Tag: faith

Encountering Jesus in Heaven

Sometimes I am very jealous of the original disciples. They got to see what I only read about. The probably saw more than what is recorded. Their relationship with Jesus was much more tangible than mine. But Jesus said right before He ascended, “Behold, I am with you always to the very end of the age.” That message was clearly not just for them. It was for us too. Jesus is with us. He is not aloofly sitting on a throne in Heaven. His presence is just different. I am connected to Him via the Mystical Union (see https://givingchrist.com/2024/09/17/the-mystical-union-lords-supper-and-john-6/), Jesus knows all about me and my situation, He works through me and more. But I still want to see and hear Him directly.

That need will no doubt be fulfilled in Heaven. What do we know about it? Will it be like seeing a celebrity from two blocks away? Here is our text to consider:

“Therefore they are before the throne of God,
    and serve him day and night in his temple;
    and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.
16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore;
    the sun shall not strike them,
    nor any scorching heat.
17 For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,
    and he will guide them to springs of living water,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Revelation 7:15-17 (ESV)

How will we be “shepherded”? En Masse? Individually? Is this just a metaphor? Jesus is still the Son of God incarnate in human, resurrected flesh. I would project that this means He can have a visible, tangible, recognizable presence and have it in multiple place and multiple ways all at once. Will you get some personal face time with Jesus? I think so. Will you stand before Him as a group of other redeemed people? I’m sure of it.

As you progress in your prayer life now, it is possible to develop a real sense of knowing Jesus personally without ever engaging your senses. That knowing will continue seamlessly into Heaven and beyond to the New Earth. Jesus is our Lord, but He is also our personal friend, and that will continue in a greater way.

What does “He will guide them to streams of living water” mean? The passage is painting a metaphor of what you do when you shepherd sheep. Still, the term living water describes the Holy Spirit. The refreshment and joy of experiencing the Spirit is something that outstrips our experience. We may have to wait to understand this. But understand this much, it will be great.

Finally, “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” There will be no cause for additional discomfort or grief after death. Will we carry any PTSD or even painful memory from our life here? I would infer from the conversation of the martyrs in Revelation 6:10-11 that we will have some awareness of what is happening still on Earth, but the comfort of Heaven will push the sorrow, anger, or trauma out. God will take care of business here. We will continue in prayer, then direct conversation, at the most.

Embracing Your Continuous Existence

The author reflects on existence, beginning with personal memories and the concept of eternal life. They emphasize that, while physically dying is inevitable, individuals continue to exist. The blog urges readers to develop a perspective beyond death, fostering certainty about salvation and understanding their eternal nature amidst life’s challenges and aging.

If it were based on my memory (and it shouldn’t be), I didn’t begin to exist until 1967 when I magically appeared in kindergarten. I have some memories of pre-school years, but I think they are false memories created more by pictures than direct memory. I fully trust those who swear I was born in April of 1962, as much as I would like to deny it. I also trust both Scripture and science that tells me I began to exist 9 months before that. Before the date of my conception no element of me existed anywhere, unless you count the foreknowledge of God.

I have now been a pastor for 33+ years. I have done many, many funerals. Of the deceased that I could still see, they all looked pretty finished. It could be easily construed that the person that I knew was now non-existent. But Scripture, an internal sense that I am more than an animated body, and even the Near-Death Experiences (NDE) of others tell me that we are now eternal. You can and need to physically die, but you will continue to exist in another body in another place (Heaven or Sheol). That is what this blog has mainly been about since 2016.

In this article I would like you to think about two aspects of your existence: the beginning and the approach to your physical death.

We don’t have a lot of information about our beginning. Science tells us that when we were a fertilized egg that we already had a unique, human genetic structure. The Bible tells us that our genetics were not like the information God created in us. They were altered by what is known as our sinful nature. As a corrupted being we were already disqualified from eternal life with God. We were sinful not potentially sinful. (Psalm 51:5)

Did we have a spirit at that time? The Bible doesn’t inform us, but it seems like a fair inference that the advent of the body is accompanied by the advent of the spirit. Technically the term “soul” refers to the interaction of spirit and body. See more here:https://afterdeathsite.com/2024/03/26/your-body-soul-and-spirit/ If that is the case, many complete and eternal humans never live independently on this fallen Earth. They die naturally or are aborted before birth. We know nothing for certain about their fate, other than they continue to exist. We would like to think that God saves them all, but with the fact that we are sinful from conception, I can’t definitively say that.

At that time, we were so fragile and yet indestructible. We began to exist and will continue to exist. I have a second cousin who had an epileptic seizure while driving a big rig. He arrived at the ER DOA (Dead on arrival), or so the story goes. Doctors revived him, but he had an NDE. In his experience he met a person who identified himself as his “brother”. His impression was this meant his physical brother, but he knew of no brother that was deceased. When he told this story to his mom, she confirmed that she gave birth to a stillborn male child. They exist.

This is the real issue with abortion. A woman with an unplanned pregnancy has much on the line. Her rights to her own body and healthcare are only second to one thing: the right to live of another person. I guess it wouldn’t be that much of an issue if we could know that all unborn deaths resulted in a free pass to Heaven. Sinful Earth is highly overrated. But as a society we can’t even agree to what we are: just a smart animal, a being with a spirit that reincarnates, an eternal being or something else. Government should defend the life of all humans. That is how it is involved.

The weight of evidence is behind the idea that we are eternal beings. That said, we struggle to embrace this fact fully. It remains surreal because of our weak faith in God’s word and our dependence on experience to determine reality. Without an NDE, death seems like an impenetrable dark wall. We don’t even imagine beyond it. God exhorts us to think beyond death.

18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:18 (ESV)

The goal of this blog is to help you do this.

As you daily move closer to your physical death, even when you are young, you need to develop a horizon of thought that goes beyond your death. It is very possible to be certain of your salvation because it is based on Jesus’ work and God’s grace to you. It is possible to move toward death with such certainty of what comes next that you are not afraid and even eager. This does not discount that value of your current life. Rather it clarifies it. You are here to complete God’s plan for you. (Ephesians 2:10)

With clarity about your eternal nature, you can even cope with aging and illness well. Illness is a part of the curse for all–including Christians. Our bodies need to eventually break down to the point that we can separate from them. We will have a Heavenly body (2 Corinthians 5:1) and eventually also a massively upgraded Earthly body (1 Corinthians 15:50-54). Aging stinks. I hate it. Falling ill is worse. But I don’t want to be stuck here permanently. I am willing to stick out the whole 120-year maximum lifespan if it means fruitful work for the Kingdom of God for me. That said, you don’t have to cling to life like it is all there is. You are eternal.

A Hard Proportion to Accept

I trust the Bible. That is different than saying that I like or want everything that it tells me. Life is predictably like that. It is often not the way I want. Specifically, the Bible shares that the proportion of humanity that will be saved will be small. This is especially tragic and confusing when you consider that the sacrifice that Jesus made for us is big enough to forgive any sin but one–blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

When some people hear of this, they reject the idea, the Bible, and even God. “I am not going to believe in a god who would send people to Hell.” They act as if their rejection of a painful fact will make it go away. It won’t. Denial is not a good coping skill in this case (or in most cases).

What does the Bible say on this? This verse was just in our Sunday morning readings:

3 Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply.

Jeremiah 23:3 (ESV)

The word “remnant” is not encouraging. It is better than nothing, but it suggests a small portion of the whole. Here it applies to the Jewish nation, but the idea of only a small fraction being saved spreads across all of humanity. My least favorite verse in the Bible is this:

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

Matthew 7:13-14 (ESV)

That is Jesus speaking, too. How can this be right? God is love. God is all powerful. God wants all people to be saved. All of this is true. But the poison of sin is in every human being from conception (Psalm 51:5). The solution to sin is a “narrow” list of one choice: Jesus.

6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

John 14:6 (ESV)

The Bible tells us that people will not naturally accept the story or promise of Jesus without help from the Holy Spirit.

 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

1 Corinthians 2:14 (ESV)

Why can’t the Spirit get through to everyone? I don’t know. It doesn’t really say. I would guess that to do so would require the Spirit to violate the integrity of what makes us a human. It would just make us a robot. Maybe.

People who do believe and are saved have the burden to at least get the word of God’s plan and offer out there to everyone. I don’t think our failure to reach some people groups throughout history will necessarily preclude them. I base this hope on 1 Peter 4:6

For this is why the Gospel is preached to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.

1 Peter 4:6(ESV)

But it not hard to see how the list of potential people inheriting eternal life gets whittled down very fast. All are sinful and damned, many reject Jesus as their Savior from the get-go, others fall away for multiple reasons. Soon you have a remnant or few.

How few is “few”? Percentage wise it is hard to guess. I would love for the answer to be 99% is few compared to the potential of 100%. I would even rejoice in 49.9% is few compared to 50.1%. I fear and even expect that it is less. Still the “few” are a great number of people.

9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10 and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

Revelation 7:9-10 (ESV)

Not believing the Bible on this topic or any other should not be on the basis of not liking its contents or on feelings. It should be on the merits of how the text was preserved down through history, the reliability of the eyewitnesses of Jesus, and of Jesus himself. There is plenty of reason to believe it.

Here is a starting point to investigate the integrity of the Bible from my other blog Givingchrist.com.https://givingchrist.com/2022/02/01/can-you-trust-the-accuracy-of-the-bible/ After reading this you can find more by scrolling to the bottom and searching “Bible” or other key words.

You can use the search function here to find other related topics. It is a big deal. I hope that you are one of the “few”.

Looking At the Unseen

The passage in 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 urges believers to focus on the unseen, eternal things rather than the transient world. Envisioning the afterlife may be flawed, but it encourages hope and motivation as disciples. Descriptions in scripture hint at a bodily, immersive experience in heaven, free from physical and emotional pain, surrounded by beauty, love, and pure joy, all made possible through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice.

For the next two blog entries I would like to ponder with you the meaning of 2 Corinthians 4:17-18, which reads:

17 For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, 18 as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:17-18 (ESV)

How does one “look to things that are unseen”? It seems like an oxymoron. Our gift of vision is a limited function. It works only for objects that reflect or emit a narrow band of the electromagnetic spectrum that we call visible light. These objects also have to be big enough. Vision is a nice feature, but I need equipment to “see” many other objects, and even night-vision goggles and microscopes have their limits.

Paul is talking about looking to Heaven and the New Earth. Heaven, I expect, is extra-dimensional to this universe. As large as the universe is, I don’t expect Heaven to be hiding within it or just beyond our observational horizon. The New Earth is future. Neither suit our vision, but that doesn’t make them unreal. It might make them feel surreal, but that is our problem. That said, how do you “look to them”?

Perhaps it is enough to say, “I have a promise and a partial description given by inspiration from God”. “I look forward to that.” In that case “looking” is trusting. Would it be wrong if “looking” meant “envisioning”? Envisioning will necessarily be an exercise fraught with error. For,

9 But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
    nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—

1 Corinthians 2:9 (ESV)

Paul quotes Isaiah and both men had out-of-body experiences of Heaven. It is their way of saying, “What I saw would blow your mind”. Our envisioning of Heaven would no doubt fall short of the reality of it because our experience is limited to this fallen world. Still, Heaven and especially the New Earth do not sound like they are completely different from God’s creation here. Envisioning, though inaccurate, may be just the type of encouragement to keep us forward looking and motivated as disciples of Jesus.

So what could we envision? I would like to start with my heavenly body. The point is that our experience in Heaven is a bodily experience versus merely a dream or like a ghost is stated in the verse after text above.

5 For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

2 Corinthians 5:1 (ESV)

The “tent” is your body here. The “house” is your body in Heaven, not a building in which you will dwell.

What is it like? I envision the same basic body plan. I have no pain. I still sleep, but my sleep is the most refreshing and wonderful thing. I feel strong. I am happy and excited about what each day will bring. I feel beautiful and complex. My senses are sharp and more than the five I have here. I sense love and feel it for every fellow creature around me.

The people and the angels around me are stunningly beautiful. I have an immediate bond with each one of them. I know their names instinctively. I recognize people I know from my life on Earth. They are more valuable to me and more pleasing to me than ever. Any sin between us is long forgiven.

I move in many ways. I can walk, run, swim, fly or just think my way to places far away. Heaven is vast. It is no smaller than the Universe I came from, but I am not limited to one planet. I feel at home anywhere, but I have a community I return to.

I can communicate with words or directly to the mind. I encounter people from different eras of time. None are like strangers to me. Some were part of my family tree. Language is not a barrier. We speak one language.

God is with me either visibly or fully in my mind all the time. He speaks to me. We spend time together one-on-one, for He is able to do this with everyone at the same time. We also gather in groups with God. Worship is not a struggle. It is spontaneous and is a highlight of our experience, but we do many things.

Music, celebration, eating and drinking, playing, learning, exploring, serving, bonding and much more is part of my experience. In Heaven, we are not reproductive, but we can feel a bond with each similar to the hormonal bond felt on Earth through sex. We are always safe, disease-free, sorrow-free.

We do not watch the events of the Earth because our experience in Heaven is immersive. Yet, we are aware of certain people who are still on their earthly pilgrimage. God speaks to us about them. We are eager for Judgment Day, primarily to end evil in all of God’s “inhabited” creation. Hell is “forsaken”. We are also mindful of being even further clothed. The day when we receive the universe of Earth and a resurrected body.

I am sure with a little creativity you can make this more detailed. Use the limited description given within Scripture as your guardrails, so that you do not envision something perversely incorrect. But enjoy the ride. Heaven is not wishful thinking, or boring, or tainted like this world.

By grace, because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, it can be and will be yours.

Does Life After Death Have Proof?

The only undeniable proof of life after death is experiencing it. Belief in God and the Bible’s promises is crucial. Jesus’ miracles and resurrection offer insight into the afterlife. Near Death Experiences (NDEs) provide further evidence. Denying the existence of an afterlife due to lack of proof is self-deception and disregards the love of the Creator.

In the end, the only thing that will constitute seamless proof of life after death proof is experiencing it yourself. Once that happens, you had better hope that it is positive life after death because there probably isn’t a way to change course. Promises made in the Bible, experiences documented in the Bible, and more recent Near Death Experiences constitute the proof that you can have. God has put a premium on having faith. In this instance faith means, confidence that He exists (see my last blog entry), confidence that what the Bible records about Jesus actually happened, and confidence that God can and will deliver on His promises. Faith is confidence in something you cannot see.

What is your default belief about life after death and why? Some think it to be more intelligent and educated to only believe something they can experience first. To me that seems like a dangerous position, and I doubt that you follow it consistently. Must you see germs to believe in their existence? I think not. Must you die to believe it will happen to you? We need the experiences of others and sometimes revelation from God to fully understand what we are, what will happen to us, and what (if anything) exists beyond death.

Jesus demonstrated that He was not just an ordinary being. He did it through miracles and even bringing back people from the dead. People saw these things and were profoundly changed. Jesus gave a couple of pieces of insight into life after death to be noted here.

13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man

John 3:13 (ESV)

You may suspicious of someone who claims sole authority over the topic of the existence of Heaven, but Jesus wasn’t just some crazy person without evidence of His claims. He also said,

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

John 14:1-3 (ESV)

His testimony is that there is eternal life with God after death. He states that if this life is all we get, He would have said so. Trust Him or not.

Then there is Jesus’ own experience. To win a favorable outcome for us after death, Jesus had to fulfill some legal requirements. We are sinners. To deserve a place in Heaven on our own merits we would have to be sinless. The Bible’s testimony is that the default outcome for a human being upon death is bad–very bad. Jesus’ came so that there would be one route to something much better. To fulfill the “legal requirements” Jesus had to be human, live a sinless life, and pay for an already accumulated sentence on human sin. That included experiencing being damned while hanging on a cross and a physical death. His death was guaranteed and certified by professional executioners and was more than obvious to observers. Yet in three days He rose from the dead and was observed by over 500 people.

If that is not enough, then you must deal with the experiences of now thousands of people who have been clinically dead, experienced an out-of-body experience and then were revived. Recent studies have shown that our brain has a storm of activity right before it has none. It is tempting to attribute NDE’s to that storm and claim that they are just an illusion created by that storm. I would advance a different theory. That the “storm” is our soul separating from our brain. Not unlike the arcing seen when slowly pulling out an electrical plug. The storm is not the creator of the out-of-body experience.

Near Death Experiences include both Heaven and Sheolhttps://afterdeathsite.com/2021/08/17/examining-near-death-experiences/ , https://afterdeathsite.com/2023/11/14/how-is-sheol-different-than-hell/

Remaining confident that death is the end because there is no “proof” is a form of self-deception in my opinion. If someone doesn’t want God to exist, doesn’t want dependency on Jesus, doesn’t want judgment on sin, doesn’t want to change their worldview, they can tell themselves that proof for eternal life is not ironclad. They can also ignore the giant holes in the proof of their worldview. That will be throwing away the love of their Creator and a tremendous existence.

But Is There Proof?

The author has been blogging about the Bible’s perspective on life after death since 2016. Addressing doubts about Christianity, they argue that evidence from creation, the universe’s structure, and historical interactions supports the existence of God. They reference personal experiences and invite readers to explore related articles. Proof of life after death will be discussed in the next entry.

I have been blogging on the After Death Site every other week since 2016. It is fair to say that I am running out of topics. I have limited this blog to talking about what the Bible says about “unseen things”. In other words, what the Bible says about existence after death.

While navigating to WordPress to write this article, I came across another blog about why some have abandoned their Christian faith in favor of atheism or agnosticism. One reason was the lack of proof.

Considering what we are talking about, I would say that there is a great deal of proof. While there is no religion or worldview has seamless proof for its narrative, least of all atheism, the proof for the Bible’s narrative is strong.

Let’s start with the existence of God. The first form of evidence is creation itself. Living things are extremely complicated yet intricately engineered. As we peer into a cell we find a nano-factories performing advanced functions based on coded information wound into DNA. Claiming that this can be created by chance chemical interactions really lacks proof. It stretches credibility unless you are determined to explain away God. The vast assortment of life and its diversity also points to God. Nothing has shown that mutation can do this. Similar functions, like eco-location, can be found in disconnected parts of the theorized tree of life. The explanation of “convergent evolution” (the blind chance can find the same solution more than once) also stretches credibility. God is the best answer given the evidence that we have.

The same can be said for the structure of the universe. The laws of physics seem to be finely tuned for life to exist. Specifically, they seem tuned for life here. The explanation of our being a part of a multiverse where this universe came up lucky has got to be the most desperate and ridiculous idea I have ever heard. The universe is created and God did it is the best explanation.

Then there are the interactions. We can cast doubt on any reports of interaction with God that we didn’t experience. We still need to find a reasonable explanation. Big events like the Jewish exodus from Egypt seem too deep in history to prove or disprove. The life of Jesus is a different story. His miracles and resurrection recorded by eyewitnesses who lived at the time that Christianity burst into history certainly is proof of something. The explanations that claim all of this is an elaborate ruse makes no sense at all.

There are plenty of other more personal claims of interaction including my own. You can dismiss my claims as products of my imagination. In the end, it may not be proof for you, but I know better. I would not be a pastor without God’s clear lead. I hated the idea as a teen, yet here I am.

There is more that could be said. I would like to refer you over to my other blog:https://givingchrist.com/ I have multiple articles on that topic. As far as proof of life after death, I will tackle that in my next entry.

We Will Be Like Jesus

The passage from 1 John 3:2-3 describes the transformation believers will undergo in Heaven, becoming like Christ in love, joy, peace, and more. This transformation involves shedding selfishness, finding joy in everything, and experiencing complete peace and patience. Pursuing purification through self-examination, confession, and emulation of Jesus’ qualities brings fulfillment and prepares believers for their heavenly transformation.

I often think about what the experience of being in Heaven will be like. I’m not sure that I can wrap my mind around it. What I think less about is what I will be like in Heaven. Perhaps this need to change. John says:

2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

1 John 3:2-3 (ESV)

I don’t think this is a comment about Jesus’ body plan. The Son of God became human when He was conceived in Mary’s womb. There is no reason to conclude that He is not human still. Nor is this passage a statement that we will take on the transcendent qualities of the Triune God: omniscience (knowing everything), omnipotence (be able to do anything), and omnipresence (being everywhere). It is a statement that we will have a completed set of Christ-like characteristics, as in love, joy, peace, patience, and so forth; and that we will be free of our sinful nature and its characteristics.

What will that be like? Currently, we will have to deal with a degree of selfishness in ourselves. In Heaven and the New Earth, we will be absorbed in caring about the people around us. There will be no shortages or need to compete for resources, but we wouldn’t if there were. Other people will be the same and care about us.

We will find joy in everything rather than negativity. Now there are reasons for negativity because the world is damaged by the curse. Heaven will not be same. Nonetheless, we will be able to find joy in every aspect of God’s creation. If endless wonder sounds exhausting to you, or boring, it won’t be those limitations are a part of your current flesh.

How about complete peace? No worries. There will literally be nothing to worry about, but we also would not inclined to worry if there were. People pursue this kind of freedom through drugs or alcohol now. Only these things only mask problems and create more.

Patience. We can all use some more for this frustrating world. In Heaven patience will be abundant because of our character but the need for it non-existent.

Our Heavenly bodies will be perfected for a human body, but we will also be in a perfected environment. The experience is hard to comprehend. Still for those of us who are connected to Jesus through a mystical union which God creates through baptism, we not only have reason to be certain that this is our destiny, we also are eager for it to begin.

That is why John says that we “purify” ourselves as Jesus is pure. Our current status with respect to sin’s guilt and damages is a little complicated. With respect to God’s Law, we are already perfect. We are seen as having the perfection of Jesus. This results in our having eternal life.

For now, we still have sinful nature and live in a sinful environment so this will result in unacceptable behavior in thoughts, words, deeds, bad motivations, and failures to act in good ways. This is what can be limited. We seek to purify ourselves from these things now, even though we can’t eliminate our sinfulness (it is in our DNA).

What can be done? You start by knowing God’s Law and identifying what God shows you to be wrong. You don’t dismiss it or live in denial. You don’t rationalize why you did it. You confess it to God and ask for His forgiveness. Now technically, you are already forgiven and have been since your baptism. Confessing sins is primarily about containing the damage caused by our sinfulness and becoming more like what we will be at death. Self-examination and confession may not feel affirming, but we get our self-esteem from God’s love and the value He puts on us. Repentance and confession is about improvement.

We can do more. Studying the qualities of Jesus noted in Scripture, praying about them, and choosing to act appropriately does even more. Will stuff slip through? Yes. There is a “natural” limit of what can be achieved while still stuck with our sin altered bodies. But pressing toward what we will be is not only consistent with our hopes, it has its own rewards.

How should we act toward others as we pursue purification? You don’t want to fall off the other side of the log by becoming a self-righteous, holier-than-thou. Jesus liked those people the least. We can rebuke others as a sinner who is in the same situation, we can encourage, we can pronounce God’s forgiveness. These things are love rather than competition.

The pursuit of “purification” or sanctification (to be made holy) will make our transformation at death more satisfying. It will not “steal the thunder”. Sanctification is a good thing that we can start to enjoy right now.

Your Body, Soul and Spirit

A big question that affects both life and life after death is, “What are we?” You would think that we would know this answer before anything else, but this question is very deep.

Those with a materialistic world view would say that we are just a body. To be crasser about it, one famous evolutionist says that we are just “machines made out of meat.” We are just chemistry doing what chemistry does. This philosophy either makes you feel liberated to do whatever feels good or plunges you into the depth of despair because you are nothing. You have no purpose. You have no future.

The machine made from meat idea obviously doesn’t agree with Scripture. I would have to say that it does meet with experience either.

Another view is to see yourself as just your consciousness. That you are a spiritual being temporarily occupying a physical form. This worldview has the support of the fact that we will all die and our bodies will decay (unless we are alive at Jesus’ return). It doesn’t have the support of both Jesus’ resurrection and the promise of our own resurrection. The earthly body may need a total remake, but it is an important part of you.

I would like to consider the following passage:

23 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Thessalonians 5:23 (ESV)

Words mean what they writer thinks that mean. So someone may use soul and spirit as synonyms, while another is thinking of two distinct things. Since Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit, I would expect that these words have distinct meanings, especially considering this one:

12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12 (ESV)

The Greek behind “soul and spirit” is “psyche” and “pneuma”. I don’t think we should get too Freudian because of psyche. I like this definition, “The psyche is the is life that the spirit gives to the body as long as the two are connected.” (R.C.H. Lenski) So our soul is our consciousness which includes such things as thoughts, emotions, feelings, desires, memories. The spirit is the immaterial/extra-dimensional part of what we are. This definition is backed by how the word “soul” is used throughout Scripture. For example:

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

Psalm 139:14 (ESV)

Our spirit then becomes something that we experience indirectly. At death our spirit and our bodies are divided because of sin. What do we “experience” then? Near Death Experiences may give some insight. If we are temporarily dead, then perhaps we are temporarily in a state of separation of spirit and body. We have senses but they don’t use our sensory organs. For example, people can “see” things in the operating room with their eyes closed and their brain flat-lined. We may feel that our spirit is all that we need and that a body and the embodiment of our spirit (our soul) is not necessary. But we have been created to be embodied. Hence the resurrection.

While the information about such details is sparse, I believe that even our experience of Heaven prior to our resurrection is embodied. It is just a body that is a part of Heaven’s time and space. More about that here:https://afterdeathsite.com/2020/02/04/we-will-be-made-multi-dimensional/

Eventually, we will have and will be both a being who can exist in this universe and one that can exist in Heaven: One spirit, a resurrected Earthly body and a soul from the interaction of the two, also a Heavenly body and a soul for that embodiment.

When Nobody Speaks Your Name

There is a tradition common among several cultures that speaks about dying twice. The first is when you physically die. The second is when you are forgotten, and nobody speaks your name. Variations on this belief can lead to distinctive practices. For instance, some cultures will memorize their family tree. Others will mummify their ancestors and take them out for special occasions, or there will be some other form of ritual to ensure that the ancestor is remembered. The Disney movie, Coco, incorporates this idea. Is it necessary to be remembered? What happens if you are forgotten?

Unless you are somebody who is quite famous or infamous, it is guaranteed that people will eventually forget your name. I have had a lot of success with researching my family tree. One branch I can trace back to before 1000 AD with a decent amount of certainty. The other branches don’t go back so far. They are likely forgotten by all. Hundreds of millions and perhaps billions have lived and died and left no living memory of themselves. Perhaps it is why some might do horrible things in hopes of just being remembered.

Let’s make this clear. Eternal life is not just being remembered by someone. Eternal life is being remembered by God. God forsakes and forgets the damned. But the dead in Christ continue to exist and live in happiness in the presence of God with or without being remembered.

And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”

Matthew 22:31-32(ESV)

Is it a lack of faith that leads some to doubt that those who die can be alive elsewhere? I once went on a tour of Israel. At the Church of the Holy Sepulchre there is an area that holds the traditional place of Jesus’ crucifixion. The very place where Jesus died to win for us eternal life is encased by three altars. We were in the central chapel while a Roman Catholic tour group was in the chapel next to us. I overheard the priest say something like this, “I don’t know what eternal life is, but would like to think that is has something to do with being remembered.” I was dumbfounded by this dumb idea. Eternal life has nothing to do with being remembered and we should celebrate that fact.

It is nice to remember somebody. But I assure you that they probably don’t know if you remember them or not, and their existence is in no way diminished or enhanced if you do. Memory is for our benefit. We can learn from the past. We can have an important thankfulness for what people did to make our present possible. But only Christ makes eternal life possible.

Heavenly Free Will

It is exciting to think about what our bodies may be like in Heaven and the New Earth. Can we move between Heaven and the New Earth? I think we will. Will we be stronger, faster, bigger, more coordinated? Will we look significantly different? Will we still be recognizable? All these things are mysterious and exciting, but I find one question disconcerting. Will we have freewill and if so, could not the whole cycle of sin start again?

There are a few things that we either know or can infer about the initial creation. Adam and Eve had completely free wills and had no knowledge of sin. They had one command and therefore only one way to mess up. The temptation to sin came externally from Satan. Satan was also created with a completely free will. Only vague information is given about His fall into sin:

You were blameless in your ways
    from the day you were created,
    till unrighteousness was found in you.
16 In the abundance of your trade
    you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned;
so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God,
    and I destroyed you, O guardian cherub,
    from the midst of the stones of fire.

Ezekiel 28:15-16 (ESV)

Angels were also impacted. Nothing is known about the mechanism of their fall, but an approximate proportion is given:

3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. 4 His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. 

Revelation 12:3-4 (ESV)

If this is about the angels, then, somehow, two-thirds remained without sin despite the availability of a way to fall.

In Heaven and the New Earth, Satan is out of the equation. Also gone is the genetic distortion that we refer to as our sinful nature. Is that enough to preclude sin? Will we not also still have “knowledge of good and evil”?

In Heaven and the New Earth, there will also not be a way to be linked to somebody else’s sin. Adam and Eve made the choice. We inherited their genetic distortion.

God has always sought love from His creation. Love requires freewill. To love you I must have the opportunity to hate you. So I expect that there will be an opportunity to fall away. A forbidden tree in the garden. I also expect that knowledge of evil will be an advantage this time. No one will be seriously tempted to rebel against God because we will have genuine love, a great existence and a knowledge of what rebellion means. An individual’s rebellion would not bring down the house. Perhaps that is why this passage is there:

No more shall there be in it
    an infant who lives but a few days,
    or an old man who does not fill out his days,
for the young man shall die a hundred years old,
    and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.

Isaiah 65:20 (ESV)

https://afterdeathsite.com/?s=Isaiah+65

If you feel a dread that you would choose to sin and be cast out of God’s Kingdom, just like a child who insists on putting their hand on a hot stove, don’t worry. Your attraction to do wrong is a part of your sinful nature. There won’t be a temptation to the forbidden. Your knowledge will keep you away, as well as, the presence of Jesus himself.

Our experience of Heaven and the New Earth is something to look forward to rather than something to dread. Stick with Jesus and I’ll see you there.