Any system that is going anywhere has a quality control department. This is where the inspectors evaluate selected items from the assembly line.

Let us say we are machining quarter-inch bolts. Let us say further that these are part of a sophisticated range finder and must be machined to plus or minus one ten- thousandth of an inch.

The inspector uses his micrometer (perhaps now it is done with a computer) to determine whether we are within or outside the specified tolerances.

Can you see that quality control is impossible apart from the dimensions and tolerances specified on the blueprint? How do you know when the thing is correct without clearly defined objectives?

So it is with every kind of system. If we do not know precisely what the objective is there is no way of knowing when we get there or how close we are to getting there.

One of the major problems of Christian thinking today is we do not have clearly specified objectives. Apart from these quality control is impossible.

Salvation often is viewed as being open-ended. Since we have no clear goals let us concentrate on the means. Should the coffee and doughnuts during the break be free or should we charge for them? This is how you drive a systems engineer crazy.

The assumed goal of salvation is eternal residence in a mansion in Heaven. There indeed is a place in the spirit realm called "Heaven" where God, Christ, and the saints and angels dwell (although probably not in mansions since it doesn't rain there or get cold as far as we know). However, there are two massive problems with this goal. The first is that quality control is impossible since we do not know if we reached our goal until we die. Second, an even more horrendous problem, is that neither the Old Testament nor the New Testament presents eternal residence in a mansion in Heaven as the goal of salvation.

John 14, the venerable location of the goal, is not talking about Heaven. The context of the chapter is the abiding of the Father and Christ in the believer. The "mansions" are properly translated rooms. God's House is not Heaven, this is not scriptural. God's eternal House is Christ and those who are part of Christ. Thus saith the fourteenth through the seventeenth chapters of the Gospel of John.

The true, scriptural goal of salvation has two aspects: transformation into the image of Christ and untroubled rest in the Father through Christ. Christ is not the way to Heaven but to the Father.

Participation in the roles and tasks of the royal priesthood are not possible except as we attain both aspects of the goal of salvation.

Quality control indeed is possible once we know the goals. We can assess our progress or lack of it in becoming a new creation in Christ while we yet are alive. (If you need assistance in evaluating your progress ask your unsaved neighbors to help you.) Also we can assess our progress or lack of it in subordinating our will to the will of the Father.

To be continued.