Heaven? An Adventure In Missing The Point.
The Bible tells an overarching story that begins with creation and closes with new creation. Many Christians know bits and pieces of the story, but very few have been shown how it all fits together as one story. These posts are an attempt to introduce the story. If you find them interesting, please click on the “like” button or leave a comment. Before continuing, I need to know if readers are interested.
The Heavens Declare The Glory of God!
Psalm 19:1
Psalm 19 is an excellent place to enter the story. There, the psalmist identifies two witnesses of God: First, the cosmic witness of the heavens, which declare God’s glory, that is, His power and existence. The second is the Torah or The Holy Scriptures; these reveal God’s person and character. Additionally, they address questions of who we are, why we are here, what's wrong with the world, and what God is doing about it. All of these are fundamental questions around the meaning of life. In this series of posts, we are surveying some of the answers to the questions; this being the second addressing God’s person and character.
The First (Old) Testament closes in prophetic silence. There is no prophet speaking in Israel. As in Egypt so long ago, God’s people find themselves again enslaved, this time in their own land, under the thumb of foreign rulers.
God had formed Israel, His son (Exodus 4:22), for the sake of the nations, to bring healing and blessing to them following the chaos of the Fall (Ge 12:1-3; Deuteronomy 10:22). Ideally, the surrounding nations were to look at Israel and see what God is like. As light shines in the darkness, they were to be light - “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” - to the peoples around them to draw them to worship and serve YHWH, a God like no other in the ancient world. (Deut 4:6-8; Micah 4:1-4; Zechariah 8:21-23; Exodus 19:5-6).
In a previous post, we saw how the First Testament largely tells the story of failure. Just as Adam, God’s first son, was unfaithful by listening to the serpent in the garden (Genesis 3), so too was Israel unfaithful by worshiping the idols of the nations, which were ultimately influenced by demons (Deuteronomy 32:17). Ironically, by the end of the Old Testament, God's Son needed rescue and restoration as much as the nations he was meant to bless. Instead of bringing blessings, Israel became like them. Although some Israelites remained faithful to the LORD, a lingering question remained: Where is a faithful Son of God?
The Second (New) Testament:
As we have seen, when God begins a new activity, His Word and Spirit are near. In the opening pages of Luke’s Gospel, God sends His Word with the angel Gabriel to a young Jewish girl named Mary. He appears to her and announces: “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God!” Gabriel tells Mary the Holy Spirit will overshadow her, and she will give birth to a son, a holy son, who will be called “the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). Similarly, in Matthew, the angel speaks to Joseph, her soon-to-be husband, and informs him that her pregnancy is by the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:20).
As we all know, the child was born in Bethlehem and given the name Jesus. Shortly afterward, the voice of prophecy, not heard for 400 years, returned. John the Baptist came preaching in Jordan River wilderness, announcing, “The Kingdom of God is at hand!” People came from all over to listen to his message of repentance and of the nearness of the Messiah.
The apostle John offers the most straightforward account of Jesus’ identity when he says, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). As the presence of God dwelled among his people, first in the Tabernacle and later the Temple, He now inhabited the tabernacle of a human body. It was the unexpected fulfillment of the prophecy that God Himself would again come to rescue and live among his people (Isaiah 40-55), but no one anticipated a human tabernacle!
Jesus Did Not Come Only To Die For Sins
As Christians well know, Jesus' ministry reached its climax at the cross of Calvary. There, sacrificial love was displayed to the highest degree (John 3:16). However, historically, there have been times and places when the church missed the true message of Jesus' teachings. Unfortunately, we live in such an age.
For example, many evangelistic tracts emphasize that “Jesus came ‘only’ to die for our sins.” Heaven help us, this misses the point! No! Jesus came to do more than be a sacrificial Lamb! Redeeming humans from their sins is only the beginning of a much larger vocation. He came to bring healing and restoration to the world and to establish the Kingdom of God!
The greatest work of Jesus was not that, in Him, God had taken on human flesh and blood - as glorious as this is - nor that he died for our sins - as wonderful as that is! Just as important, Jesus took upon himself our humanity to show us how to live! To demonstrate for us, to show us who we were created to be!
The Jewish Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, Immanuel, God in the flesh, the true Son of God, came with the authority of YHWH Himself. He held authority over angels, demons and the wild animals. He forgave people’s sins, rejected the temptations of the Devil, delivered the demon possessed, and raised people from the dead!
Moreover, he came to show us what it looks like to be genuinely human (Philippians 2:1-12)! He was compassionate, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, opening the eyes of the blind, the ears of the deaf, and the mouth of the mute. He had high regard for the poor, the broken, the brutalized, the stranger, the enslaved, the oppressed, and women, elevating their value in the world.
And this is but a nth of the work He began!
Jesus Did Not Die So We Could Go To Heaven.
Running a close second to the misguided and mistaken “Jesus came to earth only to die for our sins” is the idea that “Jesus came to die so that we can go to heaven when we die!” Sadly, this misses the point! Heaven help us!
YES, the cross is the highest expression of God’s love! Yes, the sins of those who trust Jesus' sacrificial death are forgiven - wiped away forever, as far as the East is from the West! And without a doubt, the most extraordinary declaration of God’s character is seen on the cross at Calvary!
BUT NOT, that we may go to heaven when we die! However true this is (and it is), it misses the point of salvation! No! We are to look at the sacrificial love of Jesus on display in his life, death, and ministry and then look around us to see whom we might begin to love likewise - beginning with our nearest and dearest neighbors, church families, and earthly families. Then we look around us to see who else we can love like Jesus loved us, the poor, the unattractive, the misshapen, the broken, and the flunk-outs! Families who are struggling, friends, neighbors, communities, etc. etc. Read the Sermon on The Mount in light of this.
The early church understood this well. The Book of Acts shows Jesus pouring His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, into His gathered church to empower them and send them out to preach, heal, restore, and bless—or better yet, to be Jesus in the world!
Sociologist Rodney Stark offers a stunning historical example of this mission in his book, The Rise of Christianity. When the plague epidemics of the third century struck a town or province, the rich and those who had the means fled the town leaving their loved ones behind. To everyone’s amazement, Christians came in these homes and ministered to the sick. Great numbers of them died, but their witness was that they died knowing they will live on. One Christian leader of the day, Dionysis, wrote:
“Most of our brother Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty, never sparing themselves and thinking only of one another. Heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ, and with them departed this life serenely happy; for they were infected by others with the disease, drawing on themselves the sickness of their neighbors and cheerfully accepting their pains. Many, in nursing and curing others, transferred their death to themselves and died in their stead.”
Stark, Rodney. The Rise of Christianity (p. 82).
Through the Spirit, those who are ‘in Christ’ (a phrase used some 160 times!) are born again to new life, born again into a new relationship. They are a New Creation, called to a sign and foretaste of what God will one day do for the entire earth! A foretaste of the future day when “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.” (Isaiah 11:9). Even now, creation “waits with eager longing for this day!” (Ro 8:19-23; Rev 21). It is not waiting to be destroyed and created again.
Here and now, Christians are in a new relationship with God through Jesus and the Spirit! And in the age to come, when Jesus returns, resurrection from the dead! But now I’m getting ahead of myself.
Oh yes, the person and character of God. You thought I forgot :)
What do we learn here about the person of God? At least three things:
First, He who spoke the heavens and earth into existence is infinitely patient, waiting centuries for his people to abandon their idolatry (the subject of the previous post). Time and again, scripture highlights God‘s slowness to anger, his kindness, and his long-suffering (Exodus 34:6, Joel 2:13, Ro 2:4, 2 Peter 2:9, etc)
Second, not only is He infinitely patient, He is infinitely loving, willing to take upon himself our humanity, then to die the shameful and humiliating death upon a Roman cross, and then again back into His human body. All to restore our relationship with Him, give us new birth and new life, and restore our true humanity.
Third, he is infinitely, lovingly committed to his creation and his creatures. As the husband to his church bride, Jesus will remain one of us, a human being, for eternity.
Hallelujah, what a God! What a savior!
Previous Posts in this series:
Original post: New Moon, New Creation
Only One God: Who Knew