Question for Christians

[squarepants]

I wanted to ask a question of the ones here who are christian. My question pertains to heaven. I have heard many christians talk about going to heaven when they die, but I find no biblical evidence of this in the bible. I have seen where Jesus said that 'the kingdom of heaven is in you', and much other statements about 'the kingdom of heaven', but I still have not seen any evidence that people are going to GO to heaven when they die. Does anyone have any BIBLICAL evidence of GOING to heaven when christians die? This is my question. Actually, I've also got one more question....if someone here believes in the rapture of christians, could you tell me how you came to that conclusion? I've read about the 144,000 in this instance, but I haven't seen any evidence of ALL christians being raptured. Thanks:)

[salvorhardin]

1. It gets confusing doesn't it?

Like this from Genesis:

Genesis 1:8 (King James Version)

And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=heaven&qs_version=9

And then this later from Genesis:

Genesis 6:17
And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.

So... where is this heaven then? Are we standing on it or is it in the sky?

[greyl]

4. and "the kingdom of heaven is spread upon the earth and

men do not see it". - Jesus, gospel of Thomas

That may be my favorite Bible quote because it's so self-referential and goes acutely against all of the other salvationist mythology that says 'The gods and heaven are elsewhere, so don't bother looking around here for answers."

[salvorhardin]

8. Heh -- I've heard Art Bell fans quote that

As proof that aliens are visiting us from other dimensions. :-)

[Burning Water]

2. Here's two, off the top of my head

John 14:1-3 (King James Version)
King James Version (KJV)
Public Domain



John 14
1Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.

2In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.



2 Corinthians 5:7-9 (King James Version)
King James Version (KJV)
Public Domain



7(For we walk by faith, not by sight:)

8We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

9Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.

[slide to the left]

3. Anyone who tells you anything

is absolute or certain is silly. You are very right to question what you hear from people. As a Christian, I think we need more of that. I have no answer for you other than that there is a reason we don't know the answers to a lot of questions. Think about what would happen if we knew about heaven for certain, about where it is and how you get there. There would be people telling you that if you havent said this by the time your at 13 (or whatever age) then you go to hell. So the day before their 13th birthday they kill anyone who hasn't said or done that thing. If man knew some things for certain, we would destroy ourselves.

I sound like the Chinese guy from the karate kid.

[ElboRuum]

5. Good Questions all...

I'm no biblical scholar, and gave up my attachments to the Christian faiths at an early age. But the hell with it, I'll comment anyway.

Like most works of poetry (remember, chapter and verse) there's a lot of creative license taken. That fact makes literal translations as those proffered by evangelical Christians look particularly wrongheaded. However, there are several references made to "{entering} the Kingdom of Heaven" which I believe are where the assumptive journey from corporeal Earth to ethereal Heaven is the factual indication. Certainly enough mythology, apocryphal or otherwise, exists to indicate a general belief that this journey is precisely what is meant. St. Peter at the pearly gates with large ledger on a lectern, presiding over the longest dole queue in the universe, and so forth.

Numerically speaking, the Bible should probably have laid off the math. 6000 year old universe? 144,000 saved souls? 40 days and 40 nights? If it is true that 80+ percent of people in the US are Christians of some sort, then there isn't enough room in the Rapture for all of the Christians in two boroughs of New York City much less the entire of the country or the Christian world as a whole. Even if we only took evangelical Christians who voted for Bush, then there would be a not insignificant number of people booking the ticket to salvation only to be put on standby. As I understand it, there is no second flight coming along in an hour or two.

[Zen Democrat]

6. According to scripture, Jesus told the repentent thief crucified with him.

"Today you shall be with me in Paradise".

Then there's the "In my Father's house are many mansions" and "I go to prepare a place for you".

There's also ... "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand". To me, that's always meant that it's available now.

I don't think Jesus ever talked about Pearly Gates and Streets of Gold. His "heaven" is a spiritual realm of pure divinity. And the "many mansions" denotes that there are many levels of soul consciousness and awareness following the casting off of this mortal coil.

I'm no Biblical scholar, but Jesus talked in much different terms than the interpretations conveyed by the churches. I think Jesus would laugh at organized religion.

[Lerkfish]

7. the rapture is conjecture from a solitary passage.

Passage Matthew 24 :
Matthew 24

1And Jesus went out, and departed from the temple: and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple.

2And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.

3And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?

4And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.

5For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

6And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

7For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.

8All these are the beginning of sorrows.

9Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.

10And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.

11And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many.

12And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

13But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.

14And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

15When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:)

16Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:

17Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house:

18Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.

19And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!

20But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day:

21For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.

22And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.

23Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.

24For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

25Behold, I have told you before.

26Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.

27For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

28For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together.

29Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:

30And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

31And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

32Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:

33So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.

34Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

35Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

36But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.

37But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

38For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,

39And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

40Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

41Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

42Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.

43But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up.

44Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.

45Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season?

46Blessed is that servant, whom his lord when he cometh shall find so doing.

47Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler over all his goods.

48But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming;

49And shall begin to smite his fellowservants, and to eat and drink with the drunken;

50The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of,

51And shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

[Proud_Democratt]

14. The word "Rapture" does not exist

in the KJV or American Standard Bible. I verified this at:
http://bible.com/

[Lerkfish]

15. right. we're not disagreeing.

I'm saying the idea of rapture comes from that passage, in my understanding.

But "rapture" is a modern concept unrelated to original texts.

[Proud_Democratt]

16. Just clarifying an

overused word. It's a word borne from the early Evangelist times of the 1890s to 1900s. It was created and used as a "scare tactic".

[Igel]

18. It was once pointed out to me that in context,

'taken' is not a good thing. "Would you want to be one of the people taken by the flood, or left?"

[Yoda Yada]

9. Read "Misquoting Jesus"...

...The Story About Who Changed the Bible and Why by Bart Ehrman

It is fascinating....(I am only at the halfway mark) Ehrman went to Moody Bible Institute, Wheaton College and I think Yale (?) Theological Seminary...(not sure about the school.) During his studies he became interested in Bible literalism. He learned to read Greek, Hebrew, Latin texts and went back to as many of the old Biblical manuscripts as he could.

He said that many of Jesus' teachings were written down by Christians in the 1-3 centuries that wrote only what they recalled and then passed the manuscripts on to others....many mistakes were made and many of the "copyists" could not read or write themselves. Of course, the press was invented much later, and they had no other choice but to pass them on to one another and copy (many times incorrectly)....from Greek to Latin and into many other languages as well. It was only in the Middle Ages that the monks started doing the transcribing etc.


My point is that the author mentioned there were many discrepancies (text) between centuries and language... such as in Revelations (not included in some manuscripts)....the Gospel of Mark has several verses added at the end...and some of Jesus' well-known "stories" are not included in many of the manuscripts etc.

Anyway, I am looking forward to finishing the book. You might like to look into it. It is NOT a difficult "read".

[squarepants]

10. see, I'm inclined to think

what zen democrat said above. It seems to me that heaven is a spiritual place that one becomes "one with" or can access from "within themselves". However, I'm not 100% sure of that, which is why I asked the question that I did. Many MANY people think that heaven is this place where everyone will GO when they DIE, but it just doesn't seem that any bible scriptures support that. In fact, it states that there will be a new heaven and a new earth (new earth will be new jerusulem (sp.) and christians will be living in the new earth, not heaven. There is also something that says Jesus will come back and people will be caught up in the clouds, but it doesn't say he's taking anyone back to heaven with Him. Not only that, but even with that statement he made, it's the 144,000 he's referring to, not everybody else who profresses God. PLEASE, I am not trying to offend anyone here, but I'm honestly asking this because even though the bible says these things, most proffessing christians think otherwise and I'm just trying to understand WHERE and WHY they believe otherwise. Is it a scripture or a hope or what?

[sinkingfeeling]

11. Because the teachings of Jesus have become corrupted by those

who seek their own fame, riches, and glory. Those who are convinced that the Bible is the literal word of God and that every single word is truth, deceive themselves. But they are taught these things from childhood...they do not have an inquiring mind, so accept 100% whatever their 'leaders' say. No where do I get the impression that heaven exists for mankind. Jesus said that the heaven and the earth would be swept away, so it doesn't sound like the place the righteous should be in. I like the quote above, about heaven being here on earth. I think he was saying that by living a life of compassion, love, tolerance, etc., you are rewarded on earth, maybe with peace and happiness.

[SilentMajority08]

22. You cant have your cake and eat it too

You said that the bible was not the literal word of God but then you quoted jesus talking about the new earth. First off you cannot take bits and pieces of the bible, it must be recognized to be untainted and divinely inspired in it's entirety or not acknowledged at all. Secondly the bible does say that that the word (bible)is living, and Jesus is quoted as referring to the books as his father's word. In addition you said the world will be around and it will just be a happy place with no war or anger, but the bible says that because there is sin in the world there will never be peace until the world is made new, the new world you read about was after the rapture had occurred all those who had believed in Jesus as their personal savior were taken to heaven and satan ruled over the earth until God threw him out ta here. Finally after that all those who believed in jesus as their savior and accepted his grace returned to the earth along with the 144,000 (12000 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel) or what would be left of them to dwell in a world free of sin, as satan would be cast out and no longer have his rule here.

[charlie]

23. Why not?

You do. So does everyone who considers themselves a Bible "literalist." Otherwise, you'd live in a world with conflicting prohibitions, where faith alone is good enough, where faith without works is not good enough, and on and on.

Are you still a Bush supporter CHINAmen90? Or have you decided Bush is a chump and thrown your lot in with us rabble? If so, welcome.

[SilentMajority08]

26. nope still a conservitive

im too young to vote just 17 but thats besides the point you say that I and anyone else who reads thebible recognizing its truth has conflicting interests but the fact is that thats not true it is true that Jesus said go and make fishers of men and to tend to mans need both physically and spiritually so I dont see how you can tell me that I regard the bible as living and real while im conflicting with myself please explain clearer

[charlie]

27. No, you'll have to be clearer

I'm having trouble discerning a point in your splattershot post, except that you disagree. Even a "literalist" cannot avoid Biblical contradictions and anachronisms, and must weigh and interpret scripture according to his own theological bent. It's what you do, whether you want to acknowledge it or not.

To be even clearer, I didn't ask you if you can vote. I asked if you're still a Bush supporter. Simple question.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

12. I think heaven 101 is covered in Revelations, isn't it?

I don't think about it alot. I just know that there is something and it is okay...safe.

[Zebedeo]

13. There are the passages noted by posters above

about Jesus saying to the condemned prisoner on the cross next to him that he would be in paradise that very day, because of his faith in Jesus, and Jesus' statements about preparing a place in his Father's house.

Then there is this:

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." Revelation 21:1-4

The new city of Jerusalem is described, and it is written that "only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life" shall enter there. Revelation 21:27.

[Zebedeo]

17. Also these words spoken by Christ:

"At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven." Matthew 22:30

[Igel]

19. Not all Christians believe that

you have a soul that lives on after you die, or that the soul goes to heaven (or hell).

They're marginal to the main body of Christians, but they're there, nonetheless.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Bill McBlueState]

24. that theme is repeated a lot here

The idea that many who call themselves Christians are, in fact, not Christian is a common theme in this forum. People say you can't be a Christian and support Bush, you can't be a Christian and oppose homosexuality, you can't be a Christian and interpret the Bible literally.

Now you can't be a Christian and not believe in heaven.

I suppose the incredibly diversity of beliefs among Christians is a direct result of the Bible's lack of consistency. Everyone has to pick and choose, accepting passages that affirm their worldview and rejecting the rest.

[Name removed]

25. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Bill McBlueState]

28. what a Christian is defined as...

Jerry Falwell and Jimmy Carter convey radically different, almost diametrically opposite messages to the world as to what it means to be a Christian. Since there's apparently only one way to be a Christian, which one of them is closer to being right?

[Bill McBlueState]

29. dang

Guess you can't answer my question. Buh-bye, bucko.

[SilentMajority08]

20. Jesus' words to the man next to him

Jesus was crucified in between two robbers, one of the robbers spoke to him Luke 23:42-43 Then he said "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." Jesus Answered him, " I tell you the truth today you will be with me in paradise." Jesus clearly and irrefutable tells the robber that he would be in paradise, heaven today once he perished. That sums the existence of heaven up in a pretty practical example as the man himself was a robber and was being punished but sought forgiveness and received it.