Righteousness; Faith; Obedience
Righteousness; Faith; Obedience
Introduction
Righteousness: the Stone Tablets of the Testimony
Faith: the Gold Jar of Manna
Obedience: Aaron's Staff That Budded
GOD DID NOT CREATE US TO DIE AND GO TO HEAVEN TO LIVE FOREVER BUT TO BE IN HIS IMAGE, AND TO SERVE AS HIS HOUSE, RESTING PLACE, AND THRONE. THE SPIRIT WORLD IS NOT OUR ETERNAL HOME.
Introduction
Arise, Lord, and come to your resting place, you and the ark of your might. (Psalms 132:8)
I am aware that perceiving our salvation as being for God's benefit, something God needs and desires, rather than a program to bring us to Paradise to live forever, is a paradigm shift in our thinking.
It may be true that those believers who have died and are living in the spirit world are facing the same perplexity in their understanding.
One problem all of us believers will have, whether we are hearing about this shift while we are abiding in the spirit world or still on the earth, is that of being willing to lose our own life that God and Christ may have Their unhindered way in us. This is our ultimate goal!
The saints in the spirit world are watching us carefully to see what is taking place, because they without us cannot be made perfect. Those who are living by the Life of Christ, whether in the spirit world or on the earth, will all be given their new bodies at the same time, and be caught up to meet the Lord Jesus in the air.
From their staging area in the air they will descend to the earth and command God's will to be done.
And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. (Hebrews 11:39,40)
Should not be made perfect. The witnesses of the eleventh chapter of the Book of Hebrews are residing in Heaven, we assume. How then could it be that they had not as yet received the promise? How could it be that God has provided a better thing for us? Better than residence in Heaven?
Should not be made perfect without us! The heavenly Zion is an area inhabited by people who have been made perfect. They have been made perfect along with us, as we all have marched along in the program of redemption. But there remains the donning of the immortal body.
To the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect. (Hebrews 12:23)
Are we going to get together some day with these witnesses and be caught up to meet Jesus in the air, in the area that had been the throne of the "ruler of the kingdom of the air"?
In which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. (Ephesians 2:2)
They without us should not be made perfect. Perhaps the meaning is that when Jesus appears He will give resurrection bodies to those who return with Him, and also at the same time to those living on the earth who have learned to live by the Life of Christ.
This would mean that those who return with the Lord also have learned to live by the Life of Christ. All of us then are made perfect together and are caught up to meet the Lord in the air, ready to descend with Him and establish the will of God, the Kingdom of God, on the earth.
It seems to me it is not generally understood that the members of Christ's Body who are in the spirit world are participating in the program of redemption along with us who are alive on the earth. But in order for those in the spirit world to come to perfection together with us they certainly must be learning and growing while in the spirit world.
The following verse suggests that such may be the case:
For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to human standards in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit. (I Peter 4:6)
I realize that Peter may be referring to previous verses in which He spoke of Jesus bringing the Good News to those in the spirit world who had died at the time of the flood of Noah. It is likely that Christ's purpose in doing so was to give those persons of long ago a chance to repent of their sins.
It would be like God to do that, after having wiped out all of mankind except for eight people, wouldn't it? God brings the Gospel to the disobedient as well as to the obedient. God does care for people!
If it is true that those wicked people were given a chance to believe the Gospel after they died, then such a thing is possible. Assuredly Abraham and the other patriarchs that we know are in the Kingdom of God must have been born again and entered the Kingdom after their death, since it was not possible for anyone to be born again until after the resurrection of the Lord.
(Please keep in mind that I am not teaching we can reject Christ in this world and receive Him in the next. This most assuredly is not the case. I am referring only to those who never have been confronted with Christ.)
To be born again is to have Christ born in us. This was not possible until the Word was made flesh, crucified for our sins, and then raised again.
If the entire Bride of the Lamb is to be without spot and blameless, then it certainly is necessary that most of the members grow into this perfection while in the spirit world. Otherwise there will be only a few believers in the unblemished Bride!
We have to "die" to our own motivations and plans, and that is a conscious choice we are obliged to make if we are to proceed to perfection, to the "Omega" of redemption. No doubt this is true whether we are alive in the spirit world or alive and living on the earth. How could it be otherwise?
Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. (John 12:24)
Then I heard a voice from heaven say, "Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on." "Yes," says the Spirit, "they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them." (Revelation 14:1`3)
There will be some who will "hear" what the Spirit is saying today, and will set aside their own ways that Christ and the Father may live in them.
There probably will be others who will prefer not to be disturbed and will continue on in the old ways, waiting to go to Heaven where they may "sing and shout and dance about."
The idea that we have not been saved to live in Heaven forever but to be a house for God, Christ, and the Spirit of God, may be as great a shift in thinking as was true when someone came up with the notion that the earth is a sphere rather than a tableland; or that the earth revolves around the sun rather than itself being the center of the universe.
Think of how widespread is the historical and present view of salvation being that of dying and going to Heaven! It is awesome! Most people around the world have believed and yet believe there is some kind of "happy hunting ground" where we go after we die, unless we have been wicked.
The idea that we are undergoing the processes of redemption right now, today, is not emphasized as widely.
Well, those who love the Lord will press forward into the "rest" of God. Jesus has kept the best wine until now. He loves those who, when they know what God has promised, are ready and eager to grasp what God is holding out to them.
It does require courage to push past the familiar, the rank and file, and strive for God's highest and best. But most situations in life that are of the highest value require that we make an extraordinary effort to attain to them. Can you say, "Amen"?
The reason God created us is that we might be a house for Him, a place of rest for Him, and a throne for Him that He might through us live among His creatures and govern, bless, teach, and heal them, and supply all their needs.
These are needs and desires God has, and only mankind can supply them.
To be saved has nothing to do with making our home in Heaven. It is rather to be qualified to participate in the program of redemption that will enable us to meet God's needs and desires.
In order to meet God's needs and desires the program of redemption must conform us to God's moral image; must teach us to look to God alone for our needs and desires; and must encourage us to obey God promptly, wholeheartedly, and joyously.
The new Jerusalem, the Zion that will come from Heaven to the new earth, is the Body of Christ, the Wife of the Lamb, the eternal Tabernacle of God. It will be placed among those of mankind who have been chosen from the nations of the earth to be citizens of the new world of righteousness that will be established on the new earth.
The myth that to be saved is to die and go to the spirit Heaven and live in a mansion in Paradise appears to have endured throughout the Christian Era. It indeed is mythologic but has served God's purposes until the Kingdom of God is at hand.
Remember, the Lord Jesus, John the Baptist, and the Apostles of the Lamb preached the coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth. If I am correct, they never mentioned the saved believers going to Heaven, only the Kingdom that is coming to us from Heaven. Is that actually true?
Our Lord Jesus spoke several parables about the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom that is coming from Heaven. But the Lord never, to my knowledge, spoke of Heaven as a kingdom to which we go when we die.
Rather, Jesus referred of the Kingdom as a Seed which is planted in us. In actuality, Jesus Himself is the Kingdom. When Jesus is born in us, then that is the Kingdom of God being born in us. How do you feel about that?
We of today are in the closing days of the Church Age. Now we may have a clearer understanding of what the Christian redemption is all about. The new (although it is not new) vision is superior to that of us in our old adamic nature reclining in a mansion in the spirit world and doing nothing of significance for eternity.
It is time today for each of us to press into Jesus so we may participate in the wondrous experiences that are available to us now. Should we die before the Lord Jesus returns to earth, we will join the multitudes in the spirit world who are waiting for the Kingdom to come to the earth.
They without us cannot be made perfect; but with us they indeed shall be made perfect, meaning they will come to maturity in righteous behavior, dependence on Christ for all of their needs and desires, and stern obedience to God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Then they, along with us, shall receive the transformation of their body.
About forty years ago, when I was teaching in the Walter Hays elementary school in Palo Alto, I began my writing with three books: The Temple of God; The Feasts of the Lord; and The Land of Promise. The Land of Promise points out that eternal residence in Heaven is not our goal.
Actually, I wrote the first draft of The Temple of God in 1948, while I was in Bible school.
I do not remember how or when it happened, but I began to realize that our land of promise, our Canaan, is not Heaven. We are not saved so that after we die we can go to Heaven and live there for eternity, doing nothing of significance.
I have been given to understand that the editor of the Thompson Chain-Link Bible also came to the conclusion that Canaan, the land of promise, is not a type of Heaven.
As I found passage after passage in the Scriptures that describe how our destiny is to be in God's image and at rest in Him, and not one verse that suggested we are to spend eternity in Heaven above, I thought I had better write down what I am discovering.
The concept that we are waiting to die so we can go to Heaven affects dramatically the vigor with which we pursue our discipleship.
"Going to Heaven" is part of the idea behind the "lawless grace" doctrine, and also that of the believers being carried to Heaven before the scriptural coming of the Lord. If eternal residence in Heaven is not our goal, then these two unscriptural traditions lose their strength.
If you can imagine, one Christian pastor is teaching that we should keep on sinning, because then God will shorten our life and we will get to Heaven that much sooner. I am afraid some of our churches in America are in trouble!
It is evident that the patriarchs were looking for a city to come, not a city to which we go.
Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. (Hebrews 13:13,14)
When the writer of the Book of Hebrews warns us to enter the rest of God, which is our goal, it is obvious he is not referring to Heaven but to a state of being in which we cease from our own works and live according to God's will.
Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that none of you be found to have fallen short of it. (Hebrews 4:4)
The idea that being saved means we are to be waiting to die and go to Heaven has a chilling effect on the desire of the disciple to grow to maturity in Christ. We are wasting our time while we are waiting to die and go to Heaven, when the work of redemption is taking place now. Now, today, is the Day of Salvation!
It seems clear to me from the Scriptures that our goal is to be in the image of God, and to be a house and throne of God in which He can find rest. This has been God's plan from the beginning. Heaven, the spirit world, is nothing more than a place in which people are retained until the Kingdom of God comes to the present earth; finally to the new earth.
In fact, where God is, is Heaven to me. How about you?
It appears evident that if God is to make us His house, His place of rest, and His throne, we must be brought to maturity in righteous behavior; in faith that God Himself will provide our needs and desires; and in total, uncompromising obedient to God through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Then God said, "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26,27)
You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of your inheritance— the place, Lord, you made for your dwelling, the sanctuary, Lord, your hands established. (Exodus 15:17)
"The place, Lord, you made for your dwelling." Look how early in the history of man the above statement about seeking a dwelling for Himself was made!
"Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them." (Exodus 25:8)
This is what the Lord says: "Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house you will build for me? Where will my resting place be?" (Isaiah 66:1)The same need was expressed at the birth of the Christian Church.
Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me? says the Lord. Or where will my resting place be? (Acts 7:49)
My Father's house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? (John 14:2)
Jesus replied, "Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them." (John 14:23)
The Lord Jesus is the Father's House. You and I are the rooms.
But there is a place where someone has testified: "What is mankind that you are mindful of them, a son of man that you care for him? You made them a little lower than the angels; you crowned them with glory and honor and put everything under their feet." In putting everything under them, God left nothing that is not subject to them. Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them. (Hebrews 2:6-8)
Does that sound like a throne to you?
To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Father on his throne. (Revelation 3:21)
And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit. (Ephesians 2:22)
And not a word about making Heaven our eternal home!
I have found the three items placed in the Ark of the Covenant to be helpful in understanding the transformation in righteousness, faith, and obedience that are necessary if we are to become the eternal dwelling place of God.
Which had the golden altar of incense and the gold-covered ark of the covenant. This ark contained the gold jar of manna, Aaron's staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant. (Hebrews 9:4)
The Jar of Manna. Aaron's Staff. The Ten Commandments.
Next Part Faith. Obedience. God's moral image