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Heaven or the resurrection?
I wonder why so many funerals in churches focus on the deceased being ‘in heaven’ and the need for the audience to die and go to heaven, when there isn’t any direct scripture about your disembodied spirit going to heaven when you die. Paul does say he would rather be absent from the body and present with the Lord. But some people even take that passage as a rapture passage, seeing the body as the temporal body, a tent that will be shed and replaced with the incorruptible.
But the emphasis when it comes to this topic is certainly the return of Christ and the rapture. Paul refers to the deceased as asleep in Christ. He even tells believers, when talking about death to ‘comfort ye one another with these words’. What words?
‘The dead in Christ shall rise first, and they which are alive and remain shall be caught up to meet the Lord together in the air, and so shall they ever be with the Lord.’
If Paul commanded believers to comfort one another when someone dies with words of the resurrection and rapture, why isn’t this THE verse that is always read at funerals? Why skip this verse and talk about something that the Bible doesn’t emphasize or even directly mention– dying and going to heaven? I can’t find the ‘hope of heaven’ in the Bible. I’ve heard it in sermons. I can find ‘the hope of the resurrection’ and the hope of Christ’s return.
I had a conversation with an Englishman who’d settled in New Zealand and who was serving as a dean at a Bible college in Indonesia. He was a gifted teacher and also gifted in prophecy, and gave a word over me that hit the nail on the head, part of which was a repeat of a word I’d just gotten elsewhere.
I had a conversation with him after a sermon once, and said something about ‘going to heaven when you die.’ He said to me the Bible never once mentions going to heaven when you die. I knew that, but I’d still spoken the religious verbage I’d heard so much. But his words stuck with me.
This one of those areas where we hear something so much in church that it effects our thinking, even if it isn’t really something that we read in the Bible. Living in a mostly Mus|im country, it also made more sense to speak in terms of the resurrection, since that was an aspect of their religion that coincided with what the Bible taught, that there would be a resurrection of the dead and that they would be judged. That was an emphasis in Paul’s evangelism.
Link Hudson [10/13/2015 1:59 PM]
| Link Hudson | Btw, a focus on the resurrection fits well with presenting the Gospel, which focuses on the resurrection of Christ. | ||||||||||
| Josue Chavez Reveles | This is actually something my wife and I were chatting about. We promised to research on this subject but have not gotten into it just yet. | ||||||||||
| Timothy D McCune | Jesus said He was going away to prepare a place for us. We call it Heaven. | ||||||||||
| Anthony Lombard | Link, since you seem to have such keen insight into Scripture, what wisdom would like to impart that ministers should say at funerals? | ||||||||||
| Link Hudson | Anthony Lombard, Paul told his readers with what words to comfort one another when someone dies: “‘The dead in Christ shall rise first, and they which are alive and remain shall be caught up to meet the Lord together in the air, and so shall they ever be with the Lord.’ “ | ||||||||||
| Link Hudson | Timothy McCune, the New Jerusalem descends out of heaven to the new earth in the book of revelation. | ||||||||||
| Link Hudson | Btw, could someone show me how many times one of the apostles makes reference to dying and going to heaven while evangelizing? I can point to references to the resurrection. The doctrine of the resurrection– which includes our resurrection– is very much intertwined with the message of salvation. Take a look at I Corinthians 15 for an example. | ||||||||||
| Link Hudson | I Thessalonians 4 16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words.I should add that to the OP. | ||||||||||
| Carl Murphy | May I suggest the book: surprised by hope, by N. T Wright. It explains a lot | ||||||||||
| Link Hudson | Josue Chavez Reveles It’s helpful to go through a concordance and look at references to ‘resurrection’ and ‘heaven’ in the New Testament. There are references to the resurrection of Christ throughout the sermons in Acts. But Paul also mentions the resurrection of the dead, in general, in some of his preaching. In his epistles, he points forward to the coming of Christ and the rapture/resurrection.If we look up ‘heaven’, we see a lot of references to ‘kingdom of heaven’ where it says ‘kingdom of God’ in other books. The Jews sometimes avoided saying the name of God, and Matthew is believed to have been written to a Jewish audience. Even nowadays, some Jews spell God like G-d, even in English. There is a tradition of substituting ‘Adonai’ for the divine name when reading Torah. There are plenty of references to heaven, but not direct reference to ‘going to heaven when you die’ and it isn’t a part of the way the apostles evangelized when they presented the Gospel.In Acts 2, we don’t read where Peter says, “you might fall off your donkey today and die. Would you go to heaven or Hell?” The idea of dying and going to heaven may have been a foreign concept to his audience, but the idea of being raised from the dead probably wouldn’t have been. They would have at least been familiar with the concept. | ||||||||||
| Anthony Lombard | Somehow I am missing the critical issue. Sounds like you’re making a mountain out of a mole hill. Resurrection and rapture have some distinct similarities. | ||||||||||
| Link Hudson | Anthony Lombard, who has been talking about a distinction between the rapture and the resurrection? “Going to heaven when you die” isn’t the same thing as the rapture and resurrection that occurs when the Lord descends from heaven. | ||||||||||
| David Sanderson | Will we ascend into the air? A pastor spoke on this recently and said we will not, and this is a very misunderstood and misinterpreted verse. Do you agree? | ||||||||||
| David Sanderson | I would like your thoughts in what he says. It starts at the 26 minute mark. Do you agree or disagree? http://www.harriscreek.org/…/1488-practice-resurrection… | ||||||||||
| David Sanderson | He says many misinterpret 1st Thes 3-4, that we will not ascend and depart but that we will meet him and usher him onto Earth. What are your thoughts on this? | ||||||||||
| Link Hudson | David Sandderson, I believe we’ll go up and return to earth with him for the millenium. | ||||||||||
| Kevin Bounds | Link Hudson, I see your argument and it is interesting topic. Yet, what of Jesus’ words to the thief on the cross? The Bible states, “And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Lk. 23:43 KJV). Wouldn’t this be what Paul spoke of by “being absent of the body”? Just interested in how you see this passage in light of the topic. | ||||||||||
| Timothy D McCune | luke 16;27-29 speaks also about wanting someone to go warn his brothers of this place of torment torment, ( hell) so we know theres a heaven and a hell. I think we as christians want to know whats next where will we be but maybe we go all over, travel back and forth to the new heaven and earth and places beyond. | ||||||||||
| Charles Page | Scriptures make a distinction between hell and the lake of fire – not the same place. | ||||||||||
| Timothy D McCune | OK i”ll bite, yes they are. but go ahead and show me how they are not, i will check in later gotta work now. | ||||||||||
| Charles Page | Hell/sheol is the place that the spirits of the deceased go and is their abode till the final resurrection. The lake of fire is the abode after the final resurrection of the persons not written in the book of life. Some of the occupants of hell are finally cast into the lake of fire and hell will be no more. | ||||||||||
| Link Hudson | Kevin Bounds, Jesus spoke of the theif on the cross, and not of ‘heaven’ per se. He also spoke of the resurrection of the dead. When I was a child, I heard preaching about dying and going to heaven and walking on streets of gold. John was told he would be shown the bride, and then saw the city descend out of heaven, as a bride ordained for her husband. The city had streets of gold. This was after he saw the millenium, after the resurection. Nothing in those passages support the idea of believers dying and their disembodied spirits walking on streets of gold. | ||||||||||
| Kevin Bounds | So, I don’t misunderstand you. You are saying the spirit is with Christ in paradise at the moment of death, but heaven comes later. | ||||||||||
| Link Hudson | Kevin Bounds, my point is the Bible doesn’t say that much about what we experience at death before the resurrection, and the focus on the afterlife in scripture, particularly in evangelistic passages, is on the resurrection. And when one of us dies, we are supposed to comfort one another with words about the dead in Christ rising. The Bible doesn’t tell us to comfort one another with talk about dying and going to heaven. | ||||||||||
| Charles Page | agree Link!!! | ||||||||||
| Timothy D McCune | wherever it is any seperation from Christ will be hell. | ||||||||||
| Charles Page | the lake of fire is separation from Christ. Hell is the abode of the deceased’s spirits and they are with their creator. To be absent of the body is to be present with the Lord. | ||||||||||
| Timothy D McCune | Charles I understand your point , not everything has to be spelled out exactly to a T. though. Seperation from Christ will be horrible it will be pain like no one can imagine, lake of fire, always burning i believe thats the image people think of when someone says Hell. | ||||||||||
| Carl Murphy | So if to be absent if the body is to be present with the Lord the question is, why be resurrected | ||||||||||
| Charles Page | absent from the body…. | ||||||||||
| Link Hudson | Another thing to take note of is that the Gospel is very much tied into a resurrection-focused view of the afterlife. Christ is the firstfruits of them that slept. He rose from the dead, and our hope is that we will rise from the dead when Christ returns (or be transformed if we are still alive). If there were no resurrection, then Christ would not be risen, and we would still be dead in our sins, as Paul says in I Corinthians 15. But Christ is risen from the dead.We need to change our language and vocabulary, even when we evangelize and when we teach from ‘going to heaven when you die’ to talk of the resurrection of the dead. We need to preach and teach it like the apostles preached it and taught it… like we read in the Bible. | ||||||||||
| Troy Day | Sure looks like 100% so far are going to heaven Perhaps it was need to clarify that a real physical heaven with streets of gold and pearly gates was meant in the question If you dont believe in going to a real physical Heaven it will be pretty hard to take anyone else with you | ||||||||||
| Louise Cummings | Amen. | ||||||||||
| Joe Absher | I gotta see the man called Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth. I don’t care what it costs or where i gotta go. I’m in! | 1 | |||||||||
| Louise Cummings | Amen. I got to see Him. By Gods Help. And He calls it Heaven. Praise God. | ||||||||||
| Dan Irving | You can have that now Troy Day, if you have enough money. Think rather about what does gold symbolize, according to the apostle Peter? | ||||||||||
| Joe Absher | Yes gold symbolizes faith tried in the fire. Yes faith has substance. But i don’t think everything in Revelation is symbolic. Is the great throne of God just symbolic? Or the many crowns of our Lord. Or the Altar. Or the cries of the Martyrs? Maybe I’m a fool to get involved in this one. But no heaven, no seraphim, no holy holy holy. There isn’t much left of substance if you take that. Im not saying that’s what you believe brother Dan. Me and my big mouth… | ||||||||||
| Dan Irving | “God will rule and he will render judgment” (thus the symbol of a throne); “the martyrs will sacrifice their lives for the kingdom of God” (thus the symbol of an altar). If you want something you can see and touch, well, I would say the principle symbolized is more real and impactful than its mere symbol. | ||||||||||
| Joe Absher | I’m not touching the altar I can bet you that. | ||||||||||
| Dennis Bowman | Amen! | ||||||||||
| Troy Day | Dan Irving Streets of gold, pearly gates? Tree of life in the middle, fruits of healing, big mansions for everyone there? A throne in the middle, a river that goes through it. City with no nights for the Lamb is the light of the city thereafter. Where on earth is it? Please send me the coordinates at once!Sweet home up in heavenLord I’m coming home to you… | ||||||||||
| Dan Irving | If our focus is upon thangs, maybe that’s what God will give us . . thangs. | ||||||||||
| Troy Day | thang is a southern thing 🙂 Focus on the Lamb of God | 1 | |||||||||
| Joe Absher | Jesus is the light of heaven. Brighter than a thousand sun’s. He’s not hard on the eyes either. | ||||||||||
| James L Alldredge | The church will spend eternity on the new earth, not in some ethereal “heaven” Rev. 21 | ||||||||||
| Troy Day | James L Alldredge ethereal? Are you saying there’s no heaven to go to? | ||||||||||
Varnel Watson
YES Neil Steven Lawrence Peter Vandever
Tim Anderson
Yes have heard it said “they are in heaven now” and have been waiting on chapter & verse. Thank you.
Joshua Tesillo
Yes I see this all the time!! Thank you I am sharing!
Isara Mo
Which CHURCH?
Varnel Watson
the TRUE church
Isara Mo
Troy Day
Where is the TRUE CHURCH Troy?.
The one in which Pentecostals attend?. Or the Catholic church? the Baptist?
Jehova Witness or Latter..
Day Saints.
Oneness?. Lutheran?
Adventist..
There must be one…
Jerry Nelson
Philippians 1:23
For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better:
2 Timothy 4:6
For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.
2 Timothy 4:7
I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:
2 Timothy 4:8
Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.
Varnel Watson
going or not going ?
Nathaniel Rodriguez
Troy Day for me to live is Christ…I’m already gone.
Varnel Watson
Nathaniel Rodriguez and I am already there 🙂
Martha Morrison
YES
Duane L Burgess
whachutalkingboutwilis ???????
Mike Lind
where ever the Lord is that’s where we will be
Michael N Dineen
Again. ??
Chris Shabangu
Has she been in heaven already?
Thys Marais
Understand the question! People who died during OT, and were safed, are in heaven.
Are those safed in NT in heaven, or are they sleeping?
T Murray Funston
Their souls are in heaven but when they are resurrected they will be in the New Jerusalemv
Kayla Burton
T Murray Funston what exactly are souls? Do we have a soul?
T Murray Funston
Kayla Burton a person consists of a body, soul and spirit.
Kayla Burton
T Murray Funston scripture says a living person consists of dust of the ground and the breath/spirit of God. I don’t have a soul. I am a soul and so are you.