StanJ
Lifelong student of God's Word.
As I never advocated this why would I? The issue is heaven NOT being our destination and you haven't shown it is.This Vale Of Tears said:You'll have a very difficult task attempting to find biblical proof that heaven is constrained by time just as earth is. In fact, the Bible presents evidence of things that have happened that haven't happened yet, as I alluded too in the "cloud of witnesses" reference to the Old Testament saints. Was Abraham raised from the dead? Or Abel, Noah, or Sara? And yet they are said to have seen the promise from far off and confess they are pilgrims on earth. The two realities could not be clearer, the epiphany of the OT saints that couldn't possibly have occurred, and yet it has, because in heaven they've already been raised to eternal life. In the parable Jesus told of Lazareth and the rich man, we see paradise personified in the bosom of Abraham. He isn't dead, but alive. And if that wasn't enough, Jesus struck home when he refuted the Sadducees in their belief that the dead aren't raised, reminding them of the Scripture that God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as he told Moses in the burning bush; that he is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
So if the Bible clearly teaches us that the saints are living and not dead, how can that be if they are not yet raised from the dead? The only rational explanation is that they are both raised from the dead and waiting to be raised from the dead and both realities exist concurrently. To us it's an event yet to come, to heaven, it's already occurred. There's no other explanation that fits.
What Luke is referring to in Heb 12:1 is what he dealt with in Heb 11, which was faith. If you pay attention to the tenses used, Luke was using them in the PAST tense. When he says a "cloud of witnesses", it is metaphorical of how many from the OC believed in God promise. Jesus also talked about Abraham being in Paradise, which is NOT a place of the living.
I don't know what you think clear means, but it isn't Heb 12:1 is only clear about faith and how many of the OT saints went before us.
We will ALL be raised on that day of the Lord.