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Author
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Topic: HEAVEN -- AND WHO WILL GO THERE
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TB125
Advanced Member
Member # 2450
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posted
I have a statement on "Getting into heaven" that I wrote and put on my website. It is currently ranked number 11 out of 3,560,000 pages for a search on this phrase in Google. It can be viewed here: http://christianityetc.org/heaven.php Viewers may not be able to see it right away, because the server is down due to a fire. Check it out.
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Bob
Posts: 449 | From: Rockford Illinois | Registered: Nov 2003
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WildB
Moderator
Member # 2917
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posted
by Cornelius R. Stam
Most people are surprised when they learn that the Old Testament, though three times as large as the New, does not contain one single promise about going to heaven. God's people, in Old Testament times, looked forward to a glorified earth, with Messiah as its Ruler.
This was so even when our Lord was on earth and continued to be so through Pentecost. Peter, addressing his kinsmen just after Pentecost, said in essence: "Repent, and God will send Jesus down here" (See Acts 3:19-20), but Paul, in his epistles, says by divine inspiration: "Believe, and God will take you up there."
This apostle of grace teaches us that God has already given believers in Christ a position and "all spiritual blessings" in heavenly places in Christ (Eph. 2:4-6; 1:3). And he teaches further that at the close of this dispensation of grace "the dead in Christ shall rise" and "we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together ...to meet the Lord... and so shall we ever be with the Lord" (I Thes. 4:16,17).
Thus it is that Paul, God's special apostle for our day, declares that "our conversation [or citizenship] is in heaven" (Phil. 3:20) and writes of "the hope which is laid up for you in heaven" (Col. 1:5). Thus it is that he encourages persecuted saints, saying: "Ye...took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing...that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance" (Heb. 10:34). And thus he writes even of death:
"For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dis- solved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" (II Cor. 5:1).
"...to die is gain....to depart and to be with Christ...is far better" (Phil. 1:21,23).
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That is all.....
Posts: 8775 | From: USA, MICHIGAN | Registered: Mar 2004
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