If being in Heaven is being at peace then how do you explain.

[JohnM3rd]

I know part of this question has been asked before. Your in heaven....wife/father/mother/family member is burning in hell. I've been told that being with God will make me understand and I won't be sad and miss them yet if that's true then how did Satan come to turn his back on God and bring angels down with him? Either being with God is really being at peace or there's a chance that even in Heaven you'll never be at peace.

 

[dayhiker]

No definitive answer will be find on that in the Bible.

There is we will understand justice better then.
There is they will be where they want to be.
I think God will still be willing to show them mercy when they are willing to accept it.

That's how I see it.

 

[IisJustMe]

I know part of this question has been asked before. Your in heaven....wife/father/mother/family member is burning in hell. I've been told that being with God will make me understand and I won't be sad and miss them yet if that's true then how did Satan come to turn his back on God and bring angels down with him? Either being with God is really being at peace or there's a chance that even in Heaven you'll never be at peace.

Satan was an angel. He doesn't experience emotions as we do. He obviously was capable of being completely uncaring as to whether or not he was in God's presence or not. We aren't made that way. Therefore, you will understand how you can overlook loved ones of yours being in hell when you are in heaven, but only when you are in heaven. Here it hurts. There, God dries every tear.

 

[JohnM3rd]

That almost sounds like ignorance is bliss. I'd rather not be in a place that makes me forget my loved ones are burning.....we have places like that on Earth its called a crack house and I don't do drugs.

 

[Blessedj01]

Hey, please just reconsider your tone because you're describing God's house and God's will. It is perfect, so who are we to snap at him? I'm just saying, it's easy to do but you need to remember that this is the Devil's plan, it's confusion and it's not of God. It will grow if you let it.

The way I see it, we need to remember our mortality and our status as human beings, created by God. Yes, it is sad that people go to Hell. Yes, it even saddens God. That's why He died for us. If it didn't matter, don't you think Jesus would have skipped over his mission?

Our status as human beings, created by God means that everything is for God's glory. We can't imagine what it's like to be in the real presence of God. We're talking about a God who crosses over infinite dimensions. We're talking about a God who is the source of time. We're talking about a God who can make something out of nothing.

When we're in the presence of God and humanity is restored to it's correct place, we'll be back to what we were meant for: Glorifying God. I hate to say it, but we're not going to be thinking about who's in hell. We're not going to "forget" but we're not going to be focused on it. We need to remember what our real place in Christ is.

See, did Christ spend all his time thinking about his suffering? Did he spend time complaining about it? No, he carried on with the mission and rebuked the disciples when they told him to stop. The way I see it, you're making the same error. You're only thinking about right now, what you care about right now, instead of thinking of the eternal picture.

We're not going to go up to Heaven with the same carnal sense we have on earth. We're going to be different. We're going to see God in all his glory and see the fullness of his love, justice, wrath, mercy, all that. No one part of it is going to disturb us. You must understand that we all deserve to be in hell. We are just so blessed, because God is graceful, that Jesus died for us.

 

[IisJustMe]

That almost sounds like ignorance is bliss. I'd rather not be in a place that makes me forget my loved ones are burning.....we have places like that on Earth its called a crack house and I don't do drugs.

I'm sorry, but that comment really reveals a complete lack of knowledge that calls into question your depth of faith and understanding. If you have such questions, perhaps revisiting your salvation is in order. I'm not saying you aren't a Christian, but such questions don't normally come from committed believers, even very new ones. Have you, perhaps, expressed an intellectual or emotional belief that doesn't meet the criteria for God's blessings in Christ? Seriously, ask yourself this, because your very eternal life depends on it.

 

[Blessedj01]

Like children, we rebel against our parent's wisdom. Let's not do that too long with God though. We need to understand that everything he says and does is GOOD.

Also I just wanted to add...why should we place our concern and regret for others above God's? This is the God who made us. The God who died for us. Any concern we say we have for lost ones is nothing compared to the concern that God has. So we're just ultimately puffing ourselves up. God is a God who leaves the entire flock where it is to go and search for a single sheep that disappears into wilderness and will not give up until he finds that sheep. Our concern is nothing. We have concern, but let's let God judge eternity instead of posturing that we know better. It'll hurt us if we get caught up too much in our little 3D world of understanding.

 

[ViaCrucis]

I know part of this question has been asked before. Your in heaven....wife/father/mother/family member is burning in hell. I've been told that being with God will make me understand and I won't be sad and miss them yet if that's true then how did Satan come to turn his back on God and bring angels down with him? Either being with God is really being at peace or there's a chance that even in Heaven you'll never be at peace.

These problems, I think, arise from conflating numerous ideas and bringing a lot of recent/novel theological baggage into the equation.

Let's consider several things firstly:

In the Gospels we are presented with a very Jewish understanding of the afterlife in the teachings and parables of Jesus. Jesus refers to Gehenna, Paradise, and Hades.

Firstly, Hades is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew She'ol, both refer simply to "the place of the dead". It's the "underworld", or "grave". In the understanding of first century Judaism there exist to states/conditions/places for the dead in She'ol/Hades: Gan-Eden (Paradise) and Gehenna. Gan-Eden means "Garden of Eden", even the word "Paradise" is derived ultimately from Persian and refers to an enclosed garden. Thus Paradise, the resting place of the righteous, is a garden reminiscent of Eden, it's a way of talking about the rest of the righteous dead. Gehenna is the Hellenized form of the word Ge-Hinnom, or "Valley of Hinnom", a literal valley outside of Old Jerusalem that was used as a refuse dump, which was kept burning and where the diseased and criminal corpses were disposed. The Valley of Hinnom was long associated with destruction and corruption, this was the valley where the worshipers of Molech would sacrifice their children to his idol by burning them alive.

Thus both of these concepts entered into Jewish imagination as ways of describing the righteous dead (Edenic paradise) and wicked dead (the fiery pit of Hinnom). Both were considered aspects or parts of She'ol, or in Greek Hades (the Greeks likewise maintained that their underworld, Hades, was divided between the fields of Elysium and the pits of Tartarus). In point of fact, the New Testament at one point uses "Tartarus" to describe the prison of the fallen angels, a likely reference back to a description in the non-canonical book of Enoch which describes the fallen Watchers as being imprisoned in Tartarus.

Next, Scripture often uses language of "heaven" to describe God's "space"; namely it envisions the "heavens" and "highest heavens" as ways to communicate God's vast "aboveness" in relation to us here on earth. "Heavens", in both Hebrew and Greek equally just mean "the sky", or "all that stuff we see when we look up from the earth." Thus God is at times described being in the "highest heavens" or more potently, being above all the heavens. This connection between "heaven" and God is so strong that the very word "heaven" could be used as a euphemism for God, as in Matthew's Gospel where "kingdom of Heaven" is used almost exclusively where Mark and Luke use "kingdom of God".

Following from that we confess that after Jesus rose from the dead He ascended into heaven, that is, Christ, the Son, returned to His Father to reign at the Father's right hand--a reference to the Son's power and authority.

Scripture never says that we "go to heaven when we die"; that's simply not part of the biblical text. However, we do have St. Paul saying that being absent from the body is to be "present with the Lord"; thus we look forward to being with Christ between death and resurrection. What this means in anyway that we can imagine or conceive is ultimately beyond reckoning. Additionally, the Revelation of St. John, does in its apocalyptic language describe Saints and Martyrs before God's Throne. This of course is found in the Revelation, an apocalyptic text filled with robust symbolic language. But, again, it is fair to ascertain that when we who are in Christ die, we in some sense go to be with the Lord, before God, until the Day of the Resurrection.

Finally, Scripture is clear: On the Last Day when the Lord returns the dead are raised, bodily. There is a new heavens and a new earth (all creation is renewed and restored), and God makes His habitation with mankind upon the earth and this is world without end; forever and ever. At the Judgment Hades/She'ol and Death are themselves thrown into the "Lake of Fire"; are consumed by Divine Judgment.

We need to isolate these three concepts as found in Scripture before any meaningful conversation further can be made.

After all of that, now we can begin to ask some questions. Is it even really appropriate to speak of "Heaven and Hell" in the popular sense at all? Maybe, maybe not. Is the ultimate state of the righteous and the ultimate state of the wicked constituting separate "locations"? If so, how so? Perhaps even considering the concept of "locations" in this regard is rather foolhardy on our part. Many ancient Christians didn't even consider these two states as different "places", but rather understood these as reference points of describing the righteous and the wicked in their relationship to and with God.

For example, St. Isaac the Syrian will speak of God loving everyone impartially, and His love being given unconditionally to all (without exception) and it is our response/disposition toward that love that is the real difference between "Heaven" and "Hell". Namely for the righteous God's Love is like a warm fire, delectable, intoxicating, refreshing; for the wicked God's Love singes them, it is agonizing as they suffer under the torment of remorse and self-pity.

At the end of the day, perhaps we should just trust God to be God.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[revrobor]

I know part of this question has been asked before. Your in heaven....wife/father/mother/family member is burning in hell. I've been told that being with God will make me understand and I won't be sad and miss them yet if that's true then how did Satan come to turn his back on God and bring angels down with him? Either being with God is really being at peace or there's a chance that even in Heaven you'll never be at peace.

When we are in Eternity with Jesus I don't believe we will have any memory of our lives here on this Earth. The Bible teaches us that "...every tear will be wiped away" and that there will be no more sickness or death. We need to stop trying to rationalize Eternity with our finite, human minds.

 

[Blessedj01]

These problems, I think, arise from conflating numerous ideas and bringing a lot of recent/novel theological baggage into the equation.

Let's consider several things firstly:

In the Gospels we are presented with a very Jewish understanding of the afterlife in the teachings and parables of Jesus. Jesus refers to Gehenna, Paradise, and Hades.

Firstly, Hades is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew She'ol, both refer simply to "the place of the dead". It's the "underworld", or "grave". In the understanding of first century Judaism there exist to states/conditions/places for the dead in She'ol/Hades: Gan-Eden (Paradise) and Gehenna. Gan-Eden means "Garden of Eden", even the word "Paradise" is derived ultimately from Persian and refers to an enclosed garden. Thus Paradise, the resting place of the righteous, is a garden reminiscent of Eden, it's a way of talking about the rest of the righteous dead. Gehenna is the Hellenized form of the word Ge-Hinnom, or "Valley of Hinnom", a literal valley outside of Old Jerusalem that was used as a refuse dump, which was kept burning and where the diseased and criminal corpses were disposed. The Valley of Hinnom was long associated with destruction and corruption, this was the valley where the worshipers of Molech would sacrifice their children to his idol by burning them alive.

Thus both of these concepts entered into Jewish imagination as ways of describing the righteous dead (Edenic paradise) and wicked dead (the fiery pit of Hinnom). Both were considered aspects or parts of She'ol, or in Greek Hades (the Greeks likewise maintained that their underworld, Hades, was divided between the fields of Elysium and the pits of Tartarus). In point of fact, the New Testament at one point uses "Tartarus" to describe the prison of the fallen angels, a likely reference back to a description in the non-canonical book of Enoch which describes the fallen Watchers as being imprisoned in Tartarus.

Next, Scripture often uses language of "heaven" to describe God's "space"; namely it envisions the "heavens" and "highest heavens" as ways to communicate God's vast "aboveness" in relation to us here on earth. "Heavens", in both Hebrew and Greek equally just mean "the sky", or "all that stuff we see when we look up from the earth." Thus God is at times described being in the "highest heavens" or more potently, being above all the heavens. This connection between "heaven" and God is so strong that the very word "heaven" could be used as a euphemism for God, as in Matthew's Gospel where "kingdom of Heaven" is used almost exclusively where Mark and Luke use "kingdom of God".

Following from that we confess that after Jesus rose from the dead He ascended into heaven, that is, Christ, the Son, returned to His Father to reign at the Father's right hand--a reference to the Son's power and authority.

Scripture never says that we "go to heaven when we die"; that's simply not part of the biblical text. However, we do have St. Paul saying that being absent from the body is to be "present with the Lord"; thus we look forward to being with Christ between death and resurrection. What this means in anyway that we can imagine or conceive is ultimately beyond reckoning. Additionally, the Revelation of St. John, does in its apocalyptic language describe Saints and Martyrs before God's Throne. This of course is found in the Revelation, an apocalyptic text filled with robust symbolic language. But, again, it is fair to ascertain that when we who are in Christ die, we in some sense go to be with the Lord, before God, until the Day of the Resurrection.

Finally, Scripture is clear: On the Last Day when the Lord returns the dead are raised, bodily. There is a new heavens and a new earth (all creation is renewed and restored), and God makes His habitation with mankind upon the earth and this is world without end; forever and ever. At the Judgment Hades/She'ol and Death are themselves thrown into the "Lake of Fire"; are consumed by Divine Judgment.

We need to isolate these three concepts as found in Scripture before any meaningful conversation further can be made.

After all of that, now we can begin to ask some questions. Is it even really appropriate to speak of "Heaven and Hell" in the popular sense at all? Maybe, maybe not. Is the ultimate state of the righteous and the ultimate state of the wicked constituting separate "locations"? If so, how so? Perhaps even considering the concept of "locations" in this regard is rather foolhardy on our part. Many ancient Christians didn't even consider these two states as different "places", but rather understood these as reference points of describing the righteous and the wicked in their relationship to and with God.

For example, St. Isaac the Syrian will speak of God loving everyone impartially, and His love being given unconditionally to all (without exception) and it is our response/disposition toward that love that is the real difference between "Heaven" and "Hell". Namely for the righteous God's Love is like a warm fire, delectable, intoxicating, refreshing; for the wicked God's Love singes them, it is agonizing as they suffer under the torment of remorse and self-pity.

At the end of the day, perhaps we should just trust God to be God.

-CryptoLutheran

Nice post, but I think it's going to cause more confusion than it solves.

For instance, how do you equate the possibility that there is no place called Heaven and no place called Hell with the scripture,

"For the Lord himself will come down from heaven"? - 1 Thessalonians 4:16

I think we should read: http://www.gotquestions.org/is-Heaven-real.html

 

[ViaCrucis]

Nice post, but I think it's going to cause more confusion than it solves.

For instance, how do you equate the possibility that there is no place called Heaven and no place called Hell with the scripture,

"For the Lord himself will come down from heaven"? - 1 Thessalonians 4:16

I think we should read: Is Heaven real?

I think the passage from 1 Thessalonians 4:16 fits quite well in what I described already with "heaven" as "up there" and as euphemism for God and/or God's "space". In other words it's simply saying that Jesus will return the same as He ascended (Acts 1:10-11). He ascended to the Father and likewise He will return from His Father at the end of time to judge the living and the dead.

I didn't really go over "Hell" in my last post, but that it is itself worth contemplating.

I did point out that Scripture uses several concepts: She'ol/Hades, Gehenna, Tartarus, the Lake of Fire.

Hell comes into English from Germanic/Norse mythology; Hel is the frozen underworld ruled by its namesake (in the same way that the Greek underworld, Hades, was ruled by Hades, god of the underworld). As such, most strictly "Hell" matches most closely the Hebrew She'ol, the Greek Hades, or the Latin Infernos (c.f. The Apostles' Creed).

The word "Hell" has, however, come to dominate other biblical concepts, and this seemed to have happened early enough that in the Middle English Bible of Wycliffe the fire of Gehenna could be called "fier of helle".

This more than anything is probably cause of confusion among Anglophonic Christians.

So that should probably be chewed over as well.

As far as Heaven being a location (at least, insofar, as we are discussing "Heaven" as God's "space"), I find this to be too problematic to be worth trying to figure out. Is God located anywhere? The Scriptures themselves say,

"But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!" - 1 Kings 8:27

We are talking about the Eternal, the Alpha and Omega, the Almighty and Ever-present One. He is everywhere, nothing can contain Him.

To thus be with God must mean something more than "going to a place somewhere up there", but whatever it does mean is beyond imagination and thus probably is imprudent to speculate.

Additionally, "Heaven" isn't even our ultimate destination, our hope lay in the resurrection of the body at the end of the age, the renewal of creation. The final vision St. John receives of that glorious time we look forward to is not dwelling "up there", but rather of God's glorious dwelling with us down here.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Blessedj01]

I think the passage from 1 Thessalonians 4:16 fits quite well in what I described already with "heaven" as "up there" and as euphemism for God and/or God's "space". In other words it's simply saying that Jesus will return the same as He ascended (Acts 1:10-11). He ascended to the Father and likewise He will return from His Father at the end of time to judge the living and the dead.

I didn't really go over "Hell" in my last post, but that it is itself worth contemplating.

I did point out that Scripture uses several concepts: She'ol/Hades, Gehenna, Tartarus, the Lake of Fire.

Hell comes into English from Germanic/Norse mythology; Hel is the frozen underworld ruled by its namesake (in the same way that the Greek underworld, Hades, was ruled by Hades, god of the underworld). As such, most strictly "Hell" matches most closely the Hebrew She'ol, the Greek Hades, or the Latin Infernos (c.f. The Apostles' Creed).

The word "Hell" has, however, come to dominate other biblical concepts, and this seemed to have happened early enough that in the Middle English Bible of Wycliffe the fire of Gehenna could be called "fier of helle".

This more than anything is probably cause of confusion among Anglophonic Christians.

So that should probably be chewed over as well.

As far as Heaven being a location (at least, insofar, as we are discussing "Heaven" as God's "space"), I find this to be too problematic to be worth trying to figure out. Is God located anywhere? The Scriptures themselves say,

"But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!" - 1 Kings 8:27

We are talking about the Eternal, the Alpha and Omega, the Almighty and Ever-present One. He is everywhere, nothing can contain Him.

To thus be with God must mean something more than "going to a place somewhere up there", but whatever it does mean is beyond imagination and thus probably is imprudent to speculate.

Additionally, "Heaven" isn't even our ultimate destination, our hope lay in the resurrection of the body at the end of the age, the renewal of creation. The final vision St. John receives of that glorious time we look forward to is not dwelling "up there", but rather of God's glorious dwelling with us down here.

-CryptoLutheran

I disagree that Heaven isn't our ultimate destination, because Jesus says it is. Wether Heaven means the renewal of creation, or something else, I still think it's perfectly okay to say we'll spend eternity in Heaven. But I do agree that speculation on where Heaven and/or Hell are is pretty meaningless. After all, they are obviously concerned with our eternal souls which are invisible and God is infinitely-dimensional.

 

[seeingeyes]

I know part of this question has been asked before. Your in heaven....wife/father/mother/family member is burning in hell. I've been told that being with God will make me understand and I won't be sad and miss them yet if that's true then how did Satan come to turn his back on God and bring angels down with him? Either being with God is really being at peace or there's a chance that even in Heaven you'll never be at peace.

I believe that there is zero chance that you love your wife/father/mother/family member more than God does. And I believe that God's love is not some elusive cutesy feeling, instead His love is practical and sacrificial. Hence Jesus.

 

[PROPHECYKID]

I know part of this question has been asked before. Your in heaven....wife/father/mother/family member is burning in hell. I've been told that being with God will make me understand and I won't be sad and miss them yet if that's true then how did Satan come to turn his back on God and bring angels down with him? Either being with God is really being at peace or there's a chance that even in Heaven you'll never be at peace.

But the bible does tell us that God will wipe away all tears from our eyes. There will be initial sorry in heaven when we find out our loved ones will not make it. Additionally, the bible does not really teach that the wicked will burn forever, but is misinterpreted that way. There is absolutely no way to be happy in heaven if you can see loved ones constantly being burned. The only way is if God turns us into robots which he will never do, because it is this reason why sin came into the world. God gave man a choice so we can choose him and not serve him because we do not have a choice (robots). If at creation he didn't want us to be robots, he wouldn't make us robots at recreation.

 

[Blessedj01]

Additionally, the bible does not really teach that the wicked will burn forever, but is misinterpreted that way. There is absolutely no way to be happy in heaven if you can see loved ones constantly being burned.

All glory be to God. Your statement makes this impossible. The post is riddled with internalised-philosophy about how God "should be." I'm not having a go at you, but I'm just saying that if you truely believe that God is glorious, worthy, His worth-ship, then you should stop putting your three-dimensional understanding above the soveriengty of God.

God's wrath is righteous and Holy. His soveriegnty is all-encompassing. We will not even be concerned with "see(ing) loved ones being constantly burned"...this is man-made philosophy, it's not Biblical and it's not even an accurate portrayal of our existence in eternity.

All glory to God. We have to stop questioning Him, doubting His peace and seeking to take our earthly, fleshly concerns up with us to Heaven.

 

[PROPHECYKID]

All glory be to God. Your statement makes this impossible. The post is riddled with internalised-philosophy about how God "should be." I'm not having a go at you, but I'm just saying that if you truely believe that God is glorious, worthy, His worth-ship, then you should stop putting your three-dimensional understanding above the soveriengty of God.

God's wrath is righteous and Holy. His soveriegnty is all-encompassing. We will not even be concerned with "see(ing) loved ones being constantly burned"...this is man-made philosophy, it's not Biblical and it's not even an accurate portrayal of our existence in eternity.

All glory to God. We have to stop questioning Him, doubting His peace and seeking to take our earthly, fleshly concerns up with us to Heaven.

When we are in heaven , The Bible Says that God will wipe all tears from our eyes meaning that in heaven we would be sorrowful to see our loved ones lost. Are you disputing this?

 

[revrobor]

When we are in heaven , The Bible Says that God will wipe all tears from our eyes meaning that in heaven we would be sorrowful to see our loved ones lost. Are you disputing this?

The Bible says there will be no crying in Heaven:


"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Rev. 21:4

 

[PROPHECYKID]

The Bible says there will be no crying in Heaven:


"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Rev. 21:4

Come on bro. Wiping away tears means there must have been tears shed. Understand that God does this when they are already in heaven. The change of our bodies will occur at the resurrection. That is when we will be given heavenly bodies. The change does not happen in heaven. God wiping away our tears cannot mean he is going to make us emotionalless, because they necessary biblical change would have already occurred at that point.

 

[revrobor]

Come on bro. Wiping away tears means there must have been tears shed. Understand that God does this when they are already in heaven. The change of our bodies will occur at the resurrection. That is when we will be given heavenly bodies. The change does not happen in heaven. God wiping away our tears cannot mean he is going to make us emotionalless, because they necessary biblical change would have already occurred at that point.

Look at the whole sentence. Do you see the "...no mourning..." there? Once we leave this Earthly life there will be ..."NO CRYING..." or sorrow.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Look at the whole sentence. Do you see the "...no mourning..." there? Once we leave this Earthly life there will be ..."NO CRYING..." or sorrow.

But it's in reference to the Age to Come, "new heavens and new earth"; not to existence postmortem "in heaven".

The issue of having every tear wiped away/no mourning refers to the fact that God has delivered His people out from their suffering. Not in reference to our disposition toward those "in Hell".

Further: We should be careful not to speculate too much or speak beyond what Scripture says about things such as this. It is far too easy to become dogmatic about a subject where Scripture isn't, or where the broad witness of the Church has been all but silent.

-CryptoLutheran