MANSIONS IN HEAVEN?

MANSIONS IN HEAVEN?

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The original "blessed hope" of the Christian Church was the return of the Lord Jesus Christ to the earth to set up His Kingdom. This is the teaching of the Hebrew Prophets and also of the writers of the New Testament.

Our traditions have changed the original, scriptural hope. We of today are looking for the Lord Jesus to come and carry His Church up to Heaven so the believers can live forever in mansions in the spirit realm. It may shock Christians for us to say so but our traditions in this regard are incorrect and misleading.

The teaching that the Lord Jesus Christ returned to Heaven in order to build mansions for the believers is based on only one verse of Scripture—John 14:2. There is no other verse in the entire Scriptures that so much as suggests that Christ is building mansions for us in Paradise. All experienced saints know we must not base any doctrine, much less a doctrine that establishes the goal of our salvation, on a single verse of Scripture.

John 14:2 is the only verse that appears to support the idea that Christ is building mansions for us in Heaven. In fact, a careful examination of John 14:2 will demonstrate that even it is not suggesting Christ is building mansions for us in Heaven.

In actuality there is not one verse in the Scriptures that teaches that Christ is constructing mansions for the believers in Heaven and that one day He will appear and carry us up to our mansion. This belief may be one of our strongest traditions but it is unscriptural. Furthermore, it has eclipsed the true goal of the Christian redemption—the establishing of the Kingdom of God on the earth.

This belief actually leads away from the redemptive purposes of God. It contributes to the spiritual immaturity we see all about us.

Let us examine John 14:2 from a contextual standpoint and then in terms of the word mansion.

The fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of John has much to say about the new covenant fulfillment of the old covenant feast of Tabernacles. Christ is teaching that as the Father dwells in Him, the Father and He desire to dwell in us. In the Father’s House (Christ) there is room for us too. In Christ there are many places of abode, of rest, of refuge.

Christ is the House of God. He went to the cross, and then to the Father, in order to prepare a place for us in Himself.

This same idea is repeated in the invitation to abide in Christ (John 15:4-7) and is brought to a climax in the holy prayer of the Lord’s that we become an integral part of the Personality of Christ and God (John 17:21-23).

Notice in John, Chapters 14 through 17 that Christ never once speaks of His going to Heaven or of our going to Heaven. We say, no one goes to Heaven except through Christ. Christ says, no one comes to the Father except through Him. There is a difference between going to Heaven and coming to the Father (John 14:6).

Nowhere in the New Testament is it stated that Heaven is the Father’s house. But several passages refer to Christ and to us as the eternal Temple of God. 

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? (I Corinthians 3:16)

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? (I Corinthians 6:19)

And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. (II Corinthians 6:16)

Ye also, as lively [living] stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. (I Peter 2:5)

Nowhere is it stated that Christ is building fine houses for us in heaven. When Jesus said, "I go to prepare a place for you," He was speaking of going to the cross, and then of the sprinkling of His blood in the Presence of God so we may be received into God and become an inseparable part of God and of Christ (Hebrews 9:23,24).

In John 14:3, Jesus said, "I will come again, and receive you unto myself." This is not the coming of Christ in the clouds of heaven. John 14:18-23, which is part of the context of John 14:3, shows that the coming referred to here is the coming of the Father and Christ to make Their abode in the believers. This is the spiritual fulfillment of the Old Testament feast of Tabernacles (Leviticus 23:39-43).

To claim that John 14:2 is referring to going to Paradise to live in a splendid house is to remove this verse from its context.

The Greek term translated mansion, in John 14:2, has nothing to do with a structure, whether splendid or dilapidated. The term indicates a place of remaining or abiding.

The Greek noun translated mansion is found but twice in the New Testament: in John 14:2, and again in John 14:23 where it is translated abode.

John 14:23 explains John 14:2. It is we who are the mansions, the chariots of God. It is we who are the places in which God in Christ may find His eternal rest (Psalms 68:18; Isaiah 66:1,2; Hebrews 4:1).

The verb related to the Greek noun we are discussing is employed in John 15:4-7 and John 14:10. It is translated abide.

If we are to be consistent with the use of the English word mansion as the translation of the Greek noun and its corresponding verb, we have the following:

"But the Father that mansions in me, he doeth the works" (John 14:10).

"We will come unto him, and make our mansion with him" (John 14:23).

"Mansion in me, and I in you" (John 15:4).

When we die we may, if we are among the saved, go to a beautiful home in Paradise. There is no doubt, according to the teaching of the Scriptures, that the rewards for obedient, faithful discipleship to the Lord Jesus will overwhelm the saint with joy and glory. God knows each of us well and He has prepared our rewards in terms of His personal knowledge of our deepest, strongest desires.

Our crowns and other rewards are tailored carefully to us as an individual. They will not be arbitrary riches bestowed on us apart from the intimate knowledge God has of the longings of our personality.

If we delight ourselves in the Lord He shall give us the desires of our heart.

No good thing will God withhold from him who walks uprightly before Him.

Some trustworthy saints have, in their visions, beheld glorious mansions of light in Paradise. We do not doubt their revelations. Our point is not that there are no mansions in Heaven.

Our point is that we should not be preaching that the goal of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God is eternal residence in a mansion in Heaven. The thought of Christ building magnificent houses for us in Paradise has no foundation in the Scriptures, either Old Testament or New Testament.

However, the idea that God is building an eternal dwelling place for Himself, of which Christ is the chief Cornerstone and we are living stones, has support in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. 

And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them. (Exodus 25:8)

In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:22)

The Father’s eternal House, His dwelling place, is the Lord Jesus Christ. We Christians are the many places of abode (mansions) of the one House. We are the members of the Body of Christ.

The Alpha And Omega The Beginning And The End The First And The Last The Author And Finisher Of Our Faith

All things have happened and must happen, God sovereignly ordained then as they are, so that the arising of sons may come to pass.

There is in this, the perfect will of God; in the saying, "Let God be true, but every man a liar.

God is at all times vindicated and in His eternal love, has provided to all men the reason for no excuse, whether in His creation, or, down to the minute and personal dealings He has with each of us.

Thus all of our attention is shifted, step by step, line upon line, from one degree to another, onto Jesus Christ, the express image of the Father and His wonderful grace and love.

Only Believe !!!

Trust In The Finished Work Of Christ In Us!!

Trust In Our Perfectness In Him!!

Trust That ALL Things Are Working Together For Good At All Times In And Through Us!!

To The Degree That We Reckon This To Be True Is The Degree In Which These Things Can Be Outworked In Us!!

This Is A Matter Of Our Acknowledgement Of Our Identification In That Finished Work of Christ And Our Ability To Enter Into His Rest Ceasing From Our Own Works And Partnering With Him In His Those Greater Works!!

Believe that we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.

Who Do You Say That I Am?

How We See Jesus Either Keeps Us In Bondage Under Law Or Sets Us Free To Be Free Indeed

As A good man, or as God.

Our example, or our Redeemer.

To follow His teachings, in life, or to follow Him into His death.

 

t's Not What Would Jesus Do?

It's Not What Would Jesus Do?

WWJD???

If we are to base our Christian walk upon, What Would Jesus Do?, in any given situation, we would each be heading for a nervous breakdown and completely missing the whole point of what this Christian life really means.

The only person Who could and can keep the Christian life, is Christ alone!

The opposite is also true of each one of us.

We are the only ones who can live our lives, as God designed them to be, IN HIM!!!

And He has chosen to live His life now through a miriad of believers personally, in our midst.

So subsequently, we are to live our true lives and be our true selves, in and through Him!!!

If we find ourselves looking to His example of living His life in the Gospels.

The problem with this, is that Jesus ministered as one under the Old Covenant law of Moses.

And although Jesus was able to keep the whole law of God, He never expected the Jewish people, let alone the Gentiles to even keep one jot or tittle of the law, let alone the whole law.

There were those, the Pharisees and Saducees, who prided themselves in keeping and enforcing the law of Moses, yet these, Jesus; instead of honouring at least their effort, called them white washed tombs and blind guides leading the blind.

Although Jesus ministered in the love of God, this love as we see also has in it God's righteous indignation; not only in His words of truth spoken to those blind guides, but also in the actions He took on occasions such as when He cast out the religious money changers from the temple.

It's not WWJD?

It's what has He already Done ???

And for that matter; 

Where is He now ???

He is not a Solitary figure walking by the Sea of Galilee.

He is not walking on the road to Emmaus with the believers.

He is not still on the cross!!!

Is He not risen from the dead and seated at the right hand of the Father???

Does He not now also dwell in hearts made with flesh, by His Spirit, which He has so freely bestowed upon all of us???

Didn't Jesus tell His disciples, that it was much better, that He leave them, otherwise He could not send the Holy Spirit of promise to all those that would believe on His name!

Did not Jesus speak to the Father about making us one together with them, just as they too now, are one with us in love!!

Notice that this side of the cross; in the letters of Paul, Peter, James, Jude and John; there is no great coverage of the time that Jesus walked the earth.

We do not find extensive exegesis of lessons taught and commandments given by Jesus, while here in His earthly walk.

Their focus is on the reality of Christ's death and resurrection and the finished work therein, and in the new creation man.

They show forth the work of God in the New Covenant of grace and the abolishing of the law of Moses, through which there is the establishing of the fulfilment of those better promises of the revelation of the new dwelling place of God in the hearts of those who believe.

When Jesus spoke of following Him, of denying ourselves and taking up our cross; like the wheat seed that falls into the ground and dies to bring forth much more fruit: He was not talking of our following His earthly example of keeping the law of Moses. 

He was talking of His and our spiritual deaths.

Of our dying in and with Him.

Of our dying to the old Adamic nature, our old unregenerate fallen nature in and with Him, so that we, with Him may be raised to newness of life and spirit.

That He being made one spirit with us in our death, that we may be made one spirit with the living God in Christ Jesus, by being made the very righteousness of God in and through Him; by becoming partakers of His divine resurrected nature, thus having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

Have we forgotten that this so great a salvation was and is God's love gift to us, that we as partakers of Adam's fallen nature could not save ourselves through dead works.

That we needed a redeemer, someone who could deal with this internal sin problem in the spiritual realm once and for all.

Someone who could at the same time take us out of the wild olive tree and graft us into the place of completeness, wholeness and soundness in every area of our lives.

A place in which it would be impossible to ever again be removed.

This is the place, in the beloved of God, as His beloved, that we find ourselves hidden, alive and ruling and reigning in life, in God, as God, in love.

Not that we are God, but our lives are hidden with Jesus Christ, as one spirit, as part of the Godhead in the Father.

That then, He may begin to live His life as us, in us, through us and we as Him, in and through us.

WHAT IS THE GOSPEL REALLY ??? HAVE WE BEEN PREACHING THE RIGHT ONE OR ANOTHER ???

Being Not Ashamed

Joel Brueseke

(Taken from 'The Lord Your God In Your Midst' The Grace Book Volume 1)

Over the years I've heard the phrase "I'm not ashamed of the gospel" (the first part of Romans 1:16) many times. Generally speaking, when people have used that phrase what they've meant is, "I'm not ashamed to make a stand for my moral convictions." They quote this phrase and use it in their proclamation that we Christians need to "stand up for what is right!" You've perhaps heard this phrase used as a mantra in political and social rallies in support of various moral causes and agendas.

My question is, is that what the gospel is about? Is that what "not being ashamed" of the gospel is all about? Is that anywhere close to what Paul was trying to communicate?

The gospel was never meant to be used as a means of protesting the sins that are committed in the world. That's not what the gospel is about. The gospel is a declaration of God's love and grace toward people and it's the power that defeated sin - not protested it! As Paul says in the second half of the sentence, the gospel is the power of God for salvation! The law's job was to protest sin, so to speak, but it never had any power whatsoever to help with the problem of sin. In comes the gospel of Jesus Christ - the good news - and what the law could never do, God did by sending His own Son! (Rom 8:3-4).

What gets even more interesting for me is what Paul says in the sentence that follows "I am not ashamed of the gospel." In Rom 1:17 he writes, "For in it (the gospel), the righteousness of God is revealed..." Contrary to being about man's morality and righteous deeds, the gospel is a revelation of God's righteousness, which can only be received by man as a gift. It's not something man does. It's something he receives and walks in freely. To be ashamed of the gospel is to be ashamed of the gift that God gives and instead to try to attain it by your own deeds.

But Paul's only getting started in Rom 1:17 with his talk about the gospel being a revelation of God's righteousness. Now, Paul does do some important backtracking, and takes some time to make sure his readers really get a grip on the unrighteousness of ALL of mankind, to set a foundation before digging into the meat of what "the gospel" and "God's righteousness" is all about. You have to skip all the way ahead to Rom 3:21 before Paul gets back to his original point, but he does get back to it, and he then builds on it for several chapters. Rom 3:21 - "But now, the righteousness of God is revealed... through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe... being justified freely by His grace..."

If we look and see what "the gospel" really is, we'll see that it's all about the free gift of salvation, by grace through faith, and the receiving of God's very own righteousness as we chuck aside any and all of our own sense of morality and righteousness. I love how Paul, in Philippians 3, showed how this all had played out in his own life. He first gives seven reasons why he originally trusted in his own sense of morality and righteousness - including having considered himself blameless in his law-keeping! He essentially says, "Man, I was the stuff! No one could hold a candle to me!"

But just as soon as anyone might begin to be impressed with his superior moral credentials, he takes a complete 180o turn and says, "But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ... and count them as dung that I may gain Christ." (Phil 3:7-8). My own paraphrase: "Forget my own morality and righteousness! I might as well shovel the floor of a cow barn and offer up my findings to God if it's going to be about that!"

Unfortunately, dung is often what is being presented as "the gospel" today. Paul's words, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ," and all his words that followed, were very bold words that flew in the face of the religious, morality-conscious people, as he defended his stance that the gospel was not about man's morality. Let's keep on being bold like that as we count our own righteousness as dung and lay hold of the free gift of Life!

Everything You Wanted To Know About The Grace Of God But Were Afraid To Ask !!!

The Lord Your God Is in Your Midst

The Lord Your God Is In Your Midst – The Grace Book vol 1

(Click on the book title to download your copy)

The Grace Books are a compilation of articles from grace authors who boldly proclaim the Good News. This is the first book published in the series.

The books are distributed for free. The objective is to help believers discover who they are in Christ and who God is.

In this book you will find articles from authors such as: Steve McVey, Darin Hufford, Andrew Farley, Fred Pruitt, Norman Grubb, Paul Anderson-Walsh, Bertie Brits, Andre Rabe, Francois Du Toit, Dan Stone, John Lynch and many many more. The book consists of 80 articles from 31 different authors.

Please enjoy!

Illustration: Jean Rittenberg

Title: Home Coming

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