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Author Topic:   Heaven: How to Get In
jaywill
Member (Idle past 1941 days)
Posts: 4519
From: VA USA
Joined: 12-05-2005


Message 86 of 91 (525429)
09-23-2009 11:05 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Teapots&unicorns
09-03-2009 11:10 AM


Assumptions
Hi everyone
I've been thinking about the nature of heaven, and realized that I do not know exactly how one gets in. Any answer I try to get is usually just a slippery contradiction. So please, how do you get into heaven in your faith.
The whole notion of "going to Heaven" is a superficial understanding of my Christian faith. Going to a happy place, going to Heaven, or getting into Heaven, is mostly a natural concept of man. It is not unique to Christianity.
So first I would want to tell you the in my faith as a Christian, God's eternal destiny for the saved is not Heaven as a place to go to in that regard. Rather the "going" is a transformation of the person. And the "place" is a Person - the Triune God. Salvation is a transformation into a union, a mingling, a blending of God and man into one entity.
It is true that the term "kingdom of heaven" is in the gospel of Matthew. But a close examination reveals that this should be considered as "the kingdom, the SOURCE of which is Heaven" rather than "the Kingdom, the location of which is in Heaven."
In John 14 where Jesus says that He goes away to prepare a place for His disciples, upon careful study it is revealed that the place is a living place within a living Person. The "Father's house" is a living Person in that chapter. And the many abodes in the Father's hows are people in whom the Father and the Son have come into to make an "abode" with them (John 14:23).
The unfortunate translation - "In My Father's house are many mansions" (John 14:2) in the KJV is better rendered "In My Father's house are many abodes" (John 14:23).
The plural form of the same Greek used in verse 2 as singular, is used in verse 14.
Please compare:
"In My Father's house are many abodes; if it were not so I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you I am coming again and will receive you to Myself, so that where I am you also may be." (vs.2,3)
"Jesus answered and said to him, If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him." (v.23)
In brief, this chapter is not saying that Jesus went to Heaven to fix up fancy "mansions" for His people, and that a couple of thousand years latter He would physically return and take them to these heavenly mansions of the Father's house in heaven.
This chapter is saying that Jesus is going to the cross - into death to accomplish redemption so that a standing in God can be created for His redeemed people. Then He is coming in resurrection to receive them to Himself. Then He and His Father will come to make an abode with each of them. This constitutes the receivers of the Father and the Son the "many abodes" in the Father's house.
The saved then can be with Him where He is a man united with the Father - God-man. They become the expansion of the universal mingling of God and man expressed in Christ. They become His enlargment and His corporate Body. The many abodes are the many men and women indwelt with by the Triune God - the Divine "WE" Who as the Holy Spirit brings the Father and the Son into man.
If there were not many abodes in the living house of God Jesus would have told us. This means if He was the only human who could be united with God, indwelt with by God, in a blended union with God, and mingled with God - He would have told us.
Jesus goes to the cross to prepare a way that all redeemed sinners may be united with the living God, in a blended incorporation with God, and in an organic union with God producing God-men.
These God-men collectively and corporately compose the Father's house which is really the enlargement of Christ and the expansion of Christ.
In this post I have no spoken too much about the HOW of getting into Christ. I have spoken to address the contrast between the revelation of the New Testament over against the human natural thought of "going to Heaven" or "getting into Heaven".
The saved are going into a living Person, or even being transformed into a mingling of themselves with that Person much more than going to or getting into a happy pleasant place.
Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Teapots&unicorns, posted 09-03-2009 11:10 AM Teapots&unicorns has not replied

  
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