| Questions that arise would be why is there no mention of going to heaven when you die? There is nothing about the intermediate state mentioned in the Old Testament. The task becomes obvious. How do we harmonize the Old Testament with the New Testament?. Are there paradoxes in the Bible. What I would like to answer is that the bible doesn't need to be harmonized. Rather what we need to do is understand that Heaven is described very differently in the Old Testament than what our concept of heaven is in the New Testament. The problem lies with us, not the Bible. Plainly put, Heaven is the return to an earthly Edenic paradise called the Garden of Eden. Yes God is in heaven now. But the vision of the future is of heaven coming down to earth as Revelation 21 tells us that the New Jerusalem comes down out of heaven on to the New heavens and New earth.. Heaven is what Old Testament saints understand as the world to come, The new Heavens and earth. In answer to why doesn't the Old testament talk about you going to heaven when you die. Because that isn't what was promised and therefore didn't concern them. They looked forward to the resurrection whereby they would be completely new creations along with the earth that has been made completely new. Their eyes were on the world to come not on heaven when you die. In fact the New Testament has the same focus and is by no means different. The concepts of the kingdom of God and The New Jerusalem, The New Heavens and earth are all explained in Edenic language. So at death, believers rest with God in Heaven, but are raised from the dead on the last day to inherit what is promised. What is happening in our day is that the intermediate state is been preached as the final state. This will not do, because it doesn't fit into the picture that the bible gives us. The bible speaks about a day when people will receive eternal life or damnation. It is then that the rewards are given, not before. Let us be rid forever of preaching a salvation that is alien to the scriptures. God has never intended that we be saved spirits, his intention is to save us as human beings with a body, spirit and mind together. That is why the hope of life is resurrection. When this foreign framework is taken in then resurrection means nothing. |
