Tag Archives: honour God

IS HELL REAL?

Apologetics, ,

Jesus spoke of hell as a real place, a place of burning and torment which will never end. Why would God be so cruel? Why would He think up such a horrible way to punish people just because they don’t believe in Him? Does the punishment really fit the crime?

First, we must understand that God created humans for Himself. He owns every soul born on planet earth. He made them for a purpose, to be a mirror of His glory to the whole world, reflecting Him by the way they lived.

Psalms 24:1 NIV
[1] “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it… “

He created them for a purpose, and He paid for them when they chose to disconnect from Him and connect with His arch enemy. He had every right to pull the plug…but He didn’t.

1 Corinthians 6:20 NIV
[20] “… you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”

He blew His own breath into the first man, giving him a part of Himself, His divine life. He created humans in His image, a shadow of Himself so that He could communicate with them. He opened the circle of His Godhead to allow humans access and fellowship with Him…Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Privilege on steroids!

He prepared an entire universe, and a planet for humankind, the universe functioning in perfect harmony and unity, and the earth equipped with everything humans needed for a perfect life. He gave humans the power to multiply through the pleasure of physical union, and the mandate to manage the earth and its creatures in partnership with Himself. Honour, privilege!

On top of all this, His plan was to prepare His human family for an eternal existence with Him by serving their apprenticeship on earth. Righteous living on earth would qualify them for eternal life in glory. Why would God do all this? He wanted to love and be loved!

One of the gifts God gave to all humanity was the gift of choice, free will, self-deternination, which echoed a part of His own nature. This gift was the core of the human being, a risky attribute that God intended to guide humans towards obedience and love freely given to their Creator. Freedom to choose meant that the ball was in their court. They could decide whether to stay connected to God or not.

Together with the gift came the possibility and the warning. Choice means that there are at least two alternatives from which to choose…good or evil. Good and evil are not tangible things, they are the motives and outcomes of choices based on the disposition of the chooser.

God created the first pair with His own disposion towards good, simply meaning living by the choices that work… functional living. He wanted them to have good lives, full of His favour and blessing with no obstacles.

They had the option to follow that disposition or to be enticed to choose the opposite way, the way of disconnection from God which would result in dysfunctional lives.

We know the outcome!

By lies and deception, the devil hoodwinked the first pair into believing that they didn’t need God. They could be free to make their own rules, come and go as they liked, do as they pleased, without the restrictions of righteousness and truth to guide them. He told them what they could be… their own authority… without revealing the small print. He told them how to walk away from God…just disobey His one instruction.

It’s the small print that revealed the consequences. God had been honest with them. “You will die!” He told them, “if you trespass outside the boundaries of everything my love has provided.” The devil not only contradicted God’s warning, but also sowed doubt in their minds about God’s love by insinuating that God was lying to them.

The choice was… “Who do we believe?” This choice was more than a simple decision to eat some “forbidden fruit”. The implication was far deeper.

Satan had always desired to be the supreme authority, Lord, in God’s place. He tried to replace God in heaven and was summarlity evicted from God’s realm. His only option was to win over to his side God’s highest creation, the human race, so that he could be Lord over them.

So, by deceiving Eve and, through her, Adam, into believing that God was shortchanging them, the whole human race was implicated. Their disobedience spelt rebellion, and rebellion brought on them the death penalty God had warned them would happen if they disobeyed Him.

This seemingly small act of defiance had huge implications. Through Adam, the human race inherited his nature. They are dead to God. Now humans can no longer choose righteousness. They can only choose between the various options of sin, rebellion, and disobedience. It would take a mighty intervention from God to restore our ability to do the right thing.

Now, hell was not designed to punish humans. It was the fitting place reserved for God’s arch enemy and his followers. The trouble is that those who side with him must share his guilt and his punishment. This means that the human race has chosen its destiny by default. It also means that man, not God, chooses hell for his eternal destiny…and God says, “Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you!”

So, what is hell really like? Does the Bible tell us anything about hell, enough to warn us of its terrors?, Let’s look at some Scriptures.

To be continued…

NAOS – THAT PART OF THE TEMPLE WHERE GOD HIMSELF RESIDES

Christian Life, ,

NAOS – THAT PART OF THE TEMPLE WHERE GOD HIMSELF RESIDES

Right from the beginning of His public ministry, Jesus made His mission known. To the religious leaders, who challenged Him, He responded….

… “Destroy this temple (naos), and in three days I will raise it up.”

John 2:18-19 NLT

Jesus specifically used the Greek word, “naos” for “temple” which John interpreted to mean His body as the “naos” which, according to Strong’s concordance, means ‘the shrine… that part of the temple where God Himself resides.’

What an awesome thought! From the moment of His conception, Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, took on a body which became the temple in which God resided. He took on a human name, Jesus, as well. Now both His body and His name are part of His human identity forever.

When Jesus ascended into heaven in His resurrected body, He did not shed that body and become pure spirit again. Paul tells us that it is “the man, Christ (His official title and office) Jesus (His human name which means  ‘Saviour’),” who is the Mediator between God and man.

His full name is “the Lord Jesus Christ”, signifying everything that He is now, in His glorified person – the Lord (Supreme Authority), Jesus (the Man) Christ (Messiah, the Anointed One).

Who Jesus is now, the God/man in a resurrection body, acting for us as mediator and high priest, has huge implications for us as believers.

Firstly, according to Paul, we are now the “naos” in which God resides in the person of the Holy Spirit. Just as the Holy Spirit lived in Jesus here in earth, so now He lives in us.

“19 Don’t you realize that your body is the temple (naos) of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 20 for God bought you with a high price. So, you must honour God with your body.”

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 NLT

Secondly, Paul made it clear {to the Corinthian Church} that Jesus rose from the dead as the first fruits of the resurrection, guaranteeing the full harvest of all who believe in Him when He returns. His resurrection is the victory over the last enemy, death, and spells the final judgment and punishment of Satan and his demons in the lake of fire.

Not only does Jesus’ resurrection guarantee ours but His resurrection body is also the blueprint for our resurrection bodies. John tells us…

“Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is.”

1 John 3:2 NLT

How do we know that our resurrection bodies will be exactly like Jesus’ body?

“35 But someone may ask, “How will the dead be raised? What kind of bodies will they have?” … 49 Just as we are now like the earthly man (Adam) , we will someday be like the heavenly man, (Jesus) …

51 But let me reveal to you a wonderful secret. We will not all die, but we will all be transformed! 52 It will happen in a moment, in the blink of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, those who have died will be raised to live forever. And we who are living will also be transformed. 53 For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies.”

1 Corinthians 15:35, 49, 51-53 NLT

The writer to the Hebrews assures us that God’s plan is to restore the family likeness to Jesus, the Son in all God’s children…

“10 In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered. 11 Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.”

Heb. 2:10-11 NIV

During  the time of the Old Covenant, no one was able to see God’s face and live. God shielded Moses from the sight of His glory by hiding him in the cleft of a rock.

“20 But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”

Exodus 33:20 NIV

However, in the New Covenant, we shall see Jesus face to face, we shall see and hear with heightened awareness all the sights and sounds of God’s realm. It will be quite a noisy place according to John’s visions in Revelation!!

Look at what Paul has to say about “now” and “then”.

“12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

1 Cor. 13:12 NIV

There are also implications for us in this life because we have this hope of resurrection bodies and perfected minds and senses and the likeness to Jesus as perfect sons. Our time on earth and the lives we live now are an  “apprenticeship” for the life to come.

1. We are to honour God with our bodies.

… “God bought you with a high price. So you must honour God with your body.”

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 NLT

2. We are to purify ourselves

“2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3 All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.”

1 John 3:2-3 NIV

“Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.”

2 Cor. 7:1 NIV

3. We are to persevere…

“23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful…”

4. And we are to encourage and build one another up…

“… 24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

Heb. 10:23-25 NIV

Not even our wildest imagination will be able to conjures up what God has in store for us.

“9 However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”— the things God has prepared for those who love him— 10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.”

1 Cor. 2:9-10 NIV

In response to all the glorious promises God has given us and the changes that await us, through Jesus’ death and resurrection, Paul burst out…

“33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! 34 “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counsellor?” 35 “Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?”

36 For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.

Romans 11:33-36 NIV

And with David, we respond…

“17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand— when I awake, I am still with you.”

Psalm 139:17-18 NIV

“20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

Ephesians 3:20-21 NIV