Where is heaven?

"Heaven on earth..." Terry Dashner (www.ffcba.org) To "get saved" is to bring heaven to us. It's not necessarily a gift given by God that gets us to heaven. Recently I read an article published in a book entitled, What does it mean to be saved? (John G. Stackhouse, Jr., editor, Baker Academic, 2002). The author is Rikk E. Watts, and the article is entitled, "The New Exodus/New Creational Restoration of the Image of God." The article is a Biblical-theological perspective on salvation, and is--in my opinion--a landmark study as to how the modern evangelical should view salvation in Jesus Christ. In the words of Watts, salvation is the "new creational restoration" of man who is created in the image and likeness of God and, therefore, His image bearer. Because man fell into sin by disobeying God in the Garden of Eden, man lost his "light bearing status" before God and His creation. Jesus came to redeem man from his sin and lift him to the light bearing status for which he was created. In Christ we are reflecting the light of God as we walk in obedience to God--loving Him with all our being and loving our neighbors as ourselves. So salvation is a restoration of the "image-bearer" by becoming a new creation (II Cor. 5:17) in Christ Jesus. It is the Holy Spirit that brings the new life to bear (Titus 3:5-7). May I share some more words of Mr. Watt's that further supports his thesis of "image-bearer" salvation? Watts states, "Martin Heidegger once argued, our experience of the present and expectations of the future can be constructed only from the materials of the past. This is certainly the case in regard to the Bible, whose Old and New Testaments from Genesis to Revelation are profoundly shaped by Israel's memory of the exodus. But this is not all. Long ago Herman Gunkel, noting how 2 Peter 3:6-7 describes the final judgment in terms of the Genesis flood and how Matthew 24:37 likens the days of the coming of the Son of man to those of Noah, argued that from the biblical perspective, Endzeit (the last days) recapitulates Urzeit (prehistory)." Watts continues, "Several scholars have recently developed this view, arguing that if there is a center to biblical theology, it is the concept of new creation; as the Epistle of Barnabas 6.13 states, 'Behold I make the last like the first things.' Put in more aphoristic terms, eschatology recapitulates protology." If God is enthroned in the heavens and the earth is His footstool, then we are certainly at home as we posture ourselves at His feet in devoted worship. Again Watts writes, "We do not make a temple-palace for Yahweh; he has made one for us, and it is not only the earth in its entirety but Eden and the tabernacle. We do not form Yahweh in our image; he makes us in his. We do not 'open' his eyes, ears, and so on; instead, he gives us sight, hearing, and ultimately fills us with his 'breath.' Nor do we provide for him; rather, he has done lavishly so for us." It's not always obvious to us, but nevertheless it is true. We become like the idols that we idolize. If I worship material substance as my god, I become like the idolized thing--dead to the things of God because my hearing and seeing have become like the idol--deaf and blind. Israel worshipped idols and abused God's creation. She became as deaf and blind as the moot statues of stone she prayed to. That's why Isaiah 6:9-10 records Israel as having eyes, she will not see, ears she will not hear. She had become as deaf and blind as her idols, and judgment was imminent. There is coming with the return of Jesus Christ a unification of heaven and earth. Remember the prayer He told us to pray? We are to affirm the truth that as it is in heaven so shall it be on earth. Again, we are not going to heaven, heaven is coming to us. The Revelation of John speaks of a refurbished atmosphere and earth by fire. It speaks about the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth. It says that Christ is coming again to the earth on which we live. Jesus is quoted by John as saying, "Behold, I make all things new." So one might conclude that as it was on earth when Adam and Eve walked the Garden of Eden in innocence, so shall it be again. And this time, without the tempter. In light of this, what should we do with this "so great a salvation"? We must realize that we are saved by believing in our heart and confessing with our mouth that Jesus Christ is our Savior. And we must recognize that we are being saved daily as we surrender our will to the Spirit of God, asking Him to rule over our hearts. Finally, we will be saved to the uttermost when Christ glorifies our bodies at the resurrection. How should we then live? Live everyday as the light-bearer we were created to be. Let the light of Jesus shine through us until we are seen by others as the true image of Jesus to this world. Keep the faith. Stay the course. Jesus is coming soon. Keep living as His Light to the world. Pastor T