Heavenly Home
“Country road, take me home To the place I belong, West Virginia, mountain momma,Take me home, country road.” (John Denver) “Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship/homeland/belonging place is in heaven, and from it we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.” (Phil 3:19-20)
Background
As we were dining in a bakery in North Adelaide recently, Take Me Home Country Roads, was being played through the audio system. I was deeply moved to remark to Donna, “this song, not the one before, nor the one after, drives me mad on the inside”. In other words, it stirs me up to powerful emotions. Seeking the Lord about what was happening, I came to realise the lyrics were like a “secular parable” (see below). The Spirit was conveying a message about heaven as our true home. This is what the teaching below seeks to expound.
Introduction
I grew up in a time when my very working class parents would derogatively call someone with few future prospects of life success as a “no hoper”. Discerning sociologists today speak of “the anxious generation” of young people (https://www.anxiousgeneration.com/). Whilst I have long tried to live by the maxim that in Christ “God shows no partiality” (Deut 10:17; Acts 10:34; Gal 2:6; James 2:1), I do believe this teaching has special application to a younger generation. The famed theologian of revelation, Karl Barth, once said, “God may speak to us through Russian Communism, a flute concerto, a blossoming shrub, or a dead dog. We do well to listen to Him if He really does,” (CD I/1, 55). In later life Barth spoke of “secular parables” of the kingdom of God”, “lesser lights” reflecting the sole saving light of God’s self-Revelation in Jesus Christ. John’s Prologue is all embracing: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:1-5).
Signs of Heaven
“Heaven will be all marriage…in earthly marriage we may detect the sign and promise that in eternity everyone is to be married to everyone else in some transcendent and unimageable union, and everyone will love everyone else with an intensity akin to what is now called “being in love”. Christian marital love… is a true leftover from Paradise.” (Mike Mason The Mystery of Marriage). Marriage is both the most common and the most powerful of the secular signs of heaven. Is there anything more miraculous than two covenanting together for life until its end? Other powerful secular revelations include, the conception and birth of a child. What scholars call general revelation is all around us “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky aboveproclaims his handiwork….he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.” (Ps 19:1; Acts 14:17). Limiting our human existence to this world is an act of supreme spiritual stupidity. “The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”” (Ps 45:1). These are powerful truths, but they are not as such revelations intended by God to convert us to Christ.
Raised Immortal
Whereas the Bible normally uses the language of immortality to refer to the essential life of God (Rom 1:27; 1 Tim 1:17; 6:16), its use is radically transformed by the resurrection for those the Lord first condemned to perishing (Gen 2:17; Rom 6:23). God “saved us and called us toa holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, 10 and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tim 1:9-10). In other words, permanent participation in the eternal divine life (2 Peter 1:4), with incorruptibility and the impossibility of death has always been central to God’s saving plan for humans in Jesus!
As I prayed into these things I had a vision of bodies strewn everywhere across a broad plain (cf. Ezek 37), and these scriptures came to my mind: “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. 3 And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever….When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”” (Dan 12:2-3; 1 Cor 15:54) I could sense that my own individual body will arise dynamised by the indwelling life of Christ. “ If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus4 from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” (Rom 8:11)
New Hope
The old King James Version used “quicken” (Rom 4:17; Eph 2:1) to convey the energetic making alive of a Christian through regeneration and imparted resurrection life. God calls us to all in Christ to live a “quickened” life. As those who live in the final Truth of God in Jesus (John 14:6; Eph 4:21) we dare not conform to the mood of Laodicean Christianity, ““‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! 16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.” (Rev 3:15-16). This tepid disposition dominates affluent spirituality across the Western world, whereas the New Testament attaches undiminishable hope to the reality of resurrection indwelling (Acts 2:26; 23:6; 24:15.) “remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ…” (Eph 2:12-13) Approaching the end of the world as we have know it we are called to be people of ever-intensifying prayer, “The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.” (1 Pet 4:7)
Conclusion
As we see the time of the “resurrection of the just” (Luke 14:14; Acts 24:15) approaching when “the (risen) saints”, i.e. all believers, “will judge the world” (1 Cor 6:2) with Jesus the Spirit of the Lord is preparing us for a great weight of glory (2 Cor 3:18) by imparting a desire to, “Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thess 5:16-18). We must not avoid confronting the angelic truth proclaimed in Scripture, “Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.” (Rev 22:11). Seeing the conflict between good and evil intensifying in these “last days” (Acts 2:17; Heb 1:2; 9:26; 1 Peter 1:20) we must abide by faith in the glorious all-prevailing intercessions of our heavenly Lord. This is the reality of a Christ-centred heavenly hope for today.