All of us know Christ is righteous, His Apostles are righteous, and God expects righteousness from all of us. God is holy and without holiness no believer will see the Lord. And this means real holiness of personality, not imputed holiness.

All of us know the only testimony the world will believe is the testimony of righteous works on the part of the Christians. This is the true light of the world—the righteous Nature of Christ being revealed in His people.

Now, the six traditions we have mentioned work against these basic facts we all believe.

The idea that the Lord is coming to take His Church to Heaven turns our eyes away from the coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth, the establishing of justice among the nations. The Dispensational position that the Gentile believers will be in mansions in Heaven while the Kingdom of God on the earth consists of Jewish believers is so unscriptural, unrealistic, illogical, and impractical as to not be worthy of discussion.

The idea that Heaven is the eternal home of the saints makes most of the Bible incomprehensible. Many passages of the Bible, including both Testaments, speaks of the coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth.

The tradition that when we die and enter Heaven we shall live in an ornate mansion and walk around on a golden street leaves us with the idea that even if we do not have Christ formed in us we will be in such a superior environment that who cares. We may have forgotten man at one time was in Paradise on the earth and could not maintain it because he himself had not been transformed. Would we want the same tragedy to occur again? We were not made in the spirit realm, as were the angels, and do not belong there. We were made on the earth and this is where we rightfully belong.

The tradition that we shall receive our reward when we go to Heaven removes the reality of the Day of Christ from our thinking. We are to be looking forward to the Day of Resurrection, the time when we receive the body, the robe formed from our sowing to the death and resurrection of Christ during the time of our discipleship on the earth.

The tradition that our physical body will not be raised from the dead takes away from the necessity for overcoming the works of the flesh. The assumption that we will never be faced with the consequences of what we have done in the flesh gives us a false impression of reality. Every person who has lived on the earth will be called forth from the grave and give an account of his behavior, even if he has been dead and living in the spirit realm for two thousand years. Adam and Eve will be summoned from the dead by Jesus Christ and give an account of their behavior.

Whether we enjoy the thought or not, after we die there is coming an hour when our body will hear the voice of Jesus Christ. It will be compelled to get up on its feet and stand before God, just as did Lazarus. No doubt the clothes we were buried in will have rotted away by that time.

To be continued.