I WAS THINKING 13
I wish you a happy Christmas!
CHRISTMAS SUGGESTS TWO GREAT QUESTIONS:
WHAT IS HEAVEN AND WHAT IS IT REALLY LIKE?
WHAT IS GOD'S PURPOSE IN SAVING US?
WHAT IS HEAVEN REALLY LIKE?
People ask, "Do you like Christmas?" Like it? God planned the world for it! The peak day, the key locking together of all days in Divine order. Without Christmas the world would be meaningless. The Incarnation and Christ's work are God's greatest achievement. The Father was at Bethlehem and at Calvary. That is high theology.
Those who quibble about the 25th of December being once a pagan mid-winter feast have no perspective whatever. They may as well say we can't grow wheat in a field because a dandelion once grew there.
Last Christmas, IWT asked what it was like for God to become Man. C. S. Lewis said that it was like a man becoming a beetle, a metamorphosis from the invisible and immortal to the visible and mortal. "Beyond all question the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in a body!" 1 Tim. 3:16.
This Christmas, I am thinking about Christ's other experience - His change of location. He descended from the world of love down to breathe our fetid atmosphere and sit in our grotty parlours. So, I wanted to glimpse where He came from and what He gave up. It has helped me appreciate better His passionate imperative to make such a journey. He came to take us were He came from. Moving house, folk want to know about the neighbours and the place where they will live. I, we, shall be going to glory presently, so I am anticipating what that Home will be.
The apostle John in Revelation says he saw a door opened in heaven and tells us what he saw through that open portal. Was it the door from which Jesus exited to Bethlehem? He left the door of heaven open, one day to come and bring us and welcome us home through that door.
MANY MANSIONS?
The book of Revelation, uses strange figures of speech, such as a sea of glass mingled with fire, We will look at that presently, but first at what Jesus said about the future life. "In my Father's house are many mansions." The word 'mansions' is from the Latin Vulgate. It has inspired hymns and popular thought, but it is only imaginative poetry. Obviously in the resurrection state we will neither sleep, cook food, or have weather, so mansions with bedrooms, kitchens and shelter will not be needed and can hardly be the dwelling places Jesus mentioned.
The original word in Greek is 'monai', as in verse 23, "we will make our abode ('monai') with him." It isn't anywhere else in the New Testament but its cognate is 'meno', to abide, tarry, remain, used 129 times in the New Testament. So the monai dwelling places are where we will 'remain' permanently. Earth is not our eternal resting place. Other Divine and gloriously different worlds are ready to welcome us.
Jesus went on to say "I go to prepare a place for you." (Greek 'topon'). Everyone including scholars speculate as if the 'place' was a location. Obviously it can't be. Christ is not an architect superintending the construction of a palatial residence! It would be a million miles wide city by now. After all, He made the heavens and the earth in six days, so He would hardly need 2000 years to make a mansion.
Our destiny is to be ever with the Lord, at His side, as His bride, as He said. "Where I am there you may be also". When I first went to the USA I did not take my wife but I 'made a place' for her, talking about her so she would have an American welcome when she went with me, happy with my friends in different cities and comfortable with the USA environment and culture.
I'm much confined to my own house so I trust not to be domiciled at some limited address hereafter, just pruning heavenly roses on a lordly heavenly estate somewhere. Human hankering for wider fields. Trips into space can now be commercially booked and it is planned for men to land on Mars within ten years. The believer's glorious expectation is that we shall leave the limitations of earth and go OUT, not IN, to explore the Father's house and its countless dwelling places for ever. This present world enthrals me though I live in an inner city zone, yet earth is only one of God's 'abiding places', so what beauties await us in other 'monai' places?
We shall move in a new dimension, everything new, new songs, music with a 1000 tone scale, new colours we have no power now to see, new delights, new pleasures. God is our true home and we shall swim in life, light and love.
Shall we know one another in heaven? Will my wife be no more than everybody else is to me? No, death is conquered and will not part us for ever. In fact we shall know one another far better. Our bodies will be like the resurrection body of Jesus, our apprehension will no longer depend on fleshly eyes, ears and nervous systems. As purified and unveiled personalities, our recognition of one another will be as direct as God now knows us. Those we loved here we shall love with a joyous intensity never yet experienced. "Now we see through a glass, darkly".
Now Jesus gave up that heavenly state for Bethlehem's squalid estate to lie in His first bed of straw in a cattle trough and grew up in a primitive, unhygienic and smelly house shared with livestock.
He came here to take us there, shedding our fleshly imperfections to reflect the glory of His face, stars studding eternal skies, splendid above the bright-winged angels, in shore-less infinity. The whole Gospel of John opens this great hope to us.
"I SAW A THRONE"
Paul in a Paradise experience saw "unspeakable things" he said. Language failed him. Hebrew writers use imagery that to us seems a misalliance of expressions. The Song of Solomon, chapter 7, for example. The lover says his beloved's nose is like the tower of Lebanon and she says his cheeks are like beds of spices. Some nose, some cheeks! Revelation uses the same style.
My thoughts have been hovering around Revelation 4 on the worship of the Creator and Revelation 5 on the worship of the Lamb, the blaze of eternal realities blotting out mundane matters - the screen of my mind.
What John saw was a throne, THE Throne. Isaiah, 800 years before, saw a throne at his prophetic 'call', but, like other writers, told us little of the scene. John places six Revelation scenes around thrones. He refers to dire happenings on earth but the high Throne is unshaken. The Lamb reigns, always, everywhere.
The Throne is the power centre to which Christ ascended.
John saw a rainbow of brilliant emerald light encircling the Throne. A rainbow is caused by sunlight passing through rain throwing prismatic colours on the screen of a dark sky. The first picture of heaven for us earthlings is that rainbow, God's own banner of promise flung high across the dark clouds of our earthly experience.
But this rainbow was green, the symbol of life. Nothing John saw was mere pageantry - just a passing display for John's benefit. This emerald blaze was the awesome Shekinah that the High Priest only saw through a haze of incense smoke, like a force-field of unfading glory and life. At Niagara falls I've seen the rainbow when sunlight shines through the rising spray. The emerald light of the great Throne is the constant glory of God's presence, like the radiation of the sun ever shining night and day whether we see it or not. He is the 'Father of lights'.
I noticed a subtlety in the Greek of Mark 5. A woman was healed when she touched Jesus' clothes as power emanated from Him. But she did not trigger that power by her touch. It is always there, flowing from His presence, so that not only her but, "as many as touched Him were made whole."
That life is the life of God, to John an emerald emanation from the Throne, but it fills heaven, so that there is no death, simply His presence with neither beginning nor ending, everything permeated by His life. We cannot die because He lives and we are in Him, the place of ever-newness of life. John had written his Gospel with three main themes, light, life and love, and now He saw them made visible at their source. "The lamb is all the light."
"UNSPEAKABLE THINGS"
John saw a figure on the Throne, but John could not explain to us what He was like, because He was like nothing else in the world and imagination had nothing to hold on to. John fell back on eastern depiction, saying that Figure was 'like' jewels, just exquisite beauty, "He that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone", that is diamond and carnelian. Hebrew writing describes the beauty of one thing in terms of the beauty of a quite different thing. The Song of Songs (2:3) says the man beloved was like an apple tree. The glory of God Himself is beyond words, and John could only think of the scintillating loveliness of a flawless diamond and the rich deep red-brown of carnelian. Sardius suggests man, 'Adam', to be red and Christ was the second Adam.
The 'fair woman' of the Song of Solomon (chapter 5) is asked to describe her beloved. For six verses she tried different figures of speech, but in the end gave up and said "he is altogether lovely". That is our experience of Jesus. He excels our best songs. John had known Jesus but, seeing Him in His heavenly identity occupying His throne, He was lost for words. He had looked on the fountain of life. We shall see Him ourselves in His splendour, the source of all loveliness, music, poetry, colour, and joy. We shall stand for a thousand years 'lost in wonder love and praise.'
OTHER 'DWELLINGS' – FOR WHOM?
Around the Throne John saw twenty-four other thrones occupied by twenty-four 'elders who prostrated themselves before the One on the great Throne. John heard the noise of heaven, no graveyard stillness there, but crashing thunderings and dazzling lightnings flashing across the immense scene. These elders were (Greek) 'presbyters', as appointed in churches but in the eternal dimension and enthroned. They were overseers of orders beyond earthly limits, with authority over domains and subjects deep in God's dominions, One day the redeemed and blood-washed children of God, Princes and Kings will visit these unknown territories. "Do you not know that we shall judge angels?" 1 Cor. 6:3.
John saw also four 'living creatures'. The original name is 'the Zoa,' (from Greek 'zoe', life.) He had described God as jewels and now needed words for these other awesome beings, full of eyes. Eastern style, he could only compare their faces to animals for their grace, strength, majesty and beauty. Such greatness was the boast of earthling. No human had the physical beauty of lions, oxen and eagles like these new Zoa life forms. But from where had they travelled to worship at the Throne. Are they the normal inhabitants of heaven that we meet when we go there? Or are there remote domains beyond all physical worlds, peopled by super-human beings? How far had they travelled to come to worship at the Throne? Further for sure than we travel to church.
These many and different creatures are hints of the spaciousness of the Father's house. Jesus said in it were many dwelling places, and if earth is the dwelling for people, then in what kind dwellings do such wonderful angelic beings dwell? We know of angels, cherubim, majestic and ancient spirits called the sons of God, mighty princes, vast intelligences. Heaven is so great it provides these lords their endless and lustrous kingdoms.
"THE HEAVEN OF HEAVENS"
The dwelling places Jesus mentioned are in the Father's house. Solomon said that the heavens, and the heaven of the heavens, cannot contain God. His house is not a closed space heaven with smaller departments or areas. The apostle Paul spoke of being caught up into the third heaven which he called Paradise – the garden outside the house. Heaven, where we are destined to abide stretches as far as Gods' presence, His entire order and series of infinite orders, spiritual, material and physical. We have seen the almost frightening photographs of stellar space taken by modern telescopic technology, but in the words of Job awed by what he could see by only his natural eye, "these are but the skirts of his ways". I have always thought he meant the mark on the dewy grass left by His Divine robes as He passed.
That is the dimension of Heaven, endless spheres, endless heavens, endless joy, endless life. It is not a shut-in estate behind gates, like an everlasting church meeting. Hell is small, a mere pit, with gates and bars to keep in its victims. Heaven is greater than all the cosmos.
WHAT IS GOD'S PURPOSE IN SAVING US?
WHERE IS GOD GOING?
"God came from Teman and the Holy One from Mount Paran". That's history, Bible history.
Sir Walter Raleigh warned writers that if they come too near the heel of truth it will kick their teeth. History is only a view point. Writers select, interpret and edit events to their liking. Somebody said "History is fiction with the truth left out". I taught students Church History for 20 years and felt the same about accounts of the past, – and incidentally about garbled Press accounts of my own evangelistic campaigns. Henry Ford said "history is more or less bunk".
However, in the Word, God is the editor of events. We have His judgment not only on the past but on the future also.
Here is an outline of Scripture history. After Creation came God's extraordinary concern with just one family, Israel, for 2000 years. Then a new global scene followed with the impact of Christ. It still progresses world-wide, sweeping across nations. All Christians on earth in the year 1900 numbered 500 million, but Pentecostal-Charismatics alone number 620 million today. The ferocity of some Islam extremists comes from their anger over Christian expansion. But Bible history overleaps the present, pre-writes the future and announces the Second Advent of Christ.
However, after Jesus returns and reigns …. what then?
Turning back to the sacred pages of the Book we find them bloodstained. It is the blood-price of human redemption paid by our Lord. Born from His supreme battle and victory is that wonderful new creation, the Church of the redeemed. This body is the most remarkable entity on earth, created by God, totally different from all organisations and religions ever known. The future lies with the Church, with what God is doing and anything God will do will be with the Church. What does not relate to the Church is irrelevant.
The hope of mankind is there, what will happen on earth. The global effects of Christ's first coming are evident, but His second coming will have far greater effects across the nations. That is our secret. In Bible terms we say that as God brought Eve from the side of Adam to be his wife, He has brought the Church from the wounded side of Christ to be His Bride. Soon He will come to claim His Bride.
The Second Coming is the consummation of history but not its end. The Bible does not end with 'Finis', but with Christ saying "I am the beginning and the end." The Bible begins with an end and ends with a beginning. From the Second Advent of Christ a new chapter starts, as Scripture shows us.
A student pastor asked me an interesting question. If we have free will in heaven, couldn't we still sin, even there? Of course some teach that those in heaven are predestined to be there by God's sovereign will, not by their own will. Having no will, they cannot sin. Well, for myself, I would not be happy in the company of such robotic creatures, nor can I see how God could have any satisfaction in them either. He wants people in His own image, with their own sovereign will and power of volition, freely loving and worshiping, not dolls, auto-response mechanisms, creatures with conditioned reflexes like Professor Ivan Pavlov's dogs.
In Revelation 21:5 God says "Behold I make everything new" and in 21:1 "I saw a new heaven and a new earth". The apostle Peter also says "We, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwells righteousness" 2 Peter 3:13. A new universe having neither physical nor moral evil, no tears, no death, no sorrow, no crying, no pain, with fear banished and unbelief, abominations, murder, witchcraft, immorality and deceit forever eliminated.
This ultimate state cannot be achieved by God saying 'Let it be!' like He made the first order, creation. Omnipotent power is right for material effects, but to create a sinless universe of people, angels, or any other creature, force is useless. Not even God can make people good by compulsion. His way has to be love – and sacrifice. That is what is happening now, preparing the foundations of a righteous heaven and earth.
This process, breaking the power of evil was especially the work of Christ. Matthew 4:1 says "Jesus was led by the Spirit TO BE tempted by the devil". Mark's Gospel says the same thing. Luke says "Jesus being full of the Holy Spirit was led by the Spirit into the wilderness being forty days tempted of the devil". He had come to overcome the devil, the world and the flesh. "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." 1 John 3:8.
We are told of His wilderness temptations. They were not the only tests He had faced, for obviously His 30 years life in Nazareth presented every kind of temptation. But with His wilderness trials He had gone public for all to be aware of His purpose and holiness.
Christ resisted the devil. His rejection of all worldly ways brought Him to Calvary, and though His flesh flinched from the horrors of death He strode to Calvary to do His Father's will. For the first time a Man had overcome the world, the devil and the weaknesses and fears of human existence. The future was assured.
Christ did the groundwork for us to build upon. We are all here on earth for the same purpose. In this world we are exposed to maximum temptations, to prove that in Christ's love we can face the world, the flesh and the devil and by faith we can overcome and live victorious lives, like God boasted of Job. Here is the wisdom of God in one of the most remarkable Scriptures:
"Do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed."
God's purpose is moving on. He has made us finite mortals capable of sin, to prove that under the greatest pressures love conquers and that we have victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
That is the destiny of the redeemed – they overcome, and become Christ's spotless Bride "Christ loved the Church to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any such blemish, but holy and blameless." When He comes, and our days of temptation and testing are over, there will be no more pressures of the world, flesh or devil, but the power of His love will purify the Church utterly. Having conquered on earth, no temptation can ever reach them.
When the new heaven and earth appear, the Church will be a glorious sight, like a bride adorned for her husband and like a glittering city with its gates open to mankind. In the midst of it is the Lamb of God bearing the marks of having been slain. His presence and the brilliant display of millions upon millions who have followed Him and been more than conquerors under terrible trials, even to death, this will be the barrier in the wisdom of God against all such repetition as the desperate history of earth.
This planet was made and we were placed here for this long war to end all wars, to end the reign of Satan, and empty fleshly and worldly temptations of all power. God has bigger plans than our comfort. He has allowed the present stresses to establish the reign of love, for ever, in all future worlds. With evil finally ended, the purposes of God can move forward into endless eternities. What those purposes are we do not know, but we are the most privileged of all His creatures to be His agents, means and conquerors to ensure a sinless eternity, 'to the praise and glory of God, world without end'.
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ARE WE LIARS?
Visiting a friend I noticed a fine looking book, 600 pages, published in 1996 which she had picked up cheap from a stall. Obviously it had never been read. With many graphs, arguments, calculations and legendry history it proved where the body of Jesus was hidden in Europe eight centuries ago. This 'solved the mystery' of what happened to Him.
So the testimony of Christians for 2000 years meant nothing at all? Millions must have been pretending, even lying, saying they had experienced His presence risen from the dead? Such books suggest the witness of the Church is of no account. Well, on any grounds it seems to me outrageous, even insulting. At least we are honest.
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