Do humans ever go to heaven?
The belief and teaching that all humans have natural immortality via an immortal soul can be traced back thousands of years. We can see from history that nations like Egypt and Babylon taught their people about an immortal soul in every human, that continued to live, to think and to experience life, after the body had died. Depending on the nation and on their spiritual theology they had, would come various teachings about where and under what conditions this immortal soul would experience after the death of the physical body. Some nations would bury the dead body in graves with all kinds of things for the departed to take with them and to use to enjoy in the afterlife.
Different nations may have had different places where the departed soul would live when it left the dead body, but to put it in simple language, the immortal soul was in a "heaven" of some sort. They even had gloomy underworlds for those not thought to have done enough good in their physical lives to warrant the prize of "heaven."
All this should start to sound somewhat familiar with certain teaching and beliefs of many Christian churches and organizations. Many have heard the "hell-fire and brimstone" sermons preached loud and vigorously by a Christian minister or Camp-meeting tent revivalist. Such preaching of course includes telling you that if you "give your heart to the Lord" and turn from sin, you can "go to heaven" and live in bliss, doing...well they are not sure, maybe singing and strumming on a harp?
Just about all Christians today believe they shall "get to heaven" one day. They firmly believe that going to heaven is one of the basic rewards of being Christian. To think, and to teach otherwise, to them, is pretty close to being a nutty and strange heretic. They are convinced the Bible shows and tells us that going to heaven is the automatic reward of the children of God. And most believe that going to heaven takes place when the physical body stops breathing and dies. Yet this common and prevailing theological view was not the common view or teaching of the early New Testament Church of God.
The early NT church did not teach or believe in going to heaven at death, for those faithful Christians. Church history shows that it was only through the teachings of people like Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and others that most professing Christians gradually came to adopt the belief of the immortal soul, and going immediately "somewhere" after the death of the body.
So, as the millenniums came and went today's doctrines of the immortal soul as taught together with an ever burning hell fire for the wicked, a purgatory for those who may not have sinned unto eternal torment, and can possibly yet be granted heaven and a heaven where God is, for the righteous. All this came to be church doctrines.
Most Christians believe they will at some point "get to heaven" where God is dwelling. Some do not believe you go to heaven at death, but that death is a sleep until the resurrection, then when Jesus returns to raise the righteous dead, all go back with Him to heaven for a thousand years, until the new earth comes into being. Others believe that Christ returns to "rapture" His Church away from the terrible tribulation then taking place on the earth, and that they spent either 7 years or 3 1/2 years in heaven, before returning again with Christ to set up the Kingdom of God on earth for a thousand years.
Whatever the various beliefs of certain religious sects and denominations is on this matter, just about all of them teach and believe that the good Christian will someday, for some period of time "go to heaven" where the Father lives and dwells in the heavenly Jerusalem.
IF WE SHALL GO TO HEAVEN ONE DAY....
And if this is a fundamental plain teaching of the Bible, then surely we should be able to find many verses all over the Bible saying things such as: "When we get to heaven," "When we see each other in heaven," "They are up there in heaven with God," "We shall go to heaven at Christ's return," "We shall be in heaven where God is one day." BUT VERSES LIKE THIS CANNOT BE FOUND IN THE BIBLE!
BUT, what we do read in the Bible is the Words of Jesus: No man goes to heaven, except the One who came from there. John 3:13 Where I go, you cannot come. John 7:34 Your home is in this world, Mine is not. John 8:23 I do not pray, Father, that You take them out of this world.... John 17:15
So the truth is, the idea of a 'rapture to heaven', is a straight out Satanic lie; one of his most successful ones, that will cause many unprepared Christians to fall on the Day of trial. 1 Peter 4:12, 1 Corinthians 3:13-15
Most Christians think that heaven is our destination and preachers tout it from the pulpit. Why then didn't the people of the Bible use such language? Could it be that they knew that going off to heaven where God the Father now dwells was NEVER promised to any earthy mortal person?
Is not our reward to go to heaven? Are there not some verses that say something to that effect? Here they are: Rejoice, and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven.... Matthew 5:12 Do not display your religion before others, if you do you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. Matthew 6:1 But lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven.....Luke 6:23 To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled…reserved in heaven for you. 1 Peter 1:4
Now, let's be honest. Do the above verses say: "Our reward is to get to heaven" or "When we get to heaven we shall be given our reward." Do these verses say: "Our reserved inheritance is to get to heaven to be with God" ? No, they do not! Truly, Christians will receive rewards and we are to inherit eternal life, but when? Eternal life comes at the resurrection. Read 1 Cor.15; Rev.2:10; 2 Tim.4:8 Our rewards are to be given to us by Christ at His return. And, behold, I come quickly, and MY REWARD IS WITH ME, to give every man according as his work shall be.
Rev. 22:12 Our rewards and inheritance are reserved in heaven. They come down out of heaven with Christ at his Return.
What we can be sure of is that we, the children of God, will one day be in heaven.....yes.....when heaven comes to earth. Revelation 21:1-4 But what we cannot say is that any human will be taken up to heaven to avoid the wrath to come. The Lord promises protection to all these who place their trust in Him and this will be a profound spiritual experience. Nahum 1:1-8, Isaiah 43:2, +
Your comments are not only contrary to all the scriptures I just quoted, byt to the writings of the early Christians. ALL of the following statements were made before Origen.
“They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven.” (Epistle to Diognes, by Mathates, chapter 5)
“If you also desire [to possess] this faith, you likewise shall receive first of all the knowledge of the Father. For God has loved mankind, on whose account He made the world, to whom He rendered subject all the things that are in it, to whom He gave reason and understanding, to whom alone He imparted the privilege of looking upwards to Himself, whom He formed after His own image, to whom He sent His only-begotten Son, to whom He has promised a kingdom in heaven, and will give it to those who have loved Him.” (Epistle to Diognes, by Mathates, chapter 12)
“As the presbyters say, then those who are deemed worthy of an abode in heaven shall go there, others shall enjoy the delights of Paradise, and others shall possess the splendour of the city; for everywhere the Saviour will be seen, according as they shall be worthy who see Him.” (Fragments of Papias, fragment number 5)
“And as the presbyters say, Then those who are deemed worthy of an abode in heaven shall go there, others shall enjoy the delights of paradise, and others shall possess the splendour of the city; for everywhere the Saviour shall be seen according as they who see Him shall be worthy.” (Against Heresies, by Irenaeus, book 5, chapter 36, paragraph 1)
“For the demons, inspired with frenzy against men by reason of their own wickedness, pervert their minds, which already incline downwards, by various deceptive scenic representations, that they may be disabled from rising to the path that leads to heaven. But from us the things which are in the world are not hidden, and the divine is easily apprehended by us if the power that makes souls immortal visits us. “ (Address to the Greeks, by Tatian, chapter 16)
“But if thou desirest truly to see God, take to thyself means of purification worthy of Him, not leaves of laurel fillets interwoven with wool and purple; but wreathing thy brows with righteousness, and encircling them with the leaves of temperance, set thyself earnestly to find Christ. “For I am,” He says, “the door,” which we who desire to understand God must discover, that He may throw heaven’s gates wide open to us.” (Exhortation to the Heathen, by Clement of Alexandria, chapter 1)
“I wish to show thoroughly what like these gods of yours are, that now at length you may abandon your delusion, and speed your flight back to heaven.” (Exhortation to the Heathen, by Clement of Alexandria, chapter 2)
“The pure must ascend to heaven. Thou art a man, if we look to that which is most common to thee and others—seek Him who created thee; thou art a son, if we look to that which is thy peculiar prerogative—acknowledge thy Father. But do you still continue in your sins, engrossed with pleasures? To whom shall the Lord say, “Yours is the kingdom of heaven?” Yours, whose choice is set on God, if you will; yours, if you will only believe, and comply with the brief terms of the announcement; which the Ninevites having obeyed, instead of the destruction they looked for, obtained a signal deliverance. How, then, may I ascend to heaven, is it said? The Lord is the way; a strait way, but leading from heaven, strait in truth, but leading back to heaven, strait, despised on earth; broad, adored in heaven... Perchance the Lord will endow you with the wing of simplicity (for He has resolved to give wings to those that are earth-born), that you may leave your holes and dwell in heaven. Only let us with our whole heart repent, that we may be able with our whole heart to contain God. “Trust in Him, all ye assembled people; pour out all your hearts before Him.” He says to those that have newly abandoned wickedness, “He pities them, and fills them with righteousness.” Believe Him who is man and God; believe, O man. Believe, O man, the living God, who suffered and is adored. Believe, ye slaves, Him who died; believe, all ye of human kind, Him who alone is God of all men. Believe, and receive salvation as your reward. Seek God, and your soul shall live. He who seeks God is busying himself about his own salvation. Hast thou found God?—then thou hast life. Let us then seek, in order that we may live. The reward of seeking is life with God.” (Exhortation to the Heathen, by Clement of Alexandria, chapter 10)
“Exert your will only, and you have overcome ruin; bound to the wood of the cross, thou shalt be freed from destruction: the word of God will be thy pilot, and the Holy Spirit will bring thee to anchor in the haven of heaven. Then shalt thou see my God, and be initiated into the sacred mysteries, and come to the fruition of those things which are laid up in heaven reserved for me, which ‘ear hath not heard, nor have they entered into the heart of any.’ ” (Exhortation to the Heathen, by Clement of Alexandria, chapter 12)
“With milk, then, the Lord’s nutriment, we are nursed directly we are born; and as soon as we are regenerated, we are honoured by receiving the good news of the hope of rest, even the Jerusalem above, in which it is written that milk and honey fall in showers, receiving through what is material the pledge of the sacred food. “For meats are done away with,” as the apostle himself says; but this nourishment on milk leads to the heavens, rearing up citizens of heaven, and members of the angelic choirs.” (The Unstructor, by Clement of Alexandria, book 1, chapter 6)
“Now piety is instruction, being the learning of the service of God, and training in the knowledge of the truth, and right guidance which leads to heaven... And just as the helmsman does not always yield to the winds, but sometimes, turning the prow towards them, opposes the whole force of the hurricanes; so the Instructor never yields to the blasts that blow in this world, nor commits the child to them like a vessel to make shipwreck on a wild and licentious course of life; but, wafted on by the favouring breeze of the Spirit of truth, stoutly holds on to the child’s helm,—his ears, I mean,—until He bring him safe to anchor in the haven of heaven.” (The Unstructor, by Clement of Alexandria, book 1, chapter 7)
“A fair provision for the journey to heaven is theirs who bear frugality with chaste gravity.” (The Unstructor, by Clement of Alexandria, book 3, chapter 7)
“And those who have been rightly reared in the words of truth, and received provision for eternal life, wing their way to heaven.” (The Stromata, by Clement of Alexandria, bool 1, chapter 1)
“And those who have been rightly reared in the words of truth, and received provision for eternal life, wing their way to heaven.” (The Stromata, by Clement of Alexandria, bool 4, chapter 12)
“The soul is not then sent down from heaven to what is worse. For God works all things up to what is better. But the soul which has chosen the best life—the life that is from God and righteousness—exchanges earth for heaven.” (The Stromata, by Clement of Alexandria, bool 4, chapter 23)
“Wherefore the Father bestows on him the glory and honour that was due and meet, putting on him the best robe, the robe of immortality; and a ring, a royal signet and divine seal,—impress of consecration, signature of glory, pledge of testimony (for it is said, “He hath set to his seal that God is true,”) and shoes, not those perishable ones which he hath set his foot on holy ground is bidden take off, nor such as he who is sent to preach the kingdom of heaven is forbidden to put on, but such as wear not, and are suited for the journey to heaven, becoming and adorning the heavenly path, such as unwashed feet never put on, but those which are washed by our Teacher and Lord.” (Fragments of Clement of Alexandria)
“2. The Heaven of Heavens, the eternal abode of the righteous, in the vision of the Lord and His Eternal Joy.” (Paradise, by Tertullian, chapter 47)
“As to the house of this our earthly dwelling-place, when he says that “we have an eternal home in heaven, not made with hands,” he by no means would imply that, because it was built by the Creator’s hand, it must perish in a perpetual dissolution after death. He treats of this subject in order to offer consolation against the fear of death and the dread of this very dissolution, as is even more manifest from what follows, when he adds, that “in this tabernacle of our earthly body we do groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with the vesture which is from heaven, if so be, that having been unclothed, we shall not be found naked; ”in other words, shall regain that of which we have been divested, even our body. And again he says: “We that are in this tabernacle do groan, not as if we were oppressed with an unwillingness to be unclothed, but (we wish)to be clothed upon.” He here says expressly, what he touched but lightly in his first epistle, where he wrote: ) “The dead shall be raised Incorruptible (meaning those who had undergone mortality), “and we shall be changed” (whom God shall find to be yet in the flesh). Both those shall be raised incorruptible, because they shall regain their body—and that a renewed one, from which shall come their incorruptibility; and these also shall, in the crisis of the last moment, and from their instantaneous death, whilst encountering the oppressions of anti-christ, undergo a change, obtaining therein not so much a divestiture of body as “a clothing upon” with the vesture which is from heaven. So that whilst these shall put on over their (changed) body this, heavenly raiment, the dead also shall for their part recover their body, over which they too have a supervesture to put on, even the incorruption of heaven; because of these it was that he said: ‘This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.’ ” (Against Maricon, by Tertullian, book 5, chapter 12)
“Ye who are to be inhabitants of the heavens with God-Christ, hold fast the beginning, look at all things from heaven. Let simplicity, let meekness dwell in your body. Be not angry with thy devout brother without a cause, for ye shall receive whatever ye may have done from him. This has pleased Christ, that the dead should rise again, yea, with their bodies; and those, too, whom in this world the fire has burned, when six thousand years are completed, and the world has come to an end.” (The Instructions of Commodianus, by Commodianus, number 80)
