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The Daily Word of Righteousness
An Examination of Current Teaching, #9
You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth. (Revelation 5:10)
To be saved is to go to Heaven when we die and to live there forever.
The idea that eternal residence in Heaven is the goal of salvation probably was derived from the philosophy of Gnosticism. It is not at all a Bible concept, in spite of its support from centuries of tradition.
God created man on the earth. The earth is man's home. God temporarily removes our spiritual nature from our body until such time as He can perfect our spiritual nature. Once our spirit has been made acceptable to God, He will return our body to us. Then we can live once again on the earth.
To the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, (Hebrews 12:23)
We will rule with Jesus on the present earth when He returns. Then we will rule with Jesus on the new earth when it is created. There is no scriptural basis for the idea that Heaven is our eternal home.
To be saved is to be brought from the kingdom of Satan to the Kingdom of God. Salvation is a change in what we are, not where we are.
Until we recognize that we are heading toward the reuniting of our body with our inward nature, and that life on the earth is our goal, our rationale for making a dedicated effort to please God becomes confused.
If our goal is heaven, and we go there by believing Jesus is the Christ, then most of us are not going to present our body a living sacrifice in order to prove God's will.
But if our goal is the resurrection to eternal life, and we understand the way we are behaving now will have a direct impact on the kind of resurrection we shall have, and on our subsequent life on the earth, then we might be a bit more diligent in seeking the will of God for our life.
Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10)
And so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:11)
They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you. (II Thessalonians 1:9,10)
For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come. (Heb 3:14)
To him who overcomes and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations (Revelation 2:26)
To be continued.