Will you make it to Heaven?

[Vincitveritas]

Take the quiz and see!

jesusplusnothing.com/the-heaven-test

Oh know I’m very interested in comparing different religions. My perchant for challenging things and finding out the history of religions does, in no way, preclude me wanting to explore why Christian’s think their way is better than every other way. I happen to believe that Christianity is probably the most natural path for most in the west to follow but I don’t think it makes it objectively better and the only way to the same citadel

No not know☺️

Although @Mustardseed86 im interested to know why you think I’m not interested in truth

Apologies, I didn't mean to be insulting. Just the esoteric stuff you mention I tend to associate with a mindset that can be quite difficult to 'pin down' in terms of what is objectively true or untrue. Perhaps you believe all religions have some truth that points to a greater truth? But it all gets a bit too nebulous for me, sorry, I probably just don't understand where you're coming from properly. I enjoy your posts though!

@Vincitveritas I don't quite understand where you're getting eternal suffering from the passage in John there.

Revelations is highly symbolic apocalyptic literature that I admittedly don't fully understand, but the image of fire is purifying. In fact sulphur was actually used to purify things and consecrate them to God.

Then later in Revelation, the new Jerusalem descends from heaven and it says that this same lake of fire is just outside the city walls. But the gates are always open, and the Spirit (God) and the Bride (the Church) are inviting people in, to drink the water of life freely. So you have a place of purification next to a heavenly city with the gates wide open. It doesn't sound like eternal condemnation to me, and the words in the original Greek actually mean something like 'an age' or just 'a period of time' which could be long or short.

Remember the parable of the woman who lost one of her silver coins? She doesn't stop searching until she finds it and has every coin safe in her possession. And the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep is the same one who will search high and low until he finds a sheep that's lost.

Just some food for thought. 😊

And to answer your question, I'm C of E but I consider all Christians to be part of the same church and I doubt any denomination gets every single doctrinal point right.

Hi no worries, it was more a question as to how I have that impression I didn’t take any offence whatsoever, sorry if it came across that way.

Yes you’re spot on re the perenialism.

I can appreciate what you mean about the esotericism. It’s a wide term but people follow different routes and although there are certain shared understandings there’s a lot of emphasis on personal experience. Many people deeply into it will possibly be part of certain orders which take oaths of secrecy so you might only be getting a glimpse of things they feel free to share and therefore it all seems rather disjointed. Much experienced can’t be explained in words either.

I overheard a convo about how some passages would be more interpretation vs literal.

@Hawkins003 Great to hear you're still on board! It's not really a case of you either take everything literally or you don't - the Bible takes a certain knack to read. Sorry for yet another video but I think it's quite helpful with this:

back then when writing the various passages would the people of that time period have known the double meanings in language ?

Absolutely they would and it's this that adds to the depth of meaning. To give an example, the Bible I'm reading is a New International Version. In the margins it notes when a word has a double meaning or an alternative word/sentence may be given or when there's an extra word such as 'Amen' which isn't found in all manuscripts. e.g. '..The Christ [or Messiah. "The Christ" (Greek) and "The Messiah" (Hebrew) both mean "The anointed one"] & 'The Lord brought me forth as the first of his works [or The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his works or The Lord brought me forth at the beginning of his work.

You don’t think the above is threatening and scaremongering ?? Not everyone is as strong mentally as I am and a comment like the above could seriously worry some people

@Parker231 It's meant to make you think. If you were walking blindly towards a gaping pit and I didn't call out to warn you, you'd be the first to say "Why didn't you tell me?!" while shaking your fist from the bottom.

The way I see it that Christian’s are threatening those of us who are non believers with imaginary consequences for perceived wrongdoing. It only affects the ones making the threats, and thankfully no one else can be harmed.

Well, exactly. OP tells us Hell is living forever without God. Not much of a threat for those of us who are already doing just that.

I think, with the greatest of respect, @Parker231 has a very valid point here. In many parts of spirituality, whether organised religion or not, there are elements that can be deeply unsettling to people. This can be especially true for a person who doesn’t have knowledge of the whole system or is warned they are not making the grade, indeed, psychological work is often recommended within spirituality for this very purpose.

it’s not really desirable to force your metaphysics on someone else. What you see as a pit, someone might see it as a safe shelter from the rain, (you’ll appreciate this, Blake makes a very similar point in the Marriage of Heaven and Hell😀). It’s none of our places to try and scare people with our own beliefs regarding punishment, we might talk about wondrous things to see if people would be interested in moving along that path towards the light, what we shouldn’t do is herd them along a path with the threat of eternal torment. It might take people along the wrong path and fear is not the key to have someone willingly and whole heartedly embracing things. It is this aspect many find objectionable in organised religion. Remember that pit might not be there universally even though it might appear that it is to you.

@pointythings That's not exactly what I said.

@Parker231 You make it sound like I want people to end up in hell, which couldn't be further from the truth.

@Mustardseed86 An interesting way of looking at things. I was using the Good Shepherd to illustrate the point that not everyone will be accepted into 'the fold'.
I don't want to come across as critical or pedantic but some of the Bible verses you quoted were taken out of the wider passage, which is important to make full sense of their meaning:

"In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven"

..."by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— IF you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel."

"For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive"

..."But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.

"That is why the Good News was preached even to the dead—so although they were destined to die like all people, they now live forever with God in the Spirit."

(Previous verses) "Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the body is done with sin. As a result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. They are surprised that you do not join them in their reckless, wild living, and they heap abuse on you. But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead."

Jesus said “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.” He meant spiritually dead rather than deceased.

You make it sound like a club I'm trying to recruit members to - better not mention anything unpalatable or they might be put off! It's not some sort of hobby, this is literally life or death. The thread started off about Heaven because I realise the prospect of eternal damnation and judgement isn't the best way of teaching people about God's love and the hope that can be found through Jesus! At the same time I don't want to sugar coat anything and have answered posters' questions on the subject as they've come up. It's curious that you seem so keen to thwart my attempts to share the gospel and discredit the Bible.

@Vincitveritas - it may be life and death to you but to the majority it’s an irrelevance.

@Parker231 Let's just imagine for one crazy moment that the mainstream Christian view of the afterlife is correct - now what happens?

Well why have you reached the conclusion I’m trying to discredit the bible? Maybe I’m offering to show alternative perspectives on it, there’s always different ways of looking at things. I think the Bible is very much worth sharing, like many other sacred texts, but trying to coral people into believing one interpretation of it under threat of eternal damnation is not really sharing the good news is it?

but there’s no “warnings to be had” for people not participating in your system. I know you think you’re “right” but others think they’re”right” too.

it is not a recruitment drive. There’s nothing wrong with sharing ideas and ideologies but you have no responsibility or remit to warn others of eternal damnation, especially where doing so might lead to harm. People explore these things, they need maps to explore the countryside Not fields of land mines to keep them on narrowly defined paths.

you might think the wrapper of Christianity is the only way to save people, someone else might think it’s Islam. What’s to say ones right the other wrong?

People find their way to divinity through many different paths, often thinking they’re on the one true path, but I suspect all roads lead to Rome.

Ask yourself this, why are you so keen for people to join the same system you subscribe to? Is it purely for their benefit? Do you think there’s a risk such inflexible evangelism could put people off any spiritual journey completely?

No, more like you randomly going up to someone and saying "if you don't do everything my friend says he's going to throw you into this pit he made. Isn't he great for giving you the opportunity to not get thrown into the pit?"

Then the tiny majority of God’s creation will live in eternal paradise the rest of us are in hell. There will be a lot of religious followers suing for wrongful selling,, thinking, damn I wasted all that time with charible works, being kind, coming up with medicines that alleviating all that human suffering, I helped forge the very basis of civilisation but I was born in the wrong fucking country at the wrong time. probably be a huge celestial court case where other religions sue God for nicking their ideas. Hell will be full of really great people who are kind and charitable but failed to get eternal salvation on some implausible technicality. Heaven will be full of self righteous idiots who largely hate women snd gay people.

Now let’s imagine for one crazy moment the Islamic view of the afterlife is correct, I guess you’re as fucked as me! Pretty similar to the off chance that the many other religions that have existed round the world have held the key and we don’t believe in their rules. As the saying goes, you pays your money and you make your choice (which is usually heavily curtailed by the culture you happen to have been born into)

Very happy to take my chances and continue as a non believer. Happier life without the worry of hell hanging over me. In my opinion organised religion is a cult.

@Vincitveritas I will send you a PM later if that's ok rather than get into lots of back and forth on here. But in the briefest words, I don't agree with your interpretation or implication because I believe it limits the power of God's grace to ultimately reconcile all his people. It also flies in the face of his nature which is one of justice, love and mercy, failing on all three counts.

There is a long tradition within Christianity, which has biblical origins, called the doctrine of Apokatastasis, which says that we will all be reconciled and restored, according to God's will which is stated many times within the Bible.

I think this is a much better interpretation- thank you for sharing

Does that mean everyone can expect to go to heaven regardless of what you get up to whilst alive?

There's a lot of theology to unpack in answering that but I'll have a go! Please bear with me if this gets lengthy...

First off the concept of sin is there by implication in your question. It's probably easiest to think of someone who embodies that in a really obvious way, but at the same time I don't want to trigger too much outrage so let's take an example of someone who mugs old ladies (i.e. bad/upsetting but not Hitler-tier), is unrepentant and a really horrible person by many other metrics as well. Do they go 'straight to heaven' when they die? That seems wrong in two ways, from the Christian POV because nothing unholy (which has a sense of 'unwhole', unwholesome, unclean etc) will ever enter heaven. Heaven may be a literal place, I don't know, but a way of looking at it is that such a person can't 'enter into' the fullness of life we are promised with God, which you could also call the Kingdom of God. Quite possibly they wouldn't want to or be able to bear it.

The second reason is that it doesn't satisfy our sense of retributive justice. We're not perfectly just of course but we do have a sense of fairness which reflects God's justice, so that is a reasonable objection IMO.

So the short answer would be no. And the Bible does talk about judgement. Take the example of Jesus saying to his followers that you should try to be reconciled with an adversary who is taking you to court while you are still on your way there, otherwise you might be handed over to the judge and taken away into prison. "Truly I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny." So there is potential for quite a harsh punishment there, but not an endless punishment or a death sentence. Taking Jesus at his word, the punishment would actually be in proportion with the crime down to the last penny. But unless you've somehow committed an infinitely enormous sin I can't see how it makes sense for the punishment to last forever, and the words are not that you would never get out, but not until the debt is repaid in full.

Other passages on judgement talk about destruction, or 'perishing', but it's important to recognise that the Greek word used means something like withering away, and in several parables this same word is used to describe souls while they are lost but who are then found and restored (the prodigal son and the lost sheep were both in this state of 'perishing', before they were joyfully restored).

The word used for punishment in the parable of the sheep and the goats comes from the Greek word for pruning, and was used and understood as a corrective punishment in which metaphorically the dead or diseased elements were pruned away to allow for healthy growth. So this would be a difficult and rigorous process but it doesn't imply a final condemnation.

In terms of duration, I don't think time necessarily has the same function after death but it is described as lasting 'an age' which is often mistranslated as meaning forever, even though there were other words which do explicitly mean forever. An age (aion) basically lasts as long as it lasts depending on context so it's not terribly specific!

But I think we can be take encouragement from verses like Lamentations, “For no one is cast off by the Lord forever. Although he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone.” Elsewhere in Isaiah 28 God's punishment is described as 'an alien work', i.e. although a necessary response to sin it is not a reflection of his deepest nature.

So to sum it all up, it seems to me that there is a universal need of repentance (which we can probably accept more easily in the case of our earlier example), and that the presence of the Lord for the unrepentant would itself be a punishment, which we are warned about, but which ultimately has a redemptive purpose.

I can't be more specific but I'm certain it's not some sort of senseless torture, because that would make God monstrous and IMO completely undermine the idea of a loving God. The best explanation I've read is that it's probable that the full weight of the misery caused by our wrongdoing is finally felt. But Jesus still invites us to cast off that burden through faith in him and simply receive forgiveness, and when we're ready, we will all be able to do that.

@Mustardseed86 - thank you for a detailed response. Although as a non believer of any gods, Jesus, heaven or hell, it’s irrelevant how I live my life - good or bad. I die and that’s my time up.

@Parker231 No problem! 😀