JUNE 1 2019
ETERNAL LIFE.
In a book with the simple title of HEAVEN, I found a quote by the philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, “Can you imagine anything more idiotic than the Christian idea of heaven? What kind of deity is it that would be capable of creating angels and men to sing praises day and night into all eternity?”
It reminds me of a hymn with a beautiful melody, but questionable words, “By the sea of Crystal saints in glory stand…. Robed in white apparel washed in Jesus’ blood, They now reign in heaven…”
I once attended a conference in Hamilton, where Dr. Lewis Smedes of Fuller Seminary spoke. He commented, “suppose you hate singing, and dislike white attire, would that mean that you don’t fit in heaven?”
The HEAVEN book is actually quite interesting. In it the authors, Colleen McDannell, an American, and Bernard Lang a German professor, depicted the changing views on HEAVEN during the last 1,000 years, from early remote monasteries, where the monks pictured heaven as paradise, to modern-day fundamentalists, more in tune with Billy Graham.
So, what brought this Heaven Talk on?
I am trying to get rid of stuff, books, magazines that I deemed important at one time, and saved, and saved, and never re-read. I came across an old TIME magazine, dated March 31 1997, more than 22 years old, asking DOES HEAVEN EXIST? Its cover page had a man standing on a cloud, peering upward, the right hand above the eyes. It contained some interesting statistics, such as, “Do you believe in the existence of heaven, where people live forever with God after they die?” 81 % said yes, and only 13% disagreed.
It reminded me of Billy Graham, interviewed by Larry King on CNN years ago. Larry asked him, “What happens when you die?” Billy: “Jesus will take me by the hand, and bring me to God”.
Billy apparently does not know his Bible. Paul writes to Timothy, “God, who alone is immortal, lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see”. (1 Tim. 6:16).
Frankly the common ‘heaven’ view is so outdated and also so misleading that a totally new take on heaven and eternity is needed. Will it happen?
A long time ago the Presbyterian Record published an article I had written, questioning the entire HEAVEN concept, which evoked a letter writer to call me a heretic. When I answered this charge, the editor declined to publish it and, in turn, sent me a book by Boston College Philosophy Professor Peter J. Kreeft, with the telling title, Heaven the Heart’s Deepest Longing. Last week I re-read the book, and found much that I liked, but, you guessed it, I had basic disagreement with its main thesis which spiritualizes heaven, and has no place for eternity on earth.
The book has one illustration which clearly shows its main thesis. On page 7 of the introduction the author depicts 3 different situations. He had drawn three tubes representing humanity. One tube is open-ended on both sides, the bottom arrow pointing to the world, the tube itself featuring humanity, while the top points to God, with the subscript, Traditional Western Religion.
The second tube, also depicting humanity, is closed on the bottom and open-ended on the top, pointing to God, describing Eastern Mysticism.
The third tube again representing humanity is closed to the top, thus God is eliminated, while the bottom is open to the world, and the description there is Modern Western Secularism.
Dr. Kreeft describes this as follows: “Think of humanity as a tube with two openings. The openings can be either open or closed. Think of God, as superhuman reality, as above the tube, and nature, or subhuman reality, as below it. Traditional religious wisdom tells us to be open at both ends so God can flow in one end and out the other: in the receptive ends first by faith and then out of the active end by works. But if the top opening is closed, our business becomes exclusively human action in the world, without a plugin to divine power.”
No tube but a triangle
I see it differently. Picture a triangle, with God on top, the earth and us, humans, on the other corners. Arrows to and from each of the three parties, indicating both dependence and interactions: God depends on us – without humans there is no Christ and no world – and we and the earth depend on God. We and the earth are also interdependent. That’s a truer depiction.
Manipulations.
So why has the church, have all churches, promoted heaven at the expense of the earth? I detect several reasons.
- Greek
Philosophy. When Socrates died, he welcomed death. In The
Trials of Socrates, Plato depicts Socrates’ last moments before his death.
Plato quotes Socrates: “I’ll no longer stay put, but will take my leave of you
and depart for certain happy conditions of the blessed”.
Socrates is certain that he’s on the way to heaven, and even says a prayer to the gods after drinking the poison: “‘One is, I suppose, permitted to utter a prayer to the gods – and one should do so – that one’s journey from this world to the next will prove fortunate”. Socrates died to celebrate death. - The church has taken the easy way out. It is much easier to sell heaven than to treat God’s earth as holy. That involves a radical shift in how we have to live.
- Preaching heaven is a sort of manipulation. It gives power to the clergy. A recent New York Times article state that, “You can unite millions of people by making them believe in completely fictional stories about God, about race or about economics….and most important, the truth is often painful and disturbing. Hence if you stick to unalloyed reality, few people will follow you.”
Yes, it is much easier to believe in heaven. Believing in earth as God’s precious possession, and thus as holy and to be treated with the same love we reserved for ourselves and our neighbors, would mean a totally different life. When Jesus tells us ‘TO LOVE GOD ABOVE ANYTHING ELSE’ then this simply means that we have to love all that God has created.
OUR CALLING AND TASK IN LIFE
Now that we are approaching the end of human society, it is high time that we reflect on what we are supposed to do or should have done as the human race.
It goes beyond dispute that we are on earth for a certain purpose: we were called to do something specific. When we were created and so entered into history, God charged us with a specific mandate. That mandate was to cultivate creation, to look after the earth and the air around us. God specifically outlined this cultural task to us, to become one with the earth, to serve it in all its manifestations, not only what lived and moved and had its being around us, but also, and even more as our primary task, to discover who we are and what we are and why we are. After all, we grow emotionally in line with our task, and by accomplishing one step we mentally and spiritually prepare ourselves to tackle the next phase and the next, because it is a never-ending assignment the Lord entrusted to us.
However, the task is two-fold. Not only are we assigned to bring to fruition what in its essence, its kernel so to say was and is dormant in creation, both its human and non-human potential that is waiting to become into being, the other side of the coin is to preserve what is there, and to treasure and cherish what God already had entrusted to us as guardians and safe-keepers.
This dual goal, this two-sided assignment, holds for eternity as well. As a matter of fact only when we today are busy with both the discovery what is latent in creation, and with the preservation of what is already there, that we are allowed to continue that into eternity, when both aspects will continue unabated and without the impediments we now experience in our sinful state.
Brother, Sister, are you saved?
We are called to fulfill that cultural duty while simultaneously striving for salvation. Salvation not only means eternal redemption but also the fulfillment of the creational mandate.
Enter Dr. Okke Jager.
The name means nothing to most of you. He was well known in the Netherlands for the many lighthearted books he wrote and his connection to Christian Radio. His doctoral thesis – a near 600 page tome – was on “Het Eeuwige Leven”, LIFE ETERNAL, Vita Aeterna.
I acquired a copy of his book on November 29 1986. It was published in 1962. I did not read the entire volume, but carefully studied the last chapter, entitled Het Eeuwige Leven, Life Eternal, some 30 pages.
He writes, “Life Eternal is true life. It is endless, free from death and decomposition and disintegration, a perpetual communion with the living God…….Death starts the moment we are born, and eternal life starts when we are ‘born again’…. We are able to be a new creation already now…..Those who have eternal life are a new people…. We are both 100% the old Adam and 100% the new person, if we belong to Christ”
He quotes his own professor, Dr. G.C. Berkouwer, “The reality of the Second Coming (of Christ) will not be unfamiliar in comparison with life on earth. In a great measure it will compare to this life in all its complexity and immense variety… Only then ordinary, daily life will be revealed and recognized, with its real character.”
Okke Jager again: “That’s why the Second Coming (the Parousia) does not mean a suspension of time, but rather a return to the original notion of time”.
Both Okke Jager and J.H. Bavinck reaffirm that the real meaning of history is the realization of the Kingdom of God where “life eternal is an earthy life, a bodily experience”. The Greek notion negating the body is totally contrary to the biblical view. The Socrates-Plato view severs eternal life from the new earth, a heresy largely adopted by much of Christianity.
No marriage in The New Earth, but……..
“In the approaching New Age there will not be marriage, in the form of a sex- and procreation union, but there will be special ties, that are the extension of the kind of existence in which we find ourselves today.”
Okke Jager seems to imply that sexual intercourse will not be excluded. “Even though the difference between Creator and creature will be maintained, the relationship between persons and sexes will not be different but will return to its original divine status, where the human will resort to its particular place, crowned with glory and splendor.”
Okke Jager continues, “God created the humans as men and women and not as neutral, sex-less beings. In the New Age Genesis 1 remains in force, as evident from Jesus’ pronouncement, “Haven’t you read that in the beginning the Creator made both male and female, for this reason a man will leave to get married”, (Matthew 19:4).
Enough. Time to recapitulate.
We are approaching the end of history. Jesus has told us that in the END everything will be revealed. That’s why the Bible ends with the book of REVELATION, which basically proclaims this message.
There is an enormous misconception of what is in store for humanity. Rapture and heaven are just two of the most glaring lies.
Once the END comes, God’s people will not go to heaven. As Bonhoeffer, Bavinck and now Jager have stated, we are from the earth, exist from the earth – now thoroughly poisoned – and will wake up in the earth, when it is totally purged of all evil, including pollution. Jesus came to restore creation to its original pristine state.
We will then be pure women and men, totally cleansed from the state of impurity where we have existed, to enter LIFE TO THE FULL. Women will glorify in their femininity, man in their masculinity, as the French say, “Vive La Difference”.
That’s what Jesus taught us. He also taught us, in John 3: 16, that we too must love the earth as Jesus loved it, for which he gave his life.