How To Get To Heaven When You Die

[Butch5]

ewq1938, on 01 Aug 2015 - 11:31 PM, said:

I'm not sure that's what the Pharisees believed but it doesn't matter what they believed. Christ was telling a story that provided true things, parable or historical story.

Sure it matters, it's part of the context. One of the reasons His words are misunderstood is because they are not taken in context.

The saved dead are shown as being alive and awake in heaven:

No, there 's nothing in Scripture that says the saved dead are in Heaven. They are not alive and awake, their dead, that's why they're called the
dead

Rev 6:9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
Rev 6:10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
Rev 6:11 And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

Souls require physical bodies. Are you suggesting that these martyrs had physical bodies. Revelation is a symbolic book. Ask yourself why these souls of martyrs war under the alter. What is the significance of that statement. Also compare this passage with that of Abel. God said that Ables blood cried out to Him from the ground. Abel was the first martyr.

Moses and Elijah appeared to Christ and they were alive and awake.

It matches the story Christ told about the rich man.

Moses and Elijah at the Transfiguration was a vision, Jesus states this in Mathew.

Man is spirit, soul and body. When a man dies, only his body is dead...soul and spirit remain alive.This is speculation and not found in Scripture. Man is a living soul that consists of a body and the breath/spirit of life, Gen 2:7

He is talking about dead bodies not the soul and spirit.

He didn't say anything about bodies. This idea requires an interpretation that can't be supported by Scripture.


You see, you're bringing the idea to Scripture and inferring support for it from certain passages. If man really lived on after death we should find that teaching somewhere in Scripture, but we don't.

 

[OzSpen]

Oh i thought you believe that believers are alive in heaven. sorry
I was just stating a person alive in heaven does not need a resurrection, because they are not dead.


1 Corinthians 15:29
29 Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?

Here is a resurrection you get from baptism.
Your evident of baptism show that Jesus did rise from the dead.

as far as the saints in heaven if they are alive they are not to be naked.
Paul talks about this in 2Cor.5 that we are to get a new body from heaven.

2 Corinthians 5:1-3
1 For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven:
3 If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.

It's too bad you didn't read further than 1 Cor 15:29 (ESV). If you had gone on to 1 Cor 15:35-38 (ESV), it would have provided the answer of whether there is a body of the resurrected at Christ's second coming. These verses state:

'35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” 36 You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. 38 But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body'.

So, there will be a bodily resurrection at the second advent. Note the language: 'With what kind of body do they come?' (emphasis added) Yes, they will have a 'body'. That's biblical. The remainder of 1 Cor 15 shows through illustration that this body will be the same as that on earth, but different. I covered this in some depth in my PhD dissertation.

By the way, believers most certainly are alive in heaven. How do I know? I know because of what Jesus said to Martha about her brother, Lazarus, who had died:
'Jesus said to her, "Your brother will rise again." Martha said to him, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day." Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?" She said to Him, "Yes, Lord; I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God, even He who comes into the world"' (John 11:23-27 NLT, emphasis added).
Charles Swindoll gives the biblical details in simple language of what happens at and after death for the Christian believer: ''When the believer dies, the body goes into the grave; the soul and spirit go immediately to be with the Lord Jesus awaiting the body's resurrection, when they're joined together to be forever with the Lord in eternal bliss' (Swindoll 1995:308).

Seems to me that you have a few areas of the doctrine of life-after-death that need some precise biblical input.

Oz

Works consulted
Charles R. Swindoll 1995. Growing Deep in the Christian Life: Essential Truths for Becoming Strong in the Faith. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House.

 

[OzSpen]

With all due respect, Oz, I do have a life outside of CB....
However, your point is well taken.
I will try to keep better track of who's who around here in the future.
If I seem to get confused from time to time, I can count on you to correct me?
Be gentle, though....I'm an old lady... :wub:

And I'm an old man!

 

[OzSpen]

It doesn't take a scholar to know the original text lacked punctuation. There was no comma in the original text.

I note that you didn't answer my question. Do you know, read and exegete the Koine Greek of the NT?

It takes someone with a knowledge of Koine Greek to know that there were NO punctuation marks in the Greek. Also, there was no word order (like English) in the Greek.

However, Luke 23:43 (ESV) has the translation: 'And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”' That is an excellent translation of the Greek. To rearrange the punctuation mark to read, 'Truly, I say to you today, you will be with me in Paradise', is designed to indicate that the crucified thief was going to Paradise on that day. This does not make sense of the grammar as it lacks meaning.

Of course he would be going to Paradise on the very day he was crucified. It was not going to be yesterday or tomorrow so there was absolutely no reason for Jesus to state, 'I say to you today, you will be....' Instead, the word 'today' modifies when the thief would go to Paradise - that very day. It is not a matter of when Jesus was saying it. It was an affirmation that that very day the crucified thief would be in Paradise.

Oz

The issue was

 

[OzSpen]

You realize that a fallacy is an error in the chain of logic? My opinion is not a logical argument, it's an opinion.

When you commit a logical fallacy, you are engaging in fallacious reasoning, thus prohibiting a logical discussion. It matters not whether you are giving your opinion or not, if your method of expressing it uses logical fallacies, false logic is being used. Do you understand that even in giving your opinion you are using logic?

 

[Barrd]

Are you a NT scholar who knows the Koine Greek of the NT?

I don't think Koine Greek has any punctuation...I might be wrong about that, though...

 

[Barrd]

Yeah, I found a site:
http://greek-language.com/grklinguist/?p=657

Dear __________:

Thank you for your letter. Your question is an interesting and important one, and we have considerable evidence with which to answer it.
The ancient Greeks did not have any equivalent to our modern device of punctuation. Sentence punctuation was invented several centuries after the time of Christ. The oldest copies of both the Greek New Testament and the Hebrew Old Testament are written with no punctuation.
In addition, the ancient Greeks used no spaces between words or paragraphs. Texts were a continuous string of letters, with an occasional blank line inserted to mark the end of a major section, though even this was not always done.
They also had no equivalent to our lower case letters. Texts were written in all capitals.
While this clearly creates some challenges for Bible translation, those challenge are seldom very large. As a simple test, try reading the English text in the following line:
WHATDOESTHISSAY
With very little difficulty you can probably tell where the spaces should be and what kind of punctuation belongs at the end. You can tell this because you are a native speaker of the language in which the text is written, so you can easily recognize the words as well as the implication of the word order. Native speakers of Ancient Greek, in the same way, could recognize where one word ended and another began even though the spaces were not written. They could also distinguish a question from a direct statement without the need of punctuation.
Here’s the real problem: You and I are NOT native speakers of Ancient Greek.
While I read Ancient Greek quite well, I did not grow up speaking it. All modern scholars, including those who grew up speaking Modern Greek, are in this same situation.
When there is more than one possible way of dividing the words in a sentence or paragraph, or when there is more than one possible set of punctuation, we must look for clues as to what the author intended in order to correctly determine which is the correct division and what punctuation the author would have used if it had been available.
Of course there is an element of subjectivity in this process, but many scholars have dedicated the better part of their lives to reading the Biblical documents in the original languages and have come to have a good sense of the style and preferences of each author. As we develop this skill, it becomes easier to see what the author would most likely have intended in each of the few places where a sentence could be divided more than one way.
If you do not read Ancient Greek and Hebrew, it is important to compare various translations to see what the options for punctuation might be. Then you should ask yourself which punctuation results in something that the author would most likely have said. This may not always provide you with the correct answer, but it will be a valuable learning experience.
Thank you again for your letter. I wish you well in your studies.
Micheal W. Palmer
Greek Language and Linguistics Gateway
http://greek-language.com

 

[Barrd]

And I'm an old man!

Not one of those "Grumpy Old Men", I hope?
Those are not fun.

 

[Barrd]

So, just so I know who is who here, who wants the comma before the word 'today'...and who wants it after?

Because it makes much more sense before...

"Verily I say unto you, today you will be with me in Paradise."

Jesus had often used the phrase "Verily I say unto you". Now that He is in His extremity...dying in pain...I seriously doubt He would make a change. Obviously, He is telling the thief that he will be with Him in paradise that very day.

Not in Hades, nor in Abraham's bosom...but in Paradise. Just thought I'd clear that up.

 

[Barrd]

So...what and where do you guys think Paradise is?
Just curious...




(now why do I feel as if I'd just tossed a cat into a pen with a couple of pit bulls?)

 

[ewq1938]

No, there 's nothing in Scripture that says the saved dead are in Heaven. They are not alive and awake, their dead, that's why they're called the
dead

That's incorrect on all points. They are called dead because their bodies are dead. Souls don't require a body as I prove below.

Souls require physical bodies. Are you suggesting that these martyrs had physical bodies.

The souls had no body in those verses.

Revelation is a symbolic book.

And? It has symbolism and literalism.

Moses and Elijah at the Transfiguration was a vision, Jesus states this in Mathew.

A vision doesn't mean not really happening. It means it was SEEN...VISION.


Mat 17:3 And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him.

They literally appeared.

This is speculation and not found in Scripture. Man is a living soul that consists of a body and the breath/spirit of life, Gen 2:7

Man is a body, with a soul and spirit inside. Gen 2:7 is using a different definition of soul, which simply means a living person but that is not the definition of the soul within us.

He didn't say anything about bodies.

The context is dead bodies.

You see, you're bringing the idea to Scripture and inferring support for it from certain passages. If man really lived on after death we should find that teaching somewhere in Scripture, but we don't.

It is found in various scriptures which I have already presented. Even Christ was alive after he physically died when he visited Hades and preached the gospel:

1Pe 3:18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
1Pe 3:19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;
1Pe 3:18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
1Pe 3:19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;
1Pe 3:20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
1Pe 3:21 The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ:
1Pe 3:22 Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.
1Pe 4:1 Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin;
1Pe 4:2 That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.
1Pe 4:3 For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries:
1Pe 4:4 Wherein they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you:
1Pe 4:5 Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead.
1Pe 4:6 For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.








1 Peter 4:6 For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.

Now, one must understand that the word Hell is used for more than one place. The Hell he went to is known as Hades, the place of the spirits of the physically dead and prison for fallen angels.



He went in order to preach the gospel similar to going into a hostile or bad area to preach the gospel!


The dead were given a chance to hear the Gospel and be judged as if they were alive and heard the Gospel. It was so those who received and accepted it could live according to God in the spirit ie: receive salvation.


John 13:1 Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.

This proves that Jesus did at least for short time go to his father after he died.

This also proves he was not dead and sleeping in the grave after physical death.







Act 2:25 For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved:
Act 2:26 Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope:
Act 2:27 Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.
Act 2:28 Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance.
Act 2:29 Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day.
Act 2:30 Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne;
Act 2:31 He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell (hades), neither his flesh did see corruption.
Act 2:32 This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.


Proof Jesus' soul was in Hades.


Eph 4:5 One Lord, one faith, one baptism,
Eph 4:6 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
Eph 4:7 But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.
Eph 4:8 Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.
Eph 4:9 (Now that he ascended, what is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the earth?
Eph 4:10 He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.)


Hades is said to exist "downward" implying it's somewhere in the Earth, in a spiritual dimension of course, 2Pe_2:4, Luk_10:15, Eze_31:16, Isa_14:15.


Ecc_12:7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

Naturally the spirit is alive when it returns to God.

 

[OzSpen]

Yeah, I found a site:
http://greek-language.com/grklinguist/?p=657

Dear __________:

Thank you for your letter. Your question is an interesting and important one, and we have considerable evidence with which to answer it.
The ancient Greeks did not have any equivalent to our modern device of punctuation. Sentence punctuation was invented several centuries after the time of Christ. The oldest copies of both the Greek New Testament and the Hebrew Old Testament are written with no punctuation.
In addition, the ancient Greeks used no spaces between words or paragraphs. Texts were a continuous string of letters, with an occasional blank line inserted to mark the end of a major section, though even this was not always done.
They also had no equivalent to our lower case letters. Texts were written in all capitals.
While this clearly creates some challenges for Bible translation, those challenge are seldom very large. As a simple test, try reading the English text in the following line:
WHATDOESTHISSAY
With very little difficulty you can probably tell where the spaces should be and what kind of punctuation belongs at the end. You can tell this because you are a native speaker of the language in which the text is written, so you can easily recognize the words as well as the implication of the word order. Native speakers of Ancient Greek, in the same way, could recognize where one word ended and another began even though the spaces were not written. They could also distinguish a question from a direct statement without the need of punctuation.
Here’s the real problem: You and I are NOT native speakers of Ancient Greek.
While I read Ancient Greek quite well, I did not grow up speaking it. All modern scholars, including those who grew up speaking Modern Greek, are in this same situation.
When there is more than one possible way of dividing the words in a sentence or paragraph, or when there is more than one possible set of punctuation, we must look for clues as to what the author intended in order to correctly determine which is the correct division and what punctuation the author would have used if it had been available.
Of course there is an element of subjectivity in this process, but many scholars have dedicated the better part of their lives to reading the Biblical documents in the original languages and have come to have a good sense of the style and preferences of each author. As we develop this skill, it becomes easier to see what the author would most likely have intended in each of the few places where a sentence could be divided more than one way.
If you do not read Ancient Greek and Hebrew, it is important to compare various translations to see what the options for punctuation might be. Then you should ask yourself which punctuation results in something that the author would most likely have said. This may not always provide you with the correct answer, but it will be a valuable learning experience.
Thank you again for your letter. I wish you well in your studies.
Micheal W. Palmer
Greek Language and Linguistics Gateway
http://greek-language.com

Well done, The Barrd. That summarises the issue pretty well.

There is the added issue of no word order, as in English. Greek is a highly declined and conjugated language (the prefixes and suffixes help determine the meaning of a word and its place in a sentence).

 

[OzSpen]

Not one of those "Grumpy Old Men", I hope?
Those are not fun.

No grump here! Carefulness, yes, but not grumpy.

 

[ATP]

Of course he would be going to Paradise on the very day he was crucified. It was not going to be yesterday or tomorrow so there was absolutely no reason for Jesus to state, 'I say to you today, you will be....' Instead, the word 'today' modifies when the thief would go to Paradise - that very day. It is not a matter of when Jesus was saying it. It was an affirmation that that very day the crucified thief would be in Paradise.

Oz

You do realize that Jesus didn't ascend into heaven until like 40 days later, right?

 

[Barrd]

Well done, The Barrd. That summarises the issue pretty well.

There is the added issue of no word order, as in English. Greek is a highly declined and conjugated language (the prefixes and suffixes help determine the meaning of a word and its place in a sentence).

Aww, Shucks, Oz....
Google did all the work.

I just copied and pasted.

 

[Barrd]

No grump here! Carefulness, yes, but not grumpy.

As long as you are careful not to get grumpy, I'm sure we'll get along.

 

[Barrd]

You do realize that Jesus didn't ascend into heaven until like 40 days later, right?

Do you suppose that God is limited as to space and time? If Jesus said the thief would be with Him in paradise that day, be sure that He kept His promise.
He said He had gone to prepare a place for me, that where He is I may be also. I trust Him to keep that promise, as well...

 

[ATP]

Do you suppose that God is limited as to space and time? If Jesus said the thief would be with Him in paradise that day, be sure that He kept His promise.
He said He had gone to prepare a place for me, that where He is I may be also. I trust Him to keep that promise, as well...

Scripture teaches us that Jesus didn't ascend into heaven until 40 days later. "Preparing a place for you" refers to first resurrection and rapture.

Luke 23:43 - If you research the original doctrines of the NT, you will see that there is no punctuation. I would submit that it is translator bias. When you remove the comma you can see that Jesus was simply comforting the thief on the cross. We see in verse 42 that the thief was only interested in coming into his kingdom. The thief was not concerned about when he would be there, rather just being there was what he wanted. The correct way to read verse 43 is without punctuation. And according to scriptural evidence, neither Jesus nor the thief went to paradise on the day they died because scripture states that Jesus ascended to the Father some 40 days later after His resurrection. Lastly, the terms "paradise" and "the tree of life" describes a place on the New Earth, Rev 2:7, Rev 22:2, Rev 22:14 and Rev 22:19.

 

[OzSpen]

So, just so I know who is who here, who wants the comma before the word 'today'...and who wants it after?

Because it makes much more sense before...
"Verily I say unto you, today you will be with me in Paradise."

Jesus had often used the phrase "Verily I say unto you". Now that He is in His extremity...dying in pain...I seriously doubt He would make a change. Obviously, He is telling the thief that he will be with Him in paradise that very day.

Not in Hades, nor in Abraham's bosom...but in Paradise. Just thought I'd clear that up.

Those who support soul sleep or annihilation, tend to favour, 'Truly, I say to you today, you will be with me in Paradise'. However, I as an orthodox evangelical support the translation of Luke 23:43 (ESV), 'Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise', as that is what makes logical sense with the rest of Scripture. It was that very day of the crucified thief's death that he would be in Paradise.

In interpreting this passage, we need to remember that it was stated BEFORE Christ's resurrection. However, this thief was going to where Jesus was at death.

What was Paradise then? Paradise is based on a Persian word and is used in this situation, not for the intermediate state, but for the bliss of heaven. The Greek writer, Xenophon, used the word to refer to 'an enclosed park or pleasure ground'. This word appears in 2 other NT passages, 2 Cor 12:4 (ESV) and Rev 2:7 (ESV). In both of these verses they refer 'plainly to heaven. Some Jews did use the word for the abode of the pious dead till the resurrection, interpreting "Abraham's bosom" (Luke 16:22f.) in this sense also. But the evidence for such an intermediate state is too weak to warrant belief in it' (Robertson 1930:286-287).

Oz

Works consulted
Robertson, A T 1930. Word Pictures in the new Testament: The Gospel According to Luke, vol 2. Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman Press.

 

[Barrd]

I've been listening to you guys debating this issue, and it's been interesting...
But frankly, I think you are both wrong.

I certainly do not think anyone goes to some creepy Hadean underworld when they die...the idea just gives me the shivers.
Nor do I think we go into soul sleep...though I have to admit, I'm not so sure about that one.

What I think (not what I know but what I think) is that, like the thief on the cross, those of us who are saved will go directly to Heaven...or Paradise, after all a rose by any other name...
I think (again, I do not know) that those people who rose from their graves at the moment Jesus died were the righteous dead (notice they were referred to as saints) that Jesus went into Hades (the grave) to set free. I think (I do not know) that they are, at this moment, in Paradise.
This seems to make a great deal more sense to me than any other theory I've ever heard...and definitely more sense than the Hadean underworld nonsense.

So, for what little it's worth, there are the Poor Widow's two dinarii...