If Heaven is Everlasting Life, what might we be doing there for all eternity? Also, if Heaven is Everlasting Life, what is Life as we know it now?
I had often wondered about this question myself when I was a churchgoer......why would God put us on earth, if he was only going to take us to heaven?......he already had angels up there who were created as spirits, so why create material creatures on a material planet and then only take the humans somewhere else? It didn't add up until I actually studied the Bible in great detail. I was surprised at how many questions it answered for me.
FWIW here is what I learned.....
God put humans on the earth as caretakers, who out of all God's creatures, alone possessed God's qualities and free will. The rest of sentient creation were born 'programmed' for their life and reproduction here, but the humans were different.....God's first command to them was
"be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it".....so there you have it. This is why we are here.....there was never any mention of going anywhere else. The only mention of death was as a punishment for disobedience.
Humans were never told about the possibility of going to heaven until the coming of the Messiah, who opened up the prospect....and the reason for it....but only for a "chosen" few. And their role was outlined quite clearly.....they had a specific role with specific duties and they were specially chosen by God.
Revelation 20:6...
"Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years." (NASB)
They were to be "priests" and "rulers" with Christ. Priests need sinners for whom to perform their duties and rulers need subjects. There are no sinners in heaven and rulers do not rule one another.
So these ones will experience a "resurrection" which is a return to life, but their death and resurrection is the same as the one Jesus experienced....
not the one he performed on his friend Lazarus. There are two resurrections spoken about in the Bible....one to life in heaven for those chosen to rule with Christ in his Kingdom....and one for the dead who are in their graves awaiting a return to life on earth, which was God's main purpose all along.
1 Peter 3:18....
" For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit".
Jesus died as a human but was resurrected as a spirit....that is because those who go to heaven cannot be flesh and blood. (1 Corinthians 15:50)
Jesus spoke of those who "sleep" in their graves as Lazarus was. (John 11:11-14) He said that he will call them out of their graves to live out eternity here on earth. (John 5:28-29) Both the righteous and the unrighteous have gone to the same place and both are called from there. That rules out going anywhere after death. Contrary to popular belief, scripture tells us that the dead are not alive and conscious anywhere.
Ecclesiastes 9:5,6, 10...
"For the living know they will die; but the dead do not know anything, nor have they any longer a reward, for their memory is forgotten. 6 Indeed their love, their hate and their zeal have already perished, and they will no longer have a share in all that is done under the sun. . . . .Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might; for there is no activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol where you are going."
"Sheol" in Hebrew is the equivalent of "hades" in Greek......neither of them mean what is commonly thought. These are places where the dead "sleep". How do we know this?
1 Thessalonians 4:13-16...
" But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first."
So Christ, when he was to return, would call all of the "chosen ones" out of their graves "first". The "first resurrection" was not to begin until then. So if we are awaiting Christ's return now...what does that mean?
I believe that the Bible indicates that Jesus' "presence" (parousia) is a totally separate event to his "coming" (manifestation) as judge of all the earth.
As indicated in Matthew 24, Jesus gave a "sign" that would indicate his "parousia" or presence as King of God's Kingdom. All of the features had to take place in what the Bible calls "the last days". So what sorts of events did Jesus speak about? What would his disciples expect to see....?
2 Timothy 3:1-5...
"But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these."
Who can see this situation in the world today more than at any other time in history when knowledge and technology should have taken us beyond such petty, selfish thinking? We can see those who make a pretense of godliness, only to betray it by their speech and actions. Power corrupts humans.....always.
What did Jesus say they should look out for in this period of undisclosed time?
Matthew 24:3-14...
"3 As He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, (parousia) and of the end of the age?”
4 And Jesus answered and said to them, “See to it that no one misleads you. 5 For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will mislead many. 6 You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. 8 But all these things are merely the beginning of birth pangs.
9 “Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name. 10 At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. 11 Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. 12 Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. 13 But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. 14 This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come."
V21...
" For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will."
Can we see that this period began with
warfare....not the run of the mill warfare between nations in conflict, but a warfare that the world had never experienced before.....the war of 1914 was the
first of its kind in history....the year when peace vanished from the world at a time when world peace had never seemed closer. No one expected it because it was triggered by an obscure event in an obscure part of the world that brought all the nations into a war, the likes of which were unprecedented....the assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand in Sarajevo.
In reporting the same events, Luke said that "pestilences" (disease epidemics) would also be seen. (Luke 21:10-11) Following the war, the Spanish flu epidemic took more lives than the war did. Food shortages were caused by resources going to the war effort, and so civilians lined up for food coupons. Rations were meager.
These "last days" would run their course and culminate in the "manifestation" of Christ as judge....."judgment day".....its not a 24 hour period but a period of judgment that would last for for hundreds of years. It begins with the 'separation of the sheep from the goats'....the goats are eliminated from the world permanently because they, like the people in Noah's day refused to change their ways and listen to God's messengers during this period who brought them "the good news of the Kingdom", but they rejected them. (Matthew 24:14; Matthew 24:37-39)
The sheep are granted everlasting life, because they have remained faithful to God and have upheld all the teachings of his Christ, despite persecution. (John 15:18-21; 2 Timothy 2:12) Jesus said it was going to be a tough road to travel. (Matthew 7:13-14)
Judgment day carries on into the 1,000 year reign of Christ and his "joint heirs"...forming a heavenly government that will rule over earthly subjects. (Revelation 5:10; Romans 8:17)
The resurrected "unrighteous" ones come back to a period of judgment. They have paid sin's wages with their own death, and now Christ's sacrifice has ransomed them from their graves to have a second chance at life.....many of whom may never have heard of God or his Christ during their lifetime.
Revelation 21:2-4...describes what we can look forward to.....
"And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, 4 and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”
God's dwelling is "among men" by means of those who rule in his Kingdom, and these subjects of the Kingdom will experience a blessed time of peace and security, because the pain and suffering of the "first things" will have passed away. Every vestige of the old world will have been removed.
We can look forward to all the things we lost in Eden being restored to us....but only if we maintain faithfulness to God and to the teachings of his Christ. Heaven was never meant to be in our future in the beginning, and will not be at the end.
That is what the Bible taught me.
Thank you to anyone who read that all the way through.....
