And the Weary Are At Rest

He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. -- 1 Corinthians 3:8

I have never been bothered much about what kind of reward I will receive.   It always seemed to me that not going to hell, not collecting the “wages of sin” had me ahead of the game.  The rest is gravy.  I don’t think I will have any envious or ill feelings toward some person who sacrificed and served the Lord in some extreme way should that person receive some great accolade or superior position in heaven.  It’s heaven.  How bad can it be? 

You know what does worry me about heaven?  Will I have to hang out in town all the time?  Can I go fishing?  Will there be horses to ride and hounds to follow?  I’m not even going to ask about guns, knives and motorcycles.  Everything we know about heaven is, I think, by analogy.  The joys of the spiritual body are not those of the physical.  Still, I wonder what carries over, what ecstasies in this life reflect, however feebly and imperfectly, the bliss of heaven.

We didn’t have air conditioning when I was a kid, so in the evening with a little breeze, just as the sun set, when the light is so – I don’t know – heavenly, that was my favorite time of day.  It meant the work was over.  I could rest for a while.  There was good food and something cold to drink waiting in the kitchen.  In the summertime when there was no school, the cows were milked, the hogs and chickens were fed, and all the hay that was down has been baled and put in the barn, that’s about how I always imagined heaven might be. 

I suppose other people are different and want crowns and streets of gold, and lots of singing.  I hope those missionaries and saints and others all get the rewards they deserve and desire and even more.  I have friends who have given up everything in this life to serve their Lord and Savior.  They have humbled themselves, and the Lord will lift them up.  They have earned acclaim and exaltation.  Scorned, ridiculed, and humiliated by the world, they have stood firm against everything the world, the flesh, and the devil could throw at them.   Those folks have earned the highest and grandest delights that the Father can shower upon His children.

I don’t have much coming, and I don’t expect much.  For my part, I think I would be willing to walk through hell barefoot if I knew there was that never-ending summer evening around a table with those I love waiting on the other side.

A Garage in Heaven

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.  Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!  But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.  -- 2 Peter 3:10-12

I ran across this Corvette commercial.   

"Corvette Heaven" from Philip Volkoff on Vimeo.


It's only a couple of minutes if you want to watch. 

Some of the comments you can read at the link seem to miss the point.  Spoiler:  he never gets to buy a Corvette.  To some the message is that life is short and uncertain, and you ought to take care of yourself first.  That's a good way to end up old, miserly, bitter, and disappointed. 

This guy was never disappointed.  He lived a full life, sharing, loving and helping.  He thought more of his family, his child, and those in need than he thought of himself.  I think he found as much joy in dreaming about and saving for the Corvette as he would have had owning and driving one.  Perhaps more.  Not one scene shows him feeling sorry for himself. 

It's hard for me to fully identify since a Corvette was never on my list of things I'd really like to have.  I don't think there is anything wrong with having a dream machine or a dream house.  A person might dream about a sailboat or a big motorhome, a mountain cabin or a beach house.  Those are good dreams to save up for and work toward.  But if anything becomes the Most Important Thing in life, it's an idol.  The man in the commercial never made that mistake.  He knew what was important.  He knew what mattered. 

Yes, life is short, and we never know what is coming our way or when it might end.  My family has a custom of placing a few small things in the coffin when one of us dies.  Somebody usually makes sure the departed has a small amount of money, like a five-dollar bill, tucked in a hand or jacket pocket.  Our possessions, though, no matter how we valued them in this life, do not cross over with us.  The old joke about the rich man asks, How much did he leave?  The answer comes:  All of it.


I like how the ESV translates these verses in Second Peter.  Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be ....  When we pass on from this life, we will pass into the full, solid reality of heaven -- or something else.  By comparison to those weightier, eternal joys, all of our earthly existence will be a vapor or a morning fog.

That Corvette commercial is pretty good theology.  It reminds me of this:  Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:19-21). 

Up Above My Head

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. -- Colossians 3:2

Since my Bible came open on Colossians 3 again this morning, I figured I might as well stay there.  By the way, if you haven’t yet read Father Stephen’s post, “Sin is not a moral problem”, you’ll probably like it, and it goes along with what we’re thinking about in Colossians. 

I’m feeling a little lazy today – like today’s any different, so let me pull a quote from Matthew Henry that covers the first four verses:

As Christians are freed from the ceremonial law, they must walk the more closely with God in gospel obedience. As heaven and earth are contrary one to the other, both cannot be followed together; and affection to the one will weaken and abate affection to the other. Those that are born again are dead to sin, because its dominion is broken, its power gradually subdued by the operation of grace, and it shall at length be extinguished by the perfection of glory. To be dead, then, means this, that those who have the Holy Spirit, mortifying within them the lusts of the flesh, are able to despise earthly things, and to desire those that are heavenly. Christ is, at present, one whom we have not seen; but our comfort is, that our life is safe with him. The streams of this living water flow into the soul by the influences of the Holy Spirit, through faith. Christ lives in the believer by his Spirit, and the believer lives to him in all he does. At the second coming of Christ, there will be a general assembling of all the redeemed; and those whose life is now hid with Christ, shall then appear with him in his glory. Do we look for such happiness, and should we not set our affections upon that world, and live above this?

As Jesus said, No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money (Luke 16:13).  I always liked the good KJV word “mammon” better because it isn’t just about money.  It’s about the status and the prestige and the admiration of the world as much as greed.  Greedy people are just greedy, seeking a false security in their doubloons or the digits in the bank account.  A lot of people who server Mammon aren’t so interested in being rich as they are in looking good to the neighbors, having the right opinions and being accepted into the right cliques, circles, and circuses.  That’s understandable for those who do not know Christ, but for those of us who do, we ought to be as zealous and as engrossed in the pursuit of heavenly things as we used to be in the pursuit of earthly satisfactions. 

Now, clearly Paul does not suggest that we should never think about our situation, our duties, and our responsibilities here on earth.  We have to take care of business.  But these earthly endeavors are not our goal in life.  Paul believed that we are responsible for and in control of what we think.  We can choose that on which we set our minds.  We ought to keep on thinking about those things in heaven we are striving toward, because it does very much matter what we think, and we orient our lives around what we think. 

There is a saying about being too heavenly-minded to be any earthly good.  I don’t believe that.  Certainly there are those who call themselves Christians who have been deluded into a mentality of entitlement.  God ought to take care of them.  It doesn’t matter what they do.  God will do what He wants.  The material world and the body do not matter, and so on.  If that were the case, all Christians would die upon baptism, the gospel would be preached by angels, and the planet would be left to the coyotes and the cockroaches.   

The reality is that social reforms, such as the end of slavery in the western world, often came about through heavenly-minded Christians, like Wilberforce, who had a different perspective on values and righteousness.  Being heavenly-minded moves us to act on the earthly plane in accordance with the mercy, love, and grace of our Father.

No Particular Place To Go

For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. -- Hebrews 9:24

I don’t have much time today.  Paul says we are ambassadors for Christ – someone sent on a mission into an alien environment.  He elsewhere depicts us as soldiers, standing our ground on a hostile field.  We are called by Peter, pilgrims and strangers, echoing Moses’ naming of his son, Gershom, saying, “I have been a stranger in a strange land.”  God invades and rules over the natural world through us.  The full extent of this mastery of the material is seen in Jesus whom the winds and seas had to obey. 

We understand how Christ was an invader in the Incarnation, but when He ascended, He became, in a way, an invader in the halls of heaven.  This may be the most overtly neo-platonic verse in the Bible – at least as far as I can recall right now.  You can read back in Exodus, when Moses was on the mountain, that he was shown the realities and, so far as was possible, outfitted the Tabernacle accordingly.

An aside:  the Tabernacle has long seemed to me to be “better” than the Temple as it better represents both Christ and us.  It was covered in skins, just as we are.  I am suspicious of the Temple as encouraging a strain of apostasy that remains today in a measure of inappropriate reverence for buildings.    Anyway.

The righteous dead went to a place called “paradise” or “Abraham’s bosom”.  It was a place of rest and ease, but it was not heaven.  Hades was a segregated gated community:  paradise on one side, gehenna on the other, kind of like Missouri and Illinois.  But when Christ descended into the realm of death, he “led captivity captive”:  But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.  Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.”  (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth?  He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) (Ephesians 4:7-10)

It sounds like Jesus broke the righteous dead out of their somewhat pleasant prison and took them with Him as He returned to heaven, where they (and we), apart from Him, had no place.  Jesus didn’t lie to the repentant thief on the cross.  He said, “This day, you will be with Me in paradise.”  He just didn’t add that it was only a weekend trip.  Then they loaded up the truck, and they moved to Beverly. 

Christ is now in heaven, in that reality which we think of as ideal, representing us, speaking and interceding on behalf of us.  That’s a good thing to know.  Moreover, I am not one who puts much credence in concepts like “soul sleep”.  Paul uses the euphemism “sleep” for the death of the physical body.  I don’t think that those who have died are no longer conscious – though I freely admit I could be wrong.  If I’m not, there’s no reason to think that those who are absent from the body and consequently present with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8) are unaware of that which Christ is aware.  I believe that some of those who are now at home with the Lord could well be interceding on behalf of those who remain in their earthly bodies.   

That may not sound exactly earth-shattering, but it is pretty strong stuff for us Protestants.  I don't think anybody is praying to saints or Mary; they are asking the saints for agreement in praying to the Father.  "Pray for us sinners."  I don't see where that is much of a problem.  It would not surprise me to some day hear that an old Baptist preacher goes up every once in a while to remind the Lord to watch out for this old hillbilly.

The Grasshopper in the Mirror

And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them. -- Numbers 13:33

The entry of a Christian into the new blessed life of holiness, joy, and peace is paralleled – “parabled”, we could say – by the entry of the Israelites into Canaan, the Land of Promise.  We were never meant to live in slavery and misery until we die.  Israel’s Promised Land is not a type of heaven but of the heavenly life which must begin in our material existence and in time rather than eternity. 

As the children of Israel were camped in Kadesh Barnea, they sent spies into Canaan to see where strongholds might be and where they might first begin their assault.  Although the Lord seems to raise no objection to this effort, I’m not sure such a thing was in accordance with His plan.  When Israel did enter, forty years later, God sent them directly to that most impregnable fortification, the massively walled city of Jericho. 

I can’t blame them for wanting to know what they were getting themselves into.  I am a cautious, timid sort myself, hardly one to criticize those who would look before they leap.  What got those people into trouble was not sending the spies but accepting the majority report.  There were twelve spies – one from each tribe – sent out.  Two, Caleb of Judah and Joshua of Ephraim, said the Canaanites were ripe for conquest.  The other ten spoke fear, trepidation, and faithlessness, leading the people to conclude (as they had said before) that God was leading them to annihilation and destruction. 

We can take the slave out of Egypt, to paraphrase an old cigarette commercial, but we have trouble getting Egypt out of the slave.  A man who thoroughly believes in his freedom and individual sovereignty under God is very difficult, if not impossible, to enslave.  Conversely, it is nearly impossible to free someone who has the mindset of a serf.

America was once the Land of the Free.  We believed we could do about as we pleased.  Over the last hundred years, as more and more of us have become urbanized herd animals, we have lost our sense of independence to the point that a majority now say that we all belong to the government.  Everything must be done for the sake of the Collective, the Common Good -- which comes to mean for the sake of ruling class, our benevolent new pharaohs. 

The same is true in the spiritual realm.  Christ came to set us free from the world system, of which Egypt is a type, from the bondage to sin and to Satan.  Our deliverance begins when we accept Christ as Savior and believe the gospel, but it is not complete until we understand that we are free to live and walk in the Spirit in every area of our lives.  We are not slaves to anything.  We are willing servants of the Lord who, through the New Covenant established by the shed blood of the Lord Jesus, are adopted as children of the Father.  Like the Prodigal, we return as servants to find ourselves welcomed as sons.  We are in the House, and we are family.   

This is not to say that the Christian life is without its battles and difficulties.  Entering into the Land of Promise means declaring war on whomever or whatever is holding that ground.  It will require standing in faith against all the lies and illusions that will try to keep us, if not in bondage, at least out wandering hopelessly in the wilderness, impoverished and homeless. 

A lot of us are willing to be wanderers.  It’s not Egypt.  It’s not so bad.  It’s a little dusty and dry and boring.  We really can’t get settled any place.  We end up looking forward only to death to set us completely free.  I wonder if that will even do it.  It might be that we will find ourselves always in the desert until we are willing to face our enemies, face our fears, and change our perception of who we are.  Will there be grasshoppers in heaven? 

Heaven on Earth

If Heaven ain’t a lot like Dixie, I don’t wanna go – Hank Williams, Jr.

Heaven is not a place, but a consciousness of God. – Anonymous

Jesus answered him, If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. -- John 14:23

And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘In him we live and move and have our being’ … -- Acts 17:26-28 (emphasis mine)

In the quote from Acts, as Paul spoke upon the Areopagus in Athens, we can catch a glimpse of how and why the Apostle was so successful in “turning the world upside down”.  All that those non-Jewish people had learned, how they lived, their myths and poetry pointed toward the One True God.  The heart of man is open.  Paul offered them, not gods atop Olympus, but God alive on the throne of their own being, present, immediate, aware – the living God of love and mercy and righteousness. 

We have the same need today.  Old men like me wax nostalgic for the world of the 1950s where another generation recalled the 1920s.  We are all, as the old song cries, longing for home.  The people, the voices, the laughter, the food, the music speak to us and point us to the One from whom we came and to whom we journey.  Our little customs and traditions are signs on the way.  He is present in the way we build our houses, in the hills we climb, in winter snows and summer rains, in tribulations and hardships, in joys and triumphs. 

Heaven will be a lot like Dixie for some of us, a lot like the Ozarks for me.  That which makes me love these poor, rocky hills with their multiplicity of streams and little secret springs is Heaven, for He made this path to lead me home.