Sharing A Little Friendly Theology

During my Navy career, I became friends with a Chinese-born Christian lady also serving in the U.S. Navy. When she told me about her upbringing under Communist repression, I realized something you rarely hear from the pulpits. While it's true that long-term persecution strengthens the backbone of the church, it also deprives Christians of chances to learn "solid-meat" doctrine. My friend's faith in Jesus was very genuine, but by no fault of hers she was woefully shallow in Scriptural knowledge. In December of 2004, she told me how she had been approached by supposed Christians who said odd things, so I promised to write for her some explanations of spiritual issues that had come up. Here is what I wrote:

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Before discussing what men say, let's look at
what God says--or didn't say.

In ancient times, most cultures had a pretty
poor idea of life after death. Mythologies
like the Egyptian variety based their version
of Paradise not on the justice and mercy of
a good, loving and just God, but on the same
system of social rank and privilege that existed
on Earth. If you were a prince or princess, you
could expect endless parties after death; if
you were a peasant, your soul got tossed away
in some corner.

This, of course, was one of the many things which
the real God set out to correct in His long process
of teaching the human race. The Egyptians, among
whom the tribes of Israel had lived, were obsessed
with life after death but ignorant of the true
giver of life; so God took exactly the opposite
approach, making His people concentrate their
attention on Him while scarcely even thinking
about what came after death.

In the Old Testament as originally written in
Hebrew, the next world is described simply by a
Hebrew word whose meaning translates as "the pit."
There is almost no description of anything after
death in the Old Testament --only just enough to
show that the soul does not simply cease to exist,
plus very small hints that the righteous soul is
better off in eternity than the wicked one. It
would not be much use to say "Good people go to
Heaven"--if you were talking to persons who had
no idea at all WHAT IS good. So God spent centuries
teaching what is good.

The later Old Testament books, particularly Daniel,
do begin to suggest God's judgment after death. And
in what is called the "Intertestamental period"
(meaning the time between the writing of the Book
of Malachi which completes the Old Testament, and
the coming of Jesus), Jewish people grew more and
more convinced that there was a definite Heaven to
go to and a Hell to avoid. Jesus, in His parable
of "Lazarus and the Rich Man," confirmed this
separation of good from evil in the next life.

From some of what Jesus said, and from the bits
of information in the Old Testament, it seems
that before Jesus died and rose again, although
God's children did have a better situation after
dying than other souls had, they were not yet
in what we usually think of when we say "Heaven."
It seems that there were upper and lower sections
of "the pit," with saved souls at peace in the
upper section, but possibly not yet directly
seeing God.

Then, when Jesus entered "the pit" and came out
again, it is commonly believed that all souls
that were saved from sin were allowed to come
out with Him and enter "actual" Heaven. The
Apostle Paul, writing years after Jesus rose
from the dead, said that "to be absent from
the body is to be present with the Lord." This
leaves the evil souls in the "lower pit," which
is more or less the kind of place we mean when
we say "Hell." But as things get better for
God's people, it seems that things get worse
for the wicked. Near the end of the Book of
Revelation, it says that all whose names are
not written in the Book of Life will be thrown
into a sort of super-hell described as "the
lake of fire." The only hint of an optimistic
note in this part is that it does NOT say,
"Everyone at this judgment is automatically
left out of the Book of Life, and is thrown
into the lake of fire," although that is what
the Calvinists want to believe it means. Instead,
it says that IF any person's name is not in
Jesus' heavenly book, that person is doomed.
As for however many souls are saved, it seems
that before Jesus returns to Earth all these
people will enjoy a very happy existence--but
without physical bodies such as we have now.
Then, once Jesus does return, all of His
followers--both those who have died, and
those who are still in earthly life when He
comes back--will receive new bodies. These
bodies will be physically real--but they will
not prevent us from living our spiritual life
in Heaven, because our new bodies will be
indestructible, with more strength and power
than we can imagine, and filled with spiritual
life. To put it in traditional Chinese terms,
you might say that our new bodies will have a
supply of chi that never runs out. Also, a
whole new planet Earth will eventually be created,
where there will never be pollution or any other
bad thing; for all purposes, this new Earth will
be a "department" of Heaven.

So there are four situations after death which we
can find in the Bible: good and better, bad and worse.
This, of course, really means only two destinations:
lost or saved. If anyone insists that they "know"
the truth of eternity in greater detail than this,
be careful not to accept what they say without
investigation. Some people's "extra" ideas are
only silly, while others are harmful mistakes or
even outright lies.

Among ideas that are in any way Christian, the
most famous "extra" idea is Purgatory, which
Catholics believe in. Their idea is that the
same gradual correction process about which I
spoke to you is often still unfinished when a
Christian dies, so that more still has to be
done even after death. In Catholic belief, any
soul who is in Purgatory will finally
arrive in Heaven, but will have to go through
some sort of "disciplinary action" first. This
idea is NOT Biblical. The closest thing to a
Bible passage actually supporting it is where
the Apostle Paul writes about our work from
our earthly life being "tested by fire," with
worthless things we did being burned away; but
it does not clearly state that WE will be burned
in the process. I am personally angry at the
Catholic church for insisting on believing in
Purgatory --because it caused Mary, with her
Catholic background, to be needlessly afraid
that she would have to undergo still more
suffering after her suffering from cancer
ended with her physical death.

Since you said that you heard someone speak
about "levels," I have to wonder if you heard
a Mormon speaking. Mormons, to put a complicated
religion in very simple terms, believe in at
least two separate Heavens--the best one for
Mormons, and the still-heavenly-but-not-quite-
as-wonderful one for decent non-Mormons. There's
a lot more to it than that; but it's enough for
you to know that Mormonism is NOT Christianity,
no matter what Mormons themselves tell you.
They just have too many beliefs that go against
clear statements of the Bible. Just to pick one
false belief, the Mormons believe that God the
Father has a physical body like a man; but God
the Father told Jeremiah that He is a spirit
Who "fills Heaven and Earth."

Avoid the Mormons, who are also called "Latter-Day
Saints." The reason they call themselves this is
that their founder, Joseph Smith (I hate his having
the same first name as I have), claimed that all
other churches existing in his time were completely
false; claimed that the "real" church had been lost
for many centuries; and claimed that his new church
and only his new church would bring the "real"
faith back in latter times. So, although Mormons
demand that we accept them, they started out by
rejecting us. And if they were right about "real"
Christianity being completely lost for so many
centuries, that would mean that God didn't care
enough about us to make sure that the truth was
not lost!

Don't let yourself worry much about the little
details of what people think Heaven will be like.
What really counts is knowing what kind of personality
GOD has, and seeing that this personality is just
what you want to have keeping you company forever
and ever.

Yours in Jesus,
Joseph