Vol. XXXIX August 1, 2007 No 8
YOU CAN COME BACK HERE AND STAY IF YOU LIKE!
by Tom McLemore
If you made it to heaven, would you want to come back to earth? Everywhere we look in the teaching of the New Testament, the goal of God’s eternal purpose and plan is for people to be in heaven. The desired destiny of the children of God is heaven. Our true home is heaven, of which all of God’s children are citizens.
All Christians Want to Go to Heaven?
I don’t know of a single Christian who is in his right mind, who has read and believes the New Testament, who realizes that God is in heaven and that Jesus is in heaven sitting at God’s right hand, who does not want to go to heaven and live eternally. I don’t know of a single informed, sane, sober, and sensible writer in all the history of Christianity who did not recognize that heaven is the Christian’s goal and that did not want to go to heaven and live there with God, Christ, and the redeemed forever. There is absolutely nothing undesirable about that place. All is beauty, joy, happiness, satisfaction, and reward. Heaven is what being a Christian is ultimately all about.
It is wonderful to think about the “land of fadeless day” where “we’ll never grow old.” It is enthralling to daydream about being able to sit and converse with “Magdalene, Peter, and Paul,” as well as all those famous for their faith (Hebrews 11). If we could speak with each for ten millennia, eternity would only have begun. (It is not really fair to put it that way, because eternity does not note the passing of time. A thousand years in God’s sight are like yesterday when it is past, while one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day). We will never weary of singing God’s praises, and only one song will be needed, viz., eternity’s greatest hit, “the song of Moses and the Lamb.” No change, no decay, no parting, no losing, no weeping, no crying, no pain, no sickness, no crepe on the doorknob, no disappointment...not one single thing that we would not desire will be there.
Earth is No Place to Stay
Earth, on the other hand, while it is God’s creation and is a wonderful place indeed in many respects, is not where Christians really want to be. For all the wonders of earth and all the blessings that God provides for his creatures here, this earth is a place of death, decay, disease, danger, and disappointment. Life here is subject to all sorts of limitations and difficulties. For every single joy that we may experience here, there are a million pains, sorrows, and tragedies. Even though it means that the deceased is no longer with us, in many cases, people can feel relieved for someone who is able through death to be released from this place. Mind you, God created it good, but sin has entered, and all the woes and trials humans must endure may be traced back ultimately to sin’s presence here. “God made human beings straightforward, but they have devised many schemes.” Periodic divine cleansings and purges (such as the Great Flood and the total destruction of various idolatrous nations, etc.) have not been able to eradicate sin from off the earth, and its deadly and demonic effects are in evidence every day and in every way.
“Here today, and gone tomorrow”–of how many things can this be said here below. “Here one minute and gone the next” might be more accurate! “Where moth and rust corrupt and where thieves break through and steal” is the Lord’s fitting description of this piece of real estate on which we now dwell (but who knows for how long in the case of any?). And what do we have to look forward to here? Oh, there are optimists (even though they by and large are among the crowd that claims we evolved from slime via some banana loving primates) who scoff at the notion of sin and who think man will evolve into something better while being encouraged to deny God and join the brute beasts in gratifying the urges. But the law of the increase of entropy (the second law of thermodynamics) applies to men as well as matter. Wicked people and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving others and being deceived, and because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold. There will be fewer and fewer to enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it.
Going There and Staying There
Perhaps you can get the idea that I am all for going there and not staying here. And you would be absolutely correct! But what is it all about? I recently read a statement that really convinced me that I might be all confused regarding the foregoing observations, that is, IF premillennialism is God’s truth. Dr. Ed Hindson, a premillennialist, wrote an article entitled, “Israel’s Future Destiny: Literal or Symbolic?” in the recent issue of National Liberty Journal (May 2007, pp. 7, 9). In that article he made some blanket denials of the doctrine that the church of our Lord is now the Israel of God. (He affirms that “Israel according to the flesh” continues to be the chosen people of God).
Without any addressing of the New Testament passages (e.g., Galatians 3:26-29; 4:21-31; 6:14-16; Philippians 3:3, etc.) which clearly teach this doctrine (the technical term for it in premillennial parlance is “Replacement Theology”), he bases his denial on Acts 1:6: “So when they had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’” He claims that if the notion of the kingdom espoused by these apostles had been erroneous, Jesus would have corrected it on the spot.
Of course, this will not be the last time that apostles will be behind (cf. Peter, who, even after he had declared the words of Acts 2:39, had to be convinced by a threefold vision of the truth of what he had declared. See Acts 10:9-17). But what is more likely is that Dr. Hindson and his fellow premillennialists do not realize they are reading their own premillennial ideas into the question that the apostles asked. There was no question as to whether the kingdom would be restored to Israel. The only question is what is the nature of the kingdom that was to be restored to Israel. And as the casual reader of Acts (who is interested in what Luke says rather than finding proof texts for a materialistic heresy) will soon learn, Christ does indeed restore the kingdom to Israel.
God Has Already Restored the Kingdom to Israel
Beginning with the events of the Day of Pentecost (when the announcement of the King’s having come into his reign upon David’s throne was made–Acts 2:36), and as we progress through Acts, we are reading about the restoring of the kingdom to Israel as we learn ultimately “how many thousands of believers there are among the Jews” (Acts 21:20). And the preaching that is leading to this phenomenon is the good news of the kingdom of God (see Acts 8:12; 14:22;19:8; 20:25; 28:23, 31. Note that since it was Jews who were hearing the gospel of the kingdom and responding, the idea of “replacement” is erroneous. Romans 11, especially verses 17-21, is very helpful for understanding that it is only by faith in Christ that even Jews can be part of Israel. Cf. Acts 15:11). And this is precisely the kingdom concerning which Jesus had been instructing the apostles for forty days (Acts 1:3) and about which they had asked him in Acts 1:6. Jesus’ response was intended to focus their attention toward what they were to be doing and away from watching for when it was going to happen.
Back to what we imagined before . . . how we want to go to heaven . . . what earth holds for us . . . . What takes the cake in this article by Dr. Hindson is this declaration: “We [premillennialists] also believe the Church Age will end with THE RAPTURE OF. . .BELIEVERS TO HEAVEN (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18) to the marriage of the Lamb and His Bride (the Church) and will be followed by OUR TRIUMPHAL RETURN WITH CHRIST TO REIGN ON EARTH during His literal Millennial Kingdom (Revelation 19-20).” (p. 9, emphasis supplied). Dr. Hindson and his fellow premillennialists are not through reading their doctrine into the scriptures when they are finished with Acts 1:6. They do it also at 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. They must ignore or deny the force of the plain words “the coming of the Lord” (v. 15) and “to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever” (v. 17) in order to get Paul to say what they teach (that this passage is not about the second and final coming of the Lord).
“Coming” in 1 Thessalonians 5:15 translates the Greek parousia, a technical term in the New Testament for the second coming of Christ (A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd edition, revised and edited by Frederick William Danker, 2000, pp. 780, 781). When living and resurrected Christians leave here at his second coming, neither he nor they will be coming back!
If I Can Ever Get Away from Here
Now, I can’t speak for you, or for Dr. Hindson and his fellow premillennialists, but as for me, IF I CAN EVER GET AWAY FROM THIS EARTH, I NEVER WANT TO COME BACK AND LIVE HERE AGAIN! I thank God, that according to the scriptures, I know that when I leave here (either having been transformed while alive at his coming, or having been resurrected after death at this coming) I won’t have to come back and live here again. By the grace of God and by virtue of the blood of Christ, I am bound for the spiritual realm, the New Jerusalem, the new heavens and the new earth where righteousness dwells, and I am bound there for good.
Thanks to Dr. Hindson, we have gotten additional confirmation on the nature of premillennialism– it is materialism. There is nothing spiritual about it. Such “wisdom” as is offered to the gullible in this elaborate false doctrine does not come down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, devilish. It has nothing to do with Jesus who said to the servants of the devil, “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.” (John 8:23).
Jesus is coming again, and when he does come it will be at the end of this world (2 Peter 3:9-13). When he does come, instead of establishing his kingdom, he is going to relinquish his kingdom (1 Corinthians 15:24). When he shall have come and transformed and resurrected and taken us with him to heaven, there will be no more enemies to vanquish, and “kingdom” will no longer have any practical meaning. Meanwhile, I worship God whose Son Jesus Christ now sits on David’s throne reigning over God’s Israel at God’s right hand as King of kings and Lord of lords. The last thing I would want to do is to be found promoting falsehoods about “Israel according to the flesh” and denying the truth about the reign of King Jesus!
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