A Ramble About What Heaven Is

 Where is heaven? The word "heaven" itself comes from Anglo-Saxon "heofon" and just means "sky". The same is true of the Greek word "ouranos" used throughout the New Testament and generally translated "heaven." Ouranos also just means "sky." So, we have a cultural heritage of associating the dwelling of the divine with the sky, and all of our images of God's "dwelling" reference somewhere in the sky.

Now, where does the omnipresent, infinite God, the foundation of all existence, Yahweh, actually dwell? Everywhere, everywhen, and in every conceivable dimension, universe, and alternate timeline or reality should they exist. The multiverse cannot contain Him. All things exist within Him, time and space move through Him and not the other way around. All particles of matter and all particles of energy transmission vibrate, spin, and have charge by means of and within His fundamental, elemental, and foundational energy.

So, where is heaven as we understand it to be God's dweling place? Every possible direction, every possible vector, every possible dimension, and every possible reality around and within you. Heaven forms the underlying substructure of all creation because God forms the underlying substructure of all creation.

So, is heaven, as such, a definite, finite location in space and time? No. It cannot be as God dwells everywhere and everywhen. This is the necessary logical outcome of omnipresence. So then what is it?

Based on these understandings, I would define heaven, as such, to be that overwhelming, all consuming experience of the reality of Yahweh where one's union with God through Jesus Christ is finished, and we fully realize and actualize being one thing with Him, just as Jesus Christ is one thing with the Father, as He said and prayed in the Gospel of John. I would also make the observation, from various readings and documented experiences, that it is possible to receive glimpses and experiences of prior to physical death, though these experiences do not appear to be of a permanent nature prior to death due to the human brain's common neurological malfunction called "Hamartia."

These experiences are generally recorded by those who intentionally draw closer to Yahweh through Jesus Christ through prayer and meditation. Jesus Himself commanded those who follow Him very clearly to remain in Him, and that on the one hand nothing would happen if they didn't, and on the other hand everything would open up if they did. In other words, the experience of heaven can and should begin in the here and now by drawing closer to Jesus Christ and remaining in Him. Those who do not, should not expect it to.

If then God is everywhere and everywhen, and thus heaven is everywhere and everywhen, no matter where one is, if one is receptive to Jesus Christ upon physical death, one's psyche, free from the previous neurological disorder, should immediately experience that becoming of one thing with the Father and the Son as He described. Those who are knowingly (dare I say deliberately) unreceptive to Jesus Christ still transition from their physical bodies, but have no connecting medium, so to speak, because they deliberately refusing the connecting medium which exists. Instead of finished union with Yahweh, they remain separated by their own choice. What undesirable psychological torment that follows is a direct result of this self-imposed separation, and not because of anything Yahweh Himself imposes upon them.

Heaven and salvation are about more than just being absolved of wrongdoing by God because of Jesus Christ. Salvation is about a finished union with God through Jesus Christ, and being freed from this Hamartia neurological malfunction in the here and now as well as after physical death. It is about being loved by God, loving God in return, and God loving all others through you as you move closer and closer towards finished union with Him.

A Ramble About "Not By Works"

    I’m not sure where to begin here as there’s a lot to unpack. I started thinking about this Ramble after a recent debate with a friend on Facebook on the relationship of faith and works in Christian faith and practice. In my opinion, that friend totally misunderstood what I was saying. It was as if we were on two completely different pages. The thing is, I should have expected it. I really should have. The relationship of faith, grace, and works in Christianity is a push-button for passionate, heated arguments and accusations of heresy, apostasy, and simply not being “saved” or even Christian for that matter among most Christians of the Protestant traditions.

    The problem, the real problem, is the misunderstanding of the nature of faith, or belief, and works which was passed down from the Protestant reformers to virtually every descendant church and theological system. Luther, Calvin, Zwingli and the others interpreted the writings of Paul in particular in the light of the abuses which were being practiced in the Catholic Church of the period. During this time, it had been taught by most in the Roman Catholic Church that you had to do good works to merit less time in Purgatory, or acquire the additional merits of the Saints to spend less time in Purgatory. Of course this isn’t what the New Testament teaches, and that became immediately obvious to the Reformers whose battle cry against the Roman Catholic Church became “Faith alone, Grace alone, Scripture alone.”

    This battle cry of faith alone is frequently taken to the extreme so that nearly every command or teaching of Christ is excluded as a “work,” as it was by my friend recently. Repeating what Jesus said for a Christian to actually follow Christ in submission to Him as He submitted to the Father became “justification by works.” The mere mention of actually doing what Christ taught, or what He specifically said would happen if one didn’t, becomes one advocating for needing to earn one’s salvation, which is ridiculous. Obeying Jesus Christ and actually being His disciple as He instructed somehow makes His work on the cross insufficient, which is of course nonsense. 

    What the reformers failed to understand was that belief and action are two sides of the same coin. A person will never act on what he does not believe in that moment in some way. Likewise, a person’s actions will always reveal what he actually believes in that moment. Like Jesus said, you will know a tree by its fruit. Good trees don’t produce rotten fruit, and rotten trees don’t produce good fruit. A person who actually believes in Jesus Christ will act like he believes in Jesus Christ. He will at least make the attempt to do what He said, imitate Him, and learn from Him. A person who doesn’t, won’t no matter what he says. He might do so as a deception for a short time, but the truth will eventually be made known in his actions. As Justin Martyr wrote, “Let it be understood that those who are not found living as He taught are not Christian—even though they profess with the lips the teachings of Christ.”

    Let me be clear on this point. One cannot earn one’s salvation from the universal human malfunction with any amount of good works or actions because, as Paul teaches in Romans, the malfunction is biological in nature. As I have previously written and preached on (https://youtu.be/_YWAuvQlXDU), it is hardwired into the limbic system of the human brain, and most likely the hypothalamus specifically. Every work we achieve, every action we take, every thought we think, and every word we say; our entire natural psychology is affected and informed by this malfunction. It is no different than the behavior of a person with ADHD being informed and affected by the ADHD hardwired into his frontal cortex. He likely hates that he has this disorder, but everything he does, whether he wants it to or not, is affected by it. No amount of good works will rid him of the ADHD. The same with Autism Spectrum Disorder. No amount of good works will rid someone with ASD of their ASD. It is hardwired into the brain from the DNA genetic coding. It is the same with any other neurological disorder, and it is the same with the malfunction which the Greek language calls “hamartia.” Because of where it is and what it is, we simply cannot do anything about it ourselves without causing brain death.

    Thus Jesus Christ, and faith in Jesus Christ who was given to make us right through His death on the cross, burial, and resurrection, and our union with His death, burial, and resurrection. We don’t have to earn anything, we can’t. No amount of good works will undo our own DNA. But we do have to respond to Him and follow His instructions if we want to be delivered from our own malfunctioning psyches and behaviors. And in order to bypass our own malfunction, we do have to submit to His psychology in place of our own natural psychology. Either He’s the one acting and speaking through us, or it is our own biological brains doing the acting and speaking (see my YouTube sermon "The Dual Psychology of Christians," https://youtu.be/DBnYBga0cXA). 

    Thing of it is, God does make us right with Jesus Christ freely, but He won’t force it on anyone. We don’t have to bring anything to the table except ourselves, but we do have to believe Him and real belief implies the actions of belief. It is no different than if one were to go to the doctor and the doctor prescribes a course of treatment. If that person believes that the doctor knows what he’s talking about, he will follow that course of treatment. If he doesn’t, then he won’t.

    I’ve rendered some of the salient passages in question below literally from the Greek. I would encourage you to follow the links I have included in this Ramble to my YouTube sermons on this subject.

 

“And we know that as much as the Torah says it is talking to those within the Torah, so that every mouth would be shut and all the world would come to be brought to God for trial; because every biological being will not be made right from the works of the Torah in front of Him, since through the Torah is the recognition of the malfunction. And at this point in time, separate from the Torah, God’s right state of being has been manifested being testified to by the Torah and the Prophets, yet God’s right state of being through the faith of Jesus Christ for everyone believing. Because there isn’t a  distinction, since everyone malfunctioned and fails to reach the glory of God being made right without cost by His charity through the ransoming which is with Christ Jesus; whom God set out a mercy seat through the faith with His blood for a display of His right state of being because of the passing over of the malfunctions of our progenitors with God’s holding back, towards the display of His right state of being at this time now, for Him to be right and making right the person from the faith of Jesus.”

Romans 3:19-26

“What then will we say? The Torah is a malfunction? Absolutely not. But I wouldn’t have known the malfunction if it wasn’t because of the Torah; because also I wouldn’t have seen ‘Desire’ if the Torah wasn’t saying, ‘You will not desire.’ And getting the opportunity, the malfunction achieved every desire within me through the command; because separate from the Torah the malfunction is a dead body. And I was alive without the Torah at one time, yet with the coming of the command the malfunction lived again, yet I died and the self-same command which was for life was found within me for death; because the malfunction getting the opportunity through the command deceived me and through it killed [me]. So also on the one hand the Torah is holy and the command holy and right and good. Has what is good for me become death? Absolutely not. But the malfunction, so that the malfunction would shine, is achieving death through what is good for me, so that the malfunction would become exaggeratingly malfunctioning through the command. Because we have seen that the Torah is spiritual, yet I am biological having been auctioned off by the malfunction. For I don’t know what I’m achieving; since I am not practicing this thing I wish, but I am doing this thing which I hate. Yet if I am doing this thing which I don’t wish, I am agreeing with the Torah that [it is] beautiful. Yet at this point in time I am no longer achieving it but the malfunction residing within me. Because I have seen that the good thing doesn’t reside with me, that is, within my biology; because the willingness is available to me, yet the achieving the beautiful thing is not; since I am not doing the good thing which I wish, but I am practicing this bad thing which I don’t wish. Yet if I am doing this thing which I don’t wish, I am no longer achieving it but the malfunction residing within me. I am finding therefore the rule, for me who is wishing to do the beautiful thing, that the bad thing is available to me [instead]; since I rejoice together with God’s Torah according to the inner person, yet I am looking at a different rule among the parts of my body soldiering against the rule set of my intellect and capturing me with the rule set of the malfunction which is among the parts of my body.”

Romans 7:7-23

“And you being dead bodies by your false steps and malfunctions, by means of which you walked at one time according to the eon of this world, according to the chief of the authority of the air, of the energy which at this point in time is working among the sons of the disobedience; among whom also we all have returned at one time with the desires of our biology doing the volitions of the biology and the reasonings, and we were children by nature of burning anger like also the rest; yet God being wealthy with mercy, because of His much love which He loved us, and He made us alive together with Christ being dead bodies by means of false steps—you are having been delivered by charity—and He awakened us together with and seated us together with [Him] among the high heavenlies by means of Christ Jesus, so that He would display among the coming eons the overwhelming wealth of His charity with the lovingkindness upon us by means of Christ Jesus. Because you are having been delivered by charity through the faith; and this is not from you [people], [it is] God’s gift; not from works, so that not anyone would brag. Because we are His opus, having been created with Christ Jesus upon good works which God prepared beforehand, so that we would walk among them.”

Ephesians 2:1-10

“Wasn’t Abraham our father made right from works having brought Isaac his son up upon the sacrificial altar? You look at that the faith was working together with his works and the faith was finished from the works, and the scripture was fulfilled which says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was figured to him for a right state of being’ and he was called a friend of God. You see that a human being is made right from works and not from faith alone. Yet in the same way also wasn’t Rahab the prostitute made right from works welcoming the messengers and throwing them out on a different road? Because just like the body is a corpse separate from the spirit, so also is the faith a dead body separate from works.”

James 2:21-26