Heaven

So after blogging about Hell yesterday I felt as though I ought to consider Heaven as well. I mean, who wants to think about Hell and Hell alone? A really cool thing happened in church today: Our pastor at the Chilliwack Alliance decided to speak about Heaven. This is probably the best sermon I have ever heard. I have to share the things that Pastor Leon spoke of today, because it gave me so much hope.

Let’s start from the beginning: In the book of Genesis we learn that God walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden before ‘the fall’. After the fall, Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden for their choice of disobedience. Mankind was originally created with “unlimited potential”, so it’s no wonder that we feel so unfulfilled and limited here on earth. Plainly put, mankind was separated from God and the entire World was cursed with him. Pastor Leon biblically suggests that the only way for us to be restored, is through a re-creation of Heaven and Earth. How does this work? Peter explains: “But the day of the Lord will come like at thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.” (2 Peter 3:10-13). What is Peter saying here? Leon suggests that since “Fellowship with God was broken in Eden, Heaven is a return to the original Goals of Eden”: It is God’s way of restoring what is broken.

I find it interesting, how our tendencies are to blame God for this present human condition. People get mad and rage against life and God. I have done this myself actually. Whenever something would not go my way or tragedy would strike, I believed that God somehow was messing up or neglecting us. I was too proud to consider that maybe he has a plan for this mess on Earth. Lately I am learning that God sees our hurt and our sufferings: “The Lord is close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18) and not only that, but Jesus himself was, “despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain” (Isaiah 53:3). He not only sees our pain, but he came down from his throne and experienced it with us. The Bible is not just a book of wisdom, or an instruction manual of how to live life: it holds the story and plan of the world: “ ‘For I know the plans I have for you’, declares the Lord, ‘Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you’, declares the Lord, ‘and will bring you back from captivity” (Jeremiah 29:11-13). I challenge you to look into the things that God promises us today.

Back to today’s sermon, Pastor Leon expressed the difficulty that we have as fallen beings, to understand the concept of Heaven: Heaven truly is, “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard and what no human mind has conceived-the things that God has prepared for those who love him”( 1Corinthians 2:8). Leon pointed out that even John, the writer of Revelation, probably had great difficulty in explaining what he saw when God revealed his plans of restoration to him. The book of Revelation can still draw us a picture of what Heaven will be like: “Then I saw a ‘new heaven and a new earth’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away’. He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” (Revelation 21: 1-5).  These verses in particular give me so much hope and joy. Consider this: we will be who we were made to be in Heaven. We will be the complete beings and will be walking in constant fellowship with our Creator.

What are we to do with all this information? How do we become recipients of the Grace of God? Leon reminds us that, “Entrance into heaven depends on what you have done with Jesus Christ, the Saviour here on earth”. Pursue God with your whole heart, soul, mind and strength and he will not be far away from you. In fact, he pursued you first: “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me” (Revelation 3:20). We can never get to Heaven by being a ‘good person’: In fact, “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away” (Isaiah: 64:6). The only way is through acceptance of Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour. “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved” (John 10:9). Leon’s conclusion was: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

PS: Thanks Pastor Leon, for walking me through this again. I needed it now more than ever. 

Hell Fire & Brimstone

I will admit, I do not often think of the afterlife until I need to. Generally I live life expecting that I will live forever here on Earth. I have made myself quite comfortable here, and I call it my home. Everything will be going along just as usual until, I am reminded of Death: humanity’s ultimate insult. World religions discuss Heaven and Hell and I will admit there are some pretty interesting beliefs out there. Atheism suggests that our life here, is all that there is. Most religions, I have found, have no guarantees about going to Heaven. This is quite odd to me but a discussion for another day. The main question that I have had return to me over and over again is, ‘What kind of Loving God would be willing to send people to Hell?’ and also, ‘if Jesus so loved the world that he was willing to die, why wouldn’t he just find a way to make it so we can all go to heaven?’ Well, after looking into it further this week, I have taken a 180 degree turn in my thinking about Christianity’s take on Heaven and Hell, and I will tell you why.

First of all it is important to pinpoint what exactly Heaven and Hell are. I have always pictured Heaven as the place floating on clouds with a bunch of naked, baby Angels, and hell being similar to prison but burning up at the same time. These images I had did not come from study, but rather from cartoons I watched as a child on Saturday mornings. A closer look into the theology of Heaven and Hell, opened my eyes to the possibility that Heaven and Hell are not so much punishments or rewards we receive due to whether or not we ‘lived a good life’ and were ‘good people’. C.S. Lewis points out that since God is God, he is the ultimate good and therefore the closer you become to God, the closer you are to Heaven. Lewis suggests that you cannot get heaven without getting God: “God made us: invented us as a man invents and engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking god to make us happy in our own way, without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.” (Mere Christianity). Therefore, if God is good, wouldn’t it make sense for us to want to be near him and in return, if we do not draw near, doesn’t the result of Hell only make sense?

Next point I thought was important to look at was, ‘Why would God send decent people to Hell?’ Well, for myself I only have to look at human relationships: if in my friendships I come across somebody who is a ‘good person’ and I happen to really love them, in fact I was so in love with them that I was willing to die for them, how do you think they would react? You would think that they would love me in return. Now let’s suppose that they heard from our mutual friends the depths of my love for them and they chose to both reject and ignore me. How would I react? I guess I would give them the distance that they wanted. Now let’s suppose I was God (I like doing this more than I would admit), and I was the Ultimate Goodness, the natural result would be that their rejection would turn into Hell, not because I sent them there, but because they chose separation/rejection of my love.

Thirdly, I have always wondered why God would be willing to create beings who would reject his ultimate act of love. Why not just create creatures who were prepared to accept me? Well I’m sure we’ve all heard that God desired beings who chose him with their own free will. Lewis explains this in The Problem of Pain: “In creating beings with free will, omnipotence from the outset submits to the possibility of such defeat. What you call defeat, I call miracle: for to make things which are not Itself, and thus to become in a sense, capable of being resisted by its own handiwork, is the most astonishing and unimaginable of all the feats we attribute to the Deity. I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside…” In this statement, Lewis comments on the matter of free will suggesting that it is not so much God who sends us to Hell, but rather it is ourselves who willingly decide to remain as far away from the Ultimate Goodness that we lock ourselves away in our own selfishness for Eternity.

Lastly, is there any solution to this problem of Heaven and Hell? I’m not perfect and I’m not sure that God will always see me pursuing Him. What then? “In the long run the answer to all those who object to the doctrine of hell, is itself a question: ‘What are you asking God to do?’ To wipe out [everyone’s] past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But He has done so, on Calvary. To forgive them? They will not be forgiven To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is what he does.”(Lewis, The Problem of Pain). In the end, God will not force anyone to be with him. Hell, by definition, is complete and total separation from the Ultimate Good: God himself. If people will not accept God, then they get what they want. The real question is, what do you want? Are you unwilling to surrender? Or do you believe that, “To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:/ Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.” (Milton’s, Paradise Lost)

P.S. Jesus Himself cried out about those who reject him in Matthew 23:37 : "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together,as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing"

Bible Thumpers

Don’t you just love it when Christians use the bible to back up their claims? I mean, those are almost 2000 year old documents, and who knows how many times they’ve been modified and lost in translation? I used to wonder these same things. Recently I decided to take a closer look into the New Testament: its accuracy and the motivation behind the writer’s decision to document these stories. What I’ve found is quite shocking.

In History and Literature classes we look at many documents of Antiquity, however, we rarely question their authenticity or reliability. In Josh McDowell’s “Evidence for the Historical Jesus”, McDowell suggests that we put the scriptures through 3 tests. The first test is called the Bibliographical Test, where we look at the amount and quality of the earliest manuscripts. By doing this, we can compare it to the copies we have today and see how accurate they remain. In comparison, the History of Thucydides (which was written around 460-400 BC), has only 8 manuscripts that have been dated to about AD 900 (nearly 1300 years after the originals were written). The same is true for most writings of Antiquity, and the Professor of Biblical criticism, F.F. Bruce comments: “No classical scholar would listen to an argument that the authenticity of Herodotus or Thucydides is in doubt because the earliest manuscripts of their works which are of use to us are over 1300 years later than the originals.” McDowell adds, “When it comes to the manuscript authority of the New Testament, the abundance of material is almost embarrassing in contrast… Over 22 000 copies of New Testament manuscripts are in existence today. The Iliad has 643 manuscripts and is second in manuscript authority after the New Testament. Also the dates of some of the earliest manuscripts are not dated to the late 2^nd century but as early as AD 130 (the John Rylands Papyrus) which is only a generation away from the life of the apostles.

The second test suggested by McDowell, is the Internal Evidence Test, which involves actually looking at what the document says. I found it quite strange that the New Testament authors actually claimed historical legitimacy. Luke 1:1-4 boldly states: “Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seems good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.” This sounds like a note I would attach to a research paper. Luke, although not an eyewitness himself, decided to take the project on, and interview all the eyewitnesses of Christ’s life and resurrection. Another instance that is similar occurs in 2 Peter 1:16 : “We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty”. Unlike the researcher Luke, Peter and James and John were all eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life, ministry, and resurrection. Peter is actually addressing the situation we find ourselves in today: questioning the authenticity of the Gospels. Lastly, In the book of Acts (generally attributed to Luke), we find Peter speaking to a crowd: “Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know.” (Acts 2:22). F.F. Bruce points out that, “One of the strong points in the original apostolic preaching is the confident appeal to the knowledge of the hearers; they not only said, ‘We are witnesses of these things’; but also, ‘As you yourselves know’. Had there been any tendency to depart from the facts in any material respect, the possible presence of hostile witnesses in the audience would have served as a further corrective”.

Lastly, we must ask ourselves, Why would the disciples both devote their entire lives for the Gospel (good news), and then die brutal deaths for a Lie? Consider Peter: on the day of Christ’s death he denied associated with Jesus and his ministry three times. After the resurrection Peter was out preaching Christ’s resurrection even after being threatened by death. Peter was eventually crucified upside down. What changed Peter’s mind and life so drastically? Did he die for a lie devised by him and a few other men? What would be the motives for creating such an extravagant hoax? The famous French Philosopher, Pascal states: “The allegation that the apostles were impostors is quite absurd. Let us follow the charge to its logical conclusion: let us picture those twelve men, meeting after the death of Jesus Christ, and entering into conspiracy to say that He has risen. That would have constituted an attack upon both the civil and religious authorities. The heart of man is strangely given to fickleness and change; it is swayed by promises, tempted by material things. If any one of those men had yielded to temptations so alluring, or given way to the more compelling arguments of prison [or] torture, they would have all been lost” and I would like to add, the entire Christian Faith would have died on the spot.

In conclusion, not only is the New Testament one of the most reliable documents of Antiquity, the writers also strongly believed in what they wrote. The were so committed to the Gospel that they were willing to die brutal deaths for the cause and preservation of the Good News of Jesus Christ so that you and I can be certain of his purpose here on Earth. Ultimately, “If a person discards the Bible as unreliable in this sense, then he or she must discard almost all the literature of antiquity” (McDowell).  The Gospels are both intellectually sound documents as well as existentially meaningful: Take a look for yourself. 

-Rachel S.

P.S. If you are curious about the accuracy of the Bible, as well as translation, look into the history of the Dead Sea Scrolls. You will again, be amazed at how accurate the versions are that we read today.