Where is "go to heaven" in the Bible?

[oikonomia]

Revelation is symbolic, therefore it cannot be read literally/physically.

So we consider the entire revelation of the Bible and we determine what it is symbolism OF.

The picture of a city coming out from God which is called the Bride of Christ and Wife of the Lamb should
remind us of the beginning. God caused Adam to sleep deeply. And out of his side he extracted a rib.
God then "built" the rib into a woman. The woman was brought back to Adam to be his wife.

The symbolism is that Adam's experience is a window into the eternal purpose of God.
He became a man. He died a redemptive death on the cross (corresponding to Adam's deep sleep).
Out from Christ's side came forth blood and water.

But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water.
And he who has seen this has testified, and his testimony is true;
and he knows that he says what is true, that you also may believe. (John 19:34,35)

The blood came out showing Christ's eternal redemption.
The water came out showing divine life out of Christ for eternal life.

The redemption and the life impatation are for His obtaining a counterpart, a purhased bride.

. . . shepherd the church of God, which He obtained through His own blood. (Acts 20:28)

. . . Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her
That He might sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing of the water in the word,
That He might present the church to Himself glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such things,
but that she would be holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:25-27)

I can understand that a higher dimension being can step into a lower dimension, like angels can become visible and interact with this world. However, I do not understand how God can step into a universe that exists in Him. Its like me going into my own thought. This is a mystery, at least for now.

Someone thought of it as an author of a play stepping into the play to take part in it as a major actor.

 

[oikonomia]

Their lives evidence no Holy Spirit, which lack thereof is evidence they are not born again.

The church in Corinth had many born again believers. It also had many problems with some of them.
Some were said to be soulish. Some were said to be fleshly.
Some were said to be infants in Christ, who by that time should have frown more.

You cannot say they had absolutely no evidence of having received the Lord.
There is a difference with born again Christians in what OUGHT to be and what actually IS.

Why, you and I are not always up to the standard of what we OUGHT to be in the Lord.

Because there is a distinction in the NT between the overcoming and the defeated, Paul says
the latter who are "approved" are made manifest by the former unapproved though both are regenerated Christians.

For first of all, when you come together in the church, I hear that divisions exist among you; and some part of it I believe.
For there must even be parties among you, that those who are approved may become manifest among you. (1 Cor. 11:18,19)

Or it implies that pagans as new Christians needed a lot of instruction regarding and encouragement in being obedient to a whole new paradigm. There was a whole lotta' turning around going on.

In Corinth there were all regenerated believers.
To the church of God which is in Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, the called saints, with all those who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, who is theirs and ours: (1 Cor. 1:2)

Yet there were degrees of maturity ranging from very retarded and defeated to those "approved" and ovrcoming.
Like in all the churches receiving these letters, some were at the standard and others were below the standard.

It would be nice if we simply said that all those habitially below the standard are simply not born again.

To be sure there are false believers. But to be realistic not ALL genuinely regenerated Christians are consistently
AT the standard. Therefore there is the need for shepherding, nourishing, exhorting, and admonishing one another
that we all may be healthy in the faith.

As former pagans, they much needed instruction regarding in what they were to cooperate. And then they must understand it well enough to know how to apply it. That didn't take place over night with no culture around them to model it for them.
Paul was planting former-pagan Christians among more pagans.

Salvation is not a carefree ride.

That is part of the point I am making also.
Ie. "Going to Heaven" unsanctified sunjectively, unttransformed, unconformed, natural, even fleshly.

The "Get your born-again ticket" of many encourages this "carefree ride."
And a lack of vision causes the people to have no restraint.

We need to see that Christ died for the church. Yet he died for me. But His dying for me was part of His dying to
obtain the church. And the church is the dispensing of God's life and nature into man to saturate him and permeat him
for His spotless bride.

In the Lord's recovery we receive daily this impartation of a high vision.
Our salvation and daily living in Christ's grace is for the building up of the bride.

The goal is guaranteed, the power is guaranteed, but direction and execution by us is also required.
New babes, formerly pagans, need to be reminded and exhorted to this so that the power which operates only on the rails does not find them off the rails. That required of them learning and a whole new paradigm shift.

Yes, John was subject to the same exhortations that he gave.

The loss has nothing to do with a supposed "millennial kingdom" derived from literal interpretation of prophecies which God said he speaks in riddles and not clearly (Nu:12:8), and has everything to do with one's eternal reward in the next life (after the resurrection).

Yes the suffering of loss rather than receiving reward must have everything to do with the millennial kingdom.
The church age is over.

Still some saved forever have work needed to be done upon them.
That is one reason why there IS this intervening period of one thousand years.
Before the eternal age, the one thousand year period of reward or punishment is placed before us
as an incentive.

You see God in His wisdom knew that some would take cheaply His grace.
Those who did not nullify this effective all-powerful grace will be reward to co-reign in the millennium.

And the scope of possibilities of what it means during that time to "suffer loss" is as wide as Christ needs it to be.
The appropriate level of discipline He will administer.

 

[Clare73]

The church in Corinth had many born again believers. It also had many problems with some of them.
Some were said to be soulish. Some were said to be fleshly.
Some were said to be infants in Christ, who by that time should have frown more.

You cannot say they had absolutely no evidence of having received the Lord.

Nor did I say that lack of evidence was proof they did not.

There is a difference with born again Christians in what OUGHT to be and what actually IS.
Why, you and I are not always up to the standard of what we OUGHT to be in the Lord.
Because there is a distinction in the NT between the overcoming and the defeated, Paul says
the latter who are "approved" are made manifest by the former unapproved though both are regenerated Christians.

For first of all, when you come together in the church, I hear that divisions exist among you; and some part of it I believe.
For there must even be parties among you, that those who are approved may become manifest among you. (1 Cor. 11:18,19)

That refers to approved by God or not, made manifest as those in 1 Jn 2:19 were made manifest.

In Corinth there were all regenerated believers.
To the church of God which is in Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, the called saints, with all those who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, who is theirs and ours: (1 Cor. 1:2)

That is not a claim that all are holy. That is simply addressed to the holy.

There where were degrees of maturity ranging from very retarded and defeated to those "approved" and ovrcoming.
Like in all the churches receiving these letters, some were at the standard and others were below the standard.,

And some are not saved at all, just as are the tares in the churches today.

It would be nice if we simply said that all those habitially below the standard are simply not born again.

That is what I am saying.

To be sure there are false believers. But to be realistic not ALL genuinely regenerated Christians are consistently
AT the standard. Therefore there is the need for shepherding, nourishing, exhorting, and admonishing one another
that we all may be healthy in the faith.

Agreed.

That is part of the point I am making also.
Ie. "Going to Heaven" unsanctified sunjectively, unttransformed, unconformed, natural, even fleshly.
The "Get your born-again ticket" of many encourages this "carefree ride."
And a lack of vision causes the people to have no restraint.
We need to see that Christ died for the church. Yet he died for me. But His dying for me was part of His dying to
obtain the church. And the church is the dispensing of God's life and nature into man to saturate him and permeat him
for His spotless bride.

The church is the called-out assembly (ek-klesia) of the saints in fellowship, while the Holy Spirit is the dispenser of God's life in and out of the assembly.

In the Lord's recovery we receive daily this impartation of a high vision.
Our salvation and daily living in Christ's grace is for the building up of the bride.
Yes the suffering of loss rather than receiving reward must have everything to do with the millennial kingdom.
The church age is over.

The end of time and entrance into eternity is not the "millennial kingdom," which means 1,000.
The loss is in regard to reward (not in regard to salvation) in eternity for weak and insipid life and work in time.

Still some saved forever have work needed to be done upon them.
That is one reason why there IS this intervening period of one thousand years.
Before the eternal age, the one thousand year period of reward or punishment is placed before us
as an incentive.

That is a doctrine of man nowhere found in NT apostolic teaching authoritative to the church (Lk 10:16).
It is an invention of his personal interpretation of prophetic riddles not spoken clearly (Nu 12:8), and which personal interpretation contradicts apostolic teaching authoritative to the church (Lk 10:16).

You see God in His wisdom knew that some would take cheaply His grace.
Those who did not nullify this effective all-powerful grace will be reward to co-reign in the millennium.

And the scope of possibilities of what it means during that time to "suffer loss" is as wide as Christ needs it to be.
The appropriate level of discipline He will administer.

That is human sentiment with absolutely no basis in, and contradictory to, NT apostolic teaching authoritative to the church (Lk 10:16).

 

[oikonomia]

That is human sentiment with absolutely no basis in, and contradictory to, NT apostolic teaching authoritative to the church (Lk 10:16).

This is being in denial.
So to "suffer loss" at the judgment seat of Christ is not to suffer any loss with you.

I'll go with what is written.

 

[Clare73]

This is being in denial.
So to "suffer loss" at the judgment seat of Christ is not to suffer any loss with you.

That is addressed in the post above to which you are responding.

I'll go with what is written.

That's what I am doing, with 1 Co 3:11-15.
The loss he suffers is loss of reward, not salvation.

 

[oikonomia]

That is addressed in the post above to which you are responding.

That's what I am doing, with 1 Co 3:11-15.
The loss he suffers is loss of reward, not salvation.

I never said it was loss of eternal salvation. I said the opposite AS the passage says.

If anyone’s work is consumed, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

Everytime I have referred to this passage on this Forum or any OTHER
I have ALWAYS emphasized the clause - "but he himself will be saved,"
Let's not use a strawman argument.

Now you go ahead and imagine that to "suffer loss" can only be restricted to not participating in reward.

I'll go with the Scripture. For example in the parable of the Lord disciplining His servants upon
His return. The degree of thier awareness of what the master wanted influences the degree to which
the punished servant is punished.

The master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour which he does not know, and will cut him asunder, and will appoint his portion with the unbelievers.

And that slave who knew his master’s will and did not prepare or do according to his will, will receive many lashes;

But he who did not know, yet did things worthy of stripes, will receive few lashes. But to everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required from him; and to whom much has been committed, they will ask of him all the more. (Luke 12:46-48)

Don't bother trying to convince me this is not a warning teaching about the second coming of the Lord.
Verse 45 says But if that slave says in his heart, My master is delaying his coming, and begins to beat the male servants and the female servants and to eat and to drink and become drunk,

And verse 43 says Blessed is that slave whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing.

And please do not attempt to dismiss it as a parable not to be taken seriously.

It is your kind of teaching as an overdose of Reformation theology encourages believers
to not take His coming that seriously. You make positional holiness to take the place of dispositional holiness.
Your kind of overdose of security of eternal redemption renders the Lord's hands tied to not be able
to perfect His sons in the church age (and afterward before the eternal age) who take grace for granted.

It is good to have a firm standing in positional holiness. We have been set aside to a holy standing.
The New Testament also stresses the need for dispositional holiness in the change of our soul.

Your kind of teaching really makes the Father a kind of naive hands tied Barney the Dinosaur like character.
While the New Testaments has both sides of His holding us securely in His hand for eternal life AND working to mature every son
whom he receives that we may share in His holiness not only in position but in disposition.

Furthermore we have had the fathers of our flesh as discipliners and we respected them; shall we not much more be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined for a few days as it seemed good to them; but He, for what is profitable that we might partake of His holiness. (Heb. 12:9,10)

 

[BPPLEE]

I think all you have shown is that Hades in the NT is the same thing as Sheol in the OT.
That is fine. Sometimes it was just called the grave. And Gehenna the city dump was a picture of eternal punishment
in the lake of fire.

But to the point of my OP-
I am curious why you have not answered my question to you.

What passage would you point to show that today, now there are people in heaven?
Should I take your silence in this to indicate you have no Scriptural evidence that some believers have "gone to heaven"?

There is shortage of sight into God's economy today. That economy being God bringing man into God and God into man.
This truth is veiled to many. In its place is going to a happy place. But this is the natural unenlightened tradition. It is difficult for Christians to drop this rather superstious thought to see that we areby transformation being united with the Triune God.

What about what Jesus said to the thief on the cross?

 

[Clare73]

I never said it was loss of eternal salvation. I said the opposite AS the passage says.

If anyone’s work is consumed, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
Everytime I have referred to this passage on this Forum or any OTHER
I have ALWAYS emphasized the clause - "but he himself will be saved,"
Let's not use a strawman argument.
Now you go ahead and imagine that to "suffer loss" can only be restricted to not participating in reward.

In light of the context: "If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss,"
it is most reasonable to think the loss is of reward.

I'll go with the Scripture. For example in the parable of the Lord disciplining His servants upon
His return. The degree of thier awareness of what the master wanted influences the degree to which
the punished servant is punished.
The master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour which he does not know, and will cut him asunder, and will appoint his portion with the unbelievers.

Do you not see this verse is speaking about loss of salvation, while 1 Co 3:11-15 is explicitly not about salvation?

And that slave who knew his master’s will and did not prepare or do according to his will, will receive many lashes;

Do you not see this verse is speaking about disobedience, not about poor quality of work (1 Co 3:13)?

But he who did not know, yet did things worthy of stripes, will receive few lashes. But to everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required from him; and to whom much has been committed, they will ask of him all the more. (Luke 12:46-48)

Do you not see this verse is about culpable ignorance, not about poor quality of work?

Don't bother trying to convince me this is not a warning teaching about the second coming of the Lord.
Verse 45 says But if that slave says in his heart, My master is delaying his coming, and begins to beat the male servants and the female servants and to eat and to drink and become drunk,
And verse 43 says Blessed is that slave whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing.
And please do not attempt to dismiss it as a parable not to be taken seriously.

It is most definitely about the second coming, which in NT apostolic teaching is the final judgment and the end of time.

It is your kind of teaching as an overdose of Reformation theology which encourages believers to not take His coming that seriously.

Reformed theology takes his coming according to NT apostolic teaching authoritative to the church (Lk 10:16), as being the end of time and final judgment.
What is more serious than that?

You make positional holiness to take the place of dispositional holiness.

Are sure about that?

Your kind of overdose of security of eternal redemption renders the Lord's hands tied to not be able
to perfect His sons in the church age who take grace for granted.

And you know I do this, how?

It is good to have a firm standing in positional holiness. We have been set aside to a holy standing.
The New Testament also stresses the need for dispositional holiness in the change of our soul.

Do you know whether or not you are preaching to the choir?

Your kind of teaching really makes the Father a kind of naive hands tied Barney the Dinosaur like character.
While the New Testaments has both sides of His holding us securely in His hand for eternal life AND working to mature every son
whom he receives that we may share in His holiness not only in position but in disposition.
Furthermore we have had the fathers of our flesh as discipliners and we respected them; shall we not much more be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined for a few days as it seemed good to them; but He, for what is profitable that we might partake of His holiness. (Heb. 12:9,10)

You obviously have me confused with someone else.

 

[oikonomia]

If anyone’s work is consumed, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. (2 Cor. 3:15)

An old Negro spiritual sang "Everything is gonna be alright when Jesus comes."

But to the Christian who suffers loss and is saved yet so as through fire,
everything may not be alright when Jesus comes for them.

 

[oikonomia]

In light of the context: "If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss,"
it is most reasonable to think the loss is of reward.

It is reasonable to account "suffer" to mean something you would rather not go through.
In fact to build with inferior materials "wood, hay, stubble" is to mar and defile the church.

The one who defiles the temple of God will be destroyed for the church is holy.
Here destroy is the same as "suffer loss" yet he is still saved.

Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him; for the temple of God is holy, and such are you. ( 1 Cor. 3:16,17)

Do you not see this verse is speaking about loss of salvation, while 1 Co 3:11-15 is explicitly not about salvation?

You should know that I see it by QUOTING the passage of 1 Cor. 3:15,16.
Why the suspicion that I do not see he is not talking about loss of salvation if
he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire ?

Do you not see this verse is speaking about disobedience, not about poor quality of work (1 Co 3:13)?

You puzzle me. Are you talking to poster oikonomia, me?

It is most definitely about the second coming, which in NT apostolic teaching is the final judgment and the end of time.

You do not understand that this is the judgment of Christians. Only Christians are qualified to appear at the judgement seat (bema)
of Christ. Only those who are redeemed forever are qualified to appear at this judgment seat BEFORE the millennial kingdom.

The great white throne judgment (the last judgment) occurs AFTER the thousand years.
Read Revelation 20 and notice the things following the completion of the thousand years.

Reformed theology takes his coming according to NT apostolic teaching authoritative to the church (Lk 10:16), as being the end of time and final judgment.
What is more serious than that?

What you fail to see is that God is still leading His church into further needed light.
Do not assume that all truth was recovered in the Reformation.
The same God who led then is the God who leads today.
And He is shining on the pages of the Bible to equip us, prepare us, furnish us for His coming back.

Consider the lyrics to this wise classic Christian hymn below.
The Lord Hath Yet More Light And Truth -
George Rawson (1807-1889)

We limit not the truth of God
To our poor reach of mind,
By notions of our day and sect,
Crude, partial and confined.
Now let a new and better hope
Within our hearts be stirred:
The Lord hath yet more light and truth
To break forth from His Word.

Who dares to bind by his dull sense
The oracles of heaven,
For all the nations, tongues and climes
And all the ages given!
The universe how much unknown!
That ocean unexplored!
The Lord hath yet more light and truth
To break forth from His Word.

Darkling our great forefathers went
The first steps of the way;
’Twas but the dawning yet to grow
Into the perfect day;
And grow it shall, our glorious Sun
More fervid rays afford:
The Lord hath yet more light and truth
To break forth from His Word.

The valleys past, ascending still,
Our souls would higher climb,
And look down from supernal heights,
On all the bygone times;
Upward we press, the air is clear,
And the sphere-music heard!
The Lord hath yet more light and truth
To break forth from His Word.

 

[oikonomia]

One more verse -

O Father, Son and Spirit, send
Us increase from above;
Enlarge, expand all Christian hearts
To comprehend Thy love;
And make us all go on to know
With nobler powers conferred:
The Lord hath yet more light and truth
To break forth from His Word.

 

[trophy33]

So we consider the entire revelation of the Bible and we determine what it is symbolism OF.

The picture of a city coming out from God which is called the Bride of Christ and Wife of the Lamb should
remind us of the beginning. God caused Adam to sleep deeply. And out of his side he extracted a rib.
God then "built" the rib into a woman. The woman was brought back to Adam to be his wife.

The symbolism is that Adam's experience is a window into the eternal purpose of God.
He became a man. He died a redemptive death on the cross (corresponding to Adam's deep sleep).
Out from Christ's side came forth blood and water.

But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water.
And he who has seen this has testified, and his testimony is true;
and he knows that he says what is true, that you also may believe. (John 19:34,35)

The blood came out showing Christ's eternal redemption.
The water came out showing divine life out of Christ for eternal life.

The redemption and the life impatation are for His obtaining a counterpart, a purhased bride.

. . . shepherd the church of God, which He obtained through His own blood. (Acts 20:28)

. . . Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her
That He might sanctify her, cleansing her by the washing of the water in the word,
That He might present the church to Himself glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such things,
but that she would be holy and without blemish. (Ephesians 5:25-27)

If you are saying that the New Jerusalem coming from God to Earth is a symbol of church, then I agree.

Someone thought of it as an author of a play stepping into the play to take part in it as a major actor.

Well, in our case, he would need to become one of the notes of his play (or, to send his son to become that note).

Anyway, to get back to our topic, the first Church believed that heaven is our destination. Maybe you can provide your definition of heaven to see if we are talking about the same thing and then give a one-sentence explanation why you are against that.

 

[keras]

to get back to our topic, the first Church believed that heaven is our destination.

Did they? I don't see such a thing in the Bible as people going to live where God dwells. Alive or dead.
Paul wished he could be there, but he never said he would live in heaven.
Maybe the early Church had that doctrine, as many Churchs do today. It is wrong and false teaching.

We humans stay on earth and when the new earth comes, then God will come to live with us. Revelation 21:1-7

 

[trophy33]

Did they? I don't see such a thing in the Bible

My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.
J 14:2

But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ
Phil 3:20

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.
2 Cor 5:1

God... has given us ...an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you
1Pt 1:4

 

[oikonomia]

If you are saying that the New Jerusalem coming from God to Earth is a symbol of church, then I agree.

Wonderful.
Let' say the coming down from heaven is like the Lord Jesus saying He came down from heaven.

I am the living bread which came down out of heaven; (John 6:51a)

Here the Son of God means He "came down" from heaven by way of incarnation.
It is not by a ladder, rope, or stairway He "came down" but by God becomming a man.

New Jerusalem is coming down by the Triune God's salvation of redemption and life impartation.
New Jerusalem is the totallity of God dispensing His life and nature into His people.

I will be away from the board for a few days.

Well, in our case, he would need to become one of the notes of his play (or, to send his son to become that note).

Anyway, to get back to our topic, the first Church believed that heaven is our destination. Maybe you can provide your definition of heaven to see if we are talking about the same thing and then give a one-sentence explanation why you are against that.

I hope you would look again at the hymn I quoted above written in the 19th century.

Arguing what the early Church believed can be like saying "We are for the Holy Spirit but with a traditional flavor."
I do not say there is no heaven.
I even do not say people will be there temporarily.

I say the rampant popular belief of going to heaven forever distracts from the deeper truth of the Bible.
That is that the Triune God has a purpose to build Himself into man and man into Himself.

Consider the mighty prayer of the Lord Jesus before He went to the cross.
His petition is that the oneness of the Triune God be so infused into the Church that God be incorporated into His people.

That they all may be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that You have sent Me.

And the glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, even as We are one;

I in them, and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one, that the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me. (John 17:21)

Notice also that it is a process. For He says "that they may be perfected into one".
Perfecting is a process requiring the passage of time.
I have much more to say about this process. I end this post though here.

 

[oikonomia]

The Lord Jesus petitioned His Father in John 17 a request that CANNOT fail to be fulfilled.
The descending of New Jerusalem at history's end is the fulfillment of His request.

We look around and may feel it is so far off why bother to cooperate.
This is a BIG mistake.

Paul said "until we all arrive". He did not write that all will arrive necessarily at the same time.
But all will arrive. Arrive at what? Arrive at a fullgrown corporate man completely expressing the stature of Christ (New Jerusalem).

unto the building up of the Body of Christ, Until we all arrive at the oneness of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, at a full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, (Eph. 4:12b)

What am I saying? I say that before the end of history SOME will arrive if even a remnant before Christ returns.
If you doubt and say "It is not time for the house of the Lord to be built" (Haggai 1:2) I submit to you this.

Jesus promises to those who have a little strength and have not denied His name in the church of brotherly love, Philadelphia,
a reward. That reward is to be made a pillar in the temple of God, the New Jerusalem.

He who overcomes, him I will make a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall by no means go out anymore, and I will write upon him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which descends out of heaven from My God, and My new name.
(Rev. 3:12)

If the transformed beliver is made pillar in the temple then both she and the temple are a matter of life, divine / human life mingled.
Some will be imitators of those who are inheriting the promises. (Heb. 6:12)

Do you see that we ought not to procrastinate in His perfecting?
His promise is not only some will be kept out of the HOUR (not through by out) of great tribulation.
His promises is that overcoming they will launch ahead "arriving" (Eph. 4:12) to be pillars in the city New Jerusalem.

 

[oikonomia]

My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.
J 14:2

We must compare this promise with His petitioning of His Father in John17 which is quite profound and not superficial.

That they all may be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that You have sent Me.

And the glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, even as We are one;

I in them, and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one, that the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me. (John 17:21-23)

 

[trophy33]

Wonderful.
Let' say the coming down from heaven is like the Lord Jesus saying He came down from heaven.

I am the living bread which came down out of heaven; (John 6:51a)

Here the Son of God means He "came down" from heaven by way of incarnation.
It is not by a ladder, rope, or stairway He "came down" but by God becomming a man.

New Jerusalem is coming down by the Triune God's salvation of redemption and life impartation.
New Jerusalem is the totallity of God dispensing His life and nature into His people.

I will be away from the board for a few days.

I hope you would look again at the hymn I quoted above written in the 19th century.

Arguing what the early Church believed can be like saying "We are for the Holy Spirit but with a traditional flavor."
I do not say there is no heaven.
I even do not say people will be there temporarily.

I say the rampant popular belief of going to heaven forever distracts from the deeper truth of the Bible.
That is that the Triune God has a purpose to build Himself into man and man into Himself.

Consider the mighty prayer of the Lord Jesus before He went to the cross.
His petition is that the oneness of the Triune God be so infused into the Church that God be incorporated into His people.

That they all may be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that You have sent Me.

And the glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, even as We are one;

I in them, and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one, that the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me. (John 17:21)

Notice also that it is a process. For He says "that they may be perfected into one".
Perfecting is a process requiring the passage of time.
I have much more to say about this process. I end this post though here.

I do not understand what you are trying to say.

Give me a one-sentence definition of heaven from your point of view and in another one sentence a reason why you do not think its our home.

 

[trophy33]

We must compare this promise with His petitioning of His Father in John17 which is quite profound and not superficial.

That they all may be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that You have sent Me.

And the glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, even as We are one;

I in them, and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one, that the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me. (John 17:21-23)

I do not understand what you are trying to say, again. I do not see any connection to my post. What does the unity of church have to do with us going to heaven after death?

 

[Diamond72]

Where in the Bible do people get the concept of God wanting the saved to "go to heaven" forever?

Jesus said John 14:13 "…2In My Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and welcome you into My presence, so that you also may be where I am."

We call that "place" Heaven.

The Dwelling Place of God: The Bible often uses "heaven" to refer to the dwelling place of God, a spiritual and divine realm. In passages like Matthew 6:9 (NIV), Jesus teaches his disciples to pray, "Our Father in heaven," which emphasizes the heavenly abode of God.

If we know God, then we will know what Heaven is like.