We see, therefore, that there is a real Heaven, a real Hell, and a real Lake of Fire. God the Father, Christ, the saints, and the holy angels are in Heaven at the present time.

The wicked are in Hell as of this moment.

In the future the wicked will be thrown into the Lake of Fire with the devil and his angels.

All these are facts and the thought of them should make a wise person take heed to his ways.

But there is another dimension of our future, as we are setting forth in this brief essay, and that is what kind of a state we will be in personally in the Day of Resurrection, regardless of where we are placed.

If we have faithfully sought the Lord during our days on the earth, doing His will each day, denying ourselves, taking up our cross, and following the Lord, then in the Day of Resurrection our body like our soul and spirit will be filled with the Life of Christ. We then will be with the Lord forever.

But if we have not faithfully sought the Lord during our days on the earth, have not presented our body a living sacrifice that we might prove His will for our life, have not denied ourselves, have not taken up our cross and followed the Lord each day, then, in the Day of Resurrection, our soul, spirit, and body will not be filled with the Life of Christ. Where we will go from there depends on the judgment of Christ at that time.

The Scripture does not suggest that we can wait for death to change what we are or for the coming of the Lord to change what we are. The power of the new covenant to bring forth new righteous creations operates only as we obey the commandments of Jesus Christ and His Apostles. I do not believe any competent Bible scholar would deny this.

We can understand, therefore, the deadly error of the current teaching. The current teaching is concerned only with where we will be. Thus the emphasis is on a "rapture" that will bring us to Heaven where we will live comfortably in a mansion forever.

The problem here is that the writing of Paul concerning the Kingdom principle of sowing and reaping is ignored. It is as though all that matters is where we are, not what we have or have not become through Jesus Christ. There is no new creation involved, only a new location. This concept simply cannot be supported by the New Testament.

Jesus Christ came to change people by destroying the works of the devil, not to move people from one place to another. What good would it do to bring an unchanged Adam into Paradise? Sooner or later he would do something else wrong and God would have to remove him from the garden.

The Christian salvation is an act of redemption, that is, it redeems people from the death that captured them as they succumbed to the wiles of Satan. Our Redeemer has come and by His blood has paid the price of redemption. More than that, by His Spirit He is able to change us into His image in spirit, soul, and body.

To be continued.