Take your concordance and look up the phrase "going to Heaven." If going to Heaven is the goal of the Christian redemption, then we should be able to confirm this by several passages of Scripture. If going to Heaven is not the goal of salvation, then we ought to search the Scriptures to determine what the goal of salvation truly is. Of what is the clearly defined land of promise (of the Book of Joshua) a foreshadow?

Since the redemption of mankind began with the coming of Christ and the descent of the Holy Spirit from Heaven, the teachings found in the New Testament concerning Heaven are especially significant.

However, neither John the Baptist, Jesus of Nazareth nor the early Apostles, set forth eternal residence in Heaven as the goal of redemption.

The message of the Christian Gospel is the coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth. This is what John the Baptist preached. This is what Jesus of Nazareth preached. This is what Paul and the other Apostles preached. This is what the Prophets of Israel wrote about.

God has no intention of removing saved mankind from the material realm to abide permanently in the spirit realm. This is not God's purpose in saving us. From the first chapter of the Book of Genesis to the last chapter of the Book of Revelation, mankind is on the earth. A few verses of the Book of Revelation show saved people in the spirit realm, but this is for a relatively brief period while the Lord Jesus prepares the earth for His return.

The concept of the coming of the Kingdom of God, that which the Lord Jesus preached, requires a new understanding of the Christian redemption.

We are not certain how the concept of "going to Heaven" as the goal of salvation entered Christian thinking. It would be an interesting thesis for a student of theology.

Perhaps the concept of going to Heaven as the goal of salvation has served a useful purpose in the Kingdom during the hundreds of years of the Christian Era. Now we are so close to the coming of the Lord, to the actual installation of the Kingdom of God on the earth, that the Holy Spirit is pointing us toward the Scriptures concerning this issue.

If the Scriptures do not emphasize getting people into Heaven, what is the point of the Lord's working?

In the beginning God made the heavens and the earth. He created man on the earth, giving him a charge to multiply in the earth and to exercise dominion over the material creation.

Man disobeyed God, as we know, and the Presence of the Almighty withdrew from the earth.

Then God gave a promise to Abraham that the nations of the earth would be blessed through his (Abraham's) seed. Nothing whatever is said or implied about people "going to Heaven." The message of redemption, of restoration of blessing, has to do with restoring to man what was lost in the fall.

To be continued.