Major (Dr.) Jim Watt (R) has left a new comment on your post "Will there be Family Reunions in Heaven?":
A Swedish Salvationist asks on entering heaven,
"May I please remain clad in my red SA guernsey? It was my battle dress
and is adorned and stained by tears shed for many waiting my arrival here -
they'll know me by my uniform...
"Others believe that the moment one dies,
one’s soul is translated into the joys of heaven, or assigned to the pains of
hell. The early Christians did not believe that..."
I would not be so certain. It is the teaching of
Jesus' parable of the rich man and Lazarus. It is also implied in the parable
of the rich fool, literally (Gk) "This night your soul they (presumably
messengers of Hades) require of you." Spooky thought! Jesus said to the
dying, repentant thief, "Today you will be with me in Paradise".
Hebrews, which reflects the teaching of early
Christians, talks of the saints as "a great cloud of witnesses", and
us being in the presence of "the spirits of righteous men made
perfect". God is indeed the God of the living, including Moses and Elijah,
who appeared in glory at Jesus' transfiguration.
I have been at the bedside of good people who
were resuscitated. I did not hear of a tunnel, but my father said, "Why
did they bring me back. The music there -- it is so beautiful." When he
was finally dying, he was aware of the presence of a "young girl",
"it is my mother." At death, others saw Jesus, one saw an angel with
a robe for her that "shone like the angels", some were enraptured by
the light, one, sadly, saw demons.
Paul taught that to be absent from the body was
to be present with the Lord. Why, then, did he also teach the bodily
resurrection of the dead at the last trumpet? The simplest explanation is that
only then, in preparation for living in a new (physical but better) earth, will
we need new bodies. Until then, like the heavenly angels who are "ministering
spirits", we will be content, in heaven, as "the spirits of good men
& women made perfect." Yes, certainlly I believe that families going
back generations will be reunited, and, best of all, see Jesus at the time of
their deaths.
There is another possibility which relates to
the nature of time. It is different where God lives. Job asks, "Are your
days like those of a mortal or your years like those of a man?" (10:5)It
is possible that, when we leave this world, we are translated to the Day of the
Lord.
Catholics believe that those who die as martyrs
enter this "communion of the saints", parallel to earthly time, while
the rest of us pass into "soul sleep" until the Resurrection Day.
I could imagine people being turned off from
Christianity by mediaeval paintings of the half-raised dead running around the
cemetary looking for their toes, but that is not the image painted by the
Bible: a transformed soul and spirit transferred to a new body, liberated from
decay and with new powers. These days, we experience something similar when we
move treasured files into a new and faster computer. Jesus fulfils what
scientists have wondered at, the "next stage in human evolution". We
read: the New Creation.
Major (Dr.) Jim Watt (R)
Canada
Major (Dr.) Jim Watt (R)
Canada
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