Again:
Again:
And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 2:6,7)
The passage above could be used to show that our destiny is Heaven. However, that is to miss the point.
Our destiny is Christ. We always shall be with Christ, Paul promises in First Thessalonians, Chapter Four.
Christ always shall be positioned at the right hand of the Father, and we with Him. However, He is going to set up His Kingdom on the earth, and govern the nations. We with Him shall be governing the nations of people who are saved for one thousand years.
After this, the heavenly Zion shall be installed on the new earth.
So it is Christ who is our destiny and permanent place of abode, not Paradise in the spirit world.
This is important to understand; because in the thinking of Christians today, our goal is to go to Paradise in the spirit world after we die and spend out time praising God. But when we think of Heaven as our goal we do not work with the Lord in the transformation of our personality such that we are suitable as a house, resting place, and throne of God.
I don't believe the term "Heaven" is found in the writings of Paul, in the sense that Heaven is our destination. Paul expressed his goal. Paul's goal is to attain to the resurrection that is out from among the dead, the first resurrection. This is the resurrection of the members of the Royal Priesthood. They will be raised when the Lord next appears.
It absolutely is true that our inheritance does come from Heaven and all the grace and glory of it. It is the Kingdom that comes to us from Heaven, the Kingdom of God.
This first resurrection must be attained to, as Paul pointed out so clearly in the third chapter of the Book of Philippians. To maintain that Paul was laying aside all else so he would be qualified to go to Heaven when he died is so unrealistic as to be not worthy of discussion.
Truly, the venerable tradition that our goal is to go to Heaven and live there forever prevents any logical thinking concerning the salvation we are to work out with fear and trembling.
There is a multitude of Christian people who look to the Lord Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins. There is a smaller number who have learned to walk in the Spirit of God to a lesser or greater extent.
Now Jesus is looking to see how many will press forward until they find rest in God's Person and will. Doing so requires that we abandon our own plans for our life in favor of resting in that plan written in God's book during the original creation. The plan is to make man in God's image. The number of those who have enough faith to trust God to this extent may be quite small.
But to him who is willing to turn from his old life so he may enter God's Person and will, shall be given all things of the new creation. God will be his God and he will be God's son.
Let each of us then pray that for eternity we will be found abiding in the very center of God's Person and will. There we always shall have righteousness, love, joy, and peace.
Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it. (Hebrews 4:1—NASB)
Canaan, and the Rest of God
Traditionally, Heaven has been viewed as that which is symbolized by Canaan, the land of milk and honey. Thus, going to Heaven when we die is considered to be the goal of our salvation. This concept well may be the most destructive of all the man-made interpretations of the Scriptures.
The major doctrinal errors of today, such as the ideas that "grace" is an alternative to righteous behavior, "eternal security," and the unscriptural "pre-tribulation rapture," are all based on the idea that the goal of our salvation is to go to Heaven when we die and live there forever in a mansion.
I have walked with the Lord Jesus for more than seventy years. During the last four or five years, I have become more aware of the spirit world. The spirit world is much like our own world, which is not surprising since our world was made from the spirit world. In fact, if the curse were lifted, and the Spirit of God filled the earth, and God removed Satan and all his works (and that actually is going to happen), I think we would be pleased to stay right here after we died.
Something to think about, isn't it?
But let us consider for a moment the true goal of salvation, the inheritance of the righteous. It has nothing to do with moving from earth to Heaven. Our primary inheritance is to be changed into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ, both internally, and then, at his coming, in outward form.
Equally important is that we be at rest in the center of God's Person and will. When these two objectives have been fulfilled, then the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit will make us Their eternal dwelling place.
Canaan, the land of promise, is akin in meaning to the spiritual fulfillment of the Jewish feast of Tabernacles. Canaan speaks of the coming of the Father and the Son to make us Their home. Once we have been saved and filled with God's Spirit, we then are to press forward into the spiritual fulfillment of the feast of Tabernacles.
Jesus answered and said to him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him." (John 14:23—NASB)
Included in our inheritance are those whom God has given us to care for, and then the farthest reaches of the earth.
Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession. (Psalms 2:8)
You easily can verify these aspects of our goal, our inheritance, by examining the Scriptures.
Is there a Heaven where God, Christ, the saints, and holy angels are? Of course. But it is not our home, except during the period before Christ sets up his Kingdom on the earth. Eventually the spirit and physical worlds shall become one new world of righteous behavior.
I stress "behavior" because for so long we have been accustomed to believe that the only righteousness we ever can know is that which is ascribed to us by "grace." We always will be miserable sinners, it is supposed. The truth is, Christ desires to make us a new creation of righteous behavior.
He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. (I John 3:8)
The Kingdom of God does not consist of miserable sinners who are righteous only by ascribed righteousness but victorious saints who are in the image of the Lord.
Now let us think for a moment about the practical outworking of what I am teaching. The practical aspect is that we do not enter our land of promise by dying and entering the spirit world. We enter our land of promise now, today, by following the Lord Jesus as He guides us through his Spirit.
The Book of Hebrews refers to our Canaan, our land of promise, as God's "rest."
God's rest is our state of being when we are abiding in the center of God's Person and will. Obviously, there is a great difference between waiting to die so we can go to Heaven, and pressing each day into God and his will.
Can you see why I said at the beginning that the concept of our goal being to go to Heaven when we die is not only unscriptural, it is a major hindrance to most believers? It puts them in a waiting mode rather than pressing forward, as did the Apostle Paul, into that which God has appointed for them.
The subject of this briefest of essays may be found in the third and fourth chapters of the Book of Hebrews.
The Jewish believers being addressed in the Book of Hebrews were seasoned Christians, having been saved through faith in the blood atonement, filled with the Spirit of God, and had survived persecution and also had tasted the powers of the coming age. They were more spiritually advanced in the things of Christ than is true of most of today's Christians, it appears.
We would expect the writer of Hebrews to congratulate them on their religious accomplishments, comfort them with the assurance of salvation, and point them toward their mansions in Heaven as their reward when they died.
Instead the Book of Hebrews is largely a rebuke, an exhortation to them to enter further into God, that is, into God's Person and will for them.
Notice in the third chapter of Hebrews how the writer compares our salvation with the journey of Israel from Egypt to Canaan. I would suppose most of us recognize that Israel coming out of Egypt is a type of our being saved by repenting of our life in the world, and being baptized to show we now are dead to the world and alive in the resurrection of Christ.
Perhaps a smaller number of us view the time spent in the wilderness of wandering as symbolic of the rigors of our discipleship. I think some reject this symbolism because it does not fit their understanding of Divine grace. However, it is clear that the writer of Hebrews accepts the wilderness wandering as a portrayal of the many dangers and sufferings of our pilgrimage.
But then the writer warns his audience that they were in danger of not inheriting the land of promise, just as the Israelites, except for two people, did not at first enter the land of milk and honey. It is obvious the writer believes that it is possible for a Christian to "die in the wilderness" and not attain to the goal set before him.
And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed? So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief. (Hebrews 3:18,19—NIV)
Notice how unbelief results in disobedience.
The "believers" of today often do not seek to lay hold on that for which God has grasped them! They do not believe there is a work of redemption that will bring them further into Christ than they have as yet experienced.
The writer exhorts us to "make every effort to enter that rest," that is, into the state of being where we are resting in God's Person and will.
In some instances, the Israelites did not "make every effort" to enter their inheritance. God told them to show no mercy but to destroy utterly the enemy that was living in their land of promise.
You shall consume all the peoples whom the LORD your God will deliver to you; your eye shall not pity them, nor shall you serve their gods, for that would be a snare to you. (Deuteronomy 7:16—NASB)
When we seek to enter into the state of being where we are resting in God's Person and will, we are resisted by the forces of Satan, whether dwelling in our flesh or in the atmosphere around us. It is up to us to show these spirits no mercy but to ruthlessly drive them out by the authority and power of Christ.
Moreover, the LORD your God will send the hornet against them, until those who are left and hide themselves from you perish. (Deuteronomy 7:20—NASB)
The unclean spirits may go into hiding, or attempt to persuade you that they are harmless, or "everyone is doing it," or "God wants you to be happy," or they are not dwelling in you any longer. This is why in order to enter the rest of God you have to meditate in the Scriptures, pray continually, and gather together on a regular basis with fervent believers.
If some of these efforts are not possible, you might ask God to make them possible. You have to be diligent if you are to be successful in driving the enemy from your "land." It certainly helps to be part of a company of saints who are pressing forward in Christ.
In many instances the Israelites settled down and did not make the supreme effort to obey God by utterly destroying the enemy. They are suffering to the present hour for this lack of diligence.
But the sons of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem; so the Jebusites have lived with the sons of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day. (Judges 1:21—NASB)
But Manasseh did not take possession of Beth-shean and its villages, or Taanach and its villages, or the inhabitants of Dor and its villages, or the inhabitants of Ibleam and its villages, or the inhabitants of Megiddo and its villages; so the Canaanites persisted in living in that land. (Judges 1:27—NASB)
It came about when Israel became strong, that they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but they did not drive them out completely. (Judges 1:28—NASB)
"And you shall not make a covenant with the people of this land, but you shall break down their altars.' Yet you have disobeyed me. Why have you done this? And I have also said, 'I will not drive them out before you; they will become traps for you, and their gods will become snares to you.'" (Judges 2:2,3—NIV)
God in His Word has given his Church numerous promises, including total victory over the enemy—more than conquerors. "Nothing shall by any means harm you," the Lord Jesus promised. But we have chosen instead to flee to Heaven. We also have created a doctrine of "grace" that permits the enemy to live with us in peace.
As God has declared, these spirits and gods we have accepted have become snares to us. The result is, our country, America, is overrun with sexual lust. It is in danger of being weakened until it no longer is a leading nation of the world.
So the issue is, what does Canaan represent? If we think of Canaan as representing going to Heaven when we die, then the idea of making every effort to enter God's rest does not make sense. Either we, as Paul, are pressing with all diligence that we may grasp that for which we have been grasped, or we are waiting to die until we go to Heaven.
It easily can be seen that we are facing a major problem in Christian thinking. Either we are to be "saved," filled with the Spirit, and then wait to die to enter our land of promise; or we are to be entering it today as we follow the Spirit of God in all of our thinking, speaking, and doing.
How often the Christian salvation is viewed as being a waiting to go to Heaven where (we think) our problems will be solved! Our dangers and afflictions are thought of as being random attacks of Satan.
Thus when we die we are unprepared for what we will face in the spirit world.
Would we be more able to march in victory, ready to walk with Jesus when we die, if we perceived our daily battles as part of the process in which we move toward our goal, the rest of God?
There are different ways of coping with our tribulations. We can become angry with God, or feel sorry for ourselves, or blame people. God is not pleased with these responses. The correct manner in which to respond to problems is to keep seeking Jesus for understanding and deliverance. In this manner we grow in God's Person and will, entering our land of promise.
One primary characteristic of Canaan is that it was filled with enemies who had lived there for hundreds of years. God told Abraham he could not possess the land until the sin of the Amorites had matured. So it is today, isn't it, that sin is coming to maturity? Consequently God is ready to give us the land; but we have to take it by fighting the enemy that dwells in us and with us.
There are three major enemies that prevent our dwelling contentedly in the Person of Christ and his will for us. The first enemy is our looking to the world for our survival and security. The second enemy is the sinful forces that dwell in our flesh. The third enemy is our self-will, our determination to live our life the way we want instead of looking to Jesus for every decision we make.
If we are to enter God's rest, our Canaan, we have to be ruthless. There is to be no compromise with the spiritual darkness that has lived in and around us throughout our lifetime.
First, we must refuse to be involved in the world spirit any more than is necessary. This world is not our home. The earth is where we were created, but the spirit of the world is Antichrist, and we can never find peace in the earth except as we follow Jesus carefully.
Second, as the Spirit of God points out to us the sins we are committing, we are to confess them specifically; denounce them as evil; renounce them with all our might; and turn to Christ for forgiveness and cleansing.
Third, we must remain in the prison in which Christ permits Satan to place us. We cannot have what we intensely desire. We are forced to remain in situations that are unpleasant. This crucifixion may persist for many years. Therefore we have to place our treasures in Heaven. We will receive them back some day if we remain faithful.
It is in God's prisons that the self-will is burned out of us. We have to suffer just as the Apostle Paul had to suffer; just as Christ Himself had to suffer. We have to be made weak until we are living by the wisdom and strength of Christ rather than by our own wisdom and strength.
Until these three areas of spiritual darkness are overcome, the world, the temptations of Satan, and self-will, we cannot possibly find eternal rest in God's Person and will.
So today we have been brought to the Jordan. The Jordan River symbolizes death to our self-determination. We have left Egypt, the world. We have received the Law of the Spirit, symbolized by Mount Sinai. And now we are at the Jordan. We must be circumcised in our heart. The daily manna is about to cease and we will be given to eat of the grain grown in the land of Canaan, that is, of Christ who is being formed in us.
Who among us is willing to take up his or her cross and follow the Master into Canaan, into the rest of God? It will cost us everything. But not to do so will result in eternal loss that may be irreparable. We may never again have the chance to follow our heavenly Joshua into the fullness of our assigned inheritance.
"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go." (Joshua 1:9—NASB)