradise and heard things too sacred to be put into words, things that a person is not permitted to speak. The reminiscence of God walking in the Garden of Eden with Adam is probably intended.

Draw your own conclusion: is heaven the same as paradise?

 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also we believe that God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep as Christians. For we tell you this by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will surely not go ahead of those who have fallen asleep.  For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

1 Thess 4:14-15

And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is useless; you are still in your sins. Furthermore, those who have fallen asleep in Christ have also perished. For if only in this life we have hope in Christ, we should be pitied more than anyone.
But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also came through a man.

1 Cor 15:14-19

And again let us hear the deliberation that Paul has with himself in the letter to the Church in Philippi: 

“My confident hope  is that I will in no way be ashamed  but that with complete boldness, even now as always, Christ will be exalted in my body, whether I live or die. For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain. Now if I am to go on living in the body, this will mean productive work  for me, yet I don’t know which I prefer: I feel torn between the two,  because I have a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far, but it is more vital for your sake that I remain in the body. “

Phil 1:20-24

Paul has no notion of going to heaven. He understood totally that the body he lived in was not what would be with the Lord. So all his scars and brokenness was  a mere nuisance, but of no ultimate account. He has every notion of experiencing what Christ promised the disciples before Calvary: “ I want you to be where I am, with me and in me.” And again: “Jesus replied,“If anyone loves me, he will obey my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and take up residence with him/ make our dwelling place with him..”

But what about the mansions in the sky?

Undoubtedly this will also need a look at, since much of all teaching about the going to heaven when we die hangs in the balance of this passage. I am here using the Bible NET again:
“Do not let your hearts be distressed. You believe in God; believe also in me. There are many dwelling places in my Father’s house. Otherwise, I would have told you, because I am going away to make ready a place for you. And if I go and make ready a place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me, so that where I am you may be too. And you know the way where I am going.”

Is the apostle John, whose writing is conditioned by a purpose equal to none:

“these things have been recorded so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name”, now introducing a completely new theme? One that none of the other gospel writers ever touched upon? Are the dwelling places in a palace-like structure in the Heavens of Heavens?  We sing hymns to the effect that “Out of the Ivory palaces, into a world of woe, only His great eternal love, made our Saviour go.” Based in part on: “All your robes are fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia; from palaces adorned with ivory the music of the strings makes you glad. 

Psa 45:7-9

There is of course no hint of those palaces being in Heaven. This would become apparent when you follow through on the concept of “my fathers house”. Luke refers to it in Luke 2:49 where Jesus declares to his parents who worried about their 12 year old sons lagging behind that they should understand that he must be about his fathers business in the Fathers house. John himself knows that the temple was what Jesus considered to be “my fathers house!” John 2:13ff

And so it is easily taken to mean that those who believe shall go with Christ into that city of ivory once the chore of life on earth is done with.

But as noted previously, the same apostle who wrote the emphatic words about who enters into heaven in John 3:13, can hardly have forgotten that by chapter 14. “If I have told you people about earthly things and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?  No one has ascended  into heaven except the one who descended from heaven—the Son of Man.”

Does anyone really believe that John lost his thread of truth? So that the categorical content of 3:13 must now be ignored for the idea that all believers enter into heaven? That is how 14:1-3 are commonly construed by mere conjecture. Is it intellectually defensible? Is it biblically borne out in corroborative teachings? The places Christ goes to prepare are those of the coming Kingdom, not of a mansion in the sky. Dwellings so individual that every one shall even be seen to sit under his own Olive and Vine. Placing in heaven what manifestly is prepared for what is a consequence of Christ returning to the Earth, is part of an elaborate escapism. No more true than getting wings when we die.

Where do we “go” at death?

The question asked “Where do we go at death” is based on a misunderstanding. Death is the end of all motion and movement. We become utterly and totally still. We remain where we are at death. “But free from my body shall I see God!” God does not wait for our death and then sends us somewhere. He has set before all mankind his paths and invites all mankind to enter it and stay on it. If they have, then when that road comes to the end, then we will be on “The Kings HighWay”. If we have chosen to ignore that option and walked in the paths of evil, then evil will be our awakening. God does not send anyone to any other destination than the one they opted for in this life. There is no second option after death. That is why repentance and choosing the way of life is the business on this side of death. Those who refused Him here will be refused by Him there. God does not need to send anyone anywhere, he leaves that choice to the living, and respects their choice when they have died. What you sow you will reap and the path you chose is the path to your exit door. But there  is no motion beyond. Death means: end of the travelling, end of movement and end of going anywhere, as your GPS will tell you: you have reached your destination.

“Thy Kingdom come”

If we went to heaven upon death, why are we commanded to pray that the Kingdom of Heaven must come here?

There are 272 passages in the Later Covenant speaking of heaven and heavenly things. In 93 of them the word is in plural form. And this is especially true of nearly all the things said about the “Kingdom of Heaven”. Many times Jesus started by saying “The Kingdom of heaven is like” and then gave image after image of that kingdom to come, and suggested that the Church was responsible to pray for the coming of that kingdom. In utter opposition to the idea of going to heaven is the teaching of the Word that says that the kingdom of heaven is to come here! 

This outstanding fact pinpoints the deep confusion which has resulted in an attitude that our goal is heaven and Earth is merely an endurance race until we get there. Most of the teaching about the church on earth is therefore ignored and the result is a mere bare-bone-gospel which is aimed to bringing people to heaven but ignores that the entire purpose of salvation is to bring redemption and reconciliation where it is most needed. Here. Spiritual Heaven has no need of salvation. It is already perfect. The alienation between man and God, man and creation, man and his fellow human beings and between man and himself, is here, not in heaven. And although we have an eternal inheritance laid up for us in heaven, it is kept there for us  because we need it when the kingdom comes. We are even now, while here, blessed with all riches in the heavenly places. But live as paupers because we are told that that is only for later and laid up for when we get to heaven. Again ignoring that “heaven came down and glory filled my soul.”

What we teach is what we feed. What we feed determines our ability to testify of the ‘kingdom of God that is within and among you’. The initial BeeGee quote was “Nobody gets too much heaven no more and I’m waiting in line” is uncanny in its double stroke. Hoping to go to heaven does not equip you to allow heaven to come here. You simply don’t expect it, and most likely you will be taken aback when it comes. “We didn’t see that coming.” He is coming to earth to judge the living and the dead and to reign with his people. The whole earth must again be filled with the glory of Lord. Heaven is already complete and needs nothing from earth.

The kingdom to come is a kingdom of Heaven on Earth. There are 33 passages in the NT about this kingdom and what the kingdom is like. This corresponds exactly to the concept of the Tabernacle for which the pattern is in heaven and is given to Moses by God. So it is the heavenly kingdom which is the template for the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. But there is not one reference to that kingdom being established in Heaven. The pattern is there, but the reality will be on the new Earth as ruled by Heaven. It is according to the heavenly pattern, but realised on Earth. Heaven is already ruled properly, the Earth is not yet. Again: Pray this way: Let your Kingdom come!  We are not going there, it is coming here. Not once is the coming kingdom said to be in Heaven, because it is the Earth that needs Heaven, not the other way round.

We will be given the keys to the Kingdom of heaven here so that we may enter when that Kingdom comes. When will it come? When the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords comes again. It has pleased the Father to give that kingdom to “the Little flock”. Not in heaven but here in his future reign. “Inherit the kingdom which has been prepared from before the foundation of the world” Matt 25:34 Where is it going to be? Here.. not in heaven..

A Swedish Singer Songwriter called Timbuktu has made a statement that fits well here: “Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but few want to die.”  The issue of death is alive and well on the lips of the crooners of the world. Death is avoided and tabooed by and  large among most people. And that against the fact that all will come to it. Is it not with utter disbelief that we must watch this concrete refusal to face the fact of our own imminent demise from this life?  And how have we done with our preparations for what lies beyond? And for the record, to repeat myself, no one gets to be in the future heavenly kingdom who has not died at least once and been born twice. (Unless he or she is alive on earth at the coming of the King.)

Holding out a hope of heaven and having very little to realise on earth is a serious cop out from the entire and coherent teaching in the Bible. It is true that we have our true nationality in heaven. Our citizenship, our ‘politeia’ is there, (Phil 3:20) and that is why we are on earth and in the world, but not of it. And the point of that is that we, while here, should infuse the realities of the eternal kingdom here in preparation for when the Kingdom comes. It takes all of heaven now to live on earth as God’s people. (I have a Swedish citizenship but live in England. My citizenship is not a description of where I live.)

Epilogue

In Johns gospel, at chapter 3:13 we are told that “No One has  gone into heaven except he who came down from heaven, the Son of man.” Note: no not One except Christ himself. And He will stay there until the time is at hand for the restoration of all things. “On earth as it already is in heaven.”

That is what Stephen saw as the hail of lethal rocks whizzed around him. He saw the glory of God and the Lord Jesus at His right hand. And he ended his life giving back his Spirit to the Lord whom he saw. He did not go to heaven, he died and is preparing to come back to earth with his Lord and all His saints. 

But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked intently toward heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look!” he said.“I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” ..
They continued to stone Stephen while he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!” Then he fell to his knees and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!”When he had said this, he died.

Acts 7:55-56, 59-60

What has a beginning will have an end

From the 1^st Corinthian letter we are told that Jesus must reign on Earth until his enemies have been brought in under His sovereign rule. But then that is not the end. When everything is under His control He will hand it all back to the Father, So that as in the beginning all things came from the Father through the Son and by the Spirit, so the reverse will happen. All things will by the Spirit be given to the Son and brought back to the Father of Lights. Habit and careless teaching have given us the idea that Revelation ch 20-22  describes the end of all things. It does not. It describes the end of all created Earth and Heaven, but it is 1 Corinthians 15 which describes the end of all things.

But each in his own order: Christ, the firstfruits; then when Christ comes, those who belong to him. Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when he has brought to an end all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be eliminated is death. For he has put everything in subjection under his feet. But when it says “everything” has been put in subjection, it is clear that this does not include the one who put everything in subjection to him. And when all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will be subjected to the one who subjected everything to him, so that God may be all in all.

“All Authority in heaven and on Earth has been given to me.”Until every knee has bowed,  His work on Earth is not done. When it is, then the end will come.

This is the Alpha and the Omega of the plan of Salvation. 

God himself is that  First and Last.  The last is then neither heaven or hell, but God. As it was in the beginning so it will be in the end. And truly when that comes then there will no longer be any Heaven or Earth, nor a Sheol or Hell. All will be regained and brought into the perfection that is only found in God Himself. Even eternity is not a place in which God dwells, He is the Everlasting God, everything else is less than God. Eternal life is His and is given to us by him. Restoring the image of God in mankind. Made in his likeness, returning back into him.”I want you to be where I am, know ye not that I am in the Father and that He is in me?”

What was spoken into existence by His word will return to Him having accomplished all that was planned before, and outside, of when any time-space continuum existed.
Faith sees it clearly, science dimly. We have this hope because of Him who died and rose again.

“Imagine there is no heaven, it’s easy if you try..” But John Lennon was also wrong. He hoped for a time when all men should live in peace, but he fell for the bullets of a man who had no peace in himself. And one who was a virtual worshipper of the man he killed. You may imagine a world without God, but the idols remain. And that is a finger of hell held up against all peace. And in order for man to live at peace with his fellow man, he must make his peace with God in good time.

Afterwards, so the testimony of the written word says, it is too late.

Teddy Donobauer, Doncaster