Biblestudy: Heaven Must Wait
The Bible on the Afterlife
#BS-999
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 26-Jun-10; 70 minutes
summary: The notion of going to heaven has been borrowed from pagan notions of Nirvana, Valhalla, or Elysium. In this venue, they will be doing things there that they had not attained in this life, transferring earthly good times to a heavenly setting. Yet going to heaven is not scriptural. The soul is not immortal; it is equivalent to life. Mankind does not have a soul; he is a soul, subject to death. The soul that sins will die. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life when we go through the prescribed process. The body returns to dust, decomposed into its elements. As we reach our prime, we begin degenerating until we expire, turning back into dust. The term Sheol is equivalent to the dust, the grave, or the pit. The body goes back to the earth. There is no consciousness or awareness in death, but resembles a peaceful sleep in which we are "dead to the world." Just as one can be awakened from sleep, one can be resurrected to life. God has appointed specific times for the resurrections. The pathway through eternal life leads through the resurrection, with our following Jesus Christ. When we are resurrected at His coming, we will indeed have access to heaven, but we will join our Bridegroom as He rules on the Earth. The repentant thief expected to join Jesus Christ when He would come into His kingdom, a future event to occur on the earth. Jesus spoke this pronouncement emphatically—I tell you today, you will be with me in paradise. Because Jesus was in the grave for three days and three nights, He did not go to paradise the day He told that to the thief.
transcript:
I am going to give you something very, very basic here today. It kind of takes off from where I stopped last time, probably. Beth and I caught the last third or so of the movie Gladiator on television the other night. It has been running on one of those stations, TNT or whatever, and so we watched a little bit of it. And what struck me this time (probably because I had this Bible study coming up and I knew what I was going to give it on) is how many references to the afterlife there were in the movie. I do not know how long it has been since you have seen Gladiator but if you will remember, Maximus (Russell Crowe) was the general and he was afoul of Commodus, the emperor, and Commodus has ordered his wife and child, a son, to be killed. He, of course, ended up in slavery, or as a slave, as a gladiator. And from that point on, he had basically two main goals in life and those were to avenge the death of his wife and child by killing Commodus. And the other one was to join them in the next world because that is all he thought about, being where they were. And in the movie, the next world looked an awful lot like this one except it was kind of blurry, a little bit blurry. It was his mansion in Spain. And he was always thinking of dying and going back to that same place except now he was a disembodied spirit. Or was he? Well, that was a second century pagan's view of life after death. For him, it was moving on to another, better world where a person will live endlessly pretty much as he lived while he was alive as a human being. It was this life but somehow better. In the Roman world and the Greek world, that world was called Elysium. Other peoples called it Paradise. Other peoples called it, like the Vikings, Valhalla. That was a similar idea. Xanadu was a made-up word, but it has kind of got that connotation now. It is kind of a place where one can eternally enjoy the earthly delights. Other places, the Hindus, I believe, call it Nirvana. There are others around the world and they are all very similar. It is the same take on that, the next life is going to be just like this life, but somehow better. And human ideas have not changed very much over the past several thousand years in this regard. Even the supposedly "Christian" concept of heaven, taught from pulpits all over the world every Sunday with the same essential pagan idea spiritualized into heaven. Now, think about it. The common notion is that Saint Peter stands at the pearly gates and he admits or he denies entrance into heaven of anyone who may approach. And if one should be lucky enough to pass through, he finds himself walking on streets of gold to his heavenly mansion that Jesus has prepared for him. You know, in John 14, He said that is what He was going to do. And then what does he do? Well, he has got this nice crib and does not have to worry about money and he has got all this time on his hands, all eternity, so he can go out golfing or he could take up painting or maybe take up a musical instrument, like a harp, so he can play in the heavenly choir. I mean, think about it. What do people think they are going to do when they get to heaven? Well, they are essentially going to go up there and have all kinds of time and no restraints to pursue whatever it is that they want to do, all the things that they missed in this life or they were not privileged enough to be able to do in this life. Perhaps the more religious conceive of using their time to pick the brains of all the prophets and heroes of the Bible. Or maybe some who have gold hearts, they want to go up there to earn their wings so that they can come back here and help those poor souls find Christ. Become a guardian angel, kind of like It's a Wonderful Life. Clarence was down here to earn his wings. And at the end, when the bell rings, he does, supposedly. Others believe that they are on a mission and once they get to heaven, they will take up heavenly arms against principalities and powers. It is all just human ideas, earthly ideas transferred to some place called heaven, the next life. Then there are the Catholics. They believe in the beatific vision. They are going to just enjoy God forever and look into His face, then be smiled upon. And you know, that is rip roaring fun. They will do that for all eternity. Or they have this Michelangelo idea of heaven where there are little cherubs floating on clouds all day. Where did they get all that? Like I said, boiled down this is merely transferring earthly good times to a heavenly setting. The everyday churchgoers, I am talking about out there in churchianity, the average churchgoer's idea of heaven is simply the ultimate in human lifestyle. That is what they think of heaven. Let us go to I Corinthians 2, verses 9 and 10 and see that they are all wet. Paul writes: I Corinthians 2:9-10 But as it is written: "Eye has not see, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him." But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. So what we have here is biblical proof that makes it clear that the unconverted really do not know what life will be like in God's Kingdom. They are clueless. If they think that it is going to be anything like these ideas that have come down through history from paganism, they are just absolutely wrong. They are stuck, until God opens their minds, they are stuck conceiving the afterlife little more than what Dante, Milton, and the pagan writers and philosophers have already imagined. That is where they are. They cannot go any farther because God has not revealed it to them because they do not have God's Spirit. That is exactly what it says here. That no human eye or ear has seen or heard what God has prepared for them, except for those who have received God's Spirit. And even then Paul says in I Corinthians 13 that we see in a mirror darkly. Our views are fuzzy. We can go on what is there in Revelation, but we cannot give great detail, but we know that it is not going to be as I have just mentioned here. There is a greater purpose and we will touch on a little bit of that today. But what I want to do in this Bible study is show that a person does not go to heaven in the first place. I mean, that is where they start to go wrong. They start off on the wrong foot altogether. They imagine they are going to go to heaven and enjoy all these things. I am going to summarize the doctrine or the biblical proof that we do not go to heaven once we die. And then I am going to conclude, if there is time, with a few difficult scriptures that seem to contradict this. And these are not going to be in any way new. They are very basic. They are ones you have heard a lot. Maybe there is an idea or two that I can bring to it that you may not have heard. But this is not going to be any difficult subject. I hope that our young people and those that may be new to the church can get a lot out of this. This Bible study picks up where the other one left off. And in fact, I am going to go over several scriptures that I went to in my last Bible study on the fact that we do not have an immortal soul. So the first proof that I want to give that we do not go to heaven, is this fact that the soul is not immortal. In fact, biblically, the soul is, as I mentioned in the last Bible study, essentially our life or our life force that God has given to us. As the church of God has said in the past many times (you probably heard this, it almost became a cliché in the church), one does not have a soul, he is a soul. He is a living being. (And I will get into more of this in my next sermon which just happens to be next Sabbath.) But what we find in Scripture is that this idea that one lives forever was the first lie, essentially, that that Satan gave to Adam and Eve. But God had already told them the truth. Let us go back to Genesis 2. Notice what God said here. He anticipated that this would be something that Satan would try to get Adam and Eve with. And so He says here in verse 17, Genesis 2:17 "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." So among the first things that He said to mankind is the fact that yes, you are living beings, you are souls. But if you partake of this Tree of Knowledge, you are going to die. And He says that it will be within the day. It means that their dying would already start. And also we can look at it from what Peter says in II Peter 3, that a day to God is as a thousand years. And did not Adam and Eve die within the first thousand years? Yes, they did. Adam lived to be 960 years. But to God, in the day that he ate of it he was dead, and he was. We see as we go through the Bible that this is repeated several times. Let us go to Ezekiel 18. This is a memory scripture. I just want to go over these quickly from the last Bible study. Ezekiel 18:4 "Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine; the soul who sins shall die." Ezekiel 18:20 "The soul who sins shall die." He says it again. So it is very clear that souls can die. That is lives, human lives can be taken. There is death at the end of a human life. We could go to Hebrews 9:27 where it says it is appointed for men once to die. That means every one of us is going to die at least once. And there were some that died more than once. Think of Lazarus. He died more than once and all those who were raised from the dead by Jesus and by the various prophets who did it, and apostles, those people died once and then they died again. I hope they enjoyed it. This carries on into the New Testament. One of the strongest scriptures is Matthew 10:28. And this is where Jesus says, "Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul, but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." So Jesus says here that souls can die. The Father can take a soul, as it were, and put him to final death. Finally, Romans 6:23 another memory scripture. Romans 6:23 The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. This says basically the same thing that God said to Adam and Eve in Genesis 2. If they sin, if they contravened one of His commands, the specific command of taking of the Tree of Knowledge, they would die. And Paul says the same thing. If we sin just as they sinned, we will die. That is what we earn. We earn the wages that are death. Eternal life though is a gift of God, just as physical life is a gift of God. He breathed into Adam the breath of life. He will also give us eternal life. But there are some qualifications to that. Obviously, the calling and the belief and the repentance and baptism and all the rest. But ultimately, all of that is a gift of God. So we earn death. But eternal life is a gift that has to be given by going through the process that is here in the Bible and how that is achieved. That was the first point, which was that the soul is not immortal. The second point is that the Bible is clear that the body returns to the earth, or to the dust of the ground from which God made it. When one dies, the body disintegrates, the body becomes corrupt. It is a word that is used frequently in Scripture, you know, do not let my body see corruption. Well, the body, once the life is out of it, begins to break down as all organic things do, and it returns to the elements, to the dust from which it was made. Again, this is made clear very early on in Genesis 3, verse 19. This is after Adam's sin and God has already cursed the Serpent. Now He gives Adam his curse. This is the last part of it. He says, Genesis 3:19 "In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return." So immediately, once Adam had sinned, the death penalty came upon him. He did not repent and ask for forgiveness. And obviously he is human, he would die at some point, so the process had already started returning him to the ground, returning him to dust. And he was slowly, like we all, we are born, we seem like we are in the pride of our lives, that we have all this energy, but we are immediately started to break down, and it is just a slow march to our death and our disintegration. That is just the way that God has made us. He made us so that we can die and be returned to the earth. But this is not the only time that it is said. I want to go through these verses quickly so you can see how often this is mentioned. I do not have them all here. I am just going to give you several so that we can get the point. Let us go to Job. I think I put these all in order here of the way our books are in our Bible so that we can just flip through. Believe it or not, there is an awful lot in Job about these topics, the soul, the spirit, the life, death, the afterlife. We will be going to Job quite a bit. But here in chapter 21, we will read verses 23 through 25. He says, Job 21:23-25 One [meaning a person] dies in his full strength, being wholly at ease and secure; his pails are full of milk, and the marrow of his bones is moist. Another man dies in the bitterness of his soul, never having eaten with pleasure. They lie down alike in the dust and worms cover them. What a beautiful picture he paints there. I will not be making too much comment on this because they all say essentially the same thing. Job 34:15 All flesh would perish together, and man would return to dust. So this not only tells us that we do as individuals, it tells us that everybody does. There is no one who is an exception to this. Even Jesus would have returned to dust and seen corruption if His Father had not intervened and raised Him before that occurred. Psalm 22, verse 15, which is interesting. I just said that I must have been subconsciously thinking of that because that is exactly what this one says. Psalm 22:15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and My tongue clings to My jaws; You have brought Me to the dust of death. This is obviously a prophecy of Christ. Psalm 90:3 You turn man to destruction, and say, "Return, O children of men." I put that in there because it left out the dust. But that is what he means. Return to dust. Psalm 104:29 You hide Your face; they are troubled; You take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. Ecclesiastes 3:20 [Solomon writes] All go to one place: all are from the dust, and all return to dust. And then chapter 12. Now in chapter 12, he is here telling people to turn to God before they get too old. That is what this whole first five or six verses is about. He is telling telling people that you do not want to come to God when you are old, you want to do it when you are young and in the fullness of your strength. And so he says, Ecclesiastes 12:6-7 Remember your Creator before the silver cord is loosed, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher shattered at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the well. [Those are all symbols, metaphors for death. So remember your Creator before you die. He says, and then just the first part of verse 7.] Then the dust will return to the earth as it was. . . We will get to the other part of verse 7 later. Here we have (I do not know how many there were) half a dozen scriptures that all say the same thing. That we are from the dust, we will return to the dust. Now, some might argue, especially from the Old Testament, that the Bible teaches that the dead go to a place called Sheol. And they imagine Sheol is a place like Hades in the Greek myth, where it was the abode of the dead. That is where the spirits went and that is where they lived. They really did not. They died physically, but they just went on into this place called Hades where they could still be visited, you know, the heroes who would come into Hades and visit and some of them even tried to take various ones out. But if you, in the myth, ate there in Hades, oh well, you could never leave. You know, stuff like that. And some people think that the biblical idea of Sheol is very similar to that, but it is not. So, Job 17—I told you we would go to Job a lot—refutes this idea. This is what Job says, Job 17:16 "Will they go down to the gates of Sheol? [So far it sounds very much like Hades, right? But then listen to how he parallels it.] Shall we have rest together in the dust?" You get what he has done here. He has made parallel or he has equated the idea of Sheol with the dust, which we just read is the place where the dead go. We return to dust, we break down, we decompose, and we become dust again. Well, Sheol is simply another word for this place, the grave. It is interesting, if you look in the margin, it probably says, or it should say "the pit." My Bible says "the abode of the dead." And that just shows you a little bit of Greek paganism coming in there. But in the King James it usually says "the pit" for where the Sheol is. And that is actually a literal translation of the word Sheol. That is what it means, it means a pit. How different is a pit from a grave? You dig a pit, you dig a ditch, you dig a grave. Where is a ditch, a pit, or a grave found? It is in the dirt, in the dust, in the earth, in the ground. They are the same thing. So, what we see here in Job 17:16 is that these are just parallel forms. They all mean the same thing. They all mean the grave. And it is not just shown here in Job 17. It is also in Isaiah 38. Please go there. This is going to be a true Bible study in which we go all the way through the Bible, read just about every verse. Isaiah 38:17-18 Indeed it was for my own peace that I had great bitterness; but You have lovingly delivered my soul from the pit of corruption [there is one], for You have cast all my sins behind Your back. For Sheol cannot thank You, death cannot praise you; those who go down to the pit cannot hope for Your truth. You see all the different ones that were put in there so that we can understand that these are all the same thing. He mentioned the pit. He mentioned the pit of corruption. Sheol and death. And then he mentions the pit again. So we cannot argue that one means one thing and one means another. They are all to be taken in parallel as the same thing. Also, Ezekiel 28, verse 8. We usually come to this chapter to hear about Satan before his rebellion and that sort of thing. But speaking of the Prince of Tyre, this is the human king of Tyre. It says. Ezekiel 28:8 They shall throw you down into the Pit [or Sheol], you shall die the death of the slain in the midst of the seas. Here it even shows that the pit, Sheol, the grave, death is the same as dying at sea. They all mean the same thing. That when we die, we disintegrate and go back the dust of the earth. That was the second point. The body returns to the earth. The third point: There is no consciousness in death. Let us go back to Psalm chapter 6, verse 5. It is a prayer here by David. He is asking for God to return to him and help him from his enemies. Psalm 6:5 For in death there is no remembrance of You; in the grave who will give You thanks? You cannot do it. There is no consciousness, there is no consciousness to remember. There is no consciousness to praise. Chapter 88. Part of my intention here was to give you scriptures that are not real well known. I want to give some that are well known, but I want to give a lot that are unknown or not unknown, but lesser known so you can see that these ideas are in more than just the memory scriptures. Psalm 88:10-11 Will you work wonders for the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise You? Shall Your lovingkindness be declared in the grave? Or Your faithfulness in the place of destruction? Of course not. These are rhetorical questions saying that these things cannot be done. What good would it do for God to work wonders for the dead? They could not see them, they could not appreciate them. Of course, the dead shall rise and praise You at some point. But he is speaking here of the dead being able to praise. They cannot do it. They cannot arise and praise You. If God would declare His lovingkindness, would they be able to hear in the grave? No, and same with faith, faithfulness. So you know what good does it do them? It does not do them any good at all is the idea here. Let us go on Ecclesiastes 9, verses 5 and 10. This is probably the one you know well. Ecclesiastes 9:5 For the living know that they will die [yes, we all are aware of that]; but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward. The dead have no knowledge. They have no awareness or consciousness. Ecclesiastes 9:10 [this is part of Solomon's conclusion, his advice] Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might [now]; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going. When you are dead, you are dead. There is nothing that you can do because you can do nothing. Now, in the New Testament especially, but not exclusively, death is often softened by the use of the term sleep. Notice. I want to give you several from the Old Testament (or a couple). Go back to Psalm 13. Why do the writers in the New Testament use it? Because it was used in the Old Testament. Psalm 13:3 Consider and hear me, O Lord my God; and lighten my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death. Very straightforward. Psalm 76:1 In Judah God is known; His name is great in Israel. Psalm 76:5 The stouthearted were plundered; they have sunk into their sleep; and none of the mighty men had found the use of their hands. He is talking obviously about death here. Jeremiah 51, verses 37 to 39. This is talking about Babylon, one of God's prophecies against Babylon. Jeremiah 51:37-39 "Babylon shall become a heap, a dwelling place for jackals, an astonishment and a hissing, without an inhabitant. They shall roar together like lions, they shall growl like lions' whelps. In their excitement I will prepare their feasts; I will make them drunk, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep and not awake," says the Lord. Jeremiah 51:57 "And I will make drunk her princes and wise men, her governors, her deputies, and her mighty men. And they shall sleep a perpetual sleep and not awake," says the King, whose name is the Lord of hosts. It is a pretty dire prophecy there. So He is going to take them down and bring them to death where they would sleep a perpetual sleep. Like I said, this is also in the New Testament. Here is one from Jesus Christ Himself in John 11. This is probably the easiest and clearest to understand because it is explained so well by John. This is just before the resurrection of Lazarus, just before his death. John 11:11-14 These things He said, and after that He said to them, "Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up." Then His disciples said, "Lord, if he sleeps he will get well." However, Jesus spoke of his death, but they thought that He was speaking about taking rest in sleep. Then Jesus said to them plainly, "Lazarus is dead." So it is pretty clear that He was talking about death there in terms of sleep. And finally, another one that we all know. At least, I think we all know, in I Corinthians the 11th chapter. We go through this every Passover. This is, you know, do not take the Passover unworthily. And then he says in verse 30, I Corinthians 11:30 For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep [meaning have died for taking it unworthily]. Sleep is like death in that when one is asleep, there is no conscious activity at all that you are aware of. I mean, your mind is still working and your brain is trying to sort things out and you dream. But during that time of sleep, you are not aware of any of that really going on. Time and events pass by without any kind of knowledge or awareness on our part. If we sleep for 10 hours from Friday night to Saturday morning, which many of us probably do, take the time to rest, well, we do not know what is going on overnight. We can go to bed on Friday evening and the world just be in a wonderful condition and wake up on Saturday morning and who knows what may have happened. We have to turn on the radio and hear the news or turn on the TV and catch a newscast to find out what has happened because we were unaware during our period of sleep. So we are dead to the world. How many of you have said that about yourself and somebody else who have been in a really deep sleep? "They are dead to the world. They don't know anything right now. They're just out of it." Now, some who believe in the immortal soul doctrine have come up with a doctrine called soul sleep, which is different from what we believe. They believe in an immortal soul, as I just said, and they just think that God puts it to sleep and then He will raise it up in the resurrection. Whereas we do not believe that. We believe that the soul dies and that God will raise us up in the resurrection by other means, by His means. He does not have to have an immortal soul to make that work. Death is death and sleep, we need to understand, is just a metaphor for it. It is not the reality, it is just a metaphor. So even though the writers of the Bible use sleep to be a euphemism for death, it is not a true sleep. It is death. The fourth point: Just as one can be awakened from sleep, God will raise us up from death by resurrection. Let us start going to scriptures. Job 14 (I told you we go to Job a lot), verse 13. Job cries: Job 14:13-16 "Oh, that You would hide me in the grave, that You would conceal me until Your wrath is past, that You would appoint me a set time, and remember me! If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my hard service, I will wait, till my change comes. You shall call, and I will answer You; You shall desire the work of Your hands." This is one of the greatest passages on the resurrection that there is in the Bible. Psalm 17, verse 15. Another one that I like quite a bit. This is David realizing what the ultimate end, a good end is of his life. And that is really not an end, it is a beginning as Mr. Armstrong told us. Psalm 17:15 As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness. That is one of my favorites. Very encouraging. Isaiah 26:19 [Isaiah writes] Your dead shall live; together with my dead body they shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in dust; for your dew is like the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. Another reason why I am giving you so many scriptures is because I want you to see just how often the Bible talks about this and makes it pretty plain. Daniel 12, verse 2, speaking of the time that Michael stands up. He is talking about the end. Daniel 12:2 "And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt." Now it conflates a great deal of time and the various resurrections, but obviously we get the idea that there are those who are in the dust who will rise out of the dust to new life. And of course, I will not go to I Corinthians 15:51-52, which you probably all know. You know, the last trump, the dead in Christ shall rise, and we shall be changed. Also, I will not go to I Thessalonians 4:14-17 because this is very similar, what Paul says, that we who are alive and remain will meet Him in the air, but those who are dead, of course, will rise first. But I do want to go to I Thessalonians 5, verses 9 and 10. I Thessalonians 5:9-10 [Paul writes] For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. What he is saying is that there is a resurrection to come and that He will raise us up to live together with Him in the future, whether we are alive, we wake, or whether we are dead, we sleep. So he is in many ways repeating what he had just said at the end of chapter 4. That was the fourth point. Just as one could be awakened from sleep, one can be raised from the dead by a resurrection. The fifth point (hopefully, we will go through this quickly) is that God has appointed specific times for the resurrections. I do not need to really go into this a great deal. We all know about the first, second, and third resurrections, but I do want to hit a few highlights. We have already seen in these places or mentioned it that when Christ returns, specifically I Corinthians 15:51-52 and I Thessalonians 4:14-17, that when Christ returns, He is going to resurrect the saints and reward them. This is the first resurrection. Let us go to Mark 13. This is one we do not normally go to because we often go to the one in Matthew 24. But Mark has a similar saying of Christ. Mark 13:24-27 "But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars of heaven will fall, and the powers of heaven will be shaken. Then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory. And then He will send His angels, and gather together His elect from the four winds, from the farthest part of the earth to the farthest part of heaven." So right there at the end God's people will be gathered and as we see in the other places, they will be changed. Let us go to II Timothy 4, verse 8. I told you I wanted to go to different ones, ones that you might not be aware of or ones that may never have thought of it that way. You will probably recognize this once you get there. Paul says, II Timothy 4:8 Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day [meaning on the day that he returns], and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing. He is telling you specifically what day he is talking about, the day He appears in person. Revelation 20:4-6 And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. As we just saw there, the rest of the dead remain dead for 1,000 years during this time when the people who rose in the first resurrection are reigning with Christ. Now these people, these ones who are dead, will arise in the second resurrection. Revelation 20:12-13 I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one, according to his works. This is also the resurrection of those in the Valley of Dry Bones in Ezekiel 37. It is a resurrection to physical life. You might just want to jot down Ezekiel 37:11-14 where God is very clear that He resurrects their bones, as it were, and He puts sinews on their bones and all the things that they need, and He breathes breath into them again, which is showing very clearly that this is a resurrection to physical life. It also says here that it is a period of judgment. It says back in Ezekiel 37 that they are given His Spirit. So there is obviously a chance for them to use God's Spirit and a chance to have eternal life. And if you want to jot down Isaiah 65:20 there is a hint there that these people will live 100 years—a child will die 100 years old and the old man will die a century. Something similar to that. Finally, there is what we call the third resurrection. It is also called the resurrection of condemnation. We can read it here in verses 14 and 15. Revelation 20:14-15 Then Death and Hades were cast into the Lake of Fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the Lake of Fire. Just to summarize all this, let us go back to John 5 and we will see Jesus actually mentions all three in one passage. He is talking about His being granted judgment. John 5:24-29 "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life. [That is a resurrection in a way.] Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live. [So He is talking specifically here about the first resurrection.] For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself, and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice [This is the second resurrection that He is speaking about.] and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life [you see they have an opportunity to have eternal life], and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation [they will go into the Lake of Fire or be sentenced to the second death]." So all three are mentioned here in John 5: first, second, and third resurrections. Scripture is very straightforward that the pathway to eternal life leads through resurrection. That is the way He has set it up. Think of this: God's own Son had to die, He had to remain dead for three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, and He had to be given granted, gifted with eternal life through the resurrection from the dead by His Father. If the Father had not intervened, He would not have risen. But death could not hold Him because He was the perfect Son of Man and God was obviously going to raise Him from the dead. And this is what I am trying to get across. Here is the essence of the teaching in Hebrews 2, verses 10 and 11. I do want to read that. Hebrews 2:10-11 [where the author writes] For it was fitting for Him, for whom all are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory [now, he is bringing us back into it], to make the author of their salvation [this is where the term Archegos comes in, in the word author] perfect through sufferings. For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified [that is us] are all of one [We are all united. We are all going along the same path, as it were.], for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren. Now, I want to catch the end of verse 13. Hebrews 2:13-15 "Here am I and the children whom God has given Me." [He is talking about Christ and His disciples, meaning us.] Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death are all their lifetimes subject to bondage. This is saying that God set it up and made it possible that Jesus Christ, or the Word, would come down as flesh as an example to us. And we would then have to follow the same procedure that He had to follow. He was made perfect through sufferings and His sufferings went all the way to the point of death. We find in Philippians 2 that He did. He went all the way to the death of the cross. And as our Archegos, as the Trailblazer, as the Pioneer, He showed us the way and we follow. We are all one, we all do the same thing. That is why we are called Christians—because we follow Christ, and we follow Christ in everything. And certainly we follow Him in the way that He attained eternal life, which was through death and a resurrection to glory into eternal life and a spiritual body. Some could argue then, since Jesus went to heaven after He was resurrected, does that not mean we will go to heaven after we die? The way I put it there is the way it is often phrased. See, He went to heaven after He was resurrected. They are saying that they are going to go to heaven after they die and they skip the whole resurrection part. They just spiritualize the whole resurrection away. But not so fast. Sure, once we are resurrected at His coming, we will have access to heaven because that is where our heavenly Father lives and reigns. But our place, as the Bible makes very clear, is as the Bride of Christ. We will be where a wife is to be normally and that is at the side of her husband. They become one, in the physical realm it is one flesh. Christ, we are one Spirit with Him. So we will be by Christ's side. Let us go back to Job the 19th chapter. Notice what it says in Job on this subject. That Job guy was pretty smart. He knew a thing or two. Job 19:25-27 "For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall stand at last on the earth; and after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God [or it should be apart from my flesh, not in, apart from my flesh, I shall see God], whom I shall see for myself, my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!" Did you notice that he said that he would be resurrected and he would be, as I mentioned, apart from his flesh? He would be in a different form when Jesus would stand on the earth. We are talking about timing here, that he understood that his redemption would finally be complete once He, the Redeemer, would stand on the earth and resurrect him in a new form. I Thessalonians 4:17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with Him in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air [as He is returning]. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. That is that husband and wife thing I was talking about: "Thus we shall always be with the Lord." Notice Revelation 14, verses 1 and 4. This is the the Lamb, Jesus Christ and the 144,000, His Bride. Revelation 14:1 Then I looked, and behold, a Lamb standing on Mount Zion [Notice the word "standing" there, which is interesting in terms of Job the 19th chapter. This time He is on Mount Zion], and with Him one hundred and forty-four thousand, having His Father's name written on their foreheads. Revelation 14:4 These are the ones who are not defied with women, for they are virgins. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These were redeemed [same word that Job used] from among men, being firstfruits to God and to the Lamb. I think that is self-explanatory. Revelation 20:6 [We have already read this, but I will read it again.] Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years. They are reigning with Him. They are where He is. Let us go backward to chapter 5, verse 10 and find out where this reigning is. Another memory scripture. This is the new song that is being sung there. Revelation 5:10 And have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth. Not in heaven. Chapter 2, verse 26, in one of the letters to the seven churches. This is to the Thyatira church. Notice what it says here. Revelation 2:26 "And he who overcomes, and keeps My works until the end, to him I will give power over the nations." Are the nations up in heaven? No, they are down here on earth. Let us go back even further to Matthew 5, verse 5. I do not need to really go there because you know what it says. Matthew 5:5 "Blessed are the meek, for [the meek] shall inherit the earth." That is what we are are looking forward to in our inheritance. Finally, one more in an odd place, you might think. Romans the fourth chapter, verse 13. This is the chapter where Paul is talking about Abraham being justified by faith rather than by works. But notice what he says in verse 13. Romans 4:13 For the promise that he would be heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed [his physical seed] through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. Essentially, what he is saying is that Abraham and all his spiritual children are going to inherit the world, not heaven. Pretty clear. That seems pretty plain to me. The resurrection occurs when our Redeemer comes to stand on the earth and at His return, when His feet hits the Mount of Olives, and that our inheritance is not heaven but the earth, this world. We will reign and serve on the earth. In fact, after all is said and done, everything that we know of in God's Word is finally over, after the Great White Throne judgment the Father Himself is not going to stay up in heaven. But what is He going to do? He is going to make a new heaven and a new earth and He is going to come here to the earth to live with us. That is in Revelation 21:3. This is where things are happening. This is the place to be, not up in heaven. Let us do "Today you will be with Me in Paradise." That is Luke 23:39-43. Jesus is on the cross. There are a few thieves crucified with Him and He has a conversation with a couple of them. Verse 39. This is just after they put the notice on top of the stake there. "This is the King of the Jews," as it says here in Luke. Luke 23:39-43 Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed Him, saying, "If you are the Christ, save Yourself and us." But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, "Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong." Then he said to Jesus, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom." And Jesus said to him, "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise." Now, I read that as is written and we know that this has frequently come up as proof that one goes to heaven because Jesus said that the thief would be with Him in paradise that very day. And if surely this repentant thief would go to paradise after he died, surely the righteous will. There are two proofs against this being the case. The first is in verse 42. I do not know if you thought of this one before or maybe you have. The first proof against this is the fact that the thief says, "Remember me when You come into Your kingdom." And when is that? Now we all know that while Jesus is our King now, we are under His rule, it says we are in the "kingdom of the Son of His love" there in Colossians 1. However, He has not yet come into His Kingdom, not in full. That occurs at His return. Let us go see Revelation 11, verses 15 through 17. This is when He comes into His Kingdom. Remember what it said in I Corinthians 15:51-52 about the last trump. Revelation 11:15-17 Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven saying, "The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!" And the twenty-four elders who sat before God on their thrones fell on their faces and worshiped, God saying: "We give you thanks, O Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was and who is to come, because You have taken Your great power and reigned." That is the time when He comes into His Kingdom. Now, it is hard to know how much the thief knew. It sounds like he actually knew a fair amount. I wonder how much he had actually heard from Christ Himself and just knew, I mean, he had said there that this One had done nothing wrong. He seemed to have some knowledge of Christ. But he sure said it right when he made his request that when You come into Your kingdom, remember me. So when He comes into His Kingdom is a future time, certainly future to this verse and it is still future to us. The second proof is in verse 43 and that is in Jesus' own words. Jesus was making an emphatic statement and a promise. This was not something He did lightly. In fact, we could say that He was speaking as God in His position as Judge over all. And so He states it in such a way as to be a formal statement. The Greek that this came from has no punctuation so the translators have rendered it as it is in our Bible. "Assuredly, I say to you, today you shall be with Me in paradise." That is how they have translated it because they think we go to heaven. In doing so they take away the emphasis, they take away the fact that this was written emphatically and said emphatically. If you move the comma down one word and put it as, "Assuredly, I say to you today, you will be with Me in Paradise," then it becomes emphatic. "I say to you today." Remember, He is speaking as God and as Judge. He was rendering a judgment here. I say to you on this day, the 14th day of Nisan, 31 AD, you will be with Me in paradise. He is putting it very straightforward making a judgment in this case. Now, I want you to see a few places where this same kind of language is used in the Old Testament. Zechariah 9, verse 12. Just notice here how this is used. We will read verse 11 just to get a running start. Zechariah 9:11-12 "As for you also, because of the blood of your covenant, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. Return to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope. Even today I declare that I will restore double to you." He is making a promise. Today I declare I will restore double to you. Let us go back to Deuteronomy. Now, if I were to give you all of the places in Deuteronomy where this language is used, we would be here till about seven o'clock, but I want to pull out just a few because I know you are all hungry. I can hear your stomachs growling. Deuteronomy 4:40 "You shall therefore keep His statutes and His commandments which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which the Lord your God is giving you for all time." He is not making a promise here, but he is making a very strict command. I command you today. Deuteronomy 6:6 [This is right after the "hear O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one."] "And these words which I command you today shall be you in your heart." Deuteronomy 7:11 "Therefore you shall keep the commandment, the statutes, and the judgments which I command you today, to observe them." Deuteronomy 8:1 "Every commandment which I command you today you must be careful to observe, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers." And they just go on and on. They are just about in every chapter as we go. Chapter 11 is chock full of them. But let us go to chapter 30, verse 15. This is another scripture we go to often. Deuteronomy 30:15-19 "See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them, I announce to you today that you shall surely perish; you shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and possess. I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live." I do not need to go any further. That is good enough. It shows you the same type of language. I tell you today. I command you today. You are witnesses today. It is all court language, judgment language, it is promise language, covenant language. And Jesus was using the same language with the thief on the cross. He was actually giving him a very astounding promise and judgment right there on the cross, because he had made actually a great witness for Christ there for those who were witnessing the crucifixion, and he ended up dying. And so Jesus made the judgment that he would eventually be with Him in paradise or in the Kingdom of God. Finally, there is actually one more proof and that is the fact that Jesus Himself did not go to paradise that day. So how could He promise him, that is, the thief, that he would be with Him that day in paradise? Where was Jesus that day? Well, He was on the cross and then He was taken down from the cross and placed in a tomb. That was not paradise, that was the grave. And so the common translation of putting the comma after "you" instead of after "today" is wrong.
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