Our Lord Jesus never taught that people are going to heaven when they die. What he did teach was there is a kingdom that was coming here, a day when heaven would be here, a day when we would be resurrected and behold the glory of God in our bodies. These are things that we are not teaching people in our churches. What we are teaching them is about a temporary state. We are teaching them about when the spirit leaves the body and how it goes to be with the Lord. Even though that experience is heaven it’s an incomplete experience of it. Until we experience God in our bodies and on this Earth: we are not experiencing the fullness of the heavenly state.
When Jesus
was on the cross, he told the thief that today he would be with him in Paradise.
He did not say that he would be with him in heaven. Paradise in the scriptures
is a reference to the Garden of Eden. Our Lord was speaking to him about the resurrected
state when heaven and earth would be one. He did not tell him he was going to
be in a temporary state until the great judgment. He told him about our end
state. In saying this the obvious objection is, “Is this not the same thing as
telling someone we are going to heaven when we die”? The answer is no!
When our
Lord told the thief that he was going to be with him he gave his material life meaning.
He gave the suffering that he was experiencing in his body meaning. The life he
was living in his body received meaning because he would continue to have his
body in the next life. When we focus on the immaterial world, the spiritual world,
and proclaim that the fullness of God is experienced once we die, once we shed
our bodies, we make our body and our material life valueless. What we did in our
bodies or experienced in our bodies becomes irrelevant.
If all that
matters is going to heaven Jesus should have left his broken and scared body
behind. Not to mention the fact that when his mother died, he should have left
that husk of a body to rot. We know that’s not the case, we know that in our
Lord’s resurrection and in his mother's dormition we see our destiny, which
is to have a glorified body. Not a new body, a renewed and resurrected body.
God will not be starting from scratch and for this reason, what we do in our
body matters. Our Lord Jesus proves this, he still has his scars and will have
them for all eternity. Likewise, every good thing we have done in our bodies
will remain and the suffering we endured in our body will be given its ultimate value.
One of the
most down-to-earth examples of this fact is demonstrated in how we love our
animals. We are often told by theologians that it is nothing but a sentimental waste
of time. As they say, animals don’t go to heaven. Consequently, mourning for the death of an animal is pointless. Recently, I have proved
otherwise(YouTube). If our ultimate destiny is here on earth in a glorified body, then
the love that we gave those animals will endure. They will be returning here
with us as the Prophet Isaiah foresaw. He said the earth would be filled with
the glory of the Lord and we would be with animals in a peaceful bliss. This is
our destiny, not going to heaven when we die.
We need to
start teaching people the full narrative about our destiny. When we do, I believe
the immediate result will be a decrease in cremations. Cremations are being
done more and more by Christians because the body has lost value. All that matters for the majority of them is getting into the
afterlife. If they believed that they would be resurrected I guarantee cremation
would be their last option. They need to learn that their body is the thing that God also wishes
to save in this world. Our spirits after all are going to be put back in the
body. Where they go after they die is not their ultimate home.
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