John wrote in Revelation 21:4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.
How possibly does God communicate a reality of which we are completely unaware? Life in heaven will be a qualitatively different kind of life from the one we have known in earth's space and time. Even thinking of heaven as "an unending eternity for ever and ever" is to think in human terms, not God's as are all concepts of heaven. To be eternal is to have the kind of qualities which endure outside of time.
Whatever new bodies we are given will be tailor-made for heaven. Just right for what we're meant to do there, whatever that is. No need to worry about it before we get there. Function will automatically follow form, just as our heavenly form will reflect the function which God intended from the moment he first conceived to create us. Does God have new thoughts? Something he never thought of before? The term "first conceived" is in human terms not God's.
We cannot think about heaven in terms that are even close to reality. For David it was enough to think: I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever. Did he need more details? Did he need gold streets or pearly gates or was it enough to know: in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. David was satisfied with looking forward to relationship with God not possible here.
Heaven is the final destination of the righteous; the home of God and the angels and what we know fits in a thimble. For us to spend weeks on a subject about which the Bible says little seems to me to be comparable to what the Catholic Church has been doing for centuries except their subject was Limbo
In 2007 the Roman Catholic Church finally buried the concept of limbo, the place where centuries of tradition and teaching held that babies who die without baptism went. The Commission said limbo reflected an "unduly restrictive view of salvation" and their 41-page document concluded: "there are theological and liturgical reasons to hope that infants who die without baptism may be saved and brought into eternal happiness even if there is not an explicit teaching on this question found in revelation." Keep in mind the Catholic Church has been debating the subject for centuries holding conferences to discuss the subject, and coming to no conclusions and their final verdict is based on "hope."
Our teachers teach whatever they want for as long as they want and like our government leaders start things with no end-date in view because our pastor says "we are not in a hurry."
John Jenkins
865-803-8179 cell
Gatlinburg, TN
Email: jrjenki@gmail.com
Blogs: http://littlepigeon.blogspot.com/
http://alumcave.blogspot.com/
"Man's most valuable trait is a judicious sense of what not to believe."
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